Demon Night

thought she was eager enough, and I didn’t have any inkling that something was wrong until after. I didn’t physically hurt her—but then she told me the demon had just killed her partner of over a hundred years. And she’d thought that, because I was a Guardian, I would feed her without taking anything. And the way she looked at me, Charlie…”
    He fell silent again. Charlie tried to speak, but shame was clawing at her lungs, guilt holding her tongue in a bitter grip. They were unfamiliar, unexpected—and heavy.
    Panic followed, weighing down on her chest, and she tugged at Ethan’s hand, frantic.
    “Son of a bitch.” He drew up vertical, hovering high above the edge of the lake. The shame and guilt vanished; her fear receded. “Charlie…Charlie— they’re not yours . I opened my shields a bit and projected. It’s easiest to do that when we don’t have the words to express something.”
    “Okay.” Her breath came hard. “How can I tell?”
    “I’ll do it again, slow. It’s not yours, and you’ll feel the difference.” He held her gaze, and something slipped into her, light but firm, with lilting, hopeful notes playing at the surface. Apology. “Most vampires say it’s like a scent or a taste, probably because those senses are—”
    She shook her head. “It’s more like a sound. This is almost like…a clarinet, accompanied by a flute.”
    His brows lifted. “That’s rare, but some Guardians were the same way. Most of those were musically inclined, too. For me, it’s scent and feel.” The wind picked up around them again as Ethan flew forward. “Blood, I’ve heard described as light or electricity for vampires drinking it. Could be your perception will be different there, too.”
    “It didn’t taste like anything.” She pulled a strand of hair out of her eyes, and averted her gaze from his neck. “My blood.”
    “No, I don’t reckon it would, even if you could still taste food. It isn’t necessarily the blood that feeds you, but the psychic energy it carries when it’s taken from the living source—and that’s what vampires taste when you drink it.” He paused. “Leastwise, that’s what we figure. And you wouldn’t taste your own psychic energy, any more than you’d taste a candy if your tongue was made of sugar.”
    Jane had been studying vampire blood. Charlie hadn’t understood all of Jane’s description, but she couldn’t remember her mentioning anything about energy—just artificially replicating the blood, and its healing properties. “So Legion intends to…what? Replicate psychic energy?”
    Ethan’s brows drew together, and he shook his head. “I don’t rightly know, Charlie. First, they’d have to measure it—and so far as I’m aware, it can’t be detected by scientific instruments, only by living beings who are sensitive to it. And once vampire blood is outside a body it can still heal or transform a human—but it doesn’t carry that psychic energy.”
    “Would Legion be trying to measure it inside the body then? Trying to find a way to detect it?” And using vampires as test subjects. Charlie closed her eyes, felt slightly sick. Jane would never be a part of that.
    His voice was troubled. “I hope not, Charlie; but if so, I hope the vampires are there voluntarily. But with demons, it’s impossible to be certain. They’ll stoop lower than most people want to imagine.” They banked northwest. Capitol Hill slid by far below them. Ethan took a long breath, seemed to gather himself, and said, “Regarding that vampire, Charlie…if Sammael knows, he’ll use it. He’ll claim that I’ll never be able to give you a day, let alone the time you need to adjust—and that I’ll succumb to the bloodlust again.”
    Trepidation rolled through her. Not that they’d have sex—she wanted that, wanted him. But she wanted a choice just as much, so that when she’d adapted to life as a vampire, she could accept him because of that desire. Not because her body and the bloodlust forced her to. “Will you succumb?”
    “No. I swear it. You rile me up pretty good, Charlie, but I ain’t an Enthralled novice.”
    He opened his shields to underscore his words, and his determination filled her with a strong, steady beat. How strange and amazing, to sense his emotions that way. To immediately recognize them—though there must be nuances she’d have to learn to decipher. These were in broad, single layers; but emotions were rarely uncomplicated.
    “All