Demon Ensnared (Demon Enforcers Book 4)

by Jenn Stark

  Because she could never feel for a demon the way she felt about him…right?

  Angela pursed her lips. After sleeping like the dead for several hours in her condo, surrounded by her menagerie of pets, feeling actually safe for the first time in longer than she could remember, she’d popped awake with a sudden clarity of memory. A door had been opened that she’d kept firmly shut, a door she’d opened before the terrifying events of her later childhood, a door she hadn’t even known she’d deliberately closed.

  Her nana, lying on a hospital bed, her face serene as she explained to Angela the effects of a mild heart attack, and that she was going to be all right. Her nana had been so sorry to have frightened her granddaughter, but she recalled not one thing other than walking upstairs to check on her, then coming to as EMTs hovered over her.

  Angela remembered, though. She remembered her nana’s wispy white hair, perfectly styled even against the too-white pillow covers of the hospital room. She remembered her too-tidy house, a place that felt curiously empty for all that nothing had changed. And she remembered her parents’ study, the chamber of horrors that no longer held any horrors at all because Angela had released evil into the world. Or so she’d believed for far too long, until she’d buried the memory altogether.

  Now a nervous giggle did leak out, and Gregori glanced at her sharply. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she murmured smoothly. “I feel amazing, frankly. Hopefully, nobody picks up on it, or I’ll fuel suspicions that I’m either hopped up on painkillers or I just got laid.”

  The words were out before she could stop them, and Gregori’s reaction was perversely pleasing to her. He drew in a sharp breath, his chin lifting as if he’d been struck a glancing blow, and he fell back a half step as if to give her space to breathe. Probably not a bad idea. She’d become acutely aware of him as a physical person, in a way she simply didn’t normally, especially with staffers. Or unfamiliar men. Certainly not demons.

  Gregori Stearns was a demon.

  No. she refused to believe it.

  Even without the horns and a tail, though, it wasn’t as if Gregori didn’t have his own set of matching baggage—something she usually avoided in any relationship, friend or otherwise. After all, while he might not be the fell beast he believed himself to be, he had gone through significant trauma in his life. His ability to horrify and intimidate coupled with whatever psychotropic drugs he’d oozed out of his pores that’d allowed her to see his body as withered and decayed was not exactly something she wanted in the guy she’d bring home to her parents. Then again, he’d already saved her parents’ lives, as well as her own, so she supposed that evened things out.

  She needed to get to the bottom of the hallucinogen he’d been infused with, though. There was no doubt in her mind it was the same hallucinogen that’d been applied to her when she’d been kidnapped, possibly the same one she’d stumbled into when she’d imagined she’d been summoning demons. It was dangerous stuff, because Angela’d had zero problem attacking anyone who looked like the freakish beasts she now realized she’d seen in her parents’ study some three years before her own abduction.

  What had she done to create those images? She didn’t believe she’d summoned them with the sheer force of the words she’d recited from the scrawled Serbian text, but there had to have been some trigger. Had she knocked over a vial of poison? Had she released some type of gas by opening the pages of the ancient book? Did her parents have any idea what they’d had trapped in the room with them during all those days and nights of research?

  She doubted it. They never would have left the room unlocked if they’d thought there would be any danger to Angela or her grandmother. And they never mentioned anything about the room. For all these years, some secret part of Angela’s mind had thought she’d released something truly horrific into the world. That latent fear had fueled her desire to fill her mind up with any other information she could find—facts, figures, absolutes, and equations to solve esoteric problems that had nothing to do with fire-breathing demons. But the demons hounded her all the same.

  And Gregori Stearns…was a demon.

  A demon she thought was hot. And not for any of the reasonable fire-and-brimstone reasons, but because he made her smile. He made her laugh. Because she straight-up wanted him.

  What was wrong with her?

  “Congresswoman Stanton.” The security guard nodded to her, and, fighting back her blush, she went through the protocols exactly as required, as she had for so many weeks. Only today, Gregori was behind her, murmuring his responses to the security guard and allowing himself to be searched. It was an almost laughable exercise given how imposing he was. This wasn’t a man who needed to rely on guns to protect her. This was a man who’d thrown himself in front of her to stop flying bullets, a man with whom she’d already shared her innermost secrets, secrets she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying. He was plenty intimidating on his own, no weapons required.

  A few minutes later, they were in the holding room of the conference center, the lobby that already housed other bodyguards and congress people, drinking coffee and catching up. She hadn’t had a moment alone with Gregori since their, ah, conversation, or whatever that had been yesterday, and she regretted that. There was no possible way they could have a conversation here. The place was undoubtedly wired for sound, and an aching wave of loss swept over her.

  Why hadn’t she pushed for time alone with him? Why had she allowed herself to go through her normal routine? She’d woken up, showered, eaten breakfast, reviewed the day’s paperwork, scanned the news feeds…when all the while, somewhere in the same building was a man who’d shone a light on her past, so bright that it’d chased all the shadows away. Shadows that had crowded around her so closely, she hadn’t even realized they were there, that the darkness was not simply part of her past and present, absolutely normal.

  But she hadn’t reached out for Gregori, hadn’t sought him out at all. She had hidden behind her paperwork and her coffee and her routines, and now it was too late.

  “For your signature.” Gregori handed her a notebook with a rich leather casing, and she frowned at him, taking both the notebook and the pen he proffered when she’d given him nothing to review or prepare for her. She’d never even seen this notebook before, actually. Still, she gamely opened up the pad and saw the single line of text scrawled on the crisp paper.

  What’s wrong?

  Her eyes popped wide, and without thinking, she penned a quick note back to him. Want some time with you.

  Immediately, she grimaced. Okay, that was the height of unprofessionalism, but she wasn’t going to scratch it out, and she’d written it with his fountain pen, the smooth slide of ink seeming to take on a life of its own. She snapped the folio shut but tucked it under her arm instead of handing it back. She would take out the paper as soon as she had a chance and throw it away…or eat it or something.

  “Same routine as usual,” she said, smoothing her hand down the soft leather of the portfolio. Her fingers looked neat and straight against the dark background, as if they’d never been broken. She was proud of that. “All good.”

  Gregori’s next question broke through her reverie. “Why all the animals?”

  Her head came up with a snap. “What’s wrong with having pets?” The response was too sharp, almost audible to the nearest congress people milling about, and she pursed her lips as if she could recall them.

  Gregori simply shrugged. “Pets are two matching lapdogs or a cat. You have a herd. Why?”

  “Does there have to be a reason why?” she challenged.

  “With you? Yes.”

  The words were easy, without censure, but they cut through Angela’s bluster like a fan through whipped cream, scattering her carefully parsed thoughts and her media-friendly sound bites regarding her affection for animals, dedication to the vulnerable, and all-American-girl sensibilities. Instead, she could only blink at Gregori, fighting the flush rising in her cheeks a
nd failing.

  “I like them,” she blurted, blushing harder. “They don’t judge. They—they let me help them.”

  “They needed you,” Gregori agreed. “Joe says they were all pretty sick when you found them, even the orange thing. You helped them a great deal.”

  She lifted one shoulder, but the tightness around her heart softened as she thought of Old Sir’s toothy smile, Hey Mister’s bounce. “Not as much as they help me.”

  “We should talk about—”

  Staccato alarms sounded around them, and everyone froze for a second. Then instantly, security entered the room, their guns visible, their orders blunt and autocratic.

  “Fire,” one of them said briskly. “Saw it even as it happened, electrical short in a bank of circuits scheduled to be worked on next month, but they caught while maintenance was not five feet away. Protocols require we evacuate, but you’ll be back soon, I promise. We won’t even need to take you out on the street, only into the courtyard. You’ll be completely protected.”

  “Of course,” Angela murmured as she filed out with the others, Gregori right behind her. She didn’t exchange glances with him, but she felt the flush crawl up her cheeks as they moved. It was too much of a coincidence that the fire alarm had hit mere seconds after she’d regretted not having more time with him, right? But how could he… How could anyone…

  Their security detail dumped them out into the courtyard as promised, a borderline charming space that Angela had used many times over the past several weeks to relax and collect her thoughts. Shelter from above was achieved through a healthy canopy of tree limbs and strategically placed awnings, making the space the safest area available outside while still allowing open air to circulate. Gregori gestured to the table, and they sat, and without thinking, she handed the portfolio to him.

  He set it aside without glancing at it. “What’s wrong?” he asked again.

  “Did you do that?” she shot back, her voice low. “Did you know that was going to happen—? What am I saying? I’m sorry.”

  She sat back and drew in a deep breath as he studied her without expression, his eyes retaining their habitual concern without straying into obvious worry that she was losing her mind. She appreciated that.

  She also appreciated that she’d just gotten what she most wanted in that moment, and it seemed churlish not to take advantage of the serendipity. “I never got a chance to thank you properly for what you did yesterday,” she said quietly. “I don’t know exactly what you did, but it seems I’m able to tell you things I haven’t even been willing to tell myself. If you don’t work out as a bodyguard, you definitely have a future as a bartender.”

  That made him chuckle. “All part of the job, ma’am,” he said with such an incongruous drawl, she blinked at him.

  “Why are you really here?” she blurted, then flushed, glancing away. “I’m ashamed to admit I forgot all about pursuing that line of questioning in the wake of everything that happened.”

  “You had a lot to process.”

  “That’s as may be, but I need to understand—”

  Gregori gestured slightly, and for a moment, she thought he was going to lay his hand over hers. Instead, he kept his hand lifted slightly until another congressperson passed them with a cheerful word for her. Then Gregori dropped his hand lightly back to the table, near hers but not touching it. She found herself staring at his large, capable fingers, the size of them dwarfing her own, and fought a nearly impossible urge to reach over and graze his skin. She balled her fingers into a fist.

  Gregori started talking again. “I told you this before. You came up in my company’s research as a potential target for terrorist attacks, and they’ve gotten quite successful at predicting the timing and nature of such attacks. They had me in place at the right time, and I was able to achieve my goal of keeping you safe.”

  “Why would they care about my safety?” Angela asked warily. “What’s their agenda?”

  “Their predictive models indicate you’ll be faced with several opportunities to impact legislation that aligns with their goals. They are in no way attempting to influence your decisions on that legislation. They merely want you to have the opportunity to guide it as you see fit.”

  “What legislation?”

  Gregori gestured again, dismissively this time. “I don’t know,” he said with an air of frankness that she doubted all the same. “They’re not in the business of providing policy guidance. They’re merely in the business of predicting outcomes of said policy and doing what they can in the private sector to ensure the world is prepared for any…untoward eventuality.”

  “And these are the people who think that the threats you referenced yesterday are actually real, breathing, sentient beings. Not illusions.”

  “Would you say I’m an illusion?” he asked wryly.

  “I would say you’ve gone through significant trauma, and that you very likely have been…enhanced in some way to serve as both a protector and a weapon.” She grimaced. “I guess you could say the same about any soldier of war who’s been trained well enough to be released to the front lines. But you’re not a soldier, you’re a civilian. And I don’t understand what happened to you, or the effect you’re having on me.” It had to be some sort of hallucinogen, right? It simply had to be.

  Gregori smiled. “I can’t help you with the second part, but what happened to me was the result of actions a long time ago, nothing that you or your government can be held accountable for. And it’s not relevant to the issue at hand. What’s most important is that you’re safe enough to do your job. That your mind is clear of fear and your body protected at all times. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Angela tensed, his reference to her body completely innocent and almost sterile, but still affecting her in a way she couldn’t seem to control. In fact, once again, she almost desperately wanted him to protect her body in a very up close and personal way. That was not going to happen.

  “Okay! We’re good to go.” An official-looking staffer stepped out into the courtyard, holding the door open as Angela exhaled sharply. “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

  They all stood, and she ruefully noticed that Gregori had picked up the portfolio, though he handed the pen to her.

  “Keep it,” he rumbled. “I’ll be waiting for you when you finish with your meetings.”

  13

  Gregori stood with an air of cool, detached interest as Angela entered the room. He looked detached, anyway. Inside, he was a roiling morass of sensation that was completely outside his realm of understanding. When he’d seen what Angela had written on the pad in her crisp, exacting hand, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d known her thoughts easily enough with the strength of the bond that was developing between them. But seeing the tightly worded request written out, not just as an emotion, a thought, but as actual words gave it tremendously more weight. He’d carefully ripped the page out of the portfolio and folded it up, transferring it to an interior pocket. He didn’t know why he did that. It wasn’t like he was going to forget her request anytime soon. But that didn’t stop him from tucking the slip of paper away.

  Now he could hear the murmuring of voices through his earpiece, thoughtfully provided by the archangel and commissioned directly from the Arcana Council’s resident tech expert, the Fool, along with the transmitter pen. Both devices were completely undetectable by normal mortal scans, and his glamour rendered his earpiece imperceptible to the human eye. He didn’t really need the augmentation of traditional tracking devices in order to hear Angela’s thoughts, as vividly as her emotions were expressed. However, he didn’t have that bond with the other members in the conference room, the congressional representatives who were today going to be discussing the legislation that had brought them to this point. He could tell by the set expressions on their faces, the rigidity of their movements, that two of the four congress people had already been briefed on the nature of the day’s revelations, while the other two remained blissfully unaw
are. Angela was one of the ones unaware, but…

  Gregori frowned. How would he exactly describe Angela’s current mindset? She seemed more at peace than she had when he first met her, relieved almost, which was typical for a human whose pain had finally found an outlet for release. But she wasn’t as relaxed as she should be. He hadn’t finished the job. She still retained all the horror of her abduction at eight years old, horror and something more. Something important, the archangel believed—and Gregori now concurred. He’d need to finish his process with Angela sooner rather than later.

  “Angela, your thoughts?” Hearing her name startled him back to focus, and Gregori narrowed his eyes. It was the older congressman who spoke, Randall Severin, one of the two already in the know.

  “My thoughts are, primarily, that I am concerned that this research and development has gone on for so long without the oversight of this committee. I understood when I took this position that all new research and development activities were at some point funneled through our office. This initiative has gone on for a full year, and this is the first I’m hearing about it. How is that possible?”

  “It was ongoing, yes, but we haven’t received an update in the nine weeks since you joined the committee. Simple oversight.”

  Even to Gregori’s ears, the explanation sounded too pat, but Angela appeared to accept it. “Why them?” she asked instead. “Why did this…” There was a rustling of paper, “…AugTech International receive funding and approval to move ahead when there are literally stacks of applications awaiting our consideration, some that have been in process for several months? And yet they’re already to stage two of their development process, and ready to give us a demonstration. That speaks to a level of progress that, once again, should have required an update in the past several weeks.”