Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Knox stared down at the charred, bloodied, battered body in front of him. Sherryl Malloy had taken a long time to die. Both Harper and her demon had put the familiar through a shitload of well-deserved pain—a pain that might have ended sooner if Malloy hadn’t screamed her hope that Asher died a dreadful, agonizing death at the hands of the Horseman. Maybe she’d thought that such words would drive Harper into delivering a killing blow. They hadn’t. His mate had remained completely controlled.

Harper had warned him that she could be scary. Warned him time and time again that a sphinx in ‘berserker mode’ was a dangerous creature. But he hadn’t been able to imagine his mate ever truly losing her shit in a spectacular fashion. Now he understood that a sphinx’s version of ‘berserker mode’ didn’t involve an explosion of rage. No, their rage remained relatively contained, but they showed no mercy whatsofuckingever.

Harper had been almost robotic in the way she’d systematically subjected Malloy to several rounds of excruciating torture. A lesser man might have been freaked out by it. Her demon had surfaced occasionally to join in on the fun, but Harper had taken the lead. Sensing that she’d needed it, Knox had stood back and left her to it.

He knew her actions were driven by not only anger but her fear of what could have happened to Asher and Heidi. The fact that they were safe and unharmed just wasn’t the point. Not when their fates were intended to be utterly horrific.

In order to ensure Asher’s safety and survival, Knox and Harper needed to send a clear message that anyone who had even the tiniest role in a plan to target Asher would suffer inconceivable agony.

No one who looked at what was left of Sherryl Malloy could miss that message.

His demon was proud of its mate. Approved that she’d showed no mercy. While Knox also approved, he was concerned that Harper’s conscience would feel the strain of it later. She wouldn’t regret what she’d done, but she’d be upset that she didn’t regret it. Might even be a little disturbed to learn just how far she’d go to protect and avenge their son.

Keenan and Tanner had entered the boathouse moments ago, curious about what was taking so long. They’d been taken aback by the gruesome sight they found, but not horrified—they’d seen Knox dole out much worse torture. Hearing that it was Harper who was responsible, however, had been a huge shock to them. Not a bad shock, though. No, like Knox, they approved of their Prime’s actions even as they knew Harper’s soft heart would pay a price for it later.

“Conference call’s scheduled to start in thirty seconds. You both ready?” Larkin asked from behind him.

Turning to face the sentinel, expression blank, Harper lifted her chin slightly. “Ready.” She hadn’t said much since Sherryl took—well, croaked—her last breath.

Knox moved closer to his mate’s side so that their bodies brushed, giving her space yet also letting her know he was there. “Let’s get this done,” he said.

The harpy pressed a few buttons on the laptop. “And we’re live.” She turned it to face them. The wide screen was a grid of faces as the other Primes stared back at them. Only Jonas, who hadn’t accepted his invite to the video conference, was missing. As Harper had telepathed Jolene with a heads-up about the situation, the female imp was the only one who wasn’t completely clueless as to why Knox had arranged the video conference.

If he and Harper weren’t blocking their view of Sherryl, they would have no doubt all jerked back in horror. Yeah, the view was that bad.

“I know many of you are exceptionally busy,” said Knox, not bothering with any preliminaries, “so I appreciate you all cutting your activities short to take this call.”

“Is this about the Horseman?” Raul instantly asked. “Have you discovered his identity?”

“No,” said Knox, “but we’re getting closer and closer to finding him. It’s only a matter of time before we do.” He truly believed that.

“Then what is the big emergency?” asked Malden.

Knox looked at Thatcher, face hardening. “I believe we have something that belongs to you. Or someone. Sherryl Malloy is one of your demons, correct?”

“Yes,” Thatcher confirmed, thick brows drawing together. “Why is she with you?”

Knox kept his eyes on Thatcher to monitor his reaction closely as he and Harper parted, revealing Malloy. The Prime recoiled in horror, eyes wide. There were gasps, curses, and horrified mutters from the other Primes. Only Jolene, expression grim, stayed silent.

Face reddening and contorting with fury, Thatcher demanded, “What happened? What did you do to her, Thorne?”

“He didn’t do it,” said Harper, voice hard. “I did. She was passing on information to Alethea—information that led to the attempted kidnapping of my niece and to the incorporeal’s attack on my son.”

The Primes fell silent, all looking varying degrees of shocked. Harper suspected they were more shocked to hear that she’d killed Malloy than they were to hear why Harper had killed her. After all, the Primes had always insisted on viewing Harper as someone who was playing out of her league; a fluffy bunny trying to hang with feral wolves. That was their mistake.

Thatcher’s lips parted in surprise. “You’re certain?”

A flash of anger sailed through Harper. “Do you think I’d do that for shits and fucking giggles?” She had no regrets about what she’d done, but she hadn’t enjoyed it. Her demon, on the other hand, had been on cloud goddamn nine.

Incredulous, Thatcher shook his head. “It makes no sense that Sherryl would have placed your family in danger. She was dating your cousin.” Watching as Harper slowly lifted a brow, realization seemed to dawn on Thatcher. He sighed. “She was using him to get information.” His eyes flicked to Knox. “I suppose the reason you didn’t call me until now is that you suspect me of being the Horseman. I would have taken care of her punishment.”

A low hiss came out of Harper. “That kill was ours,” she told Thatcher, jabbing her finger in the corpse’s direction. “That creature—or what’s left of her—endangered our son. The Horseman wanted us to know what happened to people who got in the way of his plans. Well, that is what happens to anyone who even plays a part in any harm that befalls my family. And when I get my hands on the Horseman—and I will—he won’t get off so lightly.”

“You call that lightly?” asked Mila, tone mild.

“Her pain is over, isn’t it?” Harper retorted. “His will never be over.”

The Primes studied Harper as if they’d never seen her before. There was a newfound respect in their gazes and, in many cases, a healthy dose of apprehension. Knox suspected the Primes would also be both unnerved and irritated to learn they had totally underestimated her. Though she was strong, they’d never really considered her a threat in her own right—only in the sense that she was mated to Knox and, thus, they made each other stronger.

“I am assuming you interrogated the she-demon,” said Dario, flicking a look at the corpse. “Did she know anything useful that will lead us to the Horseman?”

“Nothing that would lead us directly to him,” said Knox. “But she gave us information that would help—information I’m quite sure the Horseman didn’t know she possessed.”

Jolene gave a slow nod. “He would have killed her if he’d thought she had anything on him, but he apparently didn’t consider her a loose end.”

“Will you not share with us the information she gave you?” Raul asked Knox.

“No, just as I’m quite sure none of you will share anything that you uncover.” Knox was unsurprised when none of them denied it. “Sad as it is, we do not know who we can trust. If the Horseman should learn what I now know, it would give him the opportunity to wipe away any evidence. I won’t risk that.”

Dario sighed. “Very well.”

Exhaling heavily, Thatcher rubbed at his brow. “I’ll send some of my sentinels to collect Sherryl’s body. It is custom in my lair to give each demon a proper burial, no matter their crime.”

“Is it?” drawled Harper, eyes narrowing. “Levi.”

At the one-word summons, Levi stepped out of the shadows and into the camera’s line of sight. He then clicked his fingers, and the corpse burst into cinders that quickly faded away. It was an ability that came with being a reaper. And it made Harper’s inner demon smirk. Now that the entity had vented some of its rage, it was much mellower.

Glaring at Thatcher, Harper said, “There’s no such custom about burials in my lair. Even if there were, that bitch would get no courtesies from me.”

“Nor from me, in your position,” Mila said to Harper. Others murmured their agreement.

Knox ran his gaze over each of the Primes, who—except for Jolene, who looked at her granddaughter with pride—were once again eyeing Harper warily. He didn’t blame them. “I think my mate and I have made our standpoint blindingly clear. I hope you convey this message to the demons within your lairs. We wouldn’t want anyone else getting ideas about targeting Asher, would we?” He nodded at Larkin, who cut the link for the video conference and then closed the laptop.

Harper’s shoulders lowered slightly, and she let out a long breath. “I need a drink.” Or a bottle. Maybe then her nerves would finally fully settle.

Keenan pulled his flask out of his pocket and offered it to her. “Here.”

She didn’t even take a cautious sniff. Just chugged it down. And nearly choked as her throat and the roof of her mouth started to burn like holy hell. She coughed. “Jesus, what is that? Battery acid?”

The incubus smirked. “Everclear vodka with a little something mixed in.”

Deciding she didn’t want to know what that little something was, Harper handed him the flask, still coughing. Knox rested his hand on her nape and gave it a comforting squeeze.

Staring down at her, Tanner said, “You weren’t kidding.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“You can in fact be terrifying. And no, I’m not teasing you.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to ever again deal with shit from the Primes, Harper.” Levi moved the chair back to its spot near the wall and hooked the rope over it. “It’s fucked up that this gained their respect, but if that respect and fear keeps them from messing with you, that can only be a good thing.”

Keenan knocked down a huge gulp of that vodka, the weirdo. “You still plan on playing a clip of Malloy’s slow-death throughout the Underground?”

“It’s the only way to be sure that the Horseman and any minions he might have will get our message,” said Harper. “Besides, everyone needs to be sure exactly what happens to those who go after my family.”

Larkin nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll get on it.”

With his hand still on her nape, Knox led her out of the boathouse and into the fresh, open air. Harper inhaled it greedily, needing to drown out the scents of blood, pain, and hate that seemed to be clogging her nostrils and lungs.

“Are we all thinking that the Horseman was Alethea’s ‘reliable source’?” asked Tanner as they walked back to the house. Mansion. Whatever the beautiful monstrosity should be called. “That he told her she was a target to scare and manipulate her?”

“It seems likely,” said Knox. The others nodded. “We can cross Dion off our list of suspects. The incorporeal said it intended to find and hurt him once it had earned its freedom.”

Levi twisted his mouth. “That leaves us with Thatcher, Dario, and Jonas.”

Holding the laptop against her chest, Larkin sighed. “It’s a crying shame that the only clues Malloy gave us about Alethea’s partner in crime are that he wears a cashmere coat, smokes tobacco, likes Cirque du Soleil, and that the encantada trusted his word.”

“The only person I can imagine her investing any trust in is Jonas,” said Tanner. “But I saw her face when she realized that Jonas wanted an alliance with Lou. If the siblings were working together, would it really have bothered her that he wanted such an alliance? It makes more sense that she suspected Jonas would betray her and try to have the incorporeal destroyed or banished back to hell, just like he claimed. Also, I’ve never known him to smoke. Nor Dario, for that matter. Never smelled tobacco on them.”

“I’ve seen Jonas smoking a time or two,” said Knox. “I’ve also seen Thatcher with the occasional cigar at gatherings, but I got the feeling he only smoked them to look distinguished.”

Larkin drummed her fingers on the closed laptop. “Malloy was one of Thatcher’s demons. He could have turned Alethea’s attention her way—pulled her strings, so to speak. But I don’t think he’s the Horseman. I mean, if he is, he would have just asked Sherryl for the info himself; he wouldn’t have done it through Alethea.”

A thoughtful silence fell. After a long moment, Harper broke it. “The Horseman’s not very hands-on, is he? He likes to use people. And it makes me wonder if he was pulling the strings of the other Horsemen. Sitting back and letting them take all the risks and do all the work.”

Knox’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You think he was their ringleader? That he might have even been the one who brought them all together?”

Harper shrugged. “It’s just a theory.”

“It’s a good one,” said Knox.

Levi rubbed at his nape. “If we go with that theory, it would suggest that Dario isn’t our guy. He campaigned to be Monarch, like Isla. That’s not ‘sitting back’, is it?”

“No, it’s not.” Knox frowned, still feeling like there was something he was missing.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Larkin. “Malloy didn’t exactly give us any useful clues, did she?”

“Maybe she did,” mused Harper, coming to a standstill as something occurred to her. “She said that she and Alethea only communicated through telepathy. It’s an ability that pretty much all demons possess, but it’s not always strong. Some don’t have a very wide telepathic range.” She turned to Knox. “You’d known Alethea a long time, you must have some idea of how wide her range was.”

Knox thought about it for a moment. “It couldn’t have been very wide. There were many occasions when she called my cell phone. Especially when she was out of the country, which was often.”

“What about when she was inside the country?” asked Harper. “I’m sure you were often invited to her home here, but maybe there were times when she called to say she was near one of your offices and wanted to know if you were interested in hooking up?”

“Yes,” he remembered. “There were also occasions when she called to say she was near the estate.”

“Hoping you’d grant her entry and she could wangle her way into your bedroom, even though you never ‘shit where you slept’, as you once so aptly put it.” Harper snorted. “Okay, and where were you at the time of these calls?”

“Various places. I was rarely ever home. I worked a lot.” Knox searched his memories, eyes narrowed. “I remember I once agreed to meet her in the bar of a hotel on the strip. I was running late, so I tried telepathing her to let her know. I couldn’t reach her, so I had to call her.”

Harper took a small step toward him. “And where were you at the time?”

“In a hotel further along the strip. Four kilometers away, at most.”

“Then her telepathic muscle didn’t stretch very far,” Harper mused. “But she was in regular contact with Sherryl Malloy, who lived smack bam in the middle of North Las Vegas.” Which meant that … “Motherfucker, Alethea must have been hiding in North Las Vegas all that time—the last place anyone would think to look for her.”

Levi bit out a harsh curse. “So close yet so fucking far. If she was relying on Malloy for info, she wasn’t getting out of her hideout much. She holed herself up somewhere.”

Keenan nodded. “Still, she would have caught someone’s attention. She was a sex demon. Encantadas easily entrance humans.”

“I should get my family on this,” said Harper. “They can show her picture to people and ask around. We may just be able to find out where she was staying.”

“The Force can do that,” said Knox.

“Yes, but my family knows the area better than they do.” Pretty much all of the Wallis imps lived there. “People are more willing to talk to them than they are to any of our lair.”

Knox inclined his head. “We’ll still have our Force make enquiries. The more people working on this, the better.”

Harper gave a satisfied nod. “The odds are good that he cleaned wherever she was staying of anything that could implicate him, but someone will have seen something. People mind their business in shady areas, but they stay alert, too. If they saw a stranger walking around, they’d have gotten a good look at them.”

Feeling a tingle of optimism, she wasted no time in telepathing Jolene and bringing her up to speed as she walked back to the house. Her grandmother offered to assist in questioning people in the area before Harper even got the chance to ask. With the combined efforts of their lairs, they would surely learn something important.

Entering the foyer, she asked her grandmother, How’s Ciaran?

Jolene sighed. Outraged would be the best word. He wasn’t serious about Sherryl, but he’d considered her a friend, if nothing else. He’s mad at himself for not seeing what she was doing—which is dumb, of course, and I’ve expressed this to him several times. He’ll be all right. I wish you’d told me about Malloy before you killed her. It’s not fair that you got to have all the fun.

Sorry.

Jolene gave a soft, almost delicate snort. No, you’re not.

No, I’m not.

It’s a good thing that the other Primes got to see what you’re capable of. It’s also good that they saw you’re not someone who will hide behind Knox or leave the dirty work to him. You could have left the punishment to him, who would certainly have made Malloy suffer. But you didn’t. Nor did you invite him to get in on the fun—which does make me feel a little better about being left out. Instead, you took care of it yourself, and you did it in a way that conveyed a very powerful message. They’ll highly respect that.

Hopefully the message would be heard loud and clear, Harper thought, as she followed Knox into the living room. Asher was nowhere to be seen, so she figured Meg had him with her somewhere. Gotta go, Grams. Speak soon.

Take care, sweetheart.

Breaking the connection with her grandmother, Harper turned to Knox, who was watching her closely. She also realized they were alone. “Where’d the sentinels go?”

“To their respective cars.” Crossing to her, Knox cupped her hips, fighting the urge to eat up every bit of her personal space and hold her tight. “You okay?”

She placed her hands on his chest. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not feeling bad for what you did, are you?” he asked, searching her eyes and getting caught up in the way the chocolate-brown color swirled, faded, and then settled into a warm honey shade.

“No.” Harper jutted out her chin. “She deserved every second of pain she got. I don’t need to go journal about it or cuddle a teddy bear.”

“But it unsettles you that you can deliver such pain and feel no remorse for it.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.” When he just looked at her expectantly, she sighed. “Okay, yes, it unsettles me that I have that kind of cruelty in me.”

Knox couldn’t relate to that, because he never experienced any such guilt—that wasn’t something he was proud of, though. “You are not cruel, Harper. You didn’t hurt Malloy because you’re heartless or sadistic. You did it because she was partly responsible for what happened to our son. That primal, mama bear protectiveness in you was never going to let that go. Nor was it going to be satisfied with anything other than her death. The very fact that you’re unsettled by your lack of remorse shows that you’re not a bad person.”

Harper swallowed, comforted by his words, and walked into his arms. He held her close, stroking her back and pressing gentle kisses to the side of her face. She sighed, content. “I was kind of looking forward to our day out.” Malloy had fucked that up.

“Some quality time on the island will make up for it.”

“You still want to leave tomorrow?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I’d better get packing.”