Page 141 of Stone Cold Touch

The pain that lanced through me was greater than anything I’d ever felt.

“Layla.”

At the sound of Abbot’s voice, I wanted to curl further into myself. “I’m so...sorry. I never wanted this...to happen to him.”

There was silence and I felt him draw closer. Through the haze of tears I realized he wasn’t alone. Almost the entire clan was with him. My eyesight was feeling wonky again, but it seemed as though Nicolai stared at me in horror, pale and shaken.

“Abbot,” Nicolai said, shaking his head as he backed away. “This is wrong.”

He looked over his shoulder at them as Maddox moved to my other side. “You know that this must be done. What we suspected is true. There is no Lilin. There is only Layla.”

I didn’t say anything because it was the truth. There was no Lilin. It had been me. How? I wasn’t quite sure yet, but the evidence pointed to me. Even Roth knew it. The only one who hadn’t known was Zayne, and look at where that got him. My body shook as another sob rocked through me. I needed to pull it together.

“We should have stepped in before she attacked my son,” Abbot continued, turning back to me. “It is a miracle that he lives.”

I stopped breathing.

“We have no concrete evidence,” Nicolai argued while Donn frowned. “Just suspicions. She is—”

“She is not a child,” said Donn, his blue eyes snapping.

I didn’t care about any of this. If Zayne was alive, why was I here? “He’s...okay?”

Abbot turned to me. With his hair loose around his face, he looked so much like Zayne it hurt to see him. “My son lives.”

“And...h-how is he?”

Sympathy crossed Nicolai’s face as he moved forward this time. “He’s himself. And he’s been lo—”

“Enough,” snapped Abbot.

My heart pounded in my chest. Zayne was really okay? I wanted to see him, to see it for myself. “Can I...can I go home now?”

A keen emotion flashed in Abbot’s eyes and then he looked away, shaking his head slightly. “This can no longer continue. Because of me, too much has already happened. Too many lives are now in my hands and some have slipped through.”

“Abbot, I must protest this,” Nicolai argued, and those words spurred an argument I wasn’t even following.

Zayne was alive and by most accounts, he soundedokay. That was all that mattered. Everything would have to work itself out now. He was alive and—

Pain exploded in my stomach, deep and wrenching fiery pain that rose up, captured my breath and caused my body to go rigid. My senses fired in every direction. I didn’t understand what had happened or why Nicolai and Dez were shouting. Or even why Abbot looked horrified as he stared upon me.

“There,” Maddox said, and pulled his arm back. My body moved with him, in a way that wasn’t normal. “It’s done and over. All of it.”

A fire swept through my body as I looked down. Why was there oil on my stomach? No, that wasn’t oil. That was blood. A lot of blood. As Maddox walked away, the sharp end of his dagger was covered in it.

Holy crap.

The bastard had stabbed me!

I tried to pull my arms forward to cover the wound, forgetting they were secured. This was badder than bad. It was an iron blade, deadly to demons. Even though I was only part demon, this wasn’t...

I opened my mouth and all I could taste was blood. “Why?” The question leaked out, and I wasn’t even sure why I’d asked. I knew the answer. Maddox had only done what he was supposed to do—what Roth had also been ordered to do: stop whatever was taking the souls of innocent people, thereby ensuring that the Alphas wouldn’t intervene. But the question came again. “Wh-why?”

Then chaos reigned.

A window shattered and there was Roth standing just inside the room, the silvery rays of moonlight at his back forming an aura of their own. He let out a howl of rage.

And then another.

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