Page 4 of Demon's Dark Love

“I'm awake.”

Her voice is steady.

I blink, caught off guard by how long she holds my stare. Most humans quiver in fear or beg for mercy at this point. Not her.

Eventually she looks away, but it takes an unnerving amount of time.

“Shouldn’t you be groveling?” I take a step closer, allowing myself to loom over her, testing the unexpected spark she has ignited.

She brushes back some loose strands of hair from her face, and looks back up at me.

“Groveling won’t change anything.”

My blood boils at the insolence, and yet it stirs something, a dark thrill that mixes with curiosity.

"You know what will change things?" I say. "A long, miserable day of toil."

I find excuses during the day to watch as she moves through the tasks Griselda assigns her.

Her fingers dance over tattered fabric, deftly stitching together a torn cloak for one of the lesser demons. I lean against a doorframe, arms crossed, feigning disinterest, but my gaze tracks her every movement. She navigates the intricate needlework with an ease that belies the difficulty of the task.

I catch myself leaning in slightly and I straighten, shaking off the feeling.

Admiration? No. That’s absurd.

She pauses, glancing at me from beneath those wild auburn waves. Her expression remains steady, no hint of fear, just a spark of defiance.

“Need something?” she asks. And as if it were an afterthought adds on, "My lord."

“Just keeping an eye on the new work,” I say, attempting to keep my tone sharp and dismissive.

There’s a grace in her movements that gnaws at me. The way she bends over her task, focused yet fluid. It draws me in despite my best efforts to remain aloof. Each stitch seems deliberate and precise. She transforms what should be drudgery into an art form.

My fists clench unconsciously as I wrestle with this unfamiliar admiration bubbling up inside me. It feels wrong, like I’m betraying everything I’ve ever known about our kind and their supposed superiority over humans. She is creating something almost beautiful despite her situation.

She looks up again and catches me staring this time.

“Have you never seen humans work before?”

The insolence of her daring to speak to me jolts me back to reality.

“I've never had the impulse to be bored out of my mind until today,” I retort quickly, masking any hint of respect behind bravado.

She raises an eyebrow and tilts her head, as if to agree with me about the tedious nature of the work, as if we were able to relate to one another.

I step back into the shadows of the corridor, my mind racing. The flicker of intrigue she ignited refuses to die down.

“Enoch!”

My mother is waiting by a massive wooden door, her golden eyes sharp as daggers.

“We have work to do.”

I follow her into a chamber filled with ancient tomes and scrolls. The air is thick with the smell of parchment and power. We go over the plans to subjugate the demons to the north further through limiting sustenance supplies.

"How's the new slave doing?" Bethana asks.

"Seems miserable enough."

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