Demon Moon

rolled deep in her throat.
    His fangs gleamed wickedly, and he tossed the bread near the stove. He’d taken his shoes off. His socks were silk, the same dark gray as his pants. Silently, he crossed the kitchen, until she backed up and he trapped her with his hands clamped on the countertop behind her hips.
    She tilted her head to look up at him, her body still shaking with her laughter. “What are you doing?”
    “Don’t you want to observe the results of your experiment, sweet?”
    “Oh. Yes.” Slowly, she managed to get hold of herself. She scrutinized his face. No signs of reddening, and his eyes no longer watered. “Does your stomach hurt? Does your tongue still burn?”
    “No.” Deep grooves formed beside his mouth; he seemed to be suppressing his own amusement with some difficulty.
    “You recover quickly.”
    “Yes. But I should have known better than to take such a careless risk.” His gaze fell to her lips. “Where are Castleford and Lilith?”
    Trying to steady her breathing, she glanced down at his hands clenched on the edge of the counter. His wrists were just outside the curve of her waist—an inch, and he’d be touching her.
    The thought didn’t keep her steady.
    “Savitri?”
    What had he asked? Hugh and Lilith. What had they been—“Oh,” she said. Her throat tightened, and she tried to look away from him—but there was nowhere else to look. “They were in the living room a while ago. If you can’t sense them, they must be in their bedroom or Hugh’s office. Probably with the spell around it. Lilith was…upset.”
    He stilled, staring down at her. “As, apparently, are you. Did you quarrel?”
    “No. I just listened.” Though it had been difficult not to interrupt them with her questions. With her concerns. “They found out that Washington might deny SI’s request to execute the nosferatu…Ariphale. His name is Ariphale,” she repeated to herself.
    “That does not make it more human,” Colin said quietly.
    “I know.” She smiled up at him, but it quickly faltered. The idea that an entire race of creatures was inherently “evil” seemed ridiculous and stank of bigotry. Yet everything she’d seen and heard confirmed they were. She said with more conviction, “I know what they are. I attacked him on the plane—would’ve killed him—because I knew. And it’s the same, isn’t it? I did it to protect myself and Nani; Lilith and Hugh want to execute him to protect SI and anyone else if he escaped. And it’s inevitable that, eventually, he will. There’s no doubt of his nature, no way to rehabilitate him. Yet the idea of his execution makes me uneasy.”
    Sensation skittered over her skin as Colin touched his fingers lightly against her waist before settling his hand beside her hip again. “How long has it been since you learned of the nosferatu? Of demons and vampires and Guardians? As smooth as your adjustment has been, eight months is not time enough to understand a world that has completely shifted its axis.” Empathy filled his gaze, his tone. His compassion was undoubtedly manipulative, a method of gaining her trust—but did that mean the emotion had to be false? And why did she want so badly to believe it was authentic? “Do not chide yourself for your uneasiness, Savi. Those who easily accept things so different from what they’ve known are too easily led.”
    She gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. “I suppose it is only that I think of it as a judgment given without trial. Yet who are more its peers than the Guardians—and what’s the alternative? That the nosferatu is released and Michael slays it when it attacks? That would be stupid.”
    “We would all prefer it that way, Savi. Few of us are so cold-blooded that we can kill a nosferatu or a demon without wishing it had been done in self-defense.” He grinned suddenly. “But for me. I would stab one in the front or the back. It doesn’t matter, so long as it’s dead. But to unleash a nosferatu solely with the intention of killing it, and risking death or injury in the process? Stupid, indeed.”
    “I know.” She laughed and shook her head again. “I keep saying that. Do you hate them?”
    He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
    “Don’t you pity them? They couldn’t have known what they brought upon themselves by abstaining in the First Battle—or that they’d be cursed.”
    “No. Their angelic intelligence must have been too great not to know the consequences. And so I save my pity