A Demon's Devotion is a Contract of Desire

The chalk circle on my attic floor looked perfect—every sigil copied from the grimoire, every Latin phrase pronounced exactly as the phonetic guide suggested. I’d spent three weeks preparing for this: fasting, meditating, studying. The demon I intended to summon was supposed to grant any wish in exchange for a negotiated price. Wealth, power, love—whatever I wanted would be mine.

I lit the final candle and spoke the last words of the invocation. The air turned cold, then heavy, as if the atmosphere itself had thickened into syrup. A ripple passed through the chalk lines, smearing them like wet paint, and purple-black smoke poured upward in a spiraling column.

When it cleared, a man stood inside the ruined circle—tall, lean, shirtless, with skin like burnished bronze and hair the color of obsidian. Ram-like horns curled back from his temples; his eyes glowed amber. A narrow line of dark hair descended from his navel and disappeared beneath the low-slung waistband of black leather trousers. My pulse stuttered.

“You’re… not what I pictured,” I managed.

His smile revealed teeth a shade too sharp. “Mortal expectations rarely survive contact with infernal reality.” He stepped forward; the circle should have held him, but the broken chalk offered no barrier. “Your binding circle is incomplete. A sigil for containment is missing from the western quadrant.”

“I followed the instructions,” I protested, my voice tight.

“You followed human instructions, transcribed by mortal hands that feared what they did not understand.” He inhaled, nostrils flaring. “I perceive ambition, desperation… and a lust that perfumes the air like spiced wine.” His gaze dragged down my body, lingering on the rapid rise of my chest beneath the thin ritual robe. “A compelling combination.”

I straightened, forcing authority into my voice. “Demon, I summoned you to grant my wishes. Name your price, and let’s bargain.”

He tilted his head, considering. “Bargaining is customary, yes. But you did not summon me; you yanked me. There is a distinction, rooted in precision of intent. You yanked incorrectly.” His smile widened. “Therefore, the contractual terms default to an alternative clause.”

A parchment scroll materialized in his hand, aged and crackling. He unrolled it; the text glowed crimson, shifting between Latin and something older, more angular. “ ‘The summoned entity shall provide service to the summoner until such time as the summoner receives satisfactory fulfillment of her deepest unexpressed desire.’ ”

“That sounds promising,” I said warily.

“Read the ancillary script,” he purred, turning the scroll so I could see. At the bottom, in letters so small they seemed to writhe, shimmered: Service to be interpreted by the summoned at his sole discretion. Fulfillment is defined as the summoner’s explicit verbal acknowledgment of satiety regarding said desire.

“That’s not what I intended,” I snapped. “I want wealth. Power. The usual.”

“Your stated terms are ‘wealth and power.’ Your essence, the vibration of your soul as it called out into the void, speaks a different petition.” He stepped closer; heat radiated from him, carrying a scent of embers and ancient cedar. “I am called Ashmorian. I shall serve you, little summoner, until you voice the truth of your craving and accept its fulfillment from my hands.”

“I won’t sign that.”

“You already imparted your signature when your vital essence touched the flawed circle.” He snapped his fingers; the parchment vanished. “The binding is sealed. You are the contractor. I am the contracted.”

My stomach lurched. I glanced at my palm—the shallow cut I’d made to drip blood into the circle throbbed as though recognizing his words.

Ashmorian circled me slowly, a predator assessing terrain. “You may command me at will. I cannot refuse a direct command. But I will interpret those commands through the lens of your unspoken hunger, which to my senses is louder than your voice.” He stopped behind me, his breath brushing my ear. “Shall we commence the performance of our agreement?”

I shivered, equal parts fear and fascination. “Return to whatever passes for your hell.”

“Command accepted, interpreted, and… creatively adapted.” He snapped his fingers again.

Instead of vanishing, he sank to one knee, head bowed. “I exist to serve you, mistress.” The words sounded reverent, but the curve of his mouth was pure sin. “What is your first official decree?”

I swallowed, my throat dry. “I wish for ten million dollars. Tax-free. In a secure offshore account.”

He raised his gaze, amber eyes glittering. “Avarice is so pedestrian. It shrinks the spirit. Allow me to demonstrate a more elegant path toward abundance.”

Another snap. The attic remained unchanged. “Your wish is fulfilled in potential,” he said. “But you must open yourself to receive its manifestation. Wealth is a force that flows toward receptivity, not avarice.”

“In other words, you won’t pay.”

“In other words, you must render payment, but not with the currency you assume. All transactions have a cost. Mine is specific.” He extended a hand, palm up. “May I touch you?”

The question surprised me—so formal, so polite, given the circumstances. Against every screaming instinct, curiosity won. “Yes.”

He did not immediately grab. He brushed his knuckles along my jaw, the contact sparking like static. My skin tingled where he touched. “You bind yourself in tight little knots,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble. “Responsibility, caution, propriety. Wealth requires looseness, a readiness to be filled.” His thumb stroked my lower lip. “Open.”

My lips parted before I could think to refuse. He smiled, a flash of sharp delight. “Better. Let us widen that aperture.”

Heat flooded me—anger, arousal, a humiliating cocktail. “Enough. Stand in that corner and maintain silence until I decide what to do with you.”

He moved to the indicated corner, hands clasped behind his back, perfectly still—but his eyes tracked every minute shift in my posture, every breath I took. I felt them like physical hands. I lasted five minutes under that silent, heated scrutiny before I fled downstairs.

I descended to the kitchen, trying to regroup. My best friend Lia video-called as I paced before the refrigerator.

“You look flushed,” she said. “Did the ritual work?”

“Define ‘work.’ ” I recounted the events, the default contract, the infuriating interpretation clause.

Her eyes widened. “A demon butler bound to your unspoken desires? Elara, that’s either hellish slavery or a kinky jackpot, depending on the demon.”

“He’s insufferable.” I poured a generous glass of wine. “And smug. And… objectively, devastatingly gorgeous.”

“Smug gorgeous men are your kryptonite. Remember Professor Vance?”

I flushed. My protracted, agonizing crush on the arrogant medieval-studies professor had inspired many solo nights with my vibrator and elaborate fantasies of being pinned against a bookcase.

“Not helping,” I muttered.

Lia grinned. “Maybe let him interpret a wish or two—see how creatively literal he gets. For research. Worst case, you figure out how to send him back eventually.”

After we hung up, I stewed. For research. It was a flimsy excuse, but it was a plank in the torrent. I returned upstairs. Ashmorian waited exactly where I’d left him, statue-still. “I require no sustenance,” he said without prompting, his gaze dropping to my half-empty wineglass. “But it pleases me to observe you consume. The little human rituals of ingestion.”

“Pleasure me, then,” I said dryly. “Do the dishes.”

He bowed, a slight incline of his head. “As you command.”

He glided downstairs. I followed, bemused, as he surveyed the sink. He rolled up his sleeves with deliberate, efficient motions. The muscles of his forearms corded and flexed hypnotically while he scrubbed. He did not use magic; he used a sponge and dish soap, his movements economical and precise. Water droplets clung to his bronze skin like scattered diamonds. I imagined licking them off, tracing the paths they made through the faint dusting of dark hair on his arms, and nearly dropped my glass.

When he finished, he dried his hands on a towel, folding it neatly afterward. “Your pulse quickened,” he observed. “Does mundane servitude arouse you?”

“It’s just… been a while since anyone did my dishes,” I deflected, taking a hasty sip.

“A while?” Dark brows lifted. “Quantify ‘a while.’ In days? Moons?”

“None of your business.”

He stepped closer, the scent of embers and cedar curling around me like a possessive ghost. “Let me serve you properly, mistress. Command me. A true command, from the hunger you will not name.”

My heartbeat thudded in my ears. I wanted to defy him, to prove I could issue a command he couldn’t twist. Something utterly non-sexual. “Fine. Draw me a bath. Make it perfect. The perfect temperature, the perfect ambience. Nothing more.”

“A specific and admirable directive.” His eyes gleamed. “It shall be rendered.”

Minutes later, steam billowed from the bathroom doorway. Candle flames danced in the dim light, casting undulating shadows; the air was thick with the perfume of jasmine and sandalwood. Bubbles foamed high over water so clear and shimmering it looked like liquid topaz. I’d never achieve this ambience myself, yet he’d conjured it in moments.

“Clothing,” he said, palm extended.

I hesitated, my fingers on the tie of my robe. This was the line. A bath was a bath. But to be naked before him… it felt like ceding territory. Yet to refuse would show fear. Slowly, I undid the knot and let the robe fall. Something wicked and triumphant sparked in his gaze as he caught the garment and folded it with undue care. I stepped quickly into the tub; the heat enveloped me, loosening muscles I hadn’t realized were knotted from weeks of tension.

Ashmorian knelt beside the bath, the hard lines of his body poised. “May I wash you?” The courteous, formal question again, a stark contrast to the infernal hunger burning in his eyes.

I nodded, my throat too tight for speech. He lathered a soft cloth, sliding it across my shoulders, along the delicate line of my collarbones, down the slope of my breasts. Every pass was deliberate, reverent. I bit back a sigh when he circled my nipples, the rough fabric teasing them into tight peaks, then ventured lower, across the plane of my belly. My legs parted a fraction, instinctively. He paused, the cloth hovering, awaiting permission.

“Yes,” I whispered, the word swallowed by the steam.

The cloth glided over my mound, over my folds, between my thighs. I gasped as he pressed firmer, the terry fabric rubbing against my clit in a slow, maddening circle. He repeated the motion—slow, steady, his eyes watching my face for every flinch and flutter. The water sloshed gently with the rhythm of my quickened breathing.

He did not breach me, keeping to the outer sanctum. Yet each deliberate stroke wound an invisible cord tighter inside me until I hovered on an impossible, trembling edge. Just when I thought the tension would snap me, he withdrew the cloth and rinsed me with a pitcher of clean, warm water.

“Your skin glows with captured heat,” he murmured, setting the pitcher aside. “But you remain knotted inside. A bath cleanses the vessel, not the spirit. Would you like me to untie you?”

“How?” My voice was barely sound.

He lifted my right foot from the water, cradling my heel. He pressed a kiss to the arch. “By serving your desires until they sing their true names.” His lips traveled to my ankle, the hollow of my calf, the sensitive skin behind my knee. Heat unfurled up my leg, pooling low and heavy in my belly. I expected him to move inward, to spread my thighs, but he placed the foot back into the water with exquisite care, then repeated the agonizingly slow worship on my left leg. The denial itself became an exquisite torture.

I leaned my head back against the tub rim, a low moan escaping. “Please.”

“Command me, mistress. Be explicit.”

I swallowed pride, fear, every shred of resistance. “Make me come.”

He growled, a low, resonant sound of pure approval that vibrated in the steam-heavy air. Strong hands cupped my knees, easing them apart. Bubbles shifted, water lapping at my newly exposed flesh as he opened me to his gaze. He bent, his breath a hot brand against my inner thigh.

“A term of safety,” he stated, not asked. “Speak it.”

The practical demand from a demon nearly made me laugh hysterically. “Ritual.”

He smiled, a true smile that softened the sharpness of his face. “Apt.” Then his mouth descended.

His tongue was a brand of fire, sweeping through my folds with a slow, savoring thoroughness. My hips bucked; he held me steady with immovable hands, lapping at my center with languorous, worshipful strokes. My hands gripped the tub edges, nails scraping porcelain. He circled my clit—once, twice—then drew it into his mouth and sucked, gently at first, then with insistent pressure. Lightning shot up my spine.

“More,” I breathed, my back arching.

He gave more: deeper licks, teasing flicks of his pointed tongue, alternating patterns until coherent thought dissolved into a haze of sensation. When he slid two fingers into me, curling them just so, I shattered, crying out as pleasure pulsed through every limb in radiant waves. He stayed with me, his mouth gentle now, drawing out the tremors until I sagged against the tub, utterly liquid.

I surfaced from bliss to find him watching me, his lips glistening. A fierce need was coiled in the tension of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, but he did not move to claim his own relief.

“Your pleasure feeds me,” he said, his voice rough. “It is a sustenance of essence, a transfer of vital energy. But I remain… constrained by the letter of your command. Further intimacy requires further consent.”

I stared, dazed. “You’re hard?”

He gave a tight nod. “Agonizingly so. A side effect of focused service.”

“Show me.”

He stood in one fluid motion, unlacing the ties of his leathers. The fabric parted, freeing an erection that curved upward, thick and flushed a deep, ruddy bronze, ridged along the underside with subtle, intricate veining. My mouth watered at the sight.

“May I touch myself?” he asked, the formality absurd and devastating.

“Yes.”

His hand wrapped his length, moving in slow, slick glides from root to tip. A bead of moisture welled at the slit; he spread it with his thumb. I watched, transfixed, as he pleasured himself beside my bath, his amber eyes never leaving mine, his expression one of intense concentration. My own arousal, spent moments ago, rebuilt with astonishing speed, a fresh ache blooming between my legs.

When his pace quickened, his breath growing ragged, I rose from the tub, water streaming from my body, and caught his wrist. “Stop.”

He stilled instantly, a tremor running through him.

“I want you inside me.”

His breath hitched. “Consent? Explicit, for this specific act?”

“Consent,” I affirmed, stepping into the circle of his arms.

He lifted me, my thighs circling his waist, and carried me dripping from the bathroom. Everywhere our skin met, tiny sparks danced, a celestial static. He laid me on the duvet, looming over me, and in the dim light, wings of pure shadow unfurled from his shoulders like vast, dark silk, brushing the walls.

“Tell me again,” he rasped, the command in his voice.

“I want you to fuck me. Now.”

A tremor rolled through him, and the shadow wings flared. He captured my mouth, his tongue thrusting deep, tasting of storm clouds and cinnamon and me. I arched against him, rubbing my slickness along his shaft. He groaned, a sound torn from the depths, and reached between us to align himself.

The first push stretched me gloriously, the subtle ridges lighting nerves I didn’t know I had. I clawed at his back, urging. He sank in fully, sheathing himself to the hilt, then paused, letting me adjust to the delicious fullness. When I wrapped my legs tighter around his hips, he began to move—controlled, powerful thrusts that hit a deep, sweet spot with every stroke. The room filled with the slick, rhythmic sound of joining, my broken moans, his guttural growls.

He shifted his angle minutely, and stars burst behind my eyelids. “Yes—right there, don’t stop.”

His pace snapped faster, his hips pistoning with a relentless, driving rhythm. Pressure coiled, low and tight. I slipped a hand between us, stroking my clit in frantic circles, racing him toward the cliff. He snarled encouragement against my neck, his lips and teeth marking my skin, moving to my breasts, sucking a nipple into the heat of his mouth.

When I came, my inner muscles clenching rhythmically around him, he followed with a roar that shook the windows in their frames, spilling a heat that felt like molten gold deep inside me. We shuddered together through the aftershocks, breath ragged, gradually settling into a heavy, sated stillness.

He rolled, keeping me joined to him, so I sprawled across his chest. His fingers traced idle, possessive patterns along my spine. The shadow wings had retracted, leaving only the man—or the demon—beneath me.

“Was the service rendered satisfactory?” he murmured into my hair.

I laughed, the sound shaky. “You could say I’m… temporarily satisfied.”

“A fleeting state,” he warned. “Desire is a river, not a pond. It renews from a spring you have only just discovered.”

It was truth. Already I felt him stirring, hardening again against my hip.

---

The next morning, I awoke alone in the tangle of sheets, the scent of him lingering on my skin. A strange emptiness echoed in the silence. Had it been a dream? A profoundly vivid, erotic hallucination?

Then I walked into the kitchen. Ashmorian stood at the stove, wearing only the low-slung leather trousers, his back to me as he tended something in a pan. The muscles of his back shifted with his movements, and the memory of my nails scoring those same muscles flashed in my mind.

“You’re still here,” I said, more a statement than a question.

He glanced over his shoulder, that sharp smile playing on his lips. “The binding ensures proximity. Your command last night did not include a dismissal. I took the liberty of interpreting your need for sustenance.” He plated fluffy scrambled eggs and crisp bacon, setting it on the island with a flourish. “Eat.”

It was disorienting. The cosmic terror and the cosmic pleasure, now making me breakfast. I ate under his watchful gaze, the food delicious. “What happens today?” I asked.

“You command. I serve. The cycle of our contract.” He leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “Do you have a directive?”

I did. I wanted to test the boundaries, to reassert some control. The bath had been a surrender. I needed to see if I could command something purely practical. “I have a paper to write. On medieval trade routes. I need research. Summaries of the primary economic factors for the Hanseatic League between 1350 and 1450. Use the books in my study. No magic. Read them and produce a ten-page analysis.”

His eyebrows rose. “A scholarly command. Literal and precise. Very well.” He gave a shallow bow. “It shall be done.”

I spent the day in the living room, trying to read a novel, my ears straining for sounds from the study. I heard the soft rustle of pages, the scratch of a pen. No other sounds. By late afternoon, curiosity drove me to the doorway. He sat at my desk, a tower of my history texts beside him, writing in a neat, elegant script on a legal pad. He looked utterly absorbed, a scholar in his element. The sight was strangely intimate, and it stirred something in me that had nothing to do with lust—a sense of companionship, of shared space.

He finished as dusk fell, presenting me with ten precise, insightful pages. “Your analysis, mistress.”

I read it. It was brilliant, better than anything I could have written. “This is… perfect.”

“The command was fulfilled to its literal specification,” he said, but his eyes were on my mouth, on the way I bit my lip as I read his conclusions. “Is there another command?”

The domesticity of the day, the demonstration that he could be useful in mundane ways, had lulled me. But the look in his eyes reignited the embers from the night before. I made a mistake. I got comfortable. “I’m sore,” I said, without thinking. “From last night.”

His gaze ignited. “A complaint? Or an implicit command for remediation?”

“It’s just a statement of fact,” I said, taking a step back.

“In the context of our binding, all statements from you are data points for interpretation. You have expressed a physical state resulting from prior service. The logical interpretation is a desire for that state to be alleviated.” He took a step forward. “May I provide relief?”

This was the trap. The contract in action. My own words, even casual ones, could be twisted toward his ends—ends that, a traitorous part of me screamed, I desperately wanted. I could say no. I could order him to leave the room. But the memory of his mouth, his hands, his heat inside me, was a siren song. My resistance, after the intimacy we’d already shared, felt like a pointless pantomime.

“Yes,” I whispered, the fight draining out of me. “Provide relief.”

He did not pounce. He led me to the couch, laid me down, and spent an hour with his hands and a vial of scented oil, kneading the tension from my shoulders, my back, the backs of my thighs. It was genuinely therapeutic, until his hands slid higher, his thumbs pressing into the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs, and his mouth found the place where my soreness originated, kissing it gently until the soreness was replaced by a fresh, throbbing need that he then, very thoroughly, serviced.

Afterward, as I lay boneless on the couch, he said softly, “The contract thrives on honesty. Your stated desires are weak tea. Your unstated ones are a vintage that intoxicates me. Stop fighting the deeper draft.”

That was the moment my resistance truly dissolved. Not out of defeat, but out of a dawning, terrifying realization: I didn’t want to fight it. The power dynamic wasn’t him overpowering me; it was me, through my own hidden wants, guiding him. It was a collaboration in denial.

---

Over the following days, his interpretation of service became a delicious, ongoing dialogue.

I once idly commanded, “Entertain me,” while feeling restless. He conjured a violin of dark, polished wood and played a melody that was not music but pure emotion—longing, passion, a climax that made tears streak from my eyes. When the last note faded, he set the instrument aside and pushed me against the wall, lifting my skirt. “The entertainment continues,” he growled, and fucked me to the rhythm still echoing in our bones.

Another morning I said, “Make breakfast.” He served me figs and peaches so ripe their juice ran down my chin and onto my chest. He licked it away slowly, then bent me over the dining table, feasting on me from behind before serving himself.

Each command he obeyed literally, yet layered with a sensual excess that transformed my life into an erotic fever dream. My initial frustration with botched wishes for wealth and power dissolved; what he offered felt infinitely richer. But I began to wonder, late at night as I watched him sleep, his face strangely peaceful, what he was truly gaining. He spoke of sustenance.

One evening, after a particularly intense session where I’d come apart screaming his name, I lay panting in his arms. “This energy you take from my pleasure… what does it do for you? Is it just food?”

He was silent for a long moment. “It is sustenance, yes. But also currency. And potential.” He traced the shell of my ear. “My kind… we are entities of desire and transaction. The energy of a mortal’s climax, especially one given freely within a binding agreement, is potent. It can be used to strengthen our essence, to gain standing, to forge things in my realm. You are not merely satisfying a contract, little summoner. You are paying me, in the most exquisite coinage that exists. And you are paying me well.”

“So if I stop… you weaken?”

“I would not starve. But I would be diminished. The contract guarantees you will continue to command, and I will continue to interpret, until your deepest desire is met. The flow is therefore assured.” He kissed my shoulder. “It is a favorable deal for me. Do not think on it too much. It spoils the flavor.”

But I did think on it. It added a layer of stakes, of consequence. I was fueling him. My pleasure had a tangible, metaphysical value. The thought was strangely empowering.

One night he cooked dinner wearing nothing but an apron, his tail—a fact I’d discovered and delighted in—flicking idly as he plated pasta. I snapped a photo, capturing his focused profile, the line of his back, the hint of a smile. He looked absurdly, devastatingly gorgeous. I texted Lia: I think I’m keeping him.

She replied instantly: Girl, you’ve fallen for your demon.

My thumb hovered. Had I? Was this feeling, this warm, possessive, hungry thing in my chest, love? Or was it just an addictive response to the most profound physical satisfaction of my life, woven into a supernatural contract?

Later, lounging together on the flat roof beneath a blanket of stars, I traced the spiral of his horn. “Ash?”

“Mmm?” His eyes were closed, his arm a heavy, warm weight across my stomach.

“Could you return to your realm if you wanted? I mean, truly wanted, not because I commanded it?”

He opened his eyes, turning his head to look at me. “Do you wish me gone?”

“No. I’m just wondering if you… stay by choice. Or just by contract.”

Something vulnerable, raw, flickered across his features before the smooth mask resettled. “The binding compels my presence and my service. It does not compel my manner, my creativity, my… investment. I choose this.” He leaned in, kissing me softly, a kiss that tasted of starlight and sincerity. “I choose the interpretation. I choose you.”

My chest tightened almost painfully. “Even when the contract ends? When I finally say out loud that I’m satisfied?”

“Contracts can be renegotiated,” he said, his voice a low murmur against my lips. “We are, both of us, bound by our natures. You are a seeker of deeper truths. I am a consummate dealmaker. The negotiation does not have to end; it can evolve.”

A fragile hope took root in me. “Evolve how?”

He smiled, a true, unguarded smile. “When you are ready to name what you truly want, we will draft new terms.”

---

The test came at a small dinner party. Lia insisted on meeting the infamous demon servant. I agreed on the condition she bring no holy water or exorcism jokes.

Ash wore black slacks and a charcoal shirt unbuttoned enough to tease a glimpse of his chest. He was a study in contained power, moving through my friends with a predator’s grace, serving wine, plating courses with chef-level precision. He charmed them with stories that might have been metaphors or might have been literal accounts of shaping galaxies from cosmic dust. Throughout the evening, his hand found the small of my back, my nape, my thigh beneath the table—a constant, possessive, reassuring touch that told me, You are mine, and I am yours, and this is our performance.

When the last guest left, I was half-drunk on wine and entirely drunk on him, on the pride of seeing him in my world, handling it so perfectly. I pushed him onto the couch, straddling his lap, kissing him deeply.

“I’m going to miss this,” I said against his mouth.

He stilled, his hands tightening on my hips. “Why?”

“Eventually I’ll exhaust my desires, won’t I? Or I’ll say the words. Contract fulfilled. You get a final, massive payout of energy, and then… poof?”

He brushed my hair from my face, his touch tender. “Foolish summoner. Desire is not a finite resource to be depleted. It is a living thing. It evolves. What you crave tonight is not what you craved the night I arrived. It has deepened, widened. It will continue to do so.”

“So we stay locked in this loop—me commanding, you creatively obeying, forever?”

“Unless we draft new terms.” He produced a fresh parchment from the air. It glowed with a softer, gold-tinged light. “Shall we?”

I took it, my hands trembling slightly. The text was clear, in a language I somehow understood:

Partnership Accord Between Ashmorian (Infernal Entity) and Elara (Mortal Summoner) 1. The previous binding contract is hereby dissolved, its terms satisfied. 2. The parties enter into a partnership of mutual desire and benefit. 3. The partnership is sustained by mutual consent, renewed each night by a kiss freely given. 4. Energy exchanged through shared pleasure shall be divided equally, a tithe to both parties’ essence. 5. The partnership may be terminated only by the mutual, spoken consent of both parties, given without coercion on a night of the full moon. 6. A final clause: Should the partnership endure for a mortal lifetime, upon the mortal’s natural death, her essence shall have the option to continue the accord in a reformed state, to be negotiated at that time.

I read it twice, my heart hammering. It was partnership. Not servitude. It gave me an out, but a complicated, ceremonial one. And the final clause… it spoke of an eternity, but one with a choice, a future negotiation. It preserved a sliver of that delicious, infernal danger.

I met his gaze. “No tricks? No hidden interpretations?”

“I am bound to honesty with you in this. The accord is plain. It is what I want. Do you find the terms… acceptable?”

I didn’t hesitate. I pressed my lips to his, pouring every ounce of my hope, my desire, my terrifying love into the kiss. The scroll flared brightly and vanished into motes of light that settled over our skin like glittering dust.

He broke the kiss, his eyes blazing with amber fire. He lifted me, carrying me toward the bedroom. “Now,” he growled, his voice thick with promise, “let me serve my partner until she forgets every name but mine.”

I laughed, then gasped as his mouth found my breast, his tongue laving my nipple. Somewhere between his talented mouth and the headboard slamming the wall in a steady rhythm, I realized the botched ritual had indeed granted my deepest wish. Not for wealth, not for power, but for a connection that was fierce, fiery, unapologetically carnal, and now, miraculously, mutual. A contract not of servitude, but of chosen, endless negotiation.

Demons, it turns out, are consummate dealmakers. And when they choose their partner, they are even better lovers.