Page 21 of Knight’s Salvation

Her stomach twisted, but he didn’t want her pity, so she kept her expression neutral. “You didn’t want to join the others?”

“I’d never been to Earth before.”

“You didn’t know them?”

He shook his head.

“Why did you leave Hell? Why come to Earth?”

He rose from the floor suddenly and took several steps back. Dammit, she needed to learn when to shut up.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said roughly.

His answer just gave her more questions, but she squashed them. “That must’ve been hard.”

“Better here than Hell.” He answered in a flat voice that told her question time was over.

“Right.” What else could she say?

The scowl was back. “You finished the interrogation?”

She nodded.

He was still bare chested, wearing only a pair of dark gray nylon shorts and trainers. He was tall, lean, cut to perfection, and covered in all those beautiful tattoos. But the ink didn’t cover the multitude of scars covering his body or the horrifying marks ringing his throat. Her stomach tightened. No one feared touch like Zenon did unless they’d suffered repeated physical abuse. And he had suffered; she had no doubt on that front.

Who would do something like that?

“Zenon, look, I’m sorry for prying. You’re just…hard to get a gauge on, I guess.”

Hands on his hips, head down, hair forward, he cursed several times then looked up at her. “Before when I…shit.” He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “When I hurt you. I meant it when I said it won’t happen again. My demon only comes to the surface when it senses a threat.”

“And it thought I was a threat…to you?” Zenon towered over her, massive shoulders, built like a tank. How could she be any type of threat to him?

The muscle in his jaw tightened. “You touched me.”

It cost him to say that, she could see it in the way he held himself. Always defensive, always prepared for the next blow. She tried to swallow down the lump that formed in her throat. The thought of being touched by someone, by her, had created enough panic that he’d felt the need to lash out, to retreat. “I won’t do it again, Zenon. I promise.”

His mouth twisted into something she thought might be pain before he hid it. Seeing that look on his face caused such a visceral reaction inside her she almost went to him. But then she watched that fierce mask come back down. She hated it.

“My demon doesn’t see you as a threat anymore. If you…if you touched me, it wouldn’t…I wouldn’t harm you.”

Was he saying he wanted her to touch him? “Okay.” The vulnerability was there again, but he looked down, hiding from her. “Zenon—”

“I should go. I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

He didn’t move.

Mia stood and he tensed as she moved toward him. She moved slowly, giving him plenty of opportunity to back away, to tell her to stop. “Thank you for bringing me back to my room.” When she reached him, she made sure to keep her hands at her sides. Still, he didn’t step back. He watched her through his lashes, every muscle in his body held rigid.

She didn’t know why she was pushing this—perhaps it was the death wish she’d always had, or perhaps it was that flash of pain she’d seen when she said she wouldn’t touch him again—but she wanted to show Zenon that touch could be good.

“I know I promised not to touch you, and I won’t…not with my hands. And if you want me to stop, I will. Straight away.”

Zenon stayed where he was and continued to watch her…waiting.

Mia moved a little closer. “In our family, this is how we thank people for doing something nice for us.” She lifted up onto her tiptoes, but he was way too tall to kiss on the cheek, so she pressed a barely there kiss to his heavy biceps. He sucked in a sharp breath, but still didn’t move.

“Okay?” she whispered, looking up at him.