what you are or the fact that Layla is still—”
Heat swamped my cheeks. “Okay. Stop. All of you. This gossipfest about my virginity is not something I want to continue.”
“You and me both,” muttered Dez.
“But I was still rocking a hymen the last time I checked, which means I’m a virgin.” My hands formed ineffective fists when Roth’s brows climbed up his forehead. “So can we not talk about this anymore?”
“Then if what you’re saying is true, the demon is lying,” Abbot spat.
“The demon?” Roth scoffed. “That’s ‘Your Highness’ to you.”
“Okay.” Cayman glided forward, raising his hands in mock surrender as the Wardens bared fangs in warning. “Nobody is lying—not our Crown Prince or our wittle, precious, virginal Layla.”
I shot him a dirty look.
He grinned. “As always, the text in which the ritual was written does not go into detail explaining how or what it takes for Layla to lose her innocence.”
“I wish you would stop saying that,” I muttered, rubbing my brow. I was starting to get a headache. “It’s not like you can just ‘lose’ your innocence or accidentally misplace it somewhere and forget about it.”
Abbot’s eyes narrowed.
“Good point.” Cayman shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he rocked back on the heels of his boots, and by the glee in his expression, I had this horrible feeling that I’d just talked my way into a corner. “The loss of innocence refers to carnal sin and it’s not like you have to do the deed to experience the pleasure of sin. Correct?”
Blood drained from my face as my mouth dropped open. Oh, I had experienced pleasure with Roth. That blood rushed right back to my face as the hours before we’d gone for the Lesser Key played out in my thoughts. Roth and I...we hadn’t done it, but we’d done other things. Well, he’d done things with his hand that I had only—oh God, I really needed to stop thinking about that right now.
Roth’s impossibly long lashes lowered as what Cayman had said sank into the minds and imaginations of all those present. One by one, they looked at me like...like I’d murdered a nursery of babies and then bathed gleefully in their blood.
“What?” I said, shifting my weight from one foot to the next. I glanced at Zayne. A muscle throbbed along his jaw.
Cayman dipped his chin. “In other words, all she needed to do was have an orgasm.”
“Oh my God,” I moaned, smacking my hands over my burning face. I’d rather be back in the alley, about to be sliced and diced by the Warden, than where I was.
“And most likely not by herself,” Cayman added. “Besides, that is the only explanation.”
Someone kill me now.
Zayne swore under his breath and I thought I heard the word whore muttered from someone in the peanut gallery behind me, but I couldn’t be sure because no one reacted to the low murmur. It didn’t take a genius for anyone to figure out whom I’d experienced “the pleasure of sin” with. Wasn’t like I had a lot of options considering the whole “getting too close to anyone with a soul” thing.
“Well...” Roth drew the word out. “This is awkward.”
I slowly lowered my hands. “You think?”
He didn’t look at me. “So now that we have this covered—”
“But what about the taking of the soul?” Nicolai demanded.
Hair rose on the back of my neck. The change of subject should’ve given me happy feet, but Hell, it just got worse.
Roth shrugged. “The Lesser Key is an ancient text, remember? That means it’s not the easiest thing in the world to interpret. Clearly we all got something wrong, despite my superior intelligence. You have the Lesser Key. See if you can figure out what.”
The Wardens seemed to believe that for the moment, but Abbot shot me a look that said we’d talk later and that was so not a conversation I was looking forward to.
“But back to the issue at hand—three of the chains broke, meaning there is a Lilin.”
That again. “Wait,” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “I didn’t know her chains would break if the Lilin was created.” Unease curled in my belly as I glanced at Abbot, Zayne and then back to Roth. “None...none of you have told me this. You all just said that if the Lilin were created, everyone would be too busy rounding them up to worry about Lilith.”
“It wasn’t necessary to tell you,” Abbot responded in a clipped voice.
A hot and ugly emotion replaced my anxiety as I twisted toward the man I once looked upon as the closest thing to a father I’d known. I was so sick of the lies—about the fact that Lilith was my mom, that Elijah, a Warden who acted as if he loathed my very existence was actually my father. Abbot had kept all of that from me. “Really? Considering who she is to me, how isn’t it necessary?”
“Good point,” Roth acknowledged.
“You didn’t tell me either,” I shot back. His lips formed a hard line, and I willed him to look at me, to explain why he’d kept that major detail to himself. When he didn’t, apprehension took root deep inside me. “And if the fourth chain breaks, then Lilith is freed?”
The third demon, who’d been silent up until that point, shook his head. “Lilith won’t be freed. The Boss has her locked down now and I’m pretty sure Hell would freeze over before she gets out.” He laughed at himself, and I arched an eyebrow.
Abbot’s shoulders jacked up. “Even if Lilith is still in captivity, if there’s a Lilin, we have a huge problem on our hands.”
“Right now, there must be only one, because if there were more, you all would know. You’d have an overpopulation of wraiths. But even one Lilin can turn this city into its own personal soul-sucking playground,” Roth said. “They can take a soul with a single brush of their hand or they can mess with people—slowly stripping away who they are, changing their entire internal moral code. The Lilin could turn a Warden if they got their hands on one.”
Oh, that would be bad. Very bad.
“And they’re the only ones that can control wraiths,” Cayman added. “If they take a soul completely, that vengeful thing they create will answer to the Lilin. It’s like...double the suck.”
Wraiths were what became of any creature who once had a soul and then lost it. They didn’t go to Hell. There was no in-between for them. They lingered on Earth, stuck, and bitter hatred festered within them. They quickly became dangerous and they were powerful, able to interact with humans on a not-so-friendly level. Sometimes they targeted people they’d known while alive. Other times they didn’t discriminate, going after anyone who crossed their path.
“You know, with the rules and all, the Alphas—your big, bad guys in the big, bad sky—aren’t going to be happy.” Roth folded his arms across his chest. “So we need to find the Lilin before
