Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
So had Knox, but he didn’t see that as an excuse for the selfish behavior Lucian had shown. “He had you.”
“That’s not the same as having a mate, though, is it? And to be fair to him, he never tried to use me to fill that void. He could have clung to me the way some lonely parents do, could have held me tight to him to make him feel loved, cherished, and important. But he never did. I think that by raising me to not need anyone or anything to complete my life – to only enhance it – he was trying to make sure I didn’t turn out like him.”
While that made sense, Knox didn’t want it to make sense or he’d have to let some of his anger at Lucian go. He couldn’t deny one thing, though. “He does care for you.”
“I believe he does. When I first went to live with him, he told me that he’d done me a favor by leaving me with Jolene; that I was better off without having him around permanently. He warned me that he was going to screw up, and he apologized in advance for it. He really isn’t a bad person, Knox. Just unable to meet the needs of others, because he can’t even meet his own needs. So please don’t kill him,” she added with a smile.
Knox sighed. “It’s important to me that you were happy. I just need to be sure.”
Harper regarded him thoughtfully. “You didn’t have a great upbringing, did you? Ooh, he tenses,” she chuckled. “Come on, you can give me something. You once said you didn’t belong to a lair before you moved to the sanctuary. Where were you?”
Knox threaded his fingers through her damp hair; everything within him recoiled at the idea of revisiting that time in his life, but this was Harper. “People would nowadays describe it as a cult. Back then, it was just a group of demons that detached themselves from their lair and formed a Prime-less group, pooling all their resources and claiming a plot of land.”
That answer certainly threw Harper. “Why did you all leave the lair? Was the Prime a bastard or something?”
“I don’t remember a lot about the Prime, but I remember that everyone feared him. So some of them left as a group, but they didn’t join another lair, because they all rejected the idea of having a Prime. They didn’t want to be ruled, they wanted peace. They wanted to be free.”
“But they didn’t get that peace,” she guessed. He didn’t answer, just stared at her with eyes that gave away nothing. “You promised you’d try sharing,” she reminded him.
He sighed heavily. “From what I can remember, it wasn’t so bad in the beginning. The females and the children were treated like royalty. Everyone was happy and close and felt free.”
“What changed?”
“One of them, Riordan” – the name alone infuriated Knox’s demon – “appointed himself as a sort of messiah. He preached about the corruption of lairs; calling all Primes power-hungry authoritarians who didn’t care for the safety of those under their protection.” The bastard could have been talking about himself. “In effect, he was actually making himself their Prime. And they didn’t see it.”
When moments went by and he said no more, she asked, “How old were you when the ‘cult’ was formed?”
“Three. By the time I was five, it was an isolated totalitarian society. Little by little, Riordan took over. He introduced a dress code, a job chart, a timetable, and guidelines that placed a lot of restrictions on everyone and made them reliant on him. In addition, he cut everyone off from the outside world.”
“Keeping them all isolated and inducing dependency would have made it easier for him to brainwash and control them.” It was little wonder that Knox was such a control freak and had such a total aversion to relying on others. Someone had once ripped control away from him. He’d taken it back, but it had made him determined to never lose it again. “Didn’t anyone speak up?”
“Not many, because he and his helpers punished any form of subordination. Riordan did whatever he had to do to keep his power.” Manipulated. Intimidated. Exploited. Oppressed.
As usual, Knox’s exterior was calm and his tone was even. But she’d come to know him so well that she could sense his buried rage. And she just knew that the answer to her next question would be bad, but she had to ask, “What did they do to you?”
He leaned toward her. “Maybe your question should be…what did I do to them?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The menace that had slithered into Knox’s voice made even her inner demon freeze as Harper watched him warily. He’d spoken so softly, so steadily. But the danger was there, sending a trickle of trepidation through her system. It was an instinctive reaction that she couldn’t escape, despite trusting that he wouldn’t exact that menace on her. He was the ultimate predator, and she could never overlook that.