Page 40 of Premonition of Peace

“Aeshma.”

Ah. His old atma. While Lucifer was my familiar now, every demon was born with an atma, or soulmate. The being whose magic was most complimentary to theirs. Over time, magic corrupts. It decays. It spreads. Bonding to one’s atma stopped the growth, but it also stopped the decay. It ensured they never lost their minds to their magic—just like witches and their psychic bondmates.

“She rejected you.”

“She did,” he nodded. “To say I was angry was an understatement. I went to my mother about it, and do you know what she told me?” I waited, not bothering to respond to his rhetorical question. “If she rejected me, then that meant I was not worthy of Aeshma’s love. She said I needed to prove myself. To earn Aeshma’s affection and make myself worthwhile in her eyes by showing her I was more than a demon of desire.”

Ouch.

There’s advice and then there’s that.

“That’s honestly really shitty.”

He chuckled. “I thought so too. Her response was the final straw that broke me.”

“It’s why you left.”

He nodded again. “In my rage, I ripped open a portal between worlds and came to Earth. The rest, well, you know how it ended.” He smiled ruefully, but I saw it for what it was. A mask to hide the pain.

“Your mother loved you in her own way.”

“I know.” He sighed. “It took me a few thousand years to come around, but I did eventually realize that she was trying to help. You only get one atma, and without them you risk going insane. She didn’t want that for me, so she tried to convince me to win over Aeshma.”

“And in doing so invalidated you,” I said quietly. “She pushed you away without meaning to.”

Lucifer inclined his head in agreement. “You know what I regret most out of everything?”

My lips parted. A small, unkind voice told me it would be Aeshma. That he regretted leaving and letting her slip away. Aeshma was long gone. Piper ended her. But it would kill a part of me if he wished for that future instead of the one he was now living with me.

I wasn’t sure if I could stomach that answer. All I did was shake my head.

“Never saying goodbye.” Anguish crept into his voice and my heart nearly cracked open and bled for him. “I stormed out and never went back. Demons can’t die. Not without being harvested, so she would have known I’d left, but not where to or what became of me.”

I squeezed a little tighter where my hand fisted his hair. Leaning forward, I pressed my forehead against his. I didn’t have words to make it better. There was nothing I could say that would fix it or reframe the situation. It sucked, because he made a choice when angry and has had to live with it for thousands of years.

The door creaked open. I planted a quick peck on his lips before pulling away. I had to take a deep breath to steady myself for what I would see. Señora swept into the room, her arms clutching a wicker basket full of various herbs and stones. The number of threads and connections multiplied. Señora had a lot of bonds. Far more than I would have thought for a hermitess who had locked herself in her shop with several cats.

She set her basket of things down and turned back around, her gaze lingering on me. “How are you feeling, child?”

“I’m fine, just . . . overwhelmed by it all.”

“Seeing the fabric of the universe will do that,” Señora deadpanned. I pressed my lips together instead of saying something snarky in reply. I didn’t get by this long without knowing when to keep my mouth shut. She might adore me, but the woman was terrifying and lacked morals. It’s the reason I’d chosen to move in with her years ago, but still. Caution wasalwayswarranted.

“I’ve got the Eye. I can see the threads. Now how do I use it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Seeing as I’ve never worn it myself, I can’t speak on the matter. Perhaps you should be asking him.” She thrust her chin toward Lucifer who lifted his hands, palms forward.

“It was my father’s. That doesn’t mean I know how to use it.”

Frustration bubbled up in me. Bad Nat kissed her teeth and said,“It’s almost like someone didn’t read the manual before deciding to add it as a part of her permanent aesthetic.”

“There is no manual,”The Warden replied.

“You were the one on board with her putting in the Eye,”Peace argued at the same time.

Bad Nat shrugged.“Never said whether I was or wasn’t. I said she’d already made her decision. It didn’t matter what we thought either way.”

I pulled away from them, my teeth grinding under my annoyance.

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