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“No. I was seen leaving, so I need to be seen returning.”
“Ah, you like to keep people guessing about what abilities you have.”
He shrugged. “They don’t need to know.”
“Fine.” She grabbed underwear, socks, a pair of blue jeans, and a white shirt. “Notice that I am snapping off the tags without checking the prices. I will just pretend they aren’t designer clothing and you got them from thrift shops.”
He smiled. “If that makes you feel better…”
Knox? called Levi. We need to talk.
Now?
Yes. It’s important, he added with an urgency in his voice that made Knox tense.
I’ll be at my office in the hotel in ten minutes, said Knox. Meet me there.
Don’t bring Harper. I’ll explain when we meet.
“Now you’re even tenser than you were before,” commented Harper as she pulled on the jeans.
She was too observant for her own good. “Levi has something he wishes to speak to me about. In private.” She regarded him with a blank expression, and Knox expected her to bristle. Instead, she shrugged.
“Fair enough.”
Knox arched a brow. “Fair enough?”
“I’m not a sentinel, so I get that there are things I won’t always hear about unless you okay it first. I don’t expect to be told everything – unless it’s related to me, in which case it’s totally my business.”
That truly was fair enough, but he had to meet her halfway here. “I won’t keep secrets from you unless they’re not mine to tell.”
Buttoning her shirt, she gave an approving nod. “I can work with that.”
On arriving at the Underground hotel, Knox sent Harper and Tanner upstairs to their suite while he headed for his office. Levi was already waiting near the door, jaw clenched and eyes hard. It wasn’t until they were both inside the office, door closed, that Knox spoke. “Tell me.”
“The incantor came to Harper’s apartment and unraveled the spell. Ella said it was quite an advanced one. The practitioners that we’re looking for would have been expensive to hire.”
That information helped, but…“You didn’t need to speak with me privately about that, so I’m guessing there’s more.”
Levi toed the chair in front of the desk around and straddled it. “Carla was leaving when Ella arrived. Ella recognized her, said she’d never forget the face of ‘that heartless bitch.’ She knew Carla from a long time ago – a time when Carla had once been pregnant.”
Knox stiffened, instinctively knowing he really wasn’t going to like this. “Go on.”
“Apparently, Carla wasn’t just angry back then that Lucian left her while she was pregnant. She was angry that he got her pregnant. She tried to abort Harper.”
Knox cursed as anger rose sharply within him. His demon snarled, just as enraged.
“But it didn’t work, obviously. So Carla went to an incantor and asked for a spell that would kill the baby.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” he growled, the anger of both him and his demon spiking.
Levi shook his head. “I shit you not. She told the incantor, Dawn, that she didn’t want any part of Lucian inside her – that she was looking forward to telling him and his family that his child was dead. Dawn didn’t want any part in killing a baby, and she doesn’t believe that magick should be used for such a thing. Making it worse, Carla had even asked if there was any way of trapping the baby’s soul in a container, so that she could taunt Lucian that his child would never have peace.”
This time, his demon roared its anger. It took every single ounce of Knox’s control to keep the entity from reaching for dominance and exacting that anger on its surroundings. He knew his eyes had briefly flashed demon when Levi stilled. “I’m fine,” Knox told him. “Tell me the rest. I need to know.”
“As I said, Dawn didn’t want any part in it, but she knew others would do it for a price. So she placed a protective spell on the baby instead. Then she went to Jolene and told her everything.”
Shock froze Knox’s thoughts for a moment. “Jolene knows about this?”
“Jolene paid Carla to carry the baby to term and then hand it over. And that’s exactly what Carla did.” Levi’s gaze turned speculative. “So I’m guessing you’d really like to rip Carla Hayden apart, limb from limb.”
Knox’s demon thought it was a fucking fantastic idea, but in Knox’s opinion…“That would be too lenient.” His voice had come out guttural. If Carla’s plans had been successful, his mate would never have lived.
“I agree. I don’t judge people who seek abortions, although I don’t like the idea of them. But I do fucking judge someone who wants to trap a child’s soul.” Levi crossed his arms over the top of the chair. “Are you going to publically announce that Harper’s your mate?”
Knox sensed that Levi was trying to calm him by changing the subject, so he went with it. “I won’t make an official announcement, I’ll simply let the news spread.” He’d only need to mention it to one person for it to reach everyone. “I want the demon population to know she’s taken. And there’s a chance that just maybe it will shift the anger of who’s targeting her to me.”
“You think so?”
“Whoever’s after Harper is carrying a lot of rage, but they didn’t act on it until I made it public that she was my anchor. There could be two reasons for that. One, they don’t want good things happening in her life, maybe even resent it; if that’s the case, hearing she has a mate will infuriate them. Or two, the fact that I’m her anchor set them off; if so, they really will be pissed to hear I’m now also her mate. In both cases, it’s the fact that I’ve entered her life which has changed things. That might redirect their anger onto me.”
