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)
“Aren’t you going to ask?” It was a dare that carried a taunt.
She swallowed, veiling her apprehension. “Not until you answer my question.”
“He punished anyone who wouldn’t give him the unquestioning devotion and submission that he demanded.”
Harper didn’t need to ask if Knox had rebelled. “Punished how?”
“Lots of ways.” Knox tangled a hand in her hair, watching as her jade green eyes swirled and changed into an entrancing cobalt blue. “He liked to keep people locked in a closet for a week or so. In that time, he wouldn’t let them eat, he wouldn’t let them sleep, and he’d beat them frequently.” His demon snarled at the memories. “Many of his followers helped. They got a taste for it, and they enjoyed it.”
Her apprehension was swiftly replaced by fury. “Then the bastards deserved whatever they got.”
“How can you be so sure when you don’t know what they got?”
“They hurt you, so I really don’t care.”
Her response warmed him and settled his demon. “I never said they hurt me. I said they punished people who refused to submit.”
“You refused.”
She was right. Knox and his demon had resisted Riordan’s control, refused to submit, no matter what he or his followers did. But the rage hadn’t really hit Knox until he left and got his freedom; that was when he’d realized what the outside world – one he’d been brought up to believe was bad and dangerous – was truly like, and he’d understood exactly what the bastards had stolen from him.
It had been difficult to adjust, but he’d worked hard to properly develop the sense of self that the bastards had tried to break down and take from him. In the sanctuary, he’d soaked up knowledge of every kind. When he left, he’d used that knowledge to gain all the things he’d been deprived of. And he’d vowed that he’d never again let anyone have any form of control over him.
“Didn’t your parents ever help you, ever try to stop him?”
“Not until the people who questioned or defied Riordan developed a habit of disappearing. That made them wary and suspicious. So when I was twelve, they tried to leave and take me with them.”
“He killed them,” she guessed. “You tried to protect them.”
“No, baby,” he said softly. “I avenged them.” Riordan had forced him to watch as he slit his parents’ throats. Knox had struck back, taken his vengeance out on everything around him. “You’ve seen what destruction I can cause. You can guess what I did. I warned the innocent ones to run, but most of them wouldn’t leave Riordan – they’d become too dependent on him, were utterly brainwashed. So they died with him. But I didn’t care. I was too eager to see him suffer.”
“Stop trying to scare me.”
“Scare you?” Knox cupped her chin and breezed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Baby, I’d never do that. But you have to understand that the answers you want to the many questions in your pretty little head will very often not be what you want to hear. They might shock you, they might disgust you, and they might even frighten you. I don’t want to scare you, but I won’t lie to you. Don’t ask for the truth unless you can deal with it.”
She could deal with it. So she asked the one question that might just have the potential to terrify her. “What are you?”
“You’re not ready for that answer yet.” And Knox wasn’t willing to tell her until he’d managed to make her so attached to him that she wouldn’t want to leave him, no matter what. It was ruthless, yes, but he was too determined to keep her to care about that.
Harper bristled. “I get to decide what I’m ready for.”
“No, you don’t.” He fisted his hand in the back of her hair, angled her head how he wanted it, and brought his mouth down on hers. Loving the taste of her, he plundered her mouth with his tongue, just as he wanted to plunder her body with his cock. He bit down hard on her lip, and she snapped her teeth at him.
“You think the answer will scare me so much I’ll leave,” Harper sensed.
Too. Damn. Astute. “I won’t let you leave.”
“If I wanted to go, I totally could.”
His demon chuckled, always entertained by the fire in her – its temperament went from grim to relaxed in an instant. Only she seemed able to do that. Knox was just as amused by her ‘spunk,’ as Tanner often referred to it.
“You’re not supposed to smile at me like I’m a little kitten that stupidly thinks it’s a jungle cat.” Secretly, she was happy she’d lifted his mood.
Knox pulled her onto his lap to straddle him. “How can I not be a little entertained? You’re in the den of the big, bad wolf – caught and claimed – but you think you can take him on.”