Demon Blood

She’d known him for so long, had admired his strength, his will, and his heart—and so that belief came easier to her than it would to him.
    He’d be angry when she asked him to form that alliance. But if he believed in the necessity of killing them all—demons and nephilim—he’d follow through.
    And by asking, she’d lose any chance she might have ever had to be with him. A chance that seemed so vital now. She risked her heart, but she had to hope it wouldn’t be broken.
    That heart sat heavy in her chest as she studied his profile. So many times she’d watched him, but never from this close. Near enough to touch, to explore the rough line of his jaw with her fingers, to feel the firmness of his mouth. So strong and hard, even while he slept.
    Did he dream?
    Lightly, she reached out with a psychic touch.
    Grief. Agony. They wrapped around her throat like a scream. Beneath them, rage and self-hatred seethed around a deep sense of purpose and an incredible will.
    Gasping for breath, Rosalia retreated. All vampires dreamed vividly, fueled by powerful emotion. She had no doubt he relived the murder of his people. Everything that fed his need for revenge—and his resistance to her—she’d felt in that psychic touch.
    An incredible will.
    She turned away, drawing her cloak tighter around her body. When Deacon saw the necessity of killing the demons and nephilim, when he wanted their destruction as badly as he wanted revenge, that incredible will would carry him through.
    And she’d probably never had a real chance with him, anyway.

    Before he’d lost his community, Deacon had earned his income by restoring classic automobiles. Rosalia hadn’t been able to secure one to rent on such short notice, but what the car she’d chosen lacked in age, it made up for in power.
    Deacon didn’t hide his appreciation as he circled the black Maserati convertible, his fingers stroking its gleaming lines. “If we’re going top down, you’d better pull back your hair.”
    As if she didn’t regularly fly with her long hair unbound. “I can withstand a few tangles.”
    His gaze lifted to her hair as he swung open her door. “At least it’ll look like you actually fed a vampire.”
    Yes. Tangled and mussed, as if he’d taken blood from her, not from a glass. As if they spent the first hour after sunset in his bed.
    Her skin tightened and her blood warmed as she pictured it. She wouldn’t have him, perhaps, but maybe . . . maybe at some point, she could hold him against her. His lips to hers, bodies aligned. To take him inside . . . She could barely even imagine how that would feel.
    But she wanted to know.
    Deacon waited, holding the door. His gaze had fallen to her neck. His expression had darkened, as if his words had given him similar thoughts, but they plagued him rather than brought pleasure. Fighting her disappointment, Rosalia slipped into her seat, inhaling his scent as she passed him.
    Beneath the clean fragrance of the soap, he possessed the same natural odor he’d had as a human male, but with a metallic undertone that marked him as a vampire. No cologne tonight. He didn’t need to conceal his nature from the demon. She did, however.
    The engine growled before settling down into a purr. Deacon entered the address for Sardis’s compound into the GPS system, and it immediately responded with directions that would take them out of Athens. As they drove out of the lot, Rosalia pulled in a perfume bottle from her cache, spritzing the fragrance on her neck and arms. Deacon glanced at her, his brow furrowed.
    “That’s not just perfume.”
    “It contains female human sweat.” Most vampires didn’t know that Guardians had no odor, but one might look at her more closely if he sensed something missing—even if he couldn’t pinpoint what that something was. “And my hair is taken care of, but if we want them to believe you are feeding from me . . .”
    She brought in one of his unwashed shirts from her cache. Concentrating on her neck and chest, she slid it over her exposed skin, transferring his scent.
    Deacon made a disgusted sound. “Give me a little credit, sister.”
    She lifted her leg, propped her foot up on the dash. She rubbed the shirt over the insides of her thighs. “Feel better?”
    His slow, sexy smile appeared and sent her senses purring in time with the engine. “I meant that wouldn’t fool me. There’d be a lot more sweat and the scent of blood.”
    With a smile, she vanished the