Page 3 of Bargain with the Demon King
Pain explodes through me—not physical but deeper. Something essential tears from its roots. I feel myself fragmenting, pieces of what makes memepeeling away and condensing into his grip. My knees buckle. Vision whites out. When it clears, I'm still holding Chad. His wound has closed. His breathing steadies. Color returns to his face. The raiderunfreezes and immediately collapses, sword clattering away. He takes one look at the demon and runs.
"Chad?" I touch his face. "Chad, can you hear me?"
His eyes flutter open. "Adraya? What happened? Did you—" He sees the demon and immediately tries to scramble backward, even lying down. "What is that?"
Not 'who.'That.
"You're safe." I smooth his hair, trying not to notice how he pulls away from my bloody hands. "You're alive. That's what matters."
"Indeed." The demon's voice cuts through. "He'll live a long, healthy life. Probably longer than he deserves."
I look up at this beautiful monster who owns me now. "Thank you."
"Save your gratitude." He pulls something from nothing—a rough crystal glowing soft white, pulsing with my heartbeat. "This is mine now. You are mine now."
"I know."
"No. You really don't."
He gestures. Shadows wrap around me, lifting me to my feet. Chad grabs for me, fingers passing through shadow.
"Adraya!" He struggles to stand, still favoring a side that is no longer injured. "Where are you going? You can't leave me!"
"She's coming with me." The demon's tone could freeze hell. "The bargain is sealed."
"But I need—" Chad's hand, reaching for me, falters and drops. His eyes lose their panicked focus, darting past me to the watching shadows, to the empty market square. The fear in his face doesn't vanish, it sharpens into something else. "How am I supposed to explain this?"
Of course that's his concern.
"I love you," I tell him anyway, memorizing his face. "Remember that."
The demon laughs. "Oh, I'm sure he'll remember exactly what suits him."
Shadows swallow us both. The last thing I see is Chad's face—not devastated, not reaching for me, but already looking around to see who's watching, already thinking about his story. Then darkness takes me, and I belong to it completely.
Chapter 3
Adraya
The shadows release us, and I drop to my knees, retching. Nothing comes up. My stomach is empty, but my body keeps trying to expel something that isn't there anymore. That essential piece he tore from me. The absence behind my ribs isn't an ache, it's a vacuum. A negative space that pulls and strains against my own bones with every heartbeat.
"The disorientation passes." His voice comes from above, rich with amusement. "Usually. Sometimes mortals just stay broken. Rather inconvenient when they do."
"Fantastic bedside manner you've got." I push myself up, dirt grinding into my palms. Except it's not dirt. The ground sparkles, each grain catching light that shouldn't exist. I blink hard. The sparkles remain. I touch one with my fingertip—it's sharp, crystalline, drawing a bead of blood that looks too red against the glittering earth.
"Where—" My voice cracks. I swallow, try again. The copper taste won't leave my throat. "Where are we?"
"The border between your tedious little world and mine."
I finally look up. The world tilts wrong. Sky the color of a bruise healing backwards—purple bleeding into gold that never quite becomes daylight. The sun hangs too low, more ember than flame, frozen in perpetual almost-sunset. Mountains riseon all sides, but they're layered wrong, stone folded into itself, carved by wind that doesn't blow anymore. Everything is too much. Too vivid. Too sharp. The colors hurt to look at directly, but I can't look away.
"Welcome to my realm." He extends his hand, and heat radiates from his skin despite those black claws that could gut me without effort. "Can you stand, or shall I carry you? I do so enjoy playing pack mule for swooning mortals."
"I don't swoon." I don't take his hand either. I push myself up, legs shaking. The air tastes wrong—too clean, too sharp, with an aftertaste of copper and cinnamon that coats my throat. Each breath feels thicker than it should, weighted with something that makes my lungs work harder.
"No? Pity. You have the perfect figure for it." His eyes track down my body, slow and deliberate. "All those soft curves just begging to be caught."
My face burns. "Chad—is he—will he be alright without me?"
