Page 16 of Bargain with the Demon King

Adraya

I wake before dawn, too excited to sleep.

Chad. I'm going to see Chad today. A frantic energy buzzes just under my skin, making it impossible to stand still.

My own pulse is a hummingbird against my ribs.

He's probably been writing terrible poetry about my sacrifice, maybe even practicing it out loud to the chickens.

That's such a Chad thing to do—rehearsing romance with livestock because he's too shy to say it perfectly the first time.

The dress takes forever to choose. The green one he said brings out my eyes?

The blue that makes my skin glow? I settle on the soft yellow—his favorite color, though he pretends it isn't because apparently men aren't supposed to like yellow.

But I've seen him smile every time I wear it, that special soft smile he saves just for me.

"He's going to cry when he sees me," I tell my reflection, adjusting the twilight necklace so it sits perfectly against my collarbone.

"Happy tears, obviously. The kind that make his nose red and splotchy but somehow endearing.

Then he'll hold me and say something wonderfully inadequate like 'I missed your face' because he's terrible with words when emotional. "

I practically skip to Azzaron's chambers. He's already dressed, all sharp edges and darkness, watching me with those impossible eyes that hold no warmth today.

"Ready?" The word scrapes out flat, emotionless.

"Beyond ready. I rehearsed what I'm going to say—'I'm okay, I'm surviving, I miss you but I'm being brave.' That sounds properly tragic but not so tragic he feels guilty forever, right? I want him to pine romantically, not develop a complex."

Azzaron says nothing. Just extends his hand for transport. His grip feels different today—tighter, almost protective. The journey through shadows seems longer, or maybe that's just my anticipation stretching time.

When we materialize in the mortal realm, familiar scents hit me—pine and earth and that particular smell of home that makes my chest tight with longing. Chad's cottage sits exactly where I left it, herbs still growing wild in the garden because he never remembers to tend them properly.

"Oh, I should pick some mint for him. He loves mint tea when he's upset—"

"Go." Azzaron's voice cuts sharp. "See him."

Something in his tone makes me pause, but excitement wins. I run toward the door, feet remembering every root and stone. My hand finds the latch—we never lock it, Chad says locks are for people with enemies—and I push inside, already smiling, already reaching for him.

The sound hits first. Wet. Rhythmic. Wrong.

Then the sight.

Chad. My Chad. Naked and sweating, mounting someone who isn't me. His hips drive forward with animal urgency, grunting with each thrust. The woman beneath him—blonde, pretty in that delicate way I'll never be—moans and clutches his shoulders, nails leaving red trails down his back.

"Yes, right there, don't stop—" Her voice breaks on a gasp as he pounds harder.

The same bed. Our bed. The one with the quilt his mother made for our future wedding.

"hells, you're so much tighter than her," Chad groans, and the sound in the room seems to warp, the words hitting me with a physical weight that makes my vision swim. "So much better."

"Mmm," the woman purrs, wrapping her legs around him. "When are you going to tell people she's gone for good?"

"Already did." Another thrust, another grunt. "Told everyone she sold her soul. The naive woman actually did it—traded everything to save me." He laughs, the sound ugly and breathless. "She's never coming back. Probably getting fucked by demons now."

The woman giggles. Actually giggles. "Her loss. More of you for me."

"Thank fuck for that." His hands grip the woman's narrow hips, fingers meeting easily around her tiny waist. "No more pretending those thick thighs and soft belly are attractive. You're perfect—actually small enough to handle properly."

"She was that big?" The woman's voice drips fake sympathy.

"Had to close my eyes most of the time. Kept trying to touch her in the dark so I wouldn't have to see so much... flesh."

"Fuck, yes—"

I can't move. Can't breathe. Can't exist. Every atom of my body rejects what I'm seeing, but my eyes won't close, won't look away from the brutal truth of it.

A single tear slides down my cheek—hot against skin gone numb.

The yellow dress I chose so carefully suddenly feels like it's strangling me.

The twilight necklace goes ice cold against my throat, all warmth fleeing.

Maybe she's helping him grieve, maybe this is how he processes loss, maybe—

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 to my 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.

I close my eyes, but the sounds follow me. Wet flesh. Desperate grunts. "She's never coming back." The soundtrack to my stupidity, playing on endless repeat.

The glass isn't half full anymore. It's shattered on the floor, and I'm too tired to pretend the pieces are pretty.