Demon Blood

before you’ve finished breakfast.” She forced the lightness into her tone. Her son would help, but only because Gemma would ask him to. Ten years ago, he’d left the abbey without looking back. He’d still be gone if not for his relationship with Gemma—and if he could convince Gemma, he’d disappear from Rosalia’s life again. But he hadn’t yet, and she thanked God every day that her son had fallen in love with a woman as bullheaded as he was. “Will he be staying the weekend at the hotel with us?”
    “Yes. He will, and he’ll like it.”
    Gemma’s determined tone brought Rosalia out of her grief, made her smile. She glanced at Deacon, gathering her calm and her courage. “I am on my way to speak to Davanzati.”
    “And I’m turning into a mouse.” Except for an emergency, Gemma would keep radio silence until Rosalia put space between them again. “Give him hell, Mother.”
    She didn’t have to. Belial’s demons had already put him through hell, first when they’d beaten him, then when they’d killed his people. None of those marks were visible, but Rosalia knew they were there. Just as hers were.
    Deacon had remained at his vantage point on the stairs, his posture casual, his elbow braced on the wide marble banister. Though he must have been aware of Rosalia’s approach, he didn’t acknowledge her until she was a few paces away. He glanced down, his eyes the muted green of the sea lying beneath dark clouds. She put on another dazzling smile and directed it right at him. He looked toward the demon again, dismissing her.
    She glided up two steps as if she intended to pass by, then slipped behind him. Propping her hip against the banister, she reached down and rested her hand against his cool fist. Before he could react, she said, “You do not intend to do it here, do you? With so many humans as witnesses?”
    His big body stiffened. She could almost feel him weighing his response. Her skin was warm, not the feverish temperature of a demon’s or the cold touch of a vampire’s. That left human or Guardian. When he inhaled, she knew he was testing her scent—or trying to, beyond the redolence of perfumes and colognes saturating the air. She’d sprayed her own floral fragrance to conceal her lack of odor, and with every breath, she took in the pine and bergamot that masked his. One so earthy, the other a light tingle lifting through her senses.
    To her delight, he raised her hand to his lips and sniffed. The tension leaked from his form. His mouth setting into a hard line, he turned his head, looking at her in profile.
    “Of course you would not,” Rosalia answered for him, though she guessed he was preparing to respond with, Haul off, lady —Guardian or not. She withdrew her hand and touched his back, where she could feel the short swords strapped beneath his jacket. Vampires had no cache to store their weapons. They had to physically arm themselves. “You are just observing him, I think. You plan to finish it later, when the element of surprise is yours. And you will defeat him, because he is arrogant . . . and he could not know how strong and fast you have become.”
    After Irena had slain the nosferatu who had been feeding from Rosalia, she’d given Deacon their blood to drink. It had changed him, strengthened him, as if he’d been given a second transformation. Though he was still not as strong or as quick as one of the rare nosferatu-born, Deacon had a brief, important advantage: A demon expected a normal vampire’s strength and speed from him. He was the only vampire to have been strengthened that way, so as long as no Guardians revealed that a second transformation was possible, Deacon would always possess that moment of surprise against a demon, useful for both defense and attack.
    She watched his eyes narrow. Had he not expected her to know, either? Perhaps no other Guardians but she knew that the second transformation had been successful. Perhaps he’d not realized, until now, who had been speaking to him.
    Or perhaps he thought that the Guardian he’d told had spread the information to everyone. If so, she forgave him. He had not known her long enough to understand that she would never rip away a friend’s defenses. Particularly when he had so few.
    “Yes, I know all of this,” she confirmed. “Do you know that two of his brethren, who have just sworn to protect him, are also here?”
    Deacon’s face didn’t give anything away, but his quick, searching sweep of