BURN (30 page)

“What exactly is the rumor?” Knox asked Larkin.

“Just that Carla gave Harper up to Jolene when she was a baby.”

Well, Jolene’s fictional version of events was a lot better than the full truth. “Nothing more?”

Larkin’s brows drew together. “
Is
there more?”

Knox looked down at Carla. “Much more. Isn’t there, Carla?” The woman gulped.

“Jolene’s pissed,” announced Harper as she sidled up to Knox, briefly glancing at Carla – the woman wouldn’t meet her gaze. “She’s trying to find out who started all the whispers. So far, she’s having no luck with it.”

“The mob has separated, but people are still unhappy,” said Larkin.

Knox glared down at Carla. “It galls me to have to protect you. In my opinion, you deserve to be fucking verbally crucified out there. You deserve
worse
. But I won’t have warring going on within my lair. That means taking steps to calm the situation.”

“I could make a statement that I’m not upset,” suggested Harper.

Larkin shook her head. “That won’t be enough; they’re upset on your behalf.”

“So maybe I could be seen to escort her out of here.”

Knox turned to Harper. “You’re not protecting her. She didn’t protect you. Did you, Carla?”

“No.” It was spoken so quietly, it was a true wonder that anyone heard it.

“In fact, the only thing that kept Harper alive during the pregnancy was a damn spell, wasn’t it?”

“
Knox
,” Harper cautioned. It was bad enough that people knew as much as they did. She didn’t want him blurting out the rest.

“You can’t have any idea how much I’d like to end you,” Know rumbled at Carla. “The only reason you’re breathing is that Harper doesn’t want vengeance. Oh, I thought about ignoring her wish to let you be. I thought about making you suffer the way you wanted her to suffer.”

“I didn’t want her to suffer,” Carla objected quietly.

“You wanted Lucian to suffer. Do you think that excuses what you did?”

“No.” Again, her voice was low.

A frantic knock was followed by Bray’s voice asking to be let inside. Knox wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Carla’s face paled even more. Knox summoned him in, but Carla didn’t turn to face her mate. His hair was ruffled, as if he’d dragged his hand through it several times. His eyes were wild and desperate – most likely, he was desperate for her to deny what he’d heard; for her to decry that it was all lies.

Bray looked briefly at Harper before moving to stand in front of Carla. “Is it true?” His voice was like gravel.

Carla didn’t meet his gaze. “Yes.”

Bray’s jaw hardened. “How could you not tell me?
How
?” he demanded with a growl.

“I was ashamed, Bray!” she burst out, finally looking at him. Her words all came out in a rush. “I hate myself for what I did! She was an innocent little baby who hadn’t done anything to anyone. But I was hurting and angry when Lucian left me, so wrapped up in my own misery and pain that I wasn’t thinking straight. He was my anchor
and
the person I’d wanted as a mate,
but he left me
.
My head was a mess, my demon was demanding the bastard while all I wanted was for him to hurt the way I hurt. A need for vengeance was the only thing keeping me going!”

There was a whole lot of truth in that, Knox sensed. If Carla had felt for Lucian even half of what Knox felt for Harper, he could understand how that would have twisted her so much inside; how it would have left her so overtaken by rage and despair that nothing and no one else seemed to matter. But to Knox, it would never fucking excuse what she’d done to Harper. Never.

“
She
should have kept you going,” insisted Bray, pointing at Harper. “
She
should have mattered more than vengeance.”

“Yes,” whispered Carla. “By the time I realized that she did, it was too late.” She turned to Harper. “I tried to take you back once.”

Harper would have snorted, except there was some genuine emotion there. “Only because you saw with me Lucian and realized that I was a potential weapon to use to hurt him.”

She shook her head. “I was jealous. He had you, and I didn’t. I tried not to think about you after I gave you to Jolene as a baby. But that day, I had to face that you were real. That I’d done something so very, very cruel. You used your ability on me. All the while, your eyes were changing colors. You get that trait from my baby sister, you know. She died. That was my fault. I pushed the swing too hard and she fell…” Carla inhaled deeply. “In the store, I saw you both staring at me, condemning me as I felt a pain I had every reason to feel.”

“So you just went back to pretending she didn’t exist after that?” asked Bray, disgusted.

Carla continued speaking to Harper. “I went to see you sometimes, whenever you came with Lucian to visit Jolene. Not up close. Just…from afar. I just wanted to see you.” She didn’t even seem to know why.

“Yet, you dismissed her when you saw her in the street,” Knox reminded her. “That part I just don’t get.”

“I bumped into one of your aunts once,” she told Harper. “She gave me one hell of a lecture about leaving you on Jolene’s doorstep when you were a baby, and I realized that Jolene hadn’t told people the whole version. I was worried that if you came to me, Jolene would be mad enough to tell you everything so that you stayed away from me. I didn’t want you to know just how cruel to you I really was. So I made sure I seemed unreceptive.”

Bray ran both hands through his hair. “You should have told me, Carla.”

Carla flicked a glance at him. “I was worried you would leave me.”

Bray looked at Harper, perplexed. “You don’t seem upset.”

Harper shrugged. “I had a good life. Maybe not a normal life, but it was good. I was happy. If your mate was really such a mess at the time I was born, I doubt she could have given me that. We were both better off without the other.”

“But she’s your mother.”

“I traveled a lot over the years. I’ve seen a lot of places. Some weren’t good. I saw suffering that would make all this seem like a damn fairytale. One friend I had…her mother did the opposite of what Carla did. She kept her daughter, but she hated her. Hated her and was cruel to her while doting on the other kids. I would rather not have lived that life.”

Bray was silent for a few moments. “You’re very mature and wise for your age.” His face hardened as his attention returned to Carla. “We’re going home, and you’re going to tell me everything.
Everything
.”

“I will.” Carla got to her feet.

“Larkin and Keenan will escort you out,” Knox told them.

On reaching the door, Carla glanced at Harper over her shoulder. “I really am sorry I couldn’t be the mother you needed.” With that, she left.

Knox turned to Harper, concerned by her blank expression. “You okay?”

“I want to go home.” She knew she probably sounded a little lost, but she felt off-kilter.

“Then we go home.”

Sitting across the dining table from Harper, Knox watched as she absently shoved the food around the plate with her fork. When he brought her home earlier, she’d claimed she just wanted to lounge around for a while. Although she’d settled comfortably on the sofa, she hadn’t really been watching the T.V. Her expression had been vacant, her eyes faraway. She’d been quiet for hours now. Pensive. It wasn’t like Harper to overthink things. “Eat, baby.”

Her brow wrinkled. “I’m not really that hungry.”

“Eat or Meg will be offended.” When she shoved a piece of pasta in her mouth, he arched a brow. “You’ll do it for Meg, but not for me?”

“She might stop making me muffins.”

He would have smiled if she hadn’t dropped her fork with a clang and sighed. Knox moved to sit beside her. Forking some pasta, he held it up to her mouth. Casting him a sour look, she ate it. “Good girl. Tell me what’s bothering you so much that you can’t eat.”

Swallowing down her pasta, Harper sipped at her wine. “It’s stupid.”

“If it matters to you, it matters. That means it isn’t stupid. Tell me.”

“In my head, I’ve always had Carla in a box safely marked ‘selfish and unfeeling.’ She was the baddie, and so I didn’t have to care what she did. The things she said earlier…they still make her selfish, but not exactly unfeeling. I don’t know how to see her differently. I don’t
want
to see her differently.” Because if she wasn’t bad, Harper might have to care. To care meant to be hurt by what had happened.

Knox gripped Harper’s chin. “She should have put you first, no matter what shit was going on in her life, but she didn’t. She doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, so don’t expect it of yourself. Carla fucked up royally, and she never once tried to fix it.” He forced Harper to eat more pasta before he continued. “You can concede that just maybe things weren’t as clear-cut as you thought, but that doesn’t mean you have to be understanding.” He certainly fucking wasn’t. “Nothing can excuse what she did.”

“I guess I just don’t know what box to put her in now.”

“No one can be firmly marked anything, baby. No one’s all good, and no one’s all bad. Everyone has different dimensions to their personality, and everyone has different things that drive them. People can change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. A person’s nature is a fluid thing.”

He was right, she realized. “I love you.” And now he was gaping at her, which wasn’t surprising. “I know it’s a really weird time to say it. I get that. But it occurred to me before that I grew up never really knowing for sure if the people in my life loved me. I don’t want you to wonder.”

Knox snapped out of his stunned state as she rose from her seat. He grabbed her wrist. “Baby, you don’t get to say something like that and then walk away.”

“I
so
do.” She slipped out of his hold and headed to the bedroom, close to laughing at the fact that she’d managed to shock the unshockable Knox Thorne. She hadn’t waited for him to return the sentiment, because she’d known he wouldn’t. She wasn’t fanciful, she was practical. As she’d told Khloë, she didn’t think ‘love’ was on his emotional scale. Even if it was, he’d been solitary for too long for him to suddenly be alive with feelings other people took for granted. It was enough that he cared for her.

Sitting on the bed, she removed her shoes. He appeared in the doorway, brooding and unnerving. “You’re looking at me funny. Yeah, I know blurting that out and then walking away was kind of weird. But we both know
I’m
weird, so give me some space to do strange stuff without judging me.” She huffed. “You’re still looking at me funny.”

He glided into the room in that predatory way that he had. “You told me something that was difficult for you to say. I know it was hard, because I know you don’t like to be vulnerable to people. And the best way to guard yourself is to not let them see you, and to not let them see how much you care.”

“Just for the record, I don’t like that you’re so perceptive,” she griped.

“It would be selfish and spineless to not give you some honesty in return. Selfish? I’m that. But I’m not spineless.”

She stilled as a buzz vibrated in the air…much like that time in the alley with the practitioners. As though something was charging up, gathering in power. And she knew then that he was going to tell her what he was. No, he was going to show her. Her inner demon went on high alert, both curious and wary.

Just as it had in the alley, the power purred against Harper’s skin and made her eyes burn, her teeth rattle, her ears ring, and her chest tighten. His predatory stare was wholly focused on her, danger in every line and curve of his face. He didn’t look like Knox then, he seemed like a total stranger. Her heart slammed against her ribs. And suddenly, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know what he was.

With a roar, flames erupted from the ground. Gold, red, and black, they swirled around Knox, engulfing him until she couldn’t see him. What the fuck? No, not even
he
could survive them. She moved towards him desperately, but the heat was just so blistering and she—

And then she saw it: a figure of raging flames stood inside the fire. She couldn’t help but gawk as her heart pounded so frantically it hurt. Her inner demon was shock-still. There was only one thing that could withstand the flames of hell…because it was the only thing that was born from the flames of hell. Her breath caught in her throat. “Archdemon.”

Just as archangels were born in heaven and served God, archdemons were born in hell. But they weren’t there to serve Lucifer as many religions believed. They were there to serve hell itself. Born from the flames, their purpose was to command, control, and destroy.

That was when it occurred to her…She’d thought he was charging up before. No, the power hadn’t been building – it was straining to get free. And he was repressing it. She couldn’t understand how anyone could repress that level of power. But then, he was an archdemon.

A fucking archdemon.

The flames calmed, slowly easing and lowering until all that was left was a figure of pure fire. Then the fire…it was like it peeled away from Knox’s flesh. His clothes were surprisingly still intact.