Demon Blood

my duty as a Guardian is clear, and that duty is to slay demons. To protect those that I can. And yet to do that , I must force another to my will. That has never been my purpose. That has never been my way.”
    “So you either lose yourself to this, or you risk losing everyone else.”
    How clearly he put it. She wiped her cheeks. “Yes.”
    “That will be a poor victory, Rosa. So either you must quit your plan—”
    “I cannot,” she whispered.
    “Or you must convince this man to walk this path with you.”
    She laughed. Yet another task that was easier said than done. But he was right. Completely and utterly right.
    Father Wojinksi leaned forward. “You say he is a good man and that your cause is noble. So why isn’t he convinced?”
    Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t know. I have told him everything that is at stake, yet he only . . . he only . . .”
    She trailed off, losing the order of her thoughts as a new one occurred to her: She did know why. She had only given him hypotheticals. Nothing personal. Nothing immediate. Deacon needed a clear threat or a reason to care. She hadn’t given him one.
    And she hadn’t given Deacon as much as she already had from him. She knew what drove him, knew him through to his soul. She’d seen his suffering. But he had no connection to her. He had a purpose, driven by grief and anger. He had no idea her purpose was driven by the same.
    “Rosa?”
    A long breath steadied her. “I was wrong, Father. It was fear that brought me here.”
    Fear that if she opened her heart to him, she might finally lose it. But in protecting herself, she had jeopardized everything.
    If her plan succeeded, surely all that every human, vampire, and Guardian stood to gain was worth the risk to her heart?
    And so she would.

    Rosalia called Gemma when she arrived back in her Paris hotel. Vincente answered Gemma’s cell, and she heard the faint sound of retching in the background.
    She clucked her tongue in sympathy, and tried to conceal how very much that pitiful noise thrilled her heart. A grandchild. Simply incredible. “Morning sickness?”
    Vin grunted a reply caught halfway between wonder and terror.
    Smiling, Rosalia sat at her computer, checking Deacon’s accounts. She wasn’t surprised to find that he’d already purchased a ticket and boarded a flight that would arrive in the city before dawn. She’d watch over him after that. Taylor’s unexpected presence meant Rosalia needed to adjust her daily schedule.
    “I’ve had to return to Paris,” she told Vin.
    “Paris? Gemma said that you’d planned to return to the abbey tonight. Did you have problems in Budapest?”
    “No. Everything went perfectly.” Except Deacon hadn’t come back to Rome with her.
    “So Deacon is with you now?”
    “No.”
    Vincente’s silence said far too much. She’d failed to convince Deacon; now her son doubted if she’d pull off the rest of it, too. “Mother, you’re planning to go up against the nephilim. Are you certain—”
    “Yes.” She could do this. If Deacon helped. And if she discovered who Malkvial was. “Did Gemma finish the preliminary work on St. Croix?”
    She heard Vin’s frustrated sigh. “Yes. Here she is now.”
    “Rosa!” Gemma came on, and something in her voice reminded Rosalia of the girl who’d listened so closely to her stories.
    “You’ve found something,” Rosalia guessed.
    “Oh, you’ll never believe this. St. Croix’s father drowned in a boating accident when he was eight years old. He owned a small accounting firm, which St. Croix’s mother, Madelyn, took over after he died—put herself through classes, bought out the partners, and worked her ass off building the firm into a financial powerhouse, Wells-Down Investments.”
    Rosalia had heard of it. “Impressive.”
    “Yeah, but St. Croix, he’s something else. He went off the rails. Just as a teen, he’s got vandalism, drug possession, breaking and entering, auto theft—you name it, he probably did it. By fifteen, he’d been expelled from three schools, even though his mother donated enough to the third one that they named a library after her. At sixteen, he just drops off the map. Then ten years ago, he shows up again in the States—touted as some financial whiz, five a.m. to midnight, ruthless bastard that chews up failing businesses and shits out gold.”
    “He underwent a complete personality change?” Just like her father had.
    “And that’s not all of it. He returned to