Demon Blood

storm. But she’d either sensed his emotions or seen them in him, and guessed exactly where they’d come from.
    She was always seeing him at his lowest.
    Deacon pushed off of her, roughly shoving his erect cock into his trousers as he stood. When he looked down, he had to force himself not to close his eyes. Blood dried in thin trails down her elegant neck. The pale skin between her thighs had been rubbed raw and pink, still wet with his seed. Her ankle was bruised, ringed with impression of his fingers. He felt sick. He’d bruised a woman—a Guardian, hard enough that it hadn’t yet healed.
    She started to get up.
    “Stay put, Rosie.” He waited until she stopped moving before heading over to the sink. He gripped the sides for a moment, grateful there was no mirror above it. He wasn’t sure he could face himself now. And he didn’t want to know what Rosalia saw when she looked at him.
    He zipped up and wetted a hand towel before returning to her side. She’d come up on her elbows, her gaze searching his face as he wiped her neck. He turned the towel to the clean side before tending to her sex. The rawness had already faded—the bruises gone, too.
    And he’d never felt so much like shit.

    Where did managing end and love begin?
    Rosalia didn’t know. She was ashamed she didn’t know. And she’d wanted to help him, but she’d promised not to manage him—and so the only thing she’d been able to do was offer her support and strength.
    It had been strange and wonderful to be cared for in return, even if that care had only been prompted by guilt.
    Now he was far away from her. They’d returned to the abbey early, and he was plowing his way down the length of the pool. But she knew too well that he couldn’t outrace anything. Just churn through the water, turn, and try to punish himself against the same length again. Great for thinking. Not so great for escape.
    From the walkway overlooking the courtyard, she watched his heavy powerful strokes, as if he could beat himself against the water until it wore him down. A human would be feeling it. A vampire, even one as strong as Deacon, might break a sweat. But he wouldn’t tire. He wouldn’t ache afterward. He wouldn’t feel any pain—and so it wouldn’t be a solace for him.
    Sighing, she braced her hands against the balcony rail. He hadn’t said a single word about what he’d felt or heard as he’d taken her blood, and his silence weighed on her heart like a stone.
    She couldn’t bear dragging it out. Perhaps it was best just to address it now.
    Spreading her wings, she glided to the end of the pool and sat on the edge, slipping her legs into the warm water. Her wingtips bent against the marble tiles behind her, the stone against her feathers gently rough, like the scrape of a cat’s tongue. She watched Deacon approach in the next lane.
    Instead of turning and kicking off the wall again, he surfaced beside her legs. Standing in the chest-deep water, he braced his hands on the edge of the pool, water streaming over his heavy shoulders and chest.
    He pushed the water out of his eyes. “Everything all right, princess?”
    “I came down to ask the same thing. But I know it is not. And that you—”
    “Don’t want to talk about it.”
    All right, she’d come back to it. “Okay. So I haven’t come to discuss that with you, but instead to let you know how my chat with Camille went.”
    “From what I heard of it out here, your call wasn’t so much a chat as a list of things you want her to do.”
    She marveled. The War Room door had been closed. His hearing was truly spectacular now. “Yes, well. She likes to be useful.”
    That drew a short smile from him.
    She continued. “She’ll have the community elders gathered at her apartment the day after tomorrow.”
    “And I’ll be convincing them to go along with me.”
    “Yes.”
    After he convinced Malkvial. He’d make a deal with a demon, and the next day, he’d convince every major European vampire community to join in with him.
    “That’s what I thought,” Deacon said, sounding resigned.
    Her heart ached. “Where would you like to meet with Malkvial?”
    “You don’t already have somewhere picked out?”
    She shook her head. “You are the one taking the risk. It should be somewhere you know the territory, where you have the advantage of location. And where I can set up surveillance ahead of time.”
    He closed his eyes, as if trying to picture such a place. “I got rid of my