Bitter Sweet Love (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Pressure clamped down on my chest and a ball formed in my throat. There were so many knots in my stomach, threatening to tie me up.

I’d been pacing the length of my room since I’d left Layla. My thoughts were all over the place, which had made it impossible for me to sit still. I couldn’t stop thinking about Layla and the fact that she would never know love—not really, not like I would one day, no matter what I decided. She could never truly get close to another person. She could never kiss. Love had been forbidden to her and that was so unfair. And I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said.

Love would always be enough, no matter what.

And I did love Dez. I was
in
love with him.

I don’t know what exactly had made up my mind. There were a lot of things I wasn’t ready for, but there was one thing I was.

Footsteps in the hallway caught my attention. Heart leaping in my chest, I froze—and then I sprang forward, rushing to the door. Popping my head out in the hall, I saw Dez.

He stopped, surprised. “Hey.”

“I was... I was waiting for you.” God, I sounded like an idiot. I started backing up as he came into my room. “What did Abbot say about the demon?”

“He’s concerned. It’s abnormal for an Upper Level demon to do nothing but talk smack and then walk off. They’re going out tonight to hunt him down.” He closed the door and leaned against it, folding his arms. “Obviously, the punk is up to something. They want to find out what.”

“Are you going out with them?”

“I should, but I think before we got distracted, you wanted to talk. And right now that’s more important.”

As his words sank in, I realized he was putting me before his duty. He had been for seven days. Catering to me. Playing babysitter. Following me around while I did a whole lot of nothing, and he hadn’t complained once. Even enjoyed himself because he... he had been with me.

Lifting my gaze, I could barely speak around my pounding heart. “I wanted to say that these... these seven days have been amazing.”

“Including Herbert?”

I laughed. “Yes, even Herbert.”

Doubt crossed his striking features. “Even though you didn’t get to see DC or hunt a demon?”

“I was telling you the truth. Those things don’t really matter.” I stopped, taking a deep breath. “Maybe they did before, but I don’t know what I was trying to do. Maybe delay the inevitable? Because I—”

“Wait.” He held up a hand, stretching the cotton shirt across his shoulders. “Before you tell me what I know you’re going to tell me, I need to tell you something.”

“But how do you know what I’m going to tell you?”

He laughed dryly. “I know, Jas.”

There was such obvious resignation in his voice that I squared my shoulders. “What do you want to tell me?”

“What I should’ve told you the first night I came back.” He cocked his head back against the door. Several seconds passed. “I should’ve said goodbye, but I didn’t. That was a gigantic mistake—one I can’t fix. And I know I made another by not being honest with you when I returned. I just didn’t want you to know the truth.”

Those words were forbidding. “The truth about why you left?”

He nodded.

A shiver coursed over my shoulders. “Well, if you didn’t want me to know, I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. I mean, you were eighteen, so I assume you were out doing your thing.”

Dez lowered his chin and pushed off the door. “My thing?”

There was a note of warning in his voice. Sometimes I needed to just shut up. This was one of those moments. Of course, my mouth kept moving. “Yeah, you know. Hooking up. Sowing your wild oats. Getting laid. Whatever.”

“Are you serious?”

I shrugged.

“There hasn’t been a single female I’ve thought about, let alone wanted to hook up with,” he said. “What I did when I left didn’t involve anything like that, Jasmine.”

I thought about the night in the hotel and my body flushed. He had to have experience, lots of experience.

“I wasn’t with anyone during that time,” he added.

I snorted. “Yeah, I’m not stupid, Dez.”

Anger flashed across his face as he stormed forward. “There’re a lot of things you could say about me, but I have never lied to you. I’m not lying to you now. I stayed true to you! This whole time! There has been no one else!”

I opened my mouth to argue, but his words sank in through the anger and confusion. My heart was like a balloon straining to float away. “Wh-what?”

Dez stared at me, his eyes now shining a brilliant blue. Two pink circles appeared on his cheeks and then he looked away, shoving a hand through his hair. “I haven’t been with anyone, Jasmine. Not like that.”

“Why?” I blurted out the question before I could stop myself, and the look he gave me said he wondered what was wrong with me. But I couldn’t comprehend that he had been with no one—no other female of our kind or human. It wasn’t as if he’d been hurting for attention. Females would cut off their left legs to be with him.

He blew out a deep breath as he dropped his hand. “I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t?” I stepped closer.

“No. It wouldn’t have been right.”

I stopped, holding my hands pressed tightly against my chest as if I could stop my heart from jumping out of it. “Because mating with me was a duty, or—”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” He prowled forward, stopping just in front of me. Air halted in my lungs as he dipped his head, his mouth inches from mine. “What is between us has nothing to do with duty or an obligation to mate and procreate. It’s only about us.”

My eyes widened. “It is?”

He placed a large hand on my cheek. “I wasn’t with anyone else because I couldn’t be. I didn’t
want
to be, because I always knew I was going to come back to you. There was never a doubt in my mind.”

“Never?” I whispered.

“Never.” He dropped his forehead to mine and breathed in unsteadily. His lips brushed my cheek, causing a shiver to rush across my skin. “I loved you the night you brought me pudding and stayed with me until I fell asleep. That was eleven years ago and my love for you has never faded, Jas. Not for one second.”

Oh, Lord, my heart escaped me, floating through the roof, up among the stars, but I didn’t understand. “Then why did you leave me without saying anything? Not even a goodbye?”

He closed his eyes, spreading his hands on either side of my neck. “I needed to find the demon responsible for attacking my clan—killing my parents.”

Stunned, I slipped free, the backs of my thighs hitting the side of the bed. “You went after the demon?”

His hands dropped to his sides. “I followed up leads, tracked the bastard across the country. He’d left California for a while, but that’s where I finally found him again.”

Placing my hand against my chest once more, I drew in a deep breath. “And you confronted him?”

“I killed him.”

My brain had stopped working. He’d spent three years tracking the demon responsible for massacring his clan? My father’s words made sense now. Dad had known what Dez was doing.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I asked.

A slight smile appeared. “You would’ve tried to stop me.”

“Damn straight I would’ve!” For some ridiculous reason, I wanted to cry. “You could’ve been killed!”

“I could be killed any night, Jas.”

“But that was different! You were out there by yourself. No one had your back.” Tears burned the back of my eyes, which was so stupid, because he obviously wasn’t dead. He was standing right in front of me. “Why did you need to do this?”

The smile slipped away, as if it had never been there. “You know how I was. So full of hate and anger. I needed to clean it out.” He palmed my cheeks. “I knew if I told you why I was leaving and you told me not to, I wouldn’t have been able to go.”

I wanted to push him away and I wanted to grab him and hold him close. Forever. “My dad knew?”

“Yes.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “It’s why I never called you or told you when I got back. It’s not a good enough excuse—it’s a shitty one, but I knew you would want me to stop... and that once you knew what I was doing you’d think differently of me.”

I blinked my stupid tears. “It was a shitty excuse, but you could’ve called me. You not doing so made me think differently of you. Not because you wanted to avenge your clan’s murder. You’re an idiot.” I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. “For three years I thought you ran to escape me.”

“God, I hate that you ever thought that,” he said. “You were just so strong. You lost your mom. You saw her die, but you were strengthened by it. You didn’t let the hate swallow you up. I would’ve. I’m not proud to admit that, but...”

My hands shook as I wrapped them around his wrists. “But what?”

“But when your father announced his intentions for us, I knew I had to purge myself of the rage, because loving you... loving you was bittersweet,” he whispered against my lips. “Because I knew if I didn’t do this, if I didn’t get all the hatred out of me, I would never be the mate you deserved.”

“Oh, Dez.” My breath caught. “I...”

“I know it’s probably too little, too late.” He kissed me softly, just a brush of his lips, and then pulled back, his fingers trailing down my face. “But what I’ve told you is true. And like I said before, I’ll wait. No matter how long it takes to prove that I do love you, I will.”

So much was running through my head that it took a moment for me to process everything. “Too late? Dez, it’s not too late. God, we’ve both made such a mess of things.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened his mouth again. “What are you saying?”

There were so many things I was trying to tell him, but words or the lack thereof had been our problem all along. Either we weren’t telling each other what was really going on or we were saying all the wrong things.

Words sucked sometimes.

So I did the one thing that I knew we’d both understand. I crossed the small distance between us and placed my hands on his chest. He watched me intently as I stretched up. Sliding my hands up his chest, I circled my arms around his neck. He shuddered an instant before I pressed my lips against his.

I poured everything I wanted to say and should’ve said into the kiss. I pulled him close, breathing him in when he responded, when he took the kiss to a deeper level, sweeping his tongue over mine, drinking me in.

“I love you,” I gasped.

His hands settled on my hips. “Say that again.”

“I love you.”

“One more time.”

My lips curled up. “I love you, Dez.”

And that’s all I said. Dez kissed me, and that kiss—that kiss scorched me. It was everything that I felt given back to me. His hands slid up my back and our lips parted just enough for him to say my name and I knew the sound of it would stay with me to the end of my days.

We ended up on the bed, our limbs tangled together, our hearts pounding in our chests. I didn’t tell him yes. He didn’t ask. It didn’t need to be spoken. Because I had been his and he had been mine all along, and one day we
would
make that lifelong promise to each other. When we were both ready. And while that was bucking tradition, neither of us cared. Because right now, as his lips moved against mine and he pressed me closer to his body, I felt the way I did when I flew over the mountains back home. During the precious seconds when I was free-falling and there was nothing but that rushing sensation, of not being able to form a thought or breathe. In Dez’s arms, I had found what I’d been searching for every night I took to the sky.

I was free.

I was home.

* * * * *

To find out more about Layla and Zayne
,

and the Upper Level demon watching them
,

don’t miss
WHITE HOT KISS,

first in the sizzling new Dark Elements trilogy
,

Read on for a sneak preview
...

Chapter One

There was a demon in McDonald’s.

And it had a powerful hunger for Big Macs.

Most days, I loved my after-school job. Tagging the soulless and the damned usually gave me a mad case of the warm fuzzies. I’d even given myself a quota out of boredom, but tonight was different.

I had a paper to outline for AP English.

“Are you gonna eat those fries?” Sam asked as he grabbed a handful off my tray. His curly brown hair fell over his wire-frame glasses. “Thanks.”

“Just don’t take her sweet tea.” Stacey slapped Sam’s arm and several fries fell to the floor. “You’ll lose your entire arm.”

I stopped tapping my foot, but kept my eye on the interloper. I don’t know what it was with demons and the Golden Arches, but man, they loved the place. “Ha-ha.”

“Who do you keep staring at, Layla?” Stacey twisted in the booth, looking around the crowded fast-food joint. “Is it a hot guy? If so, you better—
oh.
Wow. Who goes out in public dressed like that?”

“What?” Sam turned, too. “Aw, come on, Stacey. Who cares? Not everyone wears knockoff Prada like you.”

To them, the demon looked like a harmless middle-aged woman with really bad fashion sense. Her dull brown hair was pinned up with one of those old-school purple butterfly clips. She wore velvet green track pants paired with pink sneakers, but it was her sweater that was epic. Someone had knitted a basset hound on the front, its big, sappy eyes made of brown yarn.

But despite her drab appearance, the lady wasn’t human.

Not that I had a lot of room to talk.

She was a Poser demon. Her astronomical appetite was what gave away the breed. Posers could eat a small nation’s worth of food in one sitting.

Posers might look and act human, but I knew this one could snap the head off the person in the booth next to her with little effort. Her inhuman strength wasn’t the threat, though. It was the Poser’s teeth and infectious saliva that were the real danger.

They were biters.

One little nip and the demonic version of rabies was passed to the human. Totally incurable, and within three days the Poser’s chew toy would resemble something straight out of a George Romero flick, cannibalistic tendencies included.

Obviously, Posers were a real problem unless you considered a zombie apocalypse fun times. Only good thing was that Posers were rare and every time one bit somebody, its lifespan was shortened. They usually had about seven good bites in them before they went poof. Sort of like a bee and its stinger but dumber.

Posers could look like anything they wanted. Why this one was rocking an outfit like that was beyond me.

Stacey made a face as the Poser moved onto her third burger. She wasn’t aware of us watching her. Posers weren’t known for their keen powers of observation, especially when preoccupied with secret-sauce awesomeness.

“That’s disgusting.” Stacey turned back around.

“I think the sweater is hot.” Sam grinned around another mouthful of my fries. “Hey, Layla, do you think Zayne would let me interview him for the school paper?”

My brows rose. “Why do you want to interview him?”

He gave me a knowing look. “To ask what it’s like to be a Warden in DC, hunting down the bad guys and bringing them to justice and all that jazz.”

Stacey giggled. “You make the Wardens sound like superheroes.”

Sam shrugged bony shoulders. “Well, they kind of are. I mean, come on, you’ve seen them.”

“They’re not superheroes,” I said, falling into the standard speech I’d been giving ever since the Wardens went public ten years ago. After the skyrocketing increase in crime that had nothing to do with the economic downturn the world faced, but was more like a signal from Hell saying they no longer wanted to play by the rules, the Alphas had ordered the Wardens to come out of the shadows. To humans, Wardens had come out of their stone shells. After all, the gargoyles adorning many churches and buildings had been carved to resemble a Warden in his true skin. Sort of.

There were too many demons topside for the Wardens to continue to operate without exposure. “They’re people. Just like you, but—”

“I know.” Sam held up his hands. “Look, you know I’m not like those fanatics who think they’re evil or something stupid like that. I just think it’s cool and it would be a great piece in the paper. So what do you think? Would Zayne go for it?”

I shifted uncomfortably. Living with the Wardens often made me one of two things: a backdoor to gain access to them, or a freak. Because everyone, including my two closest friends, believed I was just like them. Human. “I don’t know, Sam. I don’t think any form of press makes them comfortable.”

He looked crestfallen. “Will you ask him at least?”

“Sure.” I fiddled with my straw. “But don’t hold your breath.”

Sam leaned against the hard seat back, satisfied. “So guess what?”

“What?” Stacey sighed, exchanging a woeful look with me. “What random piece of knowledge are you going to wow us with?”

“Did you know you can freeze a banana until it’s so hard you can actually nail something with it?”

I lowered my sweet tea. “How do you know these things?”

Sam finished off my fries. “I just do.”

“He spends his entire life on the computer.” Stacey pushed thick black bangs off her face. I don’t know why she didn’t cut them. She was always messing with them. “Probably searches for random crap for the fun of it.”

“That’s exactly what I do when I’m at home.” Sam rolled up his napkin. “I search for little-known facts. That’s how cool I am.” He threw the napkin at Stacey’s face.

“I stand corrected,” Stacey said unabashedly. “It’s porn you spend all night searching.”

The hollows of Sam’s cheeks turned bright red as he straightened his glasses. “Whatever. Are you guys ready? We’ve got some outlining to do for English.”

Stacey groaned. “I can’t believe Mr. Leto wouldn’t let us do our classics report on
Twilight.
It
is
a classic.”

I laughed, momentarily forgetting about the job I had to do. “
Twilight
is not a classic, Stacey.”

“Edward is definitely a classic in my book.” She pulled a hair tie out of her pocket, tugging her shoulder-length hair up. “And
Twilight
is way more interesting than
All Quiet on the Western Front.
”

Sam shook his head. “I can’t believe you just used
Twilight
and
All Quiet on the Western Front
in the same sentence.”

Ignoring him, her gaze bounced from my face to my food. “Layla, you haven’t even touched your burger.”

Maybe somehow I’d instinctively known I was going to need a reason to stick around. I sucked in a sigh. “You guys go ahead. I’ll meet up with you in a few minutes.”

“For real?” Sam stood.

“Yep.” I picked up my burger. “I’ll be down in a few.”

Stacey eyed me suspiciously. “You’re not going to bail on us like you always do?”

I flushed with guilt. I’d lost count of how many times I’d had to ditch them. “No. I swear. I’m just going to eat my food and I’ll be right there.”

“Come on.” Sam wrapped an arm around Stacey’s shoulders, steering her toward the trash can. “Layla would’ve been done eating by now if you hadn’t talked to her the entire time.”

“Oh, blame it on me.” Stacey dumped her trash, sending me a wave as they headed out.

I set the burger back down, watching Lady Poser impatiently. Pieces of bun and meat fell out of her mouth, splattering on the brown tray. My appetite was effectively slaughtered within seconds. Not that it really mattered. Food only eased the ache gnawing at my insides, never stopping it.

Lady Poser finally completed her feast of fatness, and I grabbed my bag as she ambled out the door. She plowed straight into an elderly man, knocking him right over as he tried to come in. Wow. This one was a real gem.

Her cackle could be heard inside the noisy restaurant, sounding as thin as paper. Luckily, some dude helped the man up as he shook his fist at the retreating demon.

Sighing, I dumped my food and followed her out into the late-September breeze.

Different shades of souls were everywhere, humming around bodies like an electrical field. Traces of pale pink and robin’s-egg blue trailed behind a couple walking hand in hand. They had innocent souls—but not pure.

All humans had a soul—an essence—good or bad, but demons weren’t rocking any such thing. Since
most
demons topside looked human at first glance, the lack of soul around them made my job of finding and tagging them easy. Besides the soulless factor, the only difference between them and humans was the odd way their eyes reflected light like a cat’s.

Lady Poser shuffled down the street, limping slightly. Out in the natural light, she didn’t look well. She’d probably already bit a few humans, which meant she needed to be tagged and dealt with ASAP.

A flyer on a green lamppost caught my attention. A fierce scowl and sense of protectiveness filled me as I read the thing: Warning. Wardens Aren’t God’s Children. Repent Now. The End Is Nigh.

Underneath the words was a crudely drawn picture of what I assumed was a rabid coyote mixed with a chupacabra.

“Sponsored by the Church of God’s Children,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

Nice. I hated fanatics.

A diner down the block had the flyers plastered across its windows and a sign proclaiming they refused to serve Wardens.

Anger spread through me like an out-of-control wildfire. These idiots had no idea of all that the Wardens sacrificed for them. I drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I needed to focus on my Poser instead of silently stomping my mental feet on my pretend soapbox.

Lady Poser turned a corner and glanced over her shoulder, her glassy eyes drifting over me, dismissing me outright. The demon in her didn’t sense anything abnormal about me.

The demon inside of
me
was in a hurry to get this over with.

Especially after my cell went off, vibrating against my thigh. Probably Stacey wondering where in the Hell I was. I just wanted to be done with this and go back to being normal for the rest of the evening. Without thinking, I reached up and pulled on the chain around my neck. The old ring dangling off the silver rope felt hot and heavy in my hand.

As I passed a group of kids around my age, their gazes moved over me, stopped and then swung right back. Of course they stared. Everyone did.

My hair was long. Big deal there, but it was such a pale blond that it looked nearly white. I hated when people stared. It made me feel like an albino. But it was my eyes that really caught people’s attention. They were a light gray, almost leached of color.

Zayne said I looked like the long-lost sister of the elf in
Lord of the Rings.
That
was a huge confidence booster. Sigh.

Dusk had begun to settle in the nation’s capital as I rounded Rhode Island Avenue and came to a complete stop. Everything and everyone around me disappeared in an instant. There, in the soft flicker of the street lamps, I saw the soul.

It looked as if someone had dipped a brush into red paint and then flicked it over a soft black canvas. This guy had a bad soul. He wasn’t under the influence of a demon, but was just plain old evil all on his own. The dull ache in my gut flared to life. People pushed past me, casting annoyed looks in my direction. A few even muttered. I didn’t care. I didn’t even care about their soft pink souls, a color I usually found so pretty.

I finally focused on the figure behind the soul—an older man dressed in a generic business suit and tie, briefcase handle clutched in a meaty hand. Nothing to run from, nothing to be frightened of, but I knew different.

He’d sinned
big-time.

My legs moved forward even as my brain screamed at me to stop, to turn around, even to call Zayne. Just hearing his voice would make me stop. Would stop me from doing what every cell in my body demanded I do—doing what was
almost
natural to me.

The man turned slightly, his eyes drifting over my face, down my body. His soul swirled crazy fast, becoming more red than black. He was old enough to be my father and that was gross, really gross.

He smiled at me, smiled in a way that should’ve sent me running in the other direction. I needed to go in that direction, too, because no matter how rotten this man was—no matter how many girls out there would hand me a gold medal for taking him out—Abbot had raised me to deny the demon inside. He’d raised me to be a Warden, to act like a Warden.

But Abbot wasn’t here.

I met the man’s stare, held it and felt my lips curve into a smile. My heart raced, my skin tingled and flushed. I wanted his soul—so bad my skin wanted to peel itself off my bones. It felt like waiting for a kiss, when your lips were moments away from joining, those breathless seconds of anticipation. But I’d never been kissed before.

All I had was
this.

This man’s soul called to me like a siren’s song. It sickened me to be so tempted by the evil in his spirit, but a dark soul was as good as a pure one.

He smiled as he eyed me, his knuckles blanching around the handle of the briefcase. And that smile made me think of all the horrible things he could have done to earn the swirling void around him.

An elbow dug into my lower back. The tiny speck of pain was nothing compared to the exquisite anticipation. Just a few more steps and his soul would be so close—
right there.
I knew the first taste would spark the sweetest fire imaginable—a high for which there was no equivalent. It wouldn’t last very long, but the brief moments of pure ecstasy lingered as a potent allure.

His lips wouldn’t even need to touch mine. Just an inch or so, and I’d taste his soul—never take it all. Taking his soul would kill him and that was evil, and I wasn’t—

This was evil.

I jerked back, breaking eye contact. Pain exploded in my stomach, shooting through my limbs. Turning away from the man was like denying my lungs of oxygen. My skin burned and my throat felt raw as I forced one leg in front of the other. It was a struggle to keep walking, to not think about the man and to find the Poser again, but when I finally spotted her, I let out the breath I was holding. Focusing on the demon at least served as a distraction.