Page 27 of Stone Cold Touch

“How’s your arm?” he asked.

When he spoke, his voice rumbled through me. I cleared my throat and then winced at how abrasive it sounded. “It’s okay.”

“We should check it out later.” He shifted his arm and his hand ended up on my belly, just below my navel. I jerked back in surprise, but he didn’t pull away or move his hand. “It’s not why you didn’t go to school, then?”

Swallowing a sigh, I pried my eyes open. On the nightstand, the neon green lights showed 9:01 a.m. I should be on my way to bio at this point. “No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Talking about Roth while lying in bed with Zayne was the last possible thing I ever wanted to do. “No.”

Silence fell between us as his chest rose and fell against my back in an even, deep rhythm. As relaxed as I was, my body was still hyperaware of his, of every breath he took and every tiny spasm of muscle. In the quiet, an ugly thought crept in. Had he lain like this with Danika? I had no right to the caustic burn of jealousy that invaded my blood, but it was there and it was wrong, because they were able to share more than I’d ever be able to share with him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking the words so quietly I wasn’t sure he’d said them at first.

I closed my eyes. “Why?”

There was another long stretch of silence and then he said, “I know you’re hurting and I want to kill the son of a bitch for that.”

My heart turned over heavily. There was no hiding anything from him. Zayne knew me better than I liked to acknowledge. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to strangle Roth and spin kick him in his junk, but I also had a sneaking suspicion that Zayne really,reallywanted to act on his desire, and because I was a girl, I’d cry if Zayne did manage to kill him.

“He’s a demon,” Zayne said. “It doesn’t matter that there are moments when he’ll pull off acts of great compassion, because underneath it, he is what he is.”

I sucked my bottom lip in. “But that’s what I am.”

“No.” Zayne rose slightly, causing his hand to drag across my stomach to my hip. “You’re not just a demon, Layla. You’re also a Warden. It’s not like you can’t be both things and...”

“And?” I turned onto my back, resting on my elbows, and his hand ended up on my belly again, his long fingers reaching the band on my sleep shorts. Our gazes met. “And what?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead his gaze drifted over my face and then down, beyond the collar of my shirt. The blanket had slipped below my chest. He swallowed hard as he returned to lying on his side. His voice was thicker than normal when he spoke. “And why can’t you have the best of both worlds? Like the best qualities, you know?”

“Best qualities of both?” I murmured slowly. “You’re saying there are good qualities in demons?”

“In you.” The hollows of his cheeks flushed, and I blinked a couple of times, but the blush was slow to fade. “You’re part demon. Like I said that night at the ice-cream shop, we shouldn’t have made you hate that part of you.”

I remember him saying that. Those words had been lost in what else had happened that night—Paimon and the devil’s trap—but Iremembered.

“Every part of you is good—even the demon side.” He paused. “And I saw you that night.”

Lying back, I drew in a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

He leaned over me and several locks of hair glided over his cheeks. “You didn’t look like us when you shifted, but you didn’t look like a demon either. You were a mixture of both.”

“So I looked like a freak?”

“No.” His hand moved and his fingers curved around my waist. “Your skin was black and gray, like mottled marble. It was beautiful. Best of both.”

A pleasant heat crept into my cheeks and I fought not to lower my gaze from the intensity in his. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

“What?”

“The ‘beautiful’ thing.”

His lips curled up at the corners in a small smile. “I have been.”

“You need your head checked?”

He rolled his eyes. “Anyway...” His thumb moved in slow, idle circles along my lower stomach. He seemed unaware of it, but then he chuckled softly. “I have no idea what we were talking about.”

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