Demon Blood

others do what I want done.”
    “No kidding.”
    She didn’t smile. “I almost destroyed everything we’d accomplished so far. Even though I prepared myself, even though I knew he’d attack you, I almost went into the church.”
    He hadn’t expected her to say that. “What stopped you?”
    “Believing that you could pull it off. And I don’t think that I could have sent anyone else in without believing I’d sent them to their death. I couldn’t risk someone’s life like that—and I’d have destroyed it all tonight. But I knew you’d convince him. And you did.”
    He couldn’t respond. Her trust and her belief in him were humbling.
    Now she smiled, a sad little curve of her mouth. “I know you don’t see yourself as I do—but you risked everything, including your life, to save people you loved from a demon. The only difference in what you tried to do and the sacrifice I made to become a Guardian is that I was lucky enough to succeed.”
    That was a nice thought. But the line between a Guardian and Deacon wasn’t so thin. “That ‘only difference’ was a whole lot of lives.”
    “Intentions have to count, don’t they?” She looked out into the garden. “I’m about to ask you and other vampires to break the Rules. That’s what demons do. They use others to break the Rules, so they don’t have to. In this, it doesn’t matter if I succeed or fail, because either way the humans will suffer for it. And so my intentions are the only thing that differentiates me from a demon.”
    He shook his head. “What else can you do, Rosie?”
    He didn’t expect a reply, but he should have known she’d already considered it—and had an answer.
    “I could Fall, and be the human that the demons torment. I could Fall, and be the one who rounds up the other humans. I should punish myself afterward, and Fall for my part in it.” She tilted her head back, looked up at the dark sky. “But I know I won’t. Because as sorry as I am, I’d do it again if I thought I could save all of the humans and vampires that the nephilim intend to crush. And because I’m more useful to everyone as a Guardian.”
    “And I should have walked into the sun after my community was destroyed. I know I won’t.” As sorry as he was for everything that had happened, Deacon would have done it again if he thought he’d save his people. He smiled at her. “We’re a pair of sorry bastards, aren’t we?”
    She laughed through her tears, and he wanted to crush her against him. Her hand found his. “Thank you, Deacon. For being here.”
    “I have good reasons to be here.”
    Her wistful smile tugged at his heart. “Tell me one.”
    Yes. He owed her that. But instead of saying it, he pulled her closer and kissed her. She kissed him back so sweetly, so fiercely, he could almost believe she needed him, that she loved him.
    He called himself a fool. But realizing that within three days’ time she wouldn’t need him anymore, he carried her up to her room.
    And he let himself believe, for a night.

CHAPTER 22
    He didn’t leave her bed until sunset. Taylor teleported him to Nice, where he boarded a chartered flight to Paris. He arrived at Yves and Camille’s apartment shortly after midnight—and found that she had already done most of his work for him.
    Rosalia had obviously fed her the lines. Camille spouted the same bullshit that Deacon had handed to Malkvial the night before, and although Camille must have wondered what the real game plan was, Deacon couldn’t have detected it from the conviction of her arguments: The Guardians couldn’t save them, Belial’s demons had the best chance of destroying the nephilim, and Deacon’s bargain with Malkvial would guarantee the vampires’ safety afterward. She’d only needed to stress once that Deacon had risked his soul to make the bargain.
    But Camille hadn’t stopped there. She’d flown a dozen vampires in from London, and only the most heartless among the elders were able to declare to those twelve vampires that they didn’t give a shit whether the nephilim massacred their city. And of the three that could say it, each deferred to Deacon when he reminded them that he’d saved their asses and destroyed the demons in their cities that week—and that it would take no effort at all to kill them, and make the decision himself.
    He hadn’t wanted to pull that crap, but he had no time for assholes who didn’t give a fuck.
    The loudest objection came when they learned of their