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A slight psychic slap from Knox was enough to wake him. Eyelids fluttering, Lucifer groaned. “That hurt.” In a blink, he was upright, looking at Harper curiously. “Soul-deep pain, huh? Never got hit by that before. I like to try new things.”
“Why are you here?” Knox asked bluntly.
Lucifer blinked at him. “I heard you’d taken a mate. I’m too cynical to believe it, but I was curious.” He smiled. “I like her. She surprised me. That doesn’t happen a lot.”
Knox snickered. Lucifer didn’t like anyone. Abrasive, blunt, and offensive, he was a social nightmare. He was also psychotic and came with a child-like sense of entitlement, a love of sarcasm, and a propensity to constantly switch from one emotional state to another.
Lucifer turned back to Harper. “I didn’t even catch your name.”
She gave him a nod. “I’m Harper.”
“Call me Lou. You remind me of someone.” He clicked his fingers several times, deep in thought. “Are you a Connell?”
Harper couldn’t help grinning, anticipating his reaction. “No. I’m a Wallis.”
His cheeriness died away as his jaw clenched. “A Wallis?”
Retaking her seat, Harper nodded. “Jolene’s granddaughter, actually.”
He shuddered. “That woman. Sneaky. Scheming. Vicious. Qualities I usually admire.”
“She snorts when you give her orders, doesn’t she?” asked Knox.
“Every time,” growled Lou.
Knox could understand his frustration. “It’s in the genes.”
Lou studied Harper closely. “You’re a sphinx. I’m guessing then that you’re Lucian’s daughter.” Lou sat beside Harper and began nosing in her box of appliques. With a muffled curse, he started moving some of them around.
She frowned. “What are you doing?”
“You’re getting them mixed up.” He sounded genuinely agitated. “See, you’ve got rhinestones over there with the sequins.”
Oh, yeah, Jolene had once mentioned he was a little OCD. “Does my grandmother still send you chain letters?”
He growled again. “Yes. She knows I can’t break them. It’s bad luck.”
Harper shook her head. “Not really. It’s called OCD and—”
“Yes, yes, so my psychiatrist tells me.”
“You have a shrink?”
“Apparently, I have some repressed anger and unresolved abandonment issues after my experiences with God.” An element of vulnerability entered his tone as he continued, “You know from your experiences with Carla and Lucian – that kind of thing leaves its mark on a person, doesn’t it? It hurts right to the core.”
This conversation was becoming way too surreal for Harper. “I really don’t know how to process you.”
With a grunt, Lou looked up at Knox. “Have you told her what you are yet?”
Knox narrowed his eyes. “Not yet.”
Lou rubbed his hands together, suddenly excited. “Ooh, the suspense.”
“Lou,” drawled Knox, not trusting the guy to not simply blurt out the truth.
“Fine, fine.” And now he was back to somber. “So, I heard your mate here is having some trouble.”
Knox explained the recent goings on. “We’re either dealing with dark practitioners, Isla Ross, or Carla Hayden.”
“I don’t like Carla.” Lou grimaced. “She’s very mercurial, it’s annoying.”
Pot, kettle, black, thought Harper. “I think dark practitioners are responsible.” She looked at Knox. “You still think there’s a good chance it’s Isla, don’t you?”
Knox shrugged. “She’s twisted enough to do all this.”
“That’s true,” agreed Lou, nodding a few times.
“I’ve heard rumors about her renting out demons from her lair to dark practitioners,” Knox told him. “Only someone losing their hold on their demon or just sick in the head would do that.”
“Maybe she smokes crack,” Lou suggested.
Ignoring that idea, Harper spoke to Knox. “I can’t understand why she’d take the risk of renting them out like that, knowing her own kind could turn on her for it. Something must be fucking with her head.”
“Could be crack,” said Lou.
Knox also ignored him. “I know it makes little sense; that’s why I’ve always doubted the rumors,” he told Harper. “But, like I said, she’s cold and power-hungry enough to do it. She wasn’t always like that. Something changed her.”
Lou swept out a hand. “Adding support to my ‘crack’ theory.”
Exasperated, Harper burst out, “Oh my God.”
Lou frowned at her. “Can we leave him out of this please?”
Knox blinked in surprise. “You said ‘please.’ Snappy or not, you used manners.”
“I decided to branch out from cold and pure evil.”
Harper was sure she’d never met anyone as whacked as this guy.
Lou stretched his legs out. “There are some whisper campaigns going on. The candidates for this whole boring election extravaganza are spreading rumors about each other to make themselves look better.”
“Yes, there’s a rumor that Malden long ago made a point of banishing every harpy from his lair out of racial hate.” It had pissed off Larkin.
Lou sniffed. “I have no tolerance for racism. I find it offensive.”
