Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
They’re close. And they’d follow what orders Knox had given them.
A smirk spread across Alethea’s face as she tapped her nail on the glass box. “I’ll bet you’re surprised to learn that Jonas and I are Horsemen. I’ll bet you didn’t think I was smart enough to carry out such a plan. Wrong. Jonas and I have worked together every step of the way.” She slung a put-out look at Jonas, adding, “Except for the part where you tried getting an alliance with Lucifer and the use of an archdemon, of course. You’d failed to tell me about that.”
“Which I apologized for,” Jonas said through gritted teeth. “Let it go.”
She sniffed. “Fine. Let’s get on with this. I’ve been looking forward to the moment when Knox would be forced to watch his mate and child die.”
Harper glared at them. “You could really stand there while two beasts tore an innocent child to pieces?”
Pursing his lips, Jonas was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled and glanced at Harper over his shoulder. “Yes, I believe I can.”
“I guess it’s not like you haven’t killed a kid before,” Harper clipped, referring to whatever demonic child was sacrificed to free the incorporeal.
“No, it’s not,” Jonas freely admitted. “I first killed a child when I was seven. Cordell ordered it done. As I said, he was insane. Being without an anchor was too much for him.”
Harper’s face fell. “He forced you to kill other children?” She sounded unable to wrap her head around it.
“I can’t count the number of times I whipped or caned another child for ‘rebuking’ his advances or some imaginary slight.” Fury blazed in Jonas’s eyes. “That sick fuck liked children, you see. He would take in stray demons and their children; then he would kill the adults and keep the children for himself.”
“He had a household full of them,” added Alethea, voice flat, gaze focused inward. “He liked to hurt them. Abuse them. Most of all, he relished their fear.”
“If they bored him—and by bore him, I mean if they didn’t show the appropriate amount of fear when he hurt them—he would make one of the other children kill them.” Jonas swallowed. “His sentinels were of the same ilk as him, and so he sometimes shared us with them. Some were particularly brutal.”
Despite what they’d been through, Knox couldn’t find it in him to feel any sympathy for two people who were planning to sic two beasts on his son and then kill his mate.
Harper frowned. “You were initially stray demons?”
“Little history lesson,” said Jonas. “There was once a Prime by the name of Houston Steward—Knox will remember him. He was my father; Alethea’s father. He wasn’t extremely powerful, but he was strong. Good. Honorable. A true leader. But his lair was small, and larger lairs kept coming along, plucking the strongest members out of our lair. It got smaller and smaller, until it was too weak to stand on its own. The remaining demons were forced to become strays or join other lairs. Only those who were utterly loyal to my father stayed.”
“The other lairs were well-aware that ours was so frequently targeted,” added Alethea. “Some did try to help when he appealed to them for aid. Nora—she was Prime of Dario’s lair at the time—tried. Isla’s old Prime, Rhea, also tried; Isla was actually one of her sentinels at the time, so she did what she could at Rhea’s command. But did the other Primes offer to help him? No.” Her upper lip curled. “They were happy to take in those who fled the sinking ship.”
Jonas placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t until the death toll got too high that the other Primes acted. Our father was dead by then. The other Primes didn’t care about that. They didn’t care about the lives that were lost. They only stepped in because those deaths came close to attracting human attention,” he said bitterly.
“Our mother fled with us.” Alethea’s eyes dulled with pain. “Cordell took us in, killed her, and made our lives a living hell. We had another sibling. Isaac was only three.”
Jonas let out a shaky breath. “He was so small and frail. His body couldn’t take Cordell’s brutal ways. He died of internal injuries. And all that could have been avoided if the other Primes had just united to stand with our father. Instead, they turned a blind eye.” He glared at Knox. “You turned a blind eye. If you had stood with my father, the others would have left him alone out of blind terror.”
“You’re not being realistic,” said Knox, bluntly. “Either that or you aren’t fully aware of the truth.”
Alethea’s hands balled up into fists. “We know the truth.”
“Then you know that your father aimed to build an army and declare war.” He noticed the way both siblings stiffened, but Knox went on, “He approached demons from many lairs and tried persuading them to join his side and be an ‘inside man’ for him, much like you did with Roan.”