Page 107 of Broken Shadows

Lucifer talks with the musicians, leaving us alone with that bitch. Evangeline smiles, approaching us as the rest of the crowd comes together in rushed whispers, and the musicians step over the demon's entrails and continue playing, a new song this time. She glides in front of me. Unlike many other tortured souls here, her human form isn’t lost.

She stops a few feet in front of me. I take in her dark hair that falls in loose curls around her chest, her form tightly bound in ivory fabric, with nary a wrinkle around her eyes. She looks less a great aunt and more like a sister. I suppose she was in her thirties when she died. But, while the family resemblance is undeniable, her square jawline and diamond-shaped face lean more toward her paternal genes, at least from what I could gather in old family photo albums.

“Well, well,” Eva says, her eyes darting from me and land on Lorcan, who reaches us, taking a protective stance at my side. “You certainly showed what’s really in your heart this evening.”

He shakes his head, nostrils flaring. “It was you.”

She shrugs and brings a glass of crimson wine to her lips. At least, I hope it's wine. “What can I say? I have always enjoyed the Garaud. I completely forgot that humans were present. Witches too.” She tilts her head, and I imagine tearing her throat out.

I guess the ruse is over before it could really begin,I say into his mind as he grips my fingers in his. He blew his cover. For me. I’m so fucking annoyed by that, even if it was an incredibly sweet gesture.I was okay. You don’t need to kill every person who tries to hurt me.

Yes, I do.

“So, you do have a bond with her,” Evangeline spits. “How? You cannot love.”

I smirk, forcing a puff of breath through my nose. “You mean he cannot loveyou.”

Her expression drops into something akin to a panther eyeing its prey. “Do you think this is going to be a happy ending?” She wags a finger between us. “You’ll end up dead like me.”

“Lorcan wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Ha. What makes you think he wouldn’t? He’s a demon,” she continues in a hushed tone, and looks at Lorcan. “Tell her the truth. You cannot love and you know it. Lust, yes. Infatuation, even at a stretch, perhaps. But not love.”

I tilt my head and whisper, “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous!” She snorts and taps her long nails against her hip while trailing her glare over me. “Of my namesake, why? You’re nothing but a washed-out version of me. What is it you think you have that I don’t?”

I tilt my head, offering her my most cloying smile and hold my index finger in the air. “You mean apart from Lorcan?” I almost laugh as I watch her lips fall into a frown and her pupils narrow into slits. I continue to count off things on my fingers. “I’m alive, for one, and I hold the magic of our entire coven while you lost yours, along with your life. And for what, unrequited love? Must you be so cliché?”

She glances around as a few demons come close enough to hear our conversation. “Unrequited love? You must be delusional. I love Lucifer and he very much lovesme.” Flustered, her finger taps against the glass with a clink. “Lucifer would doanythingfor me. Remember that.”

As if summoned by his name, Lucifer joins us before things can escalate, but his presence does little to tame the whirlwind of death magic humming in my bone marrow.

Evangeline smiles and drapes her arm over his, running her fingers down his cheek. “I was just telling my niece how sorry we are that the Garaud was played while she was here.”

Lucifer brings his hands together, brows pinching, looking actually concerned. Unlike her. “I should have told them not to play it. Such a mistake,” he says, shaking his head. “It won’t happen again. While you are here in my home, you are safe. All of you are. Come now,” he tells Evangeline and grips her waist, “let us dance.”

My mouth twists as I watch them leave. “I didn’t think it was possible for her to be worse than I imagined.”

A low growl rumbles in his chest. “We need to get out of here.”

Rosa rolls her hips as she walks to greet us, Ezra bouncing at her side along with Lazarus and Asher. “I wanted to make sure your aunt was gone,” she explains and rubs the side of her neck. “How are you?”

“Me? How areyou?” I ask, realizing she would have been caught in the throes of that dance too.

“Fine,” she chirps. “Ezra walked me outside when he realized it was going to start.”

She lingers between Lorcan and me as he turns his back to us, grabbing a glass of wine from a passing demon server’s tray.

“I’ll find you shortly. Stay close,” I say as she saunters away with Ezra.

I should have done that instead of playing some part.

I place my palm on his back and speak into his mind, in the softest tone my brain can create.It’s not your fault.

Before he can answer, Asher pushes between us. “Dad didn’t know anything. I thought I was going by his orders so…” Glancing at Evie, he says, “I regret my part in all of this.”

Lazarus steps in, too, riding a hand through his blue-black hair. “I am too. I couldn’t give a fuck about the humans, but we’re brothers.”

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