Every Last Breath

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  fabric of my being to seek revenge against those who hurt my own.”

  One could never forget what Roth was. I should be concerned or maybe even angry that he’d be willing to seek revenge, but there was a part of me that was secretly thrilled by the level of his protectiveness. Because the truth was, if the situation had been flipped, I’d want to murder whoever hurt him.

  “I’ll let it go,” he continued, raising my arm to his mouth. He pressed a light kiss against the bruise, and my chest got all mushy. “For now.”

  I groaned as he let go of my arm.

  “Hey, that’s better than me barging into Hell right now, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, when you put it that way, sure.”

  He walked to the bed and sat down. “Grim said some other things,” I said, casting my gaze to the bruises. I tugged my sleeve down. “Things he was a hundred percent correct on.”

  “Like how I’m going to break every finger on his hand?” He patted the bed.

  “No,” I sighed as Bambi peeked out from under the bed. She rose gracefully, nudging Roth’s leg with her snout. “He pretty much called us out for not really doing anything about the Lilin.”

  Bambi placed her head on Roth’s knee and he absently petted her. Immediately, I thought of what she had said about Zayne and where he had actually stroked her, and I had to tell myself not to walk over there and move Roth’s hand to the tip of her snout, because I figured that couldn’t be an inappropriate place on her body.

  God, I needed to stop thinking about that.

  “We’re hardly sitting idly by,” he said, smiling down at Bambi. “Finding the Lilin is not easy. It’s not like he’s aligning himself with anyone.”

  “What about the club you mentioned?”

  “Oh, the one I planned on investigating before you snuck off to Hell?”

  “That’s the one,” I said sheepishly.

  Roth patted his chest and without him having to say a word, Bambi melded to his skin, disappearing under the hem of his shirt. “We can still check that out, but, Layla, I know how Grim can get under your skin. Could we always do more to fight evil? Yes. Should we stop living our lives in the process? No. We’re doing what we can do—more than we have to do.”

  I started to respond, but there was a knock on the door. Roth’s eyes narrowed once more. “Come in if you have the balls.”

  My brows flew up, but then the door opened to reveal Cayman, and I sort of understood the greeting as the demon stepped into room.

  The normal humor and arrogance was gone from his expression, and there was a sick pinch to his appearance that hadn’t been there when I’d seen him in the lobby. I knew immediately it had nothing to do with the tension between him and Roth, but Cayman’s gaze was trained on him.

  “What?” Roth began to stand, apparently also sensing trouble.

  “I’m sorry,” Cayman said, his shoulders stiff. “The witches are here. They’ve come for what I had to promise.”

  twenty

  I SQUEEZED MY eyes shut, swallowing a groan.

  This was the last thing we needed to be dealing with right now, but the witches had saved my life. They were also responsible for my current state. I wasn’t sure if I should be upset with them for giving me something as powerful as the blood of a fallen angel. How could I be? God, it was gross just thinking about the fact that I’d consumed anyone’s blood, but they’d given me the closest thing to immortality, something I hadn’t really had the chance to fully wrap my head around yet.

  Roth and I had no idea what the witches could want in exchange for their help the night Maddox had stabbed me, but by the look on Cayman’s face and the dejected way he walked down the hallway leading to the club, it was a cause for grave concern.

  I already knew this was going to be bad.

  Roth planted both hands on the door, swinging it open as he stalked into the main floor of the club. It was silent, a wholly different atmosphere from what I was accustomed to. None of the dazzling lights were on, and the space looked almost ordinary in the bright glare of the overhead ones. No dancers graced the horseshoe-shaped stage and the shadowy corners of the club were absent of demons and card games.

  The witches sat at one of the high, round-top tables just beyond the stage. There were two of them: the older man who’d received us when we’d gone into the restaurant to meet their crone and learn more about the Lilin, and a younger woman who couldn’t have been much older than me. Both were dressed normally, which was such a stupid thing for me to be surprised about, because it wasn’t like most male witches ran around wearing a black warlock cloak or females a white, billowy dress. They shared similar characteristics—brown hair and eyes, small nose and mouths, and I wondered if they were related. Father and daughter.

  The crone I remembered from our last meeting, the one who’d seemed to call the shots, wasn’t with them—but I wasn’t surprised, because I doubted that woman could travel much. She was so old that when I first met her, I’d expected her to fall over dead at any given moment and explode in a cloud of dust.

  Witches were a very strange breed. They were human, mostly, but somewhere in their bloodline was demonic blood and that was where they got their abilities. But even though they had demonic ancestors, they didn’t claim the connection. Witches didn’t trust the demons and they didn’t trust the Wardens, either. To me, they were neither good nor evil, and typically they stayed far, far away from the drama.

  The coven the two sitting before us belonged to worshipped Lilith, and I immediately wanted to launch into a lecture about what a horrible idea that was.

  “What’s up?” Roth announced as he swaggered right up to their table, completely fearless while I had the common sense to linger a few steps back. We didn’t know what the witches were fully capable of.

  The man eyed Roth warily before flipping his gaze to where I stood beside Cayman. “I see that you are well.”

  “Thanks to you all,” I replied while Roth’s eyes narrowed. I forced myself to take a step forward, hoping to keep everyone cool. “I’m sorry, but your name?”

  He raised his chin slightly. “I’m Paul.”

  “Paul?” repeated Roth. “Funny, somehow I thought you’d be a Eugene or an Omar.”

  I turned to Roth slowly.

  Paul ignored the comment. “And this is Serifina.”

  “That’s a pretty name,” I said, and the girl smiled at me. “I know what your coven gave me when I was hurt.” When Paul was silent on that, I had to ask my next question. “How did you have the blood of a fallen angel?”

  “Does that matter?” he queried.

  “I guess not, but I’m...well, I’m nosy.” I shrugged. “It’s not something that I imagine people, even witches, just have lying around in abundance.”

  “It’s not. And I can tell you it was not easy to obtain nor did we part with it without great consideration,” Paul explained.

  Boredom pulled at Roth’s expression as he leaned back against the stage. “That’s...interesting.”

  Paul’s smile was tight. “All of us have heard of the Prince’s arrogance. How reassuring to see that this rumor is correct.”

  I stiffened as Roth’s lips tipped up on one corner, and when he spoke, his voice was as thick as molasses. “Did you also hear the rumor of how I strung a witch up by his teeth once? Because that was also true.”

  Paul paled, and then his cheeks flushed red while my eyes widened.

  “This is going to go downhill quick,” Serifina said, her voice soft as her gaze darted between Roth and me. “We do not want that. We’ve come for what we were promised and that is all.”

  “And what were you promised?” Roth demanded. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Paul glanced back at Cayman with abject horror etched into his aging features. “You did not tell him?”

  Oh no. This did not sound good.

  “I haven’t asked. It hasn’t been a priority of mine,” Roth replied, and dismissiveness dripped from his tone
.

  Paul exhaled roughly. “You will honor the promise.”

  “Did I say that I would not?”

  Serifina was aghast, shaken. “But you don’t even know what was asked for in return.” She looked at Cayman and seemed to pale even further, to the point I feared she might pass out and topple from the chair.

  “My patience is wearing thin,” Roth warned.

  Paul cleared his throat and appeared to man up. Part of me wanted to stop him from speaking, because the feeling that whatever he was going to say was going to be disastrous was all consuming. “In exchange for saving her life,” he said, “we asked for your familiar in return.”

  I sucked in a sharp, stinging breath as his words bounced around in my head. No. They couldn’t have meant what I thought they did.

  Roth slowly unfolded his arms. “Excuse me?”

  “In exchange for saving h-her, we asked for your familiar,” Paul answered, his nervousness seeping into the room. “That was the d-deal we made.”

  Dumbfounded, I turned to Cayman and he was staring at Roth’s back. “I told you that you would not like what they wanted in return, but you said give—”

  “I told you to give them anything,” Roth cut in, voice harsh. “I know what I said.”

  Cayman flinched, and then lowered his gaze.

  “Wait,” I said, shaking my head. “You guys can’t be serious. Why would you want one of his familiars?”

  Serifina carefully slipped off her chair and stood by the table, obviously having more courage than Paul. “Familiars are very powerful beings, especially when they bond with a person. They are like a siphon, or a conduit. When the Prince’s familiars bond with someone else, after a period of time, the new—”

  “The new person they bond with would develop some of those abilities of the original host,” Roth interrupted. “You want my talents.”

  She swallowed thickly. “That’s not the main reason.”

  “That’s enough for me to hear.” He stepped forward, and the girl shrank back, but he didn’t move any closer. I knew Roth was furious, but I also knew that he would not harm her. “You’re demanding a lot.”

  “A deal is a deal,” Paul said quietly. “And I have the distinct feeling there is no price you wouldn’t pay for the life we saved. Which is why we do not want just any familiar. We were quite specific in our deal.”

  Cayman closed his eyes. “They were. Very specific.”

  Roth sneered in the direction of the witches as my thoughts raced to discover a way out of this. “Which one?”

  Neither witch looked like they wanted to speak the name, but Paul finally manned up and stepped forward. “We made the deal for the snake.”

  “No!” The word burst out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I turned wild eyes on Roth. “Not Bambi. No way.”

  Roth didn’t say anything as he stared at the witches, his shoulders impossibly tensed.

  “Why can’t it be a different one?” I demanded. Giving up Thumper or the kittens would be hard, but letting go of Bambi would be the worst. “Why her?”

  “Because she is the most powerful,” Paul replied simply. “She has bonded not only with the Prince but with you. No other familiar has proven that. She has more of a chance of bonding with one of our own.”

  I spun toward Roth. “No. You don’t have to do this. Screw it. They can’t hurt me or you.” Well, I assumed that they couldn’t, but whatever. “We do not have to do this.”

  Paul turned an incredulous stare on me. “You’d have him break his word?”

  “I’d have you shut the Hell up,” I snapped, my hands closing into fists. Guilt churned in the pit of my stomach. This was happening because of me. I hadn’t purposely gotten myself stabbed, but getting involved with Zayne without truly questioning why I’d been able to kiss him had led to the incident of him kissing me. Which led to everything else that had happened afterward.

  “She’s right.” Cayman rubbed the heel of his hand along his bruised jaw. “Roth, she’s right. You know there’s a way out of this. I would not...hold it against you. I know how much Bambi means to you, and I knew that when I brokered the deal.”

  Roth wheeled around to face Cayman. “You brokered the deal believing that I would not honor it?”

  Cayman nodded.

  Disbelief flickered across Roth’s face. “You know what will happen if I do not honor this deal.”

  Cayman nodded once more.

  Roth cursed as he reached up and thrust his fingers through his hair before stalking toward the other demon. I braced myself for a brawl of epic proportions, but Roth clamped his hand around the back of Cayman’s head. “You stupid son of a bitch,” he said, but it wasn’t out of anger. My heart wrenched in my chest. Pain filled Roth’s tone. “You would die? You know that’s what would happen. If you broker a deal and it’s not upheld, you die.”

  Oh God.

  “You would do anything to save her,” Cayman whispered, meeting Roth’s gaze. “And I would do anything to serve your best interests, even if that means my death. I never expected you to give up Bambi, but that’s what it took for them to save Layla. So that’s what I promised.”

  My heart might’ve stopped as the words sank in. Cayman had made the deal knowing that Roth might not surrender Bambi. He made it to save me, because that was what Roth wanted.

  The loyalty Cayman felt for Roth was heartbreaking.

  I turned to the witches. “You guys can call off the deal, can’t you?”

  Serifina shook her head. “The crone wants the female familiar.”

  “And the crone gets what she wants,” Paul finished.

  Tears pricked the back of my eyes, and I felt Robin shift along my side, obviously sensing my whirling emotions. This was not right, not fair at all.

  Still holding the back of Cayman’s head, Roth closed his eyes briefly, and then let go, pivoting to face the witches. The hard set of his jaw would’ve sent many a wise man scurrying away.

  “She will not be harmed,” Serifina insisted, attempting to appease us. “She will be treated like a queen.”

  Hearing that didn’t help, because we didn’t know them, and Bambi—it wasn’t like she belonged to us. There was so much Bambi had done for us—for me, and now we were supposed to just hand her over to strangers? She was a part of us and they were asking that we give her up—that Roth get rid of her.

  I walked over to Roth, unsure of what to say. Our eyes met for a moment, and the hard glint was gone just long enough for me to see the true extent of the turmoil he was feeling. I placed my hand on his arm, and he nodded.

  “Bambi,” he said, his gaze still holding mine. “Off.”

  I didn’t want to see it, but like all the times before, Bambi came off his skin and spilled into the space beside him, rapidly piecing together. Bambi rose, twisting her neck toward the witches before nudging Roth in the hip.

  She had to know. I knew that, because that was how the bonding worked, and my chest ached as she stretched over, poking my arm with her snout. Tears blurred my vision as I reached out, running my hand on the soft scales between her eyes.

  “There has to be some other way,” I said hoarsely.

  “There’s not,” he said, his voice low. “Cayman is not at fault. He did what he was supposed to do.”

  “I know.”

  “And I will not do that to him,” he continued. “When demons die, it’s not like humans. It involves the pits.”

  That wouldn’t be fair either, and even though Roth and Cayman had gone at each other yesterday over me going to Hell, those two were friends. Frankly, I was pretty sure Cayman was Roth’s only friend outside of me, and Roth had to choose between two bad options. Give up Bambi to a coven of witches or sentence his friend to death.

  Bambi turned to Roth and rose up to her full height. She rested her head on his shoulder, and when she lifted it, Roth pressed a kiss between her eyes. “Which one of you is she supposed to go to? I doubt that you plan on walking out with her in th
is form.”

  “No.” Serifina smoothed her hands over the dark trousers she wore. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Is it?” Roth asked, and then he raised his eyes to her. When she nodded, he smiled cruelly. “If you so much as cause her a drop of pain, I will know. And I do not care what consequences I will face, I will hunt not only you down, but your entire coven.”

  “No harm will come to her,” she promised.