BURN

How can you be smug? YOU’RE TIED TO A TABLE LIKE A DAMN SACRIFICE!

I don’t appreciate your tone

Harper! Wake up, baby. His voice had softened slightly, sounded almost…desperate. That made no sense. I need you to wake up

Jolene snorted, to everyone’s surprise. “Do you really think my granddaughter can be held anywhere she doesn’t want to be? She may not be an imp, but she’s a Wallis through and through. So tuck your crazy back in, Knox. We need you calm. By the time you get to wherever she is, she’ll already be out of there. Concentrate on planning what you’ll do the bastards that dared to take her.”

Flames flickered from his fingertips. The sentinels eyed him warily. He thought of Harper’s reaction to the sight…‘Pretty. Any more tricks?’ She accepted him in a way no one else ever had or ever would. He couldn’t fucking lose her; he just couldn’t.

Knox rubbed his fist over his heart, wondering at the ache there. He hadn’t experienced helplessness since he was a boy,

“She was taken,” he growled.

Several emotions crashed into Knox. Fury. Panic. Helplessness. A need to hur

“I’m Knox Thorne.”

“I know who you are,” said Lucian. “Can’t say I ever expected to see you at my mother’s house. What’s she done this time?”

“I’m not here to see Jolene. I’m here with my anchor. She also happens to be my mate.”

Lucian’s brows flew up. “Really? Who—” He paused, taking in just how close Knox stood to Harper. His face reddened, his lips thinned, and his nostrils flared. “Anchor? Mate?”

“That’s right

He didn’t have words for her. Nobody had ever put him first before. Nobody. He couldn’t explain the tumultuous emotions running through him. Among them were relief, incredulity, contentment, and adoration. So he told her how he was feeling the only way he knew how. He rolled her onto her back, slid down her body, and ate her until she came so hard she almost lost consciousness.

“I admit, I don’t like keeping things from them – especially big things. But your safety is more important than that. You come first

What he wouldn’t in a million years have suspected was that she’d give him attitude. When he’d pushed her, she’d called him on his bullshit. She’d refused to let him intimidate her, just as she always did. And when he wouldn’t believe that the truth genuinely didn’t make any difference to how she felt, she’d cursed at him. His inner demon had chuckled.

There was no one like her. She was totally unique. Delightfully complex. And now he had to have her