White Hot Kiss

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  missing something.”

  Reaching the foot of the bed, I held out my hand. “Let me see.”

  “Join me.”

  I stared at him a moment, then rolled my eyes. Standing, I cautiously approached where he lay. “Okay?”

  “Uh-uh.” He pulled the book back. “Sit with me.”

  I scowled at him. “Why?”

  “Because I’m lonely.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m right here.”

  His lashes lowered. “But that’s too far away, Layla.”

  My hands curled into fists as a teasing grin appeared on his lips. He wasn’t going to budge. Muttering under my breath, I sat beside him.

  “Thank you.”

  “Whatever. Can I see the book now?”

  Roth handed it over. The book was narrow and couldn’t be more than a hundred pages. A circle and star were drawn onto the front cover.

  “The real deal has the symbol engraved and the cover looks like aged beef jerky,” he explained. “Bound in human skin.”

  It was all I could do not to drop the replica in my hand. “Ew.”

  “Yep. That’s how they rolled back in the day.”

  I flipped open the book and let out a low whistle. “Nice.”

  I was studying a hand-drawn picture of a half human, half blackbird. The caption beneath proclaimed its name to be Caym, the grand President of Hell, ruler of thirty legions. “‘Master of logic and pun,’” I read. “He looks like a freak.”

  “You should see him in person.”

  On the opposite page was a half-complete incantation to summon and banish the demon back to Hell. I fell quiet as Roth reached over and flipped through the pages, listening as he made a comment here and there.

  I stopped on a demon called Paimon.

  “‘Ranked first and principal King of Hell, he rules over the West. He commands two hundred legions.’ Wow,” I said.

  “That he does, but he is—or was—high-ranking. Basically the Boss’s assistant. He was the most loyal to the Boss.”

  “‘Was’?” I couldn’t stop staring at the drawing. It was a man with some kind of dark headdress, riding upon a camel. Or a horse with back problems. One or the other.

  “He and the Boss had a falling-out centuries ago.”

  My little old ears perked right up. “A big enough falling-out that he could be behind this?”

  “Half of the demons have been on the outs with the Boss a time or two.” Roth sat up fluidly, his shoulder against mine. “See the wonky-doodle banishing spell on the opposite page that was no doubt stolen from an episode of Supernatural?”

  I grinned.

  “The real book has a real spell, which includes—can you guess?—a real demon trap. That’s why this book is so powerful. If the stone-cold crew—your Wardens—got ahold of this, they could really get rid of demons.”

  The gasp came out of me before I could stop it. “What about—”

  “Me?” Roth gave a lopsided shrug. “They could try.”

  I tucked my hair back. “And you’re okay with that?”

  He barked out a laugh. “I’m hard to catch.”

  Watching him for a moment, I turned back to the book and changed the subject. Thinking about Roth being banished wigged me out more than it should. “It still surprises me that Hell even follows the rules, you know? It just seems counterintuitive.”

  “Whatever agreement the Boss has with Him has stood for over two thousand years. We try to play by the rules, and the Alphas don’t wipe us off the planet.” He turned the page, settling on a list of lower demons that could be summoned for favors. “There has to be good and bad in the world. There has to be a choice. And you’re also half-demon. Believe it or not, the Boss doesn’t like us fighting among ourselves. Believes it’s a waste of time and purpose. But when one of his kind starts breaking the rules, he’s not a happy camper.”

  I snickered. “Yeah, because you should be spending time corrupting human souls instead.”

  “You’re right,” Roth answered, continuously flipping through the pages. “How are you feeling? Are you hurting from going kung-fu master on the demons?”

  I shook my head. “No. Everything is healed up from...well, you know what from. And my hands feel okay.”

  Roth nodded as he flipped to the next page, but I was no longer looking at the book. I was watching him, studying him really. “I owe you an apology.”

  He glanced up, hand hovering over the book. “I’m in no real need of apologies. I find they’re given out far too often to mean anything.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said anyway. “I shouldn’t have given you so much crap in the beginning.”

  Roth fell quiet and I took over flipping through the pages. Demons and more demons, and then one caught my eye. “Hey!” I cried out as Roth made a grab for the thin book. “No! Don’t!” I planted my hands on the book.

  Roth pulled on the edge. “Layla.”

  “If you keep pulling it, you’re going to rip it apart.” I pressed down harder. “Let me see it.”

  He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes flaring. “Fine.” He let go of the book, sitting back on his haunches.

  I made a face, flipping the book back around. The drawing was that of a young man wearing an unremarkable silver crown. He had wings that were nearly as long as his body. Wings just as dramatic as the ones I saw on Roth. On one arm, a black snake curled, and there was a Hellhound stationed by his feet.

  He was also nude and anatomically drawn.

  My cheeks flushed. “Astaroth, the Crown...Prince of Hell?”

  Roth said nothing.

  “‘Astaroth is a very powerful demon of the First Hierarchy, who seduces by means of laziness, vanity and rationalized philosophies.’” I snorted. “Sounds like you. ‘He also has the power to make mortals invisible and can give power over serpents to mortals.’”

  Roth sighed. “Are you done?”

  “No.” I laughed, reading over the partial incantation to summon. It involved getting naked and the blood of a virgin. No surprise there. There was no banishment spell. Though there was a seal that sort of looked like a messed-up compass. “How do I get rid of you?”

  “All demons of the First Hierarchy have no known spells of banishment. You’d have to use a devil’s trap on a full moon, which is explained in the Lesser Key. But a devil’s trap doesn’t just banish a demon. It sends them to the fiery pits. That is like death to us.”

  I looked at him, my amusement slowly fading. A muscle ticked along his jaw as he stared across the room, out the windows. “What?” I gave a short laugh. “This isn’t really you. It can’t be.”

  He turned his head back to me, brows furrowed. “What do you think my full name is?”

  “Whatever. You’re only eighteen and...” And I trailed off as I glanced back at the picture. The Roth sitting in front of me couldn’t be the Crown Prince of Hell. Then it struck me and I wanted to kung fu the book straight into his face. “You’ve been lying to me.”

  “No. I was born eighteen years ago.” Roth shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. This might be a fake, but the Lesser Key is older than dirt. How could you be in it?”

  “I am just one of many,” he said, voice flat and cold. “Those who came before me met untimely ends or no longer served their purpose.” He smiled, but it lacked everything that made it human. “I am the most recent Crown Prince.”

  I sat back. “So...you’re like a replacement?”

  “An identical replacement.” He laughed humorlessly. “Each Roth before me looked just like me, talked like me and was probably almost as charming. So yeah, I’m a replacement.”

  “Is it like that with the other demons?”

  Roth dragged his fingers through his hair. “No. Demons can’t really die, but the fiery pits are our equivalent of death. All the former Princes are there, suffering in ways you couldn’t even imagine. I can hear their screams. Kind of serves
as a good reminder to behave.” He shrugged casually, but I knew this whole thing bothered him. “So you see, I have lied a bit. I’m practically not even real.”

  I closed the book, wanting to push it off the bed. Roth still sat beside me, stiff as stone. He was a replacement, created because the one before him had failed at something or had fallen prey to a devil’s trap. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that must feel like. Was he even his own person or an accumulation of the dozens, if not hundreds, that came before him?

  I felt terrible for him. While I had barely scratched the surface of my heritage, Roth knew far too much about his own.

  Silence stretched out. I could hear the kittens under the bed, purring like little freight trains. I dared a look at him and found him watching me intently. Our gazes locked.

  He took a deep breath. “What?”

  “I’m...I’m just sorry.”

  Roth opened his mouth and then closed it. Several seconds passed before he spoke. “You shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I don’t.”

  I didn’t believe him. Suddenly so many things made sense. “That’s bullshit.”

  His eyes popped wide.

  “It’s why you like it up here so much. You don’t want to be down there. You want to be up here, where everything is real.” I leaned forward, keeping his gaze. “Because you’re real and not just another Roth when you’re here.”

  He blinked and then laughed. “Maybe that would be the case if I actually cared about that kind of stuff. I am what I am. I’m—”

  “You’re a demon. I know.” I climbed onto my knees, facing him. “You always say that. Like you’re trying to convince yourself that’s the only thing you are, and I know that’s not the case. You are more than that, more than just another Roth.”

  “Oh, here you go.” Roth flopped on his back, grinning up at the ceiling. “Next you’re going to tell me I have a conscience.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far, but—”

  His chuckle cut me off. “You have no clue. Just because I like it topside doesn’t mean anything other than that I like places that don’t smell like rotten egg and aren’t a billion degrees.”

  “You’re such a liar.”

  He rose onto his elbows, his laughter fading into a smirk. “And you’re so incredibly naive. I can’t believe you feel sorry for me. I don’t even have a heart.”

  I pushed his shoulders. He fell onto his back not because I’d exerted any real power, but mainly from surprise. It was all over his face. “You’re such an asshat. I’m ready to leave.”

  Roth shot up and caught my arms, pressing me down in half a second. He hovered above me. “Why do you get mad when I tell you the truth?”

  “It’s not the truth!” I tried to get up again, but he had me pinned. “I don’t understand why you have to lie. You’re not all bad.”

  “I have reasons for doing what I do.” His gaze drifted off my face, down my body. “None of them are angelic. All of them self-serving.”

  “No,” I whispered. I knew it wasn’t true. “You’re more than just the next Prince.”

  He leaned down and we were chest to chest. His face was a mere inch or two from mine. Air hitched in my throat. “I am only the next Crown Prince. That’s what I am—all I am.”

  “It’s not.”

  Roth didn’t respond as he softened his grip and trailed his fingers down my arm. His hand skipped to my waist, then to my hip. Heat followed his touch, eliciting a sharp pang of yearning and even fear. He brought his gaze up, and the intensity in his stare had a magnetic pull. That heady tension was here, pulling us together. I was tired of ignoring it, tired of believing it was wrong when it was what I wanted—what I needed.

  Because Roth was more than just a demon and I was more than just a girl caught between two races.

  Slowly, I lifted my hand and placed it against his cheek. Only his chest moved, rising unsteadily. It was then that I realized he was just as affected as I was by whatever it was between us. It wasn’t just a game or a job. It was more than teasing and flirting. “You’re more than just another Roth. You’re more than that. You’re—”

  Roth’s lips brushed mine. I sucked in a startled breath, freezing underneath him. It wasn’t much of a kiss, just a tentative caress, surprisingly soft and gentle. He didn’t push it or deepen the contact. He just hovered there, the butterfly kiss doing more to me than anything ever had.

  And I wanted more, so much more.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Roth lifted his head and stared down at me. There wasn’t so much a question in his stare as a feral promise of things I probably couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

  I placed my shaking hands on his chest. To push him away or pull him closer, I didn’t know. So many thoughts jumbled together. I wanted this, but I didn’t know what this was. The day by the park with Roth had been my very first kiss, and I wasn’t even sure if that counted as a real kiss. Oh, it had been good—really good—but had it been born out of passion? I didn’t think so. If anything, he’d kissed me to just prove that he could.

  But now he’d really kiss me. I knew it in my bones.

  I moved my trembling hands to his shoulders. I didn’t push hard, but Roth released me immediately, the muscles in his arms bulging as he breathed raggedly.

  “What?” His voice was deep and endless.

  Heart pounding, I pulled my hands back, folding them across my chest. My shirt was bunched up, our legs still tangled together. His eyes...they seemed to glow golden. “I think...I don’t know about this.”

  Roth was very still for a moment, and then he nodded. I bit down on my lip as he rolled onto his side. I expected him to get up or be upset that I’d pulled the brakes before anything got started. Hell, a huge part of me was upset. Why had I stopped him?

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I sat up and tugged down my shirt. “It’s just I’ve never—”

  “It’s okay.” The bed dipped as Roth gathered me in his arms and pulled me back down to the bed. He stretched out, keeping me pressed close to his side. “It’s really okay.”

  The black-and-white kitten jumped on the edge of the bed, rubbing against Roth’s foot and then mine, drawing our attention. The distraction was a good thing, because it felt like a swarm of butterflies had erupted in my stomach.

  The kitten stilled, staring up at me with bright blue eyes. I waited for it to bite my foot or sink its claw into my skin, but it seemed to grow bored with me. It curled up in a tiny ball at the foot of the bed, quickly joined by the other two kittens.

  Several moments passed in silence as I tried to get my heart under control and make sense of the warring degrees of disappointment and relief. Then Roth started to talk about random, mundane things. Like the television shows he missed while down under. “We don’t get cable down there,” he said. “Only satellite, and as soon as someone sends up a ball of flames, which is all the freaking time, it goes out.”

  He told me how he and Cayman ended up being friends. Cayman apparently oversaw the portal and the apartment building. He’d hit on Roth, and Roth ended up with a loft above the bar after explaining he liked girls. Not sure how that one worked out, but I didn’t even question it.

  And then he told me about his mom.

  “You have a mother?” I asked, laughing, because it struck me as funny. I still pictured him hatching from an egg fully grown.

  “Yes, I have a mother and a father. You do know how babies are made?”

  I kind of wanted to show him that I knew exactly how babies were made. “What’s her name?”

  “Oh, she has many names, and she’s been around a long, long time.”

  I frowned. Why did that sound familiar?

  “But I call her Lucy,” he added.

  “Not Mom?”

  “Hell to the no. If you ever met that woman—and believe me, you don’t ever want to meet her—you’d understand why. She’s very...old-school. And controlling.”

  “Like Abbot?” I was too co
ntent to move and knock my hair out of my face. I tried blowing it off, but that didn’t work.