Red Demon by Deidre Knight Page B

not even female, whatever the hell you are.”
    “I never knew what you really were, Aristos. That night when you came to me, and I saw your wings—”
    “Shut up!” he barked, clasping at his pounding head. No way would he let this thing taunt him with his own memories of that horrible night. The image before him now was false—cruel, wrong in every way.
    But her ethereal, lovely blue eyes fixed on him again, widening slightly. “Why can’t you believe that it is me?” She leaned closer, sounding frustrated. “I promised to find a way back to you. I promised, Aristos. Do you not believe Cecilia, who proclaims me to be true? As does your friend Emma.”
    “They’re deceived,” he hissed. “They don’t know demons like I do. They don’t know Juliana Tiades like I do.” A stabbing pain of anguish hit him hard, spearing him through the chest. He realized then that his fury at the entity wasn’t even about what it was—he encountered demons and destroyed them on a near-regular basis. No, it was about everything this illusionary being wasn’t . “You’re not her. I’d know if you were. You’d . . . feel the same.”
    “Yes, I have changed. But you’ve changed, too. A hundred years is a long time.”
    Her words caught his attention. “What do you mean exactly, that you’ve changed?”
    She gave a diffident shrug. “Certain arrangements were involved in regaining a physical form. Nothing significant.”
    “Oh, just hurdling across this little thing called eternity. One minor detail of getting your body back, and poof, you’re here with me again.”
    She frowned. “A guide helped me find my way here, to you—to this very room. A kind female spirit who saw how deeply I love you, still, after all these years.”
    He laughed darkly, shaking his head. “I know way too much about the kinds of deals you gotta make in order to come back from the dead, and it’s never that easy.”
    “Is that why you appeared that night . . . winged?” She cocked her head, studying him with wide eyes. “Because you really are an angel?”
    “Sweetheart, I’m definitely no angel,” he muttered. “In fact, I might be the very devil himself.”
    “There is no darkness in you. I was always sure of that, even though I never knew what you were.” Juliana reached a hand to his chest, splaying her palm over Ari’s heart. The fucker was slamming like a Gatling gun, a tempo that only increased with every moment beneath her gentle touch.
    “Yeah?” He snorted. “Well, I don’t know what kind of bat-shit crazy thing you are, either, woman! But I sure as bloody hell know you’re not my Jules.”
    She smiled, a lazy, slow reaction that had him growing rock hard inside his pants all over again. And that look, that smile, was pure Jules. It was her flirtatious look, her pleased one. She’d always glanced at him just that way whenever he made her feel beautiful. He’d recognize that look in any city, on any continent. And definitely in any age.
    He tensed, struggling to process his conflicted emotions, but took just one slight step closer.
    She rubbed her neck. “I was always yours. There was nothing, absolutely nothing that I wouldn’t have done to find my way back to you.” She patted her chest imploringly as if she were offering up her soul as collateral. “I am truly alive again now, eager for your love.” She looked down right then, her gaze lingering on his tight groin. “Eager for all of you, Aristos. At last.”
    Ari’s entire body began a free fall right then, a headlong dive into an intoxicating mix of power and arousal. His spine began to burn and prickle, and he knew it was only a few heartbeats before his wings emerged of their own volition. He had no control over the rapid, unnerving transformation that came over him in that moment, just from being near this female.
    He blinked, but his eyes were on fire, blazing with blinding white light that reached toward her like moonbeams. “Only a demon could call