Demon Moon

heart began to hammer in her chest. And he knew it. Her psychic shields blocked her emotions, but couldn’t hide her physical reaction.
    Yet there was no mockery in his eyes as he looked her over. His perusal was quick, intense. “Invite me in, Savitri,” he said quietly.
    The request startled a laugh from her. “Vampires don’t need an invitation.” She pitched her voice low as well; Nani knew Colin wasn’t human, but probably assumed he was like Michael and Selah. Perhaps even Lilith. No one had disabused her of the notion—her fear of the nosferatu was too great. She had accepted Hugh’s friends and background, but she wouldn’t like knowing Colin was basically half-nosferatu. Demons, Guardians…they were tolerable. Nosferatu were not.
    “No,” he said, and the tips of his fangs showed when he smiled. “But I am a gentleman, and a gentleman doesn’t enter a woman’s house uninvited.”
    She willed her heartbeat to return to its normal pace. She needed to step away from the door, put some distance between them, but it was difficult not to stare. That golden hair, artistically messy. His sculpted cheekbones and angular jaw. The lean, elegant length of him in his tailored trousers and soft, clinging sweater. How did he manage it when he couldn’t even see himself in a—
    There, a reason for escape. She swallowed and nodded. “Alright, but give me a second?”
    His smile widened. “Of course, sweet Savitri.”
    She felt his gaze follow her as she walked across the living room to the cheval mirror that stood in the corner. Nani rose to her feet and narrowed her eyes disapprovingly. “You cannot leave him at the door, naatin ,” she said in Hindi. Then added in English, “Mr. Ames-Beaumont, please come in.”
    “It’s okay, Nani.” Savi turned the mirror to face the wall, and looked around for any that she’d missed. “I’m just making sure he’ll be good company, instead of ignoring us in favor of admiring himself.”
    “Savitri!”
    “Don’t scold her, Auntie,” Colin said, laughing. “She has the right of it. There is another by the kitchen, Savi. Sailor Moon?”
    She shot him a surprised glance as she flipped over the small frame depicting anime characters in schoolgirl uniforms.
    “A short obsession…with their equally short skirts,” he added as if in explanation, then turned his attention to her grandmother. “Mrs. Jayakar, you are as beautiful as ever.”
    She blushed and patted her hair. “And you are too kind to an old woman.”
    His brows rose. “Hardly old.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “If it weren’t akin to cradle-robbing, I’d steal you away and ravish you so completely you’d never leave my arms.”
    Savi couldn’t stop her grin as her grandmother swatted his arm and protested his audacity, laughing. Even Nani was not immune to his looks and charm. After the tension and fear of their flight, this was exactly what she needed.
    But unfortunately, they couldn’t stay there. “I’m going to get ready,” Savi said. “Where are you taking me? Any dress code I should follow?”
    His assessing gaze swept from her bare feet to the tips of her hair. “Not a tattered housecoat.”
    And that easily, he declared her inadequate. Her mouth flattened, and she bit off her automatic reply. Nani did not approve of gaalis .
    “You’re going out?” Dismay filled her grandmother’s voice, and Savi sighed.
    “I have to be seen, Nani, so that no one can say I was on that plane. No suitable boy is going to marry a girl who’s a terrorist.”
    She ignored the sharpening of Colin’s expression and waited for Nani’s reluctant nod before she headed for the bathroom.
    “Savi,” Colin said, and she glanced back over her shoulder. “Anything you put on will be appropriate.”
    “Only because they won’t be looking at me anyway.”
    His delighted grin warmed the room—or her blood. It just wasn’t right for a man to be that beautiful. Even Guardians and demons who could shape-shift into ideal forms couldn’t equal Colin when he smiled.
    “They will,” he said, “…after a while.”

    Colin angled the lamp, shining the light more fully onto the painting. His masterpiece, if he’d ever had one. But it had not been his brushstrokes, the color, nor the composition that made it beautiful: it was the subject.
    Caelum. The realm the Guardians made their home.
    Seven months before, only Guardians and their angel predecessors had ever seen Caelum. But when Lucifer