Demon Blood

hint of Guardian involvement would endanger them all—and endanger the vampires, when no Guardians were left to protect them.
    Camille could bring the vampire communities together, but Malkvial would be suspicious if she approached him. He’d sniff out Rosalia’s presence. But Deacon, who’d betrayed the Guardians? Approaching Malkvial would still be dangerous, but the possibility existed that he’d believe Deacon if the vampire proposed an alliance.
    No one else fit. No one else was as strong as Deacon. And there was no one else whom she trusted so deeply.
    Leaning forward, she studied his face. She wished he still wore long hair so that she could smooth it back, have an excuse to touch him. Instead, she rose from the bed and vanished all of his belongings into her cache. She retrieved the body bag she used to move vampires during the daytime, and had almost finished zipping him into it when she felt another presence in the room.
    Calling in her crossbow, she whipped around.
    Jesus, Mary, and Joseph . Rosalia barely recognized Taylor, the new Doyen. Dried blood stained the sleeve and front of her white shirt. Her dark trousers were wrinkled, her bare feet filthy. She stank of nosferatu and a sewer. Her red hair formed a wild tangle around her pale face—and Michael had linked himself to her in some way. Her eyes were fully obsidian, hard and gleaming, deeper than black.
    She seemed to be struggling against something, though Rosalia couldn’t see anything holding her.
    “Are you all right?” Though concerned for the woman, Rosalia didn’t lower her crossbow.
    Taylor didn’t answer right away. Her hands made small, jerky movements, opening and closing—reaching for something, or forcing herself not to.
    Finally she spoke, her voice a strange, familiar harmony. Beneath the detective’s voice, Rosalia heard Michael’s melodic one. “You can . . . protect the vampire from me?”
    Protect Deacon ? Oh, God. Protect him from a new Guardian, yes. If Michael was in there, too, Rosalia wasn’t so sure.
    But there was no other answer to give. “Yes.”
    “Good.” Taylor’s chest heaved, as if she teetered on the verge of crying. “I don’t mean to come here. But he brings me here.”
    “You’ve come before?”
    She answered with a jerky nod. She still hadn’t moved from her crouch by the door. Rosalia still hadn’t lowered her crossbow.
    “How many times?”
    “Every day. For a week.”
    So often? Fear crackled through Rosalia’s spine like ice doused with water. Thank God this woman seemed to have some control. “And Michael tells you to kill him?”
    Taylor shook her head. “Not . . . words. Not thought.”
    For six months now, Michael had been tortured in that frozen field. Rosalia couldn’t imagine the pain, the terror. But she could imagine how the surface of any human could be stripped away. How Michael’s thoughts could be distilled to base reactions, base emotions. “Impulses?”
    “Yes.” Another chill ran through her when Taylor said, “His impulses are terrifying. Just, Kill. Kill. I can’t separate his from mine. But I know this one . . . is not me.” Those obsidian eyes glistened. “I don’t want to kill him. It’s not me.”
    Rosalia nodded. “I’ll watch over him.”
    Taylor closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
    Quietly, Rosalia regarded the other woman. She’d jumped into the room without Rosalia sensing it. Was it even Taylor’s Gift . . . or Michael’s? “Can you teleport?”
    “Yes. When I regain control. Then I’ll get out of here—”
    “Not without us.” Rosalia turned and finished pulling the body bag’s zipper up over Deacon’s face. “There’s another hotel room in another city waiting.”
    And there, Rosalia would face whatever Deacon had to dish out. God knew she was going to deserve it.

CHAPTER 6
    If Hell existed on Earth, Deacon imagined it’d look like his dreams while he slept.
    Every day for six months, they’d been the same. Lucid memories of the white-hot pain as Caym crushed his bones. The scent of his blood. The terror on Eva’s and Petra’s faces. And his grief and rage when Caym poured their ashes onto the floor. Over and over, until the sun set.
    Waking was a release Deacon wasn’t sure he deserved. He welcomed it, all the same—waking every night meant he had another opportunity to make the bastard demons pay.
    But when he woke, this time he didn’t immediately open his eyes and get on with it. His first shallow breath tasted