Page 112 of White Hot Kiss

Out of everything that happened that night, I’m pretty sure that was the worst.

“All I can trust myself to say right now is that you are so very lucky we were able to retrieve The Lesser Key of Solomon.” Abbot loomed over me, his mere presence suffocating. He was bruised, too. Not as badly as Nicolai, but redness marred his brow. “If we hadn’t, there’d be no way of preventing the Alphas from becoming involved.”

My fingers still trembled as I tucked my hair back. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t. I cannot fathom what you were thinking by aiding a demon in retrieving The Lesser Key of Solomon.”

“He was helping me. He’s not like—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence.” Rage deepened his voice. “Because if you say he’s not like other demons, I may not be able to control myself.”

“But he’s not. You don’t understand. Let me explain—”

Abbot shot forward, grabbing the arms of the chair I sat on. I shrank back from the anger mottling his face. Over his shoulder, I saw both Nicolai and Zayne step forward and I wasn’t sure if they were coming to my aid or were about to help Abbot choke me.

“I am so disappointed, I am sickened by it,” he seethed. “How could you, Layla? I raised you better than this, as if you were a child of my own blood, and this is how you repay me?”

I flinched. “Please let me explain, Abbot. It’s not what you think.” My gaze darted to Zayne, but he looked away. “Please.”

Abbot stared at me for a moment and then pushed back, folding his arms. I took his silence as a reluctant yes. “I wasn’t working with a demon to conspire against you. I’m part demon, right? But I’m not like other demons.”

“That’s what I had always believed,” he replied coldly.

I sucked in a sharp breath. That hurt. “He helped me, saving me from the Seeker that I ran into.” Taking a deep breath, I told him almost everything, leaving out the more personal stuff that would surely send the Wardens through the roof. “He was sent from Hell to make sure a demon didn’t raise—”

“Raise the Lilin?” he said. “And he told you what you are? How important the incantation in the Lesser Key is? Did he tell you that’s why the Key was hidden all that time ago? To ensure that no one would ever be able to bring the Lilin back to this Earth?”

“Yes. He told me everything. We needed the Key to see what was in the incantation. He wasn’t using it to raise the Lilin.”

“And you believed him?” Abbot knelt in front of me, forcing his gaze to mine. “Why would you trust a demon, Layla?”

A knot lodged in my throat. “Because he hasn’t lied to me, and he has come to my aid—”

“Was he the demon that killed Petr?”

The room was so silent you could hear a grasshopper sneeze. “Yes.”

“Did Petr even attack you or was that a lie?”

I gasped in outrage. “Yes! Petr attacked me. Why would I lie about that?”

Abbot’s eyes flared a brilliant azure. “You have been doing nothing but lying since you met this demon! Why would I assume there was one truth mixed in among the lies?”

I don’t know what he said that did it, and maybe it was a combination of fear and frustration because I couldn’t get a single sentence out, but my control snapped. I shot to my feet so fast that Abbot stood and backed up—he actually backed up from me. Anger rushed over my skin like static. “You jump down my throat when you’ve been lying to me since the beginning!”

Abbot’s nostrils flared.

“What? You don’t have anything to say about that?” I took a step forward, empowered by the anger. There was so much fury, it was like a second soul inside of me. “You’ve known all along who my mother was and what could happen! You’ve told just as many lies as I have!” I cast a dark glare around the room. The hurt was unbearable when my eyes landed on Zayne. “All of you have been lying to me!”

“We were trying to protect you,” Nicolai said.

“How was keeping me in the dark going to protect me? There are demons out there looking for me! And not the one you attacked tonight! If it wasn’t for him, we’d probably have Lilin running all over the world right now, or I’d be dead.”

“I thought keeping you away from the truth was better than you knowing the stain you carry in your blood,” Abbot said.

I flinched. “The stain in my blood?”

“You are Lilith’s daughter.”