Page 164 of Knight’s Retribution

They had to have sex to complete the mating, and yeah, she was far from ready for that. “Don’t do that, Ky. Don’t look for reasons to twist what we’ve got, to pull away from me. I fucking love you.” He pushed off the wall and moved closer, but not so close she didn’t have her space. “You’re mine, my female, my mate, no matter what. I don’t give a fuck if we don’t do it officially. How I feel about you will never change. From the moment I met you, I’ve dreamed of bringing you here, of having you here with me. Now you are. And that’s all I need to make me the happiest fucking male on this earth.”

She moved toward him then, and Rocco stilled as Kyler, biting her lip, lifted her hands and softly rested them on his crossed forearms, looking up at him. “I love you, too. You know that, don’t you?”

Rocco dragged in a breath, the first deep one it felt like he’d taken since he found her. “Yeah, pumpkin, I know. And it’s gonna be okay. We’ll make this work. I promise.”

She nodded, then released him, and he had no choice but to let her go, because it had become obvious, that yes, she could touch him, but it became too much when it was for any length of time.

Kyler moved to the couch. “Can you tell me why Tobias and Scarlet didn’t come with us?”

He motioned for her to sit, and when she did, he sat on the opposite end of the couch, stretching his legs out in front of him, while she curled her legs up, blue eyes trained on him.

Christ, he could sit here for hours, weeks, a fucking lifetime just looking into those eyes. “It’s a long story. But the bullet points are, Scarlet died and T went dark. Then he went rogue. His demon took control, and T did some really bad shit. We thought he was dead until Lucifer found him and offered him a deal. T’s part in that deal was sacrificing himself to vanquish a Hell beast that was summoned. His reward, being with Scar again. She’d been in Hell all this time, with no memory of T. That was all T cared about, but Lucifer gifted him with more power, but only when he needed it most. That was today. The power kicked in and T did what he was sent to Hell to do: get us out.”

Kyler frowned. “But why? Why would Lucifer care?”

“There will be a reason, we just don’t know it yet.”

Her fingers tightened in her lap. “We can’t leave them there, they’re not safe. What if Diemos has them already?”

“I told you I’m connected to my brothers, yeah? Well, we can sense each other, that’s how I know he’s okay. There’s no darkness, no pain, which makes me believe that both of them are safe and unharmed.”

She nodded, trembling slightly from her relief. “Can you use my blood again to get them out?”

Shit, with everything that happened, he’d forgotten about the cut he’d given her. “We need to find another way to get them free, but yeah, we’ll need your blood again.” He stood. “But for now, we need to dress your cut.” He grabbed the first-aid kit from his bathroom and then didn’t know what to do when he was standing in front of her again. “You think you’ll be okay?” He held up the case. “I’ll do my best not to directly touch you. Just cleaning and wrapping.”

She nodded, and he lowered to his knees, crouching in front of her.

Gripping her sleeve carefully, she pulled it up, exposing the slice. It wasn’t overly deep, but it wasn’t just a graze either.

Rocco moved as quickly and carefully as he could, making sure his skin didn’t make contact with hers as he cleaned it. He showed her the butterfly stitches, and she nodded. There was no way to do it without at least the tip of his finger touching her arm, and as he pressed them into place, her body stiffened in a way that tore his heart down the center.

“Will I always have this ability? To open the portal with my blood, I mean?” she rasped. “Because I don’t want it, Rocco. It’s the reason he came for me. And I think…I think he’ll keep coming for me as long as this…thing, this ability, is inside me, pumping through my veins.”

He glanced at the gold amulet hanging around Kyler’s neck. It was imbued with angelic power and would make it impossible for demons to track her. Chaos had given it to her as soon as James pulled up in the underground parking garage. Eve had worn it when she first came here for the same reason. “For now, the amulet will keep you safe.”

There were several beats of silence. “So that’s a yes, I’m stuck with this awful thing inside me?”

Christ, he hadn’t planned on sharing this part with her yet, not while she was still so traumatized after what she’d been through, because this would just be another blow. He’d been quiet too long because she grew even more still.

“Rocco?”

Fuck. “There is a way to neutralize it, for good.” He used a cotton pad to smear antiseptic cream on her cut, then grabbed a bandage. “But like I said, the amulet will do that for you. Just keep it on and you will stay off their radar,” he said and taped down the bandage, still trying to avoid telling her.

“But it will still be there,” she whispered. “It will still be inside me, and that means I’m valuable to Diemos.”

Rocco stood, and she scrambled off the couch as well.

“Tell me. I want it gone, Rocco. Tell me how to get it out of me.”

Her voice was high, panic growing, and he swallowed several times, feeling fucking sick that he couldn’t help her. He did his best to gentle his voice because now he had to deliver another blow to his beloved female that would only cause her more torment. “Baby, the only way to take it from you permanently…is to mate.”

Her throat worked, and she blinked rapidly. “We have to have sex,” she said hoarsely.

Sex? What they’d do, what they did before they took her from him was not sex, not even close. It was so so much deeper than that. The connection they’d shared… It was a fucking religious experience. That she refused to remember that or that it was easier for her to turn what they’d done together into something as trivial as sex, told him just how much she felt the need to protect herself, even from him.

And he should shut the fuck up and say nothing, but he couldn’t stop himself. “We would mate, Kyler. Mating is…I don’t have the words, only the ones my brothers have shared and they’ve all struggled to explain it. We wouldn’t be having sex. It’s not just fucking, baby, it’s more, in every conceivable way.”

Her expression shuttered, and she looked down. “Right.”