Demon Angel

laughed, topped off her wine, and propped his feet up on the ottoman. "Michael came to see me earlier today, but he apparently didn't tell you he'd already spoken to me when he made the same offer to you. Said that he'd managed to convince a few officials in Washington that they might need to fund a new division."
    "Did he do the warrior-angel thing again?" Lilith rolled her eyes.
    "I imagine so," he said. His eyes shone bright blue with humor. "Although he said Congressman Stafford also pushed for it."
    She shook her head, still disbelieving that Rael had gone rogue, choosing to stay on Earth rather than fight with Belial. "Michael just wants you mentoring them, he doesn't care how it happens. And I think he wants to keep an eye on me." She laughed. "Exactly what I need, another father figure."
    His gaze held hers, "What do you want?"
    "I'll be directing operations: overseeing, then spinning the story." She shrugged. "It's the perfect job for me: I boss people and alienate them, I lie, and I kick ass. And I thought I'd pull some vampires in, if I can recruit them." Her bare feet slid over his. "You'd be training them, the fledglings and the human agents, and helping with operations. I'd need you there; I'd be an imbecile to waste you on rookies. But mostly I want to spend the next hundred years working beside you, and then come home with you every night."
    He leaned forward, pressed a kiss to her lips. "I want that, too." He glanced up at the clock, and his eyes darkened. "I have something for you."
    A thud and clatter behind them; she spun around on instinct. Michael stood for a moment, watching them with his obsidian gaze. His eyes lowered to her midsection, narrowed. His expression was grim when he raised his eyes to hers.
    "You are barren. I cannot heal it."
    She stared at him a moment, then shook her head and burst into laughter. "Good, because we are completely out of condoms." When he frowned, she said, "Idiot, just because we are settling down you think we want a kid? We already have Colin."
    Hugh choked on his laugh. "Sir Pup. Savi."
    "We are doomed," Michael said and disappeared.
    "That's probably what he said in D.C.," she said, examining the huge paper-covered frame he'd left behind, leaning against the wall: ten feet wide, seven feet high. "Do you think he's still furious about the sword?"
    "Probably." Hugh clasped her hand in his, pulled her around the sofa. "Colin painted this for you."
    He reached up, tore part of the paper away.
    "Oh," she said, and everything inside of her softened. The sky in Caelum was the same color. It blurred in front of her, and she turned away from it—found its original.
    He slid his arms around her, enveloped her in his touch. A kiss, that was love and promise.
    And it was kindness—more than kindness—to a woman such as her.
----
    Turn the page for a sneak peek at
    Meljean Brook's next paranormal romance,
    DEMON
    MOON
    Available in June 2007 from Berkley Sensation!
    Colin rested his hand against the small of Savitri's back as he guided her past a long line of clubbers. As an act of courtesy, it proved a masochistic one; beneath his palm, the gentle curve of her spine moved in rhythm with her steps, with the beat of the music from inside. Matched the need throbbing within him.
    He ground his teeth together, urged her forward a little more quickly. How could he be so desperate to feed? He'd taken enough for two days from the last blonde alone.
    "It was popular before, but not like this," Savitri murmured.
    Colin glanced at the queue; mostly human, but a few vampires waited as well. A growl rose unbidden in his throat. He didn't want her here; he didn't want to be here—yet he'd been unable to refuse her request.
    And she hadn't even flattered him.
    His gaze dropped to her neck; her short hair left it deliciously exposed. He should mark her as his. Protect her from the vampires here and the others inside. Inhale her, drink her, sink into her—
    He swallowed thickly and forced the territorial hunger aside. What he wanted to do to her could not be considered protection.
    "It's morbid fascination," he finally replied.
    She sighed, and her lashes swept down against her cheeks. The investigators—and the press—had linked Polidori's to last year's ritual murders; burning it had been determined a cult's symbolic way of beginning its quest for immortality.
    All lies, of course; Colin had helped fabricate them. But the story had entertained the public for months, and many of