Page 37 of Knight’s Absolution

Gunner stood against Luna’s closed door and tried to gather his own fraying emotions.

Terror had fired through him when she’d vanished like that.

He told her he’d leave her alone, but he didn’t know if he could. He wanted to be back in that room with her, wanted to be near her.

But if she walked back out and found him still standing here, she might freak out and pull a disappearing act on him again. So he forced himself to back away from her door, to return the way they’d come. Each step away felt more wrong than the last.

As he strode through the control room and toward the balcony, he locked eyes with Grace. “She needs some time. Can you check on her later?”

“Of course, Gunner. Should I tell her when you’ll be home?”

He swallowed, his throat tight as hell. “I think it’s best if I give her some space.” Yanking his shirt over his head, he tucked it in the waistband of his jeans and dove off the side of the building as his wings sprung from his back.

He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to kill something. He needed to hurt the evil fucker who had convinced Luna she wasn’t worth anything, who had gotten in her head and warped the way she saw herself until she’d lost sight of who she was.

“I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know how to be…when I’m not with him.”

A roar tore from him as he flew over the city, heading back to the place where he’d found her.

Only now the burned remains of a house littered the area. A house that had been hidden from them. Where Luna had been hidden from him.

Where she had been brutally punished for saving him.

Christ. His gut gripped tight.

Whoever that fucking demon had given Ronan’s power to was gone as well. The fucker would have taken them with him. No doubt hiding somewhere else, waiting, watching for his next shot.

Luna said the demon would come for her. He’d try to take her from Gunner. That wasn’t going to happen. He’d make sure of it.

“Come out and face me!” he roared. “Fight me, you twisted fuck.”

Nothing. No one showed themselves, and that just had his rage shooting higher.

Not knowing where that demon was or when he would try to come for Luna—and the fear that she might run before he could get through to her—was seriously fucking with him.

“They’ve gone.”

Gunner turned at Rocco’s voice.

“I’ve been watching,” his brother said.

He’d lost more weight, Gunner noted, his cheeks appeared drawn, his clothes looser on his tall frame. “Thank you, brother,” Gunner said, not asking why he looked as if he’d taken a giant step back when he’d seemed to be improving, if only a little. Because to a lesser extent he understood. Nothing would cure or fix Rocco, nothing but having his female returned to him.

“How is she?” Rocco asked.

Gunner shoved his fingers through his hair. “Confused, scared, angry. That fucker killed her mother, he’s had her since she was seven, Roc. His toxic fucking blood is the only blood she’d ever had. He used her as a weapon, said if she didn’t do as he demanded, he’d take it out on her brother. But that fucker had already killed him. So yeah, she’s fucking struggling right now.”

Rocco’s eyes flashed black, then back to blue. “She’s talking, sharing, that’s gotta be a good sign.”

Gunner planted his hands on his hips. “Brother, I’m the reason she was in that cell in the first place. She tried to warn me the night we came here, and he caught her. The state she was in, that was punishment for helping me.”

A muscle in Roc's jaw jumped, and his eyes flashed again but stayed black this time. “She needs you.”

“I wish she did.” He swallowed hard, pacing away and back. “She doesn’t want a damn thing to do with me. The last thing she should have to deal with is some desperate fucking needy male.”

“You’re wrong, brother.” Rocco’s white, silver-tipped wings snapped out from his back. “You don’t know this, because you haven’t felt that bond between the two of you grow yet. But I promise you, even without mating, she feels it. Even if she’s afraid of it, even if she’s not ready to accept it, she feels it.” Roc’s gaze lowered, hiding his demon who had come forward to stare at Gunner through his brother’s eyes. Gunner had started to think Roc and his demon had made some kind of unholy pact to work side by side until they got Kyler back because his control over it, while he was so volatile, was seriously impressive.

“Roc…”