“Where is he?” clipped Knox, body unnaturally still.

“Upstairs with Meg. He’s fine, Knox,” she assured him, even though she suspected he’d already touched Asher’s mind to see that much for himself. “Really, he’s okay.”

Knox’s eyes bled to black as his demon rose to the fore, and the room temperature dropped so low she shivered. “He wasn’t harmed?” asked the demon in a flat, chilling, disembodied voice.

She swallowed. “No. They didn’t even touch him. They couldn’t; he’d raised his shield.”

“I want to know everything.” The demon prowled toward her, every inch the lethal predator. “I want—” It cut off, nostrils flaring, and its obsidian eyes glittered with renewed fury. “I smell your blood.”

Shit. The air suddenly turned muggy and oppressive, like just before a storm. The demon’s rage was so live and electric, it was almost tangible. Meeting its unblinking stare, Harper forced herself not to tense. It didn’t matter that she knew the demon wouldn’t harm her. Only a total idiot wouldn’t find something that old, dangerous, and pitiless to be unnerving.

Neither she nor Knox had expected his demon to form such a powerful attachment to her that it wanted to claim her as its own. Knox would have been forced to give her up if things had turned out differently, because a person couldn’t take someone as their mate unless their inner demon accepted them too.

Even though joining their psyches had made Harper more powerful, Knox and his demon were still just as overprotective as ever. It didn’t even matter that, thanks to his power flooding her mind, she could also call on the flames of hell—Knox still wished he could tuck her away somewhere safe.

Now that she had Asher, Harper finally understood why. She worried for Knox just as he worried about her, sure, but she had the comfort of knowing that he was a supreme badass. Knox, however, didn’t have that same comfort, because she was nowhere near as powerful as he was. To Knox, she was vulnerable in ways he would never be. Likewise, Asher—though powerful—was vulnerable to harm in ways that neither she nor Knox were. It made her want to hide him away, where no one could ever touch him. And maybe that was exactly what she should have done.

Feeling like an utter failure, Harper licked her lips. “Please don’t go postal. I need Knox. I can’t do this by myself.”

*

It was the shake in her voice that reached the demon through the red hazing its vision. Its mate was strong. Brave. Resilient. Incredibly self-reliant. To admit to needing anyone, to being unable to bear the situation alone, meant she was in genuine distress. The demon’s fury receded slightly. “I don’t like the taint of fear in your scent, little sphinx.” When Knox fiercely reached for the surface, wanting to reassure their mate, the demon retreated.

In control once more, Knox cricked his neck. His chest expanded with a full breath that he slowly blew out. Anger simmered low in his core—an anger that had moments ago inflated inside his chest until there was no way to breathe without tasting red-hot rage. It had flooded his body, poured into his extremities, and made his blood boil and smolder like lava. His demon had gone into a volcanic rage, roaring so loudly it had made Knox’s head throb.

Only one thing had stopped both him and the entity from losing control—on touching Asher’s mind, they’d sensed no anguish or fear in him. Only calm and contentment.

Focusing on his mate, Knox saw just how terribly shaken she was. He knew Harper. Knew she’d be blaming herself. Knew that she’d be hurting right down to the deepest part of her soul. He also sensed that she was keeping a chokehold on her anger so that she didn’t exacerbate his own. He could do no less for her. She needed comfort. Support. Reassurance. Not the rage sitting in his gut like lead.

Locking down the dark emotions threatening to send him into a frenzy, Knox crossed to her. “Come here, baby.” He curved his hand around her nape and pulled her close. At first, she remained stiff and unresponsive, as if she thought she deserved no comfort. He smoothed his hand up and down her back until the stiffness leached out of her. “Tell me everything.”

Pulling back, Harper licked her lower lip. “We were at Jolene’s tea party. The kids were all sitting in the dining room with Ciaran, watching the clown that Jolene hired.” She gestured at the sentinels, adding, “The three of us were stood in the hallway just outside the room—we could see Asher clearly. We heard the bouncy castle burst outside, so we ran out into the yard. Thinking back, it seems likely that someone burst it to distract us. Asher’s mind touched mine. I knew he wanted me for something, so I went to him. And there was this woman.”

“A woman?”

“She looked like me. Exactly like me. Either it was a shape-shifting demon or my fucking doppelgänger. She was cooing to him and saying it was time to go home, probably hoping he’d think it was me and then lower the shield he’d wrapped round himself.”

Knox’s demon snorted. Their son would never be so gullible, infant or not.

“When she saw me, she let out this weird surge of ice cold energy that froze everything and everyone in the room. Asher’s shield must have protected him from it. It didn’t work on me either, so she conjured a wind that flung me into the hall. I managed to get inside the room before a sheet of frost built across the doorway. But the frost blocked the others from getting inside to help.”

“I bashed it with every bit of strength in my body while others hurled orbs of hellfire at it,” Tanner cut in. “It didn’t even weaken.”

Harper plucked at her clothes. She felt so hot and edgy that the cotton chafed her skin and made her feel smothered. “I flew at her, dealt her some soul-deep pain, stabbed her with my blade and … I don’t know if I killed her. She just faded right in front of me and then disappeared.”

A familiar mind slid against Knox’s. Is everything all right? asked Levi, his sentinel and personal bodyguard. Knox had left him outside the conference room at the hotel where he’d held his business meeting.

No, it’s not. Knox quickly explained what had happened, pausing only when Levi bit out several curses. Relay the situation to Larkin, Knox continued, referring to his fourth sentinel. I’ll meet you in my office within the hotel soon. Knox couldn’t ask Levi to leave without him. It was important that Knox was seen to be both coming and going from places or it would raise questions.

Breaking his connection with Levi, Knox smoothed his hand over Harper’s shoulder and down her arm. “Where are you hurt?”

“I whacked my head on the wall and scraped my side on the frost.” She shrugged, as if it were nothing.

“Let me see.” He peeled up her T-shirt, finding an ugly slash on her side, and ground his teeth. “Looks more like someone slashed at you with a razor blade.” The she-demon would die for that alone—but not until he was done “punishing” her, if he ever would be done.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that someone tried to snatch Asher.”

“Firstly, you very much do matter—never say that again.” Probing her head gently, Knox found a lump, but she barely winced. “Secondly, you should have called me.”

“I wasn’t thinking of anything other than getting to Asher. I fucked up, I know—”

“You didn’t fuck up. It was only natural that your thoughts were only of Asher.” He squeezed her nape. “You did good.”

Her shoulders slumped a little. “No, I didn’t, and we both know it.”

He could see that she was awaiting judgment. “You think I should blame you?”

“I left him.”

“I left him,” said Keenan glumly.

“We all left him,” clipped Tanner. “The bitch who tried to take him fucked with the bouncy castle to distract us. We fell for it.”