Demon Blood

punch to his gut. Rosalia. Not in the shadows, where she belonged. Here, waiting.
    Long enough to have heard Camille and Yves?
    “Oh, fuck no.”
    His denial echoed. Heads turned.
    Rosalia’s smile faded. She stood. “Deacon, listen for one—”
    “There’s only one thing you could say that I’d be interested in listening to, sister.” He strode toward her. She could probably hear his heart pounding. So the fuck what? She’d probably heard that not a single goddamn vampire in Paris would lower themselves to feed him, too. That the woman he’d lived with for twenty-five years and had been a friend for almost ninety had threatened to slay him if they met again. “But unless you’ve got a key to a room upstairs and a vein you want to open—”
    He broke off when a plastic bag filled with blood appeared in her hand. An instant later, the bag disappeared.
    Quietly, she said, “It’s not from my vein, but it is living blood.”
    Demon blood. Not many vampires knew that blood drawn from a living demon would feed them as well as blood from a vein. Fewer vampires knew that one demon had made a bargain with the Guardians to provide them with a supply of his blood. A pint a day. That wasn’t much.
    So why would the Guardians offer it to him?
    He only knew of one thing a vampire could do that a Guardian couldn’t: kill a human.
    This is what it’d come to? They thought he was so fucking low, a dog to lick up scraps and attack on command, to get his paws dirty so their wings could stay clean?
    Already pissed, now he was working himself up into a hot rage. “In exchange for what ?”
    He asked, just to hear her say it. To see if she’d lower her gaze as she did.
    She continued watching him, her eyes steady. “I need you to win over the European vampire communities.”
    Was this a joke? He almost laughed—until he thought of the scene she’d just overheard. That wouldn’t just happen in Paris. He’d be treated the same way in every single community.
    So it was a joke, yeah. He was the fucking joke. Not a dog to kill for the Guardians, but one to kick. And when they sent Rosalia to do it, they caught him right in the balls.
    Fuck this.
    He turned for the door. Her sigh followed him, but he didn’t hear her footsteps. The suit on the phone got out of his way. Outside, the night was still hot. Humans crowded the walks. He went left, made it half a block.
    “Preacher.”
    Every man since Lot knew better than to look back. But God help him, he did—and Rosalia was standing not two feet behind him, looking as sweet and sexy and as sad as she always did.
    Sweet, sexy, sad. Each one a hook in his skin, pulling him in.
    “The blood is yours, preacher, whether you help me or not.”
    Help her? For fuck’s sake. Maybe he’d been quick to jump on thinking she’d ask him to kill someone, but the same two problems still existed. A) There was nothing a vampire could do that a Guardian couldn’t, and B) Deacon didn’t have any fucking interest in helping anyone, unless it was assisting a few demons on their journey back to Hell. By nature and by choice, he was useless to her. He turned to go again.
    Her voice halted him before he’d gotten more than a step. “How many hours will you waste tonight searching for someone to feed from?”
    Damn her. Why couldn’t she be useless to him ? Deacon turned back.
    “Not that it will matter,” she continued. She watched his approach, and even though he pushed into her space, forcing her to tilt her face up, she didn’t back away. “He and his wife have no plans to leave their apartment tonight.”
    Theriault? “How do you know?”
    She smiled faintly, but didn’t answer. The bag of blood appeared between her fingers instead.
    He took it. God help him. She was so close that he didn’t even have to reach out.
    “I have a week’s supply,” she said. “All of it is yours.”
    “So give me all you’ve got now.”
    She shook her head. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”
    “Don’t.”
    “I will.” Her eyes and smile didn’t seem as soft. Not hard . . . but brittle. Fragile. “You do what you must, preacher. I intend to do the same. And so I will see you tomorrow.”
    She slipped past him. Not into the shadows as he expected, but walking along the street. Heading in the same direction he was. That fragile expression lingered in his mind. That wasn’t the look of someone fucking around with him. That was someone at a breaking point.
    What was she doing here? Why