Stone Cold Touch (The Dark Elements 2)

U probably shouldn’t have gone to the movies w/ Stony, huh?

I stared at the message, half annoyed and half amused that somehow this was Roth’s only takeaway. Like being with Stony—er, Zayne—made a difference. I didn’t respond because I figured the conversation would only go downhill at this point.

My phone went off again, but this time, it was from Zayne.

U up for company?

I laughed at the fact we were in the same house and he was texting me.

Sure.

Incoming.

Turning my gaze to the door, I watched it open no more than a second later. I fought a smile. “Were you waiting out in the hall?”

“Maybe.” Zayne had changed, wearing black sweats and a white shirt. He sat down on the bed beside me. “Hanging in there?”

“Yeah. Just tired.”

He stretched out on his side beside me, resting his cheek on his elbow. “It’s been one Hell of a day.”

“What did Abbot have to say about it?”

A cloud passed over his features. “Nothing much.”

Immediately, I knew there was more. I rose up on my elbow. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing.” Zayne laughed, but something about it was strained. “Relax, Layla-bug. Today has been crazy enough without adding crap to it.”

“But—”

“Everything is fine. Chill. I have the rest of the evening off and I want to spend it with you. Salvage the rest of our date,” he said, toying with the edge of my sleeve. “All right?”

Protests formed on the tip of my tongue, but he was right. We’d had enough crap to last us the rest of the week, which reminded me of tomorrow. “Are we still checking out that house tomorrow night?”

“Yep.”

I eased onto my back, watching him. Thick lashes shielded his eyes as he ran his finger along the vein in my wrist. I wasn’t picking up any overpowering emotion from him; then again, my own feelings were all jumbled together.

In the silence that fell between us, my mind wandered to what the man had shown me at the theater. “Can I ask you a question and you be honest?”

He arched a brow. “I can try to be honest.”

I ignored that. “Do you think what I did to that lady is any different than what the Lilin is doing?”

His lashes swept up and his eyes were a startling cobalt. “It’s completely different, Layla. You were just a kid who had no idea what you were doing. The Lilin is doing this on purpose.”

“True, but...” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “But I fed off that woman last Thursday night. Yeah, it was a weird circumstance, but I did that.”

“We don’t even know if what that bastard said was true,” he argued. “Just because he said that was the lady, doesn’t mean it was really her. And even if it was her, there’s no proof that you affected her life in that manner. There’s no reason for us to believe that.”

“You really think so?” I wished I could share his certainty.

“Yes.” He paused. “Speaking of Thursday night, what kind of weird circumstance are we talking about here?”

I focused on the ceiling. I couldn’t tell him without revealing what went on under the Palisades and I had made a promise.

Zayne sighed. “I thought we weren’t keeping secrets anymore.”

“I know. But if I told you this, you would have to tell your father and...well, what would happen would be my fault. Any blood would be on my hands.”

“You think I tell him everything?”

The irritation in his voice drew my attention. “No, but I think there are some things you would want to tell him, and I’m not putting you in that position.”

He rolled onto his back, the muscle in his jaw working. His fingers remained around my wrist, though. A few minutes passed. “I know what’s going on in your head. You’re comparing yourself to the Lilin.”

I was, but it was more than that.

“You’re not like that.” He turned his head toward me, meeting my gaze. “Not a single part of you is.”

Man, it would be nice to drink the Zayne Kool-Aid, but when I closed my eyes, all I saw was Vanessa Owens’s face and it kept switching out with Dean’s. What if...? I couldn’t even allow myself to finish that thought, to let the idea take root and gain ground.

He stretched out his arm, beckoning me. “Closer?”

I bit down on my lip and then I wiggled closer, resting my head on his chest. His heart was a steady beat under my cheek. His arm came around my waist, securing me to his side.

So many thoughts whirled through my head, and I latched on to one of them—a theory that I needed to look into. “Remember when we were talking about the wraiths with Abbot?” When he nodded, I took a deep breath. “I wasn’t kidding around when I said the same feeling I had at school was what I felt here before those windows blew and Maddox took a swan dive. And I...” God, this was hard. “The night with Petr, I had—”

“You had to defend yourself,” he cut in quietly, his hand tightening along my waist. “I know what you did, Layla. You don’t have to say it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “He could be here, you know? He could be a wraith.”

A moment passed. “I thought of that, but with a house full of Wardens, you’d think we’d have caught on to that by this point.”

That could be true, but crazier things had happened. “I’m sorry today was ruined,” I said, deciding I really didn’t want to think about Petr while I was here with Zayne.

“It’s not your fault, so don’t apologize.”

I wanted to apologize again and keep apologizing, like I was going to turn into one of those people who constantly said they were sorry, but the feel of him cleared away some of the unpleasant thoughts.

Zayne lowered his chin and swept his lips across my forehead. My heart jumped at the tender contact, and I knew in that moment I couldn’t put him in danger. No matter what he said, what he wanted to believe, we couldn’t ignore reality.

I stared at the wall, feeling the soothing rise and fall of his chest in every cell in my body. A cold acknowledgment frosted up my insides. If what that man had said was true, then what the Lilin did and what I did were one and the same. We both destroyed lives and all it would take, for me at least, would be one slip up with Zayne. Just a tiny moment and he’d be in danger.

I couldn’t do that to him. I wouldn’t.

Even if that meant staying far, far away from him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“You look like a ninja,” Danika said. “Not a particularly skilled ninja, but like an after-school-special ninja.”

I looked over my shoulder at where she sat on my bed. I honestly did not remember inviting her into my room. “Thanks. A lot.”

She giggled. “I’m kidding. You look hot, though.”

“I’m not trying to.” I turned back to slipping my flats on. I got the ninja thing, though. I was wearing black yoga pants and a black thermal. I probably also looked like a ghost. All black did not do good things for my complexion.

“You never try to.” She rose behind me. “That’s why you’re sexy.”

Twisting around to face her, I had to think that hearing her say I was sexy was bizarre. Danika’s looks and body rivaled that of the models in the Victoria’s Secret campaigns. Humans and Wardens across the world would fall at her feet given a chance.

“Your skin looks a lot better,” she said as the silence stretched out between us.

We’d made this promise to be friends with one another, but it really was a slow go. “I slapped on a ton of moisturizer last night.”

“Can I tell you something that’s going to sound really weird?”

Turning back to the small mirror hung near my closet, I tugged my hair up into a bun. “Sure.”

She sat back down on the edge of the bed again. “I’m jealous of you.”

One eyebrow climbed up my forehead as I slowly lowered my hands and turned to her.

Her cheeks flushed. “And not because of Zayne. Well, yeah, I’m kind of jealous over that, but whatever. I’m more jealous that you get to go out and do things—go to school, go tagging if you want to. You’ve fought demons and you’ve gotten hurt.”

“You’re jealous because I’ve gotten hurt?”

“I know that doesn’t make sense.” She sighed. “I’m not happy that you were injured, but you’ve been out there. You’ve gotten scratched or bumped up, but you’ve been out there while I’ve been...” She waved her hands around the room. “I’ve been stuck in here.”

I didn’t know how to respond at first, but I got it. I really did. The females in the clan were so protected it was suffocating. For the most part, they’d probably never suffered a hangnail, and if they had, it was a national crisis.

Danika and others like her were stuck in pretty cages.

“I get it,” I said, sitting down next to her. “You know, when I was younger, I was jealous of the other female Wardens, because they were accepted. Everyone cared and paid attention to them. They were wanted and I was...well, I was just here. But I got over that pretty quickly.” I looked over at her, wishing it could be different for the whole lot of us. “I think, in a way, you guys have it worse than I do.”

She nodded slowly. “It’s not like I don’t ever want to mate and have babies. It’s just that I...”

“Want to do something else, too?” When she nodded, I bit my lip. “Then why don’t you? You’re trained. You can fight. Do you really need their permission? I mean, really? Who’s here to stop you if you go out and hunt?”

Danika didn’t respond for a long moment and then her eyes lit up. “You know, you’re right. I could do it and once I got up there, what could they do to stop me? Send me home?” She laughed. “I’d like to see them try.”

“Try what?”

We turned at the sound of Zayne’s voice. Goodness gracious, dressed as he was in dark cargo pants and a tight Under Armour shirt, he was hot in a completely dangerous way.

“Nothing,” chirped Danika. She leaned over, surprising me with a quick hug. Then she popped up and left the room, waving at Zayne as she squeezed by.

He frowned. “What’s going on?”

I shook my head and repeated what she said. “Nothing. You ready?”

“Yeah.” He eyed me as I made my way over to him. “Nice outfit.”

“Danika said I looked like an after-school-special ninja.”

Zayne laughed. “Nice.”

I started past him, but his arm formed a wall as he placed his hand on the other side of the doorjamb. My eyes lifted to his and he lowered his head, almost as if he was about to kiss me, but that couldn’t be it. He wouldn’t dare do something so insane again. Zayne didn’t have a death wish. But as his mouth drew closer, the flutter in my stomach grew. His fresh, winter-mint scent surrounded me, and then his lips brushed the curved of my cheek.

I tensed in the sweetest kind of way. My eyes closed as my hands itched to touch him. Things...things were so odd between us. Both of us had admitted that there was something between us, that we wanted more, but there was also a line between us, one that consisted of labels and promises and danger.

I thought of the promise I made to myself last night, the promise that changed what we both wanted. Disappointment swelled and crashed through me like tumultuous waves as I abruptly dipped under his arm.

Ignoring the look of confusion, I smoothed my hands over my pants. “Is there anything we need to get before we go?”

A moment passed before he answered. “I have everything we need packed away in the Impala.”

Everything we needed for a possible exorcism consisted of holy water, something I was so not getting near, purified salt and stinky, blessed incense. We had everything needed to do one in the house, and I briefly considered doing an exorcism here, but that would kind of be hard to explain to the Wardens. I’d have to bring up Petr, and with the way Abbot was acting toward me, that wouldn’t be smart. I had no idea what to do about Petr, and there was a tiny part of me that really wondered if he was here in wraith form. Either way, excitement hummed through me as we headed out to the garage. I’d never seen an exorcism before. This should prove interesting.

“Can I yell ‘By the power of Christ, I compel you’ whenever we get to that point?” I asked.

“What?” Zayne laughed as he opened my passenger door. “Hate to break it to you, but we don’t have to say a word and no one will be yelling anything like that.”

I pouted. Dammit, I’d always wanted to say that. “Well, that’s not nearly as entertaining as the exorcisms I’ve seen on TV.”

He gave me a look as he stepped aside to let me climb in. Just as he went to close the door, Dez came out the compound door, heading for one of the SUVs.

His gaze moved from Zayne to me. “She’s going with you to the house?”

“Yeah.” He leaned against the open door, eyeballing the older Warden. “You got a problem with that?”

Dez held up his hands. “Didn’t say I did. Just be careful.” He glanced at me and the look said he wanted to pull me out of the car and toss me over his shoulder. “She’s a...”

A scowl pulled at my lips. “A demon?”

“No.” Dez’s brows rose. “I was going to go with ‘a girl,’ one who is young and doesn’t need to get hurt.”

“Oh.” I felt like a bitch. “Thanks for pointing that out.”