“Were you followed?” Roth asked.
All he did was stare at me, his face pale and his chest rising in deep breaths.
A low growl emanated from Roth. “Were you followed?”
Stacey took a healthy step back. “I feel like I need to get out of the way.”
Zayne shook his head. “No.”
His answer did nothing to relieve Roth. “How can you be sure?”
“They don’t have any reason to follow me,” he said, and then he blinked. “God, Layla, I...I’m so sorry.”
Taken aback, I placed my hand against my chest. “Why would you apologize? I hurt—”
“I know what they did to you.” He finally looked at Roth. “Whatever you did, however you helped her, thank you. I can never repay for you that. Ever.”
Whoa.
Even Roth looked a little knocked off his game by that. There was no smart-ass response. All he did was nod in return, and then Zayne’s gaze returned to mine. He shook his head, and my chest tightened.
A knock on the front door raised the hairs along the nape of my neck.
“That wouldn’t be a Warden, would it?” Stacey asked. “I doubt they’d knock, right?”
Zayne didn’t take his brilliant teal eyes off me. “They wouldn’t knock, but I’m telling you, I wasn’t followed. They think...they think she’s dead.”
Roth’s lips curled, revealing fangs. He started toward Zayne, and I knew that even though he was aware that Zayne hadn’t been responsible for anything, he wanted to shed blood over it—any Warden blood.
Reaching forward, I wrapped my hand around his arm. “Don’t. You know this isn’t his fault. Don’t fight him. Please.”
He eyeballed Zayne as if he wanted to finger paint with his entrails. Finally, he turned sideways and leaned in so that when he spoke, his breath danced along my temple. “Only because you asked. Only because of that.”
Zayne closed his eyes. The knock came again.
“Uh, I’m going to go answer that,” said Stacey, and then she mouthed, awkward.
Roth pulled free. “I’ll go with you.” As he strutted past Zayne, he cast him a look of warning. “Don’t make me regret the fact I’m letting you continue to breathe.”
A muscle popped in his jaw, but Zayne kept his lips sealed. Once Roth and Stacey were out in the hall, I took a breath I didn’t need.
“I...I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, curling my arms around my waist. “But I’m sorry for hurting you. I didn’t mean to. I know that doesn’t make it okay, because what I did was so—”
“Stop,” Zayne said, and his voice cracked. “Stop apologizing, Layla. None of this was your fault. You don’t understand. So much has happened.” He broke off, taking a step forward. “I don’t care what you did to me or what has happened, but it’s not you. It can’t be.”
“Zayne,” I whispered, pleaded really.
“There is a wraith at the house,” he continued, and I blinked, unsure whether I heard him right. “It’s Petr. Geoff caught it on camera not too long after what...God, what my clan—your clan—did to you....” He swallowed thickly and I swore his eyes got misty. “They think you died. Even Nicolai wasn’t confident that he got Roth there in time, but I knew you weren’t dead. I would know in here.” He thumped his hand against his chest. “I would know if a part of my heart was gone.”
I sucked in a breath as the voices in the hall grew closer and then Stacey and Roth had returned. Behind them was a tall and slender Sam, and the air whooshed out of my lungs as if someone had drop-kicked me in my chest.
My knees shook as I took a step back and my brain didn’t want to process what I was seeing, but there was no denying it. In my chest, my heart cracked wide-open.
Zayne’s brows knitted as he focused on me. “Layla?”
The room spun a little. I was vaguely aware of the way Roth was moving, angling his body toward mine so that he was standing beside me, but every ounce of my being was focused on Sam
He stood in the doorway and cocked his head to the side, his expression elusive and a bit curious. Everything about him looked normal. Normal by the “new Sam” standards—his artfully messy hair, his stylish clothes and the shiny confidence he wore like an expensive pair of designer jeans. Sam had changed.
But it wasn’t normal at all.
His smile spread, causing his eyes to twinkle. “Layla? Are you okay?”
The tone of his voice was now like having someone drag nails down my skin. I drew in a breath and suddenly—oh my God—suddenly I understood. It all made sense in a sickening way. I just couldn’t see it until now.
“I know,” I whispered, horrified.
Confusion marked Stacey’s features as she folded her arms. “Know what?”
“Ah,” Sam cooed softly. “The light dawns. About time, too, because I was seriously beginning to doubt your intelligence, sister.”
Ice blasted into the room as understanding swept through Roth and he growled low in his throat.
Sam’s gaze flicked to where Roth stood, but he appeared wholly unaffected by the violence rolling off the Crown Prince. But I was blown away and if I thought my world had shattered earlier, I’d been wrong. It was smashed to pieces now.
There was no aura around him. Nothing. Like with Roth and all demons, there was just a vast, empty space. But with Roth, that was expected. Not with Sam.
Sam had no soul.
Oh, but it was more than that. A human didn’t just lose their soul. They either had one or they didn’t, and if they didn’t, they were dead—wraiths. Only something inhuman could rock the no-soul glow. Or something totally possessed.
Zayne had just said there had been a wraith at the compound. It had been Petr doing those things. Not me. And the crone’s words resurfaced. We had perceived everything she’d said wrong. What we’d been seeking had been right in front of us the entire time and it had been someone who’d always been around me, who mostly had contact with the same people I did. At one point I’d even said it when I’d discovered that the lady in the Palisades had died—that the only other option was that the Lilin was following me around, but I had disregarded that idea, immediately believing the worst of myself.
Paimon’s ritual had worked that night that now felt so long ago. It had never been my virginity that had been the key to the spell. Cayman had hit the nail on the head when he said it only had to be a carnal sin. My blood had been spilled that night, it had burnt through the floor, and there had been a cocoon in the basement of the school, which was a part of the ritual—my blood needed to be spilled.
Bambi had affected my abilities, but only for the good, I realized. She hadn’t caused me to suck out souls by being around other people. She had helped me, because all the terrible things hadn’t been me, but I felt no relief.
“Everyone, including your clan and the loves of your life, thought it was you.” Sam laughed, and that laugh sounded like his. It was his, but what was behind his skin wasn’t the boy I knew. “Even you thought it was yourself. And that’s kind of sad, actually. Takes low self-esteem to a whole new level.”
“Sam,” gasped Stacey, pressing her hand against her breast. Blood drained from her face. “What are you talking about?”
His pupils bled into his irises, turning his eyes into shards of obsidian. His features remained the same. No. Sam hadn’t lost his soul. He wasn’t possessed. It was worse than that, because what stood in front of us wasn’t Sam anymore. It hadn’t been for a while now.
Sam was the Lilin.