Demon Bound by Meljean Brook Page A

moved on to her specializations by the time Jake had come to Caelum—so that must have been forty or fifty years ago. She could recall him among Hugh’s students, so he hadn’t significantly altered his appearance since becoming a Guardian. Perhaps his blue jeans hung a little lower, his T-shirt fit a little tighter against his leanly muscled torso—but that reflected contemporary human fashions more than a change in his body type.
    Her gaze skimmed his back pockets, noting the slim outline of a wallet. Strange that he hadn’t vanished it into his cache; it was more convenient. He’d likely carried it in his pocket as a human, then. Even centuries after transformation, there were actions many Guardians automatically performed: breathing, blinking, and individual habits engrained while they’d lived on Earth.
    Habits, such as appreciating a superior example of male anatomy.
    Alice hadn’t been human for almost a hundred and twenty years, but she still hadn’t broken that particular habit—and she saw no reason to do so now. Jake’s fingers on the keyboard were long and nimble, his forearms strong and deeply tanned. The long plane of his back melded into a taut backside that was neither too spare nor too full.
    Her gaze settled on his pockets again, and recognition slipped through her, curving her lips.
    She’d sketched him once. He’d been nude, lazing about in a courtyard after participating in one of the orgies that had once been so commonplace. A Vietnamese phrase had been tattooed over that firm swell of muscle.
    What had the phrase been? Alice couldn’t recall, and the sketch was probably lost amid her jumble of personal papers upstairs. But she remembered that he’d seemed to possess boundless energy then, too.
    And—according to the gossip she’d overheard from his fellow students—not much finesse.
    “I see you’ve got more folders here, more pictures,” Jake said, then turned from the screen. After a glance at her face, he darted a wary look over his shoulder, then at her feet. “Do you mind if I copy those, too?”
    “Of course not,” Alice said.
    Eyes narrowed, Jake straightened. “What’s with the smile?”
    “Something amused me. Why else would I smile?”
    “Maybe you’ve got something waiting to take a bite of me.” He studied her mouth. “Your teeth are longer now.”
    So they were. Not by very much—but enough to be good practice, should she ever have to imitate a vampire. Such a need had not yet arisen, but one never knew.
    “How suspicious you are, novice.”
    “How creepy you are, Alice.” But Jake’s own smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he focused on the computer again.
    Perhaps she ought to tell him how nicely put together he was. Men so often mistook simple admiration for physical attraction. Surely, coming from her, a suggestion of interest would discomfit him so badly that he would finally go.
    He’d responded contrary to her expectations on each of her previous attempts, however. Rather than retreat, he might make an advance—then she would be forced to reject him.
    What an awkward scene that would be.
    With a resigned sigh, Alice left him poring over a photograph she’d taken in India. The temple had punched through the surrounding jungle like a bare stone fist but had vanished before the wilderness could cast a single vine over its knuckles.
    A print from its interior hung near the entrance to her quarters. Alice stopped to examine the temple’s statues, then moved along the wall—searching, she imagined, for the same thing Jake was: a clue as to who had sculpted them, a hint of why and how and who.
    “Mycenaean, right?” Jake suddenly spoke beside her, and her heart jumped.
    Alice barely kept the rest of her body from following it. She held herself still, and wondered if she was surprised more by his sudden appearance or his correct identification.
    She stole a glance at his profile, saw his concentration on the painting in front of them. “Yes.