Demon Blood

Battling his hunger, he pulled her astride him. “It was that bad?”
    Laughing, she looked up at him and shook her head. “I knew it would feel good, but I didn’t know it would be . . . that .” Her fingers rose to his hair. She began smoothing as she continued. “I thought it might be another failure, that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. But it was nothing like them—and so much more.”
    Another failure? What had her life been, always expecting the shit end of a stick? “You imagined being with me before?”
    “Oh, yes.” Her grin warned him that it wouldn’t be good. “I thought it would just be a suck, a thrust, and a ‘Haul off, sister.’”
    He pretended to lunge for her. She scrambled away from his grabbing hands, dragging the sheet with her, laughing wildly. He stopped halfway across the bed, staring at her. God, she was so beautiful.
    Her laugh faded, and she stared at him as if thinking the same about him. Leaning closer, her mouth touched his in a soft, searching kiss.
    He should have left. Now it was too damn late.
    She lay down again, snuggling up against him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Christ, she was so soft. He wanted his hands all over her, his fangs buried deep. He forced himself just to hold her.
    “But it’s not ‘sister’ now,” she said. “Why ‘princess’?”
    Shit. That wasn’t for her, but for him. But he couldn’t avoid answering.
    “It’s a reminder,” he said gruffly.
    “To be careful?” she guessed, and sighed. “I’m not delicate, Deacon. Not—what is that story?—the girl on a pea.”
    No. A reminder that she deserved something a hell of a lot better than the man she was snuggled up against. Someone who hadn’t fucked over his own community and his friends—and her friends.
    But whatever he was, he still had too much pride to lay that out. “You’re soft all over,” he said.
    “I could shape-shift and change that—”
    “Don’t change a damn thing.”
    Altering her perfect breasts, her little belly, her curvy ass would be akin to burning a Botticelli. Hell, it’d be worse.
    She was quiet, and when he glanced down at her, she was smiling against his shoulder. When she caught his look, she rose up, propped on her elbow. “I was just thinking . . . About thirty years ago, two vampires disappeared from their community. I was worried, so I tracked them down—and when I found them, they were doing this. Just this. They went to bed and they never got out of it. They’d already spent a year like that, locked up together.”
    With two vampires, that was possible. They could feed from each other. As long as they had shelter, they wouldn’t need anything else. But there was more to this, Deacon realized, as Rosalia’s expression became pensive.
    “It’s been a long time now since I’ve subscribed to some of the teachings of the Church—particularly their views on sin. But when I found them, I was appalled. Not by the lust. Their devotion, their need for each other was . . . beautiful, in truth. But the gluttony of it, and the manner in which they’d excluded everyone and everything else from their life . . . I was disgusted.” With a sigh, she began to trace her fingers over his chest. “Now I see why it might be so appealing.”
    Hell, yes. He could stand to be locked up with her for a year. “But?”
    “I’d be disgusted with myself. I have too much to do. Too many people who depend on me.”
    No, she would never withdraw from her life, from her responsibilities. No matter how often she thought she failed, Rosalia would keep going.
    “And if you didn’t have too much to do?”
    “I admit the thought of them doesn’t bother me so much now. They have no responsibility to anyone else, so they’ve hurt no one.” She looked up at him. “They are still at it.”
    For thirty years? Deacon frowned.
    She nodded, as if reading his expression and agreeing with him. “It’s uncomfortable to be around. It’s primal, it’s exciting . . . and there’s almost no thought left between them. I couldn’t do that. A day, perhaps, or even a week. But I could not close myself off from the world for so long.”
    And she’d already lost more than one year beneath the catacombs. Coming back, seeing the changes that had taken place and how many of her friends were dead, must have been like a smack to the face followed by a full-body beatdown.
    “I could not anyway,” she added softly. “That’s not what a Guardian does. And I