Page 32 of Bargain with the Demon King

Adraya

The change starts in my bones.

Each cell splits and reforms with demon essence encoded in its structure.

My spine bows off stone as his blood rewrites mortality's limits.

I watch black veins web across my skin before fading, leaving me unchanged on the surface but reconstructed beneath.

My vision fractures—I see heat bleeding from cooling corpses, watch soul-stones pulse in spectrums that shouldn't exist, glimpse Azzaron's true form beneath his skin.

His blood floods my mouth—copper and ozone, burnt sugar and void. It coats my throat, seeps into tissue, becomes foundation. My heart stops. Restarts. Matches his rhythm.

"What did you do?"

Azzaron crouches over me, neither man nor beast but something between. Ichor drips from claws that took apart five ancient demons in seconds. His chest heaves, and there—burned into ash-pale skin between thousands of soul-marks—a new mark blazes.

A twisted tree of light spreads from his heart across his chest, branches ending in sharp points. The bark pattern matches the throne room's ancient stone, but the leaves pulse twilight—purple-gold-nothing. At its center, where trunk meets heart, a perfect void that swallows light.

I press my palm to my chest, find the matching mark beneath my skin. The same tree, inverted—roots where his has branches. When I breathe, it glows. When he moves, mine answers.

"Gave you my blood. My life. Bound us." His voice splits into octaves that hurt to hear. "You feel what I feel. Live while I live. Die when I die."

The truth of it settles—literal, not metaphor.

Our lives tangled at the root. I push up, elbows finding purchase in cooling crimson.

The throne room displays his artistry. Kaine frozen in fragments, each piece reflecting my face.

Sithara pierced by her own spirals, the angle suggesting she did it herself.

Vex quartered with surgical precision, his shadows still twitching.

Lady Morinth with my arrow creating a third eye.

The unnamed demon still consuming himself from the soul outward, purple marks eating through flesh.

"You killed them all."

"They touched what's mine."

"Yours by choice." I stand, my body obeying with fresh grace that will take time to master. The twilight necklace burns against my throat—no longer foreign but mine, matching our marks exactly. "The only kind that matters."

The connection between us shows itself when I turn my head right—gold filaments pulsing in the air, creating a web of shared existence.

His rage at seeing me broken floods through.

My satisfaction at their deaths echoes back.

His desperate hunger. My vicious need. The emotions amplify between us until origin blurs with echo.

"Come here."

He obeys—the Demon King obeys—crossing the space in a single, soundless glide that ignores the rules of physics.

I grab his gore-slick chest, demon ichor making my grip slide until I dig nails in for purchase.

Multiple colors paint him in death. When I pull him down, our mouths meet with force that splits my lip.

The kiss holds endings—copper from my blood, char from his nature, violence committed for love.

His fangs draw fresh crimson that he swallows with a sound that vibrates through our link.

I feel him taste me, and through the bond, I taste myself through his mouth.

The feedback loop of shared sensation shorts out my nerves, and my knees give way.

"Mine." We speak together, creating resonance that cracks more soul-stones.

We hit the gore-slick floor hard. His claws shred my dress ruins. My nails carve trenches down his back that seal instantly but leave phantom pain through our connection. Every sensation doubles—my desperate need and his, his pleasure at my touch and mine at touching.

"Here? In all this death?"

"Where better?" His hand finds my throat, careful around the twilight necklace pulsing with our marks. "They died thinking you were nothing. Let their ghosts witness you becoming everything."

He spreads my thighs with hands gone full beast—scaled, massive, ending in claws that could gut worlds but touch me with reverent care. I see him completely—shadow and scale and restrained power, horns that pierce reality. It should terrify. Instead, I bare my teeth in challenge.

"Then claim me properly. Show their ghosts exactly who chose who."

He enters me in one thrust that empties my lungs.

The stretch borders on pain—his beast form overwhelming, claiming spaces never touched.

Through our link, he feels it too—the burn, the perfect agony of being filled completely.

His hips drive forward hard enough to shake the throne.

I meet him with equal force, my body adapting, demanding more.

We make inhuman sounds—his growls vibrating through me where we're joined, my cries pitched high and feral. The wet sounds of bodies moving through gore create obscene rhythm. The corpses watch with dead eyes.

His beast form dwarfs me completely. One clawed hand spans from hip to ribs. When he lifts my hips for a new angle, I'm reminded of the size difference, but the bond makes it work. My body rewrites its limits, taking what shouldn't fit.

"More. I'm not fragile anymore. You made sure of that."

Control breaks. His true beast emerges—the thing leashed for centuries. His cock swells further, and my body adapts. His claws leave marks that heal instantly. My teeth puncture his throat, and his black blood fills my mouth—power and eternity and home.

The throne cracks from the force. Obsidian older than memory splits.

Through our connection, I feel his pleasure at being inside me layered with mine at taking him, everything amplified.

His emotions crash through—possessive fury, desperate need, and underneath, devastating love. The kind that burns cities.

"Is this what you wanted when you invaded my dreams?"

"Wanted you desperate. Wanted you to choose me. Wanted you to forget—"

"Don't say his name. Not while you're inside me."

The pace turns punishing. My back scrapes stone through mixed blood. Each thrust drives me across the floor, painting me in death. The soul-stones pulse frantically, feeding on our primal energy, growing brighter.

Through the bond, I feel his climax building—not just physical but complete. The truth undoes him: I chose him while free.

"Adraya—"

"Now. With me."

We come apart together. The orgasm rips through me, through him, through the web binding us.

I feel myself around him while feeling him inside me, the double sensation creating loops that erase thought.

Our marks blaze white-hot. The soul-stones scream.

The throne collapses. For a moment, I exist in two bodies before crashing back into my own transformed flesh.

We collapse into cooling gore, still joined, shaking. His beast form recedes gradually, leaving him more man than monster but never fully human. My fingers trace his burning tree mark, feel it pulse with shared life.

"They'll all fear us now."

"Good. Let them fear what happens when someone touches you."

Footsteps echo beyond the ruined doors—many feet, frightened whispers, fabric against stone. The servants approach, drawn by silence after violence.

"Company. Should we be dignified?"

"We're covered in gore, joined on my ruined throne, surrounded by creative corpse arrangements. Too late for dignity."

"Our throne." I raise my voice to carry. "If you're coming to gawk, come properly. Your Queen requires witnesses."

The footsteps freeze. Then slow approach.

I push myself up, still straddling him, still connected. The movement makes us both gasp. When the first servant appears—young, demon, trembling—I meet her eyes without shame.

"Kneel."

She drops. Others crowd behind her, falling like dominoes—demons who've served for centuries, ancient creatures who've never bent to anything but power. They kneel to me, painted in blood and crowned with nothing but Azzaron's claim.

"Your Queen lives. Your King chose. Any who challenge that choice will decorate these walls."

"My Queen." They speak together, and the title becomes truth.

I stand slowly, Azzaron's hands steadying me. Crimson runs down my thighs—his seed, my blood, their gore mixed into war paint. I walk to the throne's ruins, each step deliberate. The obsidian has cracked into a rough seat. I settle into it, naked and blood-drenched.

Azzaron rises, magnificent in gore-painted skin, and moves toward me. He stands beside the makeshift throne, one hand on my shoulder. Not above. Not below. Beside.

"Your King and Queen. Equal or nothing."

"Equal." I lace our fingers together, his claws careful against my skin.

The servants remain frozen. A mortal—no, something else now—claiming the throne beside their ancient King. Our marks pulse in rhythm, proof of what we've become.

"The old council is dead." I gesture at the artistic corpses. "Their positions are open. Who speaks for the lower courts?"

A demon steps forward—middle-aged by their standards, small horns, cautious intelligence. "I do, Your Majesty."

"Good. You're promoted. Your first task is to bring me three humans from the protected settlements.

They'll serve on the new council." His eyes widen, but he nods.

"Your second is to clean this up. Frame Lady Morinth—she's particularly artistic with that arrow.

The rest can fertilize the nightmare gardens. "

They scramble to obey. I lean back in my improvised throne, watching them work around us. Azzaron's thumb strokes my shoulder, and through our connection I feel his dark amusement, his pride.

"You're terrifying."

"I learned from the best. Plus, dying clarifies priorities. Mine are simple: reshape this realm, build something better, and ensure everyone knows what happens when they touch what's ours."

"Ours." He tests the word, finds it fits.

A servant approaches with robes. I wave them off. "Not yet. Let them see exactly what their Queen is. Let them carry the image back—their King's equal, crowned in blood, wearing nothing but his mark and her choices."

The cleaning takes time. They remove corpses, gather throne fragments. The soul-stones overhead pulse steadier, accepting the new order. When the room holds only bloodstains, I finally stand.

"Dinner? Resurrection burns calories. Plus, we have infrastructure to plan."

"You're hungry after that?"

"Always hungry after good sex and multiple murders. Very draining." I step over Vex's outline. "Also, someone needs to tell the human settlements about their new political representation. They'll panic."

"Already planning reforms?"

"I've been planning reforms since you made me count ceiling cracks. Depression gives you time to think about systematic improvements." I accept the robe a servant finally hands me—dark silk that flows like water. "First priority: restructure the soul-stone economy. It's barbaric and inefficient."

"You want to destroy my entire economic system?"

"Our economic system. And not destroy—revolutionize. What if souls became power sources instead of currency? Voluntary exchanges instead of desperate ones?" I tie the robe while servants watch my every movement. "We could build something new—demons and humans coexisting by choice."

"That's impossible."

"So was surviving an arrow to the gut." I take his hand, pull him toward the door. "Come on. Food, planning, then I visit the human settlements. They should hear about their Queen from me, not demon gossip."

"You're serious."

"Dead serious. This realm has stagnated for millennia. We're dragging it forward whether it likes it or not."

"And if they resist?"

"Then we get creative with corpse arrangements. I'm thinking pyramids. Very geometric."

He laughs—genuine delight. "You're discussing mass murder as interior design."

"Multitasking." We pause at our chambers. "Besides, someone has to plan our future. Violence alone won't work. We need infrastructure, education, arts that don't require suffering."

"Ambitious."

"I've got eternity now." I turn to face him, our marks glowing soft in the corridor. "We're building something new. A realm where power comes from choice. Where humans and demons create instead of destroy."

"Naively optimistic."

"Perfect combination. You bring seventeen thousand years of cunning. I bring stupid hope and a fresh perspective. Together, we remake everything."

He kisses me slow and thorough. I taste our future—complicated, violent, revolutionary. When we part, I'm smiling sharp enough to cut.

"You know what the best part is?"

"What?"

"All of this—the transformation, the revolution, the greatest love story ever told—happened because one mediocre man couldn't keep his dick in his pants."

"Everything leads back to him?"

"Everything. The fool created his own replacement."

"You're never letting that go."

"Never. It's tradition. Every victory, every reform, every world-changing moment—I'll toast the coward who made it possible."

We feast on impossible foods while planning impossible futures. Through our bond, I feel his skepticism war with hope—my optimism spreading through our connection, making him believe in things dismissed for millennia. Our marks pulse together, proof that some choices can't be undone.

Later, in our bed, I trace the tree burned into his skin and marvel at the path here. From a cottage making terrible soup to a throne room where I'll remake realms. From selling my soul for someone worthless to choosing someone who proved my worth with blood.

"No regrets?"

"Only one."

"What?"

"I never got to see Chad's face when he realizes what he lost."

"That's your only regret?"

"Well, that and I can't blame him for literally everything. Some things are probably coincidence." I curl closer, our marks aligning. "But I'm going to blame him anyway. More satisfying."

He laughs, pulls me against him. Through our bond I feel his contentment—foreign after centuries. Tomorrow we reshape this realm. Tonight, we exist between destruction and creation.

All because of one spectacular betrayal.

All because I chose the monster over the man.

All because of fucking Chad.