Page 44 of Knight’s Dominion

“I don’t see it that way. I can’t.”

Her fist came down on the bathroom counter. “This is what I didn’t want. What I was trying to avoid.”

The words came out before he could stop them. “Would being with me be so awful? I know we’ve had our differences…”

“Yes, damn you.”

Her words were another blow, hard and sharp. “I won’t force you into something, not when it repulses you so much, but you have a power that you obviously can’t control…”

“What? No…I don’t have a power. I never have…”

“Grace, you drew mine right out of my body, and when you gave it back, it flung me across the fucking alley.”

“I what… What did I do?”

“You need to stay here until you learn to use and control it, just like every other demi new to their powers.”

She stiffened.

“Right now, you’re a risk to others. You can leave when you can control it.” Just saying it felt wrong.

He turned to go.

“I won’t be pressured to mate.”

He dipped his chin. What could he do? She didn’t want him.

“You’re doing this to punish me, aren’t you? Making me stay here…with you.”

Fuck. Ouch.

Her words struck like daggers, causing an anguish inside him he didn’t know how to process. He turned back to her, and the truth came unbidden, a truth he barely understood, but for some reason needed her to hear. “I would never punish you, Grace. How could I when my every instinct is screaming out for me to drop to my knees and worship you?”

She looked at him, shocked, but said nothing.

Grace didn't want anything from him. She didn’t want him. Maybe that was a good thing since he only seemed capable of hurting her.

He’d made her a promise to leave her alone. Now somehow he had to learn to live with it.

CHAPTER 13

Zenon sipped his beer, and sat back, scanning the bar—people watching, humans called it. And the frail creatures in this shithole were watching him right back. Not meeting his eyes, though, never that. Nothing new. He had the same effect on humans as a hungry lion walking into a room.

It used to bother him.

Now it kind of amused him.

How Mia saw him was all that mattered. His mate didn’t find him terrifying, she told him all the time he was “beautiful” or “insanely hot” and showed him daily. No one else’s opinion of him mattered.

As for his brothers, things had improved there as well, and their mates had grown used to him.

The demi they retrieved and trained still weren’t sure of him, so he left the training to his brothers, but you couldn’t win them all.

The door across the bar opened and Silas strode in. At six and a half feet tall, and built like a warrior, the angel was seriously intimidating. Like always, he was dressed in black from head to toe. Add in the heavy black boots and thick dark lashes that ringed his silver eyes, so it looked like he was wearing eyeliner, the guy looked like some kind of devil-worshipping, goth, serial killer.

Silas spotted Zenon and shoved his fingers through his short, gold and black hair, and made his way over.

“This place is a dump,” Zenon said by way of a greeting.