Every Last Breath

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Roth watched me, not like he expected me to break down at any given moment, but simply like he was concerned. He didn’t have to ask as he walked over to me.

  “I... I keep thinking that was how...how Sam died,” I admitted. “I’ll think of something else and then he’s back in my mind.”

  Roth knelt before me. “Layla—”

  “You saw what the Lilin did. He took my... He took Elijah’s soul and then swallowed it. The soul was consumed and it looked like him afterward.” Lifting my gaze, I met Roth’s. “That was how Sam died and that’s why the Lilin was able to look like him. It had to have been so painful.” I squeezed my eyes shut briefly. “But quick, right? It looked like it happened so quick with Elijah.”

  He placed his hands on my knees, rubbing gently. “It was quick.”

  Shoulders dropping, I shook my head slightly. “I... I’m not really upset about Elijah and he was my father. What does that say about me?”

  His expression hardened. “That says nothing about you. That asshole donated sperm. That’s the truth. That is all. He was not your father. You don’t owe him a single moment of sadness. You owe him nothing.”

  What he said was true, but... “It’s still hard not to feel guilty.”

  He didn’t respond while he studied me closely. “You...you are so human sometimes, Layla, and yet, there is not a drop of human blood in you.”

  “Socialization?” I offered, and Roth laughed under his breath. “I’m serious, though. Stacey and...and Sam’s influence on me, I think. They kept me human, and I like that. I like that I feel human.”

  “I love that about you.” His response was quick, surprising me.

  “Really?”

  He nodded solemnly, and I smiled a little. “You don’t owe Elijah anything,” he reinforced. “Please tell me you understand that.”

  “I do.” But it was harder to accept it.

  His gaze returned to searching. “You’re not planning anything, are you?”

  I stilled. “Like what?”

  “To get Sam’s soul?” he asked, his eyes latched onto mine. “Don’t try to deny it—I know that’s what you want. I will go and—”

  “No. You cannot go down there. I know that if you do, they’ll keep you there,” I interrupted. “You can’t.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Someone has been talking to Cayman.”

  I didn’t deny that. “I don’t want you to put yourself at risk.”

  “Not even for Sam?” he challenged.

  Knowing what I planned to do made it hard to say the next word. “No.”

  “And I don’t want you to risk it for him,” he replied. “I don’t care if that sounds cruel. You don’t want me to take the chance. I feel the same about you.”

  Saying what I did next was even harder than that one word, because I was going to lie and I didn’t want any lies between us, but I had to do something for Sam. There was no way around it and I knew if I told Roth, he would find a way to stop me or he would go with me. Neither of those two things could happen.

  “How could I get Sam’s soul?” I asked. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  Roth didn’t reply as he stared at me, and I knew that he had the answers. If Cayman did, he had to, but if Cayman also knew Grim wasn’t in Hell right now, then there was a big chance that Roth was aware of that, too. And I also knew there was a possibility that Roth planned on going to Grim despite the risks.

  I would have to get there before he did.

  “Do you think you can shift real quick, before Cayman gets here with the food? I want to check out your wings.”

  Denying Roth this was just going to delay the inevitable and I was thankful for the change in conversation. I shrugged out of my sweater. There were two small tears in the back from where my wings had ripped through the material earlier, but the tank top underneath felt intact.

  Before I changed forms, I tried what Roth had done with the kittens. I skimmed my fingers over the area Bambi rested on and low and behold, she came right off my skin. Neat.

  Bambi made her way to Roth first, nudging his thigh with her nose. He reached down, patting her head. Appeased by that, she slithered over to the low-backed chair near the piano. Curling up, she rested her head on the arm and appeared to stare out the window.

  Shifting wasn’t hard anymore. I really didn’t even have to concentrate or even stand up. I wanted it to happen and it did. My back tingled and then my wings started coming out, the left wing aching, and when I glanced back at it, it drooped slightly, like baby Izzy’s wings did.

  “I think it’s broken,” I told him.

  Roth walked over to the bed and sat down, twisting toward me. He checked out the wing. “Does it hurt?”

  “It aches,” I admitted. “Not too bad.”

  His gaze moved to my face and then back to my wing. “It could’ve been broken, but it looks like it’s already healing.” His fingers brushed along the edge of the feathers, not near the aching part. While his touch was gentle, it still sent a shudder through me. He immediately pulled his hand back. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. They’re just supersensitive.”

  He arched a brow as he opened his mouth and then closed it. I grinned and said, “I think your mind just went into the gutter.”

  “Shortie, my mind exists there.” He winked at my laugh, and then studied my wing for a few more moments. “I think if you can give it a rest for a couple hours, a day tops, you’ll be completely fine.”

  I glanced back at the sad, gimpy wing. “Do you think the feathers will fall off?”

  “What?”

  My cheeks burned. “Maybe I’m going through some kind of metamorphosis and I’m going to shed these feathers.”

  He looked like he wanted to laugh, but wisely kissed my bare shoulder instead. Standing from the bed, he walked over to where he’d left his water. “You really hate those things, don’t you?”

  “I don’t hate them. Not exactly.” I moved my right wing closer to me and gingerly ran my fingers over the feathers. “I just don’t understand them. So some Upper Level demons have them. I get them, but I’m not an Upper Level demon.”

  Roth took a drink, and then placed the bottle down. “You know you feel like an Upper Level demon now, to other Wardens and demons, which could be because you’re maturing. Maybe the feathers are another sign of that maturity. You’re not like the rest of us—or any demon really. You’re a blend, and that makes your growth patterns tough to predict.” He shrugged a shoulder. “That’s the best guess I can come up with, anyway, but I’m a little out of my element here. Most of us were created almost fully formed and the growth that takes others decades to achieve, we finish in a day.”

  “Aren’t you just special,” I muttered under my breath.

  He grinned. “The feathers and the way you look now when you shift? Yeah, I don’t understand that myself. I get that my response isn’t helpful, but you’re the first who carries both Warden and demon blood—and not just any demon’s blood, but Lilith’s. This could just be a stage of you finally coming into who you truly are.”

  At that moment I remembered I hadn’t told him about the other demon in the coffee shop. “When I went to talk to Zayne about...well, you know what, there was an Upper Level demon who came into the shop after he left. You know how demons don’t normally sense me, right? This one did.”

  “Upper Level demons are different, Shortie. Some of them probably could sense what you are.”

  Huh.

  I lifted my gaze to his. “But this demon...it ran from me, Roth.”

  Both brows lifted.

  “It legit ran from me and it looked scared,” I continued, unsettled by the memory. “I’ve never known an Upper Level demon to run from anything, not even the Wardens.”

  “They don’t.” His features tensed. “The only thing an Upper Level would run from would be the Boss, me, or...”

  My heart turned over heavily. “Or what?”

  Roth’s frown did no
thing to deter from his beauty, but it made my stomach drop nonetheless. “They’d run from one of the originals.”

  “Originals?”

  He leaned against the wall, eyeing me with lowered lashes. “The originals, Shortie, the ones that are like the Boss. The ones that fell.”

  “That fell...?” I whispered to myself, and then it hit me. “You mean, the angels that fell when they were first sent here to help mankind?” When he nodded, my eyes widened. “They have black raven wings?”

  His lips did that twitching thing again. “Yeah. So does the Boss.”

  Pressure settled on my shoulders. “But that...”

  “That doesn’t make sense, I know. That’s why I didn’t bring it up. You’re not one of the original ones to fall. Obviously,” he said, dragging the palm of his hand over his chest. “That’s why I think it’s some kind of stage. You just started shifting, Shortie. You don’t know all that you’re fully capable of.”

  I sighed. If this truly was just a phase, then what would be next? Horns along my spine, like some kind of dinosaur. Or maybe scales like Thumper’s. “So why do you think the demon ran?”

  “You smell like me.”

  “Uh... Come again?”

  The crooked grin reappeared. “My scent is all over you. Other demons would be able to pick it up.”

  I resisted the urge to smell myself.

  “It’s unique to demons,” he explained. “Our scents, that is. Sort of like a fingerprint. Most demons with a working brain cell would pick up on my scent and head in the opposite direction.”

  I was still trying not to smell myself when I remembered that Zayne had once said he could smell Roth on me. Suddenly, what I always smelled around him made sense. “You smell like something sweet and...musky.”

  The grin faded and a long moment passed as he eyed me intensely. “You smell like sunlight.”

  My breath halted in my throat. I had no idea what sunlight smelled like, but I imagined it was something good and I also thought that was sweet of him to say.

  Unexpectedly self-conscious, I reached over, toying with the edge of my right wing. “I feel like a...peacock.”

  “Back to birds again, I see.” His expression softened. “Many believe peacocks are beautiful.”

  “How about a cockatoo?”

  Roth’s eyes lightened. “I’m sure there are some that find them beautiful, also.”

  “A pigeon?”

  He chuckled. “Layla, nothing about you reminds me of a pigeon.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  There was a pause. “Have you really looked at yourself since this...this change, while you’re shifted? Except the first time?”

  Lowering my gaze, I shook my head.

  “You should do that sometime soon. Maybe you’ll see what I see. Maybe you’ll see what everyone else sees,” he said quietly. “Because you’re beautiful, Layla, and while I may say that one word to you a lot, I don’t simply toss it around. And I’ve seen many, many beautiful things. People as beautiful as demons are atrocious. You, by far, shine brighter than any of them. It’s more than what is on the outside. It comes from within you. I’ve seen a lot of things and nothing, nothing comes close to you.”

  Oh gosh, as I lifted my gaze, I had my heart and all the stars in the sky in my eyes. That was possibly the loveliest thing anyone had ever said to me, and I knew, in every cell that made up my being, that he believed in those words. They were true to him. Those words were his reality.

  Cayman arrived with the food before I could formulate a half-decent response and Roth flipped on the TV. I shifted back, and then we delved into a platter of hamburgers, chicken tenders and fries. He dipped everything in ranch dressing, even his burger, something I hadn’t noticed before.

  Afterward I headed to the bathroom to wash my hands and face, figuring I needed to after I basically shoved my face in the plate of the food. When I returned, only the light from the television illuminated the room. The plate was gone and Roth was stretched out on the bed, arms behind his head. His stomach was impossibly flat while I knew I looked like I was carrying a food baby.

  Sometimes, and this was one of those moments, I felt completely in over my head when it came to Roth.

  Walking over to him, I climbed onto the bed and lay down on my side, facing him. My heart was racing as if I’d run from the bathroom to the bed a dozen or so times.

  Roth turned his head and looked at me.

  I wiggled closer.

  He watched me.

  I squirmed even closer, until the front of my body was pressed against the side of his. Without looking up at him, I rested my head on his chest. A moment passed and he lowered his arms.

  “The evening didn’t pan out like I’d wanted,” he said.

  That’s when I remembered his surprise. “That’s okay.”

  “I wanted to take you out on a date,” he went on, almost as if he hadn’t heard me. “Something normal. Dinner. Maybe a movie.”

  Lifting my head, I gazed up at him, startled.

  His eyes met mine. “I know that sounds crazy with everything going on, but that’s what...that’s what humans do. They go out. Eat food. Watch a movie neither of them is really paying attention to.”

  “They do.”

  He shifted onto his side and scooted down so he was eye level with me. “I think they spend the whole dinner and movie thinking about the other person, about what’s going to happen when it’s time to leave. Will she invite him in? Will he invite her? Will there be a kiss? More?”

  My toes curled. “Is that how you would spend the time?”

  “Yes. A hundred percent yes,” he said. “I wanted to give you that date, though. I wanted to give you that night. That was my surprise.”

  Moved through and through, I stretched over and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I want that night with you, but I don’t need it. What I need is this—these seconds and minutes with you. That’s what I’ll always need.”

  His hand settled on my arm. “You deserve more than that.”

  Because he said that, he deserved another kiss. And because he said that, I fell more in love, even when I didn’t know that was possible. “We had dinner tonight and the TV is on now. That’s as good as a movie. And you’ve taken my mind off the bad things and you’ve told me I’m beautiful. You’ve given me the night you wanted.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and then his lips curved up at the corners. His smile raced across his face, softening the harsh lines. Several moments passed before he spoke. “Do you know why sometimes I have to move away from you?” he asked, skimming his fingers along my arm.

  The statement caught me off guard. “No.”

  Roth tracked the movement of his hand with his gaze. “Whenever I’m around you, I always want to be touching you.”

  Muscles low in my stomach tightened in response to his admission.

  “I’m not even sure if it’s a want or more of a need to do so,” he continued, and his thick lashes lowered, shielding his eyes. His fingers moved along my stomach to my hip. “It’s always been that way, from the first time I saw you. Even then I wanted to touch you. I think it’s because...there is nothing like you where I’m from. Your inherent goodness,” he said, lifting his gaze to mine. “I can feel it. I don’t know, maybe I just like the way your skin feels under my hands. Who knows? I might have a boundaries problem.”

  I grinned. “Maybe just a little, but I don’t mind.”

  We lay in silence for a few moments and my thoughts began to wander beyond tonight, beyond all our most pressing problems, and into a very unknown future. “I was thinking.”

  “Oh no.”

  I laughed lightly, and then whatever humor I was feeling vanished. “What are we going to do?” I whispered.

  Roth stiffened. “That’s a broad question, Shortie.”

  “I know.” Snuggling close, I let the warmth of his body steal inside of me. “But I’m thinking about a decade from now.”

  “Hmm.
A decade. I like the sound of that.”

  “I was thinking about two decades from now. Three. When I’m in my forties and look forty, and you look like you do right now,” I explained, staring into the darkness. “Isn’t that going to be weird?”

  “No.”

  There wasn’t a moment of hesitation on his end, but I laughed. “Oh come on, at some point, you’re going to look like my son. The Warden blood in me means I age, Roth. I might look younger than I am when I’m older, but I will age and I will—”