White Hot Kiss

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “As if I don’t know that?” Abbot crossed the room in a flash, stopping in front of his son. “Is it desperate times call for desperate measures? We’ve been here before, on the brink of the world falling apart. This is nothing new. And trusting a demon will only aid in that destruction.”

  “It’s not going to happen.” Geoff stood, placing his hands on his hips. “We’ve seen firsthand what trusting a demon will do.”

  “That we have.” Abbot looked at me over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. “After all, Elijah foolishly trusted a demon once before.”

  “What?” I laughed. “Elijah would kill himself before he trusted a demon.”

  Abbot faced me fully. “Now he would, and he has good reason for his caution. A little over seventeen years ago he made the mistake of trusting one—a demon who claimed that she would rather be dead than be what she was. No one but Elijah knows the whole story, but one thing is certain. He lay with her, and in the end the demon got what she wanted.”

  I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. A cold wind swept down my spine. Denials formed on the tip of my tongue but no words came out.

  “The demon he trusted was Lilith,” Abbot said. “And because Elijah trusted her, he helped create the one thing that could destroy the world. You.”

  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.