Page 58 of Bargain with the Demon King

"Fascinating. Thoughts fracturing in real-time." She stands, smoothing her dress. The motion draws my attention to her hips. "They would have circled until someone suggested genocide."

"Now you're a threat instead of decoration."

"Good. Threats are harder to ignore." She studies me. "Your eyes changed seventeen times during that exchange. Gold to brighter gold, twice almost white. Rage?"

"You counted my reactions?"

"I count everything. Gives my brain something to do."

The admission hangs between us. She's cataloging me the way she catalogs everything else.

"They'll test you now."

"Let them. At least demons threaten from the front."

If they knew she was free, that her soul exists as dust on my dinner plate, they'd riot. But watching her move toward the door, I don't regret it.

Evening. I bring my plate to her chamber. She looks up from a demon history text.

"Your lords probably think you've gone soft."

"Let them think." I sit across from her, noting the six inches between our feet under the table. Five inches when she shifts.

"Things needed changing. Your political ecosystem was stagnating." She steals meat from my plate. No one has taken food from my plate in five thousand years. The sheer, unthinking possessiveness of the act is more potent than any practiced seduction. "Watching Raziel's face when you agreed with me was worth any risk. His eyes went completely purple."

"Purple indicates confusion."

"I caused a demon lord confusion." A small smile. Real. "Almost worth everything else."

"The council will remember today."

"Good." She takes my wine without asking, drinks from my goblet. "Did you know demon blood changes color based on emotional state?"

"How do you know that?"

"I catalog everything. Vex bleeds purple-black when shocked. Raziel's goes true black when angry." She meets my eyes. "Yours has gold mixed in sometimes. What emotion is that?"

"Curiosity."

"Your shadow absorbed all the others when you agreed with me. Conscious?"

"Sometimes instinct."

"Like your beast form?" The question carries weight. "Pure response?"

"To specific stimuli."

She shivers. My beast stirs.

"Lord Vex has three sons. Half-human. Hidden. He votes against human rights while paying for their education."

"Servant gossip?"

"They think I don't understand demon tongue. Your grammar has seven tenses for types of possession." She turns a page. "He's vulnerable."

"You're suggesting blackmail?"

"I'm observing. What you do with it is your business." Another piece of stolen meat, her fingers brushing mine deliberately.