As if she heard a little grief in his voice, she cocked her head and studied him before turning to Vin. “You two are going out?”
“Dinner by candlelight . . . and then a romantic evening in the van.”
Rosalia laughed. “The last night, I think—and we should not be too long. I can take over the watch before it grows very late.”
Her soft smile remained as she watched them retreat into Gemma’s room, and as she looked to Deacon.
“I suppose you will want your dinner as well.” A bag of blood appeared in her hand. “I would put them all into the icebox so that you can feed at will, but this is the last one. We should receive another shipment from San Francisco tomorrow.”
“And if they don’t send it?”
She turned toward the kitchen, and he couldn’t read her face when she said, “Then we’ll make other arrangements.”
He could only hope those arrangements included Rosalia spread out on a table.
With fruit piled in ceramic bowls, and the faint scent of cinnamon and cloves, the kitchen appeared just as warm and lived-in as the other rooms within the abbey, though he assumed only Gemma must have been a regular user.
Deacon discovered he was wrong. After Rosalia set a tall glass in front of him, she pulled out a plate and a peach. A paring knife appeared in her hand, and she sliced around the fruit before rotating it open.
She took a bite, and he couldn’t decide which appeared more succulent: her mouth or that peach.
Mistaking the reason for his attention, she said, “Eating became a habit when Gemma’s grandmother first came to work for me. By the time Vin, Gemma, and Pasquale arrived, it was a good habit.”
Whereas he couldn’t even taste food. He lifted his glass. “Well, I appreciate the company. Otherwise I’d be desperate and lonely.”
As an apology, it wasn’t worth much, but her smile could knock a man off his feet. His weren’t all that steady when she gestured to the courtyard.
“Shall we eat out there?”
They didn’t have candlelight, but the moon filled in. He followed her to the fountain, where she straddled the stone bench and used the length of seat in front of her to make a table. He swung his leg over the other end, facing her, and took a swig of the blood. Living, it felt like a jolt of electricity across his tongue.
His hunger sharpened. He needed a distraction, and latched onto the unfamiliar name she’d mentioned back in the kitchen. “Pasquale? That’s another kid who lived here?”
“Gemma’s brother. Vincente’s best friend.” She looked down at her fingers. “He’s gone.”
Another vampire? That didn’t surprise him. Surrounded by immortals, why wouldn’t a young man try to become one? “And another reason for taking out the nephilim?”
“No. This happened more than a decade ago. He was attempting to become a Guardian.”
Which meant sacrificing himself in some way. Christ, that must have been one hell of a blow. “But he didn’t.”
“No. And it was . . . a difficult time. For all of us.” He’d become accustomed to seeing sadness in her eyes, but now he heard the same emotion in her voice, almost drowned in it. She fell silent for a moment, then looked up at him again. “So do you go first, or do I?”
“Giving our reason of the day?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she hummed around a bit of peach.
He could have said her mouth had been a reason to come back. Her blood. An opportunity to find out more about her. He skipped all of those reasons, and held up his glass.
“This is one.”
She accepted that easily enough. “Yes. I imagine that without a partner—partners—it’s better than the alternative.”
She had that right: Drinking demon’s blood from a glass was much better than fucking a stranger almost every night. And he didn’t want to think about how finding a new partner would become necessary once the demons and nephilim were gone.
He remembered the stories in her head, wondered if she had two for Eva and Petra. “You knew them?”
“I knew of them better than I knew them. I only spoke with them a few times—the latest at Eva’s gallery showing in ’ninety-five.”
She’d been there? He thought back, trying to remember faces. She hadn’t used this one, he was certain. But he recalled the painting in her room . . . and standing in front of the same canvas during the showing. A woman—a human woman, he’d thought—her dark hair streaked with gray and her face gently lined, had come to stand beside him. She’d told him that painting was her favorite, that Eva was both talented and lovely.
Shit. Only fourteen years ago, she’d been close enough to touch—and he hadn’t recognized her for the Guardian she was.
“You said I was lucky to have her.”
Her brows shot up, as if surprised that he remembered. Hell, so was he.
“You were,” she said. Her lashes swept down, but not before he saw the shadows in her eyes. He just didn’t know why they were there. “I liked them. And I liked knowing that Prague’s leader had such strong personalities behind him. That he had partners loyal to him.”
“They gave me hell.”
“Because they could. Two women in love with each other at a time when vampire communities weren’t open? They went through hell. And women who’ve been through hell don’t play with a man’s ego unless they know he won’t strike back at them. They don’t tease him. But they trusted you. And they chose to be with you.” Her smile widened almost to the edge of a laugh. “Them giving you hell probably did you good.”
Yeah, it had. But he didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His throat hurt too damn much.
He finished off the glass. His hunger receded, and discomfort took its place. He’d chosen blood as his reason because it would reveal the least, yet she’d managed to peel off part of him, anyway. And he wanted to expose her in return.
“Your son said you overcompensate.”
Her brows arched. “He did?”
“Yes. If something goes wrong, you go overboard fixing it.”
She pursed her lips. “Maybe so.”
“How do I fit into that?”
Her brows lifted again.
“Sister, it’s easy to see what you’ve been doing here. You want to kill demons? You’re smart enough you could have made it seem like a vampire was doing it without anyone being the wiser. Hell, you could go in looking like me, and no one probably would have noticed anything different. But instead, you’re helping me out. Letting me kill them. What I can’t figure is why. What failure of yours is so bad that you’re overcompensating with me?”
“You’re wrong. It does have to be you.”
“Bullshit.”
Laughing a little, she shook her head. “You don’t even recognize . . .” She trailed off, her expression becoming serious as she studied him. “All right. You’re correct—I am trying to make up for something.”
“Then spill it.”
She did, but only after a moment, as if she chose her words carefully. “There was a man once. For no reason at all, he helped me . . . and when I’ve been helped, I feel as though I owe someone.”
Her wry smile invited him in. But his gut had tightened up. A man. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know more. Yet he couldn’t stop himself. “Go on.”
Her eyes softened. “So I kept returning to him, looking for some way to help him out, to return the favor. And I . . . got to know him.”
“Started talking to him?”
“No!” The denial came out on a burst of laughter, and fire swept over her cheeks. “No. I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t have done that.”
So she’d just stalked him. Didn’t see her, did you?
“You got hot for him.” Jealousy brought out the bastard. “I get it.”
The look she gave him said he didn’t get it. “It wasn’t like that. I couldn’t be with anyone. Especially not a human. Lorenzo would have killed him, just to hurt me. And I . . . I thought he must be too good to be true. That eventually he’d b
e a disappointment.”
Her color was high again, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Was he?”
“No. But I couldn’t . . . But the timing wasn’t right. It was never right. And it was never going to be right. He was human and I was a Guardian, and my brother hadn’t changed.” She took a deep breath. “But I wanted so much. And I thought, Maybe one day, it would be right. So I arranged for him to become a vampire.”
Deacon stared at her, struck dumb. That’d been the last thing he expected her to say. And how did she arrange for someone to become a vampire? It couldn’t have been against the man’s will. The transformation had to be voluntary. So the man had chosen a vampire’s life for his own reasons.
He could understand that, easily. He remembered Camille, so bright in the darkness of his life. How she’d had a purpose—and through her, he’d had one, too, until he’d found his own again.
This man had probably been seduced by the transformation the same way. “You knew he would accept it?”
“I thought he might.”
But Rosalia couldn’t be with him and provide the blood he’d need. That meant—“Even though he’d be with someone else?”
So she’d arranged for his transformation, then handed him over to another woman. That was damn cold and calculating.
But the expression on Rosalia’s face was neither. “He was with someone else,” she said softly. “But he was alive.”
So his life had made the trade-off worth it. Christ.
She continued. “And I thought . . . At some point, he won’t live up to my expectations. And I’ll lose interest.”
“Did he? Did you?”
“Yes, he did. And no, I didn’t.”
So, some perfect bastard. Someone who might be good enough for her. “So why aren’t you with him now? Your brother’s dead.”
“Yes, well—” She took another deep breath. “Not so long ago, he was forced to make a bargain with a demon.”
Now it was coming together. The connection. “Like I did.”
She made a strange noise in her throat. “Yes. Like you, he was left with no good choices. Only bad ones. I didn’t know it, though. I had no idea what was happening. And while he was away from his community, I thought: Maybe now I’ll try.”
“And you met up with him. You told him?”
“No.” Her gaze locked on his, held steady. “I’d have to tell him how I manipulated his life. I feared his reaction.”
He considered his own aversion to Camille trying to manage him, and his relief that Eva and Petra had never tried. “Yeah, that’d make any man pissed enough to walk away.”
Then realize what he could have with her and get over it.
“Yes,” Rosalia said softly. She looked away from him. “I probably shouldn’t have done it that way. I probably should have been open from the beginning. Maybe it would have changed things.” She sighed. “Or maybe it wouldn’t have. In any case, the demon got to him, and I should have known. I should have seen, but instead I was trying to flirt. And instead of being able to help him, his bargain with the demon ended . . . badly.”
He’d died? Deacon hadn’t been around any other vampires the past six months. He didn’t know who it’d been—or even if it was a European vampire, someone he was familiar with. And he didn’t want to ask around and find out who he was competing against.
Competing against? By the sound of this guy, Deacon wasn’t even in the same class.
“So you couldn’t help him, and now you’re overcompensating by helping me.”
And her wanting to kiss him suddenly made more sense. She’d transferred more than her guilt over from this other guy.
“Yes.” She lifted her sad eyes to his again. “That’s oversimplified, but basically . . . yes. That failure is one of my many reasons.”
He’d wanted to expose more of her? Shit. Judging by the jealousy eating at him, he’d exposed more of himself. Her vulnerability was killing him.
He pushed all of that emotion away and said flatly, “So we have our reasons, and now we should be going. What city’s on the agenda for tonight?”
She took several moments. Still wrestling with her heart-break, he guessed. Her answer, when it came, was soft. “Monaco.”
Where she’d change her clothes and put on that human-scented perfume, then rub his shirt over her skin. He wanted to put his scent on her. Wanted to mark her as his.
“Did you have all of my shirts cleaned?”
Her puzzled expression said he’d lost her. “Yes.”
“Come here, then.”
Here, in this courtyard, she was a Guardian, not a human. She’d say no if she didn’t want to.
And if she wanted him—even just as a replacement—Deacon wouldn’t object to being used. Not when he knew this was the only way he would have her.
He was a bastard again, after all.
“Come here and kiss me, Rosie. You need my scent on you. You’ll get it.”
Her lips parted. She seemed about to say something, then stopped herself. Leaning forward, she lifted her knees onto the bench and stalked toward him like a cat. She paused in front of him, rising up on her knees between his legs.
Her hair slipped over her shoulder, curling against her breast. Peaches perfumed her breath. For a moment, she looked down at him—maybe through him. Then she lowered her head, and her mouth settled gently on his. The tentative movement of her lips whispered through him, so sweet. He remembered her awkward kiss, his callous response.
You’ve got other parts I like better.
No. A thousand perfect tits couldn’t equal one touch of her lips.
His hand closed around her nape, and he brought her in for a deeper kiss. A vampire couldn’t taste, but he could smell her luscious scent. Feel the heat of her mouth.
She moaned softly in her throat when his tongue pushed against hers. She licked his fangs, and the heat of her tongue speared straight to his cock. He strained toward her. Her fingers searched his jaw, his hair, then down over his shoulders. Touching all of him. Her breasts brushed his chest, then pressed harder against his pecs as if she loved the feeling. As if she wanted to surround him, devour him.
He broke the kiss, breathing hard. “Come over me, Rosie. Like this.”
Lifting her, he brought her knees forward until her thighs spread wide over his. When she settled back down, her warm center tucked hard against his stomach. Her breath caught, her eyes closed, and then she rocked into him, as if testing the sensation.
His hands found her hips, urged her to rock against him again. Her heart pounded, her breath came fast. She was all heat and softness. And need—as if she couldn’t get enough of him. When was the last time he’d felt that? Had he ever felt that?
Not like this. She claimed his mouth in a wild, desperate kiss. Sensing the scrape and tear of skin against his fang, he pulled back . . . and stared.
Her eyes glowed. No longer brown but yellow, as if a sun burned within. Her skin had flushed, her hands fisted in his hair. She hadn’t noticed the cut, the blood that beaded on her lip.
Temptation gripped him. He’d just fed, his hunger and bloodlust sated. He wouldn’t lose control with a taste, and he only wanted to know . . . wanted to know more. Her mental shields couldn’t hold when he was in her blood. She closed her eyes as he brought her down. A niggle of guilt made him hesitate, but pausing only fueled his need. Gently, he drew her bottom lip between his.
Just a drop, but her blood was strong, stronger than he’d imagined, crashing into his veins like the crest of an orgasm. His mind hurtled into hers. Longing poured through him, fierce and sweet, and the hectic thread of her thoughts.
. . . shouldn’t have waited so long wish I could hold on forever . . .
Her lip healed, breaking the connection. Deacon struggled up from the deep psychic well, aware that something had gone wrong. His bloodlust lurked just below the surface, on the verge of taking him over. Rosalia had stiffened against him; he gripped her hips painfully tight, gri
nding her sex against his raging erection.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stop. Shock held him quiet, staring up at Rosalia. The bloodlust had never hit him like that before. Not from one drop, taken after he’d already drunk his fill. But he shouldn’t have risked it, risked her.
Her eyes weren’t glowing anymore. She licked her lip, and fear fluttered over her expression. Her voice seemed thick.
“You tasted my blood.”
A flash of memory brought him the image of Rosalia, with dried blood crusting her skin. Her shattered skull. The nosferatu, feeding from her. “Christ, I’m a thoughtless bastard. You were in the catacombs for more than a fucking year, and here I am—”
“I don’t remember anything that happened to me there.” She cut him off, her gaze searching his face as if worried that she’d find . . . what? “Did you hear inside me?”
Just her regret and her need for the other guy. But she didn’t need to know that—she looked too vulnerable as it was. He shook his head.
Her relief punched through him. So she didn’t want him peeking in, taking her blood? He wouldn’t. Not again. Never again.
She swung her leg to the ground and stood up. “We should get started anyway.”
Her wings formed, and he realized—“We’re flying there?”
“Yes.”
So she’d be holding him against her as she flew. By the time they arrived in Monaco, his scent would be all over her.
“You didn’t need my shirt.” Or his kiss. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Her smile appeared, wicked and sly and embarrassed, all at once. She seemed to struggle for a reply, and finally settled on, “ ‘I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’ ”
She quoted Scripture to explain why she’d come in for his kiss? “I see now why the Church kicked you out.”
Her laugh rolled out, light and surprised. She nodded, as if agreeing, then laughed harder, the sound emerging from deep within her.
God, she was beautiful. “Are my lips like lilies, then?”
She wiped her eyes, looking him up and down, and he knew she must be choosing another verse. But when she spoke, he heard reverence in her voice, not amusement.
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