Page 88 of Knight’s Dominion

"Why do you hate me, Grace?”

Her eyes flew open, and a shadow moved across them when she turned to him. “I don’t hate you.”

The anymore hovered between them. “Grace…”

“I need to get some sleep. You should go." Her gaze darted to the door.

A cold wash moved through him. Grace trusted him to fuck her to multiple orgasms but not share the secrets that weighed her down. Secrets that had shaped her into the female she had become. Beautiful, strong, sexy, a fucking warrior.

Secrets that obviously involved him.

As her mate, he should be the one to make it better for her, to bring her peace from whatever caused her distress, bring her happiness. But that's not what they had. Instead, he’d somehow hurt her, and he needed to know how. “Please, tell me.”

She rolled away from him and got out of bed, uncaring of her nakedness, and dammit, he wanted her again, badly. She grabbed a T-shirt from her dresser and pulled it over her head. It was worn and faded and had “Linkin Park” scrolled across the front. It barely skimmed the tops of her thighs.

"Can you just let this go?"

He sat up, leaning against the headboard. “You made it clear how much you hated me from the moment I met you. But now we work together. Sleep together. Grace, we need to clear the air for this to work. And honestly, I need to know what the fuck I did or I’ll lose my damn mind.” He forced himself to relax, to appear as nonconfrontational as possible. “I think I deserve to know what I did, don't you?"

Grace paced away, then back, a look in her eyes that wrenched something deep inside him. Christ, what the fuck was it?

He felt her distress and pain like it was his own. But he didn't say that, didn't want to freak her out. Their connection was growing every day. A constant torment. He could feel her, but he couldn't touch her when he so desperately wanted to.

Finally, she sat on a chair in the corner of her room and pulled her legs up, crossing them and tugging the shirt down at the front with one hand to cover herself. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to let the shirt go, to not hide any part of herself from him, but he kept his mouth shut.

The silence stretched out, and he didn't think she was going to talk, but then she looked up and the pain in her eyes cut him to the bone. Her other hand lifted the gold rings she wore around her neck, and she gripped them tight. "I had a family once."

His stomach dropped and dread crawled up his throat instantly.

“My mother and father were both demi. Did you know that? I'm a second-generation demi-demon. I also had a younger brother, Curtis.”

No, he hadn't known that.

She gripped the shirt tighter, and he knew instantly it had belonged to her brother. And the rings she always wore had been her mother’s and father’s.

“Our parents blocked us, kept us safe. Neither my brother nor I had gained our powers, but we felt it, knew there was something there, you know? I guess it’s a second-gen thing? None of the other demi I know experienced it. Whatever it was, because of that, we were able to train to block ourselves even before we got powers, so we could go to school and have actual lives." She glanced up at him. “That’s why I’m so good at blocking. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”

He swallowed hard, knowing what he was about to hear next was going to be bad. “What happened, Grace?" The waves of pain coming off her intensified, making his own chest ache. He wanted to go to her, but she had closed herself off. She didn't want his pity or comfort.

"We'd both been homeschooled until we were strong enough to hold a secure block. My brother was fifteen when he was able to go to school. He'd made some friends, had a girlfriend.” She bit her lip, her eyes closing for several seconds. “We'd just gotten off the bus and were walking home. We were talking, not paying attention to our surroundings, and Curtis got clipped by a guy on a bike. It knocked him over and he landed weird, breaking his arm badly and hitting his head. He was in a lot of pain, unable to focus on anything else. I felt it…his block dropping. I tried to cover us both, but I was still young and didn’t have my powers. I wasn’t…I wasn’t strong enough."

Her eyes were haunted. Seeing her in pain was torture.

"I got him home as fast as I could. I knew once we got there everything would be okay. My parents could cover him." She looked up at him, agony and rage in those beautiful eyes. “Demons. They followed us home."

Fuck.

"My dad, he fought, but they were too strong, even against his powers. My mother had a healing power and was defenseless once they killed him. All three of them were slaughtered in front of me...and I... I just ran. I put up the strongest block I could, and I ran." A single tear slid down her cheek, and she brushed it away. "I survived.”

Fuck, so much worse than he thought. He remembered them. Her family. “Angel…”

She glanced up again, but she wasn’t really looking at him, she was looking inward. “I went back the next night. I was in denial, didn’t want it to be true, and…you were there.”

Chaos stilled.

“You were with Lazarus and Kryos, and I heard you talking. You blamed them. You lifted my brother in your arms, and you were so angry. You said it was my parents’ fault Curtis was dead, that if my father had brought his family to you, they’d all still be alive.” She gripped the fabric of her shirt tighter, her knuckles going white. “My father had lost friends and loved ones to demons. He hated you for that. Convinced himself it was your fault for letting demons into the city. He didn’t trust you or the knights and told us not to, either. And when you blamed my dad, I hated you even more. I convinced myself that it was your fault as well. That they were dead because of you.”

He wanted to go to her so damn badly. “Grace…”