Page 64 of White Hot Kiss

“He said I should’ve been killed when the Wardens first found me. Petr’s always hated me, but this...this was more.” I told Roth everything that had happened, stopping every few moments to rest my aching jaw. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“A choice about what?” he asked. “You didn’t kill him. I did. And I’d like to do it again.”

I shook my head and it hurt. “I took his soul, Roth. I don’t understand what happened. He didn’t waste away like a human would. He turned and his eyes were red.”

He stilled, looking me straight in the eye. “You took his soul?”

Tears pricked my eyes.

“Layla,” he said gently. “Did you take his soul completely?”

“I think so.” My voice cracked. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

The hue of his eyes darkened. “You did what you had to do. There is no guilt in what happened. Do you understand me? He was...hurting you. The bastard deserved to die.”

I said nothing to that, and Roth smoothed the cloth over my brow. He was quiet and meticulous as he worked. I watched the muscle in his jaw tick away, his pupils slowly but surely going back to normal by the time he left and returned with a fresh towel.

“How bad is it?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence any longer.

Roth smiled for the first time since he’d found me. “It’s not as bad as it could be. Your lip is split, and there’s going to be one Hell of a bruise on your jaw—” he skimmed his fingers over my brow “—and here. You’re more durable than you look.”

I should’ve felt relief, but I couldn’t. All I could feel were Petr’s hands on me and the way he’d looked after I took his soul. Roth gently started to part the edge of the blanket and my grip tightened. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making sure you’re okay.”

“No.” I leaned away from him, feeling the walls start to close in around me. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Roth placed his hand on my shoulder carefully, but I still winced at the ache traveling down my arm. His eyes hardened. “You’re letting me check you over. I’m not going to hurt you, okay? I promise.”

I stared at him for what seemed like eternity, then I nodded and let go of the blanket. Roth didn’t wait for me to change my mind. He slipped the blanket off my shoulders and when I heard his sharp inhalation, I wanted to grab it again. I felt him move the cloth under my neck, dip between the shredded halves of my camisole.

“He scratched you,” Roth explained after a few moments. “Was he in his true form when he did this?”

“No.” I opened my eyes. “He started to shift when I got ahold of his soul and then he turned completely afterward.”

Before Roth could respond, I felt something soft and warm brush against my ankle. I looked down in surprise. A tiny white kitten stared up at me, eyes as blue as the sky. “Kitten?”

“Yes. It’s a kitten.”

Stunned that Roth would have something so cute, I ignored the wave of dizziness and bent around him, reaching for the tiny ball of fur. Its soft purr was like a miniature engine. Another one popped out from underneath the bed. Black, fluffy and the same size as the other kitten, it shimmied out and pounced on the back of the white one. They rolled, hissing and swatting at one another. I glanced at Roth. “Two?”

He shook his head, pointing back to the head of the bed. “Three.”

A third peeked around the corner of a pillow, a mixture of black and white. It trotted up to me, sweeping at my fingers with surprisingly sharp claws. “I...can’t believe you have kittens.” I wiggled my fingers and the little guy strained to reach them. “What’re their names?”

Roth snorted. “That one is Fury. The white one is Nitro and the black one is named Thor.”

“What? You called these cuties something like that, but named a giant snake Bambi?”

He bent forward, placing a kiss on my shoulder. It was so fast I wasn’t sure he’d actually done it. “There’s sweetness in evil,” he said. “And remember, looks can be deceiving.”

I lowered my fingers, running them over the kitten’s little head.

“I wouldn’t do that if I—”

Fury sank its claws and teeth into my hand. I yelped, jerking my hand back. It remained latched on, a squirming ball of vamp kitty.

Roth grabbed the fluff of fur, gently removing it from my hand. “Bad kitty,” he said, dropping it next to its siblings.