Every Last Breath
Every Last Breath
Jennifer L. Armentrout
Some loves will last 'til your dying breath Every choice has consequences–but seventeen-year-old Layla faces tougher choices than most. Light or darkness. Wickedly sexy demon prince Roth, or Zayne, the gorgeous, protective Warden she never thought could be hers. Hardest of all, Layla has to decide which side of herself to trust.Layla has a new problem, too. A Lilin–the deadliest of demons–has been unleashed, wreaking havoc on those around her…including her best friend. To keep Sam from a fate much, much worse than death, Layla must strike a deal with the enemy while saving her city–and her race–from destruction.Torn between two worlds and two different boys, Layla has no certainties, least of all survival, especially when an old bargain comes back to haunt them all. But sometimes, when secrets are everywhere and the truth seems unknowable, you have to listen to your heart, pick a side–and then fight like hell…
Some loves will last ’til your dying breath
Every choice has consequences—but seventeen-year-old Layla faces tougher choices than most. Light or darkness. Wickedly sexy demon prince Roth, or Zayne, the gorgeous, protective Warden she never thought could be hers. Hardest of all, Layla has to decide which side of herself to trust.
Layla has a new problem, too. A Lilin—the deadliest of demons—has been unleashed, wreaking havoc on those around her...including her best friend. To keep Sam from a fate much, much worse than death, Layla must strike a deal with the enemy while saving her city—and her race—from destruction.
Torn between two worlds and two different boys, Layla has no certainties, least of all survival, especially when an old bargain comes back to haunt them all. But sometimes, when secrets are everywhere and the truth seems unknowable, you have to listen to your heart, pick a side—and then fight like hell...
Praise for The Dark Elements series by #1 New York Times bestselling author JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT (#ulink_aa616105-613a-5a74-8ec8-7a31df055480)
Every Last Breath
“Every Last Breath has solidified The Dark Elements as my favorite YA paranormal romance series. Jennifer Armentrout delivers a knockout ending to the trilogy—steamy, smart and satisfying.”
—Wendy Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweet series
Stone Cold Touch
“Armentrout balances suspense and romance, spicing it up with Roth’s one-liners and Layla’s wry inner commentary, all adding welcome humor.... Demonic fun.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An absolutely phenomenal, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride.... [This] just might be the prolific author’s best series.”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
White Hot Kiss
“Armentrout works her magic with swoon-worthy guys and a twist you never see coming.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Abbi Glines
“With this first title in her new Dark Elements series, powerhouse author Armentrout delivers another action-packed, believably narrated ride... Intense, well plotted, and very readable, this title should fly into the hands of every paranormal reader out there.”
—Booklist
“Well-paced and peppered with intriguing details that allow both Romeo-and-Juliet swoons and a zombie apocalypse to have their turns.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Constantly entertaining...the narrative sizzles with as much tension as romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Every
Last
Breath
Jennifer L. Armentrout
www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)
This is for every Zayne and Roth fan, everyone who rooted for Layla and wanted their very own Bambi, and for everyone who passionately rallied behind their favorite guy and voted for which one they’d like Layla to choose. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Contents
Cover (#uafc817a5-3060-5b16-9e4f-4bf8b755d622)
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one (#ulink_045d7740-51cb-5cba-9181-7451c8add96a)
I STOOD IN Stacey’s living room as my entire world crashed around me once more.
Sam was the Lilin.
Acute horror held me immobile, seizing the air in my lungs as I stared at what used to be one of my closest friends in the whole world. Because of the demonic familiar, Bambi, and being unable to see souls while she’d bonded to me, I’d never seen what had been right in front of my face this entire time. None of us had, but it was Sam—he’d been the one to cause the mayhem at school and all the recent deaths. Instead of stripping souls with a single touch, as I’d known a Lilin could do, he’d taken his time, taking a little here and there, playing with his victims and playing with us.
Playing with me.
Except what was standing in Stacey’s house was—was basically wearing Sam’s skin, a perfectly crafted costume, because the real Sam... He was no more. The pain of knowing that my friend was dead, had been dead for a while without any of us knowing, cut deep into me, making misery of my bone and tissue.
I hadn’t been able to save him. None of us had been able to, and now his soul...his soul had to be down below, where all souls that were taken by a Lilin would go. My stomach cramped.
“You cannot defeat me,” the Lilin said, his voice identical to Sam’s. “So join me.”
“Or what?” My heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest. “Or die? That’s not incredibly cliché or anything.”
The Lilin tilted its head to the side. “Actually, I wasn’t going to say that to you. I need you to help free our mother. The rest of them can die, though.”
Our mother. Before I could dwell on the ick factor of being related to the creature that had killed my friend and inflicted so much carnage, Zayne shifted into his true form, distracting me. His shirt ripped up the back as his wings unfurled and his skin deepened to the dark granite of the Wardens. Two horns sprouted, parting his wavy blond hair as they curled back, and his nostrils flattened. When he parted his lips to let out a low growl of warning, fangs appeared. He stepped toward Sam, his massive hands curling into fists.
“Don’t!” I shouted. Zayne halted, his head swinging sharply toward me. “Do not get close to him. Your soul,” I reminded him as my heart raced. Or what was left of Zayne’s soul, considering I’d accidentally taken a nice little bite out of it not long ago.
Zayne backed off, his stance wary.
I turned my attention back to the evil masquerading as Sam. Whatever the thing was standing in front of us, we did share the same flesh and blood. Only recently had I learned exactly how I’d come to be part demon and part Warden. I was the daughter of Lilith and this...this thing truly was a part of me. It had been born out of Lilith’s and my blood, and it was just as evil as Lilith. It wanted her freed? Impossible. If Lilith ever ended up topside, the world as we knew it would irrevocably change.
“I’m not going to help you free Lilith.” I was so not referring to her as our mother. Yuck. “That’s never going to happen.”
The Lilin smiled as it watched me with dark, inky eyes. “Get as close as you want.” It ignored my statement, taunting Zayne. Heck, taunting all of us. “She’s not the only one in this room with a taste for a Warden’s soul.”
I sucked in a sharp, stinging breath as Stacey let out a whimper. In the space of a second, her relationship with Sam flashed before me. They’d been friends forever and only recently had she recognized that Sam had always, always been in love with her. But she hadn’t started paying real attention to him until Sam had begun to change...
Oh God.
Stacey had to be breaking wide-open, seeing the boy she finally loved become worse than the monsters that prowled the streets at night, but I couldn’t afford to take my focus off the Lilin. It could make a move at any moment, and three of us in this room were vulnerable to the worst kind of attack it could deliver.
“There’s nothing like taking a pure soul, but you’d already know that, Layla. All that warmth and goodness goes down as smooth as the richest chocolate.” The Lilin tipped its chin up and let out the kind of groan that normally would’ve caused my ears to burn. “But taking your time, savoring the taste is so much more decadent. You should try it, Layla, and stop being so greedy when you feed.”
“And you should try shutting the Hell up.” Heat rolled off the powerful demon standing beside me. Roth, the reigning Crown Prince of Hell, hadn’t shifted yet, but I could tell he was close. Fury dripped from his words. “How about that?”
The Lilin didn’t even spare a glance in Roth’s direction. “I like you. I really do, prince. Too bad you’re going to end up dead.”
My fingers curled in, nails biting into my palms as anger flushed through my system, hot and bitter. My emotions were all over the place. On top of everything else that had gone wrong recently, I was standing here between Zayne and Roth, which was about a thousand times awkward on a normal day, but now, after Roth...
I couldn’t focus on any of that right now. “You’re very brave, making threats when we outnumber you.”
One shoulder rose in a gesture so quintessentially Sam it sent a slice of pain through me. “How about I’m just intelligent?” it queried gamely. “And how about I know more than all of you about how this will end?”
“You talk a lot,” Roth growled, stepping forward. “And I mean a lot. Why is it that the bad guys always have to give disgustingly long and boring monologues? Let’s just get to the killing part, all right?”
The Lilin’s mouth formed a lopsided grin. “So eager to die the final death, aren’t you?”
“So eager to be done with you running your mouth, more like,” Roth retorted, moving so that once again he stood directly beside me.
“It’s been you this whole time?” Stacey’s voice trembled under the weight of the pain she must be feeling. “You haven’t been Sam? Not since...”
“Not since Dean displayed his fists of fury. That was fun.” The Lilin laughed as those dark eyes slid in her direction. “Sam hasn’t been home in quite some time, but I can assure you, I enjoyed...our time together as much as I’m sure he would’ve. You know, if that’s any consolation for you.”
She clapped her hands over her mouth, muffling the words as tears streamed down her pale face. “Oh my God.”
“Not quite,” it murmured silkily.
I stepped closer to Stacey, drawing the Lilin’s attention from her. I was sick for her, absolutely repulsed. “Why?” I demanded. “You’ve been around us for weeks. Why haven’t you attacked any of us?”
The Lilin sighed heavily. “I’m not all about violence, death and gore. I discovered rather quickly that there are a lot of fun things to do topside, things I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.” It winked at Stacey, and I saw red.
My skin tingled like a thousand fire ants were marching all over it. “Don’t look at her. Don’t talk to her or even breathe in her general direction, and don’t even think about touching her ever again.”
“Oh, I’ve done more than that,” the Lilin replied. “Lots more. Everything your Sam wishes he could’ve had the balls to do. But you know, he’s not really concerned about those things at the moment. You see, I consumed him—his soul in its entirety. No part of him remains on this plane. He’s not a wraith like the others who crossed my path. I didn’t play with my food when it came to him, taking tiny bits of him. No, he’s gone. He’s in—”
Several things happened all at once.
Stacey shot toward the Lilin, her hand rising as if she was about to knock the mocking smile off his face. The Lilin drifted toward her, and while it hadn’t taken her soul yet for whatever reason, I now knew there were no guarantees. The Lilin was unpredictable. It had exposed what it truly was, and I sensed it was done playing around. It was within arms’ reach of her and I—well, I sort of lost it. Rage lit me up from the inside.
The change came over me without even trying. Like shedding a sweater, I let go of the human form I’d worn for so long, and in a way, had desperately clung to. It had never been this easy before. Bones didn’t break and reknit. Skin didn’t stretch, but I felt mine harden, become resilient to most knives and bullets. The roof of my mouth tingled as my fangs dropped, teeth designed to cut through even a Warden’s skin, and most definitely a Lilin’s. Just below the base of my neck and on either side of my spine, my wings broke free and unfurled.
There was a sharp inhale from someone in the room, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Moving as quick as a cobra striking, I grabbed Stacey’s arm and shoved her behind me. I got between her and the Lilin. “I said, do not touch her. Do not look at her. Do not even breathe in her direction. You do so, and I will rip your head from your shoulders and punt-kick it out a window.”
The Lilin jerked, dancing a step backward. Its pitch-black eyes widened. Shock splashed across its face and then its lips curled back. “That’s not playing fair.”
What in the world? Was that fear I saw in its face? “Do I look like I care?”
“Oh, you’re going to.” The Lilin backtracked, moving toward the door. “You’re so going to care.”
Then the Lilin was gone, spinning right around and exiting the house with a quickness that left me standing there, staring foolishly at the empty doorway. I didn’t understand. The Lilin hadn’t batted an eyelash at Zayne or Roth, but I’d shifted forms and it had tucked its tail and run away?
Uh.
“Well, that was...anticlimactic.” I turned around slowly, tucking my wings back. The first one I saw was Zayne.
He’d returned to his human form. Zayne always, even when he appeared exhausted, could’ve stepped out of a Town and Country magazine. His good looks went beyond all-American and straight into swoonville, population every girl on the planet. He looked like I imagined angels would. Vibrant blue eyes and near-heavenly features, but he stared at me with his mouth hanging slightly open. His absolutely gorgeous face was pale, which made the unforgiving shadows under his eyes stand out starkly. He stared at me like he’d never seen me before, which was bizarre, because he’d grown up with me. I felt like some kind of specimen.
A trickle of unease ran down my spine as my gaze switched to the couch. At some point, Zayne had moved closer to where Stacey had landed. I expected to find her rocking in a ball, but she too gaped at me, her hands pressed against her cheeks, and any other time I would’ve laughed at that expression. Not now.
My heart rate kicked into overdrive as I swung toward the back of the room, where Roth was standing. My gaze collided with eyes the color of amber. His were wide, his pupils vertical. Even so, he was a sight to behold.
Roth was—well, there was no one that walked this earth that looked quite like him. Probably had to do with the fact that he was in no way human, but he was stunning. Always had been, even when he’d styled the black hair into spikes. I preferred the lesser look he rocked now with his hair falling over his forehead, brushing the tips of his ears and the arches of equally dark eyebrows. Golden eyes were slightly slanted at the outer corners. He had cheekbones and a jaw you could cut glass with, a face any artist would die to sketch—or touch. And those full, expressive lips were parted.
His tawny skin wasn’t pale and he didn’t gape at me like I belonged under a microscope, but he was watching me in astonishment just as Zayne had.
The unease turned into balls of dread, settling heavily in my stomach. “What?” I whispered, glancing around the room. “Why are you all staring at me like...like there’s something wrong with me?”
It couldn’t have been because I’d told the Lilin I’d rip his head off. Yeah, I was a little less violent on most days, but in the past week or so, I’d thought I was the Lilin, had been kissed by Zayne and nearly took his soul, was subsequently chained and held in captivity by the very clan that had raised me, was almost killed by that same clan—deep breath—was then healed thanks to Roth and a mystery brew provided by a coven of witches who worshipped Lilith, and now I’d just discovered that my best friend was dead, his soul was in Hell, and the Lilin had taken his place. You’d think a girl could be cut a little slack.
Roth cleared his throat. “Shortie, look...look at your hand.”
Look at my hand? Why in the world would he be asking me to do that in the midst of all the cray?
“Do it,” he said quietly and too gently.
The dread exploded in my gut like buckshot, and my gaze dropped to my left hand. I expected to see the weird marbling of black and gray, a mixture of the demon and Warden that existed inside of me and a combination I’d become almost familiar with by now. My nails had lengthened and sharpened, and I could tell they were hard enough to cut through steel, as hard as my skin, but my skin...it was still pink. Really pink.
“What the...?” My gaze traveled to my other hand. It was the same. Just pink. My wings twitched, reminding me that I had shifted.
Zayne swallowed. “Your...your wings...”
“What about my wings?” I almost screeched, reaching behind me. “Are they broken? Did they not come out—” The tips of my fingers came into contact with something as soft as silk. My hand jerked back. “What...”
Stacey’s watery eyes had doubled in size. “Um, Layla, there’s a mirror above the fireplace. I think you need to look in it.”
I met Roth’s gaze for a second before I spun around and all but ran to the fireplace I was sure Stacey’s mom had never used. Clutching the white mantel, I stared at my reflection.
I looked normal, like I did before I shifted...like I was going to class or something. My eyes were the palest shade of gray, a watered-down blue. My hair was so blond it was almost white, and a mess of waves that went in every direction like usual. I looked like a colorless china doll, which was nothing new, except for the two fangs jutting out of my mouth. I wouldn’t show them off at school, but that wasn’t what caught my attention and held it.
It was my wings.
They were large, not as massive as Zayne’s or Roth’s, and normally they were almost leathery in texture, but now they were black...black and feathered. Like legit feathered. That soft, silky thing I’d felt? It had been tiny feathers.
Feathers.
“Oh my God,” I whispered at my reflection. “I have feathers.”
“Those are definitely feathered wings,” Roth commented.
I whipped around, knocking over a lamp with my feathered right wing. “I have feathers on my wings!”
Roth cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, you do.”
He was absolutely no help, so I turned to Zayne. “Why do I have feathers on my wings?”
Zayne shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Layla. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Liar,” hissed Roth, shooting him a dark look. “You’ve seen that before. So have I.”
“I haven’t,” mumbled Stacey, who, by this point, had tucked her legs against her chest and really looked like she would be rocking at any given point. Until recently, Stacey hadn’t known what Roth really was. She hadn’t even known about me. This had to be too much for her.
“Okay. How and why have you seen this before?” I demanded, dragging in air too fast. “Am I going to have to shave my wings now?”
“Shortie...” Roth’s lips twitched.
I raised my hand, pointing my finger at him. “Don’t you dare laugh, you jerk-face! This is not funny. My wings are freaks of nature!”
He lifted his hands. “I’m not going to laugh, but I think you should leave the razors alone. Besides, lots of things have feathers in their wings.”
“Like what?” I demanded. Were there still more supernatural creatures I was unfamiliar with?
“Like...like hawks,” he answered.
My brows furrowed. “Hawks? Hawks?”
“And eagles?”
“I’m not a bird, Roth!” Patience leaked out of me. “Why do I have feathers on my wings?” I shrieked, this time at Zayne. “You’ve seen this before? Where? Someone tell me—”
Underneath me, the floor began to tremble, cutting me off. The shudder increased, traveling up the walls, shaking the mirror and rattling the framed pictures. Plumes of plaster puffed from the ceiling. The house quaked and a loud rumble became deafening.
Stacey popped up from the couch, grabbing Zayne’s arm. “What’s happening?”
Wings forgotten, I exchanged a look with Zayne. Something about this was all too familiar. I’d felt this before, when—
Blinding golden light streamed in through the windows and the tiny cracks in the wall and from between the wooden boards of the floor. Soft, luminous light crept along the ceiling, dripping downward. I jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding getting hit with the splatter. I clearly remembered what had happened the last time I’d been stupid enough to touch the light.
My kind never could. Neither could Roth.
“Shit,” he muttered.
My heart stopped as the rumble was cut off and the beautiful glow disappeared. In a flash, Roth was beside me, one hand curled around my upper arm.
Stacey sniffed the air. “Why does it smell like we’re being suffocated in dryer sheets?”
She was right; a new scent permeated the air. To me, it was musky and sweet. Heaven...heaven smelled like whatever you wanted it to, whatever you truly desired most in the world, and it was different for everyone.
Zayne shoved Stacey behind him, and I had a feeling Roth was about to drag our nonangelic butts out of there, but a fissure of power radiated throughout the room. The sweet aroma that filled me with yearning was replaced by clover and frankincense. Warmth traveled down my back, and I knew we were too late to make an escape.
Oh no.
Stacey gasped. “Oh my...” Her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees gave out. She folded like an accordion. Zayne caught her before she smacked into the floor, and I didn’t really have time to worry about her.
We weren’t alone.
I didn’t want to turn around, but I couldn’t help it. I had to, because I wanted to see them. I had to see them before they wiped me off the face of the planet. Roth must’ve felt the same, because he also turned. There was a soft glow reflecting off his cheeks. He squinted and I looked toward the doorway.
Two of them stood there like sentries, nearly seven feet tall or possibly even bigger. They were so beautiful it was almost painful to look upon. Hair the color of wheat and their skin shimmered, catching and absorbing the light all around them. They were neither black nor white nor any shade in between, but somehow all colors at once, and they wore some kind of linen pants. The orbs of their eyes were pure white—no irises or pupils. Just white space, and I dimly wondered how they could see. Their chests and feet were bare. Their shoulders were as broad as any Warden’s and their wings were magnificent, a brilliant white spanning at least eight feet on either side of them.
Their wings were also feathered.
Unlike mine, though, those feathers had hundreds of eyes in them, actual eyeballs. Eyeballs that did not blink, but roamed constantly and seemed to take in everything at once.
Each of the creatures held a golden sword, a real freaking sword—a sword that looked like it was the length of my leg. The whole combination was possibly the freakiest thing I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot of freaky things in my seventeen years of life.
They were here, the ones that ran this little show called life, who’d created the Wardens and who, to demons, were the equivalent of the boogeyman. Never in the history of ever had they been in the presence of anyone with a trace of demonic blood in them without ending their lives immediately.
I felt my wings—my feathered wings—tuck close to my back. I don’t even know why I tried to hide them at this point, but I was a wee bit self-conscious. However, I wasn’t willing to shift into my human form, not in the presence of these beings.
I couldn’t stop staring at them. Awe and fear warred inside me. They...they were angels and their feathered wings practically glowed, they were so bright. I’d never been allowed anywhere near them, not even when they came to the Wardens’ compound to meet with Abbot, the clan leader. I’d always been forced to leave the premises, and I never thought I’d ever see them.
An irresponsible urge to go to them hit me hard in the chest, and it took everything in me to ignore it. I breathed in deeply, and they smelled wonderful.
Roth jerked suddenly, and my heart lodged somewhere in my throat. Fear poured into me. Had they done something to him? Then I saw it. A shadow drifted off him, spilling into the air in front of us. I’d also seen that before. It happened whenever the tattooed familiars came off his skin.
I knew it wasn’t Bambi or the kittens, because this shadow came from the general vicinity of his...well, pretty much where the belt on his jeans was. Only one tattoo existed there, the only one I’d never seen.
The dragon familiar that Roth had warned only came off his skin when the shit hit the fan or he was seriously pissed.
The Alphas were here, and Thumper had finally come out to play.
two (#ulink_be9af1aa-04bd-5e08-85c9-e20c8ed777c5)
BRACING MYSELF FOR the appearance of a large and very destructive dragon, I tensed and held my breath. We all were going to die horrible, burning deaths.
The shadow was huge as it shifted into thousands of little black dots that spun together in the air, like a mini cyclone, taking shape and form. Seconds passed as iridescent blue and gold scales appeared along the belly and the back of the dragon. Deep red wings sprouted, as well as a long, proud snout and clawed hind legs. Its eyes matched Roth’s, a bright yellow.
It was a beautiful creature.
But...the dragon was about the size of a cat—a really small cat.
Not exactly what I had been expecting.
Its wings moved soundlessly as it hovered to the left of Roth, its tail whipping around. It was so tiny and so...so cute.
I blinked slowly. “You...you have a...a pocket-size dragon?”
Zayne snorted from somewhere behind me.
A heavy sigh came from Roth.
Even though all our lives were in danger and we were all probably going to die, there was definitely no love lost between Roth and Zayne.
The dragon swiveled its head in my direction, opened its mouth and let out a tiny squawk. More like a meep. A cloud of black smoke puffed out from it. No fire. Just dark wisps that smelled faintly of sulfur. My brows flew up.
“Remove the familiar from our sight,” an Alpha demanded, causing me to wince. The one who spoke was standing to the right of the door, and his voice was impossibly deep, reverberating through both the room and me. Part of me expected my eardrums to rupture.
I was surprised that the Alphas hadn’t immediately tried to take out Thumper, but then again, it wasn’t like the pocket dragon was that much of a threat.
Roth’s stance appeared casual, but I knew he was coiled tight, ready to spring into action. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
The Alpha’s lips formed a sneer. “How dare you speak to me? I could end your existence before you take your next breath.”
“You could,” Roth replied calmly. “But you won’t.”
My eyes widened. Smack talking to the Alphas wasn’t what I’d consider a smart move.
“Roth,” muttered Zayne. He sounded closer, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the Alphas to check. “You might want to chill out a bit.”
The Crown Prince smirked. “Nah. You want to know why? The Alphas could end me, but they’re not going to.”
Across from us, the Alpha who had spoken stiffened but didn’t interrupt.
“You see, I am the favorite Crown Prince,” Roth continued, his smirk spreading. “They take me out when I haven’t done anything to warrant it and they’ll have the Boss to contend with. They don’t want that.”
Surprise flickered through me. They couldn’t just end Roth because of who he was? I’d always thought they could simply do as they pleased.
The Alpha who had been silent up to this point spoke. “There are rules for a reason. It does not mean we have to like them, so I’d suggest you do not push your luck, Prince.”
Then Roth did the unthinkable. He raised his hand and extended his middle finger. “Does this count as pushing it, Bob?”
Crap on a cracker, he’d flipped off an Alpha! And he’d called the Alpha Bob! Who did that? Seriously?
My jaw hit the floor while the miniature Thumper coughed out another cloud of smoke. “I’m not blinded by your glory,” Roth said. “You sit on your lofty clouds passing judgment on every living creature there is. Not everything is black-and-white. You know that and yet you recognize no gray area.”
Sparks of electricity crackled from the Alpha’s all-white eyes. “One of these days, Prince, you will meet your own fate.”
“And I’ll do so quite spectacularly,” he quipped back. “Looking damn good while I do it, too.”
I briefly squeezed my eyes shut. Oh my God...
The Alpha on the right shifted, his large hand tightening on the hilt of the sword, and I had a feeling he wanted to shove it clean through Roth. I figured it was time to pry my tongue off the roof of my mouth. “You’re here because of the Lilin, right? We will stop him.” I had no idea how we would do that and I probably shouldn’t give such an promise to beings who could obliterate me in a heartbeat, but I didn’t see a choice. Not only because I needed to distract them from Roth, but because the Lilin did need stopping. Anything with a soul now was in danger. “I promise.”
“The Wardens will take care of the Lilin. That’s what they were created for—it’s their job to protect mankind. If they don’t, they will pay the ultimate price right along with the demons,” the Alpha who’d spoken first replied. “But we’re here to deal with you.”
My heart stopped again. “Me?”
The Alpha Roth had dubbed Bob narrowed his eyes. “You are a sacrilege of the highest order. Before, you were an abomination that should have been dealt with, but now you’re a perversity we cannot allow to continue.”
Roth cocked his head to the side as Zayne rushed forward. “No!” Zayne said, his wings tucking back. “She has never done anything to—”
“Oh, really?” the other Alpha replied drily as his wings arced high. Those feather-embedded eyes swiveled around the room and then all of them—hundreds of them—focused on me. “We see all, Warden. Justice must be served.”
Bob raised his sword, and before I could do anything, Roth’s arm flew out. He caught me just above the chest, shoving me into Zayne. I bounced off his hard chest, and would’ve toppled right off if Zayne hadn’t steadied me with his arm across my waist.
Thumper, still circling near Roth’s shoulder, let out another squeak—
—which turned into a roar that made the house shake even more than it had when the Alphas showed up.
Roth lowered his chin, grinning. “As I’ve said before, size does matter.”
Thumper began to grow at a rate I couldn’t even track, sprouting legs the size of tree trunks and claws the length of hooks. The dragon’s bright blue and gold scales appeared bulletproof and its hind legs stretched down to the floor, cracking the wooden boards. One crimson wing hit the ceiling, smacking straight through the drywall. Plaster fell in thick clouds as his other wing knocked over the recliner.
The Alpha shouted something, but it was lost amid the dragon’s low, humming growl. It lurched forward, swinging its massive spiked tail along the floor. Furniture flew into the wall, demolishing a portrait. A window shattered and cold air from outside poured into the room. Thumper came to a stop in front of us, facing the Alphas as he drew back, huffing sparks of flame out of his nostrils. The fire darkened what was left of the ceiling as Bob called out again.
“You take one step toward her and I’m going to fry myself up some Alpha.” Roth’s voice was low and deadly calm. “Extra-crispy style.”
One Alpha stepped back, but Bob looked like he would blow a gasket. “You dare to threaten us?”
“I dare a lot more than that.” Roth’s skin seemed to thin, his face becoming sharp angles. “I will not stand for one hair on her head to be harmed. If you want her, you’re going to have to come through me.”
Bob smiled widely at that, and my stomach plummeted. Roth was bound and determined to get himself killed because of me. He’d sacrificed himself to the pits, come back from that, and then gone against his Boss and saved my life. There was no way I could allow him to stand between me and danger again. “Stop!” I broke free of Zayne’s hold, but Thumper shifted. His tail swung back, stopping not even an inch from my hips.
I could go no further. My panicked gaze darted from Roth to the Alphas. “Whatever problem you have, you have it with me. Not them. So can we—”
Even as I spoke, Bob the Alpha moved toward Roth, lifting the fiery sword, and Thumper didn’t like that. Rearing back, he stretched out his long neck and opened his mouth, revealing fist-size fangs. The scent of sulfur increased, and then a burst of fire shot out of Thumper’s mouth.
A pain-filled shriek ended abruptly, and where Bob once stood was just a charred pile of ashes.
Everyone stood perfectly still. No one spoke or even appeared to breathe. And then, “Make that extra-extra-crispy style,” Roth said, studying the mess.
My knees went weak as I lifted my hands helplessly. Thumper spun on the other Alpha. There was a series of sickening crunches, and then the dragon looked over its shoulder, its golden eyes finding mine as it opened its mouth. A shimmery blue liquid stained its teeth as it huffed out a sound that really sounded like a throaty chuckle.
Bambi had eaten a Warden.
Thumper had eaten an Alpha.
These familiars were really low on manners.
More important, I hadn’t known anything could actually kill an Alpha, much less eat one.
“Oh—oh!” Stacey shrieked, and I turned sideways, just in time to see her all but squeeze herself into the two back cushions of the couch. “There’s a dragon in my house! A dragon!” Guess she was still too out of it from fainting to remember there’d been angels in her house, too.
“Thumper,” Roth called. “Return to me.”
The dragon belched out a thick cloud of smoke and turned around. I jumped out of the way of its tail, as did Zayne. The fireplace wasn’t as lucky. That lethal tail smacked into it, knocking a handful of bricks loose. They hit the floor, breaking into pieces. Thumper shifted his heavy weight from side to side.
Zayne frowned. “Is it...stomping its feet?”
Roth rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t get out much.”
“For obvious reasons,” Stacey mumbled.
Thumper lifted his tail and slammed it down, cracking what was left of the floor and earning a sigh from Roth. The dragon shook its head, then shuddered before shrinking back down to its cute, pocket-size form. Thumper finally returned to Roth, settling on the side of his face as a small shadow that quickly raced down his neck and under the collar of his shirt.
I was struck absolutely silent and was barely aware of shifting back into my human state. My thoughts raced from one bad situation to the next. Sam as the Lilin. My feathered wings. Alphas popping in. Thumper—
“Mom is so going to kill me,” Stacey whispered, clutching a beige throw pillow to her chest. She looked up. “How am I going to explain this?”
Roth pursed his lips. “Gas-line explosion?” Stacey repeated the words dimly as he continued. “I can torch the place, make it a little more authentic. Won’t damage the upstairs if you don’t want me to.”
“Had a lot of practice with this, have you?” Zayne asked drily.
“Ah, when Thumper comes off, it’s always good to go with the old gas-line excuse. It’s handy.” Roth turned to me. “You okay over there?”
Was I okay?
Anger mixed with fear—fear for him. I stared for a moment and then I shot toward him. “What were you thinking?” Hauling back, I smacked his chest. “You threatened an Alpha!” I smacked him again, harder this time, enough to sting.
“Ow.” He rubbed his chest, but his eyes twinkled. He thought this was funny!
Zayne walked over to where the pile of ashes remained. “More than just threatened. He let Thumper eat them.”
“Hey, technically Thumper fried one and ate the other,” Roth corrected, patting his stomach, where Thumper now rested.
“Oh my God!” This time my hand connected with his arm. “You’re going to be in so much trouble, Roth! So much trouble.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Defended myself.”
“Defended myself.” I mimicked him, bopping my head back and forth. “You can’t just go around killing Alphas, Roth!”
“You killed those angels?” Stacey asked, so I guessed she did remember them.
He sent her an innocent grin. “Well, I didn’t, but...”
“Roth!” I shouted, backing away before I started choking the ever-loving life out of him. “This is not a joke. You—”
He was damn fast when he wanted to be. One second he was several feet away from me and the next he was there, clasping the sides of my face. He lowered his head so he was eye level with me. “There are rules, Shortie.”
“But—”
“Rules that even the Alphas have to abide by. They cannot attack me without physical provocation. If they do, they tick the Boss off, and then the Boss retaliates in a way that makes what the Lilin could do look like child’s play. I’m not just some random demon. I’m the Crown Prince. They took a swing at me, and I defended myself. End of story.”
But he had provoked them—maybe not physically, but he wasn’t an innocent bystander in this. As the shock ebbed, there was a different kind of bitter pill to swallow. What if Roth had gotten his rules wrong? What if more Alphas were even now on the way to avenge their brethren?
“I’m going to be okay.” His eyes held mine as he stepped closer, lining his booted feet up with mine. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I promise.”
“You can’t make that promise,” I whispered, searching his gaze intently. “None of us can.”
His hands slid back and he curled his fingers in my loose hair. “I can.”
Those two words were like throwing down a gauntlet to the whole universe. I lowered my gaze as he dragged my hair back, tucking both sides behind my ears. It was then, as he slowly withdrew his hands, that I remembered we were not alone.
I jerked back and my gaze collided with Zayne’s. For a moment, I let myself really see Zayne. I hadn’t almost killed him. I had almost done something much, much worse than that. When a Warden lost their soul, they turned into a horrific creature. I knew that for a fact, because I’d seen what had happened to a Warden after their soul had been taken from them. I’d almost done that to Zayne, and he was still here, standing by my side.
A hole opened up in my chest as I saw the keen wariness in his stare. My stomach twisted something awful and I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. My heart and head were suddenly tearing in two very different directions. Fortunately, I didn’t get the chance to say anything.
“I leave you alone for a few hours, and you let Thumper fry and eat an Alpha.”
Yelping, I spun around as Stacey screamed. Cayman stood in the center of the destroyed living room. He’d come out of nowhere. Poof. There. He wore dark trousers and a white dress shirt he appeared to have gotten bored with when it came to buttoning it up, and his blond hair was loose around his angular face. When it came to the demon pecking order, Roth had once explained that as an Infernal Ruler, Cayman was middle management. He was kind of like the demon-of-all-trades, and I had a feeling he was more than just a...um, coworker of Roth’s. Whether Roth claimed it or not, they were friends.
“That was quick,” Roth commented, folding his arms across his chest.
Cayman shrugged. “It’s a sign of the times, man. It’ll probably be on some Alpha’s Facebook wall within the hour.”
Alphas had Facebook accounts?
Stacey was holding the throw pillow to her mouth now, and all that was visible were her huge, dark brown eyes. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. “Who is that?”
I started to explain, but Cayman bowed in her direction, extending his arm with a flourish. “Only the most handsome and smartest and downright most charming demon there is. But I know that’s a mouthful, so you can call me Cayman.”
“Um.” Her gaze darted around the room. “Okay.”
Zayne’s skin had darkened in a clear indication that he was close to shifting again, and I hoped he kept it cool. Cayman was a friend, and the last thing we needed was the two of them getting into it. “Is Roth in trouble?”
“Shortie, I’m—”
I raised my hand, cutting him off. “Shush it. Cayman, is he in trouble?”
Cayman grinned. “I think the better question is—when is he not in trouble?”
Narrowing my eyes, I had to admit that was a good point. “Okay. Is he in more trouble than he normally is?”
“Ah...” His gaze shifted toward Roth, and then his grin spread into a devilish smile. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. “Let’s just say that the Boss is not pleased with what just went down here. Actually, the Boss is ticked off about a lot of things, and if Roth goes down below anytime soon, he probably won’t be leaving for a while. Like for a couple of decades.”
I gasped. “That’s not good.” So much for the Boss being on Roth’s side.
“Could be worse,” Roth said, smirking.
Cayman nodded. “If you want the truth, I think the Boss secretly was pleased with what Thumper did, but you know...politics.” He sighed while I raised my brows. “Ruins everything fun.”
My temples were starting to ache. “Today has been...”
“Unbelievable?” offered Stacey. Dropping the pillow, she pressed the palms of her hands under her eyes. Her expression was pale and strained. Her hands shook as she wiped beneath her eyes.
I nodded slowly as I turned around. My gaze met Roth’s and then Zayne’s. Both of them stared at me, waiting. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t know what they were waiting for, but that would be a lie.
And that would also make me a coward.
Weight landed on my shoulders as I rubbed my fingers along my temples. There was so much we needed to figure out. “We need to take care of this.” I gestured at the ruined room. The scent of sulfur lingered, and part of me was grateful to have something immediate to focus on. “So Stacey doesn’t get in trouble.”
“Much appreciated,” she said, and when I glanced at her, I saw her dragging her hands through her hair.
Roth stepped up. “Why don’t you guys head down to the Cakes and Things bakery while I take care of this. You can do that?” The question was directed at Zayne, who nodded.
“I will keep them safe,” Zayne replied in a level tone.
Roth hesitated, and then he took a deep breath. “If other Wardens show—”
“I will protect both of them from whatever or whoever may come at them,” Zayne assured him. He drew in a deep breath. “Even...even if it is my clan.”
“And I can also protect myself,” I threw in, earning an amused glance from Roth. “What? Trust me. Any of my...my old clan comes in my direction, I’m not going to open my arms to hug them.” I ignored the wave of dread that surfaced with the thought of coming face-to-face with them again. “Well, except Nicolai and Dez. I think they kind of—”
“Shortie,” Roth said.
I sighed. “Whatever. Let’s go.” Turning to Stacey, I walked over to gently pry the pillow she’d picked up again loose from her white-knuckle grip. “You okay to go out there?”
She blinked once and then twice. “What are my options? I stay in here while Roth torches the place? No, thank you.”
Good to see that even after the day we’d had, Stacey could still be a smart-ass.
Roth strode up to Cayman, placing his hand on the other demon’s shoulder. “I want you to keep an eye out, okay?”
The list of things that Cayman would be keeping an eye out for was astronomical.
“Word.” Cayman disappeared. Poof. Gone.
Shaking my head, I refocused on Stacey. Tears filled her eyes as she peered up at me through damp lashes. “Sam’s... He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I placed the pillow on the couch beside her and knelt down. A burning knot of emotion formed in the back of my throat. “Yeah. He is.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as a tremor rolled through her. “I remember you all talking about the...the Lilin and what it does to people. If Sam’s dead, then his soul...”
His soul was in Hell. I knew that. Stacey already knew that. Everyone in this room knew that, and there could be nothing more horrific than being trapped in Hell. He didn’t deserve all the horrifying things that happened to souls there.
Wrapping my hands around Stacey’s, I squeezed them tight. “I promise we will get Sam’s soul out of Hell. I promise.”
three (#ulink_c70f5606-47e9-5258-91e2-9b937255fb52)
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE made that promise,” Zayne said quietly the moment Stacey hit the girls’ bathroom at the bakery several blocks from her house. I’d tried to go with her, but she stated quite firmly that she needed a few moments alone.
I sat in the booth closest to the window, watching the people rushing outside, their auras a dizzying wash of colors. It was so weird to see the auras again. A part of me had gotten used to not seeing them while Bambi had been on me, and I’d forgotten how distracting they could be. “Why not?”
Zayne slid in across from me. Concern pinched his features. “How are you going to get Sam’s soul out of Hell, Layla? Roth may be the Crown Prince, but I seriously doubt that is something that he can ask for, even if he was on good terms with them. Hell isn’t just going to hand Sam’s soul right over.”
“I hadn’t gotten that far in my plan.” Actually, I’d been hoping that it was something that Roth could help us out with. After all, being the Crown Prince meant he could just go around letting Thumper fry and eat Alphas. “But it’s something we have to do. Zayne, he’s my best friend.” My voice cracked, and I felt my tenuous control over my emotions start to slip. “Even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t leave him there. He didn’t deserve this. God, Zayne, Sam did not deserve this.”
“I know.” Zayne dipped his chin, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m not suggesting that we forget about him.”
“We have to do something,” I reiterated, drawing in a deep breath as I leaned back against the booth, resting my hands on the smooth table. I glanced back toward where Stacey had disappeared. She’d asked for time, but it was so hard to give it to her. Considering everything that had happened, I was surprised that we could sit here and talk normally. “And then we need to figure out what to do about the Lilin, and then we—”
“Hey, slow down for a second.” Zayne reached across the table, folding his hand over mine. I studied him as my heart turned over heavily. Anytime I looked at him now, I saw the smudges under his eyes, and I saw the dulled aura around him. I couldn’t un-see that. “I know a lot of crazy stuff just went down, but you’ve been through a lot. We need to talk about it.”
I really did not want to talk about any of that, because there was a good chance I couldn’t handle it.
Zayne had other ideas. “Do you know how hard it is for me to sit on the other side of this booth and not reach across and pull you against me? Just to make sure you really are alive?” he asked, and my breath caught at the raw honesty in his words. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You need to know that. My clan—our clan—and my father never should have done what they did.”
I dropped my gaze to his hand, the one that held mine and had held mine for so many years. I closed my eyes and immediately saw Zayne lying on the floor of my bedroom, pale and still. I remembered the way Abbot, the Warden that had raised me, had looked at me when he found his son, stared at me like I was a monster he had helped create. Pressure clamped down on my chest as I recalled the panicked flight through the compound, my desperate attempt to escape and the failure.
Failure that had ended with me being caged and drugged, left alone in the dark with no hope of ever seeing the daylight again. I could still smell the musty scent that had lingered in the basement of the compound, feel the chains that had bound me when I’d been moved to the secret warehouse.
“Layla?”
A shudder rolled through me as I reminded myself I wasn’t in that cage anymore. I opened my eyes and forced those dark thoughts out of my head.
“I appreciate you saying that. You’re right. What they did to me was wrong. I get that they thought I was the one causing trouble around the compound—heck, even I thought I was a danger to everyone, but they went too far.”
My words kind of surprised me. I’d always defended Abbot, but I couldn’t make excuses for his actions or those of the majority of my clan. All the soul-searching I’d done after waking up from the blow, the wound delivered to me in front of Abbot, had changed who I was at the very core. There was no doubt about that. “They acted as the jury with some really crappy circumstantial evidence, and then they became the judge and the executioner. I could’ve died. I would’ve died if it hadn’t been for Dez—and by the way, how much trouble are he and Nicolai in?”
Dez and Nicolai had risked everything by alerting Roth to what was happening. If they hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been sitting here right now.
Zayne’s lashes lowered as his expression contorted. “At first, there were talks of casting them out,” he said, and I sucked in a breath. Casting them out meant they’d be disowned from the clan, which was horrible enough for a single male, but Dez had a mate and two little babies. “But once we realized that it was Petr wreaking havoc around the house, Abbot began to see the light. Nicolai and Dez are safe.”
With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten that Zayne had told me they’d discovered Petr’s wraith, caught on camera. Relief coursed through me. I’d... I’d killed the young Warden in self-defense when he attacked me, carrying out his father’s orders. Elijah. Who’d also turned out to be my real father, so that meant Petr, who’d been the worst kind of boy there was, was my half brother. That still sickened me. Since I’d sucked out Petr’s soul, he’d become a wraith.
“You could’ve died, too. I could’ve taken your whole soul,” I continued, keeping my voice low. That was the gift my mother, Lilith, had left me with—the wonderful ability to suck out souls with a single kiss. Anyone who had one was in danger if they got anywhere near my mouth, which up until recently had put a real damper on the whole dating business.
But then Roth had shown up, and as a demon, he was in the no-soul category. At first, I’d loathed his very existence, and looking back, it had a lot to do with how his words and actions made me question everything the Wardens had taught me. By nature, demons weren’t something you’d invite in for dinner, but not all of them were the wretched creatures I’d been conditioned to abhor to a near-fanatical degree. They had their purpose, too. Every second I’d spent with Roth, I’d fallen a little harder for him, and I’d shared so much with him before he’d sacrificed himself to save Zayne from the fiery pits of Hell. I’d thought I’d lost him then, but he’d returned—only things had been different between us when he had. Roth had distanced himself, to protect me.
To shield me from Abbot.
Then there was everything that had happened with Zayne. I’d been raised with him, spent years idolizing and loving him from afar. For the longest time, he’d been my everything, but he’d been a Warden and I’d only been half Warden—and worse, half demon. Between his soul and my genetic background, he’d been off-limits. A friendship with him, the bond we shared, had been a glimpse of a future that every female Warden was assured of but that was never on the table for me. That knowledge had done nothing to stop my growing feelings, and when Roth had returned from the pits, pushing me away, he’d pushed me right into the arms of Zayne, the boy I never thought would return my affections.
I’d been wrong about that.
I’d been wrong about a lot of things.
Zayne’s eyes flew open. “But you didn’t.”
“Barely.” That pressure returned, weighing on me as I felt again the horror of the night I realized I’d been feeding on Zayne instead of...instead of kissing him back. “I can see where I’ve taken some. I can tell in your aura.”
“I’m fine—”
“No thanks to me. The only reason I’d been able to...to kiss you before then was because of Bambi. When she was on me, I could control my abilities.” I slipped my hand free, pressing my lips together as I shook my head. “You can’t overlook what I did to you, and I know you can’t be a hundred percent okay.”
Zayne stared at me, and then he lifted his hand, thrusting his fingers through his hair. “You stopped in time. Other than feeling a little tired and...grumpier than normal, I am fine, Layla-bug.”
My heart squeezed at the use of my nickname. “Grumpier than normal?”
His brows knitted and for a moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer. “My temper is easier to ignite nowadays. I don’t know if that has to do with what happened between us or if it’s the natural result of everything else going on lately.”
I think I knew the answer to that. When someone’s soul was stripped away, even a tiny piece, it changed who they were in some way. Maybe it made some more prone to mood swings, others more reckless and others violent.
And apparently for Zayne, he’d lost a bit of his kindness, a little of what made him absolutely wonderful, and I had done that to him. While it hadn’t been on purpose, neither of us, especially me, had shown any level of common sense by trying to be together. Neither of us had delved too deeply into why all of a sudden I could do things like kissing without taking a soul.
Then again, as Zayne had pointed out once, there was a lot more that we could’ve done that hadn’t involved our mouths touching.
Strangely, sitting across from him, I realized I didn’t feel the longing to feed. It was the first that I’d noticed its absence. Since my clan had turned on me, I’d been staying with Roth and Cayman, and as neither owned a soul, I hadn’t even thought about feeding on one—something that I’d spent seventeen years fighting the urge to do.
Now, though I was once again surrounded by souls, the urge simply wasn’t there.
Maybe today’s events had shocked me bad enough that even that was affected.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, flipping my gaze to the street beyond the window. It was the second week of December, and the skies above Washington, DC, were gray and the wind brisk, carrying the scent of snow in the air. “I’m so sorry, Zayne.”
“Don’t apologize,” he was quick to say. “Don’t ever apologize to me. I don’t regret anything that happened between us. Not a moment.”
Did I?
“Anyway, it’s not me I want to talk about. Are you okay?” he asked. “What they did—”
“I’m fine,” I said, and it felt like a lie. “I was healed by the witches. You know, the ones who worship Lilith. They gave Cayman something for me to drink and it worked.” Which reminded me of the fact that Cayman had to promise something in return and none of us knew what bargain he’d struck yet. “I have no idea what they gave me.”
“That’s kind of concerning,” he replied wryly.
My lips twitched, and when I looked up, our gazes met, and then held. He leaned in, placing his elbows onto the table. “Layla, I—”
A shadow fell over our table, and when I looked up, I saw Stacey’s aura first. It was a faint, mossy green. A common color. Pure souls were rare, and the darker the shade of the aura, the more likely it was they had sinned. Stacey’s blotchy face broke my heart. I slid over, sending Zayne a glance. The look he wore promised that we weren’t done with the conversation.
“How are you doing?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
“I’m okay.” She didn’t sound okay. “I just needed a moment or five.” It was more like ten, but she could have as many moments as she needed. She paused, smoothing the back of her hands over her cheeks. “I’m okay, right?”
My smile was weak as tears burned the back of my eyes. “Yes.” I reached over, slipping my arm over her shoulders. “But if you’re not, that’s okay, too.”
A tremor coursed through her as she leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder. Usually it was hard if someone got this close, but again, the urge that existed deep within wasn’t gnawing at my insides. “He’s dead,” she whispered.
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to take deep, even breaths to loosen the messy knot in my throat. All I wanted to do was hold on to Stacey and break down, because Sam... God, Sam was gone, and it was like a thousand razor blades were churning in my stomach, but I had to pull it together for Stacey. She’d known Sam a lot longer than me, since grade school, and she had fallen in love with him. Her pain was a priority over mine.
Keeping my arm around her, I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know what to say in situations like this. Even when I’d thought Roth was gone, I had hope that he was still alive. This was different. There would be no surprises. Sam would not reappear one day. No one close to me had ever died before, and I knew my mind hadn’t fully processed the reality of him being gone. So I just held her as I stared at the door, blindly watching the people streaming in and out. At some point Zayne got up and returned with two cups of hot chocolate. I barely tasted the sweetness.
I don’t know how much time passed before I felt the tingle of awareness alerting me to a demon’s presence. Across from us, Zayne stiffened, but when the door closed, it was Roth. He strolled to our table, and Zayne scooted over. Normally, I would’ve burst out laughing seeing them sitting side by side.
Neither of them looked exactly comfortable.
There was a woodsy scent that clung to Roth’s clothes, as if he’d been near a bonfire. “Took care of it,” he told Stacey. “Your downstairs is pretty much shot. The fire department is already on the way. Just remember you didn’t go home after school. You came here to meet Layla and Zayne.”
Swallowing hard, she nodded as she circled her hands around the cup of hot chocolate. “Got it.”
Roth tilted his head to the side, his brows furrowed as he studied her. “You’re going to do fine with this.”
When Stacey nodded again, he reached across the table, his hand veering to the left. He snatched up my cup of hot chocolate. Taking a sip, he didn’t even look in my direction.
“Help yourself,” I muttered under my breath.
His lips twitched. “So what’s the game plan, Stony?”
A muscle twitched along Zayne’s jaw. He hated that nickname. “Game plan in regards to what exactly?”
“The Lilin,” Roth replied, as if the answer should be obvious.
I stiffened. “I don’t think now is the time to discuss this.”
Golden eyes drifted from me to Stacey. There was a pause. “Good point.”
“No,” Stacey said, twisting toward me. “This is the perfect time.”
“But—”
“That thing in my house wasn’t Sam. It wasn’t him,” she said, her voice rising. A couple by the door glanced over at us with frowns on their faces. “So when you talk about it, the Lilin, you aren’t talking about Sam.” Her voice caught. “That thing is not Sam.”
Zayne shifted forward in the booth. “Are you sure, Stacey?”
“Positive,” she whispered.
Chest aching, I glanced at the boys, and then nodded. “Okay.”
Roth placed my cup back down in front of me and then leaned back against the cushioned seat, turning his head toward Zayne. “Sounded like the Alphas might’ve already spoken to the Wardens, and if that’s the case, I find it a wee bit interesting you haven’t said anything.”
“When would I have had the time to say something even if that was the case?” Zayne retorted, voice clipped. “Between seeing Layla and when the Alphas actually showed up?”
Roth lifted his brows. “Are you getting snappy with me?”
“What does it sound like?” Zayne returned.
“I don’t know.” A slight smile formed on his lips as he threw his arm along the back of the cushion. I sighed, because I knew that look. “But you catching a tone with me is about as interesting as reading up on the benefits of a water purification system.”
I stared at him. Only a handful of hours ago, Zayne had thanked Roth for saving me. They had actually been polite to each other. I guessed I shouldn’t be surprised that hadn’t lasted very long. “Roth.”
“Hmm?”
My eyes narrowed. “Knock it off.”
The smile spread until there was a flash of white teeth. “Anything for you, Shortie.”
Oh Lord.
Zayne moved his gaze to me, and I couldn’t decipher what I saw in his stare. “I don’t know if the Alphas have spoken to my father yet. I haven’t really been...talking to him recently, and they haven’t showed at the compound while I’ve been there.”
“What I don’t understand is why the Alphas would think that your kind would be the ones to stop the Lilin. You have souls, therefore you have a major vulnerability.” Roth was eyeing what was left of my hot chocolate. “My kind doesn’t.”
“Not something to gloat about.” Zayne exhaled loudly, and I resisted the urge to bang my head against the table. “Look, I’ll check in and see if I can find anything out.”
“Fine, but we have a bigger problem,” Roth warned.
Stacey looked up from her cup. “We do?”
I wanted to echo that statement, because I wasn’t sure exactly what could be bigger than taking down a creature that could inflict so much pain and destruction.
“What are the Wardens going to do once they realize Layla is alive and well?” There was a low rasp to Roth’s voice that resembled a growl. “That’s what I’m concerned about.”
Zayne’s lips thinned. “They will do nothing. They know she’s not the cause of what happened—”
“That doesn’t undo anything they’ve done,” Roth cut in.
“I didn’t say that it did.” The hand Zayne rested on the table started to deepen to a granite color. “I’m not going to allow them to touch her.”
I opened my mouth to point out again that I wasn’t going to allow them to touch me, but Roth got right up in Zayne’s face. “And I’m not going to forget a single thing that was done to her,” he warned. “I haven’t forgotten how she came back to me with claw marks on her face.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I leaned back against the cushion as Stacey turned to me. “You were clawed in the face?”
I clamped my mouth shut as I stared at her, refusing to look at Zayne or even Roth, but I didn’t need to spare even a brief glance in their direction to know the two had locked eyes. When Zayne had kissed me, and I had inadvertently started to feed on his soul, he’d begun to shift and had clawed me in an attempt to break the connection. There was not a single part of me that thought he’d meant to truly hurt me. Roth had to know that, too.
Stacey’s eyes searched mine, and she must’ve seen the truth, because as impossible as it seemed, an even greater sadness filled her gaze.
“I will never forgive myself for that.” Zayne’s quiet voice broke the terse silence, and I whipped around to face him.
Roth tipped his chin down. “Neither will I.”
“Stop it.” I clenched the end of the table. “Talking about that isn’t getting us anyplace. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Roth replied. “Because no matter what, I would never, ever hurt you.”
Zayne jerked back as if he’d taken a fatal blow.
“But you have.” My knuckles were starting to ache. “You have hurt me.”
Maybe not physically, but Roth had hurt me in the past. Words could cut just as deep as sharpened claws, and while the skin could heal, the wounds words left behind never faded as quickly. He might’ve been trying to protect me, but that hadn’t lessened the sting one bit.
Roth’s gaze met mine, and then his thick lashes lowered, shielding his eyes. Silent, he sat back and folded his arms across his chest. Zayne stared at the tabletop, a lock of blond hair falling in his face. Tension seeped from both of them, and my skin felt like it was stretched too thin.
Stacey’s phone rang and she dug it out of her bag with a shaking hand. She started to stand. “It’s Mom.” Glancing at me with watery eyes, she looked years younger. “I can do this.”
“You can do this.” I reached out and squeezed her arm through her sweater. Her eyes had a wild, panicked look about them.
I heard her answer the phone as she walked over to the entry door and slipped outside. My gaze tracked her as she started to pace behind an empty bench. I just wanted to crawl under the table and rock for a little bit. I figured that couldn’t be too much to ask.
Zayne cleared his throat. “You know this, but you can’t go back to the compound. There’re places that you can stay, where you will be safe.”
“I have a place to stay,” I told him, taking a sip of my now-lukewarm hot chocolate.
His jaw hardened. “With him?”
Surprisingly, Roth remained quiet, which made me feel like I needed to check if he was alive. I set the cup aside and rested my arms on the table, more than just exhausted. More like weary to my very core. “It’s a place that’s safe,” I said. “And yes, it’s with Roth and Cayman.”
Zayne opened his mouth, and then closed it. Several seconds passed and they felt like the tick of eternity. “What are you going to do, Layla?”
The question carried a lot of weight, because I knew it went beyond just where I was staying for the night or the next couple of days. There was so much I didn’t know the answer to. School was up in the air. Where I would be living was completely undecided. How we could defeat the Lilin or save Sam’s soul still unknown. I had no idea what was going on when I shifted today. And there was more—there was Roth and Zayne, two very different guys that I had loved and fallen in love with.
Stacey returned, saving me from having to answer the question. Her mom was in hysterics, as expected, and Stacey needed to go to her aunt’s house.
The four of us headed out into the chilly air. Stacey and Roth walked ahead, but I stopped and turned around. With my heart beating fast, I walked back to where Zayne stood behind the bench Stacey had paced near. Stretching up, I wrapped my arms around him. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he returned the embrace, holding me so tight that my cheek pressed against his chest.
The hug felt good, more than good. It was like coming home after a long day, and it was hard to break away from that.
“When will I see you again?” he asked, his voice thick.
“Soon,” I promised.
His arms tightened around me. “Please be safe, Layla. Please.”
“You, too.”
“Of course, Layla-bug.”
I looked up into his eyes. “I never blamed you for the claw marks, so please don’t blame yourself for something that I don’t even need to forgive you for.”
* * *
Roth and I didn’t talk on the drive back to the house across the river, in Maryland. I still had no idea how they’d come into possession of the McMansion, only that Cayman had acquired it at some point, and I figured it was best that I didn’t ask too many questions.
I’d spent several hours with Stacey and her mom and little brother at her aunt’s ginormous home while Roth lingered outside doing...demon things or whatever. It was late, almost midnight, by the time we’d left her house and made it back to this one.
I didn’t know why Roth was so quiet, but I appreciated it, because I didn’t have the brainpower to hold a conversation or to really think about anything.
Roth parked the vintage Mustang in the garage, and the house was dark and silent when we walked in. The place was toasty warm, but there was no sign of Cayman. I climbed the spiral staircase and dragged myself down the hall to the bedroom I’d woken up in after they’d first rescued me from the Wardens.
When I reached the closed door, I tucked my hair back behind my ear as I glanced over my shoulder at Roth.
He stood a few feet down the hall, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and the back of his head pressed against the wall. “I’ll take the room here,” he said, not looking in my direction. He’d stayed with me while I’d been healing, but now there really was no reason to be...bunking together. “If you need anything, the door will be unlocked.”
My hand tightened around the doorknob. “Thank you.”
I had no idea if he knew what I was thanking him for, but he nodded. Neither of us moved for a long moment. He continued to stare at nothing while I stared at him. Finally I pushed out, “Good night, Roth.”
He didn’t respond.
Turning the knob, I pushed open the door and immediately headed for the bedside lamp, flipping it on. The room was huge, the master suite, and furnished with stunning antiques.
I’d never felt more out of place as I gathered up the pajamas Cayman had brought me a few days ago and quickly changed into the cotton bottoms and loose shirt. At least the nightwear was nothing like the other clothing he and Roth had picked out for me. I was half surprised that they hadn’t given me a skimpy nightie. I padded barefoot into the bathroom, one much larger than the bathroom attached to my bedroom back in the Wardens’ compound. Well, my old bedroom. Definitely not mine anymore.
Nothing in that house was mine anymore.
The light in the bathroom was harsh and bright as I brushed my teeth and washed my face, leaving little puddles on the marble basin and droplets on my shirt. I was so messy when it came to these things. More than once I’d ended up with toothpaste in my hair and looking like I was entering a wet T-shirt contest.
As I turned off the faucet, I looked up and saw my reflection in the mirror. But I didn’t see myself. Not really. When I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing—the same image.
I saw Sam.
I saw Sam smiling. I saw him laughing. I saw the skin around his eyes crinkling, and as I stepped back from the sink, I could hear him spouting off some random, obscure piece of knowledge like how a frozen banana could act as a hammer. I could see him fiddling with his glasses and gazing at Stacey, unable to pull his eyes off her even when she’d been completely oblivious to his attraction. I could see him so clearly, as if he really was standing in the bathroom with me.
“Oh God,” I whispered, and my face crumpled.
There was no one in there to see me, but I slapped my hands over my eyes as I pressed against the wall. A shudder rocked me as the tears I’d been fighting all afternoon and evening finally broke free.
Sam was gone.
The knowledge was like getting hit by a speeding snowplow, and then getting stuck under the wheels and dragged down a bumpy road. Tears poured out of me as my shoulders shook with the force of them.
I remembered the first time I’d met him. We shared a history class my freshman year, and I’d been such a big goober, too nervous about my first foray into public school to find the pens in my bag, so he’d given me one of his while explaining that an average of one hundred people a year choke on pens.
A strangled laugh escaped me. God, how did Sam know all of that stuff? Who knew that kind of stuff? Sam did, but I’d never know the answer to that question and that hurt.
Trying to pull it together and failing, I slid down the wall and tucked my knees against my chest. Pressing my face against my leg, I screamed it out, all the pain, the anger and the sadness. The sound was muffled, and it did very little to ease the storm of emotions swirling inside me. I wanted to scream again, to rage.
I didn’t hear the bathroom door open, but suddenly an arm circled my shoulders, and then Roth was sitting on the floor beside me. He didn’t say anything as he hauled me into his lap, and I was incapable of uttering a single word as I buried my face into his chest, inhaling the unique musky scent and soaking up his warmth. The tears fell faster and harder. There was no gaining control in any of this. Roth held on, one arm wrapped around me, the other hand buried in my hair, curving around the back of my head. He didn’t whisper words of comfort, because there was absolutely nothing that could be said. My heart had cracked wide-open and it was raw, painful. It was unfair.
I cried it all out in the bathroom of a house that didn’t belong to me, held in the protective arms of the Crown Prince of Hell. I mourned the loss of my best friend.
four (#ulink_af18cfe6-ad61-5c35-be23-14791ae82ae9)
SITTING CROSS-LEGGED IN the center of the king-size bed, I keyed Zayne’s and Stacey’s numbers into the cell phone Cayman had deposited outside my room this morning.
I had terrible, horrific luck with cell phones. I’d left behind a graveyard of cell phones, piles of phones that simply had the misfortune of ending up in my hands, but like I had with every one before it, I really hoped this time was different.
Like the last phone Zayne had picked up for me, it was a nifty smartphone, but this one an even newer and fancier version. Oddly, no matter which way I positioned my finger over the little button, it wouldn’t read my fingerprint.
Technology.
Sigh.
Dropping the phone on the bed in front of me, I blinked bleary eyes. I’d cried so much last night, my eyes now felt like sandpaper was taped to the back of my lids. I’d cried until I fell asleep on a bathroom floor, in Roth’s arms. He must’ve carried me to bed, but I didn’t remember that, though I did remember how good it felt to be held by him. He was gone when I woke up and I hadn’t seen him or Bambi at all today. I guessed she was on him.
I tried not to panic about their absence, but it was hard. The way things were going there was a good chance that Cayman and Roth had underestimated the extent of their Boss’s reaction to Roth’s actions yesterday with the Alphas and Thumper.
My thoughts roamed from Roth to Zayne and then back to Roth, forming an endless circle before Sam and Stacey broke the cycle. The loss of him was going to hurt something horrible for a long time to come, but as badly as I felt, it was nothing compared to Stacey’s pain.
If losing Sam had taught me anything, it was to seize life—seize everything it had to offer, including the tears, the anger and loss, but most of all, the laughter and the love.
To just seize life.
Because it was fleeting and it was fickle, and no one, not me or anyone I knew, had another day, let alone another second promised to them.
Scooting off the bed, I grabbed the phone and made my way downstairs. The closer I got to the kitchen, the stronger the scent of paradise grew. Bacon. I smelled bacon. My stomach grumbled, and I picked up my pace. I found Cayman in the kitchen, making eggs on the stove. Sure enough, bacon sizzled on a griddle beside them.
“Morning,” he said without turning around. His hair was pulled back in a hot pink clip with a bedazzled butterfly attached to it. A small smile crept onto my face. “You like your eggs scrambled or what?”
“Scrambled is fine.” I hopped up on the bar stool positioned at the large island.
“Good. My kind of girl.” He flipped the bacon, and then headed to the fridge, twirling the spatula as he walked. Opening the door, he reached inside and grabbed a small bottle of OJ. Turning, he tossed it in my direction, and I caught it before it smacked me in the face. “Picked some of these up, too.”
I glanced down at the bottle. “How did you know?”
He lifted his brows, and then shook his head, turning back to the stove. Bacon snapped and popped as I set the bottle down. Roth had to have told him that the OJ helped with the cravings, as did anything sweet. When I’d woken up, the familiar burning sensation in the pit of my stomach was there, even though it had been absent yesterday. Still, it was minor compared to what I was used to.
“So, what are you planning to do today?” Cayman asked, scooping up the eggs and dropping them on two plates.
“I don’t know.” Dragging my still-damp hair over one shoulder, I twisted it with my hands. “I was going to check in with Zayne later and see if he’d heard anything about the Alphas, and then call Stacey. I’m... I’m worried about her.”
“She’ll get through it. Seems like a strong girl.”
“She is,” I agreed. “But losing someone is...”
“I imagine it’s hard, but I really don’t know. I haven’t loved anything or anyone other than myself,” he replied, and I lifted a brow at that. At least he was honest. “Got to suck to lose that.”
“It does.” I screwed off the lid of the OJ, feeling the heaviness in my chest. I had no idea how long it would take for that to fade. I thought back to when Roth had sacrificed himself; there had been moments where the burden of pain eased, but it had always resurfaced with a bitter vengeance.
Cayman gathered up the slices of bacon, spreading them out on our plates before joining me at the island. If someone told me a year ago I’d be eating scrambled eggs and bacon made by a demon, I would’ve laughed in their face and told them that crack was whack.
Times had most definitely changed. I picked up a piece of bacon.
“What’s going on with you and Zayne?”
I nearly choked on the bacon. My eyes watered as I grabbed the OJ and took a huge swallow. “Excuse me?” I croaked.
A half smile formed as he forked up some eggs. “You and Zayne, the gorgeous gargoyle. What’s going on there?”
“How do you know something’s going on?”
Cayman rolled his eyes. “Honey-child, a blind person could see there’s major tension. What’s the scoop?”
Heat blasted across my cheeks. Well then. “I...” I had no idea how to answer that question, because I wasn’t even sure myself. “I don’t know.”
He sent me a long look. “Ah, I think you totally know, but you’re just not ready to put it into words.”
Shoving another slice of bacon into my mouth, I eyed him. “Oh, do you now?”
“Yeah. Your shit is complicated. I got you, but I know what’s really going on there, so I’m about to go all come to Jesus with you.” Setting his fork down, he leaned over and whispered the “truth” in my ear.
I jerked back, his words echoing—no, actually taunting me—and anger rose in me swiftly. I glared at him, my hand tight on the fork. Something about what he said was so true I wanted to kick it back in his face. “I don’t want to talk to you about this.”
He chuckled. “Whatever floats your boat.”
Ignoring him, I devoured the rest of my breakfast, then I got up and dumped the plate and silverware in the dishwasher. When I faced him, he was still grinning. I crossed my arms. “Where’s Roth?”
“He’s out.”
I waited and there was no answer. “Doing what?”
“Things,” he replied. “Demon duties.”
Sighing, I leaned against the counter. “You’re real helpful.”
Winking, he held up his empty plate between two fingers. Air crackled, and then flames sparked off the tip of his fingers, climbing the plate. My eyes widened as I watched the fire completely obliterate the plate. The fork went up in flames next.
“Well, that’s one way to clean up,” I murmured.
“Just a little trick of the trade.” He wiped the ashes off his hands. “But going back to the not being helpful part, I’ll have you know I’m very helpful. Ask me how you can get Sam’s soul back.”
I blinked. “What?”
He sighed. “Ask me how to get Sam’s soul back from Hell. You know, so you can make sure he goes where he’s supposed to, which I’m assuming is beyond those big pearly gates in the sky.”
Slowly, I unfolded my arms. “You know how to get Sam’s soul?”
“Yep. Though I think Roth would prefer that I didn’t tell you. Now get that look off your face that makes people think a bird just crapped on your head.”
My brows flew up. That’s how I looked?
He continued, “Roth might know a way, but I don’t think that’s where his head is right now. Honestly, I’m not sure if I even want to know where his head is at the moment.”
Unease blossomed in my belly as I inched toward the kitchen island. Cayman watched me closely. “So here’s the deal. There is one being who watches over the souls down below and only that being can release a soul. At least, most of the time. If the person is not completely dead and is hovering in the in-between, then both the Boss and the big guy in the sky get the choice of either releasing the soul or pulling it back.”
“Pulling it back?” I leaned in, placing my hands on the cool granite surface. “As in bring them back from the dead?”
He shook his head. “We don’t like to use that particular phrasing. More like pull them back from the brink of death.”
“Okay,” I murmured, but hope sparked and burned bright. I knew it was crappy of me to only be concerned about Sam’s soul when there were others who had also ended up unfairly in Hell, but I was also smart enough to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to go in there and save everyone. Or maybe I could. My spine stiffened. I could at least try. “Semantics,” I said.
“You say semantics and I say the balance of the universe.”
I stared at him a moment, and then moved on. “Can we bring back Sam since—”
“No, sweet and incredibly naive child, you cannot bring him back.” Propping his elbows on the counter, Cayman rested his chin in his hand. “Sam is dead. As in dead, dead.”
Disappointment crushed me, but there was still something to grasp onto. If we couldn’t bring Sam back, we could make sure his soul was in the right place. “How does it work? Getting a soul back and making sure it’s in the right afterlife?”
“Well, when a person dies, the Alphas decide where their soul goes. Typically the soul goes where it belongs. There is no negotiation, begging or whining. If it’s meant to go down below, that’s where it goes.” He paused. “Unless their soul is stripped away by a Lilin...or someone like you. In those instances it only goes in one direction. Sucks. Totally unfair, but that’s just the way it is.”
Someone like you.
Normally the reminder of what I was would’ve been a smack in the face, but that...that ability was a part of me. It didn’t make me evil.
Sitting back down on the stool, I picked up the OJ. “How do we get his soul back, Cayman?”
“You go to Grim.”
I felt my lips pinch. “Grim?”
Cayman grinned and said nothing.
It took a moment, but then I got it. Rocking back on the stool, I was surprised I didn’t fall right off. “Grim, as in the Grim Reaper?”
“He doesn’t like to be called that since that’s the bastardized version of his name.” Cayman spun on his bar stool, a complete circle. “You couldn’t even pronounce his real name, so let’s just go with Grim. He’s cool with that. He’s the guardian of the souls down below and he’s the only one who can release them.”
I mulled that over for a moment. “Is he nice?”
Cayman stopped midspin and threw his head back, laughing long and hard. “No, incredibly sweet and naive child, he is not. He’s as old as time and has the temperament of someone who shit the bed and has been rolling around in it all day.”
My nose wrinkled. “Ew.”
“On the plus side, it’s actually pretty simple to get down to the fiery pits in the first place. You just take one of the elevators in the Palisades,” he continued, referencing the apartment building Roth normally lived in, which also housed a demonic club. “But you can’t take Roth with you. The Boss is still pissed, and so are some of the other Upper Level demons. They get their hands on him, they are going to delay him.”
“So...so I’d have to go alone?” A shiver danced down my spine. “To Hell?”
“Most likely. I’d go with you, but... Yeah, I really don’t want to talk to Grim.”
“Your support means the world to me,” I muttered, and then took a drink of the OJ. “All of this seems too easy. I just take an elevator down to Grim and ask for Sam’s soul?”
Cayman laughed again. “I’m beginning to think your darling naïvete is actually adorable idiocy. You’re like the cute version of the village idiot.”
“Wow.” I scowled. “You really know how to stroke a girl’s ego.”
He spun on the stool again and the butterfly clip slipped in his hair. “What can I say? Guys are more my field of expertise. But back to the topic at hand—no, getting Sam’s soul won’t be as easy as you make it sound, but lucky for you, you’ll have some time to plan your strategy. Grim isn’t down below right now. He’s...off, kind of like vacationing.”
“The Grim Reaper vacations?” Disbelief dripped from my voice.
“If you’d been doing a job for two thousand-plus years, you’d need a vacation, too.” His knees knocked into mine. “Okay. He’s not really vacationing, but he is someplace much more pleasant than the pits at the moment. He pulls double occupancy.”
“What does that mean? And don’t call me an idiot again. I’m not familiar with all your demon lingo.”
Cayman glanced up at the ceiling and then down to the floor. “You get it?”
“He’s up there?” I pointed at the ceiling. “And down below, too? He goes both places?”
“Of course. He’s the Grim Reaper, which means he’s actually a— Oh, it’s like a game of Taboo. I’ll give you examples and you guess what he really is.” Cayman clapped his hands together like a seal. “He has wings and—”
“An angel.” I cut him off. “He’s an angel.”
Cayman’s expression fell. “You’re no fun.”
I didn’t know a lot about all the different kinds of angels, but I was guessing Grim was actually an angel of death, maybe the original one, so I supposed it made sense that he divided his time between Heaven and Hell. Honestly, I didn’t even care. What was important was that there was something we could do for Sam, and maybe if I was lucky, for all those the Lilin had sentenced to Hell.
“He’s back soon, next Friday our time.” Cayman leaned over, tweaked my nose, and then laughed when I smacked his hand away. “Because that’s your only option, going down there. You ain’t going up there.”
Well, duh. But Friday was six long days away. I swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I can wait that long. Sam’s soul...”
“You don’t have a choice, Layla.” The playfulness slipped away. “No one else can release his soul but Grim, and there is no way for you to enter the heavens to talk to him. None whatsoever, especially now.”
My ears perked. “Especially now? How is today any different than yesterday? I never thought I could enter Heaven before—wait. Do you know something about my wings, why they’re feathered?”
His lips twitched. “You say feathered like it’s a bad hairstyle. Then again, feathered hair is really bad.”
“Cayman,” I griped, losing my patience.
“Why worry about your awesomely superior wings when you have a Lilin who’s going to quickly realize that there is no way in holy Hell that Lilith will be getting free and that’s no joke. The Boss has her on lockdown. She’s going nowhere, my little frosted cupcake.”
My lips pursed. His terms of endearment were less than endearing.
“And what do you think that Lilin is going to do when it realizes mommy dearest is not getting free and there’s nothing that it can do?” He raised his arms and wiggled his fingers. Total jazz hands. “Chaos will ensue, and what do you think will happen when chaos ensues? The Alphas will step in, and there will be so many of them that Thumper would get an upset stomach trying to eat them all. We don’t want that. For realsies.”
I opened my mouth.
“And why worry about your sleek-ass feathered wings when you have an entire clan of Wardens who just found out in the last twenty-four hours that you’re really not dead? Because trust me, they know. Zayne wouldn’t have to tell them. The Alphas would have. Some aren’t gonna be happy about your survival. Oh no, sugar bear. Then there’s the whole witch thing, and don’t even ask me what they wanted in return for saving your butt, because I am not gonna be the bearer of that bad news bears.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Goodie gumdrops, I was really starting to feel super stressed out.
He wasn’t done. “And why stress over wings in general when you’re going to break someone’s heart?”
“What?” I snapped.
Cayman popped off the bar stool, all grins. “Let’s stop playing around, my own personal Beanie Baby. Zayne’s in love with you. Roth’s in love with you.”
I inhaled sharply, but the air caught in my throat.
“Both would do anything for you—live, breathe and die for you, but you can’t have both of them, Layla.”
My hands fell to my thighs and I whispered, “I know that.”
“And you know which one is the real deal,” he continued, eyeing me intently. “You know, the forever kind of love, so why are you dragging this shit out?”
“I’m not dragging anything out,” I protested. “I was kind of out of it, you know, what with the whole being held prisoner and then nearly killed by my own clan thing. Then I was holed up here recovering, and then yesterday happened.” Frustrated, I jumped off the stool and stalked around the island. “And maybe I don’t think it’s the right time for me to be with either of them. Did you ever think about that?”
Cayman cocked his head to the side. “When is there ever a right time to fully give your heart to another? There are always going to be obstacles. You just have to decide which ones are worth it.”
“Whatever.” I crossed my arms.
He mimicked my stance. “Don’t be a coward.”
“Excuse me?”
“A. Coward,” he repeated, and I briefly considered picking up the vase in the center of the island and throwing it at him. “Not making a choice is the coward’s way out. You love both of them. I get that. But you don’t feel the same kind of love for both of them, and the sooner you accept that, the better.”
“Why are we talking about this again? And why do you even care?”
Cayman smiled. “Because I’m a caring sort of demon.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, throwing up my hands as frustration and panic fought their way through me. Cayman made it sound so easy, like I wasn’t going to lose one of them, but I was. Call me selfish, but the idea of not having both of them in my life terrified me. “You can be so annoying.”
“Don’t hate,” he said, grinning. “Procreate.”
Now I just glared at him.
“Procreate with the right guy,” he added. “Just wanted to clarify that.”
“Oh my God,” I moaned, leaning over and placing my forehead on the counter.
I stayed like that even after I felt Cayman exit the room—and probably the entire house, because after a few moments, I didn’t sense a demon.
The granite countertop really was cool and smooth, and felt good against my flushed face. Maybe I’d stay like this all day. Sounded like a plan. Better than...
No, not better than listening to what Cayman had said about Zayne and Roth. He was right. Oh God, he was so creepily right. I did love both guys. I really did, and the idea of hurting one of them or losing one of them made me want to hurl, but Cayman was also right about a few more things.
I couldn’t have both of them.
And what I felt for them was different.
There was no hiding that. It had always been that way. Both made me happy. Both made me laugh. Both filled me with longing and made my girlie parts all kinds of happy. But only one really made me...
Well, there was only one that I knew I would always be happy with, one that I would always laugh with. One that I did more than long for, but yearned for, and each second that passed ignoring it was a second I wouldn’t get to spend with him—a second I wouldn’t live life with love in it, real love in it, the kind that did have lasting power.
Despite what Cayman said, I wasn’t sure that both of them were truly in love with me. I wasn’t in their heads, but the way they felt didn’t matter when it came down to it. It was how I felt, and I wouldn’t settle. I also didn’t expect them to settle.
My forehead was starting to stick to the granite.
For the first time in days, I let myself really think about Roth’s words, the ones I thought I’d hallucinated before I had passed out from my wounds and whatever the witches had given me.
I love you, Layla. I’ve loved you since the first moment I heard your voice and I will continue to love you. No matter what. I love you.
Roth had pretty much confirmed that I had in fact heard those words spoken with such sweet urgency, but there was this part of me that just couldn’t believe it. Or maybe I didn’t want to, because when I thought about what Roth said, I also remembered what Zayne had said when he’d seen me standing in Stacey’s living room.
I would know if a part of my heart was gone.
My entire being felt like it was squeezed to the point of pain. There were all the secrets that Zayne had told me, how he had waited...for me. Still, I had spent years wanting him and it never seemed possible that I would ever have him.
Maybe I was just scared out of my mind to finally—
Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t recognize the awareness that seeped into my skin, alerting me to another presence in the house until a deep voice rumbled throughout the kitchen.
“What in the world are you doing, Shortie?”
Jerking back, I lifted my head as I pressed my palm against my chest. Heart pounding, I watched Roth walk toward the island and stop. He was dressed much like he had been last night, except he was wearing a white thermal today that really complemented the golden hue of his skin.
“I was... I was thinking,” I said, smoothing my hands over my hair. “Thinking about stuff.”
He propped a hip against the island. “Was the countertop helping you think about stuff?”
I pressed my lips together. “Maybe.”
Roth’s gaze dipped, and then slowly slid back up to my face. There was a pleased heat in his gaze that wrought a very different kind of shiver out of me. “That’s an odd way to do some thinking, Shortie.”
“Yeah, I know. Cayman...um, he made breakfast.” Toying with my hair, I wrapped the edges around my fingers as Roth started walking again. He was coming closer to me. “And got me a phone.”
“I told him to get the phone for you,” he replied, his tawny eyes aglow. “The breakfast, though, was nice of him. All his idea.”
“It was nice.” My heart had not slowed down, and it didn’t help when he got closer still. “Where have you been?”
He stopped in front of me. “Checked out Sam’s house. Thought it would be a good idea.” Reaching between us, he got his fingers in between mine and tugged them away from my hair. “It’s not good news.”
“It’s not?”
Roth shook his head as he held my hands in his. “His family was dead. In their beds.” His expression grew tight, somber. “And they’d been dead for at least a couple of days. Since I didn’t see any wraiths, it doesn’t look like their souls had been stripped. There was a...a mess left behind.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I couldn’t suppress the shudder. I didn’t need to ask what constituted a mess. “Why would the Lilin kill without taking a soul?”
His thumbs smoothed over the insides of my hands. “Because it can. No other reason than that.”
“God.” The only silver lining was that Sam’s family would go where they belonged since they still had their souls.
“I kind of expected it, to be honest. I thought about it last night, but didn’t want to leave until I made sure you were okay.” His warm hands spread up to my wrists, and when I opened my eyes, he was staring down at me. “I hate to have to bring that news to you.”
I hated the fact that more innocent lives had been lost. I’d met Sam’s parents a few times. They were pretty cool, as random and adorable as Sam. “Wait. Sam has a sister. She’s younger and—”
A muscle flickered in his jaw as Roth dropped his gaze, and then it hit me. Roth hadn’t said his parents. He’d said his family. The eggs and bacon churned in my stomach, and I wished I hadn’t eaten anything.
“I made an anonymous call to the police. They’re probably already at the house. Even though what looks like Sam is up and walking around, with his family...deceased, that’s going to force the Lilin out of school and away from the students there. It’s going to have to be careful. Not that it would be easy to arrest, but I doubt it wants that extra hassle.”
My chest ached so badly as I murmured, “That was really smart.”
He stepped even closer. “I figured that for Stacey...and for you, it would be easier if either everyone assumed he was dead or, well, a murderer now rather than later. If the Lilin is allowed to roam around school as Sam, it means Stacey would have to go through that loss all over again.”
My gaze flew to his. “That was very considerate.”
Roth mouthed the word considerate like he’d never heard it before or didn’t really understand what it meant. “I’m going to be honest. Okay?”
“All right?”
“I like Stacey. Don’t get me wrong. That girl’s got a lot of bad in her, the fun kind, but I was really thinking about you.” His eyes held mine. “After seeing it tear you apart last night, knowing it’s still tearing you apart, I don’t want you to feel all of that again when you’ve just started to heal.”
Oh.
Oh wow.
“So don’t give me credit for something I am not,” he finished, dropping my hands.
As he stepped back, I leaned into the island, absolutely shaken. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Roth.”
He looked over his shoulder as he turned away. “I know what I am.”
That was the thing. I didn’t think he had a clue about what he was, not what existed deep inside him, what really mattered.
Cayman’s words, the whispered ones, echoed among my thoughts again, and I looked away. There was so much going on right now and so much was a mess. I had to start somewhere to sort all of this out, though, and I knew where. “I need to do something.”
Roth went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle. He didn’t turn around, but there was a suspicious hissing sound as he popped off the cap.
I took a deep breath and forged on. “I need... I need to see Zayne.”
His shoulders tensed, and then hunched as he lifted the drink to his lips. “I figured as much,” he said, and I stared at the rigid line of his back.
“Roth—”
He didn’t let me finish. “I’ll summon Cayman back. He’ll take you where you need to go.” Then he faced me, and my breath hitched. There was a vulnerability in his expression I’d never seen before, a great and terrible sadness that dampened the brightness of his eyes. “I know you trust and...and care for Zayne, but I don’t trust the rest of them. Plus, there’re the issues with the Alphas. Cayman goes with you.”
Before I could say any more or even protest, Roth was gone. In the blink of an eye, he’d disappeared and I was left staring at the space where he’d stood.
five (#ulink_22c1237d-007e-586c-ad0f-c7e40a41fa4b)
IT WASN’T UNTIL later in the afternoon that I could meet up with Zayne, and then I had to wait for Cayman to play chauffeur. He didn’t seem annoyed by the new requirement imposed on him. He chattered on as we drove, but I was too anxious and distracted to pay attention to what he was saying, so I stared out the window, checking out all the garlands strung on the lampposts and the lights that would soon twinkle on. I squirmed the whole way to the coffee shop Zayne and I used to visit every Saturday, my mind stuck on the way Roth had stared at me in the kitchen.
I didn’t get it. He’d gone from—from touching me to completely withdrawn. Not just distant, but pained. I didn’t even have the chance to explain anything. Now my heart was pounding crazy fast, like I was about to go toe-to-toe with a Hellion, and it had nothing to do with seeing Zayne.
Maybe Cayman and I had completely misjudged Roth’s...um, interest, but even if we had, it didn’t change what I was about to do. It couldn’t.
Cayman eased the Mustang to an idling stop along the parked cars outside the shop. As I reached for the door, he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “My number is entered in your phone already, under Awesome Sauce. Text me when you’re done.”
“Okay.” I opened the door, wincing as the wind smacked me in the face.
“Don’t wander off. You have Alphas and who knows what else potentially gunning for your ass,” he continued. “And I really don’t want to go back to the house and have to explain to Roth that I lost you somehow.”
I resisted both the urge to point out that I wasn’t sure how Roth would even feel about that at this point and the desire to roll my eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
He grinned. “Do me proud.”
Shooting him a look over my shoulder as I climbed out, I slammed the car door shut and hopped up on the curb. The wind was brutal as I dashed around the people hurrying up and down the sidewalk. An array of auras greeted me, buttery yellows and soft blues and pinks. I kept an eye out for anyone who was missing one, a sure sign of a demon in our midst, but everything appeared to be business as usual.
The frosted wreath hanging on the door jingled as I stepped inside. Before I even stepped through the doorway, I knew Zayne was there. I sensed him as the warm air washed over me. The coffee shop was a total mom-and-pop kind of store, not one of the big chains, but it smelled like sweet baked goods and coffee beans. Espresso-colored booths lined the walls and I spotted Zayne’s white glow immediately. He was sitting toward the back of the shop, in one of the comfy booths, facing the door.
Before I joined him, I took a few moments to get my head on straight and ordered a peppermint mocha. Then I carried the warm cup over to him. He immediately rose to his feet, and the closer I got, the more I could see that the tired bruises under his eyes had faded a bit. For that, I was grateful.
The shop was packed with people in business suits and others carrying shopping bags, but when Zayne took the cup out of my hand and placed it on the table, no one else was there. Before I could speak a word, he wrapped his arms around me and held tight, lowering his cheek to mine. I froze up, because he was too close to my mouth, but Zayne—oh, he’d always been so incredibly reckless with me.
“This was what I wanted to do yesterday,” he rasped, his voice low in my ear. “When I first saw you standing in that house, this was all I could think about.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as I hugged him back. Emotion already clawed at my insides.
“The clan knows you’re alive now,” he went on, and I felt the muscles in my back tense. Cayman had said as much, but hearing it confirmed was a whole different story. “Danika wanted to come with me. She wanted to see for herself that you’re okay.”
A strangled, surprised laugh escaped me, and I felt Zayne’s cheek rise against mine when he smiled. Danika and I had a very strange relationship. The entire clan expected Zayne to mate with her. In other words, get down to business and produce a lot of Warden babies, and because of that I’d always been extremely jealous of the full-blooded Warden. Danika was stunningly gorgeous and rather badass, unlike most Warden females. She was not okay with sitting around and popping babies out for the good of mankind. And she also had been interested in Zayne. In short, there were plenty of reasons to hate her, but she and I had finally formed an unlikely alliance.
I did miss her in a weird way, like one missed shoveling the snow during a heat wave. When Zayne reluctantly let go, I all but fell into the seat as I struggled to gain control of what I was feeling, of what I was about to do.
Zayne returned to the seat across from me. “You okay, Layla-bug?”
The concern in his voice was evident. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and took a sip of the minty mocha. “Last night was a little rough. I got to thinking about Sam...” I shook my head and kept my voice low. “Roth went to his house this morning. His family was gone—dead. It didn’t look like their souls were taken.”
“Damn.” Zayne dragged his fingers through his hair.
I nodded slowly, casting my gaze to the lid on my cup. “He called it in to the police, which was pretty smart. That’s going to force the Lilin to lie low for a little while since the police will be looking for...for Sam. At least, we hope. Did you find out anything about the Alphas?”
Zayne’s stare was intense, and I realized he’d been staring at me like that since I sat down. “Yeah. Some of them paid the clan a visit at roughly the same time the other two showed up at Stacey’s place. From what I could gather from Nicolai, the Alphas knew there was a Lilin, always did.”
I hadn’t missed the fact that he’d said he’d spoken to Nicolai instead of his father, but I was distracted by the last part. “They did?”
“Yeah, apparently they couldn’t get involved for their own celestial reasons. They believed we’d figure it out.”
Anger sparked in my chest as I stared at him. All those weeks when I’d thought I was somehow responsible for the death, destruction and mayhem both at school and at home, and the Alphas had known the truth from the start. “They knew this entire time and never thought to tell any of us? Why?” My voice was rising, but I couldn’t help it. “Because of some bullshit rules?”
“I know,” he agreed softly.
I wanted to punch an Alpha in the face! Like fists of fury types of punches. “We could’ve saved lives. I can’t even...” I took a huge gulp of the mocha, hoping that would calm me down. It really didn’t. “What else did they say?”
He rested his arms on the table and leaned in. “My father was able to negotiate some time from them. They’re giving us until the New Year to deal with the Lilin, unless the Lilin does something that has the risk of exposure. We have Wardens out now searching for it.”
My brows flew up. To be honest, I hadn’t thought they’d give us any time. I could easily see them giving us two hours. I wasn’t surprised to learn of the whole exposure thing, though. The Alphas had decreed long ago that humankind could never have real, hard-core proof that a Heaven and a Hell existed, that they must believe in a higher power based on faith alone. I didn’t understand that then and I still didn’t get it now. All I knew was that the Wardens went to great lengths to keep the existence of demons a secret from humans everywhere. “What happens if we don’t have it under control?”
“Nothing pretty. They threatened to wipe us all out. The same thing if the Lilin goes too far.” He exhaled roughly while I wondered what “too far” would look like. “They seem to understand that tracking the Lilin down and killing it isn’t going to be easy, but that’s not all that they talked about.”
“What else did they talk about? How cool it is up on their lofty perch?”
He stared for a moment, and then said, “Uh, no. They... Well, there’s no easy way to say this. They’re not happy with you, Layla-bug.”
Maybe a few weeks ago, I would’ve flipped out and tossed myself in a corner to rock away all my troubles. Now? I snorted, and then took another drink. “Big surprise there.”
Zayne’s gaze drifted over my face. He didn’t speak for a long moment. “Roth did say something true yesterday. I have seen black, feathered wings before.”
I was doing my best not to think about my weird wings, but I set the cup down. “Where?”
A muscle under his eye twitched as he dropped his gaze, and my stomach tightened. Not a particularly good sign. “I’ve only seen one demon with them. Felt like an Upper Level one. It was a brief glimpse. I thought I was seeing stuff, but they were like yours.”
“Oh,” I murmured, unsure of how to feel about that. Zayne and Danika had already confirmed that I smelled like an Upper Level demon. That was why the Warden Tomas had attacked me. So this was nothing new, not really, but it still didn’t explain why my wings were suddenly feathered and why I hadn’t fully shifted like a Warden or a demon would. “Do my wings have something to do with why the Alphas suddenly don’t like me? Well, not that they ever liked me in the first place, but what gives now?”
“All they said was that you were an abomination. That’s not right. You—”
“I know. It’s not right. There are worse things kicking around than me. I know that. And if they don’t know that, it’s not my problem.”
Zayne raised a brow.
“Well, okay, it is my problem if they try to come after me again, but I know I’m not an abomination,” I repeated, dragging my finger along the rim of the cup.
It had taken a long time for me to get to that point, to not let the words of the Alphas or my own clan members cut me down. Or even the words of the girls at school, like Eva Hasher and the Bitch Pack, as Stacey referred to them, who used to have me doubting everything that I was. I don’t even know what exactly flipped that switch for me. Maybe it was the long and dark hours I’d spent in that horrible cage below the compound or maybe it was almost dying. Either way, it was a wake-up call.
In more ways than one, and now I had to seize one of those other ways.
I glanced at Zayne, my closest of friends since I was a little girl, my everything for so very long, and found that I couldn’t look away. This...this was going to hurt. Holy granola bars, it was going to sting like a swarm of wasps. And it was so scary, because there was no safety net for this decision.
Zayne inclined his head. “Hey...” He reached across the table for my hand, but I pulled it back, clasping mine together. His eyes flew to mine. “Layla?”
I thought about what Cayman had whispered in my ear that morning.
Stop being a coward and let go of the past. Embrace the future, because they are two very different things.
Cayman had been right. I’d been a coward, afraid of letting go of the past, of all that familiarity, because there was safety there, a simplicity in its comfort. The past was like going home, and it was sweet and warm, and perfect in its own right. It wasn’t any less than the future, but I’d been terrified of embracing the unknown, of the potential of losing what I’d always counted on.
Because there was only one set of eyes I saw when I closed mine at night and when I reopened them in the morning.
“Layla?” Zayne’s voice was soft.
I squared my shoulders as I drew in a stuttered breath. “You said we needed to talk yesterday and you were right. We do.”
His gaze searched mine as I forged on. “I know there’s a lot going on right now, so many things up in the air, and a lot of it is crazy.”
“But...?”
There was a golf-ball-size knot currently lodged in my throat and I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to look away, but I forced myself not to hide anything. “You know that you mean the world to me, always have, and that I care about you so much. I love you—”
“But you’re not in love with me?” His eyes shut as his faced tensed. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“No. I mean, I’m not saying it like that. I do love you, but—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Zayne opened his eyes as he leaned back against the booth, shaking his head. “Just stop.”
I opened my mouth.
“Stop. Just for a second,” he said again, eyes open and not missing a thing. He shook his head, staring at me in the worst kind of wonderment. “Is it because of what happened when I kissed you last time, or because of our clan? I trust you, Layla. And I know you trust me. We can make this work.”
Oh God, that golf ball had turned into a softball. “I know you trust me, but that’s not the reason. It’s really not.” Those words were truer than I’d realized until that moment, and it made saying what I had to so very important, because even if he and I could have made it work, in the end, my heart—my heart would’ve belonged elsewhere. “We could have made it work without...without the kissing and we could’ve been careful. And I trust you, but this isn’t about trust. Zayne, you’re important to me and I—”
“You love Roth,” he continued for me. “You’re in love with him.”
My eyes met his bright blue ones. “Yes,” I whispered, my lower lip trembling. “It’s him. It’s always been him. I’m sorry. I do love you. I care about you so much, and in so many ways, being with you was a dream come true, but it’s not the same.”
He drew back, as if I’d reached across the table and slapped him. “Please don’t expect me to sit here and listen to a speech that makes me feel like a damn runner-up in some kind of contest.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s not how I want you to feel.”
Zayne’s brows lowered as he stared at me. “How in the Hell did you expect me to feel?”
Tears burned the back of my eyes, because I’d never, ever wanted to hurt anyone. Especially not him. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.” He thrust his hand over his head, clasping the back of his neck. A moment passed as tension tightened the lines of his mouth. “I love you,” he ground out, a muscle thrumming along his jaw. “I’m in love with you. I waited for you, Layla. And none of that—none of that matters.”
I didn’t know what to say. It did matter—mattered a whole lot, but how could I say that? Because in the end, even if I went back to the house and Roth laughed in my face, it didn’t change anything.
Anger flashed over his face. “What was going on between us? Was it just passing the time for you?”
“Oh my God, no!” A woman with a faint pink aura glanced in our direction from the coffee line, and I struggled to keep my voice low. “It wasn’t like that at all. God, it was perfect and it was like every fantasy I ever had come to life.”
“Really?” Disbelief flooded his face. “Because how it seems to me is that you were just fooling around until you could be with him.”
“Until I could be with him?” I repeated dumbly. “I don’t even know—”
“Don’t you dare say you don’t know that he loves you. Don’t play stupid by acting stupid,” he spat, and I jerked back, stunned by the rancor in his tone. “Dammit,” he muttered, dropping his arm.
“Zayne—”
“No more,” he ordered, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just no more.”
Zayne didn’t say anything else as he got up, and I didn’t try to stop him as he strode out the front door. Dropping my elbows on the table, I planted my face in my hands. My insides twisted and burned. Even when Zayne had been rightfully upset with me before, he’d never spoken to me like that. Not that I blamed him. I deserved this. I hadn’t been careful with my own actions or with his heart. I didn’t regret anything we shared, but I’d messed up and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get involved with him, because what I’d said a few moments ago had also been true.
It had always been Roth; from the moment he swaggered into that damn alley where I’d been unsuccessfully fighting off a demon, it had been him for me. Maybe I’d been too blind to see that after he returned from the pits. Maybe I had been too angry with him after the way he initially acted. Maybe I had played around with Zayne, even if that hadn’t been my intention. I didn’t know.
All I did know was that I had lost the boy I’d grown up with. If I’d had any doubts about that, the fact that he’d left me here alone told me all I needed to know. As protective as Zayne was of me, there was no way he would have left me unchaperoned with a Lilin still on the loose. Not unless staying away from me was more important than keeping me safe.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I felt an unnatural warmth spreading along the back of my neck, alerting me to the presence of a demon. Expecting to find Cayman when I lifted my head, I looked around the coffee shop. My gaze drifted over the soft shades of auras until I found a young man standing toward the front of the shop with nothing around him.
There was my demon and it wasn’t Cayman.
Grateful to have something to focus on other than the fact that I’d just shattered Zayne’s heart to smithereens, I studied the man at the front of the store as I shifted my hair forward, shielding my face. Due to my dual heritage, demons had never been able to sense me, which made the hunting I’d done in the past easy-peasy. Once again, the mixture of Warden and demon had given me a unique ability to tag demons. One touch and they’d turn into a neon light, leaving a trace on them that the Wardens could easily track.
I hadn’t tagged demons since...well, not since Roth had entered my life, showing me that even demons had a purpose in life. From him I’d learned that some demons weren’t all that bad, like Fiends, who tended to just mess around with things like telephone poles, construction sites, anything electronic, and were a bit prone to being firebugs.
This demon didn’t give off a Fiend vibe and I was willing to bet he also wasn’t a Poser, a demon whose bite turned a human into something that would resemble an extra on the set of The Walking Dead.
No, this demon was giving off the Upper Level kind of vibes, meaning he could be a Duke or a King or any other variety of elite baddie. They weren’t supposed to be topside because the kind of stuff they could pull off could really wreak some nasty, bloody havoc.
I frowned.
Which, apparently, meant that maybe I shouldn’t be topside, either. I kept forgetting that I now smelled like them and sort of resembled some of them. Sigh.
The demon tilted his head to the side, and a lock of shocking white-blond hair fell across dark brows that stood out in stark contrast. He had a rocker look to him, like if the silver chain he wore broke, his skinny jeans would fall right off him. Scanning the coffee shop, he looked me over, kept going, and then his gaze darted back to me.
I froze.
The demon froze.
Uh-oh.
Demons couldn’t sense me, but he was staring directly at me like I’d sprouted a third arm out of the top of my head.
His face paled to the color of his hair as he jerked back a step, bumping into a woman with a pale blue aura. She nearly dropped her bag and coffee as she tried to step around him.
Then he spun on his heel and shoved an older guy out of the way. The man shouted, but the demon reached the door. I wasn’t thinking as I stood. Curiosity and surprise had a hold on me. I hurried across the shop, leaving what was left of my mocha behind. I was a few steps behind the demon when he burst through the door, out onto the sidewalk. He sent a panicked look over his shoulder in my direction.
I skidded to a stop under the awning of the shop. “Uh...”
The demon picked up speed, racing down the sidewalk, disappearing around the block, lost in the sea of muted auras.
“Um,” I murmured, glancing behind me and half expecting to see a pack of Alphas, but it was just me, myself and I, and that meant only one thing.
The Upper Level demon had run away—from me.
six (#ulink_c095ada1-27a3-5fed-b3ae-addb8eec4509)
I DIDN’T TELL Cayman about the runaway Upper Level demon, and he didn’t ask how the talk went with Zayne, which I was totally cool with. After a near-silent ride, he dropped me off in front of the house.
“Have fun with that,” was all he said, and then he zoomed off.
Turning to the McMansion, I had no idea what Cayman was referring to, but figured I was going to find out soon enough.
The house was dark, but not quiet when I walked in the front door, closing it behind me. The sharp riff of a guitar, quickly lost in the pounding of drums, drifted from the second story.
Frowning, I made my way toward the stairwell, and about halfway up I found something odd. I bent and picked up an empty bottle of beer. Looking up, I realized there was one on each step, all the way to the top. Ten empty bottles.
Oh dear.
My eyes widened as I placed the bottle back on the stair. There was no way I could gather them all up without getting a bag and the last thing I wanted to do was go down to the pantry. I picked up my pace, hurrying to climb the rest of the steps.
Like a bread-crumb trail, bottles had been periodically dropped along the wide hall, leading to the bedroom Roth had stopped in front of last night when I had continued on to the master.
My heart jumped in my chest as I reached his room. The door was ajar, the music heavy and thrumming. Soft light crept out of the gap. Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door—and came to a complete stop just inside the massive bedroom.
Nothing in this world could’ve prepared me for what I was seeing.
Bambi was bopping and weaving across the hardwood floor. She stopped, twisting her usually graceful body toward me. Those red eyes were glossed over, unfocused. Her forked tongue darted out, and then she went about her business, slowly making her way to the window seat. There, she shifted half of her six-foot-and-then-some frame onto the seat and promptly slid right off, flopping onto the floor.
Concern flooded me, but as I took a step toward Bambi something else caught my eye. On the bed, Roth’s black-and-white kitten familiar was attempting to pounce on the all-white one, which appeared to be passed out, sprawled on its back, its little arms and legs spread wide. The black-and-white one, adeptly named Fury, jumped toward the sleeping Nitro, missed by a block and landed on the pillow. The kitten turned into a furry black-and-white tumbleweed as it rolled off the pillow, smacking into Nitro.
My mouth dropped open.
The third kitten, an all-black one named Thor, sat on a dresser, eyes narrowed into thin slits. As I stared at Thor, it swayed side to side. It spotted me and opened its mouth most likely to hiss at me, because those kittens were little bastards, but a rather human belch emanated from it instead.
Oh my God, the familiars were drunk.
A laugh bubbled up from me, but the door slammed shut behind me, stealing away the wild giggle. One second I was standing there and within the next breath, my back was against the door. A hard, warm and very bare chest was flush with mine, and hot breath skated over my cheek as two hands hit the door, on either side of my head.
“What are you doing here?” Roth demanded, and my heart slammed against my ribs, then doubled its beat as his lips brushed the curve of my jaw. He inhaled deeply. “Hell, you smell good. Like peppermint and...and the sun.”
Um. I had no idea how to respond to that.
“I let you go,” he went on, dipping his head to my neck, and a shiver swept through me. “You were right yesterday. I hurt you. Not like him. Worse. I let you walk out of this house so you could be happy with him. Wasn’t that what you wanted? But you’re here. I let you go and it killed me to do so, and you’re here.”
Oh my God.
Roth was rambling, but my heart imploded as his words stirred something deep and fierce inside me. The look on his face this morning when I told him I needed to talk to Zayne suddenly made sense. If he had just given me the chance to explain what I was doing he wouldn’t have thought that I was leaving him, that I was choosing Zayne.
But Roth had let me go so that I could be happy. The Crown Prince of Hell, who claimed to be the most selfish of all demons, had let me walk out that door when he believed I’d be happier with someone else. Words were lost as a different kind of tears filled my eyes. He’d stepped aside to protect me once before, and he had done so again so that I could be happy with someone else. There wasn’t an ounce of selfishness in any of those actions. Actually, quite the opposite, and the revelation stitched the frayed crack in my heart, repairing the painful splinter. It didn’t heal the scar tissue left behind when I let Zayne go, though. That would never fade.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
He slowly lifted his chin and rested his forehead against mine. He whispered, “Why are you here, Layla?”
“I’m here... I’m here because this is where I’m happy, with you.”
Roth didn’t move, and I wasn’t even sure he breathed. There was a good chance my words didn’t get through the haze of all the alcohol he’d obviously consumed, which was a good indication that this conversation needed to happen later. I placed my hands on his chest, about to point that out, when he moved.
His arms went around me and he held me tight to him. I liked it like this—more than liked. Every part of our bodies touched as he buried his head in my neck, dragging in a deep breath. My pulse was pounding and my hands trembling. A deep shudder rose through him and he shook in my arms, and then he moved.
Clasping my cheeks in his large hands, he said something too low and too quick for me to understand as he tilted my head back and kissed me. There was nothing soft about it. His mouth was on mine, the metal ball in his tongue clanking off my teeth as he pressed me into the door. He tasted of something sweet and the bitter tang of alcohol was still on his tongue. Little shivers of pleasure raced through my body as I moaned into the kiss. My hands slid up to his shoulders and my fingers dug into his smooth skin. The kiss was doing crazy stuff to my senses, obliterating my common sense when the lower half of him pressed against mine.
And it felt like it had been forever since I felt this. The sweet wildness that came from a single kiss and the release and freedom of finally letting go, of complete and utter acceptance, of having what I wanted, what I yearned for. The immediate and absolute rush of desire so potent it clouded my thoughts, and the nervous energy and elation that came from tasting love on the tip of my tongue. Nothing compared to this.
Roth broke the kiss, breathing heavily as he cradled my face. “Say it again,” he ordered roughly. “Say it again, Layla.”
I could barely catch my breath. “I’m happy here with you. I...” I dragged my hands up his neck, smoothing my thumbs along his jaw. There was more I wanted to say, but he grasped my wrists and just held them in his hands, staring down at them, saying nothing. My heart pounded fast, but my blood felt sluggish.
A lock of black hair fell into his face and when he finally lifted his chin, the vulnerability was in his gaze again. His beauty was unreal, almost too perfect, but in that moment, he looked more human than he ever had before. “I’ve... I’ve been drinking.”
Not exactly what I had been expecting him to say. “I can tell.”
Letting go of my hands, he took a step back and turned, giving me a rather nice view of his toned back. I was happy to see when he twisted sideways that Thumper was on him—a drunk not-so-pocket-size dragon would’ve been no laughing matter. I was also happy to see all the dips and planes of his stomach.
Really happy.
Those pants hung so low it was almost indecent. Almost. He picked up a bottle off the dresser. He shook it. “I got myself so drunk that I became literally incapable of going after you and stopping you.” He studied the empty bottle he held, frowning. “But did you know that intoxication works differently for us? It only lasted for maybe an hour and then I just felt like shit, so I had to drink some more. Aaand I might be a little drunk still...”
I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing. “I’ll say.”
One side of his lips quirked up as he cast a sidelong glance at me. “I know I shouldn’t be drinking. It makes me a naughty, naughty boy.”
“Yeah, and apparently it also makes your familiars drunk.” I gestured at Bambi, who was slumbering where she’d fallen, a pathetic snaky heap on the floor. “Maybe you don’t get as intoxicated because your poor friends there soak up all the effects.”
Roth tipped his head to the side. “Huh. Live and learn.” He turned back to me, and there was a recognizable heat in his gaze. “I want to kiss you again.”
Even though there were parts of me that were like, all aboard the Roth train, I knew this was not going to happen tonight, for so many reasons. “As you pointed out, you’re drunk.”
He faced me with his chin dipped low and his full lips slightly parted. “I still want to kiss you. I want to do other things. A lot of it involves touching, with and without clothes.”
My cheeks heated.
Tipping his head back, he sighed heavily. “But yeah, drunk. Sorry.”
“Roth.” I took a cautious step toward him. Even plastered, he was fast. “How long have you been drinking?”
One shoulder rose as he turned to the bed. “Since you left? If I didn’t, I would’ve gone after you and possibly let Thumper eat Stony, and you wouldn’t be okay with that.”
“No,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t be.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk this much. You don’t... Yeah, you deserve better than this.” He stopped at the foot of the bed, staring at me as he scrubbed his fingers through his messy hair. “Are you really here? Or did I manage to become the first demon ever to have alcohol poisoning?”
Part of me wanted to burst into laughter, but there was a tight knot of sadness deep in my chest. It was formed by a bitter, rancid guilt. My actions had such a ripple effect. Of course, I hadn’t held those bottles to Roth’s mouth, but I’d never even seen him drink before.
“I’m really here,” I told him.
He looked like he was about to say something as he went to sit on the foot of the bed. I started forward, already seeing that he’d misjudged the distance, but it was too late.
Roth hit the floor in front of the bed, smack on the rear. He tossed his head back, laughing loudly as I clapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t been sure what I was coming back to after leaving the coffee shop. There had been this fear—albeit irrational fear—that Roth was just going to pat me on my head and send me on my way. Then there was a part of me that thought he’d sweep me into his arms, professing his undying love for me. Either way, finding him drunk hadn’t even been in the realm of possibilities.
He settled down, resting his hands on his thighs as he looked over at me. “So, you really came back?”
I nodded, then said yes for extra bang.
His gaze dropped and he sighed heavily. “I bet you’re regretting that now.”
“No,” I replied without hesitation as I walked over to where he sat. “I don’t regret it.”
He lifted a brow, but it didn’t erase the lost look he wore. “Really?”
Easing to the floor beside him, I shook my head. “You’re drunk. Big deal. I mean, you probably shouldn’t be this drunk, but you’re not even...human. And you’re like the Crown Prince of Hell. I don’t think consuming alcohol is a deal breaker where you come from.”
“Nah, I guess not.” He bent one leg at the knee as he wet his lips. “You... I don’t want you to look back and think, wow, that was a terrible decision, because he would’ve—”
“Stop,” I said. Pleaded really. “I’m not going to regret my decision even if you end up running for the hills screaming to get away from me.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said drily.
I scooted closer and stretched out my legs next to his. “What I’m trying to say is that I made my decision. I’m not going to regret it. No matter what happens between us.” Biting down on my lip, I watched an array of emotions creep across his striking face. “Look, I don’t think we should talk about this right now. It can wait. It needs to wait, because I... I think I really hurt Zayne tonight. No. I know I did. And you’re not in the right frame of mind.” I halted again, because wow, I sounded so mature I kind of wanted to pat myself on the back. “This can wait. We have tomorrow.”
Roth didn’t respond as he studied me, and I had no idea what he was thinking in that head of his, but then he leaned over. He put that head in my lap, like he’d done that night I’d woken up after being healed by the witches’ brew, but this time, I didn’t hesitate. My hands didn’t linger for a second. They immediately went to him, one threading through the silky, black strands and the other curving around his shoulder.
He curled onto his side and closed his eyes. Thick lashes framed his cheeks. Several moments passed in silence, but I knew he wasn’t asleep. His muscles were too tense. “I’ve... I’ve done some really crappy things, Layla.”
My chest squeezed as I stared down at him, and in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about the Lilin or my wings or even Sam or Zayne. I was 100 percent focused on Roth, and the world around us and all the problems it kept serving up faded to the wayside. “I kind of figured that you have.” And that was true. He was a full-blooded Upper Level demon—a Crown Prince at that. I’d never fooled myself into believing he was a saint masked as a sinner.
“Really shady things,” he murmured.
“Got it.” My lips twitched.
He managed to get one of his arms curled around my leg. “The...first time I was sent topside by the Boss was only a year after I was created. I was to find a Duke who was no longer heeding the Boss’s summons,” he continued as I gently worked my fingers through his hair. I didn’t dare speak, because Roth had never really talked openly about what his Boss had him doing. “The Duke had found a woman, a human. I don’t think she knew what he really was. Not that it mattered. The Boss was calling him back, but he wouldn’t leave her.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I had a feeling that this story wasn’t going to end with a happily-ever-after.
“There were others with me, who’d gotten called in.” His arm tightened around my leg. “Things got...messy.”
I closed my eyes, heart aching.
“That wasn’t the only time. There were other...situations like that. And these situations, well, they never weighed on me before. It’s not in my genetic makeup to feel guilt.” A wry grin flashed across his face and quickly disappeared. “Not until you. Now I think about these things and I wonder if there is any...goodness in me. Or what you could possibly see.”
Oh gosh, my heart was breaking all over again. I didn’t know what it was like to be Roth, to be something that was just the latest in the long line that came before him. Other Princes that the Boss had grown tired of, destroyed in one way or another, before creating this version of Astaroth. And I didn’t know everything Roth had done in his past, but in all honestly, I didn’t care. Who was I to judge? Being that I was nowhere near perfect and was also part demon, myself, I’d done things I wished I hadn’t, and I knew there would be things in the future that I’d want to take back. But Roth had spent eighteen years keeping the Boss of Hell happy. None of his darkness surprised me.
It just saddened me.
Leaning down, I kissed his cheek, and as I straightened, he turned wide amber eyes on me. “I see what you don’t.” I ran my hand up and down his arm. “You’re not selfish, even if you have moments of acting like it. We all do. You’re not evil, even if you were created by the greatest evil of them all. You’ve proven to me and yourself that you have free will, and you’ve made the right decisions time and time again.”
As I dragged my hand up his arm, he shuddered. “You’ve accepted who and what I am from the beginning. You’ve never tried to change me or...or hide me. You’ve always trusted me, even when you probably shouldn’t have.” I laughed at that, thinking of the time he’d left me alone in the Palisades club with explicit instructions not to roam off. “You’ve...you’ve celebrated what I am, and very few can claim that. Like I’ve said before, you’re more than the latest Crown Prince. You’re Roth.”
For a moment, he didn’t move or blink. Then wonderment filled his expression as he stared up at me, and finally, the tension eased out of his muscles. “And I’m yours.”
seven (#ulink_ac276541-32b6-50b5-bc6a-464bfb98bdc3)
AT SOME POINT, I managed to tuck Roth into bed and Bambi eventually followed. That was quite the spectacle to witness, a blitzed demonic anaconda attempting to slither onto a bed. I had to step in and lift her back end, and then I’d carefully scooped up the kitten passed out on the dresser and placed it on the bed, as well. I could only hope Bambi wouldn’t eat little Thor if she woke up in the middle of the night with drunken hunger pains.
Then I set about cleaning up the bottles. I stopped counting the ones that had been in the bedroom and took the rattling bag out to the trash. Afterward, I made myself a sandwich and checked in on Stacey.
She was doing as well as could be expected, and she also confirmed that Roth had indeed made an anonymous call. “The police came by this afternoon. Mom thought it was about the house fire, but it was...it was about Sam.”
Sitting in the living room, curled up against the back of an oversize cushion, I closed my eyes. “His family...”
“I know.” Her breath was shaky through the connection. “They told me. They also asked if I’d seen him. I went with the last time he’d been at school. Yesterday.”
“That was smart.”
A pause, and then, “God, Layla, how did any of this happen? Two months ago, I would’ve never seen any of this coming— Hold on,” she said, and I heard a door closing. “My mom has been following me around ever since the police showed up. She’s worried and scared. The police think that Sam...that he snapped and wiped out his family. It’s going to be all over school tomorrow, and it’s not right. You know? That people are going to believe that Sam did something like that.”
“It isn’t,” I agreed, opening my eyes. There was a painting hung on the wall across from me. A picturesque road with autumn on full display, but the bright oranges and reds were dulled. “Sam didn’t deserve any of this.”
“None of us do.” There was another deep inhale on her end. “Okay. I need to be distracted, because otherwise I’m going to lose it again. I’ve been losing it about every hour, on the hour. Okay? Distract me.”
“Um...” My brain emptied. Real helpful there. “Ah, I suck at this.”
She laughed hoarsely. “What’s Roth doing?”
“Well, he’s... Yeah, he’s kind of incapacitated right now.” I cringed, knowing how that sounded.
“Really?” Interest perked her tone. “Why?”
I glanced at the wide archway. “I told him this morning that I needed to talk to Zayne, and I guess he thought that meant that I was going to tell Zayne I wanted to be with him. So he might have gotten a little drunk.”
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Jennifer L. Armentrout
Some loves will last 'til your dying breath Every choice has consequences–but seventeen-year-old Layla faces tougher choices than most. Light or darkness. Wickedly sexy demon prince Roth, or Zayne, the gorgeous, protective Warden she never thought could be hers. Hardest of all, Layla has to decide which side of herself to trust.Layla has a new problem, too. A Lilin–the deadliest of demons–has been unleashed, wreaking havoc on those around her…including her best friend. To keep Sam from a fate much, much worse than death, Layla must strike a deal with the enemy while saving her city–and her race–from destruction.Torn between two worlds and two different boys, Layla has no certainties, least of all survival, especially when an old bargain comes back to haunt them all. But sometimes, when secrets are everywhere and the truth seems unknowable, you have to listen to your heart, pick a side–and then fight like hell…
Some loves will last ’til your dying breath
Every choice has consequences—but seventeen-year-old Layla faces tougher choices than most. Light or darkness. Wickedly sexy demon prince Roth, or Zayne, the gorgeous, protective Warden she never thought could be hers. Hardest of all, Layla has to decide which side of herself to trust.
Layla has a new problem, too. A Lilin—the deadliest of demons—has been unleashed, wreaking havoc on those around her...including her best friend. To keep Sam from a fate much, much worse than death, Layla must strike a deal with the enemy while saving her city—and her race—from destruction.
Torn between two worlds and two different boys, Layla has no certainties, least of all survival, especially when an old bargain comes back to haunt them all. But sometimes, when secrets are everywhere and the truth seems unknowable, you have to listen to your heart, pick a side—and then fight like hell...
Praise for The Dark Elements series by #1 New York Times bestselling author JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT (#ulink_aa616105-613a-5a74-8ec8-7a31df055480)
Every Last Breath
“Every Last Breath has solidified The Dark Elements as my favorite YA paranormal romance series. Jennifer Armentrout delivers a knockout ending to the trilogy—steamy, smart and satisfying.”
—Wendy Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweet series
Stone Cold Touch
“Armentrout balances suspense and romance, spicing it up with Roth’s one-liners and Layla’s wry inner commentary, all adding welcome humor.... Demonic fun.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An absolutely phenomenal, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride.... [This] just might be the prolific author’s best series.”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
White Hot Kiss
“Armentrout works her magic with swoon-worthy guys and a twist you never see coming.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Abbi Glines
“With this first title in her new Dark Elements series, powerhouse author Armentrout delivers another action-packed, believably narrated ride... Intense, well plotted, and very readable, this title should fly into the hands of every paranormal reader out there.”
—Booklist
“Well-paced and peppered with intriguing details that allow both Romeo-and-Juliet swoons and a zombie apocalypse to have their turns.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Constantly entertaining...the narrative sizzles with as much tension as romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Every
Last
Breath
Jennifer L. Armentrout
www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)
This is for every Zayne and Roth fan, everyone who rooted for Layla and wanted their very own Bambi, and for everyone who passionately rallied behind their favorite guy and voted for which one they’d like Layla to choose. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Contents
Cover (#uafc817a5-3060-5b16-9e4f-4bf8b755d622)
Back Cover Text (#u00aee2e9-324a-508f-9d60-048c745b65f5)
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one (#ulink_045d7740-51cb-5cba-9181-7451c8add96a)
I STOOD IN Stacey’s living room as my entire world crashed around me once more.
Sam was the Lilin.
Acute horror held me immobile, seizing the air in my lungs as I stared at what used to be one of my closest friends in the whole world. Because of the demonic familiar, Bambi, and being unable to see souls while she’d bonded to me, I’d never seen what had been right in front of my face this entire time. None of us had, but it was Sam—he’d been the one to cause the mayhem at school and all the recent deaths. Instead of stripping souls with a single touch, as I’d known a Lilin could do, he’d taken his time, taking a little here and there, playing with his victims and playing with us.
Playing with me.
Except what was standing in Stacey’s house was—was basically wearing Sam’s skin, a perfectly crafted costume, because the real Sam... He was no more. The pain of knowing that my friend was dead, had been dead for a while without any of us knowing, cut deep into me, making misery of my bone and tissue.
I hadn’t been able to save him. None of us had been able to, and now his soul...his soul had to be down below, where all souls that were taken by a Lilin would go. My stomach cramped.
“You cannot defeat me,” the Lilin said, his voice identical to Sam’s. “So join me.”
“Or what?” My heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest. “Or die? That’s not incredibly cliché or anything.”
The Lilin tilted its head to the side. “Actually, I wasn’t going to say that to you. I need you to help free our mother. The rest of them can die, though.”
Our mother. Before I could dwell on the ick factor of being related to the creature that had killed my friend and inflicted so much carnage, Zayne shifted into his true form, distracting me. His shirt ripped up the back as his wings unfurled and his skin deepened to the dark granite of the Wardens. Two horns sprouted, parting his wavy blond hair as they curled back, and his nostrils flattened. When he parted his lips to let out a low growl of warning, fangs appeared. He stepped toward Sam, his massive hands curling into fists.
“Don’t!” I shouted. Zayne halted, his head swinging sharply toward me. “Do not get close to him. Your soul,” I reminded him as my heart raced. Or what was left of Zayne’s soul, considering I’d accidentally taken a nice little bite out of it not long ago.
Zayne backed off, his stance wary.
I turned my attention back to the evil masquerading as Sam. Whatever the thing was standing in front of us, we did share the same flesh and blood. Only recently had I learned exactly how I’d come to be part demon and part Warden. I was the daughter of Lilith and this...this thing truly was a part of me. It had been born out of Lilith’s and my blood, and it was just as evil as Lilith. It wanted her freed? Impossible. If Lilith ever ended up topside, the world as we knew it would irrevocably change.
“I’m not going to help you free Lilith.” I was so not referring to her as our mother. Yuck. “That’s never going to happen.”
The Lilin smiled as it watched me with dark, inky eyes. “Get as close as you want.” It ignored my statement, taunting Zayne. Heck, taunting all of us. “She’s not the only one in this room with a taste for a Warden’s soul.”
I sucked in a sharp, stinging breath as Stacey let out a whimper. In the space of a second, her relationship with Sam flashed before me. They’d been friends forever and only recently had she recognized that Sam had always, always been in love with her. But she hadn’t started paying real attention to him until Sam had begun to change...
Oh God.
Stacey had to be breaking wide-open, seeing the boy she finally loved become worse than the monsters that prowled the streets at night, but I couldn’t afford to take my focus off the Lilin. It could make a move at any moment, and three of us in this room were vulnerable to the worst kind of attack it could deliver.
“There’s nothing like taking a pure soul, but you’d already know that, Layla. All that warmth and goodness goes down as smooth as the richest chocolate.” The Lilin tipped its chin up and let out the kind of groan that normally would’ve caused my ears to burn. “But taking your time, savoring the taste is so much more decadent. You should try it, Layla, and stop being so greedy when you feed.”
“And you should try shutting the Hell up.” Heat rolled off the powerful demon standing beside me. Roth, the reigning Crown Prince of Hell, hadn’t shifted yet, but I could tell he was close. Fury dripped from his words. “How about that?”
The Lilin didn’t even spare a glance in Roth’s direction. “I like you. I really do, prince. Too bad you’re going to end up dead.”
My fingers curled in, nails biting into my palms as anger flushed through my system, hot and bitter. My emotions were all over the place. On top of everything else that had gone wrong recently, I was standing here between Zayne and Roth, which was about a thousand times awkward on a normal day, but now, after Roth...
I couldn’t focus on any of that right now. “You’re very brave, making threats when we outnumber you.”
One shoulder rose in a gesture so quintessentially Sam it sent a slice of pain through me. “How about I’m just intelligent?” it queried gamely. “And how about I know more than all of you about how this will end?”
“You talk a lot,” Roth growled, stepping forward. “And I mean a lot. Why is it that the bad guys always have to give disgustingly long and boring monologues? Let’s just get to the killing part, all right?”
The Lilin’s mouth formed a lopsided grin. “So eager to die the final death, aren’t you?”
“So eager to be done with you running your mouth, more like,” Roth retorted, moving so that once again he stood directly beside me.
“It’s been you this whole time?” Stacey’s voice trembled under the weight of the pain she must be feeling. “You haven’t been Sam? Not since...”
“Not since Dean displayed his fists of fury. That was fun.” The Lilin laughed as those dark eyes slid in her direction. “Sam hasn’t been home in quite some time, but I can assure you, I enjoyed...our time together as much as I’m sure he would’ve. You know, if that’s any consolation for you.”
She clapped her hands over her mouth, muffling the words as tears streamed down her pale face. “Oh my God.”
“Not quite,” it murmured silkily.
I stepped closer to Stacey, drawing the Lilin’s attention from her. I was sick for her, absolutely repulsed. “Why?” I demanded. “You’ve been around us for weeks. Why haven’t you attacked any of us?”
The Lilin sighed heavily. “I’m not all about violence, death and gore. I discovered rather quickly that there are a lot of fun things to do topside, things I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.” It winked at Stacey, and I saw red.
My skin tingled like a thousand fire ants were marching all over it. “Don’t look at her. Don’t talk to her or even breathe in her general direction, and don’t even think about touching her ever again.”
“Oh, I’ve done more than that,” the Lilin replied. “Lots more. Everything your Sam wishes he could’ve had the balls to do. But you know, he’s not really concerned about those things at the moment. You see, I consumed him—his soul in its entirety. No part of him remains on this plane. He’s not a wraith like the others who crossed my path. I didn’t play with my food when it came to him, taking tiny bits of him. No, he’s gone. He’s in—”
Several things happened all at once.
Stacey shot toward the Lilin, her hand rising as if she was about to knock the mocking smile off his face. The Lilin drifted toward her, and while it hadn’t taken her soul yet for whatever reason, I now knew there were no guarantees. The Lilin was unpredictable. It had exposed what it truly was, and I sensed it was done playing around. It was within arms’ reach of her and I—well, I sort of lost it. Rage lit me up from the inside.
The change came over me without even trying. Like shedding a sweater, I let go of the human form I’d worn for so long, and in a way, had desperately clung to. It had never been this easy before. Bones didn’t break and reknit. Skin didn’t stretch, but I felt mine harden, become resilient to most knives and bullets. The roof of my mouth tingled as my fangs dropped, teeth designed to cut through even a Warden’s skin, and most definitely a Lilin’s. Just below the base of my neck and on either side of my spine, my wings broke free and unfurled.
There was a sharp inhale from someone in the room, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Moving as quick as a cobra striking, I grabbed Stacey’s arm and shoved her behind me. I got between her and the Lilin. “I said, do not touch her. Do not look at her. Do not even breathe in her direction. You do so, and I will rip your head from your shoulders and punt-kick it out a window.”
The Lilin jerked, dancing a step backward. Its pitch-black eyes widened. Shock splashed across its face and then its lips curled back. “That’s not playing fair.”
What in the world? Was that fear I saw in its face? “Do I look like I care?”
“Oh, you’re going to.” The Lilin backtracked, moving toward the door. “You’re so going to care.”
Then the Lilin was gone, spinning right around and exiting the house with a quickness that left me standing there, staring foolishly at the empty doorway. I didn’t understand. The Lilin hadn’t batted an eyelash at Zayne or Roth, but I’d shifted forms and it had tucked its tail and run away?
Uh.
“Well, that was...anticlimactic.” I turned around slowly, tucking my wings back. The first one I saw was Zayne.
He’d returned to his human form. Zayne always, even when he appeared exhausted, could’ve stepped out of a Town and Country magazine. His good looks went beyond all-American and straight into swoonville, population every girl on the planet. He looked like I imagined angels would. Vibrant blue eyes and near-heavenly features, but he stared at me with his mouth hanging slightly open. His absolutely gorgeous face was pale, which made the unforgiving shadows under his eyes stand out starkly. He stared at me like he’d never seen me before, which was bizarre, because he’d grown up with me. I felt like some kind of specimen.
A trickle of unease ran down my spine as my gaze switched to the couch. At some point, Zayne had moved closer to where Stacey had landed. I expected to find her rocking in a ball, but she too gaped at me, her hands pressed against her cheeks, and any other time I would’ve laughed at that expression. Not now.
My heart rate kicked into overdrive as I swung toward the back of the room, where Roth was standing. My gaze collided with eyes the color of amber. His were wide, his pupils vertical. Even so, he was a sight to behold.
Roth was—well, there was no one that walked this earth that looked quite like him. Probably had to do with the fact that he was in no way human, but he was stunning. Always had been, even when he’d styled the black hair into spikes. I preferred the lesser look he rocked now with his hair falling over his forehead, brushing the tips of his ears and the arches of equally dark eyebrows. Golden eyes were slightly slanted at the outer corners. He had cheekbones and a jaw you could cut glass with, a face any artist would die to sketch—or touch. And those full, expressive lips were parted.
His tawny skin wasn’t pale and he didn’t gape at me like I belonged under a microscope, but he was watching me in astonishment just as Zayne had.
The unease turned into balls of dread, settling heavily in my stomach. “What?” I whispered, glancing around the room. “Why are you all staring at me like...like there’s something wrong with me?”
It couldn’t have been because I’d told the Lilin I’d rip his head off. Yeah, I was a little less violent on most days, but in the past week or so, I’d thought I was the Lilin, had been kissed by Zayne and nearly took his soul, was subsequently chained and held in captivity by the very clan that had raised me, was almost killed by that same clan—deep breath—was then healed thanks to Roth and a mystery brew provided by a coven of witches who worshipped Lilith, and now I’d just discovered that my best friend was dead, his soul was in Hell, and the Lilin had taken his place. You’d think a girl could be cut a little slack.
Roth cleared his throat. “Shortie, look...look at your hand.”
Look at my hand? Why in the world would he be asking me to do that in the midst of all the cray?
“Do it,” he said quietly and too gently.
The dread exploded in my gut like buckshot, and my gaze dropped to my left hand. I expected to see the weird marbling of black and gray, a mixture of the demon and Warden that existed inside of me and a combination I’d become almost familiar with by now. My nails had lengthened and sharpened, and I could tell they were hard enough to cut through steel, as hard as my skin, but my skin...it was still pink. Really pink.
“What the...?” My gaze traveled to my other hand. It was the same. Just pink. My wings twitched, reminding me that I had shifted.
Zayne swallowed. “Your...your wings...”
“What about my wings?” I almost screeched, reaching behind me. “Are they broken? Did they not come out—” The tips of my fingers came into contact with something as soft as silk. My hand jerked back. “What...”
Stacey’s watery eyes had doubled in size. “Um, Layla, there’s a mirror above the fireplace. I think you need to look in it.”
I met Roth’s gaze for a second before I spun around and all but ran to the fireplace I was sure Stacey’s mom had never used. Clutching the white mantel, I stared at my reflection.
I looked normal, like I did before I shifted...like I was going to class or something. My eyes were the palest shade of gray, a watered-down blue. My hair was so blond it was almost white, and a mess of waves that went in every direction like usual. I looked like a colorless china doll, which was nothing new, except for the two fangs jutting out of my mouth. I wouldn’t show them off at school, but that wasn’t what caught my attention and held it.
It was my wings.
They were large, not as massive as Zayne’s or Roth’s, and normally they were almost leathery in texture, but now they were black...black and feathered. Like legit feathered. That soft, silky thing I’d felt? It had been tiny feathers.
Feathers.
“Oh my God,” I whispered at my reflection. “I have feathers.”
“Those are definitely feathered wings,” Roth commented.
I whipped around, knocking over a lamp with my feathered right wing. “I have feathers on my wings!”
Roth cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, you do.”
He was absolutely no help, so I turned to Zayne. “Why do I have feathers on my wings?”
Zayne shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Layla. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Liar,” hissed Roth, shooting him a dark look. “You’ve seen that before. So have I.”
“I haven’t,” mumbled Stacey, who, by this point, had tucked her legs against her chest and really looked like she would be rocking at any given point. Until recently, Stacey hadn’t known what Roth really was. She hadn’t even known about me. This had to be too much for her.
“Okay. How and why have you seen this before?” I demanded, dragging in air too fast. “Am I going to have to shave my wings now?”
“Shortie...” Roth’s lips twitched.
I raised my hand, pointing my finger at him. “Don’t you dare laugh, you jerk-face! This is not funny. My wings are freaks of nature!”
He lifted his hands. “I’m not going to laugh, but I think you should leave the razors alone. Besides, lots of things have feathers in their wings.”
“Like what?” I demanded. Were there still more supernatural creatures I was unfamiliar with?
“Like...like hawks,” he answered.
My brows furrowed. “Hawks? Hawks?”
“And eagles?”
“I’m not a bird, Roth!” Patience leaked out of me. “Why do I have feathers on my wings?” I shrieked, this time at Zayne. “You’ve seen this before? Where? Someone tell me—”
Underneath me, the floor began to tremble, cutting me off. The shudder increased, traveling up the walls, shaking the mirror and rattling the framed pictures. Plumes of plaster puffed from the ceiling. The house quaked and a loud rumble became deafening.
Stacey popped up from the couch, grabbing Zayne’s arm. “What’s happening?”
Wings forgotten, I exchanged a look with Zayne. Something about this was all too familiar. I’d felt this before, when—
Blinding golden light streamed in through the windows and the tiny cracks in the wall and from between the wooden boards of the floor. Soft, luminous light crept along the ceiling, dripping downward. I jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding getting hit with the splatter. I clearly remembered what had happened the last time I’d been stupid enough to touch the light.
My kind never could. Neither could Roth.
“Shit,” he muttered.
My heart stopped as the rumble was cut off and the beautiful glow disappeared. In a flash, Roth was beside me, one hand curled around my upper arm.
Stacey sniffed the air. “Why does it smell like we’re being suffocated in dryer sheets?”
She was right; a new scent permeated the air. To me, it was musky and sweet. Heaven...heaven smelled like whatever you wanted it to, whatever you truly desired most in the world, and it was different for everyone.
Zayne shoved Stacey behind him, and I had a feeling Roth was about to drag our nonangelic butts out of there, but a fissure of power radiated throughout the room. The sweet aroma that filled me with yearning was replaced by clover and frankincense. Warmth traveled down my back, and I knew we were too late to make an escape.
Oh no.
Stacey gasped. “Oh my...” Her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees gave out. She folded like an accordion. Zayne caught her before she smacked into the floor, and I didn’t really have time to worry about her.
We weren’t alone.
I didn’t want to turn around, but I couldn’t help it. I had to, because I wanted to see them. I had to see them before they wiped me off the face of the planet. Roth must’ve felt the same, because he also turned. There was a soft glow reflecting off his cheeks. He squinted and I looked toward the doorway.
Two of them stood there like sentries, nearly seven feet tall or possibly even bigger. They were so beautiful it was almost painful to look upon. Hair the color of wheat and their skin shimmered, catching and absorbing the light all around them. They were neither black nor white nor any shade in between, but somehow all colors at once, and they wore some kind of linen pants. The orbs of their eyes were pure white—no irises or pupils. Just white space, and I dimly wondered how they could see. Their chests and feet were bare. Their shoulders were as broad as any Warden’s and their wings were magnificent, a brilliant white spanning at least eight feet on either side of them.
Their wings were also feathered.
Unlike mine, though, those feathers had hundreds of eyes in them, actual eyeballs. Eyeballs that did not blink, but roamed constantly and seemed to take in everything at once.
Each of the creatures held a golden sword, a real freaking sword—a sword that looked like it was the length of my leg. The whole combination was possibly the freakiest thing I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot of freaky things in my seventeen years of life.
They were here, the ones that ran this little show called life, who’d created the Wardens and who, to demons, were the equivalent of the boogeyman. Never in the history of ever had they been in the presence of anyone with a trace of demonic blood in them without ending their lives immediately.
I felt my wings—my feathered wings—tuck close to my back. I don’t even know why I tried to hide them at this point, but I was a wee bit self-conscious. However, I wasn’t willing to shift into my human form, not in the presence of these beings.
I couldn’t stop staring at them. Awe and fear warred inside me. They...they were angels and their feathered wings practically glowed, they were so bright. I’d never been allowed anywhere near them, not even when they came to the Wardens’ compound to meet with Abbot, the clan leader. I’d always been forced to leave the premises, and I never thought I’d ever see them.
An irresponsible urge to go to them hit me hard in the chest, and it took everything in me to ignore it. I breathed in deeply, and they smelled wonderful.
Roth jerked suddenly, and my heart lodged somewhere in my throat. Fear poured into me. Had they done something to him? Then I saw it. A shadow drifted off him, spilling into the air in front of us. I’d also seen that before. It happened whenever the tattooed familiars came off his skin.
I knew it wasn’t Bambi or the kittens, because this shadow came from the general vicinity of his...well, pretty much where the belt on his jeans was. Only one tattoo existed there, the only one I’d never seen.
The dragon familiar that Roth had warned only came off his skin when the shit hit the fan or he was seriously pissed.
The Alphas were here, and Thumper had finally come out to play.
two (#ulink_be9af1aa-04bd-5e08-85c9-e20c8ed777c5)
BRACING MYSELF FOR the appearance of a large and very destructive dragon, I tensed and held my breath. We all were going to die horrible, burning deaths.
The shadow was huge as it shifted into thousands of little black dots that spun together in the air, like a mini cyclone, taking shape and form. Seconds passed as iridescent blue and gold scales appeared along the belly and the back of the dragon. Deep red wings sprouted, as well as a long, proud snout and clawed hind legs. Its eyes matched Roth’s, a bright yellow.
It was a beautiful creature.
But...the dragon was about the size of a cat—a really small cat.
Not exactly what I had been expecting.
Its wings moved soundlessly as it hovered to the left of Roth, its tail whipping around. It was so tiny and so...so cute.
I blinked slowly. “You...you have a...a pocket-size dragon?”
Zayne snorted from somewhere behind me.
A heavy sigh came from Roth.
Even though all our lives were in danger and we were all probably going to die, there was definitely no love lost between Roth and Zayne.
The dragon swiveled its head in my direction, opened its mouth and let out a tiny squawk. More like a meep. A cloud of black smoke puffed out from it. No fire. Just dark wisps that smelled faintly of sulfur. My brows flew up.
“Remove the familiar from our sight,” an Alpha demanded, causing me to wince. The one who spoke was standing to the right of the door, and his voice was impossibly deep, reverberating through both the room and me. Part of me expected my eardrums to rupture.
I was surprised that the Alphas hadn’t immediately tried to take out Thumper, but then again, it wasn’t like the pocket dragon was that much of a threat.
Roth’s stance appeared casual, but I knew he was coiled tight, ready to spring into action. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
The Alpha’s lips formed a sneer. “How dare you speak to me? I could end your existence before you take your next breath.”
“You could,” Roth replied calmly. “But you won’t.”
My eyes widened. Smack talking to the Alphas wasn’t what I’d consider a smart move.
“Roth,” muttered Zayne. He sounded closer, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the Alphas to check. “You might want to chill out a bit.”
The Crown Prince smirked. “Nah. You want to know why? The Alphas could end me, but they’re not going to.”
Across from us, the Alpha who had spoken stiffened but didn’t interrupt.
“You see, I am the favorite Crown Prince,” Roth continued, his smirk spreading. “They take me out when I haven’t done anything to warrant it and they’ll have the Boss to contend with. They don’t want that.”
Surprise flickered through me. They couldn’t just end Roth because of who he was? I’d always thought they could simply do as they pleased.
The Alpha who had been silent up to this point spoke. “There are rules for a reason. It does not mean we have to like them, so I’d suggest you do not push your luck, Prince.”
Then Roth did the unthinkable. He raised his hand and extended his middle finger. “Does this count as pushing it, Bob?”
Crap on a cracker, he’d flipped off an Alpha! And he’d called the Alpha Bob! Who did that? Seriously?
My jaw hit the floor while the miniature Thumper coughed out another cloud of smoke. “I’m not blinded by your glory,” Roth said. “You sit on your lofty clouds passing judgment on every living creature there is. Not everything is black-and-white. You know that and yet you recognize no gray area.”
Sparks of electricity crackled from the Alpha’s all-white eyes. “One of these days, Prince, you will meet your own fate.”
“And I’ll do so quite spectacularly,” he quipped back. “Looking damn good while I do it, too.”
I briefly squeezed my eyes shut. Oh my God...
The Alpha on the right shifted, his large hand tightening on the hilt of the sword, and I had a feeling he wanted to shove it clean through Roth. I figured it was time to pry my tongue off the roof of my mouth. “You’re here because of the Lilin, right? We will stop him.” I had no idea how we would do that and I probably shouldn’t give such an promise to beings who could obliterate me in a heartbeat, but I didn’t see a choice. Not only because I needed to distract them from Roth, but because the Lilin did need stopping. Anything with a soul now was in danger. “I promise.”
“The Wardens will take care of the Lilin. That’s what they were created for—it’s their job to protect mankind. If they don’t, they will pay the ultimate price right along with the demons,” the Alpha who’d spoken first replied. “But we’re here to deal with you.”
My heart stopped again. “Me?”
The Alpha Roth had dubbed Bob narrowed his eyes. “You are a sacrilege of the highest order. Before, you were an abomination that should have been dealt with, but now you’re a perversity we cannot allow to continue.”
Roth cocked his head to the side as Zayne rushed forward. “No!” Zayne said, his wings tucking back. “She has never done anything to—”
“Oh, really?” the other Alpha replied drily as his wings arced high. Those feather-embedded eyes swiveled around the room and then all of them—hundreds of them—focused on me. “We see all, Warden. Justice must be served.”
Bob raised his sword, and before I could do anything, Roth’s arm flew out. He caught me just above the chest, shoving me into Zayne. I bounced off his hard chest, and would’ve toppled right off if Zayne hadn’t steadied me with his arm across my waist.
Thumper, still circling near Roth’s shoulder, let out another squeak—
—which turned into a roar that made the house shake even more than it had when the Alphas showed up.
Roth lowered his chin, grinning. “As I’ve said before, size does matter.”
Thumper began to grow at a rate I couldn’t even track, sprouting legs the size of tree trunks and claws the length of hooks. The dragon’s bright blue and gold scales appeared bulletproof and its hind legs stretched down to the floor, cracking the wooden boards. One crimson wing hit the ceiling, smacking straight through the drywall. Plaster fell in thick clouds as his other wing knocked over the recliner.
The Alpha shouted something, but it was lost amid the dragon’s low, humming growl. It lurched forward, swinging its massive spiked tail along the floor. Furniture flew into the wall, demolishing a portrait. A window shattered and cold air from outside poured into the room. Thumper came to a stop in front of us, facing the Alphas as he drew back, huffing sparks of flame out of his nostrils. The fire darkened what was left of the ceiling as Bob called out again.
“You take one step toward her and I’m going to fry myself up some Alpha.” Roth’s voice was low and deadly calm. “Extra-crispy style.”
One Alpha stepped back, but Bob looked like he would blow a gasket. “You dare to threaten us?”
“I dare a lot more than that.” Roth’s skin seemed to thin, his face becoming sharp angles. “I will not stand for one hair on her head to be harmed. If you want her, you’re going to have to come through me.”
Bob smiled widely at that, and my stomach plummeted. Roth was bound and determined to get himself killed because of me. He’d sacrificed himself to the pits, come back from that, and then gone against his Boss and saved my life. There was no way I could allow him to stand between me and danger again. “Stop!” I broke free of Zayne’s hold, but Thumper shifted. His tail swung back, stopping not even an inch from my hips.
I could go no further. My panicked gaze darted from Roth to the Alphas. “Whatever problem you have, you have it with me. Not them. So can we—”
Even as I spoke, Bob the Alpha moved toward Roth, lifting the fiery sword, and Thumper didn’t like that. Rearing back, he stretched out his long neck and opened his mouth, revealing fist-size fangs. The scent of sulfur increased, and then a burst of fire shot out of Thumper’s mouth.
A pain-filled shriek ended abruptly, and where Bob once stood was just a charred pile of ashes.
Everyone stood perfectly still. No one spoke or even appeared to breathe. And then, “Make that extra-extra-crispy style,” Roth said, studying the mess.
My knees went weak as I lifted my hands helplessly. Thumper spun on the other Alpha. There was a series of sickening crunches, and then the dragon looked over its shoulder, its golden eyes finding mine as it opened its mouth. A shimmery blue liquid stained its teeth as it huffed out a sound that really sounded like a throaty chuckle.
Bambi had eaten a Warden.
Thumper had eaten an Alpha.
These familiars were really low on manners.
More important, I hadn’t known anything could actually kill an Alpha, much less eat one.
“Oh—oh!” Stacey shrieked, and I turned sideways, just in time to see her all but squeeze herself into the two back cushions of the couch. “There’s a dragon in my house! A dragon!” Guess she was still too out of it from fainting to remember there’d been angels in her house, too.
“Thumper,” Roth called. “Return to me.”
The dragon belched out a thick cloud of smoke and turned around. I jumped out of the way of its tail, as did Zayne. The fireplace wasn’t as lucky. That lethal tail smacked into it, knocking a handful of bricks loose. They hit the floor, breaking into pieces. Thumper shifted his heavy weight from side to side.
Zayne frowned. “Is it...stomping its feet?”
Roth rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t get out much.”
“For obvious reasons,” Stacey mumbled.
Thumper lifted his tail and slammed it down, cracking what was left of the floor and earning a sigh from Roth. The dragon shook its head, then shuddered before shrinking back down to its cute, pocket-size form. Thumper finally returned to Roth, settling on the side of his face as a small shadow that quickly raced down his neck and under the collar of his shirt.
I was struck absolutely silent and was barely aware of shifting back into my human state. My thoughts raced from one bad situation to the next. Sam as the Lilin. My feathered wings. Alphas popping in. Thumper—
“Mom is so going to kill me,” Stacey whispered, clutching a beige throw pillow to her chest. She looked up. “How am I going to explain this?”
Roth pursed his lips. “Gas-line explosion?” Stacey repeated the words dimly as he continued. “I can torch the place, make it a little more authentic. Won’t damage the upstairs if you don’t want me to.”
“Had a lot of practice with this, have you?” Zayne asked drily.
“Ah, when Thumper comes off, it’s always good to go with the old gas-line excuse. It’s handy.” Roth turned to me. “You okay over there?”
Was I okay?
Anger mixed with fear—fear for him. I stared for a moment and then I shot toward him. “What were you thinking?” Hauling back, I smacked his chest. “You threatened an Alpha!” I smacked him again, harder this time, enough to sting.
“Ow.” He rubbed his chest, but his eyes twinkled. He thought this was funny!
Zayne walked over to where the pile of ashes remained. “More than just threatened. He let Thumper eat them.”
“Hey, technically Thumper fried one and ate the other,” Roth corrected, patting his stomach, where Thumper now rested.
“Oh my God!” This time my hand connected with his arm. “You’re going to be in so much trouble, Roth! So much trouble.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Defended myself.”
“Defended myself.” I mimicked him, bopping my head back and forth. “You can’t just go around killing Alphas, Roth!”
“You killed those angels?” Stacey asked, so I guessed she did remember them.
He sent her an innocent grin. “Well, I didn’t, but...”
“Roth!” I shouted, backing away before I started choking the ever-loving life out of him. “This is not a joke. You—”
He was damn fast when he wanted to be. One second he was several feet away from me and the next he was there, clasping the sides of my face. He lowered his head so he was eye level with me. “There are rules, Shortie.”
“But—”
“Rules that even the Alphas have to abide by. They cannot attack me without physical provocation. If they do, they tick the Boss off, and then the Boss retaliates in a way that makes what the Lilin could do look like child’s play. I’m not just some random demon. I’m the Crown Prince. They took a swing at me, and I defended myself. End of story.”
But he had provoked them—maybe not physically, but he wasn’t an innocent bystander in this. As the shock ebbed, there was a different kind of bitter pill to swallow. What if Roth had gotten his rules wrong? What if more Alphas were even now on the way to avenge their brethren?
“I’m going to be okay.” His eyes held mine as he stepped closer, lining his booted feet up with mine. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I promise.”
“You can’t make that promise,” I whispered, searching his gaze intently. “None of us can.”
His hands slid back and he curled his fingers in my loose hair. “I can.”
Those two words were like throwing down a gauntlet to the whole universe. I lowered my gaze as he dragged my hair back, tucking both sides behind my ears. It was then, as he slowly withdrew his hands, that I remembered we were not alone.
I jerked back and my gaze collided with Zayne’s. For a moment, I let myself really see Zayne. I hadn’t almost killed him. I had almost done something much, much worse than that. When a Warden lost their soul, they turned into a horrific creature. I knew that for a fact, because I’d seen what had happened to a Warden after their soul had been taken from them. I’d almost done that to Zayne, and he was still here, standing by my side.
A hole opened up in my chest as I saw the keen wariness in his stare. My stomach twisted something awful and I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. My heart and head were suddenly tearing in two very different directions. Fortunately, I didn’t get the chance to say anything.
“I leave you alone for a few hours, and you let Thumper fry and eat an Alpha.”
Yelping, I spun around as Stacey screamed. Cayman stood in the center of the destroyed living room. He’d come out of nowhere. Poof. There. He wore dark trousers and a white dress shirt he appeared to have gotten bored with when it came to buttoning it up, and his blond hair was loose around his angular face. When it came to the demon pecking order, Roth had once explained that as an Infernal Ruler, Cayman was middle management. He was kind of like the demon-of-all-trades, and I had a feeling he was more than just a...um, coworker of Roth’s. Whether Roth claimed it or not, they were friends.
“That was quick,” Roth commented, folding his arms across his chest.
Cayman shrugged. “It’s a sign of the times, man. It’ll probably be on some Alpha’s Facebook wall within the hour.”
Alphas had Facebook accounts?
Stacey was holding the throw pillow to her mouth now, and all that was visible were her huge, dark brown eyes. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. “Who is that?”
I started to explain, but Cayman bowed in her direction, extending his arm with a flourish. “Only the most handsome and smartest and downright most charming demon there is. But I know that’s a mouthful, so you can call me Cayman.”
“Um.” Her gaze darted around the room. “Okay.”
Zayne’s skin had darkened in a clear indication that he was close to shifting again, and I hoped he kept it cool. Cayman was a friend, and the last thing we needed was the two of them getting into it. “Is Roth in trouble?”
“Shortie, I’m—”
I raised my hand, cutting him off. “Shush it. Cayman, is he in trouble?”
Cayman grinned. “I think the better question is—when is he not in trouble?”
Narrowing my eyes, I had to admit that was a good point. “Okay. Is he in more trouble than he normally is?”
“Ah...” His gaze shifted toward Roth, and then his grin spread into a devilish smile. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. “Let’s just say that the Boss is not pleased with what just went down here. Actually, the Boss is ticked off about a lot of things, and if Roth goes down below anytime soon, he probably won’t be leaving for a while. Like for a couple of decades.”
I gasped. “That’s not good.” So much for the Boss being on Roth’s side.
“Could be worse,” Roth said, smirking.
Cayman nodded. “If you want the truth, I think the Boss secretly was pleased with what Thumper did, but you know...politics.” He sighed while I raised my brows. “Ruins everything fun.”
My temples were starting to ache. “Today has been...”
“Unbelievable?” offered Stacey. Dropping the pillow, she pressed the palms of her hands under her eyes. Her expression was pale and strained. Her hands shook as she wiped beneath her eyes.
I nodded slowly as I turned around. My gaze met Roth’s and then Zayne’s. Both of them stared at me, waiting. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t know what they were waiting for, but that would be a lie.
And that would also make me a coward.
Weight landed on my shoulders as I rubbed my fingers along my temples. There was so much we needed to figure out. “We need to take care of this.” I gestured at the ruined room. The scent of sulfur lingered, and part of me was grateful to have something immediate to focus on. “So Stacey doesn’t get in trouble.”
“Much appreciated,” she said, and when I glanced at her, I saw her dragging her hands through her hair.
Roth stepped up. “Why don’t you guys head down to the Cakes and Things bakery while I take care of this. You can do that?” The question was directed at Zayne, who nodded.
“I will keep them safe,” Zayne replied in a level tone.
Roth hesitated, and then he took a deep breath. “If other Wardens show—”
“I will protect both of them from whatever or whoever may come at them,” Zayne assured him. He drew in a deep breath. “Even...even if it is my clan.”
“And I can also protect myself,” I threw in, earning an amused glance from Roth. “What? Trust me. Any of my...my old clan comes in my direction, I’m not going to open my arms to hug them.” I ignored the wave of dread that surfaced with the thought of coming face-to-face with them again. “Well, except Nicolai and Dez. I think they kind of—”
“Shortie,” Roth said.
I sighed. “Whatever. Let’s go.” Turning to Stacey, I walked over to gently pry the pillow she’d picked up again loose from her white-knuckle grip. “You okay to go out there?”
She blinked once and then twice. “What are my options? I stay in here while Roth torches the place? No, thank you.”
Good to see that even after the day we’d had, Stacey could still be a smart-ass.
Roth strode up to Cayman, placing his hand on the other demon’s shoulder. “I want you to keep an eye out, okay?”
The list of things that Cayman would be keeping an eye out for was astronomical.
“Word.” Cayman disappeared. Poof. Gone.
Shaking my head, I refocused on Stacey. Tears filled her eyes as she peered up at me through damp lashes. “Sam’s... He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I placed the pillow on the couch beside her and knelt down. A burning knot of emotion formed in the back of my throat. “Yeah. He is.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as a tremor rolled through her. “I remember you all talking about the...the Lilin and what it does to people. If Sam’s dead, then his soul...”
His soul was in Hell. I knew that. Stacey already knew that. Everyone in this room knew that, and there could be nothing more horrific than being trapped in Hell. He didn’t deserve all the horrifying things that happened to souls there.
Wrapping my hands around Stacey’s, I squeezed them tight. “I promise we will get Sam’s soul out of Hell. I promise.”
three (#ulink_c70f5606-47e9-5258-91e2-9b937255fb52)
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE made that promise,” Zayne said quietly the moment Stacey hit the girls’ bathroom at the bakery several blocks from her house. I’d tried to go with her, but she stated quite firmly that she needed a few moments alone.
I sat in the booth closest to the window, watching the people rushing outside, their auras a dizzying wash of colors. It was so weird to see the auras again. A part of me had gotten used to not seeing them while Bambi had been on me, and I’d forgotten how distracting they could be. “Why not?”
Zayne slid in across from me. Concern pinched his features. “How are you going to get Sam’s soul out of Hell, Layla? Roth may be the Crown Prince, but I seriously doubt that is something that he can ask for, even if he was on good terms with them. Hell isn’t just going to hand Sam’s soul right over.”
“I hadn’t gotten that far in my plan.” Actually, I’d been hoping that it was something that Roth could help us out with. After all, being the Crown Prince meant he could just go around letting Thumper fry and eat Alphas. “But it’s something we have to do. Zayne, he’s my best friend.” My voice cracked, and I felt my tenuous control over my emotions start to slip. “Even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t leave him there. He didn’t deserve this. God, Zayne, Sam did not deserve this.”
“I know.” Zayne dipped his chin, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m not suggesting that we forget about him.”
“We have to do something,” I reiterated, drawing in a deep breath as I leaned back against the booth, resting my hands on the smooth table. I glanced back toward where Stacey had disappeared. She’d asked for time, but it was so hard to give it to her. Considering everything that had happened, I was surprised that we could sit here and talk normally. “And then we need to figure out what to do about the Lilin, and then we—”
“Hey, slow down for a second.” Zayne reached across the table, folding his hand over mine. I studied him as my heart turned over heavily. Anytime I looked at him now, I saw the smudges under his eyes, and I saw the dulled aura around him. I couldn’t un-see that. “I know a lot of crazy stuff just went down, but you’ve been through a lot. We need to talk about it.”
I really did not want to talk about any of that, because there was a good chance I couldn’t handle it.
Zayne had other ideas. “Do you know how hard it is for me to sit on the other side of this booth and not reach across and pull you against me? Just to make sure you really are alive?” he asked, and my breath caught at the raw honesty in his words. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You need to know that. My clan—our clan—and my father never should have done what they did.”
I dropped my gaze to his hand, the one that held mine and had held mine for so many years. I closed my eyes and immediately saw Zayne lying on the floor of my bedroom, pale and still. I remembered the way Abbot, the Warden that had raised me, had looked at me when he found his son, stared at me like I was a monster he had helped create. Pressure clamped down on my chest as I recalled the panicked flight through the compound, my desperate attempt to escape and the failure.
Failure that had ended with me being caged and drugged, left alone in the dark with no hope of ever seeing the daylight again. I could still smell the musty scent that had lingered in the basement of the compound, feel the chains that had bound me when I’d been moved to the secret warehouse.
“Layla?”
A shudder rolled through me as I reminded myself I wasn’t in that cage anymore. I opened my eyes and forced those dark thoughts out of my head.
“I appreciate you saying that. You’re right. What they did to me was wrong. I get that they thought I was the one causing trouble around the compound—heck, even I thought I was a danger to everyone, but they went too far.”
My words kind of surprised me. I’d always defended Abbot, but I couldn’t make excuses for his actions or those of the majority of my clan. All the soul-searching I’d done after waking up from the blow, the wound delivered to me in front of Abbot, had changed who I was at the very core. There was no doubt about that. “They acted as the jury with some really crappy circumstantial evidence, and then they became the judge and the executioner. I could’ve died. I would’ve died if it hadn’t been for Dez—and by the way, how much trouble are he and Nicolai in?”
Dez and Nicolai had risked everything by alerting Roth to what was happening. If they hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been sitting here right now.
Zayne’s lashes lowered as his expression contorted. “At first, there were talks of casting them out,” he said, and I sucked in a breath. Casting them out meant they’d be disowned from the clan, which was horrible enough for a single male, but Dez had a mate and two little babies. “But once we realized that it was Petr wreaking havoc around the house, Abbot began to see the light. Nicolai and Dez are safe.”
With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten that Zayne had told me they’d discovered Petr’s wraith, caught on camera. Relief coursed through me. I’d... I’d killed the young Warden in self-defense when he attacked me, carrying out his father’s orders. Elijah. Who’d also turned out to be my real father, so that meant Petr, who’d been the worst kind of boy there was, was my half brother. That still sickened me. Since I’d sucked out Petr’s soul, he’d become a wraith.
“You could’ve died, too. I could’ve taken your whole soul,” I continued, keeping my voice low. That was the gift my mother, Lilith, had left me with—the wonderful ability to suck out souls with a single kiss. Anyone who had one was in danger if they got anywhere near my mouth, which up until recently had put a real damper on the whole dating business.
But then Roth had shown up, and as a demon, he was in the no-soul category. At first, I’d loathed his very existence, and looking back, it had a lot to do with how his words and actions made me question everything the Wardens had taught me. By nature, demons weren’t something you’d invite in for dinner, but not all of them were the wretched creatures I’d been conditioned to abhor to a near-fanatical degree. They had their purpose, too. Every second I’d spent with Roth, I’d fallen a little harder for him, and I’d shared so much with him before he’d sacrificed himself to save Zayne from the fiery pits of Hell. I’d thought I’d lost him then, but he’d returned—only things had been different between us when he had. Roth had distanced himself, to protect me.
To shield me from Abbot.
Then there was everything that had happened with Zayne. I’d been raised with him, spent years idolizing and loving him from afar. For the longest time, he’d been my everything, but he’d been a Warden and I’d only been half Warden—and worse, half demon. Between his soul and my genetic background, he’d been off-limits. A friendship with him, the bond we shared, had been a glimpse of a future that every female Warden was assured of but that was never on the table for me. That knowledge had done nothing to stop my growing feelings, and when Roth had returned from the pits, pushing me away, he’d pushed me right into the arms of Zayne, the boy I never thought would return my affections.
I’d been wrong about that.
I’d been wrong about a lot of things.
Zayne’s eyes flew open. “But you didn’t.”
“Barely.” That pressure returned, weighing on me as I felt again the horror of the night I realized I’d been feeding on Zayne instead of...instead of kissing him back. “I can see where I’ve taken some. I can tell in your aura.”
“I’m fine—”
“No thanks to me. The only reason I’d been able to...to kiss you before then was because of Bambi. When she was on me, I could control my abilities.” I slipped my hand free, pressing my lips together as I shook my head. “You can’t overlook what I did to you, and I know you can’t be a hundred percent okay.”
Zayne stared at me, and then he lifted his hand, thrusting his fingers through his hair. “You stopped in time. Other than feeling a little tired and...grumpier than normal, I am fine, Layla-bug.”
My heart squeezed at the use of my nickname. “Grumpier than normal?”
His brows knitted and for a moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer. “My temper is easier to ignite nowadays. I don’t know if that has to do with what happened between us or if it’s the natural result of everything else going on lately.”
I think I knew the answer to that. When someone’s soul was stripped away, even a tiny piece, it changed who they were in some way. Maybe it made some more prone to mood swings, others more reckless and others violent.
And apparently for Zayne, he’d lost a bit of his kindness, a little of what made him absolutely wonderful, and I had done that to him. While it hadn’t been on purpose, neither of us, especially me, had shown any level of common sense by trying to be together. Neither of us had delved too deeply into why all of a sudden I could do things like kissing without taking a soul.
Then again, as Zayne had pointed out once, there was a lot more that we could’ve done that hadn’t involved our mouths touching.
Strangely, sitting across from him, I realized I didn’t feel the longing to feed. It was the first that I’d noticed its absence. Since my clan had turned on me, I’d been staying with Roth and Cayman, and as neither owned a soul, I hadn’t even thought about feeding on one—something that I’d spent seventeen years fighting the urge to do.
Now, though I was once again surrounded by souls, the urge simply wasn’t there.
Maybe today’s events had shocked me bad enough that even that was affected.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, flipping my gaze to the street beyond the window. It was the second week of December, and the skies above Washington, DC, were gray and the wind brisk, carrying the scent of snow in the air. “I’m so sorry, Zayne.”
“Don’t apologize,” he was quick to say. “Don’t ever apologize to me. I don’t regret anything that happened between us. Not a moment.”
Did I?
“Anyway, it’s not me I want to talk about. Are you okay?” he asked. “What they did—”
“I’m fine,” I said, and it felt like a lie. “I was healed by the witches. You know, the ones who worship Lilith. They gave Cayman something for me to drink and it worked.” Which reminded me of the fact that Cayman had to promise something in return and none of us knew what bargain he’d struck yet. “I have no idea what they gave me.”
“That’s kind of concerning,” he replied wryly.
My lips twitched, and when I looked up, our gazes met, and then held. He leaned in, placing his elbows onto the table. “Layla, I—”
A shadow fell over our table, and when I looked up, I saw Stacey’s aura first. It was a faint, mossy green. A common color. Pure souls were rare, and the darker the shade of the aura, the more likely it was they had sinned. Stacey’s blotchy face broke my heart. I slid over, sending Zayne a glance. The look he wore promised that we weren’t done with the conversation.
“How are you doing?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
“I’m okay.” She didn’t sound okay. “I just needed a moment or five.” It was more like ten, but she could have as many moments as she needed. She paused, smoothing the back of her hands over her cheeks. “I’m okay, right?”
My smile was weak as tears burned the back of my eyes. “Yes.” I reached over, slipping my arm over her shoulders. “But if you’re not, that’s okay, too.”
A tremor coursed through her as she leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder. Usually it was hard if someone got this close, but again, the urge that existed deep within wasn’t gnawing at my insides. “He’s dead,” she whispered.
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to take deep, even breaths to loosen the messy knot in my throat. All I wanted to do was hold on to Stacey and break down, because Sam... God, Sam was gone, and it was like a thousand razor blades were churning in my stomach, but I had to pull it together for Stacey. She’d known Sam a lot longer than me, since grade school, and she had fallen in love with him. Her pain was a priority over mine.
Keeping my arm around her, I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know what to say in situations like this. Even when I’d thought Roth was gone, I had hope that he was still alive. This was different. There would be no surprises. Sam would not reappear one day. No one close to me had ever died before, and I knew my mind hadn’t fully processed the reality of him being gone. So I just held her as I stared at the door, blindly watching the people streaming in and out. At some point Zayne got up and returned with two cups of hot chocolate. I barely tasted the sweetness.
I don’t know how much time passed before I felt the tingle of awareness alerting me to a demon’s presence. Across from us, Zayne stiffened, but when the door closed, it was Roth. He strolled to our table, and Zayne scooted over. Normally, I would’ve burst out laughing seeing them sitting side by side.
Neither of them looked exactly comfortable.
There was a woodsy scent that clung to Roth’s clothes, as if he’d been near a bonfire. “Took care of it,” he told Stacey. “Your downstairs is pretty much shot. The fire department is already on the way. Just remember you didn’t go home after school. You came here to meet Layla and Zayne.”
Swallowing hard, she nodded as she circled her hands around the cup of hot chocolate. “Got it.”
Roth tilted his head to the side, his brows furrowed as he studied her. “You’re going to do fine with this.”
When Stacey nodded again, he reached across the table, his hand veering to the left. He snatched up my cup of hot chocolate. Taking a sip, he didn’t even look in my direction.
“Help yourself,” I muttered under my breath.
His lips twitched. “So what’s the game plan, Stony?”
A muscle twitched along Zayne’s jaw. He hated that nickname. “Game plan in regards to what exactly?”
“The Lilin,” Roth replied, as if the answer should be obvious.
I stiffened. “I don’t think now is the time to discuss this.”
Golden eyes drifted from me to Stacey. There was a pause. “Good point.”
“No,” Stacey said, twisting toward me. “This is the perfect time.”
“But—”
“That thing in my house wasn’t Sam. It wasn’t him,” she said, her voice rising. A couple by the door glanced over at us with frowns on their faces. “So when you talk about it, the Lilin, you aren’t talking about Sam.” Her voice caught. “That thing is not Sam.”
Zayne shifted forward in the booth. “Are you sure, Stacey?”
“Positive,” she whispered.
Chest aching, I glanced at the boys, and then nodded. “Okay.”
Roth placed my cup back down in front of me and then leaned back against the cushioned seat, turning his head toward Zayne. “Sounded like the Alphas might’ve already spoken to the Wardens, and if that’s the case, I find it a wee bit interesting you haven’t said anything.”
“When would I have had the time to say something even if that was the case?” Zayne retorted, voice clipped. “Between seeing Layla and when the Alphas actually showed up?”
Roth lifted his brows. “Are you getting snappy with me?”
“What does it sound like?” Zayne returned.
“I don’t know.” A slight smile formed on his lips as he threw his arm along the back of the cushion. I sighed, because I knew that look. “But you catching a tone with me is about as interesting as reading up on the benefits of a water purification system.”
I stared at him. Only a handful of hours ago, Zayne had thanked Roth for saving me. They had actually been polite to each other. I guessed I shouldn’t be surprised that hadn’t lasted very long. “Roth.”
“Hmm?”
My eyes narrowed. “Knock it off.”
The smile spread until there was a flash of white teeth. “Anything for you, Shortie.”
Oh Lord.
Zayne moved his gaze to me, and I couldn’t decipher what I saw in his stare. “I don’t know if the Alphas have spoken to my father yet. I haven’t really been...talking to him recently, and they haven’t showed at the compound while I’ve been there.”
“What I don’t understand is why the Alphas would think that your kind would be the ones to stop the Lilin. You have souls, therefore you have a major vulnerability.” Roth was eyeing what was left of my hot chocolate. “My kind doesn’t.”
“Not something to gloat about.” Zayne exhaled loudly, and I resisted the urge to bang my head against the table. “Look, I’ll check in and see if I can find anything out.”
“Fine, but we have a bigger problem,” Roth warned.
Stacey looked up from her cup. “We do?”
I wanted to echo that statement, because I wasn’t sure exactly what could be bigger than taking down a creature that could inflict so much pain and destruction.
“What are the Wardens going to do once they realize Layla is alive and well?” There was a low rasp to Roth’s voice that resembled a growl. “That’s what I’m concerned about.”
Zayne’s lips thinned. “They will do nothing. They know she’s not the cause of what happened—”
“That doesn’t undo anything they’ve done,” Roth cut in.
“I didn’t say that it did.” The hand Zayne rested on the table started to deepen to a granite color. “I’m not going to allow them to touch her.”
I opened my mouth to point out again that I wasn’t going to allow them to touch me, but Roth got right up in Zayne’s face. “And I’m not going to forget a single thing that was done to her,” he warned. “I haven’t forgotten how she came back to me with claw marks on her face.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I leaned back against the cushion as Stacey turned to me. “You were clawed in the face?”
I clamped my mouth shut as I stared at her, refusing to look at Zayne or even Roth, but I didn’t need to spare even a brief glance in their direction to know the two had locked eyes. When Zayne had kissed me, and I had inadvertently started to feed on his soul, he’d begun to shift and had clawed me in an attempt to break the connection. There was not a single part of me that thought he’d meant to truly hurt me. Roth had to know that, too.
Stacey’s eyes searched mine, and she must’ve seen the truth, because as impossible as it seemed, an even greater sadness filled her gaze.
“I will never forgive myself for that.” Zayne’s quiet voice broke the terse silence, and I whipped around to face him.
Roth tipped his chin down. “Neither will I.”
“Stop it.” I clenched the end of the table. “Talking about that isn’t getting us anyplace. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Roth replied. “Because no matter what, I would never, ever hurt you.”
Zayne jerked back as if he’d taken a fatal blow.
“But you have.” My knuckles were starting to ache. “You have hurt me.”
Maybe not physically, but Roth had hurt me in the past. Words could cut just as deep as sharpened claws, and while the skin could heal, the wounds words left behind never faded as quickly. He might’ve been trying to protect me, but that hadn’t lessened the sting one bit.
Roth’s gaze met mine, and then his thick lashes lowered, shielding his eyes. Silent, he sat back and folded his arms across his chest. Zayne stared at the tabletop, a lock of blond hair falling in his face. Tension seeped from both of them, and my skin felt like it was stretched too thin.
Stacey’s phone rang and she dug it out of her bag with a shaking hand. She started to stand. “It’s Mom.” Glancing at me with watery eyes, she looked years younger. “I can do this.”
“You can do this.” I reached out and squeezed her arm through her sweater. Her eyes had a wild, panicked look about them.
I heard her answer the phone as she walked over to the entry door and slipped outside. My gaze tracked her as she started to pace behind an empty bench. I just wanted to crawl under the table and rock for a little bit. I figured that couldn’t be too much to ask.
Zayne cleared his throat. “You know this, but you can’t go back to the compound. There’re places that you can stay, where you will be safe.”
“I have a place to stay,” I told him, taking a sip of my now-lukewarm hot chocolate.
His jaw hardened. “With him?”
Surprisingly, Roth remained quiet, which made me feel like I needed to check if he was alive. I set the cup aside and rested my arms on the table, more than just exhausted. More like weary to my very core. “It’s a place that’s safe,” I said. “And yes, it’s with Roth and Cayman.”
Zayne opened his mouth, and then closed it. Several seconds passed and they felt like the tick of eternity. “What are you going to do, Layla?”
The question carried a lot of weight, because I knew it went beyond just where I was staying for the night or the next couple of days. There was so much I didn’t know the answer to. School was up in the air. Where I would be living was completely undecided. How we could defeat the Lilin or save Sam’s soul still unknown. I had no idea what was going on when I shifted today. And there was more—there was Roth and Zayne, two very different guys that I had loved and fallen in love with.
Stacey returned, saving me from having to answer the question. Her mom was in hysterics, as expected, and Stacey needed to go to her aunt’s house.
The four of us headed out into the chilly air. Stacey and Roth walked ahead, but I stopped and turned around. With my heart beating fast, I walked back to where Zayne stood behind the bench Stacey had paced near. Stretching up, I wrapped my arms around him. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he returned the embrace, holding me so tight that my cheek pressed against his chest.
The hug felt good, more than good. It was like coming home after a long day, and it was hard to break away from that.
“When will I see you again?” he asked, his voice thick.
“Soon,” I promised.
His arms tightened around me. “Please be safe, Layla. Please.”
“You, too.”
“Of course, Layla-bug.”
I looked up into his eyes. “I never blamed you for the claw marks, so please don’t blame yourself for something that I don’t even need to forgive you for.”
* * *
Roth and I didn’t talk on the drive back to the house across the river, in Maryland. I still had no idea how they’d come into possession of the McMansion, only that Cayman had acquired it at some point, and I figured it was best that I didn’t ask too many questions.
I’d spent several hours with Stacey and her mom and little brother at her aunt’s ginormous home while Roth lingered outside doing...demon things or whatever. It was late, almost midnight, by the time we’d left her house and made it back to this one.
I didn’t know why Roth was so quiet, but I appreciated it, because I didn’t have the brainpower to hold a conversation or to really think about anything.
Roth parked the vintage Mustang in the garage, and the house was dark and silent when we walked in. The place was toasty warm, but there was no sign of Cayman. I climbed the spiral staircase and dragged myself down the hall to the bedroom I’d woken up in after they’d first rescued me from the Wardens.
When I reached the closed door, I tucked my hair back behind my ear as I glanced over my shoulder at Roth.
He stood a few feet down the hall, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and the back of his head pressed against the wall. “I’ll take the room here,” he said, not looking in my direction. He’d stayed with me while I’d been healing, but now there really was no reason to be...bunking together. “If you need anything, the door will be unlocked.”
My hand tightened around the doorknob. “Thank you.”
I had no idea if he knew what I was thanking him for, but he nodded. Neither of us moved for a long moment. He continued to stare at nothing while I stared at him. Finally I pushed out, “Good night, Roth.”
He didn’t respond.
Turning the knob, I pushed open the door and immediately headed for the bedside lamp, flipping it on. The room was huge, the master suite, and furnished with stunning antiques.
I’d never felt more out of place as I gathered up the pajamas Cayman had brought me a few days ago and quickly changed into the cotton bottoms and loose shirt. At least the nightwear was nothing like the other clothing he and Roth had picked out for me. I was half surprised that they hadn’t given me a skimpy nightie. I padded barefoot into the bathroom, one much larger than the bathroom attached to my bedroom back in the Wardens’ compound. Well, my old bedroom. Definitely not mine anymore.
Nothing in that house was mine anymore.
The light in the bathroom was harsh and bright as I brushed my teeth and washed my face, leaving little puddles on the marble basin and droplets on my shirt. I was so messy when it came to these things. More than once I’d ended up with toothpaste in my hair and looking like I was entering a wet T-shirt contest.
As I turned off the faucet, I looked up and saw my reflection in the mirror. But I didn’t see myself. Not really. When I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing—the same image.
I saw Sam.
I saw Sam smiling. I saw him laughing. I saw the skin around his eyes crinkling, and as I stepped back from the sink, I could hear him spouting off some random, obscure piece of knowledge like how a frozen banana could act as a hammer. I could see him fiddling with his glasses and gazing at Stacey, unable to pull his eyes off her even when she’d been completely oblivious to his attraction. I could see him so clearly, as if he really was standing in the bathroom with me.
“Oh God,” I whispered, and my face crumpled.
There was no one in there to see me, but I slapped my hands over my eyes as I pressed against the wall. A shudder rocked me as the tears I’d been fighting all afternoon and evening finally broke free.
Sam was gone.
The knowledge was like getting hit by a speeding snowplow, and then getting stuck under the wheels and dragged down a bumpy road. Tears poured out of me as my shoulders shook with the force of them.
I remembered the first time I’d met him. We shared a history class my freshman year, and I’d been such a big goober, too nervous about my first foray into public school to find the pens in my bag, so he’d given me one of his while explaining that an average of one hundred people a year choke on pens.
A strangled laugh escaped me. God, how did Sam know all of that stuff? Who knew that kind of stuff? Sam did, but I’d never know the answer to that question and that hurt.
Trying to pull it together and failing, I slid down the wall and tucked my knees against my chest. Pressing my face against my leg, I screamed it out, all the pain, the anger and the sadness. The sound was muffled, and it did very little to ease the storm of emotions swirling inside me. I wanted to scream again, to rage.
I didn’t hear the bathroom door open, but suddenly an arm circled my shoulders, and then Roth was sitting on the floor beside me. He didn’t say anything as he hauled me into his lap, and I was incapable of uttering a single word as I buried my face into his chest, inhaling the unique musky scent and soaking up his warmth. The tears fell faster and harder. There was no gaining control in any of this. Roth held on, one arm wrapped around me, the other hand buried in my hair, curving around the back of my head. He didn’t whisper words of comfort, because there was absolutely nothing that could be said. My heart had cracked wide-open and it was raw, painful. It was unfair.
I cried it all out in the bathroom of a house that didn’t belong to me, held in the protective arms of the Crown Prince of Hell. I mourned the loss of my best friend.
four (#ulink_af18cfe6-ad61-5c35-be23-14791ae82ae9)
SITTING CROSS-LEGGED IN the center of the king-size bed, I keyed Zayne’s and Stacey’s numbers into the cell phone Cayman had deposited outside my room this morning.
I had terrible, horrific luck with cell phones. I’d left behind a graveyard of cell phones, piles of phones that simply had the misfortune of ending up in my hands, but like I had with every one before it, I really hoped this time was different.
Like the last phone Zayne had picked up for me, it was a nifty smartphone, but this one an even newer and fancier version. Oddly, no matter which way I positioned my finger over the little button, it wouldn’t read my fingerprint.
Technology.
Sigh.
Dropping the phone on the bed in front of me, I blinked bleary eyes. I’d cried so much last night, my eyes now felt like sandpaper was taped to the back of my lids. I’d cried until I fell asleep on a bathroom floor, in Roth’s arms. He must’ve carried me to bed, but I didn’t remember that, though I did remember how good it felt to be held by him. He was gone when I woke up and I hadn’t seen him or Bambi at all today. I guessed she was on him.
I tried not to panic about their absence, but it was hard. The way things were going there was a good chance that Cayman and Roth had underestimated the extent of their Boss’s reaction to Roth’s actions yesterday with the Alphas and Thumper.
My thoughts roamed from Roth to Zayne and then back to Roth, forming an endless circle before Sam and Stacey broke the cycle. The loss of him was going to hurt something horrible for a long time to come, but as badly as I felt, it was nothing compared to Stacey’s pain.
If losing Sam had taught me anything, it was to seize life—seize everything it had to offer, including the tears, the anger and loss, but most of all, the laughter and the love.
To just seize life.
Because it was fleeting and it was fickle, and no one, not me or anyone I knew, had another day, let alone another second promised to them.
Scooting off the bed, I grabbed the phone and made my way downstairs. The closer I got to the kitchen, the stronger the scent of paradise grew. Bacon. I smelled bacon. My stomach grumbled, and I picked up my pace. I found Cayman in the kitchen, making eggs on the stove. Sure enough, bacon sizzled on a griddle beside them.
“Morning,” he said without turning around. His hair was pulled back in a hot pink clip with a bedazzled butterfly attached to it. A small smile crept onto my face. “You like your eggs scrambled or what?”
“Scrambled is fine.” I hopped up on the bar stool positioned at the large island.
“Good. My kind of girl.” He flipped the bacon, and then headed to the fridge, twirling the spatula as he walked. Opening the door, he reached inside and grabbed a small bottle of OJ. Turning, he tossed it in my direction, and I caught it before it smacked me in the face. “Picked some of these up, too.”
I glanced down at the bottle. “How did you know?”
He lifted his brows, and then shook his head, turning back to the stove. Bacon snapped and popped as I set the bottle down. Roth had to have told him that the OJ helped with the cravings, as did anything sweet. When I’d woken up, the familiar burning sensation in the pit of my stomach was there, even though it had been absent yesterday. Still, it was minor compared to what I was used to.
“So, what are you planning to do today?” Cayman asked, scooping up the eggs and dropping them on two plates.
“I don’t know.” Dragging my still-damp hair over one shoulder, I twisted it with my hands. “I was going to check in with Zayne later and see if he’d heard anything about the Alphas, and then call Stacey. I’m... I’m worried about her.”
“She’ll get through it. Seems like a strong girl.”
“She is,” I agreed. “But losing someone is...”
“I imagine it’s hard, but I really don’t know. I haven’t loved anything or anyone other than myself,” he replied, and I lifted a brow at that. At least he was honest. “Got to suck to lose that.”
“It does.” I screwed off the lid of the OJ, feeling the heaviness in my chest. I had no idea how long it would take for that to fade. I thought back to when Roth had sacrificed himself; there had been moments where the burden of pain eased, but it had always resurfaced with a bitter vengeance.
Cayman gathered up the slices of bacon, spreading them out on our plates before joining me at the island. If someone told me a year ago I’d be eating scrambled eggs and bacon made by a demon, I would’ve laughed in their face and told them that crack was whack.
Times had most definitely changed. I picked up a piece of bacon.
“What’s going on with you and Zayne?”
I nearly choked on the bacon. My eyes watered as I grabbed the OJ and took a huge swallow. “Excuse me?” I croaked.
A half smile formed as he forked up some eggs. “You and Zayne, the gorgeous gargoyle. What’s going on there?”
“How do you know something’s going on?”
Cayman rolled his eyes. “Honey-child, a blind person could see there’s major tension. What’s the scoop?”
Heat blasted across my cheeks. Well then. “I...” I had no idea how to answer that question, because I wasn’t even sure myself. “I don’t know.”
He sent me a long look. “Ah, I think you totally know, but you’re just not ready to put it into words.”
Shoving another slice of bacon into my mouth, I eyed him. “Oh, do you now?”
“Yeah. Your shit is complicated. I got you, but I know what’s really going on there, so I’m about to go all come to Jesus with you.” Setting his fork down, he leaned over and whispered the “truth” in my ear.
I jerked back, his words echoing—no, actually taunting me—and anger rose in me swiftly. I glared at him, my hand tight on the fork. Something about what he said was so true I wanted to kick it back in his face. “I don’t want to talk to you about this.”
He chuckled. “Whatever floats your boat.”
Ignoring him, I devoured the rest of my breakfast, then I got up and dumped the plate and silverware in the dishwasher. When I faced him, he was still grinning. I crossed my arms. “Where’s Roth?”
“He’s out.”
I waited and there was no answer. “Doing what?”
“Things,” he replied. “Demon duties.”
Sighing, I leaned against the counter. “You’re real helpful.”
Winking, he held up his empty plate between two fingers. Air crackled, and then flames sparked off the tip of his fingers, climbing the plate. My eyes widened as I watched the fire completely obliterate the plate. The fork went up in flames next.
“Well, that’s one way to clean up,” I murmured.
“Just a little trick of the trade.” He wiped the ashes off his hands. “But going back to the not being helpful part, I’ll have you know I’m very helpful. Ask me how you can get Sam’s soul back.”
I blinked. “What?”
He sighed. “Ask me how to get Sam’s soul back from Hell. You know, so you can make sure he goes where he’s supposed to, which I’m assuming is beyond those big pearly gates in the sky.”
Slowly, I unfolded my arms. “You know how to get Sam’s soul?”
“Yep. Though I think Roth would prefer that I didn’t tell you. Now get that look off your face that makes people think a bird just crapped on your head.”
My brows flew up. That’s how I looked?
He continued, “Roth might know a way, but I don’t think that’s where his head is right now. Honestly, I’m not sure if I even want to know where his head is at the moment.”
Unease blossomed in my belly as I inched toward the kitchen island. Cayman watched me closely. “So here’s the deal. There is one being who watches over the souls down below and only that being can release a soul. At least, most of the time. If the person is not completely dead and is hovering in the in-between, then both the Boss and the big guy in the sky get the choice of either releasing the soul or pulling it back.”
“Pulling it back?” I leaned in, placing my hands on the cool granite surface. “As in bring them back from the dead?”
He shook his head. “We don’t like to use that particular phrasing. More like pull them back from the brink of death.”
“Okay,” I murmured, but hope sparked and burned bright. I knew it was crappy of me to only be concerned about Sam’s soul when there were others who had also ended up unfairly in Hell, but I was also smart enough to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to go in there and save everyone. Or maybe I could. My spine stiffened. I could at least try. “Semantics,” I said.
“You say semantics and I say the balance of the universe.”
I stared at him a moment, and then moved on. “Can we bring back Sam since—”
“No, sweet and incredibly naive child, you cannot bring him back.” Propping his elbows on the counter, Cayman rested his chin in his hand. “Sam is dead. As in dead, dead.”
Disappointment crushed me, but there was still something to grasp onto. If we couldn’t bring Sam back, we could make sure his soul was in the right place. “How does it work? Getting a soul back and making sure it’s in the right afterlife?”
“Well, when a person dies, the Alphas decide where their soul goes. Typically the soul goes where it belongs. There is no negotiation, begging or whining. If it’s meant to go down below, that’s where it goes.” He paused. “Unless their soul is stripped away by a Lilin...or someone like you. In those instances it only goes in one direction. Sucks. Totally unfair, but that’s just the way it is.”
Someone like you.
Normally the reminder of what I was would’ve been a smack in the face, but that...that ability was a part of me. It didn’t make me evil.
Sitting back down on the stool, I picked up the OJ. “How do we get his soul back, Cayman?”
“You go to Grim.”
I felt my lips pinch. “Grim?”
Cayman grinned and said nothing.
It took a moment, but then I got it. Rocking back on the stool, I was surprised I didn’t fall right off. “Grim, as in the Grim Reaper?”
“He doesn’t like to be called that since that’s the bastardized version of his name.” Cayman spun on his bar stool, a complete circle. “You couldn’t even pronounce his real name, so let’s just go with Grim. He’s cool with that. He’s the guardian of the souls down below and he’s the only one who can release them.”
I mulled that over for a moment. “Is he nice?”
Cayman stopped midspin and threw his head back, laughing long and hard. “No, incredibly sweet and naive child, he is not. He’s as old as time and has the temperament of someone who shit the bed and has been rolling around in it all day.”
My nose wrinkled. “Ew.”
“On the plus side, it’s actually pretty simple to get down to the fiery pits in the first place. You just take one of the elevators in the Palisades,” he continued, referencing the apartment building Roth normally lived in, which also housed a demonic club. “But you can’t take Roth with you. The Boss is still pissed, and so are some of the other Upper Level demons. They get their hands on him, they are going to delay him.”
“So...so I’d have to go alone?” A shiver danced down my spine. “To Hell?”
“Most likely. I’d go with you, but... Yeah, I really don’t want to talk to Grim.”
“Your support means the world to me,” I muttered, and then took a drink of the OJ. “All of this seems too easy. I just take an elevator down to Grim and ask for Sam’s soul?”
Cayman laughed again. “I’m beginning to think your darling naïvete is actually adorable idiocy. You’re like the cute version of the village idiot.”
“Wow.” I scowled. “You really know how to stroke a girl’s ego.”
He spun on the stool again and the butterfly clip slipped in his hair. “What can I say? Guys are more my field of expertise. But back to the topic at hand—no, getting Sam’s soul won’t be as easy as you make it sound, but lucky for you, you’ll have some time to plan your strategy. Grim isn’t down below right now. He’s...off, kind of like vacationing.”
“The Grim Reaper vacations?” Disbelief dripped from my voice.
“If you’d been doing a job for two thousand-plus years, you’d need a vacation, too.” His knees knocked into mine. “Okay. He’s not really vacationing, but he is someplace much more pleasant than the pits at the moment. He pulls double occupancy.”
“What does that mean? And don’t call me an idiot again. I’m not familiar with all your demon lingo.”
Cayman glanced up at the ceiling and then down to the floor. “You get it?”
“He’s up there?” I pointed at the ceiling. “And down below, too? He goes both places?”
“Of course. He’s the Grim Reaper, which means he’s actually a— Oh, it’s like a game of Taboo. I’ll give you examples and you guess what he really is.” Cayman clapped his hands together like a seal. “He has wings and—”
“An angel.” I cut him off. “He’s an angel.”
Cayman’s expression fell. “You’re no fun.”
I didn’t know a lot about all the different kinds of angels, but I was guessing Grim was actually an angel of death, maybe the original one, so I supposed it made sense that he divided his time between Heaven and Hell. Honestly, I didn’t even care. What was important was that there was something we could do for Sam, and maybe if I was lucky, for all those the Lilin had sentenced to Hell.
“He’s back soon, next Friday our time.” Cayman leaned over, tweaked my nose, and then laughed when I smacked his hand away. “Because that’s your only option, going down there. You ain’t going up there.”
Well, duh. But Friday was six long days away. I swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I can wait that long. Sam’s soul...”
“You don’t have a choice, Layla.” The playfulness slipped away. “No one else can release his soul but Grim, and there is no way for you to enter the heavens to talk to him. None whatsoever, especially now.”
My ears perked. “Especially now? How is today any different than yesterday? I never thought I could enter Heaven before—wait. Do you know something about my wings, why they’re feathered?”
His lips twitched. “You say feathered like it’s a bad hairstyle. Then again, feathered hair is really bad.”
“Cayman,” I griped, losing my patience.
“Why worry about your awesomely superior wings when you have a Lilin who’s going to quickly realize that there is no way in holy Hell that Lilith will be getting free and that’s no joke. The Boss has her on lockdown. She’s going nowhere, my little frosted cupcake.”
My lips pursed. His terms of endearment were less than endearing.
“And what do you think that Lilin is going to do when it realizes mommy dearest is not getting free and there’s nothing that it can do?” He raised his arms and wiggled his fingers. Total jazz hands. “Chaos will ensue, and what do you think will happen when chaos ensues? The Alphas will step in, and there will be so many of them that Thumper would get an upset stomach trying to eat them all. We don’t want that. For realsies.”
I opened my mouth.
“And why worry about your sleek-ass feathered wings when you have an entire clan of Wardens who just found out in the last twenty-four hours that you’re really not dead? Because trust me, they know. Zayne wouldn’t have to tell them. The Alphas would have. Some aren’t gonna be happy about your survival. Oh no, sugar bear. Then there’s the whole witch thing, and don’t even ask me what they wanted in return for saving your butt, because I am not gonna be the bearer of that bad news bears.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Goodie gumdrops, I was really starting to feel super stressed out.
He wasn’t done. “And why stress over wings in general when you’re going to break someone’s heart?”
“What?” I snapped.
Cayman popped off the bar stool, all grins. “Let’s stop playing around, my own personal Beanie Baby. Zayne’s in love with you. Roth’s in love with you.”
I inhaled sharply, but the air caught in my throat.
“Both would do anything for you—live, breathe and die for you, but you can’t have both of them, Layla.”
My hands fell to my thighs and I whispered, “I know that.”
“And you know which one is the real deal,” he continued, eyeing me intently. “You know, the forever kind of love, so why are you dragging this shit out?”
“I’m not dragging anything out,” I protested. “I was kind of out of it, you know, what with the whole being held prisoner and then nearly killed by my own clan thing. Then I was holed up here recovering, and then yesterday happened.” Frustrated, I jumped off the stool and stalked around the island. “And maybe I don’t think it’s the right time for me to be with either of them. Did you ever think about that?”
Cayman cocked his head to the side. “When is there ever a right time to fully give your heart to another? There are always going to be obstacles. You just have to decide which ones are worth it.”
“Whatever.” I crossed my arms.
He mimicked my stance. “Don’t be a coward.”
“Excuse me?”
“A. Coward,” he repeated, and I briefly considered picking up the vase in the center of the island and throwing it at him. “Not making a choice is the coward’s way out. You love both of them. I get that. But you don’t feel the same kind of love for both of them, and the sooner you accept that, the better.”
“Why are we talking about this again? And why do you even care?”
Cayman smiled. “Because I’m a caring sort of demon.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, throwing up my hands as frustration and panic fought their way through me. Cayman made it sound so easy, like I wasn’t going to lose one of them, but I was. Call me selfish, but the idea of not having both of them in my life terrified me. “You can be so annoying.”
“Don’t hate,” he said, grinning. “Procreate.”
Now I just glared at him.
“Procreate with the right guy,” he added. “Just wanted to clarify that.”
“Oh my God,” I moaned, leaning over and placing my forehead on the counter.
I stayed like that even after I felt Cayman exit the room—and probably the entire house, because after a few moments, I didn’t sense a demon.
The granite countertop really was cool and smooth, and felt good against my flushed face. Maybe I’d stay like this all day. Sounded like a plan. Better than...
No, not better than listening to what Cayman had said about Zayne and Roth. He was right. Oh God, he was so creepily right. I did love both guys. I really did, and the idea of hurting one of them or losing one of them made me want to hurl, but Cayman was also right about a few more things.
I couldn’t have both of them.
And what I felt for them was different.
There was no hiding that. It had always been that way. Both made me happy. Both made me laugh. Both filled me with longing and made my girlie parts all kinds of happy. But only one really made me...
Well, there was only one that I knew I would always be happy with, one that I would always laugh with. One that I did more than long for, but yearned for, and each second that passed ignoring it was a second I wouldn’t get to spend with him—a second I wouldn’t live life with love in it, real love in it, the kind that did have lasting power.
Despite what Cayman said, I wasn’t sure that both of them were truly in love with me. I wasn’t in their heads, but the way they felt didn’t matter when it came down to it. It was how I felt, and I wouldn’t settle. I also didn’t expect them to settle.
My forehead was starting to stick to the granite.
For the first time in days, I let myself really think about Roth’s words, the ones I thought I’d hallucinated before I had passed out from my wounds and whatever the witches had given me.
I love you, Layla. I’ve loved you since the first moment I heard your voice and I will continue to love you. No matter what. I love you.
Roth had pretty much confirmed that I had in fact heard those words spoken with such sweet urgency, but there was this part of me that just couldn’t believe it. Or maybe I didn’t want to, because when I thought about what Roth said, I also remembered what Zayne had said when he’d seen me standing in Stacey’s living room.
I would know if a part of my heart was gone.
My entire being felt like it was squeezed to the point of pain. There were all the secrets that Zayne had told me, how he had waited...for me. Still, I had spent years wanting him and it never seemed possible that I would ever have him.
Maybe I was just scared out of my mind to finally—
Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t recognize the awareness that seeped into my skin, alerting me to another presence in the house until a deep voice rumbled throughout the kitchen.
“What in the world are you doing, Shortie?”
Jerking back, I lifted my head as I pressed my palm against my chest. Heart pounding, I watched Roth walk toward the island and stop. He was dressed much like he had been last night, except he was wearing a white thermal today that really complemented the golden hue of his skin.
“I was... I was thinking,” I said, smoothing my hands over my hair. “Thinking about stuff.”
He propped a hip against the island. “Was the countertop helping you think about stuff?”
I pressed my lips together. “Maybe.”
Roth’s gaze dipped, and then slowly slid back up to my face. There was a pleased heat in his gaze that wrought a very different kind of shiver out of me. “That’s an odd way to do some thinking, Shortie.”
“Yeah, I know. Cayman...um, he made breakfast.” Toying with my hair, I wrapped the edges around my fingers as Roth started walking again. He was coming closer to me. “And got me a phone.”
“I told him to get the phone for you,” he replied, his tawny eyes aglow. “The breakfast, though, was nice of him. All his idea.”
“It was nice.” My heart had not slowed down, and it didn’t help when he got closer still. “Where have you been?”
He stopped in front of me. “Checked out Sam’s house. Thought it would be a good idea.” Reaching between us, he got his fingers in between mine and tugged them away from my hair. “It’s not good news.”
“It’s not?”
Roth shook his head as he held my hands in his. “His family was dead. In their beds.” His expression grew tight, somber. “And they’d been dead for at least a couple of days. Since I didn’t see any wraiths, it doesn’t look like their souls had been stripped. There was a...a mess left behind.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I couldn’t suppress the shudder. I didn’t need to ask what constituted a mess. “Why would the Lilin kill without taking a soul?”
His thumbs smoothed over the insides of my hands. “Because it can. No other reason than that.”
“God.” The only silver lining was that Sam’s family would go where they belonged since they still had their souls.
“I kind of expected it, to be honest. I thought about it last night, but didn’t want to leave until I made sure you were okay.” His warm hands spread up to my wrists, and when I opened my eyes, he was staring down at me. “I hate to have to bring that news to you.”
I hated the fact that more innocent lives had been lost. I’d met Sam’s parents a few times. They were pretty cool, as random and adorable as Sam. “Wait. Sam has a sister. She’s younger and—”
A muscle flickered in his jaw as Roth dropped his gaze, and then it hit me. Roth hadn’t said his parents. He’d said his family. The eggs and bacon churned in my stomach, and I wished I hadn’t eaten anything.
“I made an anonymous call to the police. They’re probably already at the house. Even though what looks like Sam is up and walking around, with his family...deceased, that’s going to force the Lilin out of school and away from the students there. It’s going to have to be careful. Not that it would be easy to arrest, but I doubt it wants that extra hassle.”
My chest ached so badly as I murmured, “That was really smart.”
He stepped even closer. “I figured that for Stacey...and for you, it would be easier if either everyone assumed he was dead or, well, a murderer now rather than later. If the Lilin is allowed to roam around school as Sam, it means Stacey would have to go through that loss all over again.”
My gaze flew to his. “That was very considerate.”
Roth mouthed the word considerate like he’d never heard it before or didn’t really understand what it meant. “I’m going to be honest. Okay?”
“All right?”
“I like Stacey. Don’t get me wrong. That girl’s got a lot of bad in her, the fun kind, but I was really thinking about you.” His eyes held mine. “After seeing it tear you apart last night, knowing it’s still tearing you apart, I don’t want you to feel all of that again when you’ve just started to heal.”
Oh.
Oh wow.
“So don’t give me credit for something I am not,” he finished, dropping my hands.
As he stepped back, I leaned into the island, absolutely shaken. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Roth.”
He looked over his shoulder as he turned away. “I know what I am.”
That was the thing. I didn’t think he had a clue about what he was, not what existed deep inside him, what really mattered.
Cayman’s words, the whispered ones, echoed among my thoughts again, and I looked away. There was so much going on right now and so much was a mess. I had to start somewhere to sort all of this out, though, and I knew where. “I need to do something.”
Roth went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle. He didn’t turn around, but there was a suspicious hissing sound as he popped off the cap.
I took a deep breath and forged on. “I need... I need to see Zayne.”
His shoulders tensed, and then hunched as he lifted the drink to his lips. “I figured as much,” he said, and I stared at the rigid line of his back.
“Roth—”
He didn’t let me finish. “I’ll summon Cayman back. He’ll take you where you need to go.” Then he faced me, and my breath hitched. There was a vulnerability in his expression I’d never seen before, a great and terrible sadness that dampened the brightness of his eyes. “I know you trust and...and care for Zayne, but I don’t trust the rest of them. Plus, there’re the issues with the Alphas. Cayman goes with you.”
Before I could say any more or even protest, Roth was gone. In the blink of an eye, he’d disappeared and I was left staring at the space where he’d stood.
five (#ulink_22c1237d-007e-586c-ad0f-c7e40a41fa4b)
IT WASN’T UNTIL later in the afternoon that I could meet up with Zayne, and then I had to wait for Cayman to play chauffeur. He didn’t seem annoyed by the new requirement imposed on him. He chattered on as we drove, but I was too anxious and distracted to pay attention to what he was saying, so I stared out the window, checking out all the garlands strung on the lampposts and the lights that would soon twinkle on. I squirmed the whole way to the coffee shop Zayne and I used to visit every Saturday, my mind stuck on the way Roth had stared at me in the kitchen.
I didn’t get it. He’d gone from—from touching me to completely withdrawn. Not just distant, but pained. I didn’t even have the chance to explain anything. Now my heart was pounding crazy fast, like I was about to go toe-to-toe with a Hellion, and it had nothing to do with seeing Zayne.
Maybe Cayman and I had completely misjudged Roth’s...um, interest, but even if we had, it didn’t change what I was about to do. It couldn’t.
Cayman eased the Mustang to an idling stop along the parked cars outside the shop. As I reached for the door, he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “My number is entered in your phone already, under Awesome Sauce. Text me when you’re done.”
“Okay.” I opened the door, wincing as the wind smacked me in the face.
“Don’t wander off. You have Alphas and who knows what else potentially gunning for your ass,” he continued. “And I really don’t want to go back to the house and have to explain to Roth that I lost you somehow.”
I resisted both the urge to point out that I wasn’t sure how Roth would even feel about that at this point and the desire to roll my eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
He grinned. “Do me proud.”
Shooting him a look over my shoulder as I climbed out, I slammed the car door shut and hopped up on the curb. The wind was brutal as I dashed around the people hurrying up and down the sidewalk. An array of auras greeted me, buttery yellows and soft blues and pinks. I kept an eye out for anyone who was missing one, a sure sign of a demon in our midst, but everything appeared to be business as usual.
The frosted wreath hanging on the door jingled as I stepped inside. Before I even stepped through the doorway, I knew Zayne was there. I sensed him as the warm air washed over me. The coffee shop was a total mom-and-pop kind of store, not one of the big chains, but it smelled like sweet baked goods and coffee beans. Espresso-colored booths lined the walls and I spotted Zayne’s white glow immediately. He was sitting toward the back of the shop, in one of the comfy booths, facing the door.
Before I joined him, I took a few moments to get my head on straight and ordered a peppermint mocha. Then I carried the warm cup over to him. He immediately rose to his feet, and the closer I got, the more I could see that the tired bruises under his eyes had faded a bit. For that, I was grateful.
The shop was packed with people in business suits and others carrying shopping bags, but when Zayne took the cup out of my hand and placed it on the table, no one else was there. Before I could speak a word, he wrapped his arms around me and held tight, lowering his cheek to mine. I froze up, because he was too close to my mouth, but Zayne—oh, he’d always been so incredibly reckless with me.
“This was what I wanted to do yesterday,” he rasped, his voice low in my ear. “When I first saw you standing in that house, this was all I could think about.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as I hugged him back. Emotion already clawed at my insides.
“The clan knows you’re alive now,” he went on, and I felt the muscles in my back tense. Cayman had said as much, but hearing it confirmed was a whole different story. “Danika wanted to come with me. She wanted to see for herself that you’re okay.”
A strangled, surprised laugh escaped me, and I felt Zayne’s cheek rise against mine when he smiled. Danika and I had a very strange relationship. The entire clan expected Zayne to mate with her. In other words, get down to business and produce a lot of Warden babies, and because of that I’d always been extremely jealous of the full-blooded Warden. Danika was stunningly gorgeous and rather badass, unlike most Warden females. She was not okay with sitting around and popping babies out for the good of mankind. And she also had been interested in Zayne. In short, there were plenty of reasons to hate her, but she and I had finally formed an unlikely alliance.
I did miss her in a weird way, like one missed shoveling the snow during a heat wave. When Zayne reluctantly let go, I all but fell into the seat as I struggled to gain control of what I was feeling, of what I was about to do.
Zayne returned to the seat across from me. “You okay, Layla-bug?”
The concern in his voice was evident. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and took a sip of the minty mocha. “Last night was a little rough. I got to thinking about Sam...” I shook my head and kept my voice low. “Roth went to his house this morning. His family was gone—dead. It didn’t look like their souls were taken.”
“Damn.” Zayne dragged his fingers through his hair.
I nodded slowly, casting my gaze to the lid on my cup. “He called it in to the police, which was pretty smart. That’s going to force the Lilin to lie low for a little while since the police will be looking for...for Sam. At least, we hope. Did you find out anything about the Alphas?”
Zayne’s stare was intense, and I realized he’d been staring at me like that since I sat down. “Yeah. Some of them paid the clan a visit at roughly the same time the other two showed up at Stacey’s place. From what I could gather from Nicolai, the Alphas knew there was a Lilin, always did.”
I hadn’t missed the fact that he’d said he’d spoken to Nicolai instead of his father, but I was distracted by the last part. “They did?”
“Yeah, apparently they couldn’t get involved for their own celestial reasons. They believed we’d figure it out.”
Anger sparked in my chest as I stared at him. All those weeks when I’d thought I was somehow responsible for the death, destruction and mayhem both at school and at home, and the Alphas had known the truth from the start. “They knew this entire time and never thought to tell any of us? Why?” My voice was rising, but I couldn’t help it. “Because of some bullshit rules?”
“I know,” he agreed softly.
I wanted to punch an Alpha in the face! Like fists of fury types of punches. “We could’ve saved lives. I can’t even...” I took a huge gulp of the mocha, hoping that would calm me down. It really didn’t. “What else did they say?”
He rested his arms on the table and leaned in. “My father was able to negotiate some time from them. They’re giving us until the New Year to deal with the Lilin, unless the Lilin does something that has the risk of exposure. We have Wardens out now searching for it.”
My brows flew up. To be honest, I hadn’t thought they’d give us any time. I could easily see them giving us two hours. I wasn’t surprised to learn of the whole exposure thing, though. The Alphas had decreed long ago that humankind could never have real, hard-core proof that a Heaven and a Hell existed, that they must believe in a higher power based on faith alone. I didn’t understand that then and I still didn’t get it now. All I knew was that the Wardens went to great lengths to keep the existence of demons a secret from humans everywhere. “What happens if we don’t have it under control?”
“Nothing pretty. They threatened to wipe us all out. The same thing if the Lilin goes too far.” He exhaled roughly while I wondered what “too far” would look like. “They seem to understand that tracking the Lilin down and killing it isn’t going to be easy, but that’s not all that they talked about.”
“What else did they talk about? How cool it is up on their lofty perch?”
He stared for a moment, and then said, “Uh, no. They... Well, there’s no easy way to say this. They’re not happy with you, Layla-bug.”
Maybe a few weeks ago, I would’ve flipped out and tossed myself in a corner to rock away all my troubles. Now? I snorted, and then took another drink. “Big surprise there.”
Zayne’s gaze drifted over my face. He didn’t speak for a long moment. “Roth did say something true yesterday. I have seen black, feathered wings before.”
I was doing my best not to think about my weird wings, but I set the cup down. “Where?”
A muscle under his eye twitched as he dropped his gaze, and my stomach tightened. Not a particularly good sign. “I’ve only seen one demon with them. Felt like an Upper Level one. It was a brief glimpse. I thought I was seeing stuff, but they were like yours.”
“Oh,” I murmured, unsure of how to feel about that. Zayne and Danika had already confirmed that I smelled like an Upper Level demon. That was why the Warden Tomas had attacked me. So this was nothing new, not really, but it still didn’t explain why my wings were suddenly feathered and why I hadn’t fully shifted like a Warden or a demon would. “Do my wings have something to do with why the Alphas suddenly don’t like me? Well, not that they ever liked me in the first place, but what gives now?”
“All they said was that you were an abomination. That’s not right. You—”
“I know. It’s not right. There are worse things kicking around than me. I know that. And if they don’t know that, it’s not my problem.”
Zayne raised a brow.
“Well, okay, it is my problem if they try to come after me again, but I know I’m not an abomination,” I repeated, dragging my finger along the rim of the cup.
It had taken a long time for me to get to that point, to not let the words of the Alphas or my own clan members cut me down. Or even the words of the girls at school, like Eva Hasher and the Bitch Pack, as Stacey referred to them, who used to have me doubting everything that I was. I don’t even know what exactly flipped that switch for me. Maybe it was the long and dark hours I’d spent in that horrible cage below the compound or maybe it was almost dying. Either way, it was a wake-up call.
In more ways than one, and now I had to seize one of those other ways.
I glanced at Zayne, my closest of friends since I was a little girl, my everything for so very long, and found that I couldn’t look away. This...this was going to hurt. Holy granola bars, it was going to sting like a swarm of wasps. And it was so scary, because there was no safety net for this decision.
Zayne inclined his head. “Hey...” He reached across the table for my hand, but I pulled it back, clasping mine together. His eyes flew to mine. “Layla?”
I thought about what Cayman had whispered in my ear that morning.
Stop being a coward and let go of the past. Embrace the future, because they are two very different things.
Cayman had been right. I’d been a coward, afraid of letting go of the past, of all that familiarity, because there was safety there, a simplicity in its comfort. The past was like going home, and it was sweet and warm, and perfect in its own right. It wasn’t any less than the future, but I’d been terrified of embracing the unknown, of the potential of losing what I’d always counted on.
Because there was only one set of eyes I saw when I closed mine at night and when I reopened them in the morning.
“Layla?” Zayne’s voice was soft.
I squared my shoulders as I drew in a stuttered breath. “You said we needed to talk yesterday and you were right. We do.”
His gaze searched mine as I forged on. “I know there’s a lot going on right now, so many things up in the air, and a lot of it is crazy.”
“But...?”
There was a golf-ball-size knot currently lodged in my throat and I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to look away, but I forced myself not to hide anything. “You know that you mean the world to me, always have, and that I care about you so much. I love you—”
“But you’re not in love with me?” His eyes shut as his faced tensed. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“No. I mean, I’m not saying it like that. I do love you, but—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Zayne opened his eyes as he leaned back against the booth, shaking his head. “Just stop.”
I opened my mouth.
“Stop. Just for a second,” he said again, eyes open and not missing a thing. He shook his head, staring at me in the worst kind of wonderment. “Is it because of what happened when I kissed you last time, or because of our clan? I trust you, Layla. And I know you trust me. We can make this work.”
Oh God, that golf ball had turned into a softball. “I know you trust me, but that’s not the reason. It’s really not.” Those words were truer than I’d realized until that moment, and it made saying what I had to so very important, because even if he and I could have made it work, in the end, my heart—my heart would’ve belonged elsewhere. “We could have made it work without...without the kissing and we could’ve been careful. And I trust you, but this isn’t about trust. Zayne, you’re important to me and I—”
“You love Roth,” he continued for me. “You’re in love with him.”
My eyes met his bright blue ones. “Yes,” I whispered, my lower lip trembling. “It’s him. It’s always been him. I’m sorry. I do love you. I care about you so much, and in so many ways, being with you was a dream come true, but it’s not the same.”
He drew back, as if I’d reached across the table and slapped him. “Please don’t expect me to sit here and listen to a speech that makes me feel like a damn runner-up in some kind of contest.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s not how I want you to feel.”
Zayne’s brows lowered as he stared at me. “How in the Hell did you expect me to feel?”
Tears burned the back of my eyes, because I’d never, ever wanted to hurt anyone. Especially not him. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.” He thrust his hand over his head, clasping the back of his neck. A moment passed as tension tightened the lines of his mouth. “I love you,” he ground out, a muscle thrumming along his jaw. “I’m in love with you. I waited for you, Layla. And none of that—none of that matters.”
I didn’t know what to say. It did matter—mattered a whole lot, but how could I say that? Because in the end, even if I went back to the house and Roth laughed in my face, it didn’t change anything.
Anger flashed over his face. “What was going on between us? Was it just passing the time for you?”
“Oh my God, no!” A woman with a faint pink aura glanced in our direction from the coffee line, and I struggled to keep my voice low. “It wasn’t like that at all. God, it was perfect and it was like every fantasy I ever had come to life.”
“Really?” Disbelief flooded his face. “Because how it seems to me is that you were just fooling around until you could be with him.”
“Until I could be with him?” I repeated dumbly. “I don’t even know—”
“Don’t you dare say you don’t know that he loves you. Don’t play stupid by acting stupid,” he spat, and I jerked back, stunned by the rancor in his tone. “Dammit,” he muttered, dropping his arm.
“Zayne—”
“No more,” he ordered, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just no more.”
Zayne didn’t say anything else as he got up, and I didn’t try to stop him as he strode out the front door. Dropping my elbows on the table, I planted my face in my hands. My insides twisted and burned. Even when Zayne had been rightfully upset with me before, he’d never spoken to me like that. Not that I blamed him. I deserved this. I hadn’t been careful with my own actions or with his heart. I didn’t regret anything we shared, but I’d messed up and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get involved with him, because what I’d said a few moments ago had also been true.
It had always been Roth; from the moment he swaggered into that damn alley where I’d been unsuccessfully fighting off a demon, it had been him for me. Maybe I’d been too blind to see that after he returned from the pits. Maybe I had been too angry with him after the way he initially acted. Maybe I had played around with Zayne, even if that hadn’t been my intention. I didn’t know.
All I did know was that I had lost the boy I’d grown up with. If I’d had any doubts about that, the fact that he’d left me here alone told me all I needed to know. As protective as Zayne was of me, there was no way he would have left me unchaperoned with a Lilin still on the loose. Not unless staying away from me was more important than keeping me safe.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I felt an unnatural warmth spreading along the back of my neck, alerting me to the presence of a demon. Expecting to find Cayman when I lifted my head, I looked around the coffee shop. My gaze drifted over the soft shades of auras until I found a young man standing toward the front of the shop with nothing around him.
There was my demon and it wasn’t Cayman.
Grateful to have something to focus on other than the fact that I’d just shattered Zayne’s heart to smithereens, I studied the man at the front of the store as I shifted my hair forward, shielding my face. Due to my dual heritage, demons had never been able to sense me, which made the hunting I’d done in the past easy-peasy. Once again, the mixture of Warden and demon had given me a unique ability to tag demons. One touch and they’d turn into a neon light, leaving a trace on them that the Wardens could easily track.
I hadn’t tagged demons since...well, not since Roth had entered my life, showing me that even demons had a purpose in life. From him I’d learned that some demons weren’t all that bad, like Fiends, who tended to just mess around with things like telephone poles, construction sites, anything electronic, and were a bit prone to being firebugs.
This demon didn’t give off a Fiend vibe and I was willing to bet he also wasn’t a Poser, a demon whose bite turned a human into something that would resemble an extra on the set of The Walking Dead.
No, this demon was giving off the Upper Level kind of vibes, meaning he could be a Duke or a King or any other variety of elite baddie. They weren’t supposed to be topside because the kind of stuff they could pull off could really wreak some nasty, bloody havoc.
I frowned.
Which, apparently, meant that maybe I shouldn’t be topside, either. I kept forgetting that I now smelled like them and sort of resembled some of them. Sigh.
The demon tilted his head to the side, and a lock of shocking white-blond hair fell across dark brows that stood out in stark contrast. He had a rocker look to him, like if the silver chain he wore broke, his skinny jeans would fall right off him. Scanning the coffee shop, he looked me over, kept going, and then his gaze darted back to me.
I froze.
The demon froze.
Uh-oh.
Demons couldn’t sense me, but he was staring directly at me like I’d sprouted a third arm out of the top of my head.
His face paled to the color of his hair as he jerked back a step, bumping into a woman with a pale blue aura. She nearly dropped her bag and coffee as she tried to step around him.
Then he spun on his heel and shoved an older guy out of the way. The man shouted, but the demon reached the door. I wasn’t thinking as I stood. Curiosity and surprise had a hold on me. I hurried across the shop, leaving what was left of my mocha behind. I was a few steps behind the demon when he burst through the door, out onto the sidewalk. He sent a panicked look over his shoulder in my direction.
I skidded to a stop under the awning of the shop. “Uh...”
The demon picked up speed, racing down the sidewalk, disappearing around the block, lost in the sea of muted auras.
“Um,” I murmured, glancing behind me and half expecting to see a pack of Alphas, but it was just me, myself and I, and that meant only one thing.
The Upper Level demon had run away—from me.
six (#ulink_c095ada1-27a3-5fed-b3ae-addb8eec4509)
I DIDN’T TELL Cayman about the runaway Upper Level demon, and he didn’t ask how the talk went with Zayne, which I was totally cool with. After a near-silent ride, he dropped me off in front of the house.
“Have fun with that,” was all he said, and then he zoomed off.
Turning to the McMansion, I had no idea what Cayman was referring to, but figured I was going to find out soon enough.
The house was dark, but not quiet when I walked in the front door, closing it behind me. The sharp riff of a guitar, quickly lost in the pounding of drums, drifted from the second story.
Frowning, I made my way toward the stairwell, and about halfway up I found something odd. I bent and picked up an empty bottle of beer. Looking up, I realized there was one on each step, all the way to the top. Ten empty bottles.
Oh dear.
My eyes widened as I placed the bottle back on the stair. There was no way I could gather them all up without getting a bag and the last thing I wanted to do was go down to the pantry. I picked up my pace, hurrying to climb the rest of the steps.
Like a bread-crumb trail, bottles had been periodically dropped along the wide hall, leading to the bedroom Roth had stopped in front of last night when I had continued on to the master.
My heart jumped in my chest as I reached his room. The door was ajar, the music heavy and thrumming. Soft light crept out of the gap. Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door—and came to a complete stop just inside the massive bedroom.
Nothing in this world could’ve prepared me for what I was seeing.
Bambi was bopping and weaving across the hardwood floor. She stopped, twisting her usually graceful body toward me. Those red eyes were glossed over, unfocused. Her forked tongue darted out, and then she went about her business, slowly making her way to the window seat. There, she shifted half of her six-foot-and-then-some frame onto the seat and promptly slid right off, flopping onto the floor.
Concern flooded me, but as I took a step toward Bambi something else caught my eye. On the bed, Roth’s black-and-white kitten familiar was attempting to pounce on the all-white one, which appeared to be passed out, sprawled on its back, its little arms and legs spread wide. The black-and-white one, adeptly named Fury, jumped toward the sleeping Nitro, missed by a block and landed on the pillow. The kitten turned into a furry black-and-white tumbleweed as it rolled off the pillow, smacking into Nitro.
My mouth dropped open.
The third kitten, an all-black one named Thor, sat on a dresser, eyes narrowed into thin slits. As I stared at Thor, it swayed side to side. It spotted me and opened its mouth most likely to hiss at me, because those kittens were little bastards, but a rather human belch emanated from it instead.
Oh my God, the familiars were drunk.
A laugh bubbled up from me, but the door slammed shut behind me, stealing away the wild giggle. One second I was standing there and within the next breath, my back was against the door. A hard, warm and very bare chest was flush with mine, and hot breath skated over my cheek as two hands hit the door, on either side of my head.
“What are you doing here?” Roth demanded, and my heart slammed against my ribs, then doubled its beat as his lips brushed the curve of my jaw. He inhaled deeply. “Hell, you smell good. Like peppermint and...and the sun.”
Um. I had no idea how to respond to that.
“I let you go,” he went on, dipping his head to my neck, and a shiver swept through me. “You were right yesterday. I hurt you. Not like him. Worse. I let you walk out of this house so you could be happy with him. Wasn’t that what you wanted? But you’re here. I let you go and it killed me to do so, and you’re here.”
Oh my God.
Roth was rambling, but my heart imploded as his words stirred something deep and fierce inside me. The look on his face this morning when I told him I needed to talk to Zayne suddenly made sense. If he had just given me the chance to explain what I was doing he wouldn’t have thought that I was leaving him, that I was choosing Zayne.
But Roth had let me go so that I could be happy. The Crown Prince of Hell, who claimed to be the most selfish of all demons, had let me walk out that door when he believed I’d be happier with someone else. Words were lost as a different kind of tears filled my eyes. He’d stepped aside to protect me once before, and he had done so again so that I could be happy with someone else. There wasn’t an ounce of selfishness in any of those actions. Actually, quite the opposite, and the revelation stitched the frayed crack in my heart, repairing the painful splinter. It didn’t heal the scar tissue left behind when I let Zayne go, though. That would never fade.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
He slowly lifted his chin and rested his forehead against mine. He whispered, “Why are you here, Layla?”
“I’m here... I’m here because this is where I’m happy, with you.”
Roth didn’t move, and I wasn’t even sure he breathed. There was a good chance my words didn’t get through the haze of all the alcohol he’d obviously consumed, which was a good indication that this conversation needed to happen later. I placed my hands on his chest, about to point that out, when he moved.
His arms went around me and he held me tight to him. I liked it like this—more than liked. Every part of our bodies touched as he buried his head in my neck, dragging in a deep breath. My pulse was pounding and my hands trembling. A deep shudder rose through him and he shook in my arms, and then he moved.
Clasping my cheeks in his large hands, he said something too low and too quick for me to understand as he tilted my head back and kissed me. There was nothing soft about it. His mouth was on mine, the metal ball in his tongue clanking off my teeth as he pressed me into the door. He tasted of something sweet and the bitter tang of alcohol was still on his tongue. Little shivers of pleasure raced through my body as I moaned into the kiss. My hands slid up to his shoulders and my fingers dug into his smooth skin. The kiss was doing crazy stuff to my senses, obliterating my common sense when the lower half of him pressed against mine.
And it felt like it had been forever since I felt this. The sweet wildness that came from a single kiss and the release and freedom of finally letting go, of complete and utter acceptance, of having what I wanted, what I yearned for. The immediate and absolute rush of desire so potent it clouded my thoughts, and the nervous energy and elation that came from tasting love on the tip of my tongue. Nothing compared to this.
Roth broke the kiss, breathing heavily as he cradled my face. “Say it again,” he ordered roughly. “Say it again, Layla.”
I could barely catch my breath. “I’m happy here with you. I...” I dragged my hands up his neck, smoothing my thumbs along his jaw. There was more I wanted to say, but he grasped my wrists and just held them in his hands, staring down at them, saying nothing. My heart pounded fast, but my blood felt sluggish.
A lock of black hair fell into his face and when he finally lifted his chin, the vulnerability was in his gaze again. His beauty was unreal, almost too perfect, but in that moment, he looked more human than he ever had before. “I’ve... I’ve been drinking.”
Not exactly what I had been expecting him to say. “I can tell.”
Letting go of my hands, he took a step back and turned, giving me a rather nice view of his toned back. I was happy to see when he twisted sideways that Thumper was on him—a drunk not-so-pocket-size dragon would’ve been no laughing matter. I was also happy to see all the dips and planes of his stomach.
Really happy.
Those pants hung so low it was almost indecent. Almost. He picked up a bottle off the dresser. He shook it. “I got myself so drunk that I became literally incapable of going after you and stopping you.” He studied the empty bottle he held, frowning. “But did you know that intoxication works differently for us? It only lasted for maybe an hour and then I just felt like shit, so I had to drink some more. Aaand I might be a little drunk still...”
I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing. “I’ll say.”
One side of his lips quirked up as he cast a sidelong glance at me. “I know I shouldn’t be drinking. It makes me a naughty, naughty boy.”
“Yeah, and apparently it also makes your familiars drunk.” I gestured at Bambi, who was slumbering where she’d fallen, a pathetic snaky heap on the floor. “Maybe you don’t get as intoxicated because your poor friends there soak up all the effects.”
Roth tipped his head to the side. “Huh. Live and learn.” He turned back to me, and there was a recognizable heat in his gaze. “I want to kiss you again.”
Even though there were parts of me that were like, all aboard the Roth train, I knew this was not going to happen tonight, for so many reasons. “As you pointed out, you’re drunk.”
He faced me with his chin dipped low and his full lips slightly parted. “I still want to kiss you. I want to do other things. A lot of it involves touching, with and without clothes.”
My cheeks heated.
Tipping his head back, he sighed heavily. “But yeah, drunk. Sorry.”
“Roth.” I took a cautious step toward him. Even plastered, he was fast. “How long have you been drinking?”
One shoulder rose as he turned to the bed. “Since you left? If I didn’t, I would’ve gone after you and possibly let Thumper eat Stony, and you wouldn’t be okay with that.”
“No,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t be.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk this much. You don’t... Yeah, you deserve better than this.” He stopped at the foot of the bed, staring at me as he scrubbed his fingers through his messy hair. “Are you really here? Or did I manage to become the first demon ever to have alcohol poisoning?”
Part of me wanted to burst into laughter, but there was a tight knot of sadness deep in my chest. It was formed by a bitter, rancid guilt. My actions had such a ripple effect. Of course, I hadn’t held those bottles to Roth’s mouth, but I’d never even seen him drink before.
“I’m really here,” I told him.
He looked like he was about to say something as he went to sit on the foot of the bed. I started forward, already seeing that he’d misjudged the distance, but it was too late.
Roth hit the floor in front of the bed, smack on the rear. He tossed his head back, laughing loudly as I clapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t been sure what I was coming back to after leaving the coffee shop. There had been this fear—albeit irrational fear—that Roth was just going to pat me on my head and send me on my way. Then there was a part of me that thought he’d sweep me into his arms, professing his undying love for me. Either way, finding him drunk hadn’t even been in the realm of possibilities.
He settled down, resting his hands on his thighs as he looked over at me. “So, you really came back?”
I nodded, then said yes for extra bang.
His gaze dropped and he sighed heavily. “I bet you’re regretting that now.”
“No,” I replied without hesitation as I walked over to where he sat. “I don’t regret it.”
He lifted a brow, but it didn’t erase the lost look he wore. “Really?”
Easing to the floor beside him, I shook my head. “You’re drunk. Big deal. I mean, you probably shouldn’t be this drunk, but you’re not even...human. And you’re like the Crown Prince of Hell. I don’t think consuming alcohol is a deal breaker where you come from.”
“Nah, I guess not.” He bent one leg at the knee as he wet his lips. “You... I don’t want you to look back and think, wow, that was a terrible decision, because he would’ve—”
“Stop,” I said. Pleaded really. “I’m not going to regret my decision even if you end up running for the hills screaming to get away from me.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said drily.
I scooted closer and stretched out my legs next to his. “What I’m trying to say is that I made my decision. I’m not going to regret it. No matter what happens between us.” Biting down on my lip, I watched an array of emotions creep across his striking face. “Look, I don’t think we should talk about this right now. It can wait. It needs to wait, because I... I think I really hurt Zayne tonight. No. I know I did. And you’re not in the right frame of mind.” I halted again, because wow, I sounded so mature I kind of wanted to pat myself on the back. “This can wait. We have tomorrow.”
Roth didn’t respond as he studied me, and I had no idea what he was thinking in that head of his, but then he leaned over. He put that head in my lap, like he’d done that night I’d woken up after being healed by the witches’ brew, but this time, I didn’t hesitate. My hands didn’t linger for a second. They immediately went to him, one threading through the silky, black strands and the other curving around his shoulder.
He curled onto his side and closed his eyes. Thick lashes framed his cheeks. Several moments passed in silence, but I knew he wasn’t asleep. His muscles were too tense. “I’ve... I’ve done some really crappy things, Layla.”
My chest squeezed as I stared down at him, and in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about the Lilin or my wings or even Sam or Zayne. I was 100 percent focused on Roth, and the world around us and all the problems it kept serving up faded to the wayside. “I kind of figured that you have.” And that was true. He was a full-blooded Upper Level demon—a Crown Prince at that. I’d never fooled myself into believing he was a saint masked as a sinner.
“Really shady things,” he murmured.
“Got it.” My lips twitched.
He managed to get one of his arms curled around my leg. “The...first time I was sent topside by the Boss was only a year after I was created. I was to find a Duke who was no longer heeding the Boss’s summons,” he continued as I gently worked my fingers through his hair. I didn’t dare speak, because Roth had never really talked openly about what his Boss had him doing. “The Duke had found a woman, a human. I don’t think she knew what he really was. Not that it mattered. The Boss was calling him back, but he wouldn’t leave her.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I had a feeling that this story wasn’t going to end with a happily-ever-after.
“There were others with me, who’d gotten called in.” His arm tightened around my leg. “Things got...messy.”
I closed my eyes, heart aching.
“That wasn’t the only time. There were other...situations like that. And these situations, well, they never weighed on me before. It’s not in my genetic makeup to feel guilt.” A wry grin flashed across his face and quickly disappeared. “Not until you. Now I think about these things and I wonder if there is any...goodness in me. Or what you could possibly see.”
Oh gosh, my heart was breaking all over again. I didn’t know what it was like to be Roth, to be something that was just the latest in the long line that came before him. Other Princes that the Boss had grown tired of, destroyed in one way or another, before creating this version of Astaroth. And I didn’t know everything Roth had done in his past, but in all honestly, I didn’t care. Who was I to judge? Being that I was nowhere near perfect and was also part demon, myself, I’d done things I wished I hadn’t, and I knew there would be things in the future that I’d want to take back. But Roth had spent eighteen years keeping the Boss of Hell happy. None of his darkness surprised me.
It just saddened me.
Leaning down, I kissed his cheek, and as I straightened, he turned wide amber eyes on me. “I see what you don’t.” I ran my hand up and down his arm. “You’re not selfish, even if you have moments of acting like it. We all do. You’re not evil, even if you were created by the greatest evil of them all. You’ve proven to me and yourself that you have free will, and you’ve made the right decisions time and time again.”
As I dragged my hand up his arm, he shuddered. “You’ve accepted who and what I am from the beginning. You’ve never tried to change me or...or hide me. You’ve always trusted me, even when you probably shouldn’t have.” I laughed at that, thinking of the time he’d left me alone in the Palisades club with explicit instructions not to roam off. “You’ve...you’ve celebrated what I am, and very few can claim that. Like I’ve said before, you’re more than the latest Crown Prince. You’re Roth.”
For a moment, he didn’t move or blink. Then wonderment filled his expression as he stared up at me, and finally, the tension eased out of his muscles. “And I’m yours.”
seven (#ulink_ac276541-32b6-50b5-bc6a-464bfb98bdc3)
AT SOME POINT, I managed to tuck Roth into bed and Bambi eventually followed. That was quite the spectacle to witness, a blitzed demonic anaconda attempting to slither onto a bed. I had to step in and lift her back end, and then I’d carefully scooped up the kitten passed out on the dresser and placed it on the bed, as well. I could only hope Bambi wouldn’t eat little Thor if she woke up in the middle of the night with drunken hunger pains.
Then I set about cleaning up the bottles. I stopped counting the ones that had been in the bedroom and took the rattling bag out to the trash. Afterward, I made myself a sandwich and checked in on Stacey.
She was doing as well as could be expected, and she also confirmed that Roth had indeed made an anonymous call. “The police came by this afternoon. Mom thought it was about the house fire, but it was...it was about Sam.”
Sitting in the living room, curled up against the back of an oversize cushion, I closed my eyes. “His family...”
“I know.” Her breath was shaky through the connection. “They told me. They also asked if I’d seen him. I went with the last time he’d been at school. Yesterday.”
“That was smart.”
A pause, and then, “God, Layla, how did any of this happen? Two months ago, I would’ve never seen any of this coming— Hold on,” she said, and I heard a door closing. “My mom has been following me around ever since the police showed up. She’s worried and scared. The police think that Sam...that he snapped and wiped out his family. It’s going to be all over school tomorrow, and it’s not right. You know? That people are going to believe that Sam did something like that.”
“It isn’t,” I agreed, opening my eyes. There was a painting hung on the wall across from me. A picturesque road with autumn on full display, but the bright oranges and reds were dulled. “Sam didn’t deserve any of this.”
“None of us do.” There was another deep inhale on her end. “Okay. I need to be distracted, because otherwise I’m going to lose it again. I’ve been losing it about every hour, on the hour. Okay? Distract me.”
“Um...” My brain emptied. Real helpful there. “Ah, I suck at this.”
She laughed hoarsely. “What’s Roth doing?”
“Well, he’s... Yeah, he’s kind of incapacitated right now.” I cringed, knowing how that sounded.
“Really?” Interest perked her tone. “Why?”
I glanced at the wide archway. “I told him this morning that I needed to talk to Zayne, and I guess he thought that meant that I was going to tell Zayne I wanted to be with him. So he might have gotten a little drunk.”
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Дженнифер Ли Арментроут
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Эзотерика, оккультизм
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Some loves will last ′til your dying breath Every choice has consequences–but seventeen-year-old Layla faces tougher choices than most. Light or darkness. Wickedly sexy demon prince Roth, or Zayne, the gorgeous, protective Warden she never thought could be hers. Hardest of all, Layla has to decide which side of herself to trust.Layla has a new problem, too. A Lilin–the deadliest of demons–has been unleashed, wreaking havoc on those around her…including her best friend. To keep Sam from a fate much, much worse than death, Layla must strike a deal with the enemy while saving her city–and her race–from destruction.Torn between two worlds and two different boys, Layla has no certainties, least of all survival, especially when an old bargain comes back to haunt them all. But sometimes, when secrets are everywhere and the truth seems unknowable, you have to listen to your heart, pick a side–and then fight like hell…