Page 4 of Bargain with the Demon King
"Oh yes, let's discuss the brave hero." The demon's perfect mouth curves into something cruel. "I'm sure he's absolutely devastated. Probably composing epic ballads to your sacrifice as we speak."
"Don't mock him. He nearly died saving me."
"Did he now?" The words drip condescension. "How wonderfully romantic. Tell me, does he often throw you toward danger and call it protection?"
"That's not what happened."
"If you insist." He starts walking, and the movement is so smooth it looks wrong, as if he’s gliding an inch above the crystalline ground. The muscles in my own legs tense, wanting to copy an action they can’t perform. "This way, unless you'd prefer to stand here until the scavengers get brave."
His shoulders roll with each step, muscles shifting under skin that catches the dying light. The horns growing from his temples aren't monstrous—they're elegant, curved black that looks like a crown made of midnight. When he moves, I catch his scent—iron and smoke and something dark that makes my pulse skip. The path ahead cuts into the cliff face, narrow enough that my shoulders brush stone on one side while the other drops into nothing. The stone is warm. Not from sun—there's no real sun here—but from something within. I take one step and freeze. The stone under my feet pulses. Faint, but there. A heartbeat in the mountain.
"I can't—" Vertigo slams into me. The path seems to narrow, the drop endless. Below, darkness moves, shifts, breathes.
He turns back, those gold threads in his black eyes brightening. "You can. You will. Or you'll fall and I'll have to find another entertainment for the evening."
"Glad my potential death fits into your schedule."
"Everything fits into my schedule. I'm King." But he moves closer, blocking the worst of the drop with his body. The heat from him wraps around me, and I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. This close, I can see the inhuman perfection of his features—too sharp, too beautiful, crafted to lure prey. "Walk."
I walk, hyperaware of him behind me, close enough that his breath stirs my hair.
"Tell me about your precious Chad." His voice carries dark humor. "Does he write you poetry? Compose sonnets to your eyebrows?"
"He brings me wildflowers." The words come out defensive. "Every week."
"Wildflowers. How delightfully cheap."
"They're not about money. They're about thought. He says they remind him of me—growing wild and beautiful where nobody expects."
The demon laughs, low and mocking. "Did he practice that line in a mirror first? Or did he steal it from whatever romantic drivel passes for literature in your village?"
"Why do you care?"
"I own you now, little mortal. Everything about you is my business. Including your questionable taste in men."
A sound echoes off the canyon walls—chittering, scratching, hungry. Shapes detach from the shadows below. Lesser demons, all wrong angles and too many joints, scuttling up the cliff face. They move like spiders if spiders were made of smoke and teeth and bad intentions. I press against the wall, stone scraping my palms. "What are those?"
"Scavengers. Bottom feeders. Rather like your boyfriend, actually."
"Stop it."
They surge closer, bodies moving in ways that hurt to track. One reaches the path, all teeth and hunger, lunging—
"No."
One word. Conversational. Bored. The demon stops mid-leap, crashing to the stone. The others freeze, then retreat, sliding back down into darkness, whimpering.
"How did you—"
"They know their place." He steps closer, crowding me against the cliff face. His hand braces above my head, claws scraping stone. "As will you."
"I'm not a demon."
"No. You're something far more entertaining." His free hand comes up, one claw tracing the air above my cheek, not quite touching. "You're mine."
The possession in that word sends heat straight through me. "I'm nobody's. You have my soul, not me."
"Semantics." But his eyes spark with interest. "Though I do appreciate the defiance. So much more fun than immediate submission."
