Demon Forged

the end?”
    Alejandro’s eyes narrowed. That had gotten to him, hadn’t it? The prince’s indecipherable face was as sharp as his swords.
    Deacon’s smile showed his fangs. “It wasn’t yours.”
    Death slipped into the Guardian’s dark eyes. Deacon’s death, Alejandro’s. Jesus, he knew that look. It’d been in the mirror after Caym had beaten the shit out of him, when Deacon would rather have seen everyone dead—including himself—than admit defeat.
    But there hadn’t been an everyone . There’d been vampires with faces and names he’d known and who he’d sworn to protect, so he’d choked down his pride and accepted that he’d lost.
    He wondered how many times Alejandro had done the same.
    The Guardian stared him down. “I will let Irena know you’ve gone.”
    In other words, if Deacon didn’t get the fuck out of Alejandro’s sight, there’d be one less vampire sucking blood every night. Perfect. Deacon flashed him a grin and headed for the exit.
    At the security desk, an old, stiff-upper-lip type in a somber black suit gave Deacon an identification card with a magnetic strip and code that would let him back in to the warehouse. Deacon walked down the empty corridor, feeling the old man staring at him the whole way, thanking God the demon had taught him to strengthen his psychic shields—and that the Guardians were too polite to go looking without permission.
    He stepped into the fenced parking lot with only a vague notion of which direction to go: northwest, toward downtown, where the head of San Francisco’s vampire community—Colin Ames-Beaumont—kept a nightclub.
    “Lost?”
    Deacon whipped around, searching for the female who’d spoken. Impenetrable shadows gathered near the warehouse’s entrance. The soft psychic touch of a Gift brushed over his mind, and the darkness fell away as if the woman shed a heavy cloak that had muffled both visibility and her heartbeat.
    Deacon stared, his bloodlust sharpening. He recognized her—Rosalia—but she didn’t appear anything like he’d last seen her. Now she looked like Snow White with her black hair, white skin, and crimson lips full enough to suck on. Snow White, healed and awakened, and wearing a red sweater that clung to every curve. But he was no prince, so he shouldn’t even be thinking about all the places on that body he’d like to kiss.
    He found his voice. “I’m looking for a meal. You want to volunteer?’
    The second the words were out, he called himself an asshole. God knew what the nosferatu had done to her. The last thing she’d want was another bloodsucker at her neck—or to be reminded of it.
    “No.” Her calm brown eyes searched his, looking deep. But she must not have seen his soul or his secrets, because she didn’t kill him. “You led Irena and Alejandro to me. I’m indebted to you. My blades, my protection—you only have to ask, and they are yours if you ever have need of them.”
    No way in fucking hell was he taking them. “You don’t owe me anything. I had no idea you were there.”
    And he hadn’t known there were three nosferatu feeding from her. If he had, he wouldn’t have waited so long to contact this agency. Wouldn’t have waited while the bastard demon put whatever plan he had into place. And he’d have warned Irena they were walking into a nest.
    He thought of Eva and Petra—and their terror when he’d lain on the ground, beaten.
    He was so full of shit. He’d have waited, and done exactly as he’d been told. He’d have used Irena, his one contact among the Guardians, and through her, would’ve found his way into Special Investigations. And now he’d learn who had the keys to the Chaos realm—whether that person was the vampire the demon suspected it was.
    These Guardians could take care of themselves.
    Rosalia gave him another searching look, and he had the feeling that she was wondering, questioning, expecting something—as if she knew him. “If you need a blood-sharer, I imagine you’re going to see the community leader.”
    “Yes. You know him?”
    “No, though I have heard of him—the one who walks in sunlight.”
    His stomach dropped. In sunlight . . . and in Chaos, too? “I thought that was a myth.”
    “So did I, and all of the vampires I knew.” She stopped. The sudden grief on her face would have made angels weep.
    Deacon knew he was closer to a devil, and it still tugged at him. She’d lived in Rome. The nephilim had exterminated the vampires there, so any