Burn

“You do realize Harper will know what you’re doing, don’t you? She won’t like you setting yourself up as a target.”

“Tough,” Knox snapped, “she’ll just have to fucking deal with it. Why are you smiling?”

“I like that you’re not so divorced from your feelings when it comes to her. She makes you happy. Nothing’s ever made you happy. Things have pleased and pleasured you, but that’s all.” Levi cocked his head. “What’s it like? Having a weakness, I mean.”

“She’s not a weakness.”

“Of course she is. It’s not a bad thing. Before, you kept yourself alive purely because of self-preservation. Now you live for her. There’s no better reason to live than for your mate. But we both know that you and your demon would lose all control if you ever lose her – it’s the one thing that could truly hurt you. That makes her a weakness as well as a strength.”

Knox knew that Levi was right. He could remember the rage he’d felt when he found her in the alley with the dark practitioners; could remember almost losing the control that kept him and his demon in check. Would Knox care about the damage his rage caused everything around him if he lost Harper? No.

“But hey, maybe we don’t need to worry so much. Let’s face it, if you lose her and lose your control, you could destroy the fucking world. Only someone who wants to die, start a war, is a rogue, has a tiny IQ, or who is simply completely insane would harm her when they learn she’s your mate.”

Since insanity wasn’t exactly rare among their kind and there were plenty of rogue demons out there, Harper still had threats to her safety.

“Have you told her what you are yet?”

“Not yet.” His hesitation was clear in his tone.

“Harper doesn’t scare easily.”

“No, she doesn’t. But my kind aren’t supposed to walk the Earth. You know what they say – what’s born in hell should stay in hell.” Contrary to what humans believed, there were much worse things in hell than Lucifer.

“You’ll have to tell her soon. You’ll also have to tell her the truth about Carla. I wish she didn’t have to hear this shit, I really do. But it’s better if she’s on her guard around Carla, if she doesn’t buy the ‘please let me talk with you’ routine.”

“I can’t talk to Harper about it until I’ve spoken to Jolene and I have all the facts. But I will tell her.” He could never keep a secret like that from her, especially after his assurance that he wouldn’t withhold anything from her that concerned her.

“How do you think Harper will take it?”

“That I don’t know. She always manages to surprise me.”

Figuring that it was likely that Jolene was in her suite, getting ready for the dinner that would start in an hour’s time, Knox and Levi headed straight there.

Jolene, already dressed in a lilac suit, looked surprised to see him. “I was expecting Beck and Martina. Come in.” She peered around him. “No Harper?”

“No,” replied Knox as he closed the door, leaving Levi outside to guard the suite. “I thought it was best that she wasn’t present for this conversation.”

One of Jolene’s brows slid up, making him think of Harper. “Oh? She won’t like you deciding what’s ‘best’ for her.”

“She won’t like learning you’ve lied to her all her life either.”

Jolene narrowed her eyes. Realization appeared to dawn on her quickly, so she obviously knew this could only be about one thing. “I really don’t believe this is any of your business.”

“Harper’s my—”

“Anchor, but that doesn’t entitle you to know everything.”

“It does when I’m her mate.”

Jolene sighed. “I suppose I should have expected that.” Taking a seat on the sofa, Jolene crossed one leg over the other. “She’s one of a kind, isn’t she? Special.”

Yes, she was.

“It’s hard to imagine that this might have been a world without her in it. Suck some of that rage back in before your demon takes control.”

“Why the lies, Jolene?”

“How did you find out?”

“A friend of Dawn recognized Carla and mentioned it to Levi,” replied Knox. “Why didn’t you tell Harper the truth? Or, if you were so set on lying, couldn’t you have told her a kinder one?”

“You think I should have told Harper that her mother sought magick that would end her life and trap her soul just to have vengeance on her father?” Jolene sniffed. “That would be hard for anyone to handle, and it could have made her reject both parents. Yes, I could have told her a kinder lie. But that would have risked Harper one day making the decision to seek out Carla. And at least this way if Harper ever discovered the truth, it wouldn’t be too much of a shock. She already knows Carla’s selfish and cruel.”

“You know another thing I don’t understand? Why you gave Harper to Lucian. You could have raised her yourself. She deserved better than what she got.”

“Do you think I wanted to give her to him? I cried for days. But it wasn’t easy for her being the only Wallis who wasn’t an imp – it made it worse that her parents weren’t around. I needed her to realize that the problem wasn’t her, it was them. If that meant she lived with Lucian to find that out for herself, so be it. And it worked. You can’t deny that.”