Page 34 of Bargain with the Demon King
A particularly wet thrust, his guttural moan cutting through my desperate attempt to reframe this into something survivable.
No. No maybes. No silver linings. Just truth, ugly and thrusting and grunting in our marriage bed.
My legs give out. I would have crashed to my knees, but the scene vanishes. One moment, the grotesque tableau is burning itself onto the back of my eyes; the next, there is only the solid black wall of Azzaron’s back. He doesn’t just block the view, he erases it. His jaw clenches so hard something cracks. His claws extend slightly—not in satisfaction but in rage that makes the air taste of copper and ash. He positions himself to block not just my view but any chance Chad might glance up and see me destroyed in his doorway.
His hand finds my arm, claws careful against skin that feels too thin, like it might tear if he grips any harder.
"Come." Just that. No satisfaction in his voice. No 'I told you so.' Just quiet command.
He guides me backward, out the door, away from the sounds that will live in my skull forever. My feet move because he moves me. My body follows because it has forgotten how to function independently.
Outside, the world continues. Birds sing. Sun shines. The mint grows wild and untended. Everything exactly as it was except nothing will ever be the same.
"He didn't even..." My voice sounds strange, detached. "The door was open. Anyone could have walked in. He didn't even care enough to..."
The memories assault me in rapid succession, each one recontextualizing with brutal clarity. The raid. His hands on my back, shoving. Not pulling me to safety—pushing me toward danger. The calculation in his eyes as he scrambled past, not toward.
The time he came back from "visiting his sick mother" smelling of perfume I didn't recognize. I'd thought it was from the apothecary. I'd made it make sense because I needed it to.
The way he always rushed through sex with me, eyes closed, finishing quick. I'd thought he was overwhelmed by emotion. He was thinking of someone else.
Every "I love you" that came too quick, too easy, words to keep me close and convenient.
The wildflowers. Always free. Never roses from the market though I mentioned loving them. Never anything that cost effort. Just whatever grew by the roadside on his way to see me.
"I sold my soul for him." The words fall out hollow. "I sold my soul for someone who was already fucking another woman."
Azzaron's hand tightens on my arm. Not painful. Anchoring. The only solid thing in a world suddenly made of water.
"How long?" I ask the air, not him. "Was she waiting in the wings while I bled for him? Did he comfort himself in her bed the very night I disappeared? Or did he wait a whole day before—"
My knees buckle completely. Azzaron catches me, pulls me against his chest. I should care that I'm crying on the Demon King. I should care about dignity or strength or any of the things that mattered an hour ago. But I'm empty. The vacuum behind my ribs, the one that has been a dull ache for days, is now a screaming void. I am a soul-less body going through the motions.
"I want to go home." But I don't have a home. This cottage was home. Chad was home. Now there's just Azzaron's fortress, and I'm too broken to pretend that's anything but a pretty prison.
The journey back passes in fragments. Shadow. Stone. Corridors that blur together. Azzaron's hand on my elbow when I stop walking, forgetting why movement matters. The door tomy chamber. My bed that smells of neither home nor betrayal, just nothing.
I curl onto it fully clothed, shoes still on, yellow dress that Chad will never see crumpled beneath me. The twilight necklace stays cold against my throat, as if even magical jewelry recognizes when hope dies.
She was prettier than me. Tighter, apparently. The kind of delicate Chad always said he didn't prefer but his body clearly disagreed. How many times did he think of her while touching me? How many of those quick, obligatory encounters were him pretending I was someone else?
He told people I was gone for good. Not missing. Not tragic. Just gone. A funny story about the naive woman who loved him enough to trade her soul. Something to laugh about between fucking his new woman in our bed.
The soul-bond hums faintly in my chest—not the hollow where my soul lived, but the connection to Azzaron that formed when he claimed me. It's the only sensation that penetrates the numbness. Proof I still exist when everything else has been cut away.
I sold my soul for nothing. No—worse than nothing. I sold it for a lie so thorough I never questioned it. Chad didn't love me. Maybe he never did. I was convenient, devoted, grateful for any scrap of affection. The girl who would sell her soul to save him, who would never demand more than wildflowers and forgotten birthdays and quick fumbling in the dark.
The optimist in me, that bright, stupid thing that found beauty in demon realms and love stories in soul-stones, is dead. Chad killed it. Not with his betrayal—with the truth his betrayal revealed. I've been living in a fairy tale I wrote myself, casting Chad as the hero because I needed someone to love me that much.
But no one loves me that much. No one ever has.
The thought should hurt. Instead it settles into my bones with the weight of absolute truth. This is what I traded eternity for. This is the love story I thought was worth any price.
Through the wall, I hear Azzaron moving in his chamber. Pacing, sounds restless. Something crashes—thrown perhaps. He knew. Of course he knew. He's probably known all along, watching me defend Chad with my pathetic optimism, finding it amusing.
But he didn't mock me today. Didn't say the words that would have twisted the knife. He just stood between me and the ugliness, guided me away, brought me back to the only place I have left. His rage wasn't at me—it was for me. That small distinction matters in ways I'm too broken to examine.
That small mercy is more kindness than Chad ever showed me, and that truth is the cruelest cut of all.
