“Well, he is. And nothing I’ve said has made him feel differently.”
“I’ll talk with him about it later.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Now, why don’t you tell me what it was that made you cut our telepathic conversation short yesterday.”
“Or maybe we could watch T.V. for a while.” Grabbing the remote, he switched it on.
“Knox.”
He sighed. “For the first time in months, you’re eating properly. I don’t want that to stop.”
“I’ll keep eating, I swear.” To prove it, she took another bite of her bagel. “Come on, tell me.”
He took in a long breath. “Carla, Bray, and Kellen are leaving the lair.”
“I see,” said Harper, her tone even. Given Carla was her mother, that should have hit her where it hurt, right? It didn’t. They’d never had a relationship. When Harper’s father, Lucian, rejected Carla as both his mate and his anchor, something inside the woman had just broken. Her attempt to abort Harper had failed, as had her request for an incantor – a demon capable of using magick – to trap Harper’s soul in a bottle. Jolene had paid Carla to give birth to Harper, at which point the imps had taken her in.
Such cruelty was a perfect example of just how unstable a demon could become if they lost their mate. Still, Carla’s pain was no excuse. If the things Roan told Harper right before he tried to kill her were true, Carla was still somewhat twisted. One thing that Harper knew for sure was that Carla – being self-centered, petty, and hurtful – would never play a positive part in her life, so what was the point of her being in it?
“I can’t say it’s unexpected.” In fact, Harper was surprised they’d remained there this long. “I mean, who’d want to answer to the person who killed their son?”
“You’re also a person who was almost killed by their son,” replied Knox. “Roan conspired against all the US Primes, not just you.”
“But Carla and Bray don’t want to believe that.”
“No, they don’t. They’re leaving Vegas altogether.” Knox was glad of that, but he kept his satisfaction out of his voice. “They’ve bought a house in Washington.”
“I guess it makes sense that they’d want to be far away from me.”
“I take it that Kellen still hasn’t returned any of your calls,” he said, referring to her other half-brother.
“Not a one.” The teen had initially reached out to Harper, hoping to have a relationship with her, but he had a habit of shutting her out whenever things became strained between her and his immediate family. “I’ve kind of… um… given up.”
“Because you’re not a sucker for punishment.” Knox didn’t add that there wasn’t a chance he’d let Kellen try to squeeze his way back into Harper’s life. He’d warned the kid once before that him pulling away from Harper again wouldn’t be tolerated; he wasn’t fucking kidding. He wouldn’t allow anyone to play with her feelings that way.
Knox curled a hand around her chin and turned her face to his. “Don’t let them hurt you, baby.” He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “You can’t change that they resent you for Roan’s death, but you can change that you’re letting them make you feel bad about it.”
“It’s not that I feel bad about it,” said Harper. She’d never liked Roan, and she’d never once thought there was a chance that they could have any kind of sibling relationship, but she also hadn’t thought she’d ever have to kill him. Technically, it was her demon who’d done the deed, but the demon was part of her soul, and that meant Harper shared the responsibility.
Her demon hadn’t simply killed him. She’d coldly toyed with him before tossing him into the flames of hell – flames she’d somehow been able to conjure since they had, for lack of a better word, “birthed” her wings.
Forced to simply watch as her demon raged and destroyed, high on that power… Harper would never forget how that felt. The demon had wanted to avenge Harper. It had wanted to make Roan and his co-conspirator feel as helpless as they’d made her feel. What her demon hadn’t realized was that its actions had left her feeling utterly powerless too.
She wasn’t upset with her demon. The entity didn’t think the way she did, didn’t “feel” as she did. There was absolutely no point in expecting it to account for any emotional hurt its actions might have caused.
To the demon, it was all very simple: Roan had intended to kill her, therefore he had to die.
Harper understood that, but it still wasn’t easy to accept that she was partly at fault for her half-brother’s death because, dammit, she wasn’t made of stone. So, yeah, maybe she hadn’t slept so well for a while and maybe her appetite had suffered. But that was partly because… “I don’t feel guilty about his death. I feel guilty that I don’t actually regret what me and my demon did that night. It was him or me – I value my life more than I did his. Still, he was my half-brother.” She should feel bad about it.
“Only in a biological sense. He was never once a brother to you, Harper. He never had a kind word to say about you, he repeatedly did things to hurt you, and then he fucking tried to kill you. The imps are your family. He was never a part of it.”
Her demon fully agreed. Harper sighed. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right, baby. You’re just taking a while to realize that.”
She chuckled. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Now finish your breakfast.” He turned up the volume on the T.V., hoping it might distract her from her thoughts. He was about to grab his laptop and finish answering his emails, but the news reporter’s words snatched his attention.
“… when police arrested her this morning after the fire, she told them she’d put her son in the oven because he was a changeling. She allegedly believes that her own child was taken by fairies who left her their child in exchange. Neighbors described Lipton as pleasant and helpful, but they also claimed she was very cold towards her son. Thankfully, the boy was able to escape the house and was relatively unharmed.”
Harper scowled. “She tried burning her son in the oven? That’s sick.”
“Parents claiming their children were changelings was once a common thing,” Knox told her. “Mostly, it was a claim made by people whose children had disorders or developmental disabilities. It was said that in order to identify a changeling and undo the switch, you had to do things such as hit, whip, or burn the child in the oven. Some parents used it as an excuse for murdering their own child.”
Harper gaped. “And they got away with it?”
“Shockingly, yes.” He grabbed his cell from the nightstand and dialed a familiar number. When the demon answered after the second ring, Knox asked, “I saw the news. Anything I need to know?” He wasn’t entirely surprised by the response. “All right. I’ll be at your home in an hour.” Ending the call, he said to Harper, “That was Wyatt Sanders.”
“The detective?”
“Yes.” Wyatt was also one of the demons in their lair. “It would seem that the little boy is a demon.”