A Demon's Bargain

This story contains a fated mate bond from a demon's POV, and some language describing it might be sensitive for certain readers.

I’m a romantasy author.

Don’t judge me!

It’s her scent that draws me to Vorthelnyx as I enter the mortal realm. I hadn’t planned on finding him, and even when his pleading eyes find mine, I still know I’m not here for him.

Why would I be? Weaknesses must be expelled. If one demon can fall victim to a mortal, then they must face the consequences. It’s not my fault he’s too weak to escape from a human.

A human with a certain musk to her.

Hints of menace and violence. It’s intoxicating—addictive and all-consuming. I’m not sure how I feel about it either; I’ve never experienced anything like this before, especially not from a mortal soul. I’ve certainly felt lust, and why shouldn’t I? When the women call so desperately in their séances? Hoping for a taste of my power that inevitably kills them.

Yet this one is different, a paradox of fire and ice, both toxic and sweet.

The sharp, scaly horns on my head react to the wrongness pulsing through me before I can name it, tightening in a way they’ve never done before as she plunges a dagger into Vorthelnyx’s chest. Although it won’t kill him, the blade is laced with blessed oil; the rich, dangerous stench reaches me even from where I stand.

It’ll hurt.

Because she’s not trying to kill him.

Not yet anyway.

But, Lucifer, I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me ravenous.

One might expect that witnessing a mortal soul torturing one of my demons would make me angry—cautious even. But I’m not; I’m fascinated. Acutely aware of everything about her: her shallow breaths, her thumping heart, and how sure she is of herself despite it all.

The metallic tang of her blood reaches me from the gash on her forehead, coating my mouth with a delicious need, my throat tightening with the effort it takes me not to move to her. Not to slip. Not to make a fool of myself.

Not until Vorthelnyx is dead—so he cannot hold this over me.

My time as one of the most powerful figures controlling the underworld cannot be measured in the mortal plane. I find their realm particularly dull. It’s frustrating watching them struggle to figure things out so slowly, given their fragile existence.

To me, they are toys. Willingly handing themselves over, truly believing that their feeble bodies might be able to handle our magics. But then I found her. And I know without a shadow of a doubt that she is possibly the most dangerous thing I have ever encountered.

Vorthelnyx grunts as she yanks the blade out and drives it in again, pain erupting on his face as he stares expectantly at me. She notices, and when her gaze shifts and those deep rust-coloured eyes find mine, the universe seems to stand still.

I clench and unclench my fists, resisting the urge to touch her. I want to breathe in her scent so deeply that it becomes engraved in my core.

She is well-prepared. Tattoos snake down her exposed, toned arms, each one a symbol from different religions designed to protect against our kind. Each one is somewhat helpful. Just not against me.

She wears blessed oils like a perfume, and the salt circling Vorthelnyx has been touched by hands from the heavens. Every blade is laced with something meant to kill creatures like me. And still, I’m fascinated.

There’s no fear in her gaze as she stares at me. That, more than anything, should concern me.

I almost allow myself a smile.

Almost.

“I take it you’re the boss,” she snaps, spitting blood to the ground.

A growl escapes my throat before I can stop it. He’s hurt her—in her struggle to bind him, he’s drawn blood he had no right to draw. I have to promise myself that I’ll let her be the one to kill him.

Because if I get my hands on him, he won’t just die and be banished back to hell, left to seek repentance for a new form. He’ll be lost. His soul gone. Dying over and over again until there’s nothing left of him to bring back.

“And what makes you say that?” I ask, watching her examine her weapons carefully before plucking one up.

“Your horns,” she remarks, aiming a blade at me. “His are,” she shrugs as she studies his. “Unassuming.”

Now, I smile.

So she’s educated.

Vorthelnyx strains against the salt, baring his teeth at her. She’s just insulted him worse than any blade could.

Frustratingly, that’s not where my attention is. Something coils low and hot in my chest as she smiles at Vorthelnyx, mocking his horns with her eyes.

I nearly lurch forward—wanting to grab her, wanting to force her focus back on me. Back on my horns.

The ones she’s already noticed.

Dangerous, I think again.

Far too dangerous for my own good.

“Which means you are no longer useful to me.”

She drags her blade against the stone surrounding us, and a spark flitters across the salt circling Vorthelnyx. His eyes widen in realisation as it catches, fire swallowing him whole.

A demon blade. Our own fire, the one thing that can burn through salt—the one thing that lets us escape it, and she’s turned it into his execution.

Sadistic.

Miscreant.

Beautiful.

“You have my full attention,” I say, relief washing over me as Vorthelnyx fades away.

“Your goons have been abducting virgins for sacrifice. That is illegal by law,” she recites. “Lucifer himself signed the agreement. It is my duty to apprehend those involved in such unlawful activities.”

“Is that so?”

She doesn’t answer. Just glares at me.

Dangerous. Too dangerous.

“Demons have no use for virgins,” I say, studying her. “Those are lies that the angels have spread. Demons do not care for innocence. What should we do with that? Whoever is taking your virgins is either bound to the mortal realm or someone you wouldn’t expect.”

“Don’t bullshit me!” she hisses, and I smile at her audacity. “I’ve seen plenty of virgins give themselves to demons for power, only to end up dead.”

My smile stretches across my face, pulling at my reddish-brown skin.

“Why would we deny a woman the pleasures she seeks?”

She ignores me.

“And what about the death?”

I shrug. “It’s just a casualty that comes with our thirst.”

Her eyes narrow on me. Good. She should be thinking about my thirst.

A century without touching another.

Then her.

It isn’t just a thirst for touch anymore.

It’s for her.

They warned me that this could happen with someone mortal.

A mating bond.

I just didn’t realise how irresistible the pull could be.

“What’s your name?” she asks, digging in a pocket.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” I let my tongue hiss, flicking it as I watch her ignore me. “You do not ask a demon something like that without a transaction.”

“I know,” she says, tossing something at my feet that I don’t bother to look at. I already recognise what it is; I can smell the soul. And whoever it belonged to was killed in a moment when they were most afraid. It’s not an innocent soul, either. This one is delectable—one I wouldn’t mind tormenting. Making the taste that much sweeter.

She wants leverage—something to hold over me, in case I turn on her.

Smart.

However, there is something I want more than a tormented soul to keep and feed off of. If she wants something as sacred as my name, one no mortal knows, then she’ll have to trade something far more valuable.

Herself.

“That’s not what I want.”

“It’s what all demons want.”

“Not. This. One.”

In a defiant move, she pops her hands on her hips and glares at me.

“That soul is all I have to offer. I’m not foolish enough to make deals with evil like you. I know what it means to give away my name. I know how valuable that is.”

Valuable yes. But it’s not her name I want.

It’s her.

“Evil like me?” I repeat, and step closer—closer than sense allows. “You seek vengeance for the virgins dying. But have you truly thought about what a demon wants with an innocent soul? What satisfaction would I get torturing something already so easily broken? Where’s the feast in that?” I laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?”

She shifts uncomfortably.

“And who exactly demands a woman stay pure? Untouched. Innocent?”

Her pulse quickens.

“There’s no such thing as simple as good and evil. Your virgins are no use to us unless they come to us willing, and it’s always about the pleasure. No mortal man has ever come close to giving them what we can.” She doesn’t find that half as funny as I do. “Their souls are worth far more to whoever told you those markings would protect you. So tell me—who’s truly evil here?”

“Then explain why their magic harms you,” she retorts, gesturing to the salt.

“It’s magic,” I say, stepping close enough now that reaching down to lift the salt from the ground nearly brushes my skin against hers. “Some charms hurt us. And anything else you decide to point them at.”

She flinches at the salt in my hand, her grip tightening on her dagger.

“Vorthelnyx is a lower-level demon. The angels’ magic affects him more than it ever could me. It’s not that it doesn’t work—it’s that it can’t touch what it wasn’t made to reach. I can make you just as untouchable. But my own magic would hardly work on anything above my level.”

Which there aren’t many of.

“You’re lying.”

I shrug, more interested in being close to her than in convincing her.

“I want you to prove that you’re telling the truth,” she snaps.

I study her. Really study her, trying to find the hesitation. There’s none. She’s truly this brave. Truly this unaffected by me. She’s going to be the death of me.

“To do that, I’ll have to take you to the underworld.”

“I know,” she says without hesitation.

“And the only way I can protect you is if I know your name.”

“I’m willing to take the chance that you won’t need to.”

I move fast, close enough now that her breath brushes my chin. She doesn’t back down.

“I’m not.”

Her breath shudders, and it’s only then I realise she feels this too. This strangeness. This bond too much to ignore. She’ll come with me. She’ll be with me. And then she’ll see we can never be apart again.

It’s everything I need.

I will not let this slip.

“These are my conditions,” she whispers. “If there is ever a time, I’ll give you my name. But until then, you won’t have me.”

I laugh.

“We still need a bargain.”

Her eyes narrow.

“So what do you suggest?”

Be mine.

Only mine.

“You take a drop of my blood and drink it.”

She furrows her brows, clearly surprised by what she did not expect.

“Why?”

I smirk.

“Just a drop will allow me an hour with you in the mortal realm when you are back safely.”

“You want to spend an hour with me? Every day?”

She knows there’s something more to the deal.

Clever girl.

“An hour where I can do whatever I want with you, and you won’t be able to say no.”

Her pulse stutters against my senses, quickening under my stare. I watch her throat work as she swallows—and Lucifer help me, I want to follow that movement with my mouth.

“Fine.”

My eyes widen in surprise.

“But,” she interrupts my impure thoughts of her, “if you are telling the truth—if the angels are behind this—you will have to help me stop them.”

“Demons do not involve themselves with angels— ”

“That is my condition. I know the rules, demon. I am allowed to bargain as well.”

I do not enjoy being outplayed.

She will need to be punished.

“Fine,” I growl, the sound building low in my chest before it breaks free.

She holds up her hand and waits. I stare at her, knowing she’s still hiding something. Why give something like this to someone you’ve been told your whole life is evil? To someone you have been trained to hunt and banish? This mission of hers is too personal. And now it’s mine too.

I reach for her hand, and the moment our flesh touches, the bond surges—not just the bargain settling into place, but a century-long ache finally finding its answer. She gasps as it rushes through her; I feel it rush through me just the same, a thread pulling taut between two bodies that were never meant to find each other and did anyway. I watch with ravenous eyes as she exposes her neck.

She’s trembling by the time the deal is sealed.

So am I, though I’d never say it.

“Shall we go?” I ask, breathlessly.

She gives one simple nod.

I lift her onto my shoulder, and she squeals in surprise. My grip digs into her thighs as I take her in—her scent, her weight against me, the bond humming low and satisfied for the first time.

I let myself feel her.

Let myself enjoy how right this feels.

How inevitable.

“My things.”

“Won’t help you where we’re going.”

I shift her weight to keep her steady before we leap toward hell. She nearly loses her balance, and her hand finds my horn to catch herself.

I move without thinking. Bring her to the ground, my body pressing hers into it.

No one has touched them before. Not once, not in all my centuries, and now heat floods through me from that single point of contact, burning down my spine, pooling low and hot, threatening to undo me entirely.

“I will not last until the hour I’ve bargained for if you touch my horns again.”

She furrows a brow, glancing between me and my horns, alarm flashing across her face.

“I will not touch them. Ever again!” she says it like a promise, though never actually uses the word.

I smile.

“You won’t be able to keep a promise like that,” I say, leaning in until my nose traces the line of her throat, breathing her in like I intend to make a meal of the memory. “That’s why you avoided the word—you already know you’ll break it.” My mouth grazes the shell of her ear. “We’ll dance this dance again, little hunter. And when we do, I’ll show you exactly what these horns are for. Menace is the least of it.”

I lift my hand to hers—to the dagger still caught in her grip—and drag my finger along its edge, steam coiling into the air as the demon-infused fire burns me. But I don’t feel it. Not when I am this close to her. Black blood beads where the blade parts my skin, welling thick at the tip. I bring it to her lips.

She swallows hard before parting them.

Need aches through me, sharp and inevitable, as her mouth closes over my finger and she sucks the blood clean. As if this was always going to happen. As if some part of her already knew.

I press my weight into her, watching the gash on her forehead heal with the help of my blood.

Then—before I do anything she isn’t ready for—I pull us out of the mortal realm and into the underworld.