Page 3 of Bargain with the Demon King

Adraya

The shadows release us, and I drop to my knees, retching.

Nothing comes up. My stomach is empty, but my body keeps trying to expel something that isn't there anymore.

That essential piece he tore from me. The absence behind my ribs isn't an ache, it's a vacuum.

A negative space that pulls and strains against my own bones with every heartbeat.

"The disorientation passes." His voice comes from above, rich with amusement. "Usually. Sometimes mortals just stay broken. Rather inconvenient when they do."

"Fantastic bedside manner you've got." I push myself up, dirt grinding into my palms. Except it's not dirt.

The ground sparkles, each grain catching light that shouldn't exist. I blink hard.

The sparkles remain. I touch one with my fingertip—it's sharp, crystalline, drawing a bead of blood that looks too red against the glittering earth.

"Where—" My voice cracks. I swallow, try again. The copper taste won't leave my throat. "Where are we?"

"The border between your tedious little world and mine."

I finally look up. The world tilts wrong.

Sky the color of a bruise healing backwards—purple bleeding into gold that never quite becomes daylight.

The sun hangs too low, more ember than flame, frozen in perpetual almost-sunset.

Mountains rise on all sides, but they're layered wrong, stone folded into itself, carved by wind that doesn't blow anymore.

Everything is too much. Too vivid. Too sharp.

The colors hurt to look at directly, but I can't look away.

"Welcome to my realm." He extends his hand, and heat radiates from his skin despite those black claws that could gut me without effort. "Can you stand, or shall I carry you? I do so enjoy playing pack mule for swooning mortals."

"I don't swoon." I don't take his hand either. I push myself up, legs shaking. The air tastes wrong—too clean, too sharp, with an aftertaste of copper and cinnamon that coats my throat. Each breath feels thicker than it should, weighted with something that makes my lungs work harder.

"No? Pity. You have the perfect figure for it." His eyes track down my body, slow and deliberate. "All those soft curves just begging to be caught."

My face burns. "Chad—is he—will he be alright without me?"

"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."

The path widens, opening onto a ledge. The fortress rises before us, carved directly into the canyon wall.

Obsidian and something else, something that glows from within, veins of light pulsing through black stone.

The architecture hurts to follow—towers twist at angles that shouldn't exist, bridges span impossible gaps.

"How is it doing that?" I whisper.

"Doing what?"

"Existing wrong."

"Everything exists wrong here, little mortal. You'll adapt." He leans down, breath hot against my ear. "Or you'll go deliciously mad. Either entertains me."

"Glad my potential insanity fits your social calendar."

"Oh, you'll fit into my calendar in so many ways."

Demons fill the courtyard. Tall ones with marble skin and elaborate horns.

Smaller ones skittering at the edges. They all stop when they see us.

When they see me. Their eyes—all black with different colored threads running through—track my movement with predatory interest. Then they bow.

Perfect synchronization. Rehearsed terror.

"Your Majesty." The closest one speaks without raising her head. "Welcome home."

Majesty. Your Majesty . The words scramble in my brain.

"The mortal?" The demon's eyes flick to me, still bowed but somehow watching. "Shall we prepare the dungeons?"

"She stays with me."

A ripple runs through the crowd. Shock. Scandal.

"With you, Majesty?"

"Problem?"

"No, Your Majesty. Never."

The demon—my demon—walks through them without further acknowledgment. I stumble after him, the absence in my chest growing heavier with each step.

The entrance hall steals my breath. Columns of black stone twist toward a ceiling lost in shadow.

Soul-stones embedded in the walls pulse with soft light.

Thousands. Each one a bargain, a life traded for something temporary.

My hand goes to my chest. Is that what I look like now? A pretty stone in his collection?

"I don't understand." My voice echoes wrong. "Why did they call you—"

"Did you think I was some lesser demon answering desperate summons for fun?" He turns, and wicked amusement dances across his face. "Though I suppose I should be flattered. Most mortals piss themselves when they realize. You're taking it remarkably well."

"Who are you?"

"I'm the King of this realm, little mortal. Every demon you've ever heard stories about answers to me. Every nightmare that crawls through your world's dreams bows at my feet." He steps closer, backing me against a column. "And you just sold yourself to me for a boy who brings you weeds."

The glittering ground seems to drop away. The air thins, and a high-pitched ringing starts in my ears. The Demon King. Not a demon king. The Demon King. The one from every story, every warning, every prayer for protection.

"Oh." The word is a puff of air. "Oh, fuck."

He laughs, genuine delight. "There it is. Though I prefer 'Your Majesty' if we're being formal."

My legs give out. He catches me, one arm around my waist, claws careful against my ribs. He's solid and warm and smells like dangerous decisions. His chest against my back is firm, and I can feel the controlled strength in how easily he holds my weight.

"I can't—I didn't know—"

"Would it have mattered?"

I think about Chad bleeding out in my arms. The way his eyes went glassy. "No."

"Then stop whimpering. It's tedious."

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.