Demon Blood

even out his voice, smooth out his frustration. “When are you going to quit, sister?”
    “I can’t quit.” She still didn’t open her eyes, but she didn’t need to. Grief and anger suddenly burst through her shields, both as familiar to Deacon as his face in the mirror. “The nephilim killed my family.”
    She said that like she’d had family worth saving.
    But he couldn’t be rough on her while sitting this close. Spotting his clothes piled on the seat facing him, he took the opportunity to grab a little distance before he said, “I’m not crying over that, sister. If any vampire deserved what the nephilim did to him, it was your brother.”
    “No. I don’t mean Lorenzo.”
    She had other family?
    When he turned back around, she’d raised the back of the seat, but still sat half-turned with her legs curled beneath her. A man sitting like that would look broken; Rosalia just looked comfortable.
    But was she? Her fingers poked out of the wide sleeves to play with the folds of her cloak. And she’d opened her eyes, but didn’t look at Deacon, directing a pain-filled stare at the shaded windows.
    “Not just him,” she continued. “The nephilim slaughtered every vampire in Rome, including friends who’d shared my abbey for more than one hundred years.”
    Deacon remembered her abbey. She’d brought him there after he’d slain Caym in Prague. He’d stayed in her home for only a few minutes, but that had been long enough. Every piece of furniture and every decoration had told him a family had lived there, filled with warmth and steeped in history.
    Walking through that place so soon after losing Eva and Petra had been like a knife to his chest. And he hadn’t considered until now why only one woman—a human—had been in the abbey when he’d woken up.
    He hadn’t considered until now that the empty home might stab through Rosalia’s heart every time she walked through it, too.
    “Fourteen vampires,” she continued softly. “Some had lived with me since their transformation. I trained them. I fought with them. I saw them live and love. But the nephilim came . . . and now almost all of my family is gone.”
    Those staring eyes glistened with tears. Deacon turned and hiked up his jeans, giving her the moment she obviously needed.
    So she’d had her own little community in Rome. Friends, maybe a lover.
    No. Scratch that. Any man good enough to be with someone like Rosalia would have torn Rome apart trying to find her when she’d been in the catacombs. First stop would have been her brother, and Deacon hadn’t heard any rumors that Lorenzo had slain another vampire around that time. And Deacon would have heard the rumors; Rosalia’s brother had liked every other community leader knowing just how strong he was.
    “Your friends,” he said. “Anyone I know?”
    “One, though she had moved away from the abbey before you met her. She wasn’t with those slaughtered.” Before he could ask who that was, she said, “And I was trapped in the catacombs while they were dying. I still would be trapped there, if not for you.”
    If not for him? She had her gratitude on backward. Caym had told Deacon to lead the Guardians to the catacombs in hope that the nosferatu waiting there would kill them all. Rosalia’s rescue hadn’t been a part of it.
    “I hate to point out the obvious, sister, but even if you hadn’t been trapped, you couldn’t have done anything to save them. The nephilim would have killed you, too.”
    “I’d rather have died trying.” For the first time since he’d woken, she looked at him. “Don’t you hate being in a position where no matter what you do, it ends badly?”
    All right. He’d walked right into that. No matter what decision he’d made while dealing with Caym, it would’ve ended badly—for his community, for himself, or for the Guardians. She’d chosen a heavy-handed way of making her point, though.
    He tried to summon up a little anger toward her. He couldn’t. And now that he was on this ride, he might as well see where they were headed. He assumed she had another demon for him to kill.
    And he had to admit, as easy as slaying Farkas had been, killing him had been more satisfying than waiting around for Theriault.
    When he glanced at her again, she was back to staring at the windows. “So what do you have planned for tonight?”
    “We’ll be landing in Athens within an hour.”
    “Sardis’s community? He’s a prick.” His vampires deserved better.