Burn

Harper retained control then with a hiss. “But I won’t.”

A roar split the air. A roar of fire, she realized a moment later. The fire hissed, cracked, and popped. The flames died away, revealing...

“Knox?” He could teleport using fire? Shit, no wonder he’d gotten to her so quickly when Silas paid her a visit.

His dark eyes roamed over her, absorbing every detail, noting the cut on her forehead. Then those eyes fixed on the practitioners, who were backing up. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave.” Fire shot out of his palm like it was a flamethrower, enclosing the practitioners in a circle. It might have looked like a rope of fire…if it didn’t have the head of a dragon and wasn’t slithering along the ground, hissing and spitting at its prisoners. And that wasn’t weird at all.

He stalked toward the two males, the image of absolute composure. But he looked too composed, too calm – so much so that it was terrifying. “You deliberately targeted my anchor. Why?” The question was spoken very steadily, yet it was coated in menace.

The blond swallowed hard. “I didn’t know she’s your anchor.”

“I find that very difficult to believe. My anchor would be a prize for any dark practitioner. But such a practitioner would need to be either mindless or desperate for death. Which are you?” He sounded genuinely curious, but Harper knew he was playing with them – like a predator toyed with its prey.

“I’m telling the truth,” the blond vowed, “we didn’t know who she was to you. Someone wants her, but we weren’t told why or what for. Just that we’d be paid well.”

“And who is this someone?”

“We can’t tell you.”

Knox stuffed his hands in his pockets, seeming both casual and bored. “Ah, let me guess. You’re under a compulsion.”

Both practitioners nodded, flinching as the fire dragon hissed at them.

“I think I’ll see for myself if that’s true.”

The blond, groaning in agony through clenched teeth, probably would have fallen to his knees if his friend hadn’t caught him. After a moment, he calmed and it was clear that Knox had withdrew from his mind. Then it was the other practitioner that cried out in pain, knees shaking. He sagged when it was over.

“You’re telling me the truth. That’s good.” Knox nodded his head. “Very good. But…there’s something you weren’t planning to tell me. You didn’t know she was my anchor, that’s true. But you suspected it.” The blond shook his head wildly. “Yes, yes you did. You heard the rumors, and when you saw my sentinel with her you wondered if just maybe those rumors were true. And that made you excited.”

Shaking his head again, the blond blurted out, “No, we—”

“You thought draining my anchor of power would somehow drain me also. You decided to keep her for yourselves instead of handing her over to someone else. You planned to drain her using sex magick. She would have been a sexual sacrifice.”

Sick fucking bastards. Her inner demon was now pretty eager to watch Knox destroy them.

“That excitement died down when she fought back, however.” As the blond opened his mouth to speak, Knox shot him a hard look. “I don’t accept excuses. They mean nothing to me. You mean nothing to me.”

“We can show you where we were supposed to take her, you’ll be able to see who hired us! You can use us!”

“I’ve been in your mind. I already know where you were told to take her. There would be no sense in me going there, however. You were both psychically bugged.”

The blond exchanged a confused look with his friend. “What does that mean?”

“Someone has been listening to your every thought, watching your every move,” Knox told them. “They know you failed. I’ve destroyed the bugs, which means they won’t see what happens next. I think it will be better to let them guess.”

“Wait, we—” He cut himself off as Knox’s eyes bled to black and the demon glared out at them. Even from where Harper stood, she could feel the air chilling.

It bared its teeth. “Harper is mine. You hurt her. That means you don’t get to live.” Spoken like the matter was a mathematical equation.

The blond glanced at Harper. “Doesn’t it bother you that he’s just going to kill us?”

She tilted her head. “It did…for about two seconds. Then I remembered you’re a couple of pricks that knocked Tanner unconscious and would have raped me.”

“And now they die,” said the emotionless voice of Knox’s demon.

There was a sudden buzz in the air, like something was charging, building, gathering in power. The ground began subtly vibrating, making the car tremble and the litter flutter. A chill snaked down her spine, and every hair on her body rose.

There was so much power, she could feel it hum and purr against her skin; it slithered between her fingers, stroked over her face, burned her eyes, and made her teeth rattle. A slight ringing sound filled her ears, and her chest suddenly felt so tight it hurt a little to breathe. It was too much power. No one and nothing should harness that kind of power. No one should be expected to control it.

Then the practitioners screamed as flames erupted from the ground at their feet and swirled around them. The flames were at least ten-feet high and were a beautiful intricate mix of gold, red, and black. And they gave off a heat that burned so hot she wouldn’t have been surprised if her skin blistered. And she instinctively knew…the flames of hell.