She sat up straighter as she added, voice hard, “And if you are still paranoid that I’ll leave when you finally pull your big boy pants up and tell me what you are, I’m gonna get cranky. It won’t matter because I care about you, and whatever breed you are doesn’t change you. And now I’m blushing because I blurted out the last part. I blame you for that.”

Knox pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. “I already knew you cared. You wouldn’t have taken me as your mate if you didn’t. Demons don’t take mates unless they care.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “That’s a real poor way of saying you care about me too, you know.”

It was. “You won’t hear pretty words from me often,” he felt compelled to warn her.

“I know that.” He was charismatic, but he wasn’t a flatterer when it came to feelings that had any depth. He suffered from emotional poverty almost as bad as his demon. “I don’t expect to hear them and I’m not going to crave them. Compliments and pretty words make me blush, which I don’t like to do, because it’s just embarrassing. All I’m asking is that you don’t pretend that you don’t care out of some kind of masculine pride.”

He could have taken the out she’d just given him, vowed to simply not put on a façade, but that wasn’t who he was. She deserved better. “I’ve been around for centuries. I became jaded, empty, lonely – but at least they were feelings of some sort. Over the past year, I was growing…numb. There wasn’t much that truly mattered to me anymore. You changed that. You matter. So much that you’re a vulnerability, a weakness. But I’m keeping you.”

Knox framed her face with his hands. “Nothing is more important to me than you. And I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me. What you have to live with is that you have more control over my demon than I do, because it will annihilate everything in its path if anything bad were to happen to you. I wouldn’t be able to hold it back even if I wanted to.” He waited impatiently for her to speak, for her blank expression to give away something of what she was—

“Is this the part where I flee in terror? I’m not sure. Give me a hint.” With a snort, she rolled her eyes. “I think you’re forgetting just how much control you have over my demon. You’re its mate, which means that if you’re hurt, it won’t give a flying fuck about anything but avenging you. And as much as I’d like to say my conscience would speak up and I’d then try to rein in the demon, I’m not so sure I would. I’d be a wreck at the time, because you’re just as important to me. I don’t like having a weakness, it’s actually pissing me off. But you’re stuck with me.”

For a moment, there was utter silence. She opened her mouth to speak, and suddenly she was being kissed like he needed her taste to survive. He plundered, consumed, dominated. She felt herself getting wet, felt her nerve endings all—

They broke apart at the sound of someone clearing their throat.

“Mr. Thorne,” called Dan, “I believe the fax you’re waiting for has just arrived in your office.”

Knox inhaled deeply. “Thanks, Dan.” Brushing her hair away from her face, Knox kissed her once more. “I’ll be back soon.”

She couldn’t help but ogle his epic ass as he strode out of the room. Her demon wanted to bite it, and the idea truly did have its appeal. Maybe later. She picked up the jeans she was working on and went back to revamping them.

“Skeleton heads? Nice.”

The unfamiliar and unexpected voice made her jerk in panic and instinctively strike out with a punch to the jaw. They hit the ground with a thud, out cold. As she realized who it was, she winced. “Oh, shit.”

“Um, Knox. I kind of just knocked the Devil unconscious.”

Knox’s head snapped up from the fax he was reading to stare at Harper. “Repeat that.”

“He surprised me,” she said defensively. “My power rushed straight to my hands, so when I sucker-punched him, he fell like a sack of spuds.”

Knox strode out of his office and into the living area with his mate in tow. And there was Lucifer himself, sprawled on the floor. Harper’s power delivered at close range with such a harsh impact had obviously struck his soul so hard, his mind had clapped out.

“It is him, right?” asked Harper, chewing on her thumb. “I mean, I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.”

“It’s him,” Knox confirmed. “You saw him when you were a child?”

“He came to Jolene’s house to yell at her for something, so she fed him some cookies as an apology. Of course, they were drugged and made him high as a kite. He stripped down to his boxers and sang Baby Got Back.”

Knox couldn’t help but smile. “Is that why he loathes your grandmother?”

“No, but that incident kind of fed the hate. Although I think, on one level, he actually admired the cunningness of it.” Seeing him as a child, she’d been taken aback to discover it was Lucifer. Like now, he’d been dressed in casual, almost scruffy clothes and a baseball cap. “He’s gonna be pissed at me.”

“Even if he is, he won’t hurt you.”

“He won’t?” She wasn’t convinced.

“No, because he’ll have to deal with me if he does.” According to many human religions, Lucifer ruled hell. Not really. Lucifer moved to hell after he left heaven, he brought some order to the place, and he issued an open invitation for any soul to enter upon their death. There were many worse things in hell than Lucifer.