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All because of me.
Unpacking what had happened—was happening—between us hadn’t even made the highlight reel.
Without entertaining my latest failed attempt to hide my jealousy, Lucifer backed me up to the wall adjacent to the exit door. “Wait here. Do not move. I’ll be able to see you the entire time.”
He walked away, and the chill from earlier returned. As did Keegan’s warning about something not being quite right. Sketchy sitch, I believe he called it.
A woman glided out from the shadows to stand under the streetlight next to Lucifer, fifty feet from where I stood shivering. As promised, he faced me the entire time, which meant the woman’s back was to me. All I could make out were her shape and height compared to Lucifer’s. She was feminine with longish dark hair and about a head taller than me.
My molars ground together.
Lucifer kept his distance from the woman, but the longer their conversation dragged on, the more trepidation started to work its way under my skin.
The terms of the death match may have been accepted by both participants, but that didn’t mean the slain didn’t have someone who cared enough about him to seek a little payback.
I scanned the dark, low-traffic street. Then, against Lucifer’s orders, I left my relatively safe space at the wall and headed straight for him. I had no idea what I was going to do when I reached him, but for some reason, it felt like we were better off together than apart. He straightened and drew his shoulders back. The way his eyes darted from me to the woman told me he was trying to wrap it up before I had a chance to catch what they were talking about.
When we were ten feet apart, the woman turned slightly and gave me a once-over before walking away. Her gaze was calculating and sharp with intelligent, clear eyes and the kind of spark you saw from someone who felt confident and vital. Her heavily applied makeup didn’t hide what looked like an otherwise fresh young face. Either the gig was new to her or she’d found a way to compartmentalize better than I had.
My jealousy topped out at a shocking level.
I ran directly into Lucifer’s arms, blocking out all other thoughts about the woman. I’d never sought comfort and security in a man’s embrace. But it wasn’t just longing for something that I’d never had that drove me toward him. It was instinct.
My lids pressed tightly together to keep my emotions from leaking all over the place.
“Can we leave?” I asked, snuggling into the warmth of his chest as though he belonged to me and I to him.
If Raphael’s demonstration tonight was a foreshadowing of what lay ahead, I may never have the opportunity to appreciate closeness of this caliber ever again.
“Aye.”
“I don’t want to be alone tonight, Lucifer.”
Once upon a time, we were two kids connected by the same criminal world, yet too divided by age and order of importance to have anything in common. Time and cataclysm eventually made us enemies.
And now?
Now, there wasn’t even a word for what we were to each other. Not that it mattered. My need for justice may have given us proximity, but it could never give us a future. Our shelf life was dwindling. I intended to make the most of it.
“You won’t be,” he murmured into the top of my head. “You’ll be with me.”
My heart did a mighty flip, and I swallowed the nervous excitement bubbling inside me. “Where?” I whispered. “Where will we go?”
“Home.” His voice was thick and vibrated with his Irish timbre the way it always did when emotions bested my stone-cold assassin.
“What?” I pulled back, grabbing the front of his shirt in my fists.
His brows rose in unison. “Trust me, Willa.”
“I do. I trust you with everything.” My response rushed out before I’d thought it through, but it was the honest-to-God truth. I did.
Lucifer drew me into his chest and released a sigh filled with messages it would take me a lifetime to translate.
We didn’t have that kind of time together, but at least we had this one night.
Lucifer
We reached my bedroom, and I paused with my hand on the knob.
