Page 30 of Bargain with the Demon King
I lie awake, listening to her restless movements through the wall. She tosses, turns, makes small sounds of frustration. Searching for something in sleep that keeps slipping away. Her body remembers reaching for me, remembers the almost-kiss, even if her conscious mind will dismiss it.
Tomorrow she'll paint fresh optimism over tonight's humiliation. She'll find beauty in the beast that emerged to protect her. She'll craft meaning from degradation, the way she crafts love stories from soul-stones.
But she'll also remember the dream, that moment of almost, the confession that she thinks about my hands. The admission that I make her feel valuable in ways Chad never could.
The game between us has shifted. She's no longer just a claimed soul, a mortal curiosity. She's becoming something dangerous—someone who sees through my performance to the creature beneath. Someone who reaches for that darkness instead of running.
Someone who might actually be capable of destroying me, simply by making me want her this completely.
The perpetual twilight outside my window shifts from bruised purple to a bitter gray, and I haven't slept at all. Through the wall, she sighs, finally settling into deeper sleep. But I know when she wakes, she'll remember the dream. Remember reaching for me. Remember that I disappeared just before our lips touched.
She'll paint it as her mind processing trauma. Create elaborate justifications for why she dreams of demons instead of her precious Chad. Find the silver lining in wanting something that will certainly destroy her.
But her body will remember the truth—that she begged the Demon King to kiss her, and for once, the monster showed mercy by refusing.
Chapter 11
Adraya
"Soul-stone authentication," Azzaron begins, his words stiff and overly formal, "requires specific atmospheric conditions. The market's energy signature allows for proper verification."
"That's the most elaborate excuse for shopping I've ever heard." I follow him through the fortress corridors, practically bouncing with excitement. "Though I appreciate the effort. Chad usually just says 'we need eggs' when he wants to avoid his mother."
His jaw tightens at Chad's name, but I'm too eager to analyze it. We're leaving the fortress. Actually leaving. After days of stone walls and demon politics, I get to see something new. The optimist in me is practically vibrating.
"This is business," he insists, leading me toward an entrance I haven't seen before. "A rare trade requiring my direct oversight. You will observe silently."
"Of course. Silent as death. Quieter than demon horses—which by the way, move so quietly it's genuinely unsettling. Do they not have joints? How do their hooves make no sound? These are the questions that keep me up at night."
"Your questions about livestock keep you awake?"
"Among other things." Like dreams about you touching me, but we're not discussing that. "Point is, I'll be professionally silent. You won't even know I'm there."
The look he gives me suggests he seriously doubts this claim.
The market hits every sense at once—a glorious assault of color, sound, and scents that shouldn't exist in the same space. My carefully planned silence lasts approximately three seconds.
"Oh hells, is that fruit glowing? Actually glowing? Not metaphorically glowing like when people say someone's 'glowing' but they just mean sweaty—this is literal light-producing fruit. That's incredible. Can you eat it? Does it glow in your stomach? Would you become a human lantern?"
Azzaron steers me past the fruit vendor with one hand on my lower back. "Focus."
"I am focused. Extremely focused on that fabric—is it changing colors? It is! It's literally shifting from purple to blue to... is that a color? I don't think that color exists in my world." I drag him toward a stall draped in impossible textiles. "This is better than the time Chad took me to the harvest festival and I discovered candied apples. Though he did get annoyed when I wanted to try every single variety—"
"We have an appointment." But he lets me run my hands over the fabric, watching as my eyes go wide when it shifts from silk to something that feels like solid moonlight.
"One minute. Just one—oh, what's that?"
The market sprawls through multiple levels of the canyon, carved into rock that gleams with embedded crystals. Demons haggle in their grinding language while others speak common tongue with accents that scrape. Lesser demons scurry between legs, carrying packages and messages. And the wares—blades that hum with their own frequency, jewelry thatmoves like it's alive, books that whisper when you pass, bottled shadows that press against glass seeking escape.
"Is that a cursed dagger or a butter knife?" I pick up something sharp and ornate. "In the demon realm, it's genuinely hard to tell. This could either spread jam or steal someone's soul."
"It's for peeling vegetables." Azzaron plucks it from my hand. "And you're holding it backwards."
"In my defense, demon kitchenware is unreasonably elaborate. Chad's mother has one good knife and it's older than I am—" I spot something else and dart away. "Are those singing stones?"
The vendor—a demon with ram's horns and too many teeth—demonstrates by tapping them. Music rises, but wrong. Beautiful but off-key in ways that make my chest ache.
"They harmonize with heartbreak," the vendor explains in accented common tongue. "Very popular for romantic occasions."
