Demon Blood

the room did. He hadn’t known.
    “If you struck against him tonight, it would be suicide. Suicide compounded by failure, when you are not able to finish what you set out to do.”
    Even when he spoke softly, his voice had gravel in it. “Why would you care?”
    Some Guardians wouldn’t. They’d prefer to see him dead. Rosalia wasn’t one of them. “I have many reasons. One is that it benefits my kind to keep these three alive . . . for now. Your chance will come again.”
    He didn’t reply. He didn’t ask her reason for delaying the demons’ deaths. Did that mean he didn’t care what those reasons were, or that he was afraid he might care too much and be dissuaded from his course?
    “You at least owe us that, do you not?” she pressed.
    “I owe my people more.”
    A fair point, she conceded. And one she wouldn’t argue with, so she would leave him to it. Intending to rejoin the crowd, she moved around him and down the steps. “I doubt you will find your opening tonight, preacher. But if you do, take it. I will not interfere.”
    He caught her hand, palm to palm. She stopped, staring ahead into the crush of chatting, laughing humans. Her heart jumped against her ribs, pounding. If he hadn’t guessed before, he must be certain of her identity now. She’d once told him that she’d known he was a chaplain on his ship, and revealed she’d taken vows of her own. No other Guardian knew him that well. Not even Irena, whom he had called a friend before he’d betrayed them.
    His grip tightened. His fingers encompassed hers, seemed to draw her into the palm of his hand with that small movement. Rosalia looked back at him. His gaze delved beneath her skin, as if searching for something familiar. She wanted to offer it to him, to wear her own face. She wanted to tell him, I have known you for so long. I have waited for so long.
    But there was no reason to make such a confession. Deacon didn’t want to know her—and she didn’t really know him anymore, either. Thanks to Belial’s demons, he was no longer the man he’d been. He sought revenge and death. And she was done with waiting.
    He glanced over her head. “Tell me who they are.”
    The demons. Of course. They were his only concern. They should have been her only concern, too. Unfortunately, she’d been cursed since birth with an overdeveloped sense of gratitude.
    “Look to the center of the room,” she told him. “The silver-haired woman wearing a floor-length red dress and a fortune in rubies. He is on her left. Very handsome, of course. Do you see him?”
    Deacon nodded. “And the other?”
    “Four meters behind me. He is the only one in his circle who does not hold a drink.”
    He blinked, the only indication of his surprise that she’d come to him with the demon so close. His gaze dropped to hers. “You live dangerously, sister.”
    No. She had never risked enough—and thanks to the nephilim, she’d lost it all anyway. She pulled her hand free. And since she had nothing to lose now, she reached up and tucked his collar into place. She doubted he noticed. “If you need assistance tonight—”
    “I don’t.” His tone implied he’d already gotten everything he needed from her. He looked toward the demon. “So you can haul off.”
    Anger jabbed at her. She’d expected rejection and understood his need to go this alone, but she didn’t deserve that rude dismissal. “Or, as you once told me, ‘Get the fuck out of your face’?” When his startled gaze met hers, she smiled sweetly. “It will be my pleasure. Good luck to you, preacher.”
    To him, and to her. They were both going to need it.

CHAPTER 2
    Deacon returned to his hotel not far ahead of the sun. At his door, he flipped the housekeeping sign to Veuillez ne pas déranger , and listened for sounds from inside before slipping through. An empty room greeted him. Above the headboard of the single bed, a framed photograph of the Eiffel Tower provided the room’s best view. The flower-sprigged bedspread had been straightened; folded white towels were stacked in the tiny bathroom and the damp ones cleared from the floor. Judging by the wet ring on the sink, the maid hadn’t replaced the tumbler he’d used after brushing his teeth, just rinsed it out, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t taste anything that came out of the glass, and if they didn’t wash it for a year, he still wouldn’t get sick off it. All that mattered was that they’d done the housekeeping after