White Hot Kiss

He looked chagrined, lips pursed. “I’m...sorr-ree.”

“Oh, give me a break. You can’t say I’m sorry?”

“No.” He looked me straight on, serious. “It’s not in a demon’s vocab.”

“That’s rich.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t even bother trying to say it if you don’t mean it.”

Roth appeared to consider that. “Deal.”

A door across from the gym opened. Assistant Principal McKenzie stepped into the hallway, his drab brown suit at least two sizes too small for his potbelly. He immediately frowned and gained two chins when he spotted us.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in gym, Ms. Shaw, and not in the hallway?” he said, loosening the stretched-out belt around his pants. “You may be mixed up with those things, but that doesn’t give you extra privileges.”

Mixed up with those things? They weren’t things. They were Wardens, and they kept ungrateful asses like McKenzie safe. My fingers reflexively squeezed Roth’s as anger and a little sadness flooded me.

These people had no clue.

Roth glanced at me, then at the assistant principal. He ducked his head, smiling demurely. Right then and there, I knew he was about to do something really bad.

Like demon-level bad.

And all I could do was brace for it.

CHAPTER SIX

“And you?” Assistant Principal McKenzie continued as he waddled toward us, looking Roth up and down with a distasteful eye. “Whatever class you’re supposed to be in, you need to get to. Now.”

Roth dropped my hand and folded his arms across his chest. He returned the look, but an odd light radiated from his pupils. “Assistant Principal McKenzie? As in Willy McKenzie, born and raised in Winchester, Virginia? Graduated from the Commonwealth and married the sweetest little gal from the South.”

The man was obviously caught off guard. “I don’t know—”

“The same Willy McKenzie who hasn’t slept with that sweet gal since the creation of the DVD, and who has a stash of porn in his closet at home? And not just any porn.” Roth stepped forward, lowering his voice until it was nothing more than a whisper. “You know what I’m talking about.”

My stomach turned sour. Assistant Principal McKenzie had questionable soul status—not as obvious as the man on the street the night I met Roth, but there’d always been something about him that made me wary.

McKenzie had a totally different reaction. His face turned a mottled shade of red as his jowls flapped. “H-how dare you. Who are you? You—”

Roth raised a finger—his middle finger—silencing him. “You know, I could make you go home and end your miserable life. Or better yet, walk right outside and throw yourself in front of the truck that collects garbage like you. After all, Hell has had its eyes on you for quite some time.”

I experienced a moral conflict at that moment. Either I let Roth manipulate the pedophile into offing himself or I stopped him—because, pervert or not, Roth would be stripping the man of his free will.

Crap. This was a tough decision.

“I’m not going to do either of those things,” Roth said, surprising me. “But I am going to mess you up. Royally.”

My relief was short-lived.

“I’m going to take away the thing you love most in this world—food.” Roth smiled beatifically. At the moment, he looked more like an angel than a demon—a mind-numbing beauty that couldn’t be trusted. “Every doughnut you see will look like it’s sprinkled with a heavenly dose of maggots. Every pizza will remind you of your dead father’s face. Hamburgers? Forget ’em. They’ll taste like rotten meat. And milk shakes? Soured. Oh. And those jars of chocolate cake icing you hide from your wife? Filled with roaches.”

A thin line of drool escaped McKenzie’s gaping mouth, dropping down his chin.

“Now go away before I change my mind.” Roth waved his hand, dismissing the man.

Stiffly, McKenzie turned around and went back into his office, a strange wet spot spreading down his leg.

“Uh...is he going to remember any of that?” I stepped away from Roth, clutching my bag close to my body. God, this demon’s abilities were astronomical. I didn’t know whether I was more frightened or impressed.

“Only that food is his worst nightmare now. Seemed kind of fitting, don’t you think?”

I raised a brow. “How did you know all of that?”

Roth shrugged, the light fading from his eyes. “We’re attuned to all things evil.”

“That’s not much of an explanation.”

“Didn’t intend for it to be.” He took my hand again. “Now let’s get back to business. We’ve got a zombie to check out.”

I bit my lip, weighing my options. I was already way too late to join class and there was a zombie in my school, which I should check out for Abbot’s sake. But Roth was a demon—a demon who followed me to school.

Roth sighed beside me. “Look. You do realize I can’t really make you do anything you don’t want to do, right?”

I peeked up at him. “What do you mean?”

His stare turned incredulous. “Do you know anything about what you are?” He searched my face, gaining the answer to his question. “You aren’t susceptible to demon persuasion. Just like I can’t sway a demon or a Warden to do something they don’t want.”

“Oh.” How I was supposed to know that was beyond me. It wasn’t as if there was a demon operation manual or something. “So why do you want me to check out the zombie thing? Shouldn’t the idea of a zombie running amok in a high school be a good thing for you?”

Roth shrugged. “I’m bored.”

Irritated, I tried to pull my hand free. “Can you ever give a straight answer?”

Something flashed in his eyes. “Okay. You want the truth? I’m here because of you. Yes, you heard that right. And don’t ask me why, because we don’t have time right now and you wouldn’t believe me anyway. You’re part Warden and if you get bitten by the zombie, then you will get infected. Maybe not completely batshit crazy like humans, but crazy enough to make my job harder.”

My heart rate quadrupled. “Why—why are you here because of me?”

“For the love of all unholy things, why must you be so difficult? I apologized for calling you a prude. I’ll even apologize for yesterday. I scared you. I threw your cell in a toilet. See, I was raised in Hell. You could say I’m socially awkward.”

Awkward was not one of the descriptions that came to mind for him. He had a sort of fluid grace that was otherworldly and predatory. “This is weird, even for me,” I admitted.

“But better than gym class, right?”

Most things were better than gym class. “I want to know why your being here has anything to do with me.”

“Like I said, you wouldn’t believe me.” When I held my ground, he said something too low and quick for me to understand. I wasn’t even sure it was English, but it sounded like a curse. “I’m not here to hurt you, okay? I’m the very last thing you should be worried about.”

Taken aback by that, I could only stare as realization smacked me upside the head. For some reason—I didn’t know why—I...I believed him. Maybe it had to do with the fact that if Roth wanted to harm me, he could’ve done so by now. Or maybe I was just incredibly stupid and had a death wish. And the idea of going to gym class did suck.

I sighed. “Okay, but you have to tell me why you’re here when we’re done.”