Demon Forged (20 page)

Meaning that the vampires were in a threesome out of necessity, not desire—and trading in two partners for Deacon didn’t make any difference.

A second dose of humiliation didn’t get any easier to swallow, but he choked it down. “Thanks.”

“Any time.”

Rosalia’s silence continued after Darkwolf left. Deacon tried to think of something worth saying, and couldn’t.

Christ, he missed Eva and Petra. Missed their snarky banter, their softness with each other. Friends didn’t come any better than those two. Any real desire between them had faded decades ago, but he trusted them at his side, in his bed.

No real 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 Ames-Beaumont was good-looking, though. Pretty as hell. Deacon didn’t usually notice that about men, but with a face like Ames-Beaumont’s, he couldn’t
not
notice.

“The novices said that the effect wears off the longer you look at him. The better you know him.”

“What effect?” Deacon couldn’t stop staring at the guy, but that wasn’t an effect. It was damn smart, now that the vampire was walking in their direction.

“I don’t—” Beneath the table, Rosalia’s hand suddenly gripped his, hard. Her fingers rubbed up and down his knuckles like they were a rosary. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she whispered.

Maybe the lights shifted just right. Maybe it was just that Ames-Beaumont had come close enough. Deacon didn’t know, but one second he was seeing an overly-pretty vampire, and the next he saw beauty so striking, it was a physical blow to his chest. His fingers clamped down on Rosalia’s.

Ames-Beaumont stopped at their table. Jesus Christ, Deacon actually wanted to get up and touch the guy. Kiss him. He sat dumb, transfixed by the impossible beauty of that mouth.

Cool gray eyes met his. Then Ames-Beaumont bent his head, and the small female beside him rose to her toes and whispered into his ear. A low, incredibly fast whisper, mostly covered by the music, but Deacon heard his and Rosalia’s names—and “Irena.”

Jesus, he hadn’t even noticed the slim woman until now, but he assumed it was Savitri Murray, Ames-Beaumont’s partner. Deacon forced his gaze away from Ames-Beaumont and focused on her. Her black hair was almost as short as her partner’s, but tamed into little spikes. Her cinnamon skin would never pale as many vampires’ did. Her face was sharp, her chin pointed, and her dark brown eyes were lively. Eva often looked at him with the same combination of mischief and intelligence that this woman had, but where Eva was sturdy and rounded, this woman was delicate.

When Ames-Beaumont straightened, he wore a slight smile. “Deacon, Rosalia. We did not expect the pleasure of your company this evening.”

That accent had upper-class and British all over it. He should have guessed. “You are something unexpected, too.”

The vampire’s grin sent his heart racing. The bloodlust roared to life in his veins. Fucking unbelievable. Another second, and he’d be sporting wood under the table.

“I imagine I am.” Ames-Beaumont threaded his fingers through his partner’s and began to draw her away. “Come join us when it pleases you. We will be here most of the night.”

Ames-Beaumont turned his back to them. That was some relief.

Rosalia let go of his hand. Her breath was as unsteady as his. “That was kind of him. Giving us time.”

“Yeah.” Maybe not kind, though. Ames-Beaumont probably just didn’t like speaking with awestruck idiots. Deacon dragged his fingers through his hair. “The novices warned you?”

“Yes, but I didn’t understand . . . Wow.” She shifted a little on the seat.

Oh, Jesus. Was she aroused?
Wet?

Nothing Ames-Beaumont could have done equaled the need that raced through him then.

“They said it can be worse if he’s upset,” she added. “Or if his emotions are worked up.”

Worse?
What did that mean—an instant orgasm? “What kind of worse?”

“Terrifying. Becca said, and I quote, ‘One look makes you cream your panties, the other makes you piss in them.’ ”

Even quoted, some of those words came a little too easily from her tongue. “It’s been a while since you’ve been a nun, hasn’t it?”

“A very long time.” She lifted her glass, tipped a piece of ice into her mouth, and started chewing. With a deep breath, she glanced over at Ames-Beaumont’s table . . . and kept looking.

Getting used to it, Deacon realized, and did the same. Darkwolf joined the couple, sliding into Savitri’s side of the bench. She leaned toward Darkwolf as she spoke with him—and Ames-Beaumont stared at her with an enraptured expression that might have been on Deacon’s own face a minute before.

“They are both nosferatu-born,” Rosalia murmured.

Hearing that Ames-Beaumont was didn’t surprise him, but Savitri . . . ? That small, delicate woman was several times stronger than Deacon was?

“You can tell by looking at them?”

“The novices said she was.”

He should have hung around the novices a little longer. “How does he do that . . . effect?”

“They don’t know, though they each have their theories: a curse, Michael’s sword, he’s half-Guardian, or half-demon. Whatever it was, he can walk in the sun, only goes into his daysleep once a week, can’t see his reflection—”

“
Can’t see his reflection?
” Everything else he could buy, but no reflection was ridiculous. Vampires not casting reflections was just an old wives’ tale that Deacon proved wrong every time he looked into a mirror. He searched Rosalia’s face for a sign that she was joking, and found none. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “And the novices also said that he is as strong as a Guardian.”

Even a nosferatu-born vampire wasn’t that powerful. And it meant that Ames-Beaumont would be able to handle himself against a demon.

So he’d pass that info on. Pass it on and hope it was what the demon needed.

Suddenly, he just wanted to get this over with. “Ready?”

In answer, she scooted out. He should have followed her faster. She slid in next to Ames-Beaumont before Deacon got to the seat. He couldn’t protect her from the other vampire if she was between them. Couldn’t—

Jesus. What was wrong with him? A Guardian didn’t need help from a vampire. And he couldn’t protect her from Ames-Beaumont, anyway. That much had been made perfectly clear.

At least Ames-Beaumont’s effect wasn’t so bad now. The kick in the chest had mellowed into a soft compulsion to look, and Deacon’s brain was working again.

Rosalia wasn’t looking at Ames-Beaumont yet. Her gaze rested on his partner. “So,” she said. “You’re Hugh’s little sister.”

Hugh Castleford? The one who could read lies?

It just got better and better, Deacon thought grimly.

“And SI’s resident geek,” Savitri said brightly, but her face became more serious as she added, “I’ll be helping Jake dig through the church’s financial records, tracing any money that went into the upkeep. We’ll figure out how the nosferatu managed to stay down there so long without anyone raising an alarm. And I’ll keep you updated.”

Deacon decided he wouldn’t tell the demon that. The fucker had better hope he’d covered his ass and hidden the money trail.

Rosalia looked baffled. “But I know who owns the building—it was my brother’s. It is not one of the Church’s. It was the vampire community’s.”

Ames-Beaumont’s brows rose. “Your brother?”

“Lorenzo Acciaioli,” Deacon said.

Ames-Beaumont gave Rosalia a hard look, as if deciding whether she was something repulsive.

“Oh. I—Okay.” Savitri floundered, gathered herself, and glanced at Deacon. “And you need a partner?”

Deacon gave a short nod, and Ames-Beaumont frowned.

“The Guardians haven’t made arrangements for you?”

Both he and Darkwolf had asked that. What kind of arrangements could the Guardians make? A vampire had one long-term option for feeding, and that was to drink living blood. And Deacon would rather take it from a vampire who went through exactly what he did than as charity from a goddamn novice, or whoever else they could convince to get into his bed and donate their blood.

“No,” he said tightly.

Ames-Beaumont and Savitri exchanged a surprised glance. “Okay,” she said. “There’s one—”

“Oh, good God,” Ames-Beaumont interrupted. “The barbarian has made it through the gate.” He looked away from the club entrance and met Deacon’s gaze. “Are you
certain
the Guardians haven’t made arrangements for you? Because I know that look in her eyes: She’s hunting, and she’s coming for you.”

Deacon turned, caught sight of the red hair, the white fur mantle. His stomach dropped to his knees.

Irena.

Fucking perfect.