Read Demon Forged for Free Online

the language as she’d once known it, bringing life to a tongue that had grown stale over the centuries.
    Her laughter would have been a welcome interruption to many a boyhood mass.
    “It has meaning to me, and therefore it is not an empty ritual,” he countered, walking beside the altar rails surrounding the sanctuary. “When you hunt, Irena, you eat a piece of the animal’s heart— that is meaningless. It does not sustain you. You receive no strength from it.”
    “It is respect. I honor the life that was given.”
    “So do I. Self-sacrifice is the one thing all Guardians can appreciate.” Every Guardian had sacrificed his life to save another, earning him the right to transformation.
    Irena looked to the plastic-wrapped figure hanging behind the altar. Her brief smile kicked at his stomach. “As you like,” she said. “I’ll be grateful my sacrifice didn’t take that form—or yours—and leave it at that.”
    On the left side of the sanctuary, Deacon pushed aside a heavy curtain, revealing a hallway. He turned to frown at Alejandro. “I know Irena jumped over a cliff with a nosferatu. What happened to you?”
    She hadn’t just jumped over a cliff—she’d saved the tribe of slaves she’d led after escaping Rome. And he . . .
    “I was named a heretic and burned at the stake.” He could not suppress the irony in his tone.
    Alejandro’s mother had been a Moor and a convert. With the words whispered into the right ears, that had been enough to cast suspicion on him and his family.
    Alejandro had seen the inquiry coming, though he hadn’t known the man behind the whispers was a demon. He’d secreted his family away, but remained behind, believing—arrogantly, perhaps—that he would be acquitted. Despite the torture, he hadn’t confessed, and he hadn’t revealed his family’s location. If the demon hadn’t been so greedy, had just gone after Alejandro, he’d never have become a Guardian. But he’d saved them by refusing to give them up—and upon his death, Michael had come to offer him the transformation.
    But he’d burned first.
    Deacon shook his head before stepping behind the curtain. “And that is why—except for when I’m hiding—I stay clear of churches.”
    But he hadn’t always, Alejandro wagered. A man did not come by a name like Deacon while avoiding the church.
    “It was not the religion,” Irena said, “but the politicians in Rome and in Spain.”
    “There were also priests.” Alejandro followed them into the hall. “And, of course, the demon.”
    Irena snorted. “In those years, there was no difference between any of them.”
    Irena had once told him that she’d been in Russia while the Inquisition had spread its deadly fingers through Spain, but she hadn’t been unaware of events in the rest of the world. The Guardians had done what they could to curb demonic influence in the courts and the church—but, aside from Alejandro’s trial, the accusations had been brought by humans vying for power and position, not demons.
    Guardians could do little to help humans when humans were the cause of their own misery.
    Deacon led them to a small chamber. A wooden door had been set into the center of the slate floor. On the walls, signs forbidding flash photography and souvenir collection hung over velvet upholstered benches. Alejandro eyed the stick figure clutching its head beneath a warning about low ceilings, and debated the merits of shape-shifting to Irena’s petite height versus stooping his way through the corridors.
    “I was transformed by a beautiful vampire on a bed of silk,” Deacon said as Irena circled the chamber, peering out the small, barred window and testing the lock on a closed door. “All things considered, it makes me glad I’m not a Guardian.”
    Without a word, Irena formed her wings. White feathers arched over her head and swept down to elegant wingtips.
    Seeing her wear them always stole Alejandro’s breath.
    The awe faded from Deacon’s