Page 39 of Knight’s Retribution

Her stomach rolled. God, she felt sick. “That’s why he took me? Because he somehow knew this?”

“Yeah,” Rocco said.

“And could you? Could you sense it in me?”

His throat worked. “Yeah, baby, I could. And there was also the crimson birthmark on your thigh…it’s called the Beast’s touch.”

Her hand automatically dropped to her thigh. God, Diemos was always touching her there. Now she knew why.

Rocco’s body was so rigid as he took her in, it was obvious he was struggling to hold himself back from her. “I thought I had you covered. I thought my block was enough to stop anyone else from sensing it. I was fucking wrong,” he growled out.

She couldn’t go there, not right then. “So why would we want to bring this on sooner? Wouldn’t suppressing it be better?”

Scarlet leaned against the table. “If we can activate your power, we might be able to leave. And Rocco has something that should help… The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“It’s not pretty out there,” Tobias said, tilting his head toward the door. “Diemos is tearing Hell apart looking for you. We need to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

Fear spiked through her, and she grabbed for the table when her legs threatened to give out. “I can’t…I can’t go back to him. I can’t do that.”

Rocco crouched in front of her. “He’s not fucking getting you, Ky. You hear me? I won’t let him.”

She nodded, but nothing would stop the terror slicing through her veins. Rocco said it himself: Diemos was too strong for him to defeat. Too strong for all of them. They needed to get away before Diemos found them. “Do it. Do the ritual,” she rasped.

Rocco glanced at Tobias.

He nodded. “Ready when you are, brother.”

Roc looked back at Kyler. “We have to gather a few things. I’m going to need to leave you here with Scarlet for a while.”

She shook her head. She couldn’t lose him again. She wouldn’t survive it. “No…no, you said you wouldn’t leave me. You said—”

“Not leaving you, Ky,” Rocco said, his gaze intense, a fierceness to his voice that made it hard for her to believe anything else. “I’m coming right back. I promised you nothing could keep me from you and I meant it.”

Kyler forced herself to nod, but when Rocco walked out the door, it took everything in her not to beg for him to come back.

Chapter 11

Tobias covered the demon’s mouth, muffling his screams while Rocco removed the fucker’s spleen.

“How does that feel, motherfucker?” T hissed into his ear. “You remember me, right? I’m the guy you tortured for months.”

They had to keep the demons alive long enough to perform the ritual or their organs would turn to ash. Several already flailed around on the floor, gagged, hands and feet tied, and tendons cut, so they couldn’t call for help, or get up and sound the alarm when Rocco and Tobias left. Still, they’d have to hurry.

Rocco carefully placed the organ in a bag with the others while T trussed up the demon and looked out through the barred window in the cell’s door.

Fire flashed and blazed from the main cavern, lighting up the caves that branched off it. Diemos’s constant roar of fury, along with the screams of demons, echoed off the stone walls.

Diemos had been rampaging since he returned to find Kyler gone. The current demon king was lost in his fury. “We need to go,” Roc said. “Now.”

Both dressed in armor, they left the cell, locking it behind them. Making sure no one followed, they quickly headed back toward Lucifer’s quarters.

“You think this’ll work?” T asked.

“I hope so. I need to get Ky the fuck out of here. I can’t risk him finding her.”

They made it back without being followed. The demons seemed to have scattered, hiding, afraid of having Diemos’s wrath directed at them. And who the fuck could blame them?

T knocked on the door, calling out so Scarlet knew it was him. She opened it, and they rushed in, locking it behind them.