Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Having returned the amulet to the velvet bag and placed it in his pocket, Knox took her hand. He’d shove the amulet in a drawer somewhere later. “I’ll have Keenan take the luggage to the mansion while we go to your apartment. It’s going to be a mess, baby. Be ready.”
It turned out he was right. One step inside the apartment, Harper halted with a groan. The place looked like an abandoned house – the furniture still standing was stained with the ash of the items that had been destroyed by the venom. It was dark, damp, and smelled like a morgue. Like rot and decay.
“You know, it makes no sense to me that the practitioner would perform a spell that put so many snakes inside and then only a few outside,” she told Knox. “The snakes slithering on my front door were a huge fucking warning that there could be more inside. Why give me that warning?”
“I don’t think any were supposed to get outside. But a few escaped through the letterbox, something the practitioner obviously hadn’t considered would happen.”
“Maybe. But why not just do a simpler spell that hid a few snakes inside – they could have taken me off guard and easily bitten me. At first, I couldn’t understand it. But now, looking at this mess, I’m thinking that they put all the snakes inside because they intended to do this much damage. They wanted to destroy my stuff to hurt me, and to help vent their anger. If it’s a reaction to finding out you and I are mates, the news obviously didn’t shift their anger to you.”
And that pissed Knox the fuck off. “Come on, let’s see what’s still intact, box it up, and get out of here.”
So that was what they did. With so much dark energy filling the space, it was a relief to get out of there. The smell seemed to cling to her flesh and clothes. She scrubbed at her skin in Knox’s shower, trying to wash it away. But it was as though the scent of rot had clogged her nostrils. Settled on the sofa in the living area, dressed in her sweats, she inhaled the coffee Meg – bless her soul – had made, hoping it would chase away the horrid smell that seemed to haunt her. According to Levi, it would take a little more work from the incantor to remove the stains of the spell from the apartment.
Beside her, Knox was leaning over the box on the table that contained the things Harper had rescued from the apartment. Meg had washed each one before placing them in a different box, ridding them all of the scent of decay. She really was fabulous.
“What are all these?” he asked.
“They’re just knickknacks. You know, sentimental stuff.” She lifted out a hand-painted skeleton-shaped trinket box. “I got this from a market in Mexico. We didn’t live there long, but I loved it there.” Returning the little box, she pulled out a tiny, beautiful piano replica. “This is from Switzerland. We didn’t stay there long, either. Lucian got me this when I told him I wanted a piano – his idea of a joke.” She carefully put the piano back and pointed to a wooden carved model of the Colosseum in Rome. “He bought me this when we were in Italy. We stayed there for over a year. I loved it there.”
Knox turned in his seat to face her, propping his elbow on the top of the sofa. “Jolene was right.”
“About what?”
“You have good memories of your time with Lucian.”
“I’ve told you before that I enjoyed the traveling, and that I wouldn’t change my upbringing.”
She had, but Knox hadn’t seen how that could be possible. He hadn’t seen how she could have enjoyed years of having no real say in basic things like where she lived. Knox tucked her hair behind her ear. “Tell me more about Lucian. I need reasons why I shouldn’t kill him.”
She shot him a mock scowl. “Lucian isn’t cruel. Self-centered and absentminded, yeah. At the core of all that, he’s very lonely.” All demons were plagued by loneliness, and Lucian felt it acutely, which made him seriously restless. “But he doesn’t have the emotional maturity to do anything about it or to connect with others. So he lives with a hole inside him. Once upon a time, he tried to fill it with drugs, alcohol, women, gambling, and all kinds of dangerous shit. He’s past that phase now, but he can’t fill that void. I’m not sure if he even knows exactly what he’s looking for in life, but he’s always searching for it, and he’s always searching in all the wrong places.”
Knox got it then. “Someone so lost can’t concentrate on the needs of another person.”
“That’s exactly it. Demons aren’t built to be alone. But he’s been alone for a very long time.”