Page 46 of Knight’s Absolution

A year ago was when she got her powers, when he felt her, then lost her. “You didn’t feel anything good during that time? Just recently?”

Her finger began tracing the brand on his chest. “Just recently, but I guess I didn’t have any reason to feel any of the good ones.”

The until now went unsaid. Now she had a reason to feel the good ones. Fuck, yeah, that pleased the hell out of him and destroyed him at the same time. “How are you feeling right now, love?”

She smiled sweetly. “I’m warm, and my skin feels sensitive, but in a good way. Does yours?”

“Yeah, it does,” he said, fighting to control…shit, everything, his breathing, his pulse, his hands, his cock.

She pressed closer still. “And my belly, it’s all swirly and tingly. Is yours doing that as well?”

Fuck me. She was literally going to kill him. “Yeah, I got some of that going on as well.”

She sighed happily. “I really like it.”

He leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead, unable to stop himself. “Me too.”

“I’ve been a little all over that place, haven’t I?”

He’d most definitely noticed. She breathed him in, and his balls tightened.

“That’s only to be expected, everything’s still so new.”

Her fingers traced patterns on his chest. “I guess being emotionally and physically shut down for so long will do that. It’s confusing as hell, Gunner. Up until a year ago, the only things I felt were hunger and pain. I didn’t know I was capable of feeling anything else.”

He tried not to freeze, tried not to react in a way that would upset her, and made his body stay relaxed as he rubbed her back. “You won’t feel either of those things ever again, love. I’ll make sure of it.”

Azel was going to die screaming.

CHAPTER 13

Hell

Scarlet winced as she ran her healing rag as gently as possible over the other female’s back.

Scarlet.

The name Tobias had chosen for her was pretty. She’d been so long without one. They called her drudge, the demons and Diemos. She didn’t know why Tobias was in chains here, what he’d done, but she found herself thinking about him more and more often.

The female beside her hissed.

“I’m so sorry,” Scarlet whispered as she dipped her rag in the small bowl at her hip.

“I’m fine,” the female said through gritted teeth.

Diemos himself had sent for Scarlet to tend her, and not for the first time. The small, fragile-looking female belonged to their king. Though going by how often he punished her, she obviously didn’t want to belong to Diemos. Not surprising. Who would?

He never allowed her to leave his quarters either. No, she wasn’t locked in one of the cells like Tobias, at the mercy of demons, but this was still a prison. And if this wasn’t torture, Scarlet didn’t know what was.

A shiver slid through her as she looked around the king's chambers. There was a glossy black stone bed, the mattress covered in deep blue silks, and a large charred wooden chest sat at the end of it. A few other dark wood pieces of furniture were scattered around—a desk, a couch with blue silk cushions—but what made her shudder with revelation was the glistening dark walls. They looked like glossy obsidian, but when Scarlet had taken a closer look, it was blood that made the stone shine, blood running down the walls from the cells above.

“Would you like me to help you to the bathroom?” Scarlet asked, another task she’d done several times when the female had been too weak to walk on her own.

The other female shook her head. “He told me not to move.”

Scarlet’s heart ached for her, but there was nothing she could do. The king would do terrible things to both of them if they went against him. The way he obsessed over the small female, watched her, controlled her, was unsettling.

She eased her rag over the female’s abused skin again and thought about Tobias, the way he’d asked for her name every single day she’d tended him—how she’d felt the day he’d given her one of her own.