Claimed by Angels & Demons: Book 1 Read online

  "Hmm," I said, barely listening, lost again gazing at Gabriel, practically licking my lips.

  "What is it?" he said.

  "Huh?"

  "You keep staring at me, is there something the matter?"

  "I just... I want to try something." I unclipped my seatbelt, my mind blurry in a carnal haze, and leaned over to him, reaching for his face, pulling him in towards me, reaching for his lips with mine, the whole thing like a dream where I was watching myself from outside my own body, powerless to stop myself. Not that I really wanted this to stop.

  And Gabriel began to lean in, to kiss me back, but stopped at the last second, a hand on my shoulder, forcing me back. "No," he said.

  "I"m sorry," I said, more rattled than I was letting on, "I don't know what came over me, I just..."

  "You may find yourself attracted to my corporeal form," he said, his voice cold and soft and barely controlled, "but don't presume to act on your attractions human. Fraternization between humans and angels is strictly forbidden. If we were discovered we would both be condemned to an eternity in hell."

  "Oh are we going to pretend like you weren't leaning in to kiss me too?" I said, ignoring all his biblical consequences nonsense. "I think I'd like to ask you to not act on any of your attractions. I don't want anything to do with someone who thinks so damned much of themselves."

  His voice was cool but I could see the fury in his black eyes, "most of your kind show deference and respect when engaging with my kind. I realize you are barely out of adolescence but you would do well to keep that in mind."

  "Oh so sorry your lordship," I said, mocking him, remembering what Henrietta had called Gabriel the other day, "I'd curtsy too if I wasn't already sitting down."

  He was really angry now and I was beginning to think my big mouth had gotten me in trouble one more time when he reached for me. My first thought was that that was it, I had talked myself in to a premature death with one too many sarcastic jibes. But instead he grasped my neck and pulled me in, his lips soft but forceful and full of passion on mine, and after the shock of it wore off I opened my mouth and kissed him back, but it was only a moment before he let go of my head and fell back in his seat, staring out the front windshield.

  It had been an amazing kiss, an electric and raw kiss, and I immediately wanted more. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing kissing me like that?" I said, more than a little flustered.

  "You tried to kiss me first human," he said, his eyes drilling in to mine.

  "Quit it with that human bullshit," I said, "I have a name. Use it."

  "You are infuriating," he said, his voice deep and ragged and full of fury. "I have been attempting to ignore my feelings for you but you make it impossible. And then you tempt me by just throwing yourself at me like that," and then before I could yell at him some more for insinuating that I had thrown myself at him he leaned across the center console and pulled my face onto his again, forcing his lips on to mine. I couldn't make up my mind between kissing him back and being angry with him for kissing me in the first place. It was like there were two forces battling inside of me for control, making me into a ragged ball of raw feelings and emotions. I felt like a character in a soap opera. But his lips were bliss, and I surrendered to his kiss, wrapping my own hands around the back of his neck. He skin felt silky smooth, and cool to the touch.

  But just as I was beginning to really enjoy myself Gabriel let me go and fell back into the passenger's seat yet again, his breathing ragged, his cold, composed outer shell completely shattered. "What have I done?" he said, like kissing me was some terrible crime.

  "Oh what, is God going to zap us with lightning bolts now just because we kissed?"

  "You should not make light of forces you don't understand human."

  "Layla!" I said, sitting up and turning to look at him, instantly furious, "my name is Layla, and if you refer to me as human one more time I'll be the one zapping your ass with a lightning bolt."

  "You should know, Layla," he said, "that when I lost Seffora I did not think that I would ever love another living thing as much as I loved her. But you..." He didn't finish the sentence, just shook his head and huffed.

  "Wait, what are you saying" I said, a little nervous, "that you love me or something? Because I don't know how things work up in heaven, but down here on earth we don't just go around telling people we barely know that we love them. Even if they are really, really good kissers."

  "You exasperate me in the same way that she did, that is for certain. And that face," he gave me the most tortured look and sighed, "how is it that you have her face?"

  How was I supposed to know the answer to that? "Maybe your memory of her is faded, and it only seems like I look like her because I remind you of her." I was really, really hoping that he was going to say yes, that's exactly what it is, why didn't I think of that before?

  "I will never forget her face," Gabriel said. "I remembered it in excruciating detail the day after she died, just as I remember it now, and in a hundred thousand years, when I have forgotten everything else from this era, her face will still be etched in my mind."

  I sat there in silence for a long moment, trying and failing to contemplate that kind of love. "But I'm not her," I said, making sure he still understood that.

  "Angels were never meant to love another being, at least not in the romantic sense of the word love. But Seffora was special, she made me feel love." Gabriel looked over at me, "I know that you are not her, but nevertheless there is something special about you, just as there was something special about Seffora."

  "That's...," I didn't have the words to express what I was thinking, what I was feeling. The truth that I could only just barely admit to myself was that I felt it too. Love, like an almost physical sensation, like a need. Like fate was entwining us together. But I just couldn't bring myself to say it out loud.

  "But if you think that you can manipulate my feelings for you to spare your life, you will be sadly mistaken," Gabriel said. "I loved Seffora, but she was too powerful to be allowed to live and I had no choice but to kill her. And if I find that you are too powerful to exist on the earthly plane I won't hesitate to kill you as well. It is of paramount importance that the humans are never more powerful than the hosts of heaven on this plane. I was tasked by God with ensuring that balance of power, and I will keep it."

  "You killed the woman that you loved," I said, not really believing it even as I was saying it, "because what, because she was more powerful than you? What kind of insane, narcissistic asshole does something like that!"

  "I don't expect you to understand the sacrifices I have had to make."

  "Sacrifices?" I said, almost sneering, "you killed her, the only thing you sacrificed was her, to your big, giant ego."

  "As I said," Gabriel replied, his cold, formal outer shell back in full force, "I don't expect you to understand."

  "Of course I don't understand it," I said, yelling now, "no one could understand it, it's--" But he winked out of existence right in the middle of my tirade, pulling his convenient disappearing act once again. "Oh real mature," I yelled at the space where he had been, "just run away, what are you eight thousand years old? Grow up!"

  But there was no response, just the silence of an empty car on a deserted street.

  The truth was that for a moment I had hoped that maybe, if Gabriel had some feelings for me, he might be willing to look the other way on the whole too-powerful-to-live thing. Maybe Seffora had had the same thought. But it hadn't worked out so well for her, and if it came to that, it apparently wasn't going to work out so well for me either. So what was I supposed to do now? I could try to ignore my feelings for Gabriel and keep him at a distance, in the hopes that it would save my life, or embrace the way I felt about him, and take the risk that he might end up killing me when he learned too much about me. And then there was this new threat, that the two of us might be banished to hell just for being together. How seriously was I supposed to take that?

&n
bsp; And where had these feelings even come from? I was not this girl. I didn't go around ogling any man, even if he was an archangel. It was like that dream from the night before had followed me in to the waking world. All the exaggerated emotions I had felt for him there in that safe, imaginary place were bleeding over in to my conscious mind. Not that I was complaining. Because that kiss... that had been magic. I should have said that, I should have told him how I felt, but I had kind of sucked at that emotional stuff ever since Mom had left. Just one more problem to add the list.

  Logically I knew that the only sane choice was to run in the other direction the next time I saw Gabriel. That choice was the one where I most likely lived to see the end of the summer. But I could already tell that the next time I saw him I would be running towards him, not away, consequences be damned. It was that stupid kiss, I just couldn't get it out of my head. It felt like he had worked his way in to my head, my heart, even in to my bones with that kiss. And now he had some sort of claim on me that I just could not escape.

  If you enjoyed Claimed by Angels and Demons: Book One, then please consider writing a review on Amazon. I hope to one day write full time, which will allow me to write longer books at a quicker pace, but I cant get there without your support!

  What's Next

  Claimed by Angels and Demons: Book Two is available right now! Here's a sneak peak:

  After Gabriel reveals that he was the one who killed Seffora, Layla knows she cant trust him, and it's not safe to be around him. But after having another strange dream, and spending another night afraid to go back to sleep, her attraction to him only seems to be growing. Being with him is beginning to become like a physical need, just as necessary to her survival as sleeping and eating. Layla isn't sure what's happening to her, but more and more she doesn't care. How could anything that feels as good as being with Gabriel be bad?

  More than anything now, Layla needs answers, and Henrietta is willing to answer some of Layla's questions, for a price. But Layla is quickly learning that in the supernatural world trust is everything, and trusting the wrong person could mean a quick death. Paying Henrietta's price means placing absolute trust in the old woman, and answers wont be of much use to Layla if she's dead.

  Get it now on Amazon (available on Kindle Unlimited!)

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  My Other Books

  If you've enjoyed Part One of Claimed by Angels and Demons then you might enjoy my other series, titled My Surrender. It's a three part new adult billionaire romance, nothing paranormal, and you can find book one (free!) here:

  Amazon

  Kobo

  Nook

  Apple

 

 

  Ava Blake, Claimed by Angels & Demons: Book 1

 

 

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