by Jenn Stark
“I don’t know that,” he grumbled.
“You do. You were made to heal the world, but you can’t do it every moment of every day.”
“I was meant to fight.”
“Not only fight.” She caressed his cheek. “You were meant to wage war, but you were also meant to heal. You were always meant to heal. It’s your greatest gift.”
“Angela…”
She didn’t give him a chance to say anything more. Just hearing her name in his rumbling, tortured voice unlocked something inside her. It was no longer the time for words, but the time for connection. Pushing him onto the couch, she climbed into his arms, the weight of her body pressing him back into the cushions until she rested her hands on his chest, her legs straddling his hips. She stared down into his eyes for a long moment.
Clearly, he was letting her do this. She wouldn’t have been able to move him a centimeter without his permission, she knew. And that gave her hope. For him, for her. For the two of them together. She didn’t care in that moment if their relationship was appropriate or allowed. She didn’t care about anything but the feel of him beneath her.
Angela leaned forward and brushed her lips against his beautiful, perfect mouth. Even though she knew there was a broken ruin beneath the glamour, she kissed him. She now could see all of him with the benefit of the witch’s teachings. Gregori was the ultimate destroyer and destroyed, and he was hers. For as long as she could help him, he was hers. She gave a little sigh, groaning as Gregori responded to her simmering want. He put his hands on her hips, and she pressed against him. Just that quickly, the emotion between them turned from gentle absolution to fierce need.
“Yours,” she insisted, though he hadn’t said a word. “I am yours, I will always be yours and I want nothing more than for you to be mine.”
At her words, Gregori stiffened for only a breath, then his arms tightened around her and he crushed her to him, a growl starting low in his throat.
“Yes—yours,” he said, and it was as much a declaration to the heavens as it was to her in his quiet and certain voice. “Only yours.”
He rolled her until she was beneath him, his hands tearing frantically at her clothes as his own clothes fell completely away. He surrounded her with his body in all its glory and all its tragedy just beneath the surface, and she wanted every part of him.
“Always,” she said, surprised to hear the word spoken with such fierce certainty, but there was no going back now. She would live, she would die, she would do everything that needed to be done no matter the pain, no matter the loss. And she would do it with him by her side.
Gregori shifted, and she could feel the additional pressure of his shaft at the junction between her thighs. She fell back, every part of her turning to liquid heat to accept him into her, to let them join together as one. With a rumble that was half gasp, half sigh, Gregori pushed into her, filling her completely. But this time was different from when they’d made love before. This time, she better understood who he was and who and what she was. So as his healing energy flowed through her, healing pieces of her she didn’t even realize were still broken, Angela sent a return energy back into him.
Now it was his turn to shudder in surprise, and, emboldened, Angela intensified her focus, moving against him rhythmically with her body as her mind and her heart sought out all that was broken in this extraordinary being. This incredible creation that humanity certainly did not deserve, but with which they’d been gifted nonetheless.
Gregori pressed back slightly to stare at her, his eyes as green as emeralds flashing with a deep and silvered fire. “What are you…”
“Kiss me,” she demanded, she ordered, she begged all at once. “Please.”
She didn’t have to say anything more. Gregori pressed his mouth to hers, joining them anew, and as they moved together, they sought, they found, they healed. Until there was nothing but a perfect circuit of energy running between them and through them and back around again, with each passage redoubling their strength and connection.
Time seemed to pass away and go somewhere else, but as their bond built, a new sense of urgency rose within Angela, a need she couldn’t deny. She gripped Gregori’s shoulders, her fingers digging in, her heart beating even faster, and he lifted his face once more to meet her eyes. An echoing need built within his emerald eyes as her own intensity increased, until she felt the climax building inside her. Their gazes remain locked on each other as they both crashed over the edge, caught up in a whirlwind of sensation that circled around and back again, over and over, never ending. Perfect, powerful, complete.
And together, they were enough.
29
Gregori stood in a place he almost remembered, the wind rushing around him, the endless gray landscape barren and lost. He vaguely remembered being here before, but with only the shadow of the sadness he’d felt before echoing through his memory. He’d come here broken and condemned. But he didn’t know why he was here now.
A figure appeared beside him.
It was the Archangel Michael, as of course it had to be. Gregori wanted to speak, but the archangel lifted his hand. His expression was unlike anything Gregori had ever seen before. “Thank you, Pónos, for all you’ve given. You have done well.”
Gregori looked sharply at the archangel. There was something different in his voice as well, something almost sad. It immediately put him on the defensive.
“You will not take her from me.” Even as he made the impossible demand, Gregori heard a different tenor of strength in his voice that hadn’t been there before.
To his surprise, the archangel merely shook his head. “I will not take her from you,” Michael agreed. “But her way will be long and filled with pain. And if you would love her as you already do love her, you have to know the sacrifice.”
Gregori stiffened. When the archangel had summoned him from Angela’s arms, he’d gone automatically, without hesitation. But even in that short breath where he had passed through the realm of humanity and into this sacred space, he could tell the difference. There was a harshness, a keening edge to the mortals’ cry he hadn’t felt in six thousand years. He was still a demon, but something had changed. Something he didn’t understand.
The archangel settled his wings more tightly against his back. “You are not once more a Fallen…yet,” he confirmed. “But you are closer to that already than any of your brethren. You have, perhaps, always been closer to that than any of your brethren. You need to be careful.”
Gregori snorted. “Since when have you cared about any of our safety?”
The archangel’s expression never changed. “The fight grows harder from here,” he said, his words little more than a sigh in the wind. “Your brother Hugh will be tested next, and…”
When the archangel paused, Gregori’s entire body jolted with alarm. He was, after all, an empath. He could read emotions as easily as any language, and not even the archangel of God was hidden from his view.
“He’s as strong as any of us. There’s no test you can put before him that he’ll fail. Don’t mistake his manner for his truth.”
“It is precisely Hugh’s strength that will be his undoing. The demon he fights is unlike any that has been fought before, for it’s no demon at all.”
“He’ll stand strong.”
“He will,” the archangel agreed, his wings once more shifting, as if eager to pull the warrior of God away. “And you must stand with him, stand for him, receive his broken body when it returns to you. You must heal him as best as you can with the strength you have received from the child of God, for without that strength…he will never survive the test.”
And with that, the archangel disappeared.
Angela walked into the congressional conference center, nodding at the security guard as he scanned her. She smiled ruefully as she set off the detectors. “Pins in my wrist and shoulder,” she said, pulling out documentation. In truth, she was wearing embedded tech supplied by Gregori and his team, which would al
low her to record everything she heard and serve as a tracking device for the Syx, should she ever be hunted again.
The security guard grimaced. “That sounds painful,” he said.
“It wasn’t my best day,” she agreed.
She’d spent the last three weeks since fleeing the AugTech facility in isolation, first in the hospital and then back at her condo, though she hadn’t truly been injured. The subterfuge had allowed her to access the resources she needed. Resources she’d actually turned to her parents to help provide. They’d been surprisingly forthcoming, never asking her what had transpired between her and Governor Filmore, but knowing something had changed in their daughter, the way thorough anthropologists always knew something had shifted in a species they studied but didn’t quite understand.
Behind her, Joe moved smartly through the security gate, murmuring a greeting to the guard as well. Gregori wasn’t with her, not here. Not physically. Yet she felt his presence like a glow of comfort as she moved through the cold and sterile halls. They’d been together for most of the last three weeks, and even now, she could feel the touch of his heartbeat at her fingertips, the warmth of his sigh against her skin. Their fight would continue separately, but they would be together. Forever.
“Randall,” she said as she entered the conference room lobby. He eyed her steadily, his expression unreadable. But Angela hadn’t just spent the last three weeks with the greatest empath on the planet without having picked up a few tricks. She could sense Randall’s emotions rolling off him no matter what his face didn’t betray. He was nervous but not afraid. Resolute, but not angry. He hadn’t survived this long in Congress, nor ascended so many levels in backroom politics and black box operations, not to know how to adapt to a new world order.
He had his instructions, and his handlers. As long as she didn’t cross either of those, he was willing to go wherever she directed him to. And she would definitely be doing some directing. Within the next six months, she would be running this committee, and within a year, she would have her hands on every installation of demon technology and artificial intelligence operating in the world. Because the US might have been the most advanced, and would continue to appear to be the most advanced, but they were by no means the only players in the game. And through her involvement, Angela could help the Syx hold the line as long as it was needed. As long as it took Gregori and the other members of the team of enforcers to return the world to a safer place.
They all filed into the room, where she met Randall, Trudy, and Bob, accepting their condolences for her injuries, answering their questions of concerned interest. But as they settled into the day’s work, she felt the softest brush of pressure against her neck, the whisper of warmth at her ear.
“I love you, bright light of the angels, precious song of the stars,” Gregori whispered in her mind. “I will always love you. And I will always be yours.”
Angela lifted her chin, blinking quickly to stave off the sudden rush of tears that rose to her eyes. I love you too, she thought fiercely.
And then she opened her folder and went about the business of saving the world.
Thank you for reading Demon Ensnared! I sincerely hope you enjoyed Gregori and Angela’s story. If you did and you’d like to help other readers find them, I truly appreciate you leaving a review for the book wherever you purchased this copy!
What’s next for the Demon Enforcers? While Hugh of the Syx has spent the last six thousand years as a master of deception, his silver tongue may not be enough to save him as he’s asked to pull off the greatest deception of all…serving as the world’s hottest, most conflicted guardian angel. Visit my website or sign up for my newsletter to learn more about the Demon Enforcers!
Books by Jenn Stark
The Demon Enforcer Series
Demon Unbound
Demon Forsaken
Demon Bewitched
Demon Ensnared
Demon Betrayed (coming in 2020!)
Immortal Vegas Series
(series complete!)
One Wilde Night (prequel novella)
Getting Wilde
Wilde Card
Born To Be Wilde
Wicked And Wilde
Aces Wilde
Forever Wilde
Wilde Child
Call of the Wilde
Running Wilde
Wilde Fire
Wilde Justice Series
The Red King
The Lost Queen
The Hallowed Knight
The Shadow Court
The Wayward Star
About Jenn Stark
Jenn Stark is an award-winning author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. She lives and writes in Ohio. . . and she definitely loves to write. In addition to her Immortal Vegas and Wilde Justice urban fantasy series and Demon Enforcers paranormal romance series, she is also author Jennifer McGowan, whose Maids of Honor series of Young Adult Elizabethan spy romances are published by Simon & Schuster, and author Jennifer Chance, whose Rule Breakers series of New Adult contemporary romances are published by Random House/LoveSwept and whose modern royals series, Gowns & Crowns, is now available.
Visit her online or sign up for her newsletter to keep up with all the latest information about upcoming releases and special events!
Copyright © 2019 by Jenn Stark
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-943768-55-4
Cover design by Elizabeth Bemis
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase/Download only authorized editions.
