Demon Forged

by Meljean Brook

  She had to tell him the truth about what had happened in that iron-locked room.

  Her mouth was dry. She tried to moisten it and felt as if she’d swallowed razors. And she could have answered Taylor’s question now: There was little difference between humans and Guardians. As both, she’d felt fear and dread. As both, there’d been pain.

  But, before the demon, there had never been this much shame. Not for anything she’d done, or anything done to her.

  Pain hadn’t stopped her before, though. She couldn’t let shame do it now. Not if she wanted to move forward; not if she wanted to move beyond an overturned rock and a bargain.

  How laughable that, even as old as they were, Irena did not know if either she or Alejandro could do it. He was only human, as well. Would he feel disgust? Pity? Betrayal? His every possible response would add to the hurt. And she wanted to see his emotions, piece by piece—but she only wanted to see his reaction to this after he’d had time to accept it.

  Still, she couldn’t step away to give them space and time. Four hundred years of separation hadn’t made it easier. She had to tell him, face-to-face. And if it hurt him, she couldn’t run away from that. She’d never been a coward. She wouldn’t let the demon make her one.

  And she hoped that the presence of Taylor and Preston would force them to be mindful of their responses.

  “Have you already backed down?” He still spoke in Spanish, his voice soft and challenging. “If you have, Irena, I will come after you.”

  Would he? Fear became ragged claws tearing at the back of her throat, scraping at her eyes. She had not known fear could bring tears. She laughed at herself, hoping to push the fear away, but her laugh came out tattered by it.

  Alejandro’s hand tightened on her thigh. Abruptly, he let her go.

  She caught his wrist. He must have thought his touch had caused this fear. And why wouldn’t he? Alejandro could read her face, her laugh, but he didn’t know what lay behind them. She’d never told him.

  For the first time in her life, she wished that she had pretty words. Some manner of speech that wasn’t as blunt as a hammer strike. But she only had what she was.

  Though it would be easier to sign than to speak, she did not let go of his wrist. If he signed a reply, she would have to watch his hands. She wanted to see his face.

  She spoke quietly in Russian, as he had in Spanish, and her voice was as ragged as her laugh had been. “What the demon did in that room when I made that bargain—it was not what you thought.”

  His pulse jumped beneath her fingers. He still didn’t understand, though. His silence said he waited for her to continue.

  The claws in her throat became daggers. “He never intended to use pain. He wanted my body to respond to him.” The last part was the worst, but she forced the words out. “And I did.”

  She braced herself for disgust and pity. She forgot to prepare for relief.

  He didn’t—or couldn’t—contain it, and his relief lifted through his psychic scent, a sweet release.

  “He didn’t hurt you?” His voice was hoarse. His throat worked, and the rest was a grateful whisper. “Gracias, Dios mío!”

  He thanked God? Her rage and pain exploded. She swung, backhanded him across the face. His head snapped to the side, struck the opposite window. Glass shattered.

  Preston choked. “Jesus Christ! Were we shot?”

  No. Irena stared at Alejandro, horrified. She’d hit him. The back of her hand was numb from the force of her blow. Vivid red marked his cheek. His eyes had darkened to black. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  His lips drew back in a terrible smile. “Do that again.”

  “What the fuck are you two doing?”

  Taylor’s voice jolted Irena into motion. Her hand came screaming back to life as she reached for the door. She shoved outside and onto the sidewalk.

  Sickness roiled in her stomach. She wanted to curl up, wanted to cry, but she walked, seeing nothing but his face. How could she have lost control? She’d known what she could do if she succumbed to her anger, and she’d done it with Olek. It didn’t matter that a backhanded slap was nothing compared to tearing the demon apart. Both had been done without thought, without any attempt to check her actions.

  And once again, she’d left.

  She stopped, her breath shuddering. She couldn’t walk away from this. Irena turned—and saw Alejandro had kept his promise.

  He’d come after her.

  Alejandro didn’t know what surprised him more: The harsh pleasure he’d felt when she’d hit him, or that a few moments after she’d done it, he realized that she’d lied to him. The demon had hurt her. Alejandro hadn’t seen the evidence, but he’d scented it. Irena’s blood had been spilled in that room.

  He wiped at his mouth and tasted his own blood. Mother of God, he didn’t know why she’d tried to revise history or why she’d struck him, but he would not stop until he found out.

  Rain splashed against his face as he bolted out of the car. Taylor had pulled over on a street not far from SI. Businesses lined the sidewalks, shabbier than their downtown counterparts. Awnings streaked with dirt were leaking. The scents of nail salons and sandwich shops drifted out through the damp. The sidewalks were almost empty. The humans moved quickly through the drizzle, using papers and umbrellas to shield their hair.

  Irena passed each storefront without looking left or right. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched.

  Her posture ripped at his heart. He was damned if he’d let her get far enough ahead to escape. Not without settling this between them.

  God knew if they could.

  He glanced back at Taylor and Preston, each standing behind their opened car door. Alejandro held up his hand, silently asking them to wait.

  Preston nodded.

  Alejandro took off, narrowing Irena’s lead to a few meters. She didn’t look to see who was running up behind her. Was she that oblivious to his pursuit—and leaving herself open to attack? Anger joined his worry.

  In the shadows between two of the storefronts, she stopped. Getting ready to fly?

  Not a chance. When she turned, he charged.

  She didn’t raise a hand to defend herself. Shocked anew that he wanted her to strike him, he caught her waist and lifted her. He’d been hard since her hand had connected with his face, and he fought the hot pleasure of holding her against his body, his erection caught between them. This wasn’t going to be about sex. His only intention was to question.

  When her back hit the side of the building, his intentions went flying. Amazement shot through him. He stared down into her wary eyes, disbelieving the evidence in his hands.

  She was so small. Irena weighed no more than a human. In the conference room, had he been too blind with arousal and surprise to notice it? Because until this moment, even knowing, knowing that Guardians were no heavier after their transformation, he’d imagined lifting her would be an effort. Irena had always been so solid, so indestructible in his mind, as if he thought she’d been made out of metal—but she was fragile flesh and blood beneath his hands.

  Her jaw set, but he didn’t just see strength and stubbornness. She expected a blow in return. Dear God. He leaned his forehead against hers, feeling as if he’d lost his footing, trying to regain it.

  He never intended to use pain.

  Instead, the demon had used Alejandro’s face and . . . forced her to enjoy his touch?

  Rage mounted in him, as it always did when he thought of the demon with her. But his feelings on her behalf were the same. Relief. An emotion that had made her strike out.

  Irena’s wet palm cupped the side of his neck. She had to feel his pulse racing. Must hear his heart pounding.

  He could barely hear the quick beat of hers over it.

  “Olek.” She pitched her voice low, and he was astonished to realize that she was trying to calm him.

  He lifted his head to look at her, and struggled to keep his shields strong. Tried to sound less shaken
than he was. Despite that effort, he only managed, “You ran.”

  Her gaze shifted from his eyes to his cheek, though the mark from her hand must have faded. The back of his head felt as if his skull had shattered—but he could ignore the pain. The shock of the slap had affected him more than the blow.

  And her stillness, her silence now—was she afraid she’d hit him again?

  He didn’t care if she did. “Why did you not tell me before?”

  She closed her eyes. What was she hiding? What did she fight?

  Then he felt it, faint as a whisper behind closed doors: shame in her psychic scent.

  “Oh, Jesus.” He tried to find words again. “There is no shame in it, Irena. Forced to feel pleasure is no different than being forced to feel pain.”

  Her eyes flashed open, glowing a brilliant green. “You stupid ox. Do you think I do not know that?”

  He felt her anger, rising hot. His footing was gone, but this was familiar.

  And that told him something else; she had not hit him out of anger. She’d been angry many, many times. Always, she had controlled it. This was something different.

  “You do not hit me now?”

  “You thanked your god, you grateful pig. Thanked him, when there was nothing the demon could have done that would have been worse. I’d rather he’d torn my flesh. Would rather have felt pain.”

  Because it wouldn’t have touched her. Because she could guard against it.

  Horror shook his veins as he began to realize. He fought to find his footing again. “You did feel pain. Your blood was in that room.”

  She closed her eyes again, breathing shallowly.

  “Irena.” He imprisoned her face between his hands. “Tell me, or hit me.”

  She snarled. “He put his mouth on me. I would not let myself feel pleasure again. I . . . used my dagger on that part of me.” Her snarl faded, and she shook against him. “But he only waited until I healed, and bound my hands so that I could not do it again. Then I bit off my tongue so that I could not beg him to fuck me. Over and over, I did that.”

  Alejandro couldn’t speak. Horror, rage, and agony howled within him, but he couldn’t speak.

  The anger in her voice faded. Only resignation remained. “I could not tell you, Olek. I only do now because something has changed between us. And I could not go forward until it was said.”

  Go forward . . . without him?

  “And so it is done.” She turned her face. “Let me go.”

  His hands tightened. “No.”

  Her eyes flashed. She pushed at him.

  He dragged her higher up the wall and heard her jacket scraping against the bricks. Though he wanted to, he couldn’t be gentle. His words had deserted him, yet he had to make clear that he couldn’t let her go.

  He lowered his head, took her mouth. Her lips were wet and cool. Her breath shuddered, her thighs wrapped his hips, and suddenly he wasn’t showing her anything but was rendered helpless to his need. Raw desire rappelled through him, drawing him up hard and tight against her. Her teeth dug into his bottom lip. His groan vibrated deep in his throat.

  As if mollified by the sound, Irena softened. She opened her mouth beneath his. Her hands buried in his hair, pulling him closer.

  He barely felt the pain that lanced through him as her fingers found the lump on the back of his head, but she must have realized what she’d touched. She broke the kiss, breathing heavily.

  “Let go, Olek.”

  He never wanted to deny her will. That didn’t mean he’d obey. “I will only come after you.”

  Her eyes flared again. “I won’t leave. I will meet you at SI.” Her gaze slid to the left. “It is after sunset. We cannot leave Taylor alone.”

  Damn duty. Damn everything but Irena. But he could not deny her this—and it would give him time to put his thoughts in order, as well.

  He stepped back. She touched his cheek, then stroked her fingers down his bare chin. Silently, she turned and walked away.

  He watched until she rounded a corner before starting back toward the detectives. Rain soaked the insides of his shoes, squelching with every step. It dripped down the back of his neck. He changed clothes as he passed through the shadows, trading shoes for his comfortable boots. He touched his jaw where Irena had and formed his beard.

  The detectives’ car was only a block away when a harmonious voice sliced through the air like blades.

  “Alejandro Sandoval de Córdoba y Hacén.”

  He pivoted, seeking Michael. Across the street, the Doyen perched on the roof of a building, his black wings folded against his back. His obsidian eyes seemed to absorb the light. Alejandro had seen them many times, but they’d never appeared to him as empty—as soulless—as they did now.

  They had never appeared as the nephilim’s eyes did.

  “You left her unguarded.”

  As if the words snaked through Michael’s psychic blocks, the air suddenly seethed with the Doyen’s anger. Alejandro’s stomach lurched. In five centuries, he had seen Michael cold, had seen him ruthless—but never terrifying.

  And he’d never felt the raw, unleashed power that Michael emitted now. Two years ago, he’d felt something similar from Lucifer . . . but this was worse.

  Because he thought he’d known Michael. Thought he’d had some idea what the Doyen was capable of.

  He remembered Irena’s claim that Khavi had told Michael something more than the vision about Taylor. Yes, Alejandro thought. Irena must have been right. And whatever Khavi had told him stripped away some of Michael’s layers.

  He made a short bow, kept his voice low and respectful. “It will not happen again.”

  “It will not. From this point forward, she is mine after sunset. You may go.”

  The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. She is mine? That was a peculiar way to phrase it. Perhaps there was more to Michael’s behavior than just concern for Taylor . . . but Alejandro would not leave her alone with the Doyen like this. Not until Michael’s anger had passed.

  “I would, Michael,” he said, and crossed the distance to the car. “But I dislike the rain, and prefer to ride back to SI.”

  He got in, unsurprised to find his fingers shaking. Taylor gave a pointed look at the shattered window before pulling away from the curb.

  Preston was laughing to himself. “For a minute there, I thought we’d be citing you both for public indecency.”

  “Cite both your asses for destroying public property,” Taylor muttered. “But I’d still have to explain it to Jorgenson.”

  If Michael’s words earlier had opened his blocks, Taylor’s seemed to close them. The Doyen’s seething anger vanished. No other emotion replaced it.

  Alejandro didn’t find that reassuring.

  CHAPTER 13

  Irena felt the tension immediately upon her return to Special Investigations. As she strode into the hub, she heard the conversation from the novices upstairs fade, as if they were listening. A sigh escaped her. She could not walk into a room without everyone around her expecting a fight.

  Standing in the center of the hub, Taylor and Preston appeared to be waiting for Alejandro, who was speaking with Selah, making plans to teleport to Buenos Aires later. After he was done here, he still had more to do.

  Irena had something she needed to do, too. She jogged upstairs, across the common room, and into the dormitory hallway, noting how the novices avoided her eyes.

  Rosalia waited in front of Deacon’s room. Her black knee-high boots sported heels that Irena would have twisted her ankle in. A hooded cloak draped her shoulders, creating swirling shadows that now concealed, now revealed the black form-fitting pants and shirt she wore. She’d strapped a crossbow to her back.

  Obviously, she spent far too much time among vampires.

  “It is good to see you well,” Irena said.

  “It is good to be well.” Rosalia didn’t move away from Deacon’s door. “He is in the shower. Are you bringing him the nosferatu’s blood?”
<
br />   “Nosferatu and demon.”

  “If you don’t object, I’d like to give the blood to him.”

  Surprised, Irena regarded her closely. Rosalia’s expression, though friendly, had a strange intensity that Irena couldn’t read. She remembered Deacon’s reaction to the Guardian at the club. Perhaps that interest was reciprocated.

  “Why?”

  “Because it is good to be well.” A small, sad smile tilted her lips. “And I owe him for that.”

  Irena still didn’t see why, but many Guardians had different notions of debts and obligations than she did. She wouldn’t prevent Rosalia from repaying hers.

  The novices in the common room remained quiet while she passed the blood to Rosalia. Signing, instead of talking aloud. Irena frowned, her irritation with the novices mounting. Why didn’t they just say what they thought? Were they truly so uncertain about her intentions? And if they were—why did it make them so hesitant? What she did had no bearing on them.

  She stalked back to the common room, her shields open and projecting the dull edge of her anger. Eyes wide and wary, the novices watched her approach. Becca sat beside Pim, both twisted around so that they could see over the back of the sofa. Randall, Garth, and Nadia stood stiffly beside the game table. Almost half of all the current novices—and Echo, Ben, and Mackenzie were also at the game table, a few vampires, too. Good.

  Irena heard Alejandro’s light step on the stairs, but didn’t glance that way. She stopped in front of Becca, braced her hands on top of the sofa’s back, and leaned in.

  “I’m heading downstairs to kill Lilith. What are you going to do?”

  A heartbeat of shocked silence fell over the room. The novices barraged her with objections an instant later, but Irena only paid attention to Becca’s.

  Her fists curled. Her gaze held Irena’s. “I’ll stop you.”

  Irena grinned. “Will you?”

  She grabbed the novice’s shoulders, hauled her over the sofa. Before novices or vampires could react, Irena had Becca flat on the floor, her knee in the novice’s back and her knife against the side of Becca’s throat. The novice struggled to get up. Irena held her easily.