“Thanks for calling the Mystic Kitten, where we sell the ingredients so you can make your own wishes come true.”
The voice was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t care enough to picture the face that went with it. All I knew was that it wasn’t Miranda, and the relief I’d felt evaporated as quickly as it’d come.
“This is Sam Rivers. Is Miranda Sutton available?” I asked, a sharp edge in my tone.
“Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Rivers. She’s meeting with the covens in Boston today. Have you tried her cell phone?”
Of course, I’d known that before this all happened. The urge to rip through Boston to find Lexi gripped me by the throat and I felt pressure in my fingertips. Claws that had been tamed eons ago were threatening to make an appearance. What had this gorgeous, fascinating demigoddess done to my sanity?
I forced myself to calm down so I could think straight. “Yes, I have, but thank you.”
The screen shattered under my thumb as I ended the call. I took a deep breath, let the phone fall to the floor, and pressed my hands to my face. I was about to lose my shit over a girl—awoman, I corrected myself—I’d only known for a blink of my lifespan. She’d buried herself under my skin like no one hadeverdone before, and I despised it and cherished it and goddammit I needed to find her!
Then her energy surged. Just for a brief moment, but if I hadn’t stopped to take that breath, I would’ve missed it entirely. She was in the city. She was… at her apartment.
No sooner had I pinned down the location, the apartment materialized around me. The coffee table was gone—or rather, it was no longer whole, the pieces embedded into the walls and floor and television. Nathan sat in the armchair, Lexi sitting on the arm beside him, her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d been crying. Her roommate, Sophie, bandaged another female I didn’t recognize.
“You should’ve just let me take you to the hospital,” Sophie complained, the small group having not noticed me yet. “I can treat just about any kind of muscle sprain, but burns are a little outside my expertise.”
The young woman with curly blonde hair huffed a laugh, then hissed when Sophie made another pass around her leg. “Yeah, well, funny thing about demigods: we don’t like to advertise our unique physiology to public healthcare. Cale makes an amazing salve that’ll have this gone in a day, guaranteed.”
“Why thefuckare you not answering your phones!”
All four of them jumped and turned toward me, the new girl groaning at the sudden movement. Lexi frowned, then dug her phone out of her pocket and glared at it. The device wasn’t so much cracked as obliterated.
“Damn,” she hissed under her breath. “I liked this phone.”
Nathan’s was in a similar state, though not as severe as Lexi’s. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize—”
“You didn’t think to call me after an attack like that?” I bellowed.
Lexi stood and crossed her arms, wincing at the motion. “Maybe he thought you were too busy sucking face with supermodels to worry about a tiny little demon attack that we had handled.”
“Lilith is far from a supermod—”
“Lilith?!” Lexi’s jaw dropped and I resisted the urge to flinch. She didn’t know the details of our previous relationship, but there was more than enough lore out there and Lexi was a religious history fanatic. “That wasLilith?”
I sighed impatiently. “Can we have this conversation privately, please? There are circumstances you need to know about that don't involve them,” I said, nodding to the other three.
The stranger leaned back on the couch and smirked. “Oh, don’t mind us. Live-action drama is so much more fun than the stuff on TV.”
“Who thefuckare you—”
“Sasha, don’t,” Nathan warned, cutting me off. “Lucifer, I’m sorry for not contacting you sooner. I can write up a full report for you later, after we take care of Sasha’s injury, but as you can see, we’re all alive.”
The new girl, Sasha, mouthed my name to Sophie, who nodded and shot me an amused smile. The human wasn’t afraid of my identity, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind to ponder on why.
Lexi waved her hands in the air. “Whoa, whoa, I wanna go back to this Lilith business. First of all, why the hell is she inside the wards in Salem? Second, do my mom and the coven know she’s there? And third, why was hertonguein yourface?”
“I would love nothing more than to explain everything in a more private setting,” I replied through gritted teeth.
She opened her mouth to protest, but Nathan touched her arm and glanced to where the other two sat. Lexi deflated and collapsed back onto the arm of the chair, cradling her arm against her side, but the familiar touch only managed to set off the images that’d swarmed my head earlier. My hand curled into a fist at my side.
“I thought I told you to keep your fucking hands to yourself, Decker.”
His deferential demeanor changed immediately as he shot to his feet. “Go fuck yourself, Lucifer. Whatever you’re thinking, you’re fucking wrong.”
I was in front of him in an instant, fist pulled back and ready to mangle that perfect goddamn face of his, when Lexi slid between us. The truth of his words barely registered beneath the rage that’d taken hold, but her sudden defense caught me off-guard. In my periphery, I saw Sophie edge closer, a flash of silver in her hand, though the human didn’t concern me as much as the flood of old power behind me, swelling up like ocean tides from the injured woman.
