Every Last Breath

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

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

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.