Demon Forged

thrust, every kiss stoked it higher, brighter, until her senses immolated in white-hot flares.
    She’d barely come back to herself when he said, “Again, Irena.”
    She’d melted, and he wasn’t done. Half-panting, half-laughing, Irena pushed him over onto his back. “Stupid, prideful man.”
    “Not pride.” His voice was low, his heartbeat as rapid as hers. “I cannot believe I’m here with you like this. And I don’t want it to end.”
    Her heart clenched. For a moment, she took in the sheer beauty of him before lowering her head.
    She kissed him slowly as she rode him. His hands held her hips. He rocked up to meet her, faster and faster. Between kisses, between licks to his throat and his jaw, Irena whispered to him, urged him on. Her voice, the slide of their bodies, the pounding of their hearts filled the silence of the courtyard. His smoky scent filled her lungs, her mind, and she buried her face in his neck, drawing it in deeper. Olek. No, she didn’t want this to end, either—she wanted to devour him all, to take all there was to take. To glory in the tight stretch of her body around his, the taste of him on her lips, his ragged breaths in her ears.
    But although she wished it, they couldn’t stay here forever, and there would always be again . Her fingers slipped between them and circled his length, following the slick rise of her sex. He groaned and it was a harsh, tortured sound. When he began to shake, she pulsed her Gift. He came silently, his teeth gritted and his body arching into a taut bow, lifting her with him.
    Irena clung to his shoulders, barely able to form a thought except that they were both well finished.
    Olek must have agreed. His mouth found hers and he did not stop kissing her until his flesh softened, until she smiled against his lips and raised her head.
    He sighed. “I did not intend—”
    “Do not regret this,” she warned.
    “I do not. But I didn’t want anger between us.”
    She ran her finger down the soft point of his goatee. His lips were still reddened. Hers must have been, too. “Idiot. With us, anger is clumped with the rest—not always at the forefront, but always there. And if our anger ends like this, it is not so bad, yes?”
    He kissed her in response.
    When he lowered his head again, she held it cradled in her hands, his hair thick against her palms and Caelum’s marble hard beneath. She searched for the right words to say—and realized he’d said them many times.
    “Forgive me, Olek.”
    His brows drew together, but he didn’t speak. He waited for her to explain.
    “I have lost faith in many things of late. And I have lumped them all together.” Stupidly, blindly. She swallowed and pushed on. “I should have separated you out of them. I should have trusted that you would do right. And I will try to see your taking Rael’s position as you do.”
    He closed his eyes. She thought he might have breathed a prayer as he raised his mouth to hers and kissed her. Kissed her as if he’d never stop, kissed her as she’d always thought a man might kiss when he loved a woman and she had just given him the world.
    He shivered beneath her; his body tightened.
    No. Alejandro hadn’t shivered. Caelum had. And Alejandro had stiffened in reaction.
    Irena sat up. “What was that?”
    Shaking his head, Alejandro rolled over onto his knees, forming his clothes. Irena did the same, and reached out with her senses. No one. But something felt different in the back of her mind. Something had changed . . . something new. Something with the same resonance in her psyche as a Gate.
    By the gods. A Gate.
    Her stomach dropped, and then she was on her feet, sprinting toward central Caelum. In the middle of the city, near Michael’s temple, lay a huge courtyard that no one but the teleporting Guardians could enter. Gates surrounded it, made of marble arches; between them, buildings and temples created walls.
    Those walls had shifted, their shape had changed. Irena raced around them until she found the new archway.
    A new Gate. Somewhere on Earth, a Guardian had sacrificed herself to save another. At that spot, a new portal had formed, linked to this Gate in Caelum.
    And whoever had killed a Guardian was on the other side. Irena called in her knives.
    Steel glinted in Alejandro’s hands. “I am at your back,” he said.

CHAPTER 18
    The coppery scent of vampire blood struck Irena the moment she rushed through the Gate into an enormous room. A familiar room—the