Page 123 of White Hot Kiss
Nausea rose sharply. Petr had been my half brother. That disgusting son of a...
I’d taken my own brother’s soul.
Lying on my side, I curled into a ball and squeezed my eyes shut against the burning that had nothing to do with what had happened in school. A tremor started in my leg, working its way up to my fingers. I tucked them against my chest.
How did one deal with something like this? I doubted there were coping skills I just hadn’t learned yet. I didn’t know what sickened me more. That my own father wanted to kill me or that I’d taken my brother’s soul.
Over the next couple of days, I really didn’t come to any great understanding of everything that had been revealed to me. There was no comprehending it. The only thing I could do was not think about it. That didn’t work out so easily. It was like trying not to breathe. At the strangest moments, it would pop into my head and I couldn’t get it out.
My own father wanted me dead.
The knowledge overshadowed everything, leaving me numb to the core. Part of me could understand Elijah’s hatred because of what I reminded him of, but I was still his daughter. All these years I’d built up this fantasy surrounding my father, convincing myself that even though I was part demon, my father still loved me. That something unfortunate had happened to him and I had gotten lost in the tragedy.
Now that dream had been blown to bits.
The whole thing with Petr also weighed on me. The fact that he was my half brother didn’t change my opinion of the monster, but I wondered if, had I known who he was to me, I would’ve done the same thing.
I wasn’t sure.
Zayne had sneaked in my laptop the day after everything had gone down in the sunroom. I guessed I was still grounded, but he felt bad for me. After sending a quick email to Stacey letting her know that I was sick and didn’t know when I’d be back at school, I lost all interest in the internet.
I wanted to be stronger than all of this, but never in my life had I wished as badly as I did then that I could be something or someone else.
I don’t know what got into me Friday evening. I was standing in front of that damn dollhouse and I hated it.
Wrapping my fingers along the top floor, I pulled hard enough to tear the story right out of the house. It wasn’t enough. The back of my neck tingled as I grabbed the roof and tore it right off the sides. Holding it, I briefly considered swinging the section like a bat, taking out the walls.
“What are you doing?”
I squeaked and spun around. Zayne stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised. His hair was wet from the shower. I flushed. “Um, I’m not doing anything.” I glanced down at the toy roof. “Well...”
His gaze moved behind me. “If you didn’t want the toy house in your bedroom anymore, I could’ve removed it for you.”
Gently, I set the roof on the floor. “I don’t know.”
He cocked his head to the side.
I sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Zayne stared at me for what felt like forever. “Good.”
“Good?” The fact that he’d walked in on me going cray-cray on my toy house didn’t seem like a good thing.
“I have something for you to do. It involves ice cream.”
My eyes went wide. “Ice cream?”
A small smile appeared. “Yeah, I thought we could go get some.”
Excitement rushed through me like a summer storm. It was like Christmas Day. I could get out of the house and it involved ice cream. But the joy faded quickly. “Abbot will never let me.”
“He’s all right with it as long as I’m with you.”
“Do you think it’ll be okay?” I asked, too afraid to get happy again. “What if something happens?”
“A demon isn’t going to come after you while I’m with you.” The confidence in his voice erased any concerns. Zayne was right. It would be suicidal if one did. “It seems like an ice-cream kind of night. You game?” he asked.
When it came to ice cream, I was always game.