Demon Blood

her gaze to the ballroom, she watched the demons and saw their calculated expressions and conversation win over their companions. Would they recognize Deacon? Only Belial’s lieutenant and Caym had used him, but he’d led Prague’s community for more than six decades. Other demons might have seen him before.
    If these demons gave any indication that they knew Deacon, she’d kill them—Theriault’s alliance and Malkvial be damned. A lone vampire was nothing but sport to their kind. She wouldn’t stand by and watch them play.
    She looked toward the gallery. Even in this crush of people, Deacon’s height would make him easy to spot. He wasn’t there.
    Had he been delayed? Was another demon or a vampire at the gala, one that neither she nor Gemma had detected? She should wander through the other rooms and see.
    Rosalia headed for the gallery, her gaze sweeping the stairs. Sweeping over the vampire descending the steps.
    Sweeping past him.
    Her heart galloped. She continued walking. Don’t stop. Don’t react and draw attention to him. Her focus traveled the length of the ballroom, but her mind remained locked on that brief glimpse. She’d been right. Even here, Deacon didn’t glitter. He stood like an unpolished stone pillar amid sparkling diamonds. His dark dinner jacket stretched over shoulders as wide as a blacksmith’s. He’d unbuttoned his shirt at the collar, revealing pale skin that could have belonged to an unfinished marble statue—possessing the strength, but none of the smooth perfection of a completed piece. Before he’d become a vampire, Deacon had earned his money boxing, and his transformation had physically frozen his appearance. His body was still heavily muscled. His dark brows and hard mouth formed uncompromising lines on a face roughly sculpted by both nature and occupation. A beard shadowed his jaw; he obviously hadn’t shaved in months. And . . . had he cut his hair? She wanted to look again. She forced herself to continue smoothly across the floor. The click of her heels drummed in her ears.
    Don’t turn around yet. Find one of the servers and—
    There. A waiter in a white jacket paused beside a matron wearing gold silk. Rosalia downed her champagne, circled the waiter, and lifted a new glass from his tray, sliding in next to the matron.
    Deacon had reached the bottom of the stairs, but remained on the last step. His gaze searched the crowd.
    She glanced at the demons. None were looking toward the vampire, and so she did, studying him from beneath her lashes.
    He had cut his hair. Though it was longer than the first time she’d seen him, a member of the American naval service and his brown hair regulation short, six months ago the dark length had touched his shoulders. Now he had just enough to slide his fingers through, but not enough to grab a handful. A vampire’s hair grew slowly; it’d be another ninety years before it reached his shoulders again.
    Though the cut was tidier and less distinctive than his long hair, he still appeared slightly disheveled. With his shadowed jaw and unbuttoned collar, many men would look like they’d just come from bed; Deacon looked like he’d prepared for a fight. One side of his shirt collar had escaped the jacket, as if he’d dragged off his tie just before coming here. Now the points of his shirt collar were uneven. It bothered her. Her gaze kept flicking back to them. She wished he’d fix it, if only because an orderly appearance would make him less remarkable amid all of the glossy perfection. But even if he knew how crooked the collar was, she doubted that it would occur to him to adjust it.
    In her cache, she carried a tie for her son, Vincente. It would take only an instant to pull it from her mental storage space and into her hands. She could approach Deacon and offer to tidy him up.
    To amuse herself, she imagined his reaction. She was still smiling when Deacon’s searching gaze touched her and immediately moved on.
    Well. She’d expected that, hadn’t she? Rosalia swallowed champagne past a throat gone tight. He never recognized her. Not his fault, really. Until six months ago, when he’d led the Guardians to the catacombs where she’d been trapped for a year and a half, an endless fount of blood for a nest of nosferatu, she’d never appeared to him as herself; before that, she’d never approached him with the same face twice. The form she used tonight was new, too.
    His jaw flexed as if he’d clenched his teeth. After