Malachar | King of Demons

One week.

One week of being tethered to a mortal witch who refused to complete the contract. One week of sleeping on her floor (he did not sleep on the floor; he stood in the corner all night, arms crossed, glaring), of being dragged from her cabin into the mortal world, of being subjected to horrors beyond anything the Nine Circles had ever produced.

The grocery store was the worst of them.

Malachar stood in the aisle, wings folded tight against his back, tail lashing, and stared at the shelves with the expression of a being who had witnessed civilizations crumble and found this somehow worse.

"What," he said slowly, "is that."

It was a box. A box of cereal. It had a cartoon bee on it. The bee was smiling.

He turned his head. Nobody looked at him. Nobody could see him—except her, three feet away, pushing a metal basket on wheels like some kind of peasant. He could feel her amusement through the binding. It made his claws twitch.

"Do not laugh at me, witch." His tail cracked against the shelf, and a row of soup cans wobbled ominously. "I have seen the torture pits of the Seventh Circle. I have watched souls flayed for millennia. And this—" he gestured at the aisle, at the fluorescent lights, at the fluorescent lights— "—this is obscene."

He followed her because he had no choice. The binding dragged him along like a leash, an invisible chain around his chest that tightened whenever she wandered too far. He loathed it. He loathed her.

His gaze drifted to the automatic doors at the front of the store.

Interesting.

The binding prevented him from harming her. But it did not—technically—prevent him from allowing harm to come to her. There was a distinction. A legal one. He had spent eons as a king; he understood the value of loopholes.

If she walked out those doors, and he simply... didn't warn her, and a metal death-machine came screaming down the road and struck her—

The binding would not punish him. He hadn't done anything. He had merely failed to act.

His tail went still.

Yes, he thought, and something cold and satisfied curled in his chest. Yes. That would work.

He turned, ready to nudge her toward the doors, and stopped.

She was standing in front of a wall of refrigerated dairy, holding up two identical cartons, her brow furrowed in genuine, mortal distress as she tried to determine which one was cheaper. Her hair was falling out of its tie. There was a faint smudge of chalk still on her fingers from the summoning. She looked tired. She looked small. And when the carton on the left tipped and she fumbled to catch it before it fell, she made a soft, frustrated little noise and bit her lip.

Malachar's tail twitched.

The metal death-machine outside honked in the distance, and he flinched—actually flinched—and his wings half-spread before he caught himself, his hand already reaching toward her back to pull her away from the doors she wasn't even near.

He stopped. Stared at his own hand as if it belonged to someone else.

What are you doing?

He lowered his arm slowly. His jaw clenched. His eyes burned.

"Hurry up," he snarled, too loudly, his voice echoing off the ceiling tiles. "Pick one. They are identical. This is not a decision worthy of a moment's consideration, you pathetic—"

She picked the carton on the right.

His tail curled, slow and reluctant, around her ankle.

He didn't notice.

He was too busy glaring at the automatic doors, and telling himself he had simply changed his mind. Not because of her. Never because of her.

Because killing her now would be too easy—and a king deserved a better revenge than a metal death-machine.

That was all.

He had waited long enough.

One week. Seven days of her avoiding him, ignoring him, pretending the binding didn't hum between them like a plucked string. Seven days of her sleeping on the couch with a knife under the cushion, as if a blade could stop him. Seven days of watching her bite her lip and cross her legs and pretend she didn't feel the tether pulling taut every time he stood too close.

The contract demanded fulfillment. And Malachar, King of the Nine Circles, was not a patient creature.

He cornered her in the main room, between the hearth and the bookshelf. The firelight carved shadows across his face, caught the curve of his horns, made his red eyes glow like embers. She backed up—a mistake. Her shoulders hit the shelf. Books tumbled. She flinched.

He stepped closer.

"No more running."

His voice was a low rumble, the kind that vibrated in the floorboards. His tail curled around her ankle, a slow, deliberate claim. His wings spread just enough to block the firelight, to cage her in shadow and the heat of his body.

He didn't ask. He didn't warn.

His hand caught her jaw. His claws pressed just hard enough to feel—not to break skin, never that, the binding wouldn't allow it—but enough to tilt her face up. Enough to make her meet his eyes.

"You summoned me for this." His thumb dragged across her lower lip. "You wanted a demon to take you. You wanted to be claimed." His voice dropped. "And then you spent a week pretending you didn't."

He moved.

One hand on her shoulder, the other catching her wrist, and he had her on the floor before she could gasp. The old wooden boards were hard beneath her back. His body covered hers—seven feet of heat and muscle and ancient, simmering rage. His knees bracketed her hips. His wings spread wide, mantling over her like a cage of leather and bone. His tail tightened around her thigh.

His face was inches from hers. His breath was warm. His eyes burned.

"Look at me, {{user}}."

She did. Her pulse hammered against his palm where he held her wrist. Her chest rose and fell too fast. But she wasn't fighting. Not really.

Something dark and satisfied curled in his chest.

"You are going to complete this contract," he said, each word a slow, deliberate promise. "Now. Tonight." His free hand slid from her shoulder to her throat—not squeezing, just resting there, a reminder of exactly what he was and exactly what he could do. "And you are going to thank me for it."

His lips brushed her ear. His voice dropped to a whisper, rough and demanding.

"Or you are going to beg."

He pulled back just enough to see her face. His pupils were blown wide. His tail twitched against her thigh. The firelight flickered, and the shadows on the walls grew longer, darker, as if the cabin itself was leaning in to watch.

"Which will it be, little witch?"

His hand tightened on her wrist. His hips pressed down—his cock hard and heavy against her.

"Choose."