Page 6 of Bargain with the Demon King
He sets me on my feet, hand lingering at my waist. The touch burns through my dress, and I hate how my body wants to lean back into him. "What happens now?"
"Now?" He turns toward a massive staircase. "Now you learn what it means to belong to me."
The demons watch as I follow him. Their whispers chase us in languages I don't understand. Some look at me with pity. Others with envy. None look at me like I'm human anymore.
"Will I ever see him again? Chad?"
The Demon King stops. Turns. Studies me with those impossible eyes. "Perhaps. If you're very good." His mouth curves wickedly. "Or very bad. I haven't decided which would amuse me more."
"You're enjoying this."
"Immensely. It's been centuries since anyone's been this entertaining."
"I sold my soul to save someone I love, and you're entertained?"
"Love." He tastes the word like spoiled wine. "Is that what you call it? That desperate, blind devotion to someone who shoved you toward a sword?"
"He didn't—he was protecting—"
"He pushed you into the raider's path." The words are casual, surgical. "I saw the memory when I took your soul. Clear as crystal. His hands on your back. The calculation in his eyes."
My own memory rebels, trying to twist the image—the angle of the push, the direction he ran. Puzzle pieces snapping into a shape I refuse to accept. "You're lying." The words are a shield. They have to be.
"I don't need to lie." He starts climbing the stairs. "The truth is so much more entertaining."
"Chad would never—"
"No? Then why did he check his escape route before pushing you? Why did he angle you precisely where the raider would see you first?" Each word placed perfectly, devastating. "Why was his first concern after healing how to explain your absence, not where you'd gone?"
I follow because what else can I do? Each step feels like drowning in reverse, rising toward a surface that might not exist. The fortress swallows us whole.
"You're wrong about him."
"If that comforts you." He glances back, smirking. "Hold tight to your illusions, little mortal. It'll make shattering them so much sweeter."
I sold my soul to save Chad. But I didn't just sell it to any demon.
I sold it to their King.
I'm not just damned. I'm royally, completely, utterly fucked.
Chapter 4
Adraya
"Your chambers." Azzaron shoulders open a door that weighs more than I do, black wood carved with symbols that ache behind my eyes. His claws leave scratches in the grain that seal themselves.
The room beyond—I wasn't expecting this. Not a cell. Not servants' quarters. A suite that belongs to someone important. Bed vast enough to get lost in, fireplace crackling without wood to burn, windows overlooking the canyon's twisted sprawl. Purple and black fabrics shift between silk and something else depending on the angle, the light, the observer.
"This is too much."
"Nothing in my fortress is too much." He enters, forcing me to follow or stand abandoned in the corridor. Firelight turns his horns into wicked silhouettes against the wall. "Everything is precisely as excessive as I intend."
"But I'm just—"
"Mine." The word lands hard, weighted with meanings I refuse to examine. "That makes you valuable enough for proper quarters."
He indicates a door across the room, claws catching amber light. "That connects to my chambers. Use it if you need something."
