Demon Blood

mean you’re getting up?”
    “Yes.” She sat up, letting the sheet fall to her waist. When Deacon’s gaze fell, too, she smiled and brushed her hair back over her shoulders, giving him a better view. “How long has Taylor been here?”
    “About three hours.”
    “Did you have any problems?”
    “No. I didn’t see her. I only felt her.”
    “Felt her? Can you now?”
    “Yes. Though she’s quieter now than when she showed up.”
    Quieter? Without reaching out, Rosalia couldn’t sense the new Doyen at all. Either Deacon had been performing strong psychic sweeps—a dangerous move, as it might alert anyone to his presence—or he’d become more sensitive. “Are your psychic senses stronger?”
    “It’s different.” His came up on his elbows, his gaze still leveled on her chest. “There’s noise mixed in.”
    How strange. Most of the time, emotions manifested as a taste, a smell, or a physical sensation. Rosalia only knew of a few Guardians and vampires who’d ever registered emotions as sound.
    “Does it interfere with your hearing?”
    He tapped his temple. “It’s all inside, just like before: You feel it, but you know what you’re feeling isn’t yours—that it’s just in your head. Same with this. I’m hearing the sound, but I’m not hearing it. And I’ve still got what I had before, backing it up.”
    Relief slipped through her. He wouldn’t have to adjust to a completely new way of using his psychic senses when he fought the demons. “Are you disoriented?”
    “No.”
    “You’ll be faster, stronger,” she mused. “But we’ll need to practice before we head out tonight, so that you can test how much stronger and faster.”
    “And we need to slay more nephilim and feed them to vampires. Demons wouldn’t be so quick to try taking over communities, then.”
    Maybe vampires could be strengthened that way, though it might not be so simple—Deacon had been changed by nosferatu blood before he’d taken the nephil’s. Yet it was possible that they could all become as strong as Guardians . . . perhaps stronger.
    Uncertainty pinched her mouth.
    “No?” He was watching her face now.
    “Not every vampire is like you.” And unlike Guardians, vampires didn’t have to follow the Rules. “It would be difficult to hand them that much power.”
    His eyes narrowed. Yes, she recognized how unfair that was. But power often changed men—and vampires, too. If they were stronger than Guardians, if they didn’t fear the consequences of breaking the Rules, some vampires would begin taking advantage of humans, simply because they were weaker.
    For all their strength, Guardians didn’t truly have much power. There was so much they couldn’t do. Vampires wouldn’t have those limitations—only what the sun denied them.
    Deacon repeated flatly, “Not like me?”
    “Trustworthy,” she said, but still felt uncomfortable. From a Guardian perspective, her answer was about protecting humans. But Guardians weren’t prevented from denying a vampire’s free will, or even from slaying them. So from Deacon’s perspective, Guardians possessed all of the power that she said vampires shouldn’t have over humans.
    “That’s bullshit. We could kill people now if we wanted to. You Guardians would just have a harder time policing us if we were stronger, because we could defend ourselves better.”
    She nodded. He was right. She knew he was right. And she knew most of the vampires in Europe, yet could only think of a few she would fear giving the blood to.
    She knew all of that. She still felt sick at the thought of passing out nephil blood.
    “We wouldn’t all be your brother, Rosie.”
    “No. No, I know that. But it would be . . . unfair. No matter how we distributed the blood, it would create too much conflict within the communities. There is not an unlimited supply of nephil blood.” Though if she and Deacon were successful, she would soon spill all of the nephilim’s blood—but even that amount would not be enough for every vampire in the world. “And who would choose who received it? The Guardians? The community elders? What would it mean if some got it and others didn’t? What kind of division would that make?”
    “Would it matter so much if it meant the vampires didn’t have to get on their knees for demons? If they weren’t scared shitless that the nephilim were finally coming to their city?”
    “It’d matter to you if you were the vampire who didn’t get any.” She sighed.