Page 60 of Bargain with the Demon King
"Yes." Azzaron walks beside me, close enough that our arms brush. "Doesn't make it easier to watch."
"Nothing here is easy."
"Would you prefer easy?"
"I'd prefer—"
A figure stumbles into our path. Human. Male. Sweat-stained and trembling, pupils blown wide with rage or terror or both. He stares at me with the focused intensity of someone whose world has collapsed to a single point.
"You." His voice breaks on the word. "You're the mortal whore who turned our protector against us."
"Step back." Azzaron's voice drops to sub-zero. The air crystallizes.
"My wife took the lash because of you." The man's hand disappears into his coat. "Because you couldn't keep your mouth shut. Because you think you understand—"
The knife appears faster than thought. Not aimed at Azzaron—at me. The blade catches twilight, beautiful and wrong, and I'm too surprised to move. Too shocked that a human would—
Pain slices along my ribs. Fire races across my skin, then wet heat spreads. I look down at red soaking through green fabric. My hand finds the wound, comes away slick.
"Oh." The sound escapes on an exhale. "That's my blood."
The man's neck snaps before his knife completes its arc. The sound ricochets off canyon walls—decisive, final. His body drops, knife clattering across crystal dirt. Azzaron catches me as my knees give, his arms immediately under me, lifting.
"Don't look." His voice layers wrong—demon harmonics bleeding through. "Keep your eyes on me."
"It's not that bad." But blood keeps flowing between my fingers, and black spots eat at my peripheral vision. "Just a flesh wound. Chad got worse from the raid and he was fine."
"Stop talking about Chad while you're bleeding."
"Fair point." My head drops against his shoulder as he carries me. His heart hammers against my ear—too fast for his usual control. "Are you running?"
"Yes."
"Demon kings run?"
"When what's mine bleeds, yes."
His chambers blur past—through the main room where we share our dinners, past the table where I've sat across from him so many nights. But his bedroom—I've never been here. His bed is massive, dark sheets that smell of ash and power. He sets me down carefully, then tears my dress at the wound. His hands shake. The Demon King's hands shake.
"It's not deep." He examines the cut with those careful claws. "But you're mortal. You bleed differently."
"Everything about me is different here."
He pricks his finger without hesitation. Black blood wells, darker than night, glowing faintly gold at the edges. "This will burn."
"What—"
He presses his blood to my wound. Agony shoots through me—not pain but transformation. My skin accepts his blood eagerly, knitting closed, rebuilding from his essence. The burning becomes heat becomes wholeness in seconds that feel like hours.
"I carry your blood inside me now." The words come out wondering.
"You carry my protection." His hand stays at my ribs, thumb tracing where the wound was. The skin is perfect, unmarked, but hypersensitive. "No blade will cut you easily again."
"That's not how biology works."
"Demon blood doesn't follow mortal rules." His thumb keeps moving, and each pass sends sparks through me. "You're changed now."
"I was already changed."
