Demon Forged

desire, and here was Rosalia, who had him wondering about her breasts, her nipples—not just the taste of her blood. Life didn’t make any damn sense.
    He looked over at her. “So what’s your story?”
    A strange smile touched her eyes, and told him there would be more to her answer than whatever she said. “I was killed by a vampire while saving my sisters.”
    Killed saving someone. That was how it always worked with Guardians. “Any vampire I know?”
    “Lorenzo Acciaioli.”
    “No kidding? And you didn’t slay him after you returned to Earth?”
    Rome’s leader had been more than an asshole—he’d been a cruel, vindictive one. As one of the nosferatu-born, Acciaioli hadn’t been challenged by other vampires. And demons had left him alone, probably because they recognized evil when they saw it. Acciaioli did their work for them.
    “No.” She pulled the straw from her glass and downed the rest of her drink. “You have had dealings with him.”
    That wasn’t a question. “Yeah, him and his queer little brother.” Now that was a fucked up relationship. Acciaioli had his consorts, but rumor was, his little brother fed from him, too. And no vampire could drink blood without getting hot.
    When Rosalia raised her brows, he explained, “About six years ago, we had a dispute over one of his vampires who defected to my community. It wasn’t the first one who’d defected, but I guess it was one too many. Acciaioli wanted to kill him for his disloyalty; I disagreed.”
    And he supposed that the brother was the reason it hadn’t come to a challenge, and Deacon getting his ass handed to him. Instead, the brother had sneaked into Deacon’s room and kissed him. He could still feel that freak’s lips against his own. He’d stopped short of giving Deacon his tongue, but only because Deacon had been pushing at him—the little fucker had been strong, maybe even nosferatu-born, as well—and Acciaioli had come upon them.
    Deacon hadn’t known if it was out of jealousy, disgust, or embarrassment—whatever the reason, after seeing that kiss, Acciaioli had given up and hightailed it back to Rome.
    Deacon shook off the memory. “Is Acciaioli one of the friends you’re grieving?”
    “I am not sure if it is grief or relief. He was my brother.” Her gaze was steady, deep. Stunned, he couldn’t look away. “How would you counsel someone in my place?”
    He recovered from his shock. “I don’t do counseling.”
    “But as a man of the cloth, you used to.”
    He stared at her. Eva and Petra knew he’d once worn a navy chaplain’s insignia on his collar, but no one else did. And it was a long, long time ago. “How the fuck do you know that?”
    “Perhaps it is recognizing like to like. I was not always a Guardian.”
    Like to like? “Then you were what? A goddamn nun?”
    “Yes.”
    She smiled slightly, as if she hadn’t just dropped about three bombshells on him in the past minute. A nun. Holy shit. And that probably meant the sisters she’d been saving weren’t her blood relatives.
    But she’d still been left with one screwed up family. “So you lost two brothers.”
    Her brow furrowed, then cleared. “No.”
    What the hell? So the queer little brother—“Oh, fuck.”
    It’d been Rosalia. Shape-shifted.
    The humiliation just kept on coming, didn’t it?
    Her laugh was quiet, and didn’t last. She sighed. “I could not kill Lorenzo, so I managed him.” She pushed her empty glass away. “Tried to.”
    “And that was all you did?” A waste of a Guardian.
    Obviously, she thought so, too. “No, of course not.” She frowned at him, but before it could settle on her mouth, she stiffened. Her gaze shifted to the club entrance. “Ames-Beaumont is here.”
    Deacon turned. Just going by his size, Ames-Beaumont wasn’t much to speak of. Tall, but not intimidating. Deacon had a few inches on him—and about thirty pounds of muscle. But muscle didn’t mean much to a vampire; their strength depended on age and the blood that had transformed them. The vampire’s trousers and shirt screamed money and were as neat as a magazine spread. His clothes might have been called prissy in their perfection, but his blond hair obviously hadn’t seen a comb in some time.
    Deacon’s lip curled. He’d bet anything that messy look had been influenced by a recent vampire movie that had been popular with humans, and where the creatures had sparkled . Yeah, prissy fit just right.
    He couldn’t deny that