Page 14 of Legendary

I was fine. Fine, fine, just fucking fine.

I noticed as she brought her hand down to her side as she watched me carefully. I reached for my shirt collar and started fidgeting with it. I had to leave Jonah and my thoughts and feelings about the whole situation here. I couldn’t bring them with me.

“Natalia?” A voice tore through my panic. Dani’s soft questioning voice. My heart settled and my breathing started to return back to its normal pattern. My anxiety was more aware of itself at this moment when she was around. I liked her being around. I wanted to twirl each of her curls with my fingers, I wanted her to smile at me the way she had after our night in my bed.

Natalia peered over her shoulder at her. “Yes?”

Dani snuck a glance at me, then back at Natalia. “If you guys are done, can I talk to you?”

The High Priestess opened her mouth, but then closed it. She looked at me, unsure if our conversation was over. I ran a hand through my hair roughly and shook my head. “Yeah, we’re done. You can use my room if you want.”

“Nicholas, I…” Natalia started, but I put my hand up to stop her words, interrupting her with my own. “Go talk, I’m fine. Promise.”

I pushed the door open for them as Natalia gave me one last look before entering. Dani kept her head down, not in meekness, but so she didn’t have to continually catch my eye. Smart move. When she walked past me into my room, her hand brushed mine and I could almost feel her bristle a bit at the contact, but then I heard her sharp intake of breath, as if that small simple touch had her feeling the same way I felt.

My heart rampaged in my chest as I closed the door behind them.

DANI

Itook a breath right when I heard the door click behind me. The tingling in my hand from just the small feel of his skin on mine was like an electric shock that I didn’t think I would still be feeling after all this time apart. I didn’t have time to ponder on that or onhim, even though my mind wanted to more often than I felt comfortable admitting. Every part of his demeanor had me feeling that he was sorry, but that just wasn’t enough. If I were a more forgiving person and probably much, much weaker I would have melted at the way his presence made me feel, but I wasn’t that person. I never would be.

Fuck, did I really even knowmyselfafter everything? I was continuously getting reacquainted with this side of myself that wanted to appear and disappear at the oddest times. I didn’t know how to speak to it, and I’ve never had the best patience…

“Dani.” Natalia’s voice echoed through my thoughts so easily that I wasn’t startled with the fact that she was much closer tome than I had originally thought. I took in her posture and cool attitude, trying to mimic even a fraction of the regality that she had.

I stepped back, collecting my thoughts before I spoke. “What you said in there about using his key to speak to you…is that just for him or any of us?”

Natalia chuckled and walked towards Nicholas’s desk near the far wall. “Of course, I am here for any of you. It is his key, but the power is for you all to use if you need it.”

“So…you just laid your hand on his key and poof new and improved key?” I tapped my index finger on my chin. “No need for my hair this time,” I added sarcastically.

The High Priestess placed a hand over her mouth and actually for the first time since I met her, she looked embarrassed. Her honey-colored eyes were wide with apology and maybe just a tiny bit of humor; humor which I mirrored back to her.

She moved her delicate fingers away from her face. “Dani, my deepest apologies for that. There is really no excuse. Certain pieces of a person can be used for many things, good and bad.”

“No excuse,thatyou are right about. I’m not mad though, so you can simmer down with that really strong nervous smell you have radiating from you.” I gave her a cheeky smile as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you just keep a stash of all of our hair or whatever else somewhere in your humble abode in Oculus?”

She gave me a pointed look to let me know that I was no longer funny, but a small smile peeked out from her lips. “Of course not, actually it was just you. Isabel said…” She trailed off before she could say anymore. That name had my skin burning and made the demonic shadow in me want to lose control, but I heard a small hiccup and stopped. All the raging and anger ceased when I noticed Natalia wiping under her eyes. Even her tears seemed to glisten with beauty, it was truly unfair.

Natalia placed a hand over her chest as if she was steadying her heart rate. “I really am truly, truly sorry for not seeing things sooner. I would tell her everything, she was my confidant and she made it seem like it was a good idea at the time, that even if things went badly, I had a way to get to you if you escaped or went rogue. I didn’t know that using it to help Nicholas would also help her, Markus andLilith. She had everything so well planned with the help of all of us putting things right into place. She was right under my nose, Dani.” She let her eyes flutter closed as she took in a deep breath that came out shaky when she exhaled. “I should have noticed weird behavior; I should have noticed all the times she was gone for long periods and when she would come back as if she was always there.”

She was beating herself up, but at the same time maintaining a solid confident front. She reminded me of a well-muscled angel I knew. “Natalia, stop. It’s alright. No one blames you, absolutelynoone. Honestly, it’s all about what you do with the information you have now, and you’ve been on our side, so just stop. The constant ‘I’m sorry’s’ are just going to piss me off more than anything. So long as you don’t have some mysterious stash of our hair follicles somewhere, we are good.”

The High Priestess seemed to take my advice as she laughed. She rolled her shoulders and regained her previous cool bravado. “Dani, I’m here for all of you. My knowledge is your knowledge as far as I’m concerned.”

I nodded towards my feet as I moved over towards the bed, not sitting on it. That bed had too many memories. When I looked up, she was staring at me, her head tilted and the light that shone from the window made the glitter on her dark skin sparkle even more.

I scrunched my lips up and towards the side of my mouth, trying not to let her words affect me. “Are you worried about Isabel? About us facing her?”

“Are you?”

I shrugged. “No. If I get the chance to get my hands around her throat it’s over for her. she and Lilith can burn in the fire of their own making as far as I’m concerned.”

“We both know it won’t be that easy no matter how much reliance you have in your skills.”

“I think you underestimate the power of revenge and fury.” I tossed a chunk of my curls over my shoulder. I thought back to the last time I was in this room. The moment those two feelings took up residence in my body. It was heady, that feeling. Nicholas had looked so regretful telling me about Elise, but my feelings about it all wouldn’t have changed despite who told me and when. It was the principle. Elise didn’t have the balls to truly explain herself that day or any time after that and I’d pushed away the one person I’d considered holding close since my time in Purgatory started; the minute he opened his perfect fucking mouth it was like the spell that we had both been under had broken and I was no longer in some kind of Nicholas Cassial trance. The kind of trance that had me thinking my surroundings could change, but I could still be me. And Nicholas, being who he is, tried to place us under that same spell again by calling me important to him one of the last times we spoke and well, I wasn’t quite convinced regardless of how sincere it sounded.

No matter how adorable he looked, giving me puppy dog eyes whenever his brown eyes seemed to find me.

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