Premonition of Peace (Her Immortal Monsters #3)

Chapter 14

fourteen

NATHALIE

Hundreds of golden threads overwhelmed my vision. Each one pulsed with a faint glow. My eyes fluttered rapidly as I tried to blink away the chaos surrounding me, but the gold threads weren’t going anywhere. They connected everything, passing through walls, layered over one another, between us. They were the bonds that tie. Some thick. Some thin.

Theoretically, I knew I would see them. That’s what the Eye did. Its purpose. There was just no way to accurately imagine how many there truly were. It was staggering. A small whimper slipped through my lips as I squeezed my eyes shut.

I tried to sit up, wincing slightly at the effort. The pill dulled the pain, but it didn’t take away all of it. Lucifer put an arm behind me and helped push me into a sitting position.

“Easy there,” Lucifer murmured, his tone unusually gentle. “You’re okay. Just focus on me.”

My eyes flickered open cautiously and I trained my gaze on him for a solid moment. But I couldn’t help but see it—our connection. A thick, golden thread stretched between us, shimmering with an intensity that was impossible to ignore. It moved almost like it had a heartbeat, anchoring me to him in a way that was undeniable and unnerving.

I reached out, as if to touch the thread. “There’s a thread connecting us.”

Lucifer nodded and smoothed my hair back from my face. “I’m your familiar. Of course there is.”

“Ours is so thick compared to the rest of them.” I plucked my finger over the thread and almost felt the echoes of its vibrations in my core. A blush touched my cheeks as heat rose within me.

Note to self: don’t touch the threads on purpose.

It would be impossible to avoid it entirely. There were simply too many.

“That’s because it’s permanent,” he said with a self-satisfied grin. “I told you, little witch, you’re stuck with me.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his words because I didn’t feel stuck with him. Not really. I chose him. He chose me. It soothed something in my damaged heart to know he wouldn’t leave me. “I’m tied to you. There’s a difference.”

His wasn’t the only string that connected to me either. There was another bond, just as thick and vibrant. I focused on it, trying to feel who was on the other end to no avail. A third bond was forming, hundreds of individual strands twining together. Another piece, no bigger than a hair was settling over it, creating a rope of sorts. The last bond was smaller. Thinner. Dimmer. Something in my chest panged because I had a good idea who that one belonged to.

I closed my eyes again, this time for a very different reason. Lucifer smoothed a hand up and down my back, trying to comfort me.

“All the threads you see are the ties that bind us.” His words echoed my earlier thoughts. “Eventually, you’ll learn how to see around them easily.”

“How do you know?” I asked, trying to focus on something else; anything.

“Because the Eye originally belonged to my father.”

I peered up at him and realized that despite being down an eye, I wasn’t missing peripheral vision. The Eye of Parcae was truly acting as a replacement and letting me see not only what was natural, but what was not.

“You don’t talk about him much.”

“There’s not much to talk about,” he replied, hand settling on the small of my back. “I was the second born son to Erebus and Gaia. Erebus was the Harvester of the Otherworld—before Ronan. He ran his family the same way he did the world. Ruthlessly.”

I frowned, picking up what he was saying. “He wasn’t a good father to you.”

Lucifer hesitated. “He wasn’t much of a father to me at all. Ronan was the first born. He had chaos magic. He was the heir Erebus wanted.”

“And you?”

“I existed,” he said quietly. “He wasn’t necessarily unkind to me. I simply wasn’t a priority.”

I cupped his cheek, sliding my hand down and around to fist in the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“You were neglected.”

Lucifer tilted his head. “Some might say that.”

“What do you think?”

Lucifer sighed. His golden eyes dimming a fraction. “I think my father was a brutal man. When I was young I wanted his attention, but after all that’s happened, I think I was, perhaps, better off being left alone most of the time.”

My chest squeezed. “I understand that. Quite well, actually.” Gods did I. My own family had done the same. We were alike in that way. “Carissa was the eldest. Katherine was the prodigy. I was simply the spare. It didn’t help that my magic was broken and didn’t behave like theirs . . .” I trailed off, not willing to let myself get lost in thoughts of the past. “So your dad sucked. Tell me about your mom. Gaia.”

Lucifer smiled, slight and a little sad. “She was beautiful. Kind. She saw the best in everything, even me.”

“You loved her.”

“Greatly,” he responded with a nod. “She was my safe harbor for a long time.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What happened?”

“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. Se?ora swept into the room, her arms clutching a wicker basket full of various herbs and stones. The number of threads and connections multiplied. Se?ora 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,” Se?ora 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 was always warranted.

“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.

Se?ora approached slowly; her gaze trained on the Eye. I felt it shift to follow her, just like a real eyeball would. It was weird. “We do not learn a new skill from sheer force of will. It takes practice and discovery.”

“How do I practice when I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing?”

“Discovering this new power will be much like wielding your own power.” She rubbed a thumb under the edge of my eye, pulling the lower lid down slightly and inspecting my eyeball. “You didn’t learn to control the magic of others overnight. It took trial and error. This is much the same.”

“I don’t have time to figure things out the long way around.” I sighed deeply, raking my hands over my face. “I need to know how to wield the objects of fate.”

“Your emotions are the most powerful tool you have right now,” Se?ora added. “They will help you tap into the Eye’s power and find the way to the objects.”

I frowned, feeling a surge of irritation. “So, what? I just wait until I am really angry or scared and hope it works?”

“Perhaps. That is one way.”

A growl threatened to pass my lips, and I clamped my mouth shut. “Is there another way?” I tried to be neutral when asking, but some of the impertinence leaked into my voice.

The Se?ora lifted an eyebrow. “There’s always another way, child.”

Lucifer squeezed my hand gently, drawing my attention back to him. “You’ve always been good at learning quickly, Nat. This will be no different.”

I changed tactics and rephrased my question to the Se?ora. “Do you know of another way?”

One corner of her mouth turned up. “Know with certainty? No, but I might suggest that you consider not just your own power, but that of others.”

With that, she turned on her heel and exited the room. I sighed, thinking about her turn of phrase. Consider not just your own power, but that of others.

Who else had power that affected their eyes?

A new sensation tugged at my insides, and I looked at the bond threads that connected to me. A thick, golden rope thrummed and pulsed in response, its power glowing like a beacon, leading me to the answer.