Demon Forged

stay.”
    What was she, a tease? His brows lowered, but a buzzing from the dresser stopped him from whipping around and seeing if she’d follow through on that.
    In two steps, he grabbed up his phone. The text message shoved his arousal into low gear, but left his anger running.
    Send everything you know about Irena. Her territory, her haunts.
    Fuck that.
    Irena’s info isn’t part of the deal, asshole.
    He sent his reply and turned back to Rosalia. Her dark eyes regarded him steadily, her expression serious.
    “Problems?”
    He remembered her promise to protect him. Though she was a far cry from the weird, playful vampire she’d pretended to be six years ago, there wasn’t anything about her that suggested a warrior. Even with her business face on, she just looked sweet, soft, and sexy.
    Irena, though . . .
    He shook his head. He wasn’t going there. Irena and her band of merry Guardians might tear a nosferatu nest apart, and he knew damn well that she could take care of herself—but the moment Caym sensed anyone coming, he’d kill Eva and Petra. Guardians weren’t that good. They weren’t that fast. And Deacon wasn’t going to take that risk.
    “No problem at all,” he said. He slicked his hand through his hair, trying not to feel impotent and naked . . . and failing. “Why the hell are you in here?”
    This time her eyes didn’t brighten when she smiled. A wealth of vulnerability sat on the rich curve of her lips. Men harder than Deacon would have been softened by it.
    “Because I know you,” she said quietly.
    So, after losing everything, she was looking for someone even remotely familiar to hold onto. Christ. He couldn’t be that. No matter how much he wanted to.
    His phone buzzed again. Irritated, he snapped it up.
    The picture on the screen showed a knife with a demon’s taloned fingers wrapped around the handle. Its blade cut into Eva’s throat. Her eyes held terror . . . and a stark plea. The message was short.
    New deal. You have 10 minutes.
    Deacon deleted the message, looked over at Rosalia. “You don’t know me. I don’t want to know you, and I don’t give a shit about what you think you owe me. So get the fuck out of my face.”
    Her mouth compressed, her eyes glinted, and for an instant he thought he was wrong about soft. Thought he might be wrong about sweet.
    Then she smiled. “I won’t bother you again.”
    The oppressive darkness of her Gift shoved against his psychic blocks. The shadows beneath the bed undulated like tentacles, slithering out over the wooden floor. Deacon stumbled back, but they didn’t come after him. Thick tendrils wrapped around Rosalia’s heels, coiled up her legs, over her chest, thinning and spreading. In less than a second, the shadows engulfed her in a transparent black cocoon.
    They sucked her under the bed as if she were no more substantial than fog.
    Good Christ. Deacon dropped to the floor, bending his elbows in a push-up, searching for a sign of her. Only shadows lurked beneath the iron bed frame. Only normal shadows.
    He rocked back heavily onto his heels, feeling as if his chest had been lined with lead. He thought of Eva, the plea in her eyes. The image forced him to move. He strode to his desk and opened his laptop.
    Rosalia had been wrong: She would bother him for a long time. But everything else he’d done—everything he was about to do—was going to bother him more.

    A man had to know when to protect his woman . . . but that was difficult when Alejandro wanted to strangle Irena himself.
    Strangle her, or fuck her boneless. Maybe for two seconds, while he was deep inside her, her skull would soften enough for him to get through to her thick brain.
    But he couldn’t now. Not with Michael—himself again—standing at the back of the room. Not with the detectives sitting at the table. Not with Lilith perched on the arm of Castleford’s chair, her hand stroking the back of the hellhound lying beside them.
    But, good Christ, Irena deserved at least a good shaking. She’d taunted Rael. She hadn’t put the camera in a bracelet or a pendant, but a sword. And even with the camera facing the demon, Alejandro knew that she’d regarded Rael with a disdainful sneer.
    “Julia was a good woman and a good wife.”
    “Truth,” Castleford said quietly.
    “He believes that is true,” Lilith corrected. “She might not have been.”
    Castleford smiled. “That is true, too.”
    Alejandro focused on Lilith, trying to read her. He knew