The Guardians of Eternity Series by Alexandra Ivy

I'm not sure how I stumbled across this series. The first book, Touched by Darkness, is the story of Dante, a vampire, and Abby, a human. The phoenix is encased in a human and supposed to keep the ultimate evil away from the earch and Dante is bound to protect the phoenix. The phoenix is killed and Abby is in the wrong place at the right time and the phoenix is transferred to her body. Of course all the demons want to kill her while she is "fresh" and Dante must protect her. I enjoyed the story of their fight against evil and their evolving relationship.

The second book, Embrace the Darkness, is the story of Viper, a vampire friend of Dante's, and Shay, a demon of some sort whose blood is intoxicating to vampires. I'm not even halfway through yet, but let me tell you why I'm enjoying this book - he's got a lair, and she's granted him a boon. Awesome!