“That would have sounded scary if you weren’t chattering your teeth.”

The air thundered as fire erupted out of the floor. The incorporeal wasted no time in attacking. The moment Knox stepped out of the dying flames, it sent a blast of glacial energy at him. The blast had no effect. Just skimmed over him, barely even ruffling his hair.

Harper? It was a demand to know if she was all right.

I’m fine, Harper told him. Kill it. Her demon didn’t settle now that he was there. It wanted to fight alongside him. Harper wanted it too, she really did, but she couldn’t stop shaking. Hell, she couldn’t even speak. Every breath hurt. It felt like shards of ice had splintered her throat and lodged in her lungs. The air in the room sliced at her skin like it was a bitterly cold wind; making her nose numb, her ears throb, and her cheeks feel windburned.

Smiling up at Knox, the incorporeal let out a nervous girly giggle. “You wouldn’t hurt a little girl, would you?”

Glaring hard at the incorporeal, Knox flexed his fingers. Fury lived and breathed inside him right then, making his heart pound and his blood sing with the need for vengeance. His demon ached to take charge and annihilate their enemy, but Knox didn’t trust that it wouldn’t annihilate everyone else in the process, considering them collateral damage. The demon only cared for the safety of its mate and son.

“I see you have something in common with your owner,” said Knox. “You hide behind others—or, in your case, within others.”

The incorporeal narrowed its eyes. “I am not owned.”

“Sure you are,” he said, tone derisive. Taunting. Cutting. “He holds your leash and tells you to go fetch. You obey his orders like a good … little … dog.”

She hissed and bared her teeth. “I am no one’s dog.”

“And yet, here you are, doing your master’s bidding at the promise of a treat. You may have escaped your glass case, but you are still very much a captive.”

“Once I am free of this bargain, I will find Dion and make him pay for keeping me in that case,” she snarled.

Well that confirmed that it wasn’t Dion who had helped Alethea free it.

“If you persist in coming at me and mine, the only freedom you will find is in death.” Knox slipped an arm behind him and shot a wave of raw power at the front door. The moment it burst open and Tanner rushed inside, Knox clipped, “Get Harper out of here.”

The hellhound probably would have done exactly that if the incorporeal hadn’t hit him with a wave of glacial energy, encasing him in ice—it happened in a mere millisecond.

The incorporeal giggled and put a hand to its mouth. “Oops. Wasn’t that one of your big, bad sentinels? Frozen is a good look for him.”

Harper shot a hard glare at the incorporeal as she spoke to Knox. Kill it for fuck’s sake.

With a sudden sharp cry, the incorporeal slapped its little hands to its head.

“You feel me inside the child’s mind, don’t you?” taunted Knox. “I see you have a good grip on it. But to make you loosen your hold on her … all I have to do is this.”

Harper winced because whatever ‘this’ was made the incorporeal scream like a banshee. It thrust out both chubby little hands, and a harsh wind whooshed out of its palms and whirled around Knox like a tornado. He stood inside it, looking unimpressed. Even a little bored. Which only pissed the incorporeal off beyond measure.

He was playing with the incorporeal, Harper knew. Letting it see and feel just how outmatched it was. And she suspected his demon was thoroughly enjoying that.

Finally, he stepped out of the mini tornado, nary a hair out of place. “Enough. I think we’ve established that the glacial energy has no effect on me.”

The incorporeal’s mouth sagged open. “Impossible,” it spat. Another gust of wind rushed out of its hands. But Knox slammed up his own palm and sent a blaze of fire streaming at the incorporeal. Wind and fire crashed together like swords, and a backlash of the colliding energies swept across the room in a bright sheen of light that almost blinded Harper.

Again, her demon urged her to rise and fight, but she simply couldn’t. Instead, she could only watch as the archdemon and incorporeal battled hard.

“I will have my freedom, Thorne, you cannot—” Once again, the incorporeal’s hands snapped to its head as it let out yet another high-pitched scream. The sound went on and on and on, until Harper thought the windows would smash. A blizzard suddenly whipped up around them, ruffling her clothes and tossing her hair everywhere. It would no doubt have also sent objects sailing around if they weren’t frozen in place.

Knox merely flapped a hand as if swatting at a fly. Just like that, the blizzard seemed to shudder and then abruptly die off. “When will you learn that you stand no chance against me?”

The incorporeal once again screeched, knees buckling under the strain of whatever mental pain Knox was causing it. The girl’s body bucked as the incorporeal lunged out of her … which was what he’d been waiting for.

A raw dark power buzzed and pulsed in the air just before flames instantly erupted out of the ground—vivid flames that were red, gold, black, and deadly. The incorporeal dove straight back into the kid’s body to escape them. Eyes wide and afraid, it stared at the flames of hell as they inched around it, barricading it in. “You can truly call on them.”

“There’s no way out of this,” Knox told the incorporeal. “I can do this all day.”

Panting, it hissed. “But your mate cannot. Do you not see what is happening to her? She is freezing from the inside out. Soon, her heart will fail and rupture into tiny pieces.”

Harper knew the incorporeal wasn’t exaggerating. She could feel her heartbeat beginning to falter. Could feel the cold invade and surround the organ. Her vision was starting to darken around the edges, and a deep sleep beckoned her.

“You could save her, but only if you move now and make her warm. At a guess, I would say you have mere seconds before it is too late for her.”

No, kill it, Harper insisted, but Knox instantly pyroported to her. At the same time, the incorporeal surged out of the child’s body. The hazy vapor flew over the flames and rocketed out of the front door, fading as it did so.

Knox crouched in front of her, eyes glinting with panic. “Baby.”

You should have killed it. Then darkness swept over her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For a second, Knox didn’t move out of sheer terror. His mate was curled up on the floor, shivering violently, teeth chattering, arms wrapped tight around her body. His demon let loose a deafening roar. “Shit, baby.”

Knox lifted her and held her close, shocked that her skin was so cold it was uncomfortable to touch. Her system seemed to literally soak up his body heat—he could practically feel the warmth leaving him.

With a single thought, he reined in the flames of hell before they could do further damage or harm the little girl within them, but he never moved his eyes from Harper. She was gulping in breaths like she’d just surfaced from the ocean after being submerged for too long. Each shaky breath fogged the air.

He stroked her face. “I need you to breathe for me, baby. Relax. Slow it down.”

She clumsily tried fisting his shirt but seemed barely able to move her fingers, as if they were too numb.

“I’ll get you warm, you’ll be fine.” But she didn’t look fine. Not at all.

There was a loud, birdlike screech just before a black harpy eagle soared inside the café and landed on the floor. A billow of smoke swirled around it, blanketing it for a mere moment, and then Larkin was stood in its place.