She hadn’t just been angry because Knox had been relieved that he was the focus of an attack this time. She was angry with herself, because she’d assumed Knox wouldn’t be directly targeted. She should never have made any such assumption. But as she figured such a revelation would annoy him, she instead said, “We could talk about what took you to Jolene’s house.” His fingers paused their massage as a new tension stiffened his muscles. Harper’s heart leaped. “What? Is it bad? It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Knox combed his fingers all the way through her hair and settled his hands on her upper arms. “I had some questions that I suspected she could answer.”
“About what?”
“Devon’s brother.”
Harper frowned. “Why the interest in him?”
“I don’t like that he wants what’s mine. He does, Harper; don’t deny it.”
Honestly, she still found it difficult to accept that Drew felt that way. But after the way he’d acted earlier, she’d reached one conclusion. “Okay, it’s possible that he doesn’t want me to be with you out of some misplaced concern. But Drew is totally focused on his own life—”
“Which was why Jolene told him to stay away from you until he was prepared to step up to the plate and give you what you needed.”
Harper tilted her head. “She told you that?”
“Yes.”
While it was the kind of thing Jolene would do, it was still hard for Harper to imagine Drew giving that much of a shit about her. “Well, he didn’t step up, which tells you all you need to know. If he’d really wanted me as much as you think he does, he wouldn’t have stayed in Cuba.” There. That proved her point perfectly.
Sliding his hand around her neck, Knox gently breezed his thumb up the column of her throat. “Baby, he has a tattoo of a sphinx between his shoulder blades. A sphinx with no wings. Lying with a hellcat.”
It took a moment for those words to truly sink in. Harper’s demon hissed, beyond enraged that another male would brand himself for it that way. “Seriously?”
“Do I look like I’m fucking kidding?”
“Wait, how do you know?”
“He likes to hang up pictures of himself doing extreme sports. Levi saw the tattoo on one of the photos when he visited Clarke’s shack.”
She decided not to ask what Levi had been doing in Drew’s home. “You said the tattoo is on his back, right? Maybe that sort of represents him turning his back on what he once wanted and putting it behind him or something. I’ve had clients who want tattoos that remind them of what they’re keeping in their past.”
Knox slowly shook his head. “The hellcat was snuggled up to the sphinx protectively.”
She swallowed. “There are other sphinxes out there.”
“With no wings? Come on, Harper, accept the fucking facts. Why are you searching for reasons that I might be wrong?”
“It just doesn’t make sense to me. Plus, I don’t want you to kill my friend’s brother.” Even if the little bastard had marked himself for her, like he was under the impression she’d be his to claim whenever he was ready for it.
“I will if he tries to take you from me.” Knox curled his hand around her chin and pulled her close. “Speak to Devon. Tell her to talk to her brother and keep him away from you. I’ve told Jolene to do the same and to make sure he gets rid of that fucking tattoo. Because nothing—not even you, baby—will keep him safe from me if he tries stealing you from me.”
“That’s dumb and immature. I had to deal with Alethea and countless other women trying to lure you away, but I didn’t kill any of them.” She’d toyed with them, sure, but that was all.
He did a slow blink. “Dumb and immature?”
“Yeah.”
Stroking his thumb over her jaw, Knox cocked his head. “You still underestimate your importance to me, don’t you? I’m beginning to think you always will.”
“No, I don’t. But I also don’t see why you can’t show the same restraint others do when people have a thing for their partners.”
“I could show that restraint, Harper. I have more patience and self-control than most—I’d never otherwise maintain dominance over my demon. But if Clarke pushes this or refuses to have the tattoo removed, I won’t want to show such restraint. I’ll want to kill him. My demon will want his blood. And I don’t have your goodness or mercy. So if you want Drew to live, talk to Devon and ensure that she makes him see reason.” Knox’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say to you earlier?”
Not willing to feed his anger, Harper kept her answer vague. “He was asking if I missed working at the studio and if I worried that Asher would have my weaknesses. I asked if he’d found his anchor—just general shit.”
“What else?”
She sighed. “He expressed his surprise that I’d gotten involved with my own anchor. Asked if it bothered me that there were so many women in your past.”
“A rhetorical question that would remind you of something that causes you pain,” mused Knox. “Now that I’m dealing with Drew, I understand just how much hurt it actually caused you to be around women from my past. Before this, I could only guess.” Splaying his hands on her back, Knox pulled her closer. “But, see, none of them meant anything to me. I suspect Drew did mean something to you, though. That’s hard for me to stomach.”
“I never loved him or anything. I had a crush on him as a teenager, and I always thought he was a decent guy. That’s it.”
“But if he’d stepped up to the plate as Jolene wanted him to, you probably would have given him a chance.” Not that it would have stopped Knox from having her. He hadn’t lied to her—he would have done whatever it took to have her, even if it meant somehow luring her away from another male. She did something to him. Fed something in him. Breathed life into his world. He couldn’t be without her.
Harper shook her head. “You’re forgetting just how opposed I was to dating demons. I fought you even harder because you were also my anchor. Not that it got me anywhere,” she grumbled. “Bottom line: I don’t want Drew. Nothing he says or does could make me leave you. Why is that funny?” He was giving her one of those highly amused, “you’re so ridiculously cute” smiles that held a hint of condescension.
Brushing his mouth over hers, Knox lifted a brow. “You think I’d let you leave?”
“I could totally leave if I wanted to. You insist on ignoring my warnings about just how terrifying I can be when in berserker mode. It takes a lot for me to really lose my shit. But when I do, I do it in a spectacular fashion. Seriously, people have fled in fear when faced with—stop laughing at me.”
Shoulders shaking, Knox captured her face between her hands. “Only you could melt my mood when it’s so foul.” He kissed her, poured himself into her. Sipped and nipped and bit, alternating between gentle and rough. Then, grabbing a handful of her hair, he snatched her head back and traced the shape of her mouth with his tongue. “Mine.”
Fisting his shirt, she swallowed. “Yours. Just as you’re mine.”
He dipped his head as he kissed his way down her neck. “Bed.”
“Bed,” she agreed.
Harper wrinkled her nose. The smell of the citrus air freshener was so strong, it almost burned her nostrils. The last time the Primes had gathered in this very conference room was to discuss the issue of her being hexed—something that it later transpired had been thanks to Nutty Nora. As she’d been pregnant at the time, Harper had stayed at home and missed the meeting. This time, however, she sat at Knox’s side, her elbows propped on the long, smooth glass table.
She was also watching each of the Primes carefully. All looked grim aside from Thatcher. He kept sliding uneasy looks at the others, cheeks flushed with self-consciousness. He had to know that many of the whispers circulating the table were about him and his recent relationship with Alethea. He had to feel the suspicious glances aimed his way. To his credit, though, he jutted out his chin in a “fuck you all” gesture.