The archdemon’s head stiffly turned back to face Jonas. And then the Prime sagged, hacking and heaving in air. The “snake” slithered around him, keeping him trapped.
The fire then began to peel away from Knox’s head, gradually lowering, but his eyes were black. The demon hadn’t retreated yet. It prowled toward her, face blank, taking stock of her wounds. “She will pay dearly for each bit of pain she inflicted on you,” it promised in a chilling, disembodied voice.
“Damn fucking straight she will.” Harper would see to that herself.
The demon stroked its fingertips down her throat. “I don’t like the smell of your blood. She will—”
Something snapped tight around her ankle and yanked, making her hit the ground hard. Tentacle. Then she was skidding along the earth toward Alethea, who was still curled up on the floor but had managed to—
The archdemon pyroported to Alethea, long flames flickering from its fingertips, and sliced out its hand. The flames cut right through the tentacle, hacking it clean off … which meant half her arm went along with it. The bitch screamed. Really, it was a scream like nothing Harper had ever heard before in her life. An ear-ringing, bloodcurdling, stomach-churning sound that echoed all around them. And fuck if Harper gave a shit.
Standing, Harper glanced at Jonas. He seemed to be clamping his lips together, as if to stop himself from shouting out anything that would gain him the archdemon’s attention.
Right then, said archdemon fisted his hand in Aleth
ea’s hair and yanked hard enough to pull her upper body off the floor. Obsidian eyes glittered at the she-demon, and Harper saw the lethal intent there. Honest to God, it was like dealing with a child with a one-track mind.
Harper rushed forward. “Don’t. She wants you to kill her. Don’t give her the easy death she’s looking for.”
Black eyes cut to Harper. “Nothing about her death will be easy.”
“But death would be an escape from the pain, right? You want her to have an escape? Because I sure don’t. Not for a long time. And think about it. What sounds scarier to the rest of the demon world—that we killed the people who targeted our son, or that we have them secured in your playroom where they’re tortured for our amusement?” Personally, Harper thought it would add to the “targeting Asher would be a humungous mistake” message.
The demon stared at Harper, unblinking. Then it ceremoniously dumped Alethea on the floor, but not before doing something to her mind that made her pass out.
Harper let out a long breath. “Can we get back to Asher now? Speaking of Asher … it would have been nice if you’d shared that he’s an Anubis.”
“If you had known the truth from the moment of his birth, you might have feared him. His demon would have sensed that fear and withdrawn from you. You needed to first see that he was primarily a child. A boy who also happened to be an Anubis.”
While she got the entity’s point … “I would never have seen him as anything other than my son.” But she couldn’t really expect the demon to understand that—not when it couldn’t experience love, let alone imagine the strength of parental love.
“His demon would never harm you,” it assured her.
“Just as mine would never harm him.”
The demon stroked its thumb along her jaw, and then it retreated. Knox gently pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. “The sight of you injured is pissing me off,” he said, tone soft with menace.
She leaned into him. “I’ll heal. First, we have to check on Asher, decide whether to let Drew live, and transfer Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to the Chamber.”
“Yes, we do.” And Knox was looking forward to the latter. With a single thought, he made the flames of hell ease away. He’d stopped them from spreading beyond the circle, so their surroundings were still intact. Davis was standing with Noelle, who was holding Asher, while the sentinels guarded them.
Asher grinned at them, flashing his dimples and waving a hand that was holding Hound. “Ma!”
Crossing straight to him, Harper smiled and pulled him into her arms. “Hey, baby boy.” He frowned at the sight of her injuries, but she distracted him by blowing raspberries on his palm.
Levi frowned. “What’s with the snow?”
“We heard some kind of storm,” began Tanner, back in his human form and wearing clothes that Knox knew he’d handed to Davis before he shifted shape. “But we couldn’t see a thing because the flames were too high. Speaking of flames … ” Tanner gestured to the ones that were keeping Drew captive.
Knox turned to Harper. “Baby, any chance you can rein them back in?” They were called by Harper, so they wouldn’t answer to him. She took a deep calming breath, and the flames eased. Clarke had shifted back into his human form and was sitting on the ground, pale and sweating.
“Levi, keep an eye on Jonas and Alethea, would you?” Knox moved to stand in front of Clarke. The hellcat didn’t stand—possibly because he was naked, or possibly because he was too drained from fighting off the incorporeal. Maybe it was a little of both. “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain why you were working with Alethea and Jonas.”
Clarke’s jaw hardened. “It wasn’t like that.” His gaze slid to Harper. “It wasn’t.”
“Then tell me what it was like,” she said.
“I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. That fucking practitioner put me under some kind of compulsion that binds me from being able to tell anyone anything about him, Alethea, or Jonas.”