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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?”
