Page 20 of Premonition of Peace

There was a long silence before he spoke again. “Little witch, I told you already that I knew that you would have had issues being directly and knowingly involved. And regardless, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and done terrible things and never in my nine thousand years have I regretted them. But, for you, I came back to life willing to change. Willing to do what I haven’t done in nine thousand years.Be better. For you, Nathalie. The plan to get back, Samhain, all of it was my effort to get back to you. To be seen in your world and to be seen by you. To be sophysical you couldn’t send me away, salt me, or ignore me—or us.”

My lips parted in awe as my heart raced and my blood soared. Peace came out of the greenhouse during his speech and clasped her hands to her heart.

“I knew it,”she said dreamily, stars in her eyes.

Caretaker nodded in agreement.“He’s a charmer, that’s for sure.”

Bad Nat simply cocked her head in my direction, as if calling out checkmate. I gnawed at my lower lip, looking askance, trying to grab onto my swirling thoughts.

“Luci, I?—”

“Lucifer. Nathalie,” an all too familiar voice called. We both snapped up to see Not-Sasha heading toward us, a grin on her lips. She was wearing a flowy black dress that Sasha would never have chosen for herself. Lucifer and I shared a look.

“What the fuck now?”Bad Nat groaned.“We were finally going to get somewhere here.”

“Why is she here?”The Warden asked. Peace cringed and headed back for her safe place, Caretaker close behind.

“There’s no way she could have known we would be here unless she’s following us somehow,”Ann noted, pushing her glasses back into place.“That’s going to be a problem. We need to figure out how.”

I pulled a smile to my lips. “Sasha, what are you doing here? Where’s Sienna?”

“I left Sienna to shower,” she replied nonchalantly, pulling a seat up in between Lucifer and I. “Decided I needed a walk, when I saw you two in here. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but you’re a hard woman to catch.”

I made a noncommittal noise. “I’ve been busy with work and whatnot.”

“Can’t be too busy,” she said, her gaze flicking to Lucifer. “You’re having lunch with him, but it’s fine. What I wanted to say can wait.” She leaned into Lucifer, practically purring. Her cat tail swished like she had prey in her sights. “How are you, Luci?”

“Hey, Sasha,” he said, pointedly leaning back. “You know I don’t like it when people call me that.”

Sasha pouted, shooting a look my way. “I know, but you letheruse it. Why can’t I? We were such good friends in life, after all. More than friends, really.”

Lucifer lifted an eyebrow. “I helped you through your transition into immortality, Sasha. That was all. There’s no need to make it out like something it wasn’t.”

She pursed her lips. “Hm. If you say so.”

“I do,” he repeated, a harder edge in his tone threatening violence. A shiver ran down my spine, but not out of fear.

It wasdesire.

“Well,” she said, giving a fake smile and twining a lock of midnight hair around her index finger. “That’s unfortunate. I wasn’t aware the veil changed so much for you.”

I choked on my sip of water, not liking where this conversation was going.

“Yes,” he said, keeping his expression neutral. “It has a way of doing that, don’t you think?”

“Well, Sasha,” I cut in, before this conversation could get any more out of hand, “while we’re happy to see you, you caught us at a bad time. We were actually just heading out.”

She cocked an eyebrow and shot a look at our untouched food. “Really? Seems like you just started.”

“Business, what can you do?” I shrugged. I lifted a hand to flag down Toni. She approached our table with wary eyes and a polite, stiff smile.

“Can we get boxes and the check?”

“Of course, let me get those.”

While our waitress flitted back to the counter, Not-Sasha continued her abrasive intrusion. “You seem to have a lot of business going on, huh?” She gave me a cool cursory look. “But fine, you can do that. Lucifer and I should catch up. Don’t you think so?”

She trailed a finger up his arm seductively and even though he moved it, part of me wanted to hit something watching her touch him that way. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that this is most definitelynotSasha, and there is absolutely no reason to be jealous. Moreover, fighting an unknown entity in my friend’s body was a big no-no.

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