Page 126 of Married to the Devil

“You caused this on purpose,” I whisper.

Something in my voice must shift Stoneheart from his curiosity and the warm way lovers speak to the powerful territory leader who stands before me. I never should have forgotten who he was.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“How did you expect to convince me stay?” I ask. “Tell me the truth.”

I want to hear it from his own lips.

“Why?” he asks, but my lips purse. He owes me answers. Finally, his eyes narrow, as if gleaning things I’m not ready to tell him.

“Stoneheart,” I prompt.

“You love her.”

I say nothing to that. The idea that he’d only been relying on my feelings for Stella sounds so naïve now. When had I stopped being suspicious? When he kissed me? Called me songbird?

He straightens, realizing that I’m not leaving until I dig into this. “But that wouldn’t have made you stay. You’re very good at depriving yourself if you think it’s for the best.”

I want to deny that, but it’s true.

“Unless you grew…attached,” he says. The confession is unabashed.

“You expected me to bond with her.”

Stoneheart tilts his head. “It was one possibility in a sea of them. Demons are known to be masters of soul magic. The bonds they form are as organic as breathing. They are some of the few who can even break bonds without it being too damaging.”

He’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before, but I didn’tknowwhat something like that would feel like.

“You relied on my ignorance,” I say. And that stings. Does he even care about me, or am just another asset he’s securing like a politically advantageous wife?

“I expected you to anticipate that part of your nature. That you didn’t…worked well for me.” There’s a flash of regret and some relief before cruel satisfaction takes over. “Because you’d never break a bond, would you, Ben? Not now that you have one with her.”

I don’t deny the presence of a bond. I can’t fathom its existence let alone decide if I have the constitution break it with how I feel about them.

“You’ve miscalculated, Remy,” I say.

Because Stoneheart would never assume that I’d bond to both of them. And now I must figure out a way to undo it.

I can’t be bonded to other territory leaders and serve Kalos. Recognized bonds are legal things. The Council would require I forfeit my allegiance to Kalos to keep his influence from spreading too far.

Exactly the conflict I expected, but one that hurts more than I ever imagined. Because this delicate thing shining in my chest? It’s beautiful. The warmth of it fills every lonely cavern in my soul.

I’ve never experienced anything like it.

“Did you expect me to make leaving easy for you?” Stoneheart’s stare is as intense as a cat finally catching the mouse he’s been playing with. “Will you tell her if you decide to dissolve the bond? Or will you let the connection she feels to you blink away?”

Can one be angry at the Devil when he shows his hand? He’s just doing what I expected from him at the start. It’s my fault I fell under his spell.

The snapping frustration tightening my throat doesn’t care that he’s only doing what’s in his nature.

“Fuck you,” I say.

41

STELLA

I don’t knowexactly what wakes me at first. It’s something different.

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