Demon Forged

“As a group, we were weak. It did not matter how well I fought, how strong I was; I was a woman, and with such a leader we would be seen as prey. And so we thought to make me a Gorgon instead.”
    A monster—a woman with hair of poisonous serpents and a gaze that could turn men to stone.
    “For hours every night, a friend used her awl and her dyes. The image was to eventually cover my arms, my face. Fear would be our defense until we built stronger defenses.” She laughed to herself—a low, throaty sound. “It did not scare the nosferatu.”
    And it wouldn’t scare demons now. “Why keep them?” She could easily shift her skin and conceal them, but instead she had used her Guardian abilities to complete the decoration on her arms.
    “I cannot remember her name.” She ran her hand from her elbow to her shoulder. “But these remind me of her, and so she is not lost. None of those who fled Rome with me are.”
    So they were her own defiance, her pride. And a link to her human past. Most Guardians maintained some connection. Habits, thoughts—they reflected their human history, as did their Gifts.
    She’d said that hers had come because she’d sworn never to be chained. With such a Gift, she couldn’t be. But Alejandro thought now that some part of her was cold, hard, like the metal she manipulated.
    “Do you do this with all of your novices?”
    “Sculpt them? No.” She returned to the statue, rising up on her toes and flicking at its hair. Tiny metal strands wisped beneath her touch. Her Gift pulsed, deep and strong, and the statue changed in a single, fluid movement—standing in profile to Alejandro, arms crossed over its chest, jaw set.
    “Allow them to bed you afterward.” Make them love you.
    Her hand stilled. The serpents on her arms seemed to coil. “I said nothing of a bed.”
    If no bed, then what? Was he waiting for a quick fuck? All of this frustration for . . . what? Nothing but a barbaric tumble.
    Anger knotted in his gut, his throat. “Then the floor will do.”
    “It often does.” Her smile was sharpened steel. “And this is what matters to you? This is why you have followed my direction—so that when it is over and you are a full-fledged Guardian, you can fuck me on the floor?”
    He wanted to say yes. He couldn’t. The silence stretched between them. She turned back to the statue, but didn’t touch it.
    And she didn’t use her Gift.
    The knots in his throat frayed when he realized why. No matter how strong a Guardian’s shields were, the use of a Gift carried emotions. She’d never hidden her anger from him. Only her vulnerability.
    And he was suddenly certain he’d hurt her. He hadn’t known he could do that.
    He never wanted to again.
    “Forgive me,” he said, and though he’d said it to her before, this was the first time he’d meant it. He struggled to relax, to find the pose that she’d put him in. “I have been fighting to understand you. I am ashamed that I almost let myself be beaten.”
    “By what?”
    “My desire for you.” It was difficult to admit when he had no declaration that she desired him in return. “It overpowers me.”
    He did not expect her laughter, but it rang out then. He stiffened.
    She shook her head. “I laugh at myself, not at you. I forget that you are young. You do not always seem so to me. Your silences are deeper than Michael’s, and you smile less, too.”
    Her brow creased as she spoke, her voice full of a question. Perhaps she could not fathom a quiet man, any more than he could his fascination for a brash woman.
    He returned her gaze, unsmiling.
    Her eyes grew bright, glowing brilliantly green. “If you wish to understand me, you must understand this: I am old.
    I fight the same battle against my need for you; I’ve just had more practice.”
    She touched the statue. Her Gift was a gentle pulse, but this time he felt the heat beneath it. Heat that seemed to wrap around his shaft and encourage the flesh to swell.
    “And I will not . . . bed . . . a Guardian who is not properly trained. I cannot lie quiet with a man I must always protect. Perhaps I will worry that his life will be taken, for nothing is certain—but if he does not have a chance of walking away from an encounter with a demon, I will not give him my heart.”
    His own thudded painfully against his ribs.
    “And I must fight my hunger now,” she continued, her hand running down the bronze chest, “because if I took you on the floor, I would not be able