Page 27 of Bargain with the Demon King

Adraya

"Three lashes each." Azzaron's voice carries across the punishment square without emotion. "Humans for provocation. Demons for excess."

The crowd presses against invisible boundaries—demons on one side, humans on the other, all forced to watch what my suggestion created.

Bile rises in my throat, but I keep my spine straight.

Count the gathered faces. Forty-three demons.

Twenty-eight humans. All here because I opened my mouth in council.

The demon goes first—one of the lesser ones who harassed the settlement. He kneels, back exposed, and takes his punishment in silence. Black blood wells with each strike, sizzling when it hits crystal dirt. His jaw locks, but no sound escapes. Pride keeps him quiet.

The human follows—a young man who threw stones at passing demons. His screams start with the first lash. By the third, he's sobbing, red blood mixing with tears. His wife watches from the crowd, hands pressed to her mouth.

"Look away and I'll double the count," Azzaron tells me quietly. His fingers grip my elbow, firm possession rather than comfort. "You suggested this. You watch it."

"I know." My throat constricts around the words. Another demon takes position. Another human. The pattern continues—black blood, red blood, silence, screams. "They needed to see consequences."

"They needed to see you have teeth." His grip shifts, thumb finding the soft spot inside my elbow. "Now they know."

The punishments finish. Both sides disperse, avoiding eye contact, the message clear in how they angle their bodies away from each other. The King's law applies to everyone. My suggestion made real in blood and screams.

"That was necessary," I tell myself as we walk back toward the fortress. The words taste like copper. "Both sides were wrong."

"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."

"Now you're marked." His eyes lock with mine—black threaded with gold that burns brighter than usual. "Inside and out."

"Would it have mattered? If I'd died?"

His hand stills. "You know it would."

"Do I? You own my soul. You've had your entertainment. Maybe a dead pet would be convenient."

"Stop." The word comes out rough.

"Why? It's true. I'm nothing here. Just another mortal you collected—"

His hand slides from my ribs to my throat, not choking, just resting there. Possessive. His thumb presses against my pulse where it hammers. "You think you're nothing?"

"I know I'm nothing. Chad made that clear. You confirmed it. I'm just—"

"You're mine." His eyes burn brighter, and his hand tightens slightly. "My court bends to your suggestions. My blood runs through your veins. My control breaks every time you enter a room. That's not nothing."

The air between us shifts, charges. His thumb strokes my pulse, and I realize how close he is, leaning over me on his bed. The healing left my skin hypersensitive, and everywhere he touches sparks.

"Azzaron—"

"You want to know if it would matter?" His free hand finds my thigh, pushing the torn dress higher. "Let me show you exactly how much it would matter."

He pushes me back into his sheets, and I sink into expensive fabric that smells entirely of him. "You don't get to minimalize this."

"Minimalize what?"

Instead of answering, he spreads my thighs. The torn dress falls aside, and his hands are hot on my skin, claws careful as he positions me how he wants. Open. Vulnerable. His.

"You don't get to pretend you're nothing." He lowers his head between my thighs, breath hot against sensitive skin. "Not when you remake my entire court with a suggestion. Not when you bleed in my arms. Not when you carry my blood inside you."

His tongue finds me, and thought dissolves. He devours me with the same decisive efficiency he used to snap that man's neck—controlled violence channeled into pleasure. His hands hold my thighs apart when I try to close them, claws pricking just enough to remind me of their presence.

"Azzaron—"

"No." He pulls back just enough to speak against me. "No words. Just feel."

His tongue circles my clit with precision that speaks of centuries of practice.

When he adds fingers, stretching me, I arch off the bed.

He growls approval, the sound vibrating through me, and increases his pace.

My hands find his horns, gripping for anchor as he takes me apart with methodical intensity.

"Please—"

"Please what?" But he knows. His fingers curve inside me, finding that spot that makes me see stars. "Please stop? Please more? Please acknowledge that you matter enough for me to kill for?"

"Please—" I can't finish. Can't think. There is only the clinical precision of his mouth and the absolute authority of his hands. He is not seducing me; he is dismantling me.

He pushes me to the edge, then holds me there. Suspended. Desperate. When I sob his name, he finally lets me fall. The orgasm crashes through me, and I'm drowning in it, drowning in him.

"You feel better than in the dream." The words growl out against my core as I climax, his tongue still working me through it.

Everything stops.

Dream? Which dream?

Those dreams that felt too real. Too specific. Where he touched me without touching. Where he knew exactly what I wanted before I did. Where he disappeared right before our lips met.

"You were there." Not a question. My body still shakes from orgasm, but my mind goes sharp. "In my dreams. You were actually there."

He pulls back, mouth wet with me, eyes burning gold. His silence is confession enough.

"You invaded my dreams. Without permission. Without telling me."

"Yes."

No excuse. No justification. Just acknowledgment.

I should run. Should rage. Should do anything except what I actually do.

I grab his shirt, fisting the fabric, and pull him up toward me.

He comes willingly, letting me maneuver him until his back hits the headboard.

I crawl over him, the torn dress falling away completely.

My hands find his belt, working it open with fingers that shake from anger and arousal and something hungrier.

"My turn." I free his cock—thick, hard, already leaking. "You've been in my head without permission. Let me return the favor."

"Adraya—"

"No words." I echo his earlier command. "Just feel."

I take him in my mouth, clumsy at first. Chad never wanted this, said it was degrading.

But the sound Azzaron makes—raw, desperate—makes me bold.

I learn his rhythm, what makes his hips jerk, what makes his claws dig into the sheets.

My free hand cups his balls, rolling them gently, and he curses in that ancient demon tongue, hips bucking.

"Fuck." His hand finds my hair, not forcing, just holding. "Adraya—"

I take him deeper, using my hand where my mouth can't reach. His control cracks with each stroke. The Demon King coming apart under my touch, because of my mouth, my choice. When I glance up, his beast form flickers at the edges—horns longer, features sharper, everything more.

"If you don't stop—"

I don't stop. I increase pace, hollowing my cheeks, and his control shatters completely. He comes with my name torn from his throat, body bowing off the bed. I swallow because it feels like claiming something, like taking back power he stole when he entered my dreams uninvited.

We collapse into his sheets, bodies humming with spent pleasure and unspoken truths. The twilight necklace pulses against my throat, warm for the first time since Chad.

"The dreams were real." Not a question.

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Every one where I appeared." He turns to face me, and his expression is raw. "I couldn't stay away. You called to me even unconscious."

"That's violation."

"Yes."

"I should hate you for it."

"You should."

"But I don't." The admission surprises us both. "I hate that you saw me that vulnerable. But I don't hate that you were there."

"That doesn't make it right."

"Nothing between us is right." I touch the place where his blood healed me. The skin tingles. "We're past right and wrong. We're in whatever exists between."

"What exists between?"

"I don't know." I sit up, pulling his sheets around me. They're softer than they look. "But I'm going to find out."

"Even knowing what I did?"

"Especially knowing." I stand, gathering the ruins of my dress. "You entered my dreams because you couldn't stay away. That tells me more than any confession would."

"Where are you going?"

"My chambers. To think. To process that I carry demon blood inside me. That you've been in my dreams. That I just had your cock in my mouth and liked it." I move toward the adjoining door. "Tomorrow we pretend this didn't happen."

"Can you pretend?"

"No. But I'll try." I pause at the door. "You saved me today. Killed for me without hesitation. Healed me with your own blood. That matters more than stolen dreams."

"Does it?"

"Ask me tomorrow when I'm not still tasting you."

I leave him in his bed, surrounded by sheets that smell of sex and blood and complicated truths. In my chamber, I touch the healed skin again. Perfect. Unmarked. But changed at some fundamental level. His blood runs through me now, changing me from the inside.

Through the wall, I hear him moving. Restless. Hungry.

Good. Let him hunger. Let him wonder what I'll do with the knowledge that he's been in my head. Let him question whether I'll use it against him or let it bring me closer.

The truth is, I don't know yet. But I know I carry his blood now. Know his control breaks when I take charge. Know he enters dreams he has no right to because he can't stay away.

That's power. Different from soul ownership. More dangerous.

And tomorrow, I'll decide what to do with it.