Every Last Breath (The Dark Elements #3)(21)
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Elijah started toward me.

“Bambi!” I summoned the familiar. “Help Roth.”

There was a tickle above my belly button and then from under the hem of my sweater, a twisty, dark shadow floated out and spilled into the space in front of me. The shadow broke into a million marble-size balls, bouncing silently off the rooftop. They shot toward one another, piecing together rapidly.

Bambi raised her diamond-shaped head, her red eyes glimmering in the sunlight. Her mouth opened, revealing fangs the size of my hand. She looked hungry.

Then again, Bambi always looked hungry.

The snake shot across the rooftop, heading right for a lighter-haired Warden. Roth whirled out of the way as Bambi struck, nailing the Warden in the throat. There was a high-pitched yelping sound.

Roth’s low laugh sent chills over my skin as he moved toward the third Warden, toying with him, clearly enjoying himself. He was sort of beautiful to watch, the grace in the way he moved, almost like a dancer performing on stage.

“You defile your body with familiars now?” Elijah’s voice was laden with disgust.

“Really? Do I need to repeat myself? You hooked up with Lilith!”

Elijah snarled. “And I regret giving you creation with every single breath I take. Just as I’m sure Abbot has regretted saving your life.”

Ouch. That— Okay, that cut deeper than I thought, and I flinched, because the wound was so raw. But that pain gave way to something red-hot in me. Muscles in my stomach and legs tightened, and I let the shift come over me.

It was on like Donkey Kong.

Cool air hit my back as my shirt tore at the collar. My wings unfurled, arcing behind me as I felt my skin harden as if it was icing over.

Elijah immediately drew up short, his mouth dropping open. “What the…?”

“Yeah. My wings are feathered now. It’s weird. I know.”

He shook his head as he took a step back from me— literally backed away. Instead of gawking over that, I used it to my advantage. Relying on all the offensive techniques that Zayne had showed me over the years, I harnessed the power in my legs and my core. I spun around, faster than I had ever moved before, and kicked out and up, catching Elijah in the chest.

The blow staggered him, but that was a small victory. Throwing a punch that would make a boxer proud, I coldcocked Elijah in the jaw, snapping his head back. Pain burst across my hand, but I ignored it as I looked up, meeting Roth’s gaze.

“Damn,” he said, not taking his eyes off me as his hand snapped out, catching the Warden by the throat. Pride and something far deeper churned in those tawny depths. “Still hot as Hell.”

I flashed a quick grin in his direction before I turned back to Elijah just in time to miss the clawed hand that was aiming for my face.

“You cannot be,” he grunted, pupils dilated.

I jumped back as he reached for me again, but he caught my wing in his grip. He twisted his hand. I heard an almost delicate crack, and startling pain arced across my wing, slamming into my shoulder and powering down my spine.

Unable to stop it, a cry punched out of me, but that spark of pain ignited a fire in me. I started to bring my knee up, but before I could utter “jerk face,” Elijah slammed his palm into my chest.

The blow knocked me off my feet and through the air as if he’d tossed me. I flew back, over the edge of the roof overlooking the alley.

“Layla!” Fear filled Roth’s shout.

As I started to topple into nothing but air, instinct came out of cruise control. The pain in my left wing knocked the air out of my lungs, but I pushed through it, grinding my teeth as I caught myself. The movement was like taking a lighted match to my wing, but I darted up several feet above the rooftop.

He’d broken my wing!

Startled, Elijah shouted as he reached into the torn coat and pulled out a dagger, and I knew without even getting close that it was iron—and if you had even the tiniest amount of demon blood, iron could be deadly.

He crouched, and then shot into the air, and that fire in me burned into an inferno. I shot across the rooftop as Elijah raised his hand, swinging the dagger toward me. I dropped to the concrete, and the dagger swung over my head. I grabbed hold of his legs, my claws digging in as I yanked down with all my strength.

Elijah hadn’t expected that move, and he went down as I made a pass at him, the tips of my claws missing him by an inch. Spinning around, I swung out my clawed hand. I didn’t graze him this time. My claws hit him across the chest, digging in deep, tearing open the hardened skin. Blood spurted and then sprayed. Shock splashed across Elijah’s face as he stumbled back, toward the roof’s edge, his hands pressing against his chest. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but as he stared at me, I saw my opening. His throat was vulnerable and exposed. If I caught him there, he wouldn’t recover.

I took a step toward him, my wings twitching as I raised my hand again. My muscles were strung tight with anticipation. I wanted to bring him to his knees, end him. He was my father and he’d tried to have me killed more times than I probably even knew of. Killing him would be understandable, justified even, because if I didn’t, he was surely going to come after me again and again.

My eyes locked with his blue ones, and all that fury, and all that hurt swirled together into a cyclone of messy, dirty emotions. All those years of feeling like I didn’t belong, that I was cast out and unwanted. The shock of knowing that my own flesh and blood wanted me dead slammed into me just as hard as it had when I’d first learned the truth, and I…

I felt sad for him.

I could’ve been the little girl that looked up to him. I could’ve been a good daughter to him. I could’ve had years getting to know him. I could’ve loved him.

But he had made the choice to never have any of that.

In the end, he wasn’t worth the lifetime of guilt I’d shoulder.

Lowering my hand, I took a step back from Elijah as I felt a Warden hit the rooftop, hard enough to crack the cement. Even as I started to speak, a dark blur—a shadow—appeared over the ledge, and then shot across the rooftop.

Before any of us could move or react, Sam was there, standing in between Elijah and me. Not Sam, I realized with a fresh jolt of pain, but the Lilin. It didn’t stop to chat as it darted toward Elijah. The last Warden standing shouted, his words garbled by his cracked face and his yell cut short as Roth took him down, knocking him out.

The Lilin was on Elijah in a nanosecond, wrapping its hand around the Warden’s throat and dragging him down a foot to its level. At first, I was just stunned into immobility. Seeing what looked like Sam completely incapacitate a Warden was bizarre. My head almost couldn’t wrap around the fact that this wasn’t scrawny Sam, but a souped-up version of everyone’s worse nightmare.

The Lilin’s shoulders rose as it inhaled deeply. Horror swamped me as I realized it was feeding on Elijah. His aura blinked like a light going out, and then it was gone. Cold wind blasted into me, throwing around the strands of hair that had come loose across my face as I staggered to the side, already knowing it was too late. The Lilin was too fast, too deadly. It had struck like a cobra, and its venom was the deadliest.

Roth was suddenly behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist, holding me back, but truth be told, I wasn’t moving, because I knew—God, I knew—it was done.

Within seconds, the Lilin released Elijah. The Warden’s back was unnaturally stiff as he backed into the ledge. I expected him to transform into something horrifying at that point, like Petr had when I stripped his soul away, but that didn’t happen.

Elijah’s skin pinked as he slipped back into his human form and his wings folded into his back. Fangs and claws receded. The wound in his chest, the wound I’d given him, was even gorier now, and the scar along his face stood out starkly.

There was no wraith.

There was nothing left of Elijah’s soul.

Those blue eyes usually filled with such hate were dull and unfocused as Elijah fell backward, over the ledge. Gone.

Whipping around, the Lilin faced us. Immediately, it began to transform, its body contorted as it doubled over before it straightened, throwing its head back. The length of it stretched, and then it expanded, bulking up.

“Oh my God,” I whispered as an all-new awfulness hit me.

The Lilin was taking on Elijah’s form, just as it had Sam’s. It was becoming something totally different, and within mere moments, what looked like Sam was no longer standing in front of us.

Instead, there was an exact replica of Elijah, down to the scar cutting across the side of his face, right to the corner of his lips.

“You’re welcome.” The Lilin even sounded like Elijah. The only thing missing was his aura. As had been the case with the Sam doppelgänger, there was nothing around the Lilin.

The Lilin bent on powerful legs as it shook out its shoulders. Its skin hardened to granite and massive wings appeared, spreading out from behind it. One side of its lips curled up in a smirk, and then it launched into the air, quickly disappearing over the rise of the other buildings.

Breathing heavily, I tugged on Roth and his arm slipped away from me. I walked toward the edge of the building and peered down, all the way down to the street below. A crowd of people had gathered. Some were backing away, their hands fluttering to their mouths. Someone whipped around and doubled over.