White Hot Kiss (The Dark Elements 1)

Now it was Roth’s turn to laugh like a demented seal. “And who started those rumors? The Wardens? Lilith was in Hell, but she broke loose seventeen years and nine months ago, give or take a week or two, which by the way, corresponds directly with what?”

I did the quick math, which put that date right around my birthday. My stomach roiled.

“She went topside, engaged in a little naughty action, got pregnant and popped out a pretty little baby that looked just like her.”

“I look like her?” My head got stuck on the wrong thing.

Roth reached over, picking up a strand of my hair, twisting the pale locks around his long fingers. “She had your coloring from what I remember. I only saw her once before she was taken care of.”

“Taken care of?” I whispered, already knowing the answer.

“When she escaped, the Boss had a pretty good idea of what she was up to. Where he has her now, she’s not getting out of.”

A dull ache pierced my temples. I rubbed at them, never more confused in my life. Should I feel better that Lilith wasn’t dead, being that she was my mother? But being trapped in Hell by Satan himself had to suck and my mom...she was Lilith. I wasn’t sure how to feel, and I knew it was about to get a whole lot worse.

“Have you ever heard of The Lesser Key of Solomon?” he asked.

Lifting my gaze, I shook my head. “No.”

“It’s the real deal—a book cataloging all the demons. It has their incantations, how to summon them, how to tell them apart, ways to trap a demon and all kinds of fun stuff. Lilith can’t be summoned.” He paused, watching me closely. “Neither can her original children.”

My head felt like it was about to explode. “The Lilin?”

When he nodded, my stomach plummeted like my popularity status. “But everything has a loophole, and there’s a really big one concerning the Lilin,” he continued. “In the original Lesser Key, it describes how one can create the Lilin. It’s like a seal that needs to be broken—an incantation.”

“Oh, my God...”

Roth was all serious at this point. “The incantation has these stages, like most spells do. We know they involve spilling the blood of a child of Lilith’s, and the—well, the dead blood of Lilith herself. There’s more—a third or fourth thing, but we don’t know for sure. Whatever those things are, if they’re all completed, then the Lilin will be born again upon Earth.”

My hands fell to my lap. Several moments passed. “And the child. That’s me? There’s no one else?”

He nodded again. “And the whole spilling-of-the-blood thing—well, not to be a downer, but since the Boss doesn’t know if it means a pinprick of your blood or your death, he’s not willing to risk it.”

“Gee. Tell him thanks.”

A smirk graced his lips. “The dead blood...” Leaning over, his agile fingers skipped along my wrist, eliciting a shiver in its wake. He worked my hand open, and the odd ruby-colored ring was exposed. “This stone isn’t a gemstone. It contains the dead blood of Lilith.”

“What? Ew! How do you know?”

“Because Lilith used to wear this ring, and only the child of Lilith can carry her blood without experiencing some seriously ill effects,’” he said, gently closing my fingers around the ring. “So we know where two of the things are, but the rest...it’s in the Key.”

“And where is the Key?”

“Good question.” Roth leaned back, closing his eyes. “Don’t know. And the Boss doesn’t know what the third and fourth things are, but he’s concerned that other demons—Dukes and Princes—may since Lilith was chummy with several of them. Getting out of Hell and having you was on purpose, her last big ‘eff you’ to the Heavens and Hell.”

Wow. That did wonders for a girl’s self-esteem.

“I don’t get it,” I said, curling my hands inward until my nails pressed into the flesh of my palm. “The Lilin are...they are insane and crazy scary, but wouldn’t your Boss want that? It would be Hell on Earth basically.”

Roth choked out a laugh. “No one wins in this case. When humans are stripped of their souls, they waste away and turn into wraiths. They don’t go to Heaven or Hell. And the Boss knows he can’t control the Lilin. He could barely control Lilith.” Roth’s beautiful lips twisted in a wry grin. “And trust me, you haven’t witnessed a pissing contest yet if you haven’t seen Lilith and the Boss go toe-to-toe.”

I tried to wrap my head around this. “So...?”

“The last thing that Hell wants is for the Lilin to be running amok on Earth.” He tapped his fingers on his knee, brows knitted. “And so here I am, making sure your blood doesn’t spill and neither does the blood in the ring while trying to figure out what the other stuff is before that happens. Oh, and there’s the whole issue of trying to discover exactly who wants the Lilin to be reborn. I’m a busy demon.”

My mouth worked, but no words came out. We sat there for several minutes, the only noise the soft tapping of his fingers and the cars below. Mind. Blown. My mother was the Lilith. I was too tired to deny the truth to that. Mommy dearest apparently conceived me as a way to give everyone the middle finger. Blood spilling didn’t sound fun, no matter which way you looked at it.

“Why now?” I asked.

“It’s the timing of your birth. Supposedly the incantation can only work after you turn seventeen.” He paused. “The Boss wasn’t sure if Lilith had been successful in the sense that you...”

I stared at him, horrified when I realized what he was getting at. “That I wasn’t killed once...” I swallowed, thinking of what Petr had said. “Once the Wardens found me?”

Roth nodded. “No one knew where Lilith had gone or where you’d been born. The world’s a pretty big place. I’d found you before, but your birthday was still far off. When the Boss knew we were months away from your birthday, he sent me up again to see if you were still...uh, well, yeah.”

“Alive,” I whispered.

He plowed on. “When I reported back, the Boss ordered me to keep an eye on you. See, the Boss and the demons that Lilith hung with aren’t the only ones who’ve heard of the incantation. Others have, as well, and they see you as a risk. They know the Alphas will obliterate every demon topside if the Lilin are reborn. They want to take you out—the Seeker, the zombie and the possessed human.”

“So some demons may want me to raise the Lilin and others want to kill me because—” And it struck me then, with the force of a cement brick. Ice froze my veins just as a hot rush of betrayal swept through me like a rising tide. “Abbot has to know this.”

Roth said nothing.

I swallowed, but the lump in my throat refused to budge. “He must have known this whole entire time. I mean, there’s no way. The Alphas...and that’s why Petr tried to kill me. It’s probably why he and his father have always hated me, because of what I’m linked to.”

In the looming silence, tears burned my eyes. I clenched my fists until my knuckles ached, refusing to let them fall. At no point had Abbot believed that I deserved to know the truth about what I was, what I could become a part of. And if Zayne knew, I didn’t think I could ever get over that.