by Jenn Stark
You say witch like it’s a bad thing…
Former fallen angel, current smokin’ hot enforcer, and all-around demon most likely to get the girl, Stefan of the Syx knows women better than they know themselves. He should, because once upon a time, one of them caused his brutal damnation.
All these millennia later, however, Stefan still can’t resist a pretty smile. So when he learns his chance at redemption entails pairing up with a gorgeous redheaded spitfire, he’s ready to rock—until the other pitchfork drops. Because the bold, impulsive Cressida Frain’s not only a woman, she’s a witch. And a hookup between witches and demons is one of the few hard stops in Stefan’s book of Go.
Unfortunately, this is one offer Stefan can’t refuse. To keep her new position as high priestess for her coven, Cressida must lead her people in an ultimate showdown against evil. To help her succeed, Stefan must allow Cressida to take him, break him and bind him to her—body and soul. But neither of them are prepared for what happens next…
It’s out of the cauldron and into the fire when you’re a Demon Bewitched.
Demon Bewitched
Demon Enforcers, Book 3
JENN STARK
Copyright © 2019 by Jenn Stark
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-943768-48-6
Cover design and formatting by Spark Creative Partners
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.
All rights reserved.
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.
Other Books by Jenn Stark
The Demon Enforcer Series
Demon Unbound
Demon Forsaken
Demon Bewitched
The Immortal Vegas Series
(series complete!)
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
One Wilde Night (prequel novella)
The Wilde Justice Series
The Red King
The Lost Queen
The Hallowed Knight (coming soon!)
For Soko
May your light ever shine bright.
Chapter One
The New York City goth club Storm Court was rocking hard enough to be heard three blocks away, but not by ordinary humans. This party was for witches and their initiates only, mortals desperate to be transformed into something—anything—else. Vampire, witch, yeti, it didn’t seem to matter. They just wanted to become something bigger and better than themselves. It gave a whole new meaning to Ready to Were.
Stefan of the Syx whistled beneath his breath, surveying the debauch. “This is…weird.”
“I think you mean unholy.”
Stefan stifled a grin as he glanced over to the most taciturn member of the Syx, Gregori. The man was a virtual mountain, the tallest and broadest demon enforcer among them, and by far the grumpiest. If Gregori ever got to choose his own destiny, he’d be perfect as a monk in a mountain cave.
As it was, he stood out in this underground rave club like a unicorn in hell.
“Gotta wonder why the archangel sent you here with me,” Stefan said, patting his fellow demon enforcer on the shoulder. “Storm Court is totally not your scene.”
Gregori grunted, muttering something about their boss that Stefan didn’t need to hear to agree with. When they were sent out on assignment, the members of the Syx had long since learned to keep their mouths shut and their eyes sharp. It didn’t pay to complain, not when an archangel of the Lord was doling out your work assignments.
And truth to tell, being a Syx wasn’t so bad—or it hadn’t been until recently. Having sinned their way out of Fallen angel status and straight into demonhood six thousand years earlier, Stefan and five other demons had immediately been culled from the teeming masses of the damned. They’d been given a sort of second chance as a demon SWAT team, tasked with routing the worst of their kind. Since no ordinary human stood a chance against the horde—in almost all cases, it took a demon to kill a demon—the Syx had been in high demand since the moment the demon enforcer team was formed.
Things had recently gotten even busier. After Earth had sustained a body blow of magic that’d dumped a fresh multitude of demons across the planet, the Syx’s caseload had skyrocketed. Jobs that would’ve normally taken four or five enforcers now only got two, and Michael the Archangel was the final arbiter of who went where.
Stefan curled his lip. He and the archangel were not pals by any stretch, and hadn’t been since the day Stefan had been demonized through absolutely no blasted fault of his own. The human death that’d been lain at his feet was not his responsibility, no matter what the mortal had claimed, and Stefan had announced to everyone who’d listen that he’d be damned before he’d admit wrongdoing when there was none to be had.
And…so he’d been damned.
Avenging angels could be so literal.
Things’d gotten better when Stefan had been tapped to become a demon enforcer, even though that meant the archangel had become his boss. But he and the almighty albino generally managed to avoid each other—at least until recently, when the archangel had gotten his tights in a twist over the new throng of demons that’d landed at their door. Now Michael was all over the Syx like glitter on a drag queen. But at least the jobs he sent them on were getting increasingly more interesting.
Like this one. Stefan drew in a deep, fortifying breath. Storm Court smelled of danger, sex, and witchcraft. He’d never been here before, but clubs like this were exactly his jam. While modern covens were decidedly coed, they were still dominated by women. And despite the circumstances of his fall, there was nothing on this earth that Stefan appreciated more than mortal females, especially the ones willing to let their freak flags fly. The crazier they were, the better, as long as they never got crazy over him. He’d learned that lesson the hard way. He’d long since accepted that he’d be spending the rest of his immortality atoning for his supposed transgression…but that didn’t make him immune to women.
Gregori was a different story. The guy barely talked to any human, let alone a female one. As a result, he was usually tagged with the Syx assignments that were heavy on the brawn, light on the banter. His assignment here made no sense.
Stefan scanned the room, his gaze snagging on a female working her way toward the stage. He narrowed his eyes. She was a witch, though that didn’t matter much in this group. Was this the Syx’s summoner? The woman definitely had an energy around her that caught his attention, and she wouldn’t ordinarily—she was small and thin, her hair cascading down her back in an auburn tumble. While he appreciated all women, Stefan’s tastes tended decidedly toward the voluptuous. This chick wasn’t that. But she held his attention anyway as she stalked across the room in a body-hugging black leather halter, pants, and high-heeled boots, her biceps wrapped with intricate silver cuffs, her lips painted red as blood—
“So who summoned you?” Gregori grumbled, breaking Stefan’s concentration. “It stinks in here, but not of demon. No one’s in danger.”
“You’re half right, anyway,” Stefan agreed. T
here were no demons in the club except him and Gregori, actually, and their glamour was ironclad. Not even the most powerful witch would know that the Syx were demons if they didn’t let their guard down, and the Syx’s glamour only strengthened when they were within range of someone who summoned them.
With no other demons in sight, though, Stefan thought back to the call that had brought him here. “Someone on the dance floor demanded aid,” he said, “but the summons was muted, desperate. Blocked.”
“Blocked because of drugs?” Gregori narrowed his eyes. “Or because they’re possessed?”
Stefan shrugged. Either one wasn’t a bad guess. “Unknown. But if the latter is what’s going on here, whatever demon is possessing our summoner is operating on a whole new level. I can’t pick him up, and I just fought a pile of possessors a few weeks ago. I’d remember the smell. This whole deal feels different, somehow. And different in a decidedly not-good way.”
Demons appeared to humans as ordinary mortals and could do anything a mortal could do—eat, drink, procreate, kill. But for some demons, it wasn’t enough merely to harm God’s children. They had to inhabit them, body and soul. Possessing a human was a form of domination that appealed to the most craven of the horde, because it made annihilating the demon more difficult. To send a possessor demon into oblivion, a member of the Syx or an exceptionally skilled exorcist first had to pull said demon out of the human without causing more damage to the unfortunate host. Easier said than done.
Stefan eyed Gregori. “We need more intel. Why don’t you go shake your groove thing with the locals? Based on their scent, these humans are desperate to commune with demons. Maybe you should promise them immortality or whatever in exchange for them giving you the inside scoop on what the hell is going on here.”
As usual, Gregori couldn’t take the joke. It was one of his charms. “We have rules,” the ox snapped back, his eyes going flat.
“Okay, Colossus, then head over to the bar—no, not that one. Over there.” Stefan pointed at the elaborate alcohol station at the far end of the room, directly through the writhing crowd.
Gregori focused on the bar. “Why?”
Stefan grinned. “Because you’re the biggest guy in the room and the second-most attractive one after me. If someone’s banging the drum for deliverance, you’re going to look like the answer to their prayers.”
Stefan knew immediately he’d gone too far, and he winced as a familiar expression of pain ghosted over Gregori’s face. It was too late to call his words back, though. None of the Syx asked too many questions about each other’s sins, but Stefan had worked often enough with the big guy to know that Gregori’s sin had to do with him not answering a call for aid when it’d come to him. If that kind of call had hit Gregori when he’d been a Fallen angel, ignoring it would have required enormous strength. Something horrific must have gone down for the powerful angel to say no…and now here he was, working as a demon enforcer where he was forced to say nothing but yes, yes, yes, while the cries of the despairing pummeled him from all sides. God definitely had a twisted sense of humor. Or the archangel did.
Stefan had his money on the latter.
The moment passed, and Gregori straightened. “How will I know who the summoner is?”
“You won’t,” Stefan said. “Not until I go all kamikaze on whatever demon is possessing them, anyway. But I’m getting the sense we’re going to need your demon-killer skills before too long, so don’t let this crowd full of humans fool you. Something smells bad.”
As he’d hoped, a wan smile creased Gregori’s face. Stefan didn’t know if it was his attempt at a joke or because the big demon was itching for a fight. It was the only time Gregori could forget who he was and what he’d done. It was the only time any of them could forget.
Stefan watched Gregori head off across the dance floor. As he suspected, roughly two-thirds of the dancers instinctively shifted their gazes to him. The initiates, Stefan knew. Gregori’s otherworldly status served as a homing beacon for humans, but fully consecrated witches were more or less immune to it. Yet another reason why the covens and the horde weren’t on friendly terms.
Historically, witches summoned demons to do their dirty work or to get intel on other members of the damned. Witches could control demons, but only if they were careful, and only if the demons weren’t very strong. No witch would invite any high-ranking horde member into their presence without setting up hella wards.
Stefan stared around the room, more intently this time. There was something set up at five distinct points of the chamber, a febrile flame glowing white in hurricane glass lanterns set up almost casually on red-draped cocktail tables. But though five points generally meant a pentagram was in play, there was no salt on the floor, no arcane figures hastily sketched with chalk. No—
In the blink of an eye, he didn’t have to wonder anymore.
A ripping noise tore through the club under the heavy beat of music, as if the fabric of the world was being rent in two. As Stefan watched, the crowd instantly increased by a third, the place suddenly chock-full of some of the most gorgeously glamoured demons he’d ever seen. Big, fancy, powerful demons. Even a few he recognized.
He noticed something else too. Though she wasn’t alone anymore, the redheaded witch on the dais now positively shimmered with intensity, her lips moving, her hands out as she surveyed the chaos that spilled across Storm Court’s dance floor. She was the Syx’s summoner, there was no doubt in Stefan’s mind. She’d known this was going to happen.
Across the room at the bar, Gregori straightened his shoulders. He could feel it too.
It was time to party.
“So many in one place.” The voice was old, elegant. And dripping with censure.
Cressida Frain turned her attention to the former high priestess of the Scepter Coven, the most ancient coven still practicing under its original charter in the world. Its founders had been born in the crucible of the Bronze Age, shrouded in the mists as magic roiled and twisted throughout what was currently known as the Middle East. They were a coven to be both revered and feared: their earliest members had managed to push back the darkness of Ahriman, the strongest demon ever to lay waste to the earth. They’d won that battle, but not the war, all those years ago. Because they hadn’t killed him. They’d always known the black beast would return.
Now that he had, they would destroy him once and for all.
The annihilation of the great demon was one of the most enduring directives of their Scepter Coven’s sacred grimoire, a responsibility assigned to the first witches alone. It’d also been a responsibility they’d been able to avoid for thousands of years. The next generation of witches would always be stronger, they’d reasoned. The next generation would be better equipped to summon the demon outright and wage the war against him that was both their coven’s honor and their bond.
But if they didn’t act quickly, there wouldn’t be a next generation.
Ahriman had crept out of the shadows to which they’d long ago banished him—and struck. Less than ten days ago in Serbia, seventy-five witches in the Crescent Moon Coven had been slaughtered in one of the bloodiest demon attacks in recorded history. Those who survived swore that Ahriman’s name had been shrieked on the forked tongues of the demons who’d torn through their homes and ripped apart their loved ones. The massacre would be chalked up as yet another military atrocity in the war-torn country, but that didn’t change the truth. What the Serbian army had failed to do after nearly a decade of warfare, a legion of demons had accomplished in one night.
After all these millennia, Ahriman had finally dared to renew his campaign to defile all that was sacred and true. And so the Scepter Coven would strike him down for good.
“We needed to summon this many to obscure our true purpose here,” Cressida reminded Elysium Gray for easily the thousandth time. “We’ll not get a better chance to fulfill the grimoire’s requirements than this.”
The former high
priestess sniffed, but she wasn’t the only one who needed the reminder. Behind Elysium stood Cressida’s fated mate, Marcus—the only man she’d ever expected to rule by her side. He’d been chosen by the lawgivers, approved by the elders, and blessed by the Goddess.
Cressida grimaced. He’d also flat-out rejected her tentative amorous advances. Again.
Which was not only mortifying, it was dangerous. Because, not to put too fine a point on it, if Cressida didn’t get screwed soon…well, they’d all be screwed. A witch’s strength in the Scepter Coven increased dramatically upon her sexual awakening, and Cressida’s body was still decidedly fast asleep. That wasn’t good if she was supposed to be taking on Ahriman at the next full moon, when the coven’s power would be at its height. Well—everyone’s power in the coven but hers, anyway.
She felt her cheeks flush even thinking about it. What was Marcus waiting for?
“They’re stronger than I expected they would be,” murmured the witch to her right, refocusing Cressida’s thoughts. Dahlia, the head of Cressida’s personal guard, was the closest friend Cressida had ever allowed herself. Dahlia had stood with her and for her even on her darkest days, no matter how lonely the path of high priestess had become of late.
“We can handle them,” Cressida told her. “We need only to choose quickly and cleanly, then return the rest of the horde to their rightful places.” Like most witches, the members of the Scepter Coven could summon minor demons to do their bidding at will. They didn’t typically destroy the damned, however. The demons would be claimed by the Goddess when the time was right; until then, they were useful as tools. But Ahriman was different. Unlike nearly all of his foul brethren, Ahriman had targeted witches from the first. Now that he had slunk back out of the mire, he would strike again and again, until every last coven was obliterated. They had to stop him, as her captain well understood.