Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 110802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Alethea gave a fast shake of the head. “You were never possessive.”
“Not of you,” he said, and she barely hid her wince. When her eyes cut to Harper and narrowed, Knox’s demon rushed to the surface and growled at Alethea, “Don’t even look at her.”
Harper almost shivered as the temperature lowered by a few degrees. The others in the group froze, sensing the danger and not wanting to catch the entity’s attention.
Alethea’s eyelids flickered. “I just —”
“I never liked you,” it told her. “Too easy to seduce. Too eager to please.”
It was Harper’s turn to wince. If the demon was aiming to embarrass the dolphin, it was succeeding.
“Do not ever again think to censure what we do or don’t do,” added the demon. It retreated then. “If you’ll excuse me,” began Knox, “I have a speech to make.”
Pale and shaky, the dolphin stormed away without another word. Wise move.
Jonas cleared his throat. “I apologize on my sister’s behalf, Knox. And to you also, Harper.”
He didn’t make excuses for her, and Harper respected him for that. “Apology accepted, though it wasn’t yours to make.”
Knox led her forward, causing the others to part and let them through. On the podium, Knox took a microphone from a demon hovering there and cleared his throat. Silence immediately fell and everyone turned to face the podium. “I want to take a moment to thank you all for coming,” said Knox, voice amplified by the sound system. “And thank you to Belinda Thacker and her team for organizing the event and making it special.”
A quiet, dignified applause rang across the dome.
He linked his fingers with Harper. “This event was not only to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Underground’s opening, but also my mating to Harper Wallis. I have every confidence that she’ll make an excellent Prime and…”
Harper kind of shut off at that point, far too uncomfortable with the sort of praise he liked to lavish on her. She had no wish to stand there, flushing the same red as her dress. Looking around, she caught side of Belinda and the dolphin muttering to each other, looking equally pissed. Hmm. Harper wondered how they knew each other, but she supposed it was quite possible that Belinda had organized an event for Alethea’s lair in the past. She’d have to look into that at a later point. For now, she’d do what her demon was doing and delight in their misery over the rings.
“Before we step down from the podium, we have an announcement to make,” said Knox, which snapped her out of her musings.
Harper was pretty sure half, if not most, people were expecting him to announce that she was pregnant.
“Earlier tonight, Lawrence Crow was captured and killed.” Knox paused as people gasped. “We would have liked to help him, but he was beyond that. He was far too entrenched in his delusion, which is a sad thing. But he could in fact have been helped… had his mental state not been manipulated by another demon – a demon who convinced him that his pills were poisoning him and told him that he had a mission to complete.”
“What kind of mission?” Raul asked, frowning.
“To kill me,” said Harper. “But their plan didn’t work so well, because a near-rogue can’t be controlled.”
“Crow’s attention instead turned to me,” began Knox, “and he tried to attack me on several occasions. You’re wondering why anyone would do such a thing to Crow. It has come to my attention that there are demons who wish to see the fall of the Primes.” The crowd exchanged shocked looks. “They call themselves the Four Horsemen. Isla was one of them, which left only three… until Harper killed another of them in self-defense – the same demon who manipulated Crow.”
“Who was it?” asked Malden.
“The eldest son of the woman Crow kidnapped and butchered,” Knox told him. “When he prowled through the Underground with a photo of his mother, asking if anyone had seen her, we believed he was concerned for his mother’s safety. In truth, it wasn’t really her he was attempting to find, it was Crow – he’d lost control of his puppet. Unfortunately, we do not have the names of the other two Horsemen. It would not surprise me if they were in this very dome.” He ran his gaze along the crowd. “Know that I will find you,’ he warned. “And I will destroy you.”
“I’ve never heard of any demons calling themselves the Four Horsemen,” said Thatcher, brows pulled together in confusion.
“Now you have,” said Knox. “By all means conduct your own investigation. It might help us identify them sooner. You may all be interested to know that they are the source of all the rumors. They want the Primes to turn on each other and, in doing so, do all their dirty work for them. Be very careful what rumors you do and don’t believe.” With that, Knox handed the microphone back to the demon still hovering and then helped Harper down from the podium, where Tanner and Levi waited.