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He drew back, as if I’d reached across the table and slapped him. “Please don’t expect me to sit here and listen to a speech that makes me feel like a damn runner-up in some kind of contest.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s not how I want you to feel.”
Zayne’s brows lowered as he stared at me. “How in the Hell did you expect me to feel?”
Tears burned the back of my eyes, because I’d never, ever wanted to hurt anyone. Especially not him. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.” He thrust his hand over his head, clasping the back of his neck. A moment passed as tension tightened the lines of his mouth. “I love you,” he ground out, a muscle thrumming along his jaw. “I’m in love with you. I waited for you, Layla. And none of that—none of that matters.”
I didn’t know what to say. It did matter—mattered a whole lot, but how could I say that? Because in the end, even if I went back to the house and Roth laughed in my face, it didn’t change anything.
Anger flashed over his face. “What was going on between us? Was it just passing the time for you?”
“Oh my God, no!” A woman with a faint pink aura glanced in our direction from the coffee line, and I struggled to keep my voice low. “It wasn’t like that at all. God, it was perfect and it was like every fantasy I ever had come to life.”
“Really?” Disbelief flooded his face. “Because how it seems to me is that you were just fooling around until you could be with him.”
“Until I could be with him?” I repeated dumbly. “I don’t even know—”
“Don’t you dare say you don’t know that he loves you. Don’t play stupid by acting stupid,” he spat, and I jerked back, stunned by the rancor in his tone. “Dammit,” he muttered, dropping his arm.
“Zayne—”
“No more,” he ordered, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just no more.”
Zayne didn’t say anything else as he got up, and I didn’t try to stop him as he strode out the front door. Dropping my elbows on the table, I planted my face in my hands. My insides twisted and burned. Even when Zayne had been rightfully upset with me before, he’d never spoken to me like that. Not that I blamed him. I deserved this. I hadn’t been careful with my own actions or with his heart. I didn’t regret anything we shared, but I’d messed up and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get involved with him, because what I’d said a few moments ago had also been true.
It had always been Roth; from the moment he swaggered into that damn alley where I’d been unsuccessfully fighting off a demon, it had been him for me. Maybe I’d been too blind to see that after he returned from the pits. Maybe I had been too angry with him after the way he initially acted. Maybe I had played around with Zayne, even if that hadn’t been my intention. I didn’t know.
All I did know was that I had lost the boy I’d grown up with. If I’d had any doubts about that, the fact that he’d left me here alone told me all I needed to know. As protective as Zayne was of me, there was no way he would have left me unchaperoned with a Lilin still on the loose. Not unless staying away from me was more important than keeping me safe.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I felt an unnatural warmth spreading along the back of my neck, alerting me to the presence of a demon. Expecting to find Cayman when I lifted my head, I looked around the coffee shop. My gaze drifted over the soft shades of auras until I found a young man standing toward the front of the shop with nothing around him.
There was my demon and it wasn’t Cayman.
Grateful to have something to focus on other than the fact that I’d just shattered Zayne’s heart to smithereens, I studied the man at the front of the store as I shifted my hair forward, shielding my face. Due to my dual heritage, demons had never been able to sense me, which made the hunting I’d done in the past easy-peasy. Once again, the mixture of Warden and demon had given me a unique ability to tag demons. One touch and they’d turn into a neon light, leaving a trace on them that the Wardens could easily track.
I hadn’t tagged demons since...well, not since Roth had entered my life, showing me that even demons had a purpose in life. From him I’d learned that some demons weren’t all that bad, like Fiends, who tended to just mess around with things like telephone poles, construction sites, anything electronic, and were a bit prone to being firebugs.
This demon didn’t give off a Fiend vibe and I was willing to bet he also wasn’t a Poser, a demon whose bite turned a human into something that would resemble an extra on the set of The Walking Dead.
No, this demon was giving off the Upper Level kind of vibes, meaning he could be a Duke or a King or any other variety of elite baddie. They weren’t supposed to be topside because the kind of stuff they could pull off could really wreak some nasty, bloody havoc.
I frowned.
Which, apparently, meant that maybe I shouldn’t be topside, either. I kept forgetting that I now smelled like them and sort of resembled some of them. Sigh.
The demon tilted his head to the side, and a lock of shocking white-blond hair fell across dark brows that stood out in stark contrast. He had a rocker look to him, like if the silver chain he wore broke, his skinny jeans would fall right off him. Scanning the coffee shop, he looked me over, kept going, and then his gaze darted back to me.
I froze.
The demon froze.
Uh-oh.
Demons couldn’t sense me, but he was staring directly at me like I’d sprouted a third arm out of the top of my head.
His face paled to the color of his hair as he jerked back a step, bumping into a woman with a pale blue aura. She nearly dropped her bag and coffee as she tried to step around him.
Then he spun on his heel and shoved an older guy out of the way. The man shouted, but the demon reached the door. I wasn’t thinking as I stood. Curiosity and surprise had a hold on me. I hurried across the shop, leaving what was left of my mocha behind. I was a few steps behind the demon when he burst through the door, out onto the sidewalk. He sent a panicked look over his shoulder in my direction.
I skidded to a stop under the awning of the shop. “Uh...”
The demon picked up speed, racing down the sidewalk, disappearing around the block, lost in the sea of muted auras.
“Um,” I murmured, glancing behind me and half expecting to see a pack of Alphas, but it was just me, myself and I, and that meant only one thing.
The Upper Level demon had run away—from me.
I DIDN’T TELL Cayman about the runaway Upper Level demon, and he didn’t ask how the talk went with Zayne, which I was totally cool with. After a near-silent ride, he dropped me off in front of the house.
“Have fun with that,” was all he said, and then he zoomed off.
Turning to the McMansion, I had no idea what Cayman was referring to, but figured I was going to find out soon enough.
The house was dark, but not quiet when I walked in the front door, closing it behind me. The sharp riff of a guitar, quickly lost in the pounding of drums, drifted from the second story.
Frowning, I made my way toward the stairwell, and about halfway up I found something odd. I bent and picked up an empty bottle of beer. Looking up, I realized there was one on each step, all the way to the top. Ten empty bottles.
Oh dear.
My eyes widened as I placed the bottle back on the stair. There was no way I could