Free Demon Forged by Meljean Brook

Alejandro didn’t want quiet. Didn’t want to be left to his thoughts. Not when they were filled with Irena. It would have been easier if only anger and lust existed between them. They’d have fucked. They’d have fought. And it would have been done with.
    But it never would be done. And there was just this endless . . . nothing. A nothing punctured by brief moments of fighting and their so-called friendship.
    Dear God, how he wanted to be done with both.
    Silently, he crossed the common room, heading for the stairs leading to the first level. The metal stairs ended in a large open room that served as the warehouse’s central hub. A painted zodiac circled the ceiling. Hallways radiated in four directions: the main corridor leading to security and the front offices, beyond which most humans and visitors never saw; the tech room, more offices, and conference rooms to the right and left; and toward the practice gymnasium and locker rooms at the back of the warehouse.
    Irena stood in the hall leading to the gymnasium, talking to a Guardian in a long brown coat who dwarfed Irena’s smaller height. If she’d run into Drifter, that explained her laughter—and why she hadn’t already left the building. Drifter could put anyone at ease, pull anyone from their temper. It wasn’t a Gift, but it was a talent—particularly with Irena.
    The tall Guardian tipped his head at Alejandro. Irena remained facing Drifter, her shoulder propped against the wall, her hip cocked and her weight resting on her right foot.
    Alejandro fought the urge to walk up behind her, to see how long she’d pretend he wasn’t there. Of course, that she hadn’t looked around told him exactly how attuned she was to his position. Irena never let anyone else approach her from behind unwatched.
    From the offices on the left, a woman lifted her voice and called Alejandro’s name.
    Lilith.
    Irena looked around then, her eyes glittering. Alejandro took a small measure of satisfaction turning his back to her and heading toward Lilith’s office.
    No, Irena might not understand Alejandro’s willingness to take assignments from the former demon, but they’d been doing good work here at SI, no matter who directed it—and no matter how difficult Lilith could be.
    She’d been one of Lucifer’s demons, though she probably couldn’t have been called loyal to him—only desperate to survive. If she hadn’t become human again, hadn’t fallen for Castleford, she still wouldn’t have been like Lucifer’s other demons. Those who’d escaped Hell before the Gates had closed now grabbed whatever power they could before Lucifer returned to Earth.
    Those were the demons that the Guardians hunted most often through SI. Belial’s demons posed a different problem.
    He stepped into Lilith’s office. She was sitting behind Castleford’s desk, the phone receiver at her ear, her expression trapped between impatience and affection. She began to speak in Hindi and was cut off midsentence. Her fingers dragged through her black hair, then she caught his gaze and waved at the chairs facing her desk.
    Alejandro walked toward the oil painting of Caelum filling the wall, instead. It’d been painted by Colin Ames-Beaumont, one of the two cursed vampires—and the only vampire who could resist the daysleep and walk in the sun, which had allowed him to visit Caelum. Alejandro thought he’d done a fine job of capturing the realm’s beauty, its cerulean skies and white marble towers, the temples and arches and minarets. Incredible . . . and yet still nothing compared to the reality of Caelum.
    He studied the painting until, after a few more stuttered attempts and interruptions, Lilith disconnected the phone.
    “Fuck me,” she said quietly.
    Alejandro faced her, lifting his brows.
    She walked by the door to kick it closed with the toe of her boot. The soundproofing silenced the noise from outside the office, though the psychic scents of the Guardians in the building were still