style="font-size:15px;"> There was another long stretch of silence and then he said, “I know you’re hurting and I want to kill the son of a bitch for that.”
My heart turned over heavily. There was no hiding anything from him. Zayne knew me better than I liked to acknowledge. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to strangle Roth and spin kick him in his junk, but I also had a sneaking suspicion that Zayne really, really wanted to act on his desire, and because I was a girl, I’d cry if Zayne did manage to kill him.
“He’s a demon,” Zayne said. “It doesn’t matter that there are moments when he’ll pull off acts of great compassion, because underneath it, he is what he is.”
I sucked my bottom lip in. “But that’s what I am.”
“No.” Zayne rose slightly, causing his hand to drag across my stomach to my hip. “You’re not just a demon, Layla. You’re also a Warden. It’s not like you can’t be both things and...”
“And?” I turned onto my back, resting on my elbows, and his hand ended up on my belly again, his long fingers reaching the band on my sleep shorts. Our gazes met. “And what?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead his gaze drifted over my face and then down, beyond the collar of my shirt. The blanket had slipped below my chest. He swallowed hard as he returned to lying on his side. His voice was thicker than normal when he spoke. “And why can’t you have the best of both worlds? Like the best qualities, you know?”
“Best qualities of both?” I murmured slowly. “You’re saying there are good qualities in demons?”
“In you.” The hollows of his cheeks flushed, and I blinked a couple of times, but the blush was slow to fade. “You’re part demon. Like I said that night at the ice-cream shop, we shouldn’t have made you hate that part of you.”
I remember him saying that. Those words had been lost in what else had happened that night—Paimon and the devil’s trap—but I remembered.
“Every part of you is good—even the demon side.” He paused. “And I saw you that night.”
Lying back, I drew in a deep breath. “What do you mean?”
He leaned over me and several locks of hair glided over his cheeks. “You didn’t look like us when you shifted, but you didn’t look like a demon either. You were a mixture of both.”
“So I looked like a freak?”
“No.” His hand moved and his fingers curved around my waist. “Your skin was black and gray, like mottled marble. It was beautiful. Best of both.”
A pleasant heat crept into my cheeks and I fought not to lower my gaze from the intensity in his. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”
“What?”
“The ‘beautiful’ thing.”
His lips curled up at the corners in a small smile. “I have been.”
“You need your head checked?”
He rolled his eyes. “Anyway...” His thumb moved in slow, idle circles along my lower stomach. He seemed unaware of it, but then he chuckled softly. “I have no idea what we were talking about.”
I smiled. “We were talking about how awesome I am.”
“Sounds about right.” He settled back down and he seemed to be closer than before. The tops of his legs were pressed to the sides of my thighs. And his thumb was still tracing that unseen circle under my belly button, creating a languid warmth that was familiar.
“I was thinking,” I said finally, watching him. His eyes were closed and in that moment, he looked much younger than twenty-one.
There was a beat of silence. “About what?”
“About filling out those college applications and trying to see if I could get in for late admission.”
One eye opened and his thumb stilled. Several seconds passed. “Is it because of him?”
I opened my mouth.
“You know I’ve always supported you when it comes to going to college.” Both eyes were open now. “I think it would be great for you, but don’t make a huge decision like that because of what you’re feeling right now.”
I wanted to deny the assumption that my sudden interest in college had anything to do with Roth, but it would be a pitiful lie. Who was I kidding? Wasn’t like I hadn’t seriously considered leaving here and attending college before, but right now the idea was circling in my head for all the wrong reasons.
Zayne was staring at me now, eyes as bright as midday during the summer. Unrest made me twitchy. “Do you...?” He took a deep breath, and I held mine. “Did you love him, Layla?”
Oh God. My eyes widened and I could feel the heat in my cheeks grow. The question totally knocked me right off the planet.
He looked away and shook his head. “Shit, Layla-bug.”
“No!” I blurted out, and when his head swung back at me, my heart jumped in my throat. “I don’t know how I feel,” I rushed on, speaking the brutal truth. “I don’t know, Zayne. I care about him a lot and he...” I ached at the sudden knot in my throat. “I don’t know.”
And I really didn’t.
Love is a strange creature one thinks one has a grasp on and understanding of, only to discover later that it was only the barest taste of the real thing. And there were so many different kinds of love—that much I knew—and I didn’t know where Roth fell in all of that.
Zayne held my gaze for a moment longer before nodding. “Okay. I get that.” His hand left my stomach and before I could feel the pang of confused disappointment, he found my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “I really do.”
He squeezed my hand and I returned the gesture obediently, but I wasn’t sure how he could get any of this when I didn’t.
* * *
Zayne had slept the day away with me, leaving my bed as the other Wardens began to stir in the house. I’d watched him leave, cheeks flushed for no good reason other than it seemed wholly intimate watching him sneak out of my room as if we...as if we’d done something naughty.
I’d remained in bed after that, trying to sort through the odd tingling in my chest. There was a slight smile on my lips, because Zayne...well, he’d made my day, but then I’d remember what Roth had said to me the night before and the smile would wash away as if it had never been there.
I probably needed to get used to the whiplash mood swings.
It wasn’t until after dinner that I decided to scrub a day’s worth of gunk off myself. Gingerly, I peeled the bandage off, happy to find that the cut in my arm was healing as expected. I didn’t need to cover it anymore. The arm was still tender, but the Warden blood in me was quickly undoing the damage from the iron.
After changing into fresh pj’s, like a total hermit, I padded
