Demon Blood

property in Prague. The community meeting places, the house. I wouldn’t want to make a deal with a demon there, anyway.”
    No, not in the house where his partners had been killed by the last demon he’d made an agreement with.
    “Should it be a public location?”
    “No,” Rosalia said. “He’ll want to test you. He’ll interpret your caution not as prudent, but as a weakness.”
    He opened his eyes. “I’m going to end up hurting tomorrow, aren’t I?”
    She nodded. “Yes.”
    His jaw clenched. “What about the church I found you in six months ago? Your brother owned it. Is anyone using it now?”
    On the northern side of the city, Lorenzo’s church was situated near his house and had once served the vampire community. Beneath it lay the catacombs where she’d run into Belial’s demons. The same lieutenant who’d directed Caym had been the one to drive the spike through her head, leaving her helpless to the nosferatu.
    She didn’t remember any moment of those eighteen months beneath that church. She still hadn’t been able to bring herself to enter it again.
    “I own it now,” Rosalia said.
    He must have read her hesitation. He shook his head. “It’s too close. It might lead him to you.”
    She considered that. “Actually, he’d probably assume that you would choose a city that was only loosely connected to you. He wouldn’t think to search for you here, afterward.”
    “And it fits.” His face was grim. “I led Irena there and betrayed her for a demon. Now I’ll make a deal with another.”
    “Making a deal, with the intent to kill him ,” she stressed.
    “Betraying a demon instead of a friend is that much different, then? It just erases what came before? I don’t think it works like that.” His gaze narrowed on her. “And what of you? That’s not a good place for you.”
    “Considering what you have to do, I can make it through.” She studied his shuttered expression. “I know how much I’m asking, Deacon—”
    “Do you?”
    “Yes. Considering the list of humans I’m compiling, I know exactly.”
    Bringing in the nephilim hinged on breaking the Rules—something that Rosalia would set up. Something no Guardian should do. Fail or succeed . . . what Guardian could respect her afterward?
    He was watching her face. “Maybe you do know.”
    But she’d known all along. Deacon, when he’d agreed to help her, had thought he’d only be slaying demons. The burden of that was a heavy one.
    “ Now you don’t look all right.” He leaned back, as if to get a better look at her. “Confess, princess.”
    “Confess what? I’m surprised you don’t know. Didn’t you hear everything in me?”
    “No. Just sound. A lot of sound.” The corners of his mouth deepened in a smile. “Apparently the nephil blood shouts over everything else.”
    So he hadn’t known? She’d taken that risk, opening herself, but he hadn’t heard it.
    She wanted to laugh. And she supposed it served her right, for trying to take the easy way out—letting him into her blood instead of telling him. Showing him.
    “I haven’t done this the right way,” she confessed. “I’m terrified of a mistake, but the biggest one has not been in execution of this plan, but how I have approached you—and kept so many things from you. I do not know if I can make up for it.”
    His sigh was a heavy thing. “I didn’t sign up for this, no. But I’m here now, and no one’s got a knife to my throat. So just stuff your making up for it.”
    “I just need to—”
    “Overcompensate?”
    She flicked water at him with the tip of her left wing. “I need to say thank you. And I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you from the beginning about Malkvial.”
    “How about you say thank you when it’s over, and I’ve pulled off this thing with Malkvial.” He looked up at her; then his gaze slid over her wings. “Jesus Christ, Rosie. Considering what happened tonight . . . some apologies just got turned around. I should be begging for forgiveness at your feet.”
    “I could have locked the door,” she said.
    “Why didn’t—”
    She cupped his cheek, and he broke off. He tore his gaze from her wings. Leaning sideways, she pressed her mouth to his, a soft graze.
    “I wanted you,” she said. “And I’m not above taking advantage of an opportunity to have you.”
    His brows drew together and his mouth opened—she kissed him again, slowly this time, sliding over until he stood between her legs.
    His hands came up,