White Hot Kiss

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I’d never been the passing-out kind before, but I almost kissed the floor after that little bomb was dropped. Shaken and a whole lot disturbed, I sat back down.

“Elijah’s her father?” Shock colored Zayne’s tone. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I am not.” Abbot took a weary breath. “He didn’t know the demon was Lilith until we found Layla in the foster home years later.”

I blinked slowly, but the room wouldn’t come into focus. “He knew I was his daughter?”

“He did.”

“But he...he hates me.” I sank back into the floral cushions. “He’s always hated me.” The moment the words left my mouth, I finally understood why. “God, I must’ve reminded him...”

“Of his lapse in judgment?” Abbot came to my side, his voice low. “He could never reconcile the part of you that was him.”

My head spun. “Didn’t he want to kill me when you all found me?”

Abbot looked away.

I sucked in an unsteady breath. “He did. Wow. I don’t even...” My eyes searched Abbot’s face for an answer. “You stopped him from killing me and you knew he was my father?”

Again, Abbot said nothing. It was Geoff who stepped forward. “The scar Elijah carries is not from a demon. Abbot stopped him that night and took you in. After all, you carry a Warden’s blood in you.”

“Oh, my God...” I shook my head. “This is...”

Too much.

Everyone’s eyes were on me, a mixture of surprise and pity. It was too much, learning all this and not having a moment to really let it sink in without an audience.

I stood and blindly made my way around Abbot. Someone called my name, but I didn’t stop until I was in my bedroom.

Sitting down on my bed, I stared at the spot on my wall. Nothing else seemed to matter at that moment. Elijah was my father—the Warden who hated me with the power of a thousand suns; the very same Warden who wanted me dead. He’d probably ordered Petr to kill me.

Oh, my God...

Nausea rose sharply. Petr had been my half brother. That disgusting son of a...

I’d taken my own brother’s soul.

Lying on my side, I curled into a ball and squeezed my eyes shut against the burning that had nothing to do with what had happened in school. A tremor started in my leg, working its way up to my fingers. I tucked them against my chest.

How did one deal with something like this? I doubted there were coping skills I just hadn’t learned yet. I didn’t know what sickened me more. That my own father wanted to kill me or that I’d taken my brother’s soul.

Over the next couple of days, I really didn’t come to any great understanding of everything that had been revealed to me. There was no comprehending it. The only thing I could do was not think about it. That didn’t work out so easily. It was like trying not to breathe. At the strangest moments, it would pop into my head and I couldn’t get it out.

My own father wanted me dead.

The knowledge overshadowed everything, leaving me numb to the core. Part of me could understand Elijah’s hatred because of what I reminded him of, but I was still his daughter. All these years I’d built up this fantasy surrounding my father, convincing myself that even though I was part demon, my father still loved me. That something unfortunate had happened to him and I had gotten lost in the tragedy.

Now that dream had been blown to bits.

The whole thing with Petr also weighed on me. The fact that he was my half brother didn’t change my opinion of the monster, but I wondered if, had I known who he was to me, I would’ve done the same thing.

I wasn’t sure.

Zayne had sneaked in my laptop the day after everything had gone down in the sunroom. I guessed I was still grounded, but he felt bad for me. After sending a quick email to Stacey letting her know that I was sick and didn’t know when I’d be back at school, I lost all interest in the internet.

I wanted to be stronger than all of this, but never in my life had I wished as badly as I did then that I could be something or someone else.

I don’t know what got into me Friday evening. I was standing in front of that damn dollhouse and I hated it.

Wrapping my fingers along the top floor, I pulled hard enough to tear the story right out of the house. It wasn’t enough. The back of my neck tingled as I grabbed the roof and tore it right off the sides. Holding it, I briefly considered swinging the section like a bat, taking out the walls.

“What are you doing?”

I squeaked and spun around. Zayne stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised. His hair was wet from the shower. I flushed. “Um, I’m not doing anything.” I glanced down at the toy roof. “Well...”

His gaze moved behind me. “If you didn’t want the toy house in your bedroom anymore, I could’ve removed it for you.”

Gently, I set the roof on the floor. “I don’t know.”

He cocked his head to the side.

I sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Zayne stared at me for what felt like forever. “Good.”

“Good?” The fact that he’d walked in on me going cray-cray on my toy house didn’t seem like a good thing.

“I have something for you to do. It involves ice cream.”

My eyes went wide. “Ice cream?”

A small smile appeared. “Yeah, I thought we could go get some.”

Excitement rushed through me like a summer storm. It was like Christmas Day. I could get out of the house and it involved ice cream. But the joy faded quickly. “Abbot will never let me.”

“He’s all right with it as long as I’m with you.”

“Do you think it’ll be okay?” I asked, too afraid to get happy again. “What if something happens?”

“A demon isn’t going to come after you while I’m with you.” The confidence in his voice erased any concerns. Zayne was right. It would be suicidal if one did. “It seems like an ice-cream kind of night. You game?” he asked.

When it came to ice cream, I was always game.

I loved riding in Zayne’s vintage Impala. The rumble it made, the looks it got. In a sea of Mercedes and BMWs, nothing stood out more than a 1969 cherry-red Impala. He’d let me drive it once, on my sixteenth birthday. Driving proved to be too much with all the shimmery souls serving as an epic distraction. I’d rear-ended a police cruiser.

I hadn’t gotten behind a wheel since.

We stopped at a convenience store to pick up a pack of Twizzlers. I puked a little in my mouth when Zayne brought them into the ice-cream parlor. “That’s so gross,” I muttered.

He gave me an innocent look. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“I’ll never dip Twizzlers into chocolate ice cream.”

Zayne shoved me playfully and stole my place in line. I shoved him back, but he didn’t move a centimeter. The souls around us were various degrees of pastel colors, soft and, thankfully, uninteresting to me. And no demons were in sight. Score. He ordered a bowl of chocolate ice cream and I got a banana split, the same thing I always ordered.

Pleasant temperatures for November had driven people to the shop in droves. Indian summer or whatever Zayne called it. We were lucky to find a small booth to squeeze into. This shop was one of my favorite places to go in the city, a mom-and-pop business shoved in the middle of a modern downtown, and it felt good being here. The floors were checkered black-and-white, the booths and tables were red and family photos adorned the walls. What was not to love?

It felt like a home.

I watched Zayne gleefully dip the ropy stick in his chocolate. He caught my eye and winked. “Sure you don’t want a bite?”

I made a face. “No, thank you.”

He offered the candy to me, a thick glob of chocolate syrup dripping off the end. It splattered against the table. “You might just like it.”

I took a bite of my banana split instead. Shrugging, Zayne popped it in his mouth and sighed. I studied him. “Do you think I’m pretty much going to be on house arrest until I turn eighteen?”

“Afraid so,” he replied. “Father isn’t budging on anything.”

“That’s what I feared.”

He poked my hand with a Twizzler he hadn’t dipped yet. “I’ll break you free as often as I can.”

“Thank you.” I forced a smile. “So...how are things with you and Danika?”

His brows knitted as he focused on his bowl of ice cream like it held the answers to life. “Good. She’s a...great girl.”

“She’s freaking hot. I’d kill to have her body.” I glanced down at my food. “Come to think of it, how many calories are in this thing?”

Zayne’s eyes flicked up. They seemed brighter than usual. “You’re...perfect just the way you are.”

I rolled my eyes. “Have you been watching Bridget Jones’s Diary?”

He studied me a few more seconds and then went back to his dessert. There was stiffness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before, as if he was suddenly carrying some unseen weight. Like an idiot, I kept talking. “I overheard Jasmine and Danika talking. She said you two hadn’t talked about your future...together.”

It seemed like his shoulders tensed even more. “No. We haven’t.”

I poked a cherry around. “So are you still planning to buck the system?”

Zayne ran a hand over his head, squinting. “I don’t look at it that way. If I’m going to mat—if I’m going to marry, I want to do it on my own terms.”

“And what does Abbot have to say about that?” I offered him the cherry, which he took. “Or have you been stalling?”

He shrugged as he studied the cherry’s stem. “I’ve just been avoiding it.”

“But you haven’t been avoiding Danika,” I pointed out. “You like her. So what’s the deal?”

“It’s not about me liking her or not.” He sat back in the booth, hands bouncing restlessly off the table as he stared at the tubs of ice cream behind the glass. “She’s a great girl. I have fun with her, but I really don’t want to talk about her right now.”

“Oh.” Sort of knew where this was heading.

He shot me a knowing look. “I’d ask how you’ve been holding up, but I think the dollhouse answers that.”

I sighed. “I’m trying not to think about it. It’s not working. I mean...”

“It’s heavy stuff?”

I cracked a smile. “Yeah, it’s pretty heavy.” Poking a slice of banana around, I shook my head. “Zayne, I...”

“What?” he asked after a few seconds.

Looking up, I met his stare before I lost my nerve. “I haven’t been completely honest.”

“Really?” he said drily. “Could’ve fooled me.”

I flushed. “I am sorry, Zayne. Not because I got caught, but because I know it hurt you and it was wrong. I should’ve trusted you.”

“I know.” His hand landed on mine and squeezed gently. “I was pissed—part of me is still pissed—but it is what it is.”

Hoping he still wanted to breathe the same air as I did after he learned what I’d done, I pulled my hand back and cast my eyes to my now-soupy ice cream. I decided to approach it like ripping a Band-Aid off. “I took Petr’s soul.”

Zayne leaned forward, his brows furrowing as if he didn’t quite understand what I’d said, and then he sat back. His hands slid off the table as his throat worked. Silence hit like a bomb.

“I know you sort of guessed it when I came home and I was sick.” My fingers twisted around the spoon. “I was defending myself. He was going to kill me. I didn’t want to. God, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but he just kept coming after me and I didn’t know what else to do. It did something to him, Zayne. He didn’t turn into a wraith like a human would. He morphed, but his eyes were red. I’m so sorry. Please don’t—”

“Layla,” he said quietly. He grabbed the hand clenching the spoon and gentled unraveled my fingers from around the handle. “I know you did it to defend yourself and it wasn’t something you intended to do.”

“But the look on your face,” I whispered.

He smiled, but it was strained. “I was shocked. Like you said, I suspected something, but I thought you might have tasted the soul. I didn’t know it went...all the way.”

Shame was a pail of rusted nails I’d swallowed. I couldn’t help but feel it, even though I knew that I’d most likely be dead if I hadn’t taken his soul, giving me a reprieve until Roth had shown up. “You’re disappointed, aren’t you?”

“Oh, Layla, it has nothing to do with me being disappointed. You defended yourself, and I wish you hadn’t needed to. Not because of what you are.” He kept his voice low. “But because I know how sick it makes you. I hate seeing you like that. I hate seeing you like this.”

Using my free hand, I swiped under my eye. God, I was crying.

“See? You’re blaming yourself because of what you did. And I hate that you’re doing that to yourself.”

“But you said I was better than this.”

He flinched. “God, I wish I’d never said that to you. And you know, the way you look at yourself—it’s partly our fault.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Sitting back, he lifted his hands. “We raised you to hate that part of you. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do. I’m not sure anymore. I’m not sure of anything.” He thrust his fingers through his hair. “I do know that I’m not disappointed in you. I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. Even if you don’t see the true pleasure of Twizzlers dipped in chocolate.”

I choked out a laugh as I blinked back more tears. “Funny.”

His smile was a little more real. “You ready to get out of here?”

Sniffling, I nodded. We gathered up our trash, and once outside, Zayne draped his arm over my shoulders as we walked to where he was parked. It was good to be like this with him, having that connection again. It did wonders, warming that chilled spot in my chest.

Zayne made sure I was tucked safely in the passenger side before he slipped around the front of the car and got in. It made me smile.

Listening to music on the way home, I laughed as Zayne sang along to a pop song on the radio. He was a lot of things, but a singer was not one of them. As we reached the private stretch of road leading to the compound, he glanced over at me. Something foreign was reflected in those eyes—a quality I’d seen before, but I’d never understood what it meant until...until Roth had come along. There was a swelling feeling in my stomach as he turned his gaze back to the road.

“Jesus!” he shouted, slamming on the brakes.

Something landed on the hood of Zayne’s Impala, shattering the windshield.

At first I thought an overgrown gorilla had escaped the zoo and dropped out of one of the many nearby trees. Then I saw the serrated teeth and smelled the sulfur. I screamed—really screamed.

It was a Hellion.

A big, hairy, stinky Hellion that had just done some major damage to Zayne’s precious Impala. Matted, coarse hair covered its massive body. The enormous ram horns were what had shattered the windshield. But I had to be seeing things. Hellions weren’t allowed topside for obvious reasons.

Zayne threw his arm out, pressing me back against the seat as the Hellion tried to reach inside the car. Its horns were getting caught on the metal and it seemed too stupid to figure out that it only needed to lower its head to fit through.

The Hellion roared. It was like having a T. rex scream in your face.

“Zayne!” I screeched as its thick front claws swiped inches from my face. “Zayne!”

“Layla, I need you to listen to me.” He unbuckled his seat belt with one hand. “I need you to be calm.”

The Hellion’s claws shredded Zayne’s forearm, drawing blood. Zayne didn’t even flinch.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, watching the rivulets of blood drip from his arm onto my lap. “Zayne, your arm.”

“Layla, you’re going to have to make a run for it when I tell you to. Okay?” he said urgently. He reached for the button on my seat belt, releasing it. “When I tell you to run, you run and you don’t look back and you don’t try to fight. You cannot fight this thing.”

I didn’t want to leave him, not with that thing on the attack. Hellions were notorious killers. They could rip Wardens limb from limb using their brute strength. “But I can hel—”

Another wide sweep of clawed fingers almost got me. Zayne pulled me toward him and down, pressing my cheek against his thigh. “Keep down,” he ordered. “Just listen for my command. You know these woods. Get home and get my father. Don’t stop. That’s how you can help me.”

My heart pounded in my chest. I nodded as best I could.

Zayne’s hand slipped over my cheek and through my hair. I squeezed my eyes shut as the Hellion howled once more. Then Zayne was opening the door and I was falling into his seat. The car shook as the Hellion switched gears, spotting Zayne outside of the car.

It laughed, a guttural sound.

I knew I should have stayed fixed to the seat, but I sat up as the Hellion jumped from the car. I thought Zayne would hesitate, knowing that I was nearby. But he didn’t.

Zayne shifted.

The wings were the first to sprout, arcing high in the sky behind him and unfolding around his body. I could only see the side of his face, but that alone was dramatic enough. His skin turned a dark gray and his jaw widened as his nose flattened. Two horns grew, much like the Hellion’s horns, but Zayne’s were black as night and beautiful in an odd way. They curled back from his head, a fierce sight. As if to remind me that he was still Zayne, a breeze played with his blond hair, blowing it around the horns.

I sucked in air, a gasp that shouldn’t have been heard, but Zayne turned a fraction of an inch toward me. Pain streaked across his face as our eyes locked for only a second. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the Hellion move.

“Zayne!” I screamed, clutching the dashboard.

He whipped back to the Hellion, catching the beefy hand before it could get a grip on him. Still holding the beast, Zayne leaned back and planted his foot in the Hellion’s midsection. The Hellion flew back several feet, grunting. It picked itself back up and rushed Zayne. They collided with enough force to shake ground and car.

Bending at the knees, Zayne pushed himself into the air, bringing the Hellion with him. From the heights of the massive oaks, Zayne arced in the sky and shot back down to the ground. They slammed into the soil, their impact eating away several feet of road. Zayne stood, wrapping a muscled arm around the beast’s neck.

“Go,” he yelled in a voice that was his, but wasn’t. “Run! Go!”

I threw open the door, half falling out of it. Spinning around, I took Zayne in. There was something dark—blood?—leaking from his nose, a patchy area of skin on his cheek that seemed a darker gray. The Hellion struggled against his hold, jaws snapping.

“Go,” Zayne ordered. “Please.”

The Hellion latched on to Zayne’s arm. The last thing I saw was Zayne hurling through the air. With a scream stuck in my throat, I whirled around and ran. I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t running away and that I was going to get help, but each step that took me farther from Zayne felt like a punch in the chest. What if he got seriously hurt?

What if he died?

I couldn’t let myself think of that. I ran on, knowing the best thing I could do was warn the clan. Branches snapped at my face, pulled at my clothing. Several times I tripped over a rock or an upturned root, catching myself with my hands and then pushing back up. It was like a cheesy horror movie, except what was behind me wasn’t some dead dude in a hockey mask. I’d actually prefer that guy over the Hellion, machete, high body count and all.

I kept going, throat seizing and muscles burning. Part of me realized I should have taken Zayne up on his offer to run with him. I was hideously out of shape.

Hot wind kicked up, scattering fallen leaves in the air. They rained down, a chorus of dark reds and browns. A snapping sound cracked through the night, followed by another and another.

I felt something whip through the air a second before it wrapped around my leg, dragging me down. I hit the hard soil elbows first. Wincing, I rolled onto my back. Thick tree roots climbed both my legs, squeezing until I was sure it would snap the bones in half. Frantic, I grabbed the end of a coarse root and started unwinding it with shaking hands. It yanked me forward, knocking me flat. Small rocks dug into my back as I was dragged over the ground. Arms flailing, I tried to grab ahold of the small bushes. When I finally came to a halt, the smell of sulfur was suffocating.

He stood above me a second later, occupying a space that had been empty. There was no soul—nothing around him—and I knew he was an Upper Level demon. His dark hair was buzzed into a Mohawk, the tips colored bloodred. He looked only to be in his mid-twenties and he wore a pin-striped suit, which, besides the fact that it looked ridiculous in the dark woods, was something straight out of old mobster movies. He even had a red satiny tie and matching hankie. A short, hysterical laugh escaped me.

And I realized I’d briefly seen him before. The day I’d waited for Morris to pick me up—he’d been the demon watching me.

“My name is Paimon. I’m the great and powerful King, ruler of two hundred legions,” he said in a distinctively Southern accent. I found myself wondering the weirdest things right then. Did Hell have a north and south? Because this dude was Southern. He bowed at the waist, a parody of elegance. “And you are Layla, child of the Warden Elijah and the demon Lilith. Finally, after all this time, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Paimon—I recognized him from the Lesser Key, the one on the camel/horse. It took no stretch of the imagination to conclude that I was now face-to-face with the demon who sought to raise the Lilin.

“Shit.” I jerked up, desperately trying to untangle my legs.

He raised a hand and I was pinned back, staring up at the cloudless night sky. “Let’s not make this difficult, darlin’.”

I gulped in air, moving my hands over the ground. I grabbed a rock, squeezing until the rough edges bit into my palm.

“I’m feeling a bit gracious, so I’m going to give you an opportunity I’ve never given anyone. You come along with me without being too much of an inconvenience—” he flashed a perfect set of white teeth “—and I won’t make a crown out of the bones of everyone you love. I can promise you riches beyond your imagination, the freedom to be whatever you want to be and a life envied by all.”

The rock felt heavy in my hand and I almost laughed again. “You want to raise the Lilin?”

“Ah, I’m glad I don’t have to explain my desire. Though I did have this whole speech planned.” He winked one crimson eye. “There’s always time later, darlin’.”

Fear knotted my stomach, but I forced as much bravado into my voice as possible. “And after you use me to raise the Lilin, you’re seriously going to let me live?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “Depends on how happy you make me.”

“Yeah, you can go to Hell.”

Paimon turned his head away and then faced me again. His skin melted away, revealing a red skull and eye sockets full of flames. His mouth gaped open, long and distorted. The howling sound that came from him turned my soul cold. I screamed until my voice left me, unable to move more than an inch backward.

Then he was the handsome man again, smiling. “Darlin’, you’re a means to an end—an end that works wonderfully in my favor.” Paimon crouched beside me, tipping his head to the side. “Now, you can make this easy or very, very hard.”

I took a deep breath, but couldn’t seem to get enough air in my lungs. I was worried about Zayne and knew that if I let Paimon capture me, I’d never have a chance to get him help. “Okay. Can—can you get these creepy roots off my legs?”

Another brief smile and Paimon waved his hand. The roots trembled, withered up and became nothing more than ashes within seconds. “I’m so glad you’re going to ma—”

I swung my arm around with all my strength, slamming the rock into his temple. His head snapped in the other direction, but a second later he was looking at me and laughing. Laughing. Flames licked from the wound where blood should have flowed.

Paimon grabbed my arm in a viselike grip. “Now, that wasn’t very nice, darlin’.”

I stared at his burning head. “Jesus.”

“Not quite.” He hauled me to my feet. “Say good-night.”

I opened my mouth, but before I could make a sound, my world went dark.