Page 45 of Deal with the Devil

The eyeless sockets addressed Amelia. She felt ashamed for the flicker of a grimace that nearly graced her face. “Uh…chocolate or raspberry anything, really.”

“Perfect, I’ll have it brought to Mr. Zrazduel’s office. Have a lovely evening, Ms. Armstrong.” The waitress bowed and swished her bushy tail in rhythm with her slender hips.

Amelia gawked, mouth flapping open and shut for a long time. Knox took off, not allowing her to stand there speechless. He draped her over his arm again. They dipped through a purple arch that appeared out of nowhere, and when they cleared the threshold, they were in a winding maze of hallways.

“Buttons, she slept with the wrong witch in the woods when she was a rambunctious young elf. When she started sleeping around with other people, the witch cut out her eyes so she could no longerseeother people.”

“Ouch, that’s a bit steep for cheating!” Amelia barked.

“I agree, but some scars can’t be healed. That’s what happens when you fuck around with forces you don’t completely understand. Necromancers have a spell that kills the skin so it can never be healed. If you’re a good one, I’d say you could even make a regular kitchen spoon imbued with this power so when you scoop out your girlfriend’s eyes, the sockets can never be used, and the eyes never die. Buttons can see, because the witch keeps her eyes in a jar in her cabin in the woods beyond the Badlands, but they’re not hers, nor is she in command of them.”

Amelia slowed their rushed stride to a stop. She slowly turned to look at him with wide eyes and cold washes of horror rolling down her spine. “Can…you…cast that spell?”

“It’s a specialty of mine.” Knox straightened his spine, staring at her. “I’m not all contracts, Pet. I am somewhat of a fiendish caster. However, that particular party trick is one of the many punishments I seal into my deals.”

Amelia squinted, glancing him once over from head to toe. “Was that my punishment?”

“Your punishment is your soul, Amelia. We discussed this.” His tone darkened, face rigid and pinched.

“No, not our current contract. The first one, what was the price?”

His lips curled into a wicked smirk as he chuckled, “Well, had you attempted to break our first deal, other than your literal hand, I would have been granted a do over. You would have been trapped till you lasted a full twenty-four hours. The timer would reset every time you broke the contract.”

Her face paled and her heart came to a skittering stop. “What?”

“You would have gotten the hand back,” he scoffed, shrugging.

“You can do that?” She huffed, “What else can you do?”

“I can make you see your worst fears. I can make them attack your body, tossing you into a nightmare realm within your mind where you cannot escape, and you can do nothing but toil away. Fear will eat away at your body until you’re a corpse, still screaming without lungs.” He roped an arm around her waist and led her on down the hall.

Amelia blinked rapidly, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, so the fear-eater thing isreal-real?”

Knox snorted, “I did swear not to lie to you.”

He flashed her a cheeky grin as they rounded a hall to a longer corridor. People bustled past them and all but flattened themselves to the wall to avoid touching her.He sure is possessive, huh!She stumbled trying to keep up until he slowed down to a more reasonable pace.

“How did you become a fear-eater?” she breathed, swallowing the nervous lump in her throat. “Have you always been that way?”

His face softened, eyes glazing over as he stared beyond the walls of the casino. “No, once upon a time, I was just a regular person. Then Declan destroyed me, and I made a deal with a witch of my own.”

Amelia watched his face, unsure if she should ask, but did so anyway.Writer brain; I have to know the truth, I need the answers.“What kind of deal?”

He cleared his throat, blinking his eyes back to reality. Knox spared her a warm, soft look. “Power. I’m basically a warlock with special perks, because the Witch of the Woods isn’t my patron…she became my mother, changed me from the insides. Made me a fear-eater.”

“Do I even want to know how that works?” Amelia confessed with a single breath.

He cupped her cheek, “I did promise you answers, but, in the effort to be honest with you, pet…don’t ask. You don’t want to know those answers. I can show you, but it will only hurt you or upset you. So, I’m asking you…don’t ask… Not yet.”

Amelia swallowed another lump and nodded, “Got it.”

“Thank you,” he breathed, leaning toward her and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You have an eternity to ask. There will be another time.”

She gave him an apologetic smile and nodded for him to continue. However, not more than a step later, they were stopped by a pink-fleshed, healer’s robe wearing, fiendish woman. She scoffed, stopping in the middle of the hall where she caught them. The healer waved a hand at Amelia with a concerned expression plastered to her face.

“And this is what we’re calling healthy coping, Knox? I thought we discussed how bad this obsession was for you!”

“I kinda asked him for it,” Amelia blurted out.

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