Page 14 of Knight’s Absolution

On full alert, they scanned the area.

Zen’s phone buzzed, loud in the silence. He pulled it out of his pocket and sighed when he checked the screen.

“Lucifer?” Laz asked.

Zen muttered a curse.

“What is it this time?” Chaos asked as he searched the shadows. “Another picture of his cat? Or more about his truly disturbing sex life?”

Lucifer liked to send pics of his cat, memes he thought were amusing, and occasionally shared tales of his sexploits, much to Zenon’s horror. The former king of Hell was determined to build a relationship with his grandson. Yes, it was a fucking odd way to go about it, but then this was Lucifer. Unsurprisingly, Zenon wasn’t that excited about any of it.

And after what happened with Tobias, the way Lucifer had used him to send the beast back to Hell, none of them were the guy's biggest fan.

Zen rubbed his temples. “He’s going on a…Christ, a blind date.” He held up his phone. Two pictures of Lucifer were side by side on the screen, one of him in a tee and jeans, the other in a dark suit, “this or that” typed along the bottom. In both, he was doing that duck-lips thing.

Zenon shoved the phone back in his pocket. It buzzed again, then again…and again. Zen growled. “Ignore it.”

They split up, walking over the empty lot, each of them reaching out with their senses and got the same as Gunner. Not one damn thing.

Finally, they had no choice but to give up and head to the city for their normal patrol.

But for some reason, the farther away Gunner got from that empty lot, the stronger the sense of…wrongness gripping him low in the gut became.

Why couldn’t she die?

Pain was all Luna knew anymore. She thought she’d suffered before, but this was a whole new level. She was too weak to move, to speak, to breathe.

She’d stopped breathing a while ago, she didn’t know how long, but it was more than a day…possibly a lot longer. She guessed breathing wasn’t necessary for her kind.

Her eyes couldn’t open anymore, so dry from the lack of any type of fluids that her lids were now stuck to her eyeballs.

And still, she lived.

If she was strong enough, she’d take off her own head. That’s how the knights killed demons, removing their heads. But seeing as she couldn’t move at all, or had any type of weapon, that, unfortunately, wasn’t an option.

Gunner’s pretty, pale amber eyes filtered through her confused and sluggish mind. He had lovely lips as well. She’d never been kissed before. What would those soft yet firm lips feel like against hers?

What would it be like to be kissed by someone like Gunner?

She’d thought about it before. A lot.

Thinking about him had always made her even hungrier. And imagining feeding from him hadn’t make her want to throw up, it had made her heart race.

Seeing as it wasn’t beating anymore, that didn’t happen now. And the pain, the unrelenting burning, tearing hunger in her stomach, her throat, the agonizing throb of her head, made it impossible to focus on much else.

Her only escape was the memory of Gunner.

The scrape of steel echoed around the room.

Luna lay there and waited, it wasn’t as if she could lift her head to see who walked in. If they were here to kill her, she was only sorry she couldn’t thank them for it. If they were here to torture her, she doubted she’d feel it past the pain she was already in.

She didn’t care who it was.

A hand cupped her face. “Look at me.”

Sir.

He quickly worked out she couldn’t because he pried her eyelids open, forcing her to look at him.