Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

People left the strangest things tucked inside books.

When Rey was in college, she managed to snag one of the coveted work-study jobs at her campus library, checking out and reshelving books between her classes. Sitting up front at the computer with the scanner was fine, but it was the reshelving that she loved the most.

Wandering through the labyrinthine stacks in the silence was soothing, almost meditative, a huge contrast from her rowdy dorm with paper-thin walls. The smell of the old books was intoxicating, and whenever she found herself completely alone in a forgotten corner, she’d take one of the tomes she was supposed to put back on the shelves in her hands, ask it a question, and then flip to a random page that felt right to find the answer.

It was called bibliomancy, and she’d read about it in, of all things, a book. Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, a sixteenth-century French writer they studied in her Renaissance literature class, wrote about how his characters told love fortunes by consulting what were known as Homeric lots: ask a question, consult a classic.

For Gargantua and Pantagruel, that meant Virgil, Homer, Herodotus. For Rey, that meant Austen, Brontë (any and all of them), Shakespeare, Dickens. Each of them read her fortune in turn.

Will Ezra ask me out if I go to the Kappa Kappa Phi party?

What might Persuasion have to say about that?

“‘I do not think,’ says Captain Harville, ‘I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and Proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.’ ‘Perhaps I shall,’ Anne Elliot replied.”

Sounded like Austen said no.

Rey went to the party anyway and Ezra ignored her, his tongue too far down Sabine-from-the-fourth-floor’s throat to pay her any mind.

Should I switch my major from mechanical engineering to English?

When she picked up David Copperfield, closed her eyes, and flipped through it, her finger stopped at:

”Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

The book was right: she should do what was in her heart. Rey changed her major and stopped crying every night when she was alone in her dorm room, no longer pouring over homework that made her feel dead inside.

She’d find things she wasn’t looking for when she went searching for those answers, often in the form of haphazard, forgotten bookmarks. One in every three books she reshelved had something interesting shoved between its pages, and as she’d flip through, they’d tumble out. The first time it was an unsent love letter, scribbled on the back of a torn-up sheet of tearstained spiral notebook paper, written in bubbly purple print. Its author hadn’t finished it, but something about its woeful desperation stuck with Rey. It made her ache, so she pocketed it and put it in a little box she kept on her shelf.

It had already been forgotten and abandoned once.

Maybe someone shouldn’t abandon it again.

Another time it was a train ticket from Switzerland dated forty years ago. What might its traveler have been doing in Delémont in the middle of March, and why did they forget it at the end of a copy of Stendhal’s The Red and the Black?

Once, several hundred dollar bills fell out from between the pages of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, and they couldn’t have come at a better time. Rey had been sick with mono that semester and couldn’t work as many hours at the library, and her remaining five packets of ramen wouldn’t last her the month. She’d cried when she picked up the cash and finally went to the grocery store, bingeing on fresh fruit and vegetables, rice and chicken, peanut butter and jelly, frozen pizzas and ice cream.

She feasted until payday.

There were photos of pets, dry cleaning receipts for formal gowns, grocery lists and mangled journal entries—and that wasn’t even counting all the funny annotations she found. Reactions to the text scribbled in the margins, looping and curving around crumbling and flaking typeface, agreeing with the protagonist or calling them a dumbass. There were explanations of references, musings on meanings, incorrect translations interspersed with drawings of dicks; paratextual graffiti tucked into the corpses of trees and woven with snippets of memory, crisp pages bordered by hastily-written fleeting thoughts dripping with rampant emotion, and all of it evidence of the hands each laminated tome had passed through over weeks, months, years, decades.

It made the books come alive.

And everything Rey found, she carefully tucked in that little pencil box on her shelf.

Four years passed, and Rey had one last shift at the library before graduation. She spent the day visiting every nook and cranny of the building she’d loved so much, rolling the cart through the quiet, empty stacks, all abandoned now that finals were over. One by one, she took the last of her charges in her hands, flipping through them and lifting them to her nose, inhaling their musty pages and saying goodbye to her old friends. The best, most constant friends she’d ever had, if she was being honest.

Finally, her fingers closed around the spine of the last book on her cart: Milton’s Paradise Lost. It was a particularly ancient copy, and she turned it over in her hands, frowning as she looked at it. The fine leather was smooth and shiny to the touch, hardened and polished with years of use, its gilded lettering flaking off the spine and its corners worn down to dull, curving edges. The pages were thick and uneven, wrinkled and wavy with time and humidity.

Rey opened the front cover and looked for its classification to find where she should shelve it, but there was none. There’d been no label on the spine, either. Her frown deepened. All she could see was a date written in the upper corner in pencil above an intricate frontispiece: 1772. Given how many strange, long ’ſ’ type marks peppered the title page, that date seemed accurate.

Huh.

This one shouldn’t be here.

Most of the oldest, most valuable books on campus were housed in the university’s special archives, not in the main library. They were tucked away in climate-controlled storage spaces, waiting for scholars to request them before they handled them in special cradles, gingerly turning one page at a time between anxious, trembling fingertips—not shoved amongst plastic-covered modern hardbacks onto a battered, beaten metal cart from the sixties and given to a graduating work-study to deal with.

She’d never had the opportunity to research in the archives.

But she’d really wanted to.

Rey glanced over her shoulder. She was still alone on the fifth floor, the stacks empty and silent. Well. She might never get an opportunity like this again. There were so many questions swirling in her mind, and shouldn’t a book this old hold plenty of wisdom to help answer them? This one had surely seen some things. It had to have experience.

She closed her eyes and asked it a question, just like she so often did.

What sort of job will I have after I graduate?

She flipped through and found her answer.

“Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat’ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n.” ^[1]

That…didn’t bode well. Rey scowled and tried again.

Will I make new friends in my next city?

“Solitude sometimes is best society.” ^[2]

She pulled back and wrinkled her nose. Solitude. No new friends? She already didn’t have many, and her roommate, Kaydel, was moving to New York to try to become an actress. Rey didn’t have enough money to follow her there and hadn’t gotten any interviews or internships in the city, so it seemed out of the question. She’d been hoping for a fresh start, but not a lonely one.

Perhaps one more question wouldn’t hurt.

At any rate, it couldn’t get any worse.

Will I find my true love?

Rey held her breath and flipped through the pages one more time, desperately hoping for some good news. High school had been lonely for a kid caught in the foster system. Her temporary guardians only had to provide her with the basics until she turned eighteen, and they weren’t inclined to maintain any sort of relationship with her once she left. They’d been more interested in the checks from the state, and the other kids seemed to know that, so she was all the happier to leave her hometown behind and head to Boston for university on a combination of grants and loans and hard-won scholarships.

But while she could hide her past better among the crowds of equally-new, equally-lost and wide-eyed students here, she still hadn’t quite managed to find the sort of relationship she was looking for. Nameless, faceless, drunken makeouts and hookups at parties only left her starving for connection, which none of the boys in her classes seemed eager to provide for more than a night. After a certain point, she’d simply given up.

But hope for the future?

That sprang eternal.

She opened the book and read the first words she saw.

“And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horror and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him, for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step no more than from himself can fly
By change of place: now conscience wakes despair
That slumbered, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be.” ^[3]

“That can’t be right,” she muttered. “That doesn’t sound like it’s about love.” She flipped the page over and back, staring down at the arcane typeface. The books had never led her astray before.

She asked the question again.

Will I find my true love?

“I, ere thou spak’st,
Knew it not good for man to be alone,
And no such company as then thou saw’st
Intended thee, for trial only brought,
To see how thou could’st judge of fit and meet;
What next I bring shall please thee, be assured,
Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,
Thy wish exactly to thy heart’s desire.”  ^[4]

Rey shook her head at the book. “What does that even mean? Is that a yes? That seems…better?”

She’d read parts of Milton in survey courses, but never took the dedicated, whole-semester class just to study his most famous text. She never had the time in her schedule, especially not once she’d changed majors and had to play catch-up.

She shook her head again and was about to snap the book shut to replace it on the cart when she pulled her arm back too far and bashed her elbow on the shelf behind her. It immediately went numb, and with a yelp, she scrambled to catch the delicate, ancient book before it tumbled to the ground, fumbling it between her hands—

And an old piece of paper slipped out of its pages, floating gently to the floor.

Rey gathered herself and set the book back onto the cart, kneeling to pick the paper up between throbbing fingers. Its edges were flaked and yellowed with age, but it looked thick and handmade, and at least as old as the book itself. She turned it over, and on one side strange symbols were scrawled in fancy, looping, archaic handwriting, interspersed with Latin text. Her eyes swept over them, squinting at the letters written there.

Something about them felt familiar.

She licked her lips. They were chapped, and…

And they itched to read the words before her.

“Evigila, O antiquus ac dilectus Dominus Ren,” she muttered to herself as she read aloud. “Diu te—”

“REY! You up here?”

She blinked and straightened sharply, hiding the paper guiltily behind her back. It was her boss, Dr. Amilyn Holdo, the head librarian.

“Oh, there you are darling,” the older woman said as she stepped around the shelf into view. Rey always loved the librarian’s sense of style. Today she was sporting a flowy, soft blouse paired with structured tweed pants, retro Oxford heels, and her dyed lilac hair.

Truly the epitome of light academic chic.

“Are you finished yet? I wanted to take you out to dinner to celebrate your graduation!” Dr. Holdo put her hands fondly on Rey’s shoulders with a grin before her eyes fell to the last book sitting on the cart. Her smile disappeared as soon as she saw it. “My word, where did you get that?” She motioned for Rey to hand it to her.

“It was on the reshelf cart,” she said, passing it to the librarian with a shrug. “No idea where it came from.”

“This should be in the archives. How on earth did it get here?” The librarian frowned deeply at the copy of Paradise Lost before looking back up at Rey. “Oh well—no matter. I’ll get it back safely to where it belongs. Maybe someone stole it and their conscience got the better of them.” She huffed and turned the book over in her hands. “I’ll give Dr. Ackbar a call to come get it. Want to wait with me in my office for him? Then we’ll head out to eat, yeah?”

“Sounds good, Dr. Holdo.”

When the librarian turned to head back downstairs, Rey slipped the ancient piece of paper into her pocket.

Once she returned to her apartment after dinner, she tucked it into the box with all her other treasures.

And promptly forgot about it.

FIVE YEARS LATER

Watching The Good Place on repeat just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

“Birth is a curse and existence is a prison.“ Rey quoted the line along with Ted Danson, deadpanning the delivery in time with his. But in her case, it wasn’t only because that’s how it was meant to be read: nonchalant, off the cuff, thoroughly nihilist.

No.

Her delivery wasn’t an act.

She shoved another handful of goldfish crackers into her mouth and chewed, if only to feel something, even if that something was the sharp bite of entirely too much salt on her tongue.

The Office had already lost its shine sometime last year, and so had Parks and Rec. She’d seen New Girl approximately forty times all the way through now, and even that entire span of a month where she only alternated between watching the 1995 and 2005 versions of Pride and Prejudice and nothing else hadn’t done shit to pull Rey out of her funk.

Everything that used to work just simply…didn’t anymore.

Everything was empty.

Rey sat on her couch in her tiny one-bedroom apartment in east Austin, dark circles seemingly permanently stamped under her eyes while she stared blankly at the actors on the screen before her, their words washing over her without actually making her feel anything. She might as well have been in hell, but not for the reason you’d think.

It was hot.

So hot.

And that, she could still feel.

She’d already tried turning the AC down to almost untenable levels for her budget—and, frankly, for her unit too, she was sure of it—but no amount of shorts, pizza-grease-stained threadbare college tank tops, or Rey-focused fans could remove the sticky sense of ennui clinging to her in the midst of the most brutal Texas summer in over a decade.

But it wasn’t actually the heat that was getting to her.

It was everything else.

After she graduated, she’d gotten a job at a tech startup down in Austin, so she’d sold her winter clothes and traded snow and depression for the promise of sunshine, tacos, and actual income. Somehow, after a dearth of opportunity, she’d managed to convince a bunch of coders that they needed an English major on their team for customer service or marketing or sales or some sort of communication purpose; she wasn’t entirely sure, though, since the job description had been for a “People Coordinator” and the poorly-written paragraph repeatedly mentioned how their team was a close-knit family.

She wasn’t sure what sort of a “family” that company was modeled after, but it couldn’t have been a functional one. But at the very least, the startup had hired her in a heartbeat, and she’d jumped at the chance to finally be able to afford more than ramen and frozen meals for once, making the leap, alone, into the unknown.

That company was a shitshow, but Rey took her six months of experience there and turned that line on her resume into something serviceable for a larger company. First one, then another, and then an even bigger one, all of them gobbling up one another’s market share like increasingly large fish devouring the one before it until she was finally something worth noting for the recruiters on LinkedIn.

Then Theta came knocking a few years ago. It was the most popular app under Empire Group’s social media umbrella, and she’d immediately answered the tech giant’s recruiting call.

And now here she was, sitting in shorts, sticky and covered in sweat, wearing a bralette full of goldfish cracker crumbs and half-melted M&Ms while she stared at the clock, dreading every slow tick of the minute hand towards the dawn that would signal another day she’d have to endure in the office.

Another day of soulless bullshit to pay the bills.

Rey reached into her limp bralette, fished around, and popped a slightly soggy cracker into her mouth.

Hm.

Extra salty.

She should probably shower…at some point. She glanced blankly over at the bathroom.

No.

Too much effort. Too far from the couch.

Maybe not.

The past five years had been far more empty and lonely than Rey thought they’d be after college. Rather than making friends and meeting new people, she mostly just met new comrades-in-arms at work: battle buddies while they waged the war that was corporate capitalism, each of them fighting to grab bigger and bigger pieces of the pie.

That wasn’t the same thing as actual friends.

Rose was the one exception.

Rey’s days were spent staring at numbers and spreadsheets, talking about KPIs and quarterly metrics and mission statements, writing copy to spin boring-ass technical updates into dollars. In the evenings she fielded emails and calls from managers until she couldn’t take it anymore and slammed her laptop shut, only to stare into the void and wonder where exactly her life had gone so very wrong.

She’d stopped reading a long time ago.

Writing was out of the question.

Hobbies were nothing but a myth.

There were violent video games and takeout and comfort shows to watch on repeat—until even those no longer scratched the itch.

The itch for what, she wasn’t entirely sure. Purpose, maybe?

Whatever.

There was no purpose in this world.

Why was she even here, again?

Rey’s eyes ticked over to check the clock on her phone: 1:15am, and sleep nowhere in sight, despite how bone-tired she was. It was only Wednesday—or rather, technically, Thursday now. There were still two more workdays of hell to contend with before she could go drink herself into oblivion on the weekend. Or maybe she wouldn’t bother. Maybe she’d just close her eyes and attempt to sleep the whole thing away, like she usually did, albeit unsuccessfully. True rest had been eluding her for weeks now.

She wasn’t going to be getting any tonight, either.

Rey looked around at her little apartment and ignored the sounds of the show playing in the background, choosing instead to eye her neglected bookshelves. They were covered in dust. Aside from the occasional romance novel, she’d hardly read since college, when she so naïvely thought that studying literature would help her do something good with her life, or might make the world a better place. Literature was the study of the human condition, after all. Reading made you more empathetic.

She snorted.

Bullshit.

It was all bullshit.

For the first time in a long while, Rey actually felt a flare of something resembling an emotion: anger.

If she wasn’t going to sleep, she needed to direct that feeling somewhere.

She got up off the couch and began pulling her books off her shelves, staring blankly at their covers. She started putting them into piles—to sell, to donate, to keep.

More went into the first two than the last.

What even was the point of having these anymore? Another one thumped on the donate pile. They were just collecting dust. They were heavy, hard to move, and she didn’t have time to read. Who had time when they had a boss breathing down their neck like she did, demanding more and more of her day for himself?

Mitaka was a micromanaging asshole. 

College was a lie.

Her dreams were dead.

All that was left was just trying to get through the day—and even that was beginning to feel insurmountable.

She pulled the last book off the shelf and dropped it onto the sell pile, but stilled when she spied what was hiding behind it: a little gold-topped pencil box, covered in a few years’ worth of dust. She blew it off the top and ran a hand across it before flipping it open.

Her treasures.

Rey pulled them out one by one and looked at them. She huffed as she remembered her college years shelving books in the library. The anger ebbed. The corner of her mouth twitched upward. Her expression softened.

It had been her favorite thing, in retrospect. The quiet moments of discovery. The thrill of rescuing something. The warm feeling in the pit of her stomach when someone from the past was remembered, treasured, kept safe.

It was the last time she was ever sort-of happy, working there in the stacks with less weight of the world wrapped around her shoulders.

She studied each scrap she’d saved over the years, noted every one of them one last time.

And then, one by one, she let them all tumble into the garbage.

Nothing.

She was numb again.

She felt nothing when her treasures finally became the trash they’d always truly been.

Only one scrap of paper remained. It was stuck facedown on the bottom of the box, and she used her nails to pluck it free from the cardboard, staring down at the aged, battered thing she held in her hand.

“Paradise Lost,” she whispered, remembering the book it had fallen out of. She remembered every book she’d ever scavenged a treasure from. “You can say that again. I didn’t ask to be here. Was there ever even a paradise to lose in the first place?”

Rey flipped it over and looked at the ancient text interspersed with strange symbols scrawled on the torn, ragged scrap. She’d briefly taken Latin in high school but could hardly recall any of it, aside from how to pronounce it. It wasn’t exactly a useful modern skill, studying a dead language, but everyone in academic decathlon took it as a badge of honor.

But still. Something about the words and symbols tugged at the depths of her memory, and her breath caught in her throat as she stared down at the handwriting. The sound of the television show receded into the background, fading into an odd, hollow ringing in her ears that grew higher pitched with every passing second.

The longer she stared at it, the heavier the words looked.

Darker.

Warmer.

More pronounced, strong, firm. Resolute, even.

Familiar.

That hand was familiar.

She’d seen it before, and not just at the library where she worked. She knew those loops, and the hair rose on the back of her neck as her eyes unfocused slightly, blurring everything else around her. The words almost seemed to leap off the page, clawing their way into the core of her.

The urge to read the note aloud was irresistible. Rey licked her lips.

She should say the words.

They might make her feel better.

They looked so nice and tempting, written there on that paper like that.

The idea of them felt warm and fuzzy in her mind.

Nice.

They felt nice.

Nicer than anything she’d felt in a long, long time.

Before she could stop herself, her lips formed the words and spoke them, partially just to see if they still could—and partially to relieve the deep, aching longing she felt in her chest and the rising itch beneath her skin.

“Evigila, O antiquus ac dilectus Dominus Ren,” she read, the power of the words hanging in the air. They vibrated around her, ringing and growing in volume the more she read.

Everything felt…odd. Something was odd, off, strange.

She should have stopped.

She couldn’t.

The more she read, the more she needed to read.

Her lips kept moving.

“Diu te exquisivi. De profundis inferni voco et te donum peto animae tuae pro mea.”

As soon as the last word echoed in her apartment, the ringing in her ears stopped.

The sound of the TV went completely silent.

Rey blinked.

She drew in a breath and blinked harder in confusion. The warm fuzzy feeling was gone. What had she just done? Why did she—

BOOM.

It was less a sound than a motion when her apartment floor suddenly yanked to the side, tilted, bucked up and nearly knocked her down. Rey staggered away from her bookshelves, struggling to keep upright and shaking her head to clear it of the strange, dizzy feeling swirling around her temples.

An earthquake? In Texas?

As soon as she clutched the edge of her bar, the tilting of the world stopped.

Rey sucked for air, running a hand through her hair and looking wildly around her apartment. Nothing had been disturbed, not a single thing knocked off the walls. Not even her towering stacks of books had moved in the slightest. She curled her fingers around the cheap countertop and pulled, checking to make sure that she was, indeed, still anchored to reality, and that it wasn’t her kitchen counters that had been rocking.

Solid as ever.

She rubbed her eyes with a groan. “I need to get some fucking sleep. I’m so tired, I’m seeing things now,” she muttered before looking back down at the slip of paper she still held. Her lip curled at it with a scoff. “What the hell is this, anyway? What a weird thing to write down. I’m not even sure that Latin made sense.”

Rey turned to toss the old piece of paper into the trash, glad to be finally rid of it. But when she looked down to drop it, she froze, her hand hovering over the plastic liner. The letters written in the ancient script were glowing now, their ink rapidly turning from a dull black-brown to a dark, rust-red limned in bright gold.

Like fire-kissed coals seething in the dark.

“What the—”

The paper exploded.

Flames, quick and violent, scorched her fingertips and Rey dropped the paper with a yelp, black smoke rising from her singed skin, the burn spreading and searing into her flesh. She cried out at the pain of it and stumbled again, falling back against the wall, her eyes wide in shock.

The paper wasn’t behaving at all like paper.

It was as though it had been possessed.

Not only that, but it had grown, the scrap twisting and expanding before her, no longer a paper fragment, but suddenly as big as a full sheet, then an unfolded folio, now a curtain. It grew larger than her couch and tumbled across her bare living room floors, swallowing the planks beneath rippling parchment before disappearing into the ether on curls of dark, black smoke.

But it wasn’t completely gone.

It had left something in its wake.

Concentric circles burst forth from the spot where the paper had dropped, rippling across her apartment like shockwaves before slowing and stalling, the wood beneath her feet creaking and groaning as the circles grew and settled into place. Other strange symbols twisted and crawled around Rey’s living room like some sort of infernal worm, glowing as bright as fire and brimstone. They etched themselves deep into her floors, snaking through the wood grain onto every spare surface. The smell of sulfur and ash and ice filled the air before it was followed by a sudden, bright flash of light.

It was blinding.

Rey closed her eyes and flinched away from it, instinctually throwing up an arm over her face. On the heels of the flash of light was an unbearable shriek, an anguished keening, like the sound of a soul being ripped asunder. She felt that shriek, that pain inside herself, felt it being torn from her chest, felt it breaking her to her core, twisting inside her gut, wrenching into her soul, and she covered her ears to try to dampen the feeling while she dropped to her knees in sudden, unbearable agony.

She couldn’t tell if it was she who was screaming—

Or someone else.

And then, just as suddenly, there was silence.

The pain and anguish were gone just as quickly as they had consumed her, and she opened her eyes with a gasp, feeling as though she were left naked and stripped bare in the deep vacuum of space amidst the sudden onslaught of nothingness.

Rey removed her trembling hands from the sides of her head and lifted her gaze, blinking tentatively in the darkness of her apartment while her eyes adjusted from the explosion. Every light in her home had gone out, her TV dead and dark. She shouldn’t have been able to see anything save by the weak light filtering through her blinds from the street lamps in the parking lot outside.

Except she could.

The strange symbols that had overtaken her apartment floors still glowed bright gold and red in the dark, illuminating the shapes shifting between the shadows. The only untouched space on the entire floor was bounded by a wide circle surrounded by all of those ancient glyphs—and in the center of that circle crouched a hulking, shadowed figure.

Rey took a step forward and peered into the darkness.

The figure moved. A deep, rumbling growl emanated from the center of it, vibrating through the air as it shifted. She froze and her breathing quickened as the figure gradually came more into focus while she stared at it in the low light. Her hands began to tremble.

Because the hulking figure was actually a man.

She knew, because when he straightened, he turned to look at her.

He was a monstrously large man with dark, black horns curving over his head and eyes flickering bright red and gold like the flames of Hell.

Eyes now piercing straight into her own.

Chapter Text

BIG.

BIG MAN.

Rey’s brain momentarily flatlined at the sight of him.

The monstrous, horned man was massive.

And—

Wide.

Thick.

He was muscular. So incredibly muscular, and as broad as a redwood.

And he was completely naked.

Once he faced her fully, his eyes never left her own. They glowed bright red and gold in the darkness, sizzling like the embers of a dying fire, and Rey craned her neck to look up at him as he stood.

Oh shit.

What was he? Eight—no, ten feet tall, maybe?

A wicked, triumphant grin cracked crookedly across his wide, sensuous mouth while he looked her up and down, and something about the way his eyes seemed to flare hotter and brighter when he beheld her sent shivers down her spine.

His intense, piercing gaze held Rey transfixed as he towered over her in the flickering shadows of the symbols carved into the floor, the top of his dark, curled horns and his swirling, jet-black hair nearly grazing against the ceiling. His skin was as light as his hair and horns were dark, pale and luminescent and bright like moonlight.

She couldn’t do anything.

She couldn’t say anything.

She could only look.

Rey’s eyes shifted downward. His hands and forearms looked as if they’d been painted black. They were clawed and dripping with shadow or blood, she couldn’t tell in the low light, but she could tell that whatever they were coated in fizzled and dissolved into the air like smoke as soon as it left the tips of his fingers.

He was…

Otherworldly.

There was no other word for it.

They stared at each other in silence. Neither of them dared to move until he finally tilted his head at her, gave her a sweeping, cordial bow, and drew in a deep breath.

“Ego Dominus Kyl—” ^[5]

But before he could finish, Rey found her voice.

And she let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

The fact that he’d actually spoken suddenly shattered any notion that this might be a dream, and pure, primal panic flooded her entire system.

The giant, horned man was terrifying.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY APARTMENT, YOU CREEP!” Rey screamed, throwing herself towards her kitchen and yanking the largest knife out of the block on her counter, brandishing it in front of her wildly. “I swear to god I’ll cut your face if you take one step towards me!” She sliced at the air, jabbing the knife threateningly at him—until something else caught her eye. Her gaze had involuntarily darted even further down to his crotch, and she froze again.

Holy hell, he was well-endowed.

She nearly dropped the knife at the sight.

His eyes followed hers, and he glanced down at himself before raising a brow when he met her eyes again. He made no move towards her or to cover anything, and instead held up a cautious hand—as though he were trying to pacify a wild animal.

“Ignosce, sed tu es qui me vocasti,” he ventured, gesturing calmly in her direction before pointing to himself. ^[6] His voice was deep and round and…oddly soothing.

Wait.

No.

She would not be soothed right now.

“Is that fucking Latin? Are you kidding me right now? Do you not speak English?” Rey gathered herself and shifted her stance, eyeing her front door. He didn’t seem inclined to leave, and even though it was her own goddamn apartment, maybe she’d be better served by running away, at least until she could call the police.

But where was her phone?

Oh no.

It was on her couch—which the demon was thoroughly blocking.

But he still didn’t move, and instead only regarded her with a questioning look on his face that only grew even more confused by the second. “Nonne tu es scholaris? Non loqueris universalem linguam eruditorum?” The angle of his head tilt sharpened. “Quomodo potes me vocare, si non facis?” ^[7]

“Nope.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember enough Latin to understand you. I only took it for one year, like, ten years ago.” Rey held the knife up again. “Why are you here? Where the hell did you come from?”

The horned man’s frown deepened as he studied her expression, and he rolled his lips together so hard, they practically disappeared while he glanced curiously around her apartment. It was when he spied her stacks of books next to his circle that his face brightened, and he crouched on the floor, stretching his fingers to try to pull one closer to him across the arcane symbols.

When his fingers brushed the light from the circle’s border, he pulled his hand back and hissed as if burned, his expression twisting and grimacing in pain.

Oh.

Well, that was interesting.

Rey’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, and she took a tentative step forward.

Even though he flashed the symbols a dirty look, the man shuddered and tried again, struggling to reach the books she’d been sorting through. The corner of one stack that was better angled lay just within the bounds of his circle, and when the light emanating from the floor illuminated his face as he crouched, Rey got a better look at him.

Her own brows twitched together at what she found.

Her racing heart slowed at the sight.

The remnants of a thin, twisted, gnarled scar ran down the right side of the horned man’s otherwise perfectly sculpted features. It began above his eye and arced down his face and neck like lightning, licking across his collarbones all the way onto his chest and even along part of his arm. The scar was clearly old, and long-healed. But whatever had happened, it looked like it had been painful. But that wasn’t the sum of it, the remnants of pain she saw. She bit her lip.

Because someone had already done what she’d just threatened to do: someone had cut his face open, and they’d done it viciously.

No, it was worse than that.

It was as if someone had tried to completely cleave him in two. And though they’d failed, they’d still left a cruel, violent mark, clearly made to hurt and maim.

Something tugged in her chest at the thought.

Rey lowered the knife, suddenly feeling vaguely awful about her threat, especially since he hadn’t made any of his own.

But the man didn’t notice—because just when curiosity had gotten the better of her and she’d opened her mouth to ask what happened to him, he let out a triumphant cry and rocked back onto his heels. He’d just barely managed to maneuver one of her books into his enormous grasp—his hands were far too large to be even remotely human—and he’d plucked it into his circle, hoisting it victoriously in the air before opening it with apparent relish.

It was her well-read copy of Ice Planet Barbarians.

Her face reddened, and she lunged forward.

“Wait, no! Don’t touch that! What are you doing?!”

He held up a finger (wait) and ignored her while quickly flipping through the pages. Rey closed her mouth and watched, fascinated, as his eyes darted across the words with light-speed precision before he snapped the book shut. He grabbed another off the stack (A Court of Silver Flames) and did the same, and again with the next one (Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell) before finally standing, clearing his throat, and giving her a tiny nod.

He drew in a slow, deep breath.

“I see from these codices that the bastard child of the complex northern language has taken over this world since I was last here,” he finally said in English, his cadence awkward and heavily accented.

Rey staggered backwards, blinking and shaking her head in shock. Had he really learned English that fast? But it wasn’t modern, not by any means, and his accent was strange. She struggled to place it, but it was impossible. He didn’t sound Italian, exactly, or British, but something much more lyrical caught between the two. 

Ancient, she finally realized.

He sounded ancient. Ageless.

He sounded like he was caught out of time.

His lips twitched into a wry smile at her wide eyes, and he held the books out to her, as though it were an offering. “Please, mistress, tell me which year this is? I think it has been many centuries since I find myself on this plane.” When she didn’t take the books back from him, his smile faded, and he shifted awkwardly on his feet within the circle. Every time his glowing eyes darted down towards its edges, concern flashed over his features—as if he wanted to leave it but couldn’t.

“Year?” Rey took another cautious step forward. “You want to know what year it is?” He nodded more enthusiastically, his smile returning and growing with every step she took towards him. One dimple appeared, carved deep into his cheeks, followed closely by another. If he was what she suspected he might be, perhaps that paper had come with more protections built into it than she’d thought.

But that was—that was impossible.

This whole situation was impossible.

“It’s 2023.”

“2023…” he echoed, trailing off in wonder as he gazed around her apartment again. “Over five hundred years since I was last summoned.”

“Did you just learn my language by reading?”

His attention snapped straight back to her. “Mhm. Yes,” he hummed, clearly pleased that she’d understood. “I have certain…talents. That is one of them. I am a quick learner.”

“Why are you here?”

“You—you ask me why I am here?” The curious head-tilt was back, the gold and scarlet in his irises shifting and dancing like flames while he looked her up and down again. “Why, because you called me, of course. You called me to you and I came.” He hummed some more, a low thing vibrating in his chest, a growl laced with hunger and knowing. “Were you not desirous of some…company? Were you not sad? Lonely, perhaps?”

“How could you know that?” she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper.

He was right. She was. But she’d never once said it out loud, not in all the years she’d—

“Who are you?” Rey took another step forward, edging her toes against the sweeping line of the circle bounding him to the center of her living room. She dropped the hand holding the knife at her side and let it fall. Its tip buried itself into the wood of her floors, forgotten.

“I am the Lord Kylo Ren, demon of the eighth circle of Hell.” He bent and swept her another deep, elegant bow. “And I am here to do your bidding—in exchange for the gift you have offered me, of course.” He pointed at her books. “You are a scholar, are you not? You spoke the words in Latine and you had knowledge of the arcane symbols.” Kylo held a hand out to her in invitation, and she stared blankly at it, wondering vaguely what might happen if she chose to take it and let that massive palm swallow her own.

Nothing good, probably.

Not from a self-professed demon.

While she was still staring at his shadow-wreathed palm, a half-melted M&M chose that precise moment to escape from the bottom of her old, stretched-out, unwashed bralette, and it clattered onto the floor, wobbling across the scorched wood and coming to a stop at the demon’s bare feet. His eyes tracked it with deep interest before sweeping back to her, running along her sweaty pajama-clad body to rest on her lips, and finally back up to her eyes. His smile grew.

His mouth was wide, and that smile spread nearly across the entirety of his face, revealing slightly crooked, but pristine white teeth.

It was…charming.

He was charming.

Pretty, even.

He licked his lips and smiled again, his eyes crinkling. “I have not met a female scholar before,” he purred, his voice low and dripping with sin. “How unusual. This…pleases me greatly. An excellent outcome.”

“A female scholar?” Rey whispered. “You think I’m a scholar?”

“Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically. “Or a noblewoman, perhaps?” He eyed her books, his eyes sweeping over their covers with interest.

“And that—that pleases you?”

“Yes. Are you not pleased in return?” He gestured to himself, his brows raised expectantly. “I took this form because it is most suited to my summoner’s tastes.” He towered over her so thoroughly, he had to lean down to look her in the eye, though his gaze alternated between her eyes and her mouth. “Am I not what you wished for?” He lifted a hand and bent his face closer to hers, his shadowed fingertips unexpectedly cool when they brushed against her jawline. She’d hunched forward across the circle just enough for him to reach her face. The rest of his skin was a whole lot fairer and much less scorched than she’d have expected for someone freshly arrived from the eighth circle of Hell, aside from the scar.

She should have stepped away from him as soon as he touched her, but she couldn’t.

She didn’t know why, but it was impossible.

Especially not when he leaned even closer.

“Do you not want the gifts I could offer you?” he whispered in her ear, his words curling deliciously against her skin. She inhaled sharply at the feeling of them and caught a whiff of his scent. He smelled like snow-covered pine trees, or winter moonlight brushing against stone, wild and icy and timeless. “I can show you a world of delights.” He tilted her chin to the side and moved his lips closer to her neck, almost as if he wanted to press them there. “I would give you the greatest pleasure you could imagine.”

Those lips were plush and soft, and awfully tempting.

His thumb traced the edge of her jaw, sweeping up and following the line of it all the way to her ear. His hand nearly covered her entire neck. “I could give you riches, fame, success, power,” he murmured, every word sinking heavily into her skin. The warm feeling when she read the words that summoned him was back when he spoke, and she closed her eyes, leaning into the sensation. It was the first time her eyelids had truly felt heavy and limned with sleep in weeks. “I could give you adoration. I could give you all the knowledge of this world, and of all the others.” The more he spoke, the heavier that warmth became. “I could make you a queen.”

He paused, careful, considering, contemplative.

He drew in a deep breath. His next words were slow and silken.

“I could give you a family.”

That offer was the weightiest of them all.

When Rey gasped and her eyes snapped open at that offer, his gaze grew molten and intense, his eyes even hungrier than they were before. “I could give you anything you want, anything at all. All you have to do is ask for what you desire and I shall grant it.”

That made her mouth drop open.

"So what is it? What is it that you desire most? Tell me."

His fingers were gentle despite the claws, and he looked beautiful in the glow of the symbols on the floor. Now that he was closer, Rey was surprised to note that his skin wasn’t quite as pristine as she thought it earlier. Now that he wasn’t half-bathed in shadow, now that her eyes had adjusted to him in the darkness, she spied a smattering of moles peppered all along his chest and neck and face. Tiny imperfections, like someone had flicked paint from a brush onto his form just to smudge his features and render him all the more interesting.

Rey’s heart raced.

He was right: this form was pleasing to her.

He was the most handsome, the most beautiful, the most sinfully tempting thing she’d ever seen.

And somehow, he’d seen straight into her heart, only to pluck out her deepest, darkest desire and drag it straight into the light.

That was dangerous.

He was dangerous.

No.

No, she couldn’t allow herself this.

She blinked and shook her head. The warm, fuzzy feeling behind her eyes dissipated, and his smile slowly melted away when she did—as though he were disappointed she’d shaken off the spell he was weaving around her.

This couldn’t be happening.

But reality had come crashing back.

And no matter which way she sliced it, a demon was still standing before her, staring intently at her.

With his hand wrapped gently around her neck, like a collar.

“I…I-I’d rather not do this right now,” she finally stammered, swallowing nervously as she stepped out of his reach and turned towards her room. She didn’t know much, but she was certain of one thing:

The heat he’d coaxed into her cheeks with the offer he’d just presented her with was not good.

Rey grabbed the bralette and tank top she wore and gave them an anxious shake, barely cognizant of the cheddar cracker crumbs and leftover chocolate tumbling to her floors from the pocket between her tiny breasts. She threw up her hands. “I can’t handle having a demon in my living room right now. I mean—it’s just—” She huffed a bitter laugh. “It’s absurd. It’s a Thursday, for god’s sake! Who summons a demon on a Thursday?” And another. “I have work in the morning and a demon, a goddamned demon is standing in my living room. Are you fucking kidding me right now? I didn’t ask for this.” She cackled again, the laughter bubbling up more and more intensely the longer Kylo stood in front of her.

She was losing it.

She was losing her mind, and she was losing it fast.

That was the only thing that made sense.

“But—” The demon blinked, his deep confusion back in full force. “But you…did. You—you called to me. You asked for this. Yes?”

Rey doubled over in hysterics, clutching her bedroom door frame and wheezing through the panic.

This was absurd.

Absurd.

All she’d done was read some words off a piece of paper, and now? Now she had to deal with this?

The demon simply watched her devolve, his brows slowly knitting together.

“Do you not want to…” he trailed off, still watching her laugh. “Do you, er…do you not want to make a bargain?”

“Don’t you have any clothes?” Rey finally gasped, gesturing first at his chest and then between his legs. “Do you have a—a shirt or a cowl or a cloak or something you could wear? Maybe some fucking pants? What do demon lords even wear?”

“Some…what?” He shook his head. “No, I—bargains do not generally require clothing, and I—”

She wheezed again. She could barely breathe. “So you’re just going to stand there completely naked in the middle of my living room with your dick out?” She waved her hand around, flapping it wildly in the air. “Just like that? Hanging there for me to stare at? On proud display?”

That, of all things—the veritable one-eyed anaconda staring at her between his legs—was the last straw.

She broke.

But then, so did he.

It was his turn for his cheeks to redden, the blush sweeping all the way to the tips of his ears poking through his dark hair just beneath the curve of his horns. “I did not choose this form, mistress, you did,” he finally growled, pointing accusingly at her. “You tore me from the solace of my meditation, you summoned me here, and now you laugh? You mock me?” He crossed his arms over his chest and turned away to hide his face with an indignant huff.

Oh, so he was embarrassed?

Rey snorted again.

How cute.

Precious.

A little indignant demon.

Well…

Fine. A big one.

She did get a good look at his back in this position, however, and holy shit was he both wide and ripped. It was speckled with the same moles dotting his front, little bursts of darkness amongst the porcelain canvas of his skin, skipping across his shoulders like a rock across water.

At least her subconscious had excellent taste.

She allowed herself that.

Rey pointed down at the glowing circle around him. “You can’t leave that circle until I give you permission, can you?” She wasn’t an expert at demonology by any means, but she’d read enough monsterfucking romance books grounded in some sort of lore to know that she actually probably held a fair amount of power in this equation.

“No,” he grumbled, still refusing to look at her.

“Then why don’t you just go back to where you came from? I’m ordering you to do that now.”

That got him to turn. “I cannot,” he hissed, his eyes flaring angrily at her. “Once I have been summoned, a bargain is initiated, and I cannot leave until the terms have been fulfilled—and you cannot simply dismiss me.” He pointed at her hand. “The contract is already half-written, the binding already in place. Only when the terms are decided, when I deliver what you desire, and when you give me what I want—only then can I return to my plane. This is universal law. If you have summoned me, then you should know this.”

She glanced down at where he’d pointed. Symbols similar to the ones that had been on the paper tumbled across her hand, looping around her fingers and sweeping over more than half of her palm. They looked like they were written in ash, and when she tried to wipe them away on her shorts, they didn’t budge or smear. She looked back up at the demon.

“And what exactly is it you want?”

“Your soul.”

Rey quieted. Of course he wanted her soul. Why did she even bother asking? She crossed her own arms over her chest and leaned against her door frame. “My soul, huh?” she asked casually. “And why do you want that?”

“You promised it to me when you called me here.”

“And is that something you particularly need?”

“It is the only thing I am interested in, yes. I will never leave you until I possess it.”

“What would you even do with it?”

His eyes darkened. “That is none of your concern.”

She scrunched her nose at him. “Fine. I get it, you don’t want to talk about your problems, and you know what? I don’t either.” She turned towards the darkness of her room and waved an idle hand over her shoulder. If she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound, and she might as well make the best of it. She couldn’t just leave him there like that. She needed to actually use her living room at some point. It wasn’t practical. “You can step out of that circle as long as you never harm me. I don’t think you’d do that anyway, since you want my precious soul so bad, and I assume I’d have to be healthy for you to get it.”

As soon as she gave him permission, the symbols faded in the floor, their light finally extinguished. The demon closed his eyes before taking a single step outside of them, bracing himself with a flinch once he crossed the barrier. But when nothing happened, he blew a heavy breath through his cheeks and his shoulders slumped in relief. Rey rolled her eyes and turned back towards her room.

“Does this mean you agree to our bargain?”

She supposed she couldn’t fault him for the hope in his question.

“No. It just means that you don’t have to keep standing in the middle of my apartment buck-naked,” she called from her room. “And don’t come in here. Stay out there.”

First, she flipped the breakers in her closet that had been tripped earlier, and all the lights and electronics sprung back to life. A loud thump rumbled from her living room and was followed by a startled cry. She could feel the weight of the fallen demon reverberating through her bare feet.

Oh no.

“Shit,” she hissed. “Shit shit sh—”

Muffled, angry shouting and an aggressive thumping through the floor from the ceiling of the apartment below hers chased her cursing, and she knew.

That was it. That was what did it.

Finn was at the end of his rope.

Rey rubbed her temples with a groan. Between this and that weird earthquake earlier, her downstairs neighbor had to be royally pissed, and she sighed when she thought of the angry notes he’d probably tack to her door in the morning—or the furious pounding on it he might opt for instead, and that was only if he chose not to make a formal complaint with the complex. Finn usually had to be at work a lot earlier than she did and he didn’t even like her running her washing machine later than eight.

She found what she was looking for in her closet and stepped back into the living room. Her demon was sprawled out on the floor just outside his circle, staring at her lit floor lamp in mild terror and looking between it and where Finn had undoubtedly pounded a broomstick at his ceiling. While the symbols etched into the wooden planks around him no longer glowed, they hadn’t disappeared either.

Rey groaned and ran a hand across her face. “I am never getting my deposit back,” she muttered. “They are going to kick me out of this place so fast.”

“What is this magic?” Kylo whispered, pointing at the lights and the TV. “I have never seen the like.”

“Electricity,” she replied. “Lightning captured and run through wires in the wall.”

He gaped at her in horror. “You put lighting in the walls of your home? The power of a thunderstorm inside your house? Is—is this not incredibly dangerous?”

“I mean, I guess things start on fire sometimes, but mostly no?” She shrugged. “Can you summon clothing?” He shook his head, and she tossed him the pair of men’s grey Boston College sweatpants she’d stolen from an old fling in college. They hit him square in the face and tangled in his horns.

The guy had left them behind when he’d abandoned her in his dorm room after they’d had a one-night stand, and she’d taken them as payment for the sudden shitty ghosting.

“Put those on for now, though you might want to make yourself a little smaller and less…conspicuous before you do, or they won’t even remotely fit. And those are my favorite. I’ll be upset if you rip them.” She pointed at the shiny, black horns curling against his head like a goat’s. “And if my neighbor decides to come yell at me for all the noise we’ve been making, he’ll find those a bit much. Can you hide them?”

His horns almost perfectly matched the color of his dark hair, which was thick and wavy, tumbling elegantly around his face and falling nearly to his chin. He’d fit right in around Austin with all the hipsters. There always seemed to be something of an epidemic of man buns floating around, though his hair was far prettier and glossier than what she usually saw.

But then again, if he’d made himself just for her, of course it would be.

“You wish for me to look human, then?” the demon grumbled as he ran a hand through his hair. His horns dissolved beneath his palm and disappeared, followed swiftly by the claws and black shadows creeping up his arms. His skin warmed to a more natural color, and while he rolled his lips in displeasure and grunted, he still shrunk to a more reasonable size—though when he stood and slipped the sweatpants on, he still towered over her by nearly a foot, and they practically looked like capris on his long legs.

“Your eyes, too. They—”

As soon as the words crossed her lips, the flames in his irises extinguished with a blink and shifted to a molten hazel, dark brown at the center mixing with lighter green tones around the edges.

“Oh. Yeah. Like that.”

A human-looking man now stood in the space a demon had previously occupied.

He was still extremely handsome, but less otherworldly so, and it was a lot different looking at him now that he seemed perfectly normal. He appeared to be somewhere in his thirties, and the sweatpants, while still far too short, hung low on his hips and displayed large swaths of lithe, sculpted muscle across his torso. He slid his hands into the fleecy pockets before stepping forward and gazing down at her.

“Satisfied?” he asked, raising a brow curiously. She tried not to stare at the chiseled slope of his abs hovering just above the waistband. She wasn’t even particularly short and it was still closer to eye level than it had any right to be.

“I have not held human form for more than a millennium. It is…uncomfortable for me.”

“But a whole helluva lot easier for me to explain if anyone sees you, since you’d said you won’t leave me alone.” Rey tore her gaze away from his torso and searched his face. “But your scar—it’s really prominent. Is there anything you can do to—?”

“No.” He shook his head sharply and looked away from her. “No, there is…there is nothing I can do about that.”

He seemed offended, and Rey found herself feeling rather bad about having just called attention to something he obviously didn’t want to talk about and embarrassing a…guest? Stalker? Squatter? Whatever he was now.

Could you be rude to a demon?

“Oh. Uh…sorry. I didn’t mean to point that out or anything. That was insensitive of me.” She gestured to her couch. “Here, have a seat.” He obliged, looking somewhat lost as the cushions of the old couch sunk and struggled to accommodate his weight. Rey perched next to him and folded her legs underneath her. He still took up a good portion of the couch even though he’d shrunk himself, and she leaned over to her coffee table and grabbed the bowl of goldfish crackers mixed with plain M&M’s she’d been gorging on before he arrived.

“Do you eat?” she asked. “I’ve never met a demon before. I don’t exactly know what to do with one.” She offered it to him and he took it with a bemused look.

“And I’ve never had a summoner treat me like this before,” he responded, picking one of the crackers out between his fingertips and narrowing his eyes at it. He gave it a sniff and scowled. “Why does this fish smell of cheese?”

“Honestly, that’s an extremely good question. I have no idea why they made cheese fish. Technically, that might count as a culinary abomination.”

He popped it into his mouth and made a face as he chewed. “I can eat when I am embodied, though I am not usually here long enough to indulge in the practice. It is not how I am sustained.” He plucked an M&M out from the mix and rolled it between his fingertips before looking back up at her. “Will you sign my soul contract?”

Rey shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”

That surprised him, and hope briefly lit up his face. But he schooled his features back into submission quickly.

“‘Probably?’” he purred, leaning closer to her. “What is it you desire, then, my lady? Tell me.”

“Well, actually…that’s the part I don’t know. I don’t know what I want anymore. I used to, I guess, but now? Now I’ll have to think on it.”

He hummed in agreement. “That is perfectly acceptable. You do not have to know what you want to sign the contract.” He tapped the M&M on his bottom lip thoughtfully. “It has been many, many centuries since I have spent more than a passing moment in this world. Perhaps I might see how it has changed while you decide. That could be entertaining.” He glanced down at her out of the corner of his eye. “Still…you seem oddly apathetic for a human who has called me. Either they are eager to give me their soul, or they are exceedingly reticent.”

She shrugged again. “I mean, I don’t really believe in souls anyway, so I don’t think I much care about supposedly signing mine away. I’m more interested in seeing what you’ll do for it.”

The M&M clattered back into the bowl. “You—you have summoned a demon, and yet you do not believe in souls?” The look he gave her was incredulous. “That makes even less sense than what I usually hear from humans. Do you not believe in God?”

“No.”

“No?!” She didn’t think his eyes could grow any wider—though it was his excitement that was even more remarkable. He shifted closer to her on the couch and studied her with interest. “You say it so easily, and yet the church has not charged you with heresy? Or apostasy? Or burned you at the stake?” He leaned closer and sniffed just beneath her ear, his nostrils flaring. “Are you a witch?” he muttered. “You do not smell like one, though. You smell like…like something else.”

She ignored that. It had been a few days since she’d showered. “They don’t care if people don’t believe in God anymore, at least not here. You can believe in whatever you want. Supposedly, anyway.” She leaned back and rested her head on the top of the couch. “And if you spend enough time in the American foster care system, eventually the idea of God becomes like Santa Claus. At a certain point, you just stop believing when they’ve never once given you anything you’ve ever begged them for.”

He nodded sagely. “Well, that is only prudent. God is dead, after all. It died long ago. It won’t answer your prayers.” The corner of his mouth tugged up into a sly smile. “But I will.”

“I’m sure.”

He finally ate the M&M and made another face before shrugging and grabbing more of the cursed snack she’d dumped in the bowl earlier that evening. “Your food is strange.”

“We’re going to have to revisit that ‘God is dead’ assertion after I’ve had some sleep.” Rey turned to him and contemplated the curves of his face again now that she could see him properly in real light.

She didn’t often see men made like him these days. His brow sat heavy over his dark eyes, his shapely nose large, but too perfectly straight to be aquiline. His profile was more akin to a Roman sculpture housed in a museum than any of the bearded dudes sporting old-timey mustaches and riding fixies to coffee shops and craft breweries east of I-35.

“So Demon Lord Kylo Ren of the Eighth Circle of Hell, huh? That’s quite a name. Mine’s not so fancy.” She extended a hand. “I’m Rey Johnson.”

He frowned at her hand as though he couldn’t decide what to do with it. But when she made no move to retract it, he settled for taking it in his and turning it over with his fingers, lifting the back of it to his mouth and pressing it to his full lips. His skin was still oddly cool to the touch.

“You’re an interesting woman, Rey Johnson.”

“Just Rey.”

“Rey,” he murmured, wrapping his lips around her name as if it were something to be revered. The way he looked at her—a little too long, a little too intrigued—made her feel odd. When his thumb grazed softly against the back of her hand, she ripped it away from him and shot to her feet, smoothing the front of her tank top anxiously. Just her luck: she’d have unexpected company when she looked her worst and had been feeling at her lowest.

Of course.

“Look, uh…Kylo?” She winced at the name. It felt odd to call him something like that. While it might have suited the demon who’d first appeared to her in the darkness, it didn’t at all match the man sitting next to her now. “I know you just got here and all, and you’ve said you won’t leave, but I really need to go to bed. It’s two in the morning and I have to get up for work. I need to sleep. Do you? Need to sleep, I mean.”

He shook his head. “No. I have spent more than five hundred years meditating in my sanctum, waiting to be summoned. I do not need any additional rest.” He put the bowl back down on her coffee table and ran his hands along his thighs, probably trying to rub away the feeling of the salt and oil from the crackers onto the sweatpants.

All it did was call her attention to how thick and sturdy his legs were.

Like tree trunks.

They reminded her of the men’s thighs in that sexy French rugby player calendar she got back when she—

Rey shook her head to clear it.

“Well, I need quite a lot—more than what I’m going to get tonight. You’re not going to hurt me if I go to sleep, are you?”

The demon held up his right hand. Light flashed, and gold symbols matching her black ones burst into view, twisting and curling around his fingers and the upper portion of his wide palm in the same place as they did on her own hand. But on his, a stray line of gold tinged with red ran down the back of his hand and encircled his wrist like a handcuff.

“Why would I harm you? I am bound to you while I am here. I would never hurt the carrier of the soul I desire, since that might damage it in turn. I need it intact. And they are delicate, precious things.”

“Uh…right.”

Rey really should have felt far more afraid of him, if anything she ever thought she knew about demons was true. He wanted her soul, for fuck’s sake. And yet…

And yet, almost from the moment she’d accidentally summoned him to her apartment, she’d somehow found him far less threatening than most men she’d gone out on first dates with, especially whenever she met them on dating apps.

Perhaps the difference was that he seemed to have a great respect for boundaries.

And he also seemed to listen to her.

Intently, even.

“Well, you can stay out here and take the couch, then. Like I said, I have work in the morning, so don’t come into my room. I mean that.” She stood and eyed him carefully, pointing at her piles of books as she moved towards her door again, but he made no move to follow. He simply watched her, his eyes tracking every movement. “If you don’t need to sleep, you can read or figure out the TV or something, I don’t know. Just don’t make any noise and try not to wake me. Bathroom’s over there and water’s in the kitchen.”

He stared at her blankly as if she’d spoken an alien language, and it finally occurred to her that he’d probably never seen modern plumbing before. She stepped behind her island and grabbed a glass, filling it in the sink and making sure he watched how she did it before she walked back around and pressed it into his hand. “We can talk about this soul contract or whatever tomorrow.”

“Yes…” he trailed off as he stared blankly at the glass she’d given him. “Tomorrow.”

Rey walked over to her door and slid into her room, peering cautiously through the crack. “Goodnight.”

“Good…night?”

She closed it behind her, locked it with a click, and slid her back down it to sit on the floor. Light poured through the gap beneath the door, but no shadows approached. It appeared he wasn’t going to try to follow her to bed after all, despite what he’d insinuated about pleasure earlier in their conversation. She hadn’t forgotten. She blew out a deep breath.

What the hell was she going to do with the confused demon sitting on her couch?

And more importantly, what the hell was she going to do with him when she had to leave for work tomorrow?

Chapter Text

It wasn’t her alarm that woke Rey in the morning.

It was the pounding on her front door.

She jerked awake so hard she fell out of bed in a tangled heap of sheets on the floor, and she scrambled to her feet, stumbling as she lurched towards her bedroom door. The pounding stopped as soon as her fingers wrapped around the handle, and she heard Finn’s muffled, angry voice filter through from the other side.

Oh no, oh fuck, are you kidding—

She yanked her door open and paled.

The black scorch marks from last night were still snaking all over her floor—and even worse, the demon she’d accidentally summoned was standing at her front door, still wearing those grey sweatpants slung low over his hips, blinking and scowling while Finn yelled up at him.

“I don’t care what you think, I live below this apartment and I hear everything! Where’s Rey? And who the hell are you? She never has anyone over. REY!”

The demon’s face darkened. “She’s—”

“Right here,” Rey panted, stumbling over and trying to shove Kylo away from the door. But it was no use. He only dug his heels in, refusing to budge, and pushed back instead. She gritted her teeth and pressed her arm against his side, hoping she was making her point. 

This was her home.

Her door to answer.

“Hey Finn, good morning!” She shot him a bright smile and attempted to block the doorway, taking a step forward in an attempt to block the demon standing with his chest puffed out beside her—not that she was tall enough to fully conceal him by any means. She’d already forgotten how big he was, even in human form. “How are you today?”

“Tired, Rey,” he growled, glaring at her. “Fucking tired, and do you know why?”

“Oh. Yeah, sorry about that, we didn’t mean—”

“All night, Rey. All fucking night you were knocking around up here! Footsteps and banging and loud thuds. The ceiling shook more than once! I don’t appreciate plaster raining down on my bed like that! I kept waiting for it to stop because I didn’t want to interrupt in case you—” He rubbed his face tiredly, and Rey took the opportunity to jab Kylo in the ribs with her elbow. He’d been hovering far too close to her, and he grunted before finally stepping aside with a glare.

“I am so sorry about that. We didn’t mean to be so loud, it really was an accident, and—”

“Who is this guy anyway? Did you get a boyfriend or something? Because if so, maybe you need to go stay at his place when you want to spend the night together, because I swear, I don’t want to listen to any weird sex stuff ag—”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” she shouted, and everyone stilled. “He’s, uh…this is…” She thought furiously. Finn, while cranky in the mornings, was actually one of the closer friends she’d made since moving to Austin, and he was exceedingly nosy. And the name of her demon was so weird, even by Austin’s standards. “This is Ky…”

No, Kyle didn’t fit, he was too dark to be a Kyle. Kyles were golden retrievers at best and the douchiest frat-bros-turned-finance-Chads at worst.

“R—re—”

Nope, not Ren, either. That didn’t sound right.

“Ben. This is Ben.” She put a hand on the demon’s chiseled shoulder and patted it lightly, hoping she recovered quickly enough. Ben was a name. Ren, Ben, it was close. “He’s a friend from college and he’s staying with me for a bit. On my couch. While he looks into moving here.”

“Uh-huh.” Finn narrowed his eyes. “Ben. And he’s just a friend, huh? Another Austin transplant?” He glared up at Ben and pointed angrily at his chest again. “We don’t really need more people moving here, you know. Traffic is already fucked, and it’s not at all like you think it is when you just come in for South-by.”

When Ben didn’t respond as though he knew what the festival was, Finn’s gaze darted suspiciously between the two of them before dropping down the demon’s torso. Rey’s cheeks reddened when her eyes followed Finn’s and she spied the little dusting of dark hair trailing down from beneath the demon’s bellybutton. She hadn’t noticed it before, lost as it was among all the other things to look at, but…

He really had made himself just for her, hadn’t he?

And it was exceedingly clear he wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Maybe the only thing about himself he hadn’t shrunk last night was between his legs.

She grabbed the door. “We’ll be polite and quiet from now on, I promise. So sorry about the noise, it won’t happen again. I hope you didn’t dent the ceiling, please don’t report me to the complex, I’ll make it up to you somehow.” She laughed nervously. “But you’ve got work, so do I, so does Ben, and we’ve got to get ready. Have a nice day, and I’ll—”

Finn put his hand on the door when she tried to push it closed. “Just keep it down, alright?” His face shifted rapidly from annoyance to hope. At least he was quick to forgive. “And are you still in for my next game night? You can make it up to me that way. And by bringing snacks.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll be there.”

“You’ve been promising to come for a while now. You’re not gonna flake again?”

“No, no, I’ll be there this time, I swear.” Finn had been inviting her to come over and play games with his friends for the last few months, but she hadn’t mustered up the energy to make a single one, always saying she needed to work instead. That was sometimes true.

Sometimes it wasn’t.

Sometimes she just couldn’t leave the couch.

“Cool. And—” Finn’s eyes landed on her floors and widened. “Hey, wait, what did you do to your apartment? Is that even allowed with our rental agree—”

“Okay, nice chat, I’ll see you later, haveagooddayBYE!” Rey shut the door in Finn’s face and locked it, resting her back against it and hiding her face in her hands. She waited until she heard his footsteps retreat down the stairs to his apartment below and drew in several deep, calming breaths.

Oh god.

Last night hadn’t been a dream after all. There’d been a part of her holding out hope that she’d simply eaten too much cheese before going to bed and then imagined the whole thing.

“‘Ben?’” The demon’s deep voice rumbled close to her ear, as if he’d known what she was thinking and had chosen that exact moment to shatter her tenuous grip on reality. “You called me…Ben? That is what you wish to name me?”

She drew her hands away from her face and glared at the gigantic and offensively attractive man standing in front of her. “I can’t go around announcing to my friends and neighbors that I have a demon called Kylo Ren living in my apartment. No one has that kind of name. It sounds like something an incel edgelord might call his chaotic evil asshole warlock character in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.” She winced as soon as the thought escaped her lips. She hadn’t meant for it to sound that bad.

But he didn’t look offended in the slightest, probably because he hadn’t understood a word of it. All he did was tilt his head curiously at her and shift closer.

“Such a name as Ben still exists? And it’s what you’d like to call me?” He rested a hand on the door behind her and leaned down to look her in the eye.

“I, uh…” Rey had an excellent view of his chest from here, all the hard planes and ridges of muscle sculpted across its bare expanse. Her mouth went dry. He really did have fair skin, and she shoved away the sudden urge to put her mouth to one of the moles contrasting against it. She swallowed nervously. “I don’t have to call you that. It’s a really old, really traditional sort of name, I guess. And there are still plenty of Bens out there. If you don’t like it, I can always—”

“I don’t mind. You may call me whatever you like. If the name Ben pleases you, then it pleases me greatly—and I shall claim it as mine.” The fire that had danced in his eyes last night flared again briefly, and Rey’s cheeks warmed at the sight. “I do quite like it.”

“Oh. Alright, then. Ben it is.”

Too close.

Mere inches separated her lips from his sinfully plush ones, and even that distance was diminishing by the second as Ben slid his hand down the door behind her and lowered his face to hers.

He was too close.

Rey darted out from under his arm, sliding backwards towards her kitchen—where she finally caught sight of the time from the microwave clock. “Shit!” she cried, darting back into her room and yanking her closet doors open. “I’m going to be late!” She grabbed the cleanest clothes she could find, sniffing and holding their crumpled armpits up to her nose and picking the ones that still smelled the most like deodorant and the least like sweat before sprinting to the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind her.

“Late for what?” Ben’s voice called from the other side. Shadows shifted beneath the door frame and Rey groaned as she lifted the lid of the toilet and shook her head.

“Work!”

“As a scholar, do you not make your own hours?”

“You don’t need to hover outside like that while I’m trying to pee!” she called. Were all demons this clingy, or just the one she was lucky enough to get saddled with? “And I’m not a scholar. I work for a tech company, and I have to be at my desk in thirty minutes.”

There was a pause before he spoke again. “Why must you work? Does your father not take care of you? Or your brother, or uncle, or…?” He trailed off. “It’s clear you do not have a husband, or I would have words with him.”

Her frustrated groan was almost drowned out by the flushing of the toilet, and she lunged next for her toothpaste, continuing to talk while she brushed her teeth. “I don’t have any family,” she spat. “But that’s beside the point. Women work outside of the house now. I make my own money.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “May I come with you?”

“Absolutely not!” she shrieked. “I can’t bring you with me to Theta!”

“Why not? We still need to discuss our contract.”

“Because you’re not authorized and I can’t get you past security. You’re not an employee and they don’t just allow anyone to walk through their doors. At the very least, you need ID to get in as a guest, and I’m sure you don’t have that.”

She rinsed her mouth out and threw her hair into a high, messy bun before glancing in the mirror, lamenting the fact that she’d have to go without makeup and muddle through the day with just her freckles and the dark circles under her eyes yet again. Though she did grab a tube of mascara and swipe it quickly across her lashes before tugging on a pair of black jeans and a clean-ish blouse. Heavy on the ish.

“And that’s not even counting the fact that you don’t have any clothes to wear!” she shouted to the door. “You can’t leave the apartment just in those grey sweatpants. You’d be arrested for indecency.” Okay, well, maybe not in Austin, but in most other Texas cities. There was that one guy who regularly rode his bicycle in nothing but a leopard print thong downtown and he always seemed fine.

When she yanked the door open, he was standing there, towering and looming darkly, and she shoved him out of her way. Was this going to be her new normal? No personal space ever again? At least he’d respected her wishes about not going into her bedroom.

“I should come with you to your work. We are bound.” He held up his palm where the gold script had been. It flashed again briefly before fading away. Hers, on the other hand, hadn’t. The black marks were still there. “It will be painful for both of us if we’re too far away from each other.”

“I told you no.”

“If you didn’t want me here, you shouldn’t have called for me by name.”

“Well, that was an accident, now wasn’t it?”

His brows knit together. “That is not my fault.”

Rey grabbed a pair of boots and shoved them over her feet while looking around for her phone again. Where the hell was it? “I don’t live far from work. Can you handle a few miles of distance?”

The demon’s concerned look deepened. “Perhaps, temporarily,” he muttered, shaking his head. “But I don’t like—”

“There it is!” she cried, finally spotting the glass screen glinting from between her couch cushions. She grabbed it and groaned again when she looked at its battery percentage. Nearly dead.

Ben stalked over to her and pointed down at the iPhone. “What is that infernal thing? It kept making noise last night.”

“Cell phone.” Rey shoved it into her pocket and clipped her Theta company badge to her belt loop. “I’ll explain when I get home later. You entertained yourself while I slept, right? Surely you can do it again while I’m gone. What did you do, anyway?”

When she asked the question, she stilled and finally glanced around her apartment. While the scorch marks from the magic were still carved deeply into her floors (she’d have to come up with an explanation for Finn later, maybe he’d accept that they were temporary decals that looked real and wouldn’t tell their apartment management), the rest of it looked cleaner than it had in months—or maybe ever. The books she’d torn off her shelf had been neatly replaced and alphabetized by genre, the crumbs that had fallen out of her bra had been swept away, and her kitchen was spotless. Her battered stainless steel appliances shone.

She turned back to the demon. “Did you do all this?”

“Yes. I was bored, so I also read all the books you own. Your myths are entertaining. Especially the one about Hell—it is not like that at all. Except for perhaps the ninth circle.” Ben motioned towards her copy of Dante’s Inferno. He pointed next at her Fagles translation of the Odyssey. “And it has been some time since I last read that. I didn’t know you’d still tell such ancient stories, even if it’s better in the original language. But this one…” He tugged her copy of Outlander off the shelf and held it out to her with a wry smirk, a single dimple carved deep into his cheek. “This one I liked best.”

She took it from him, more and more bemused by the second. “You did? Why this one?”

His smile faded slightly and his heavy brows twitched together again. “I am…not sure,” he replied softly. His eyes met hers, his gaze warm and molten, like whiskey mixed with chocolate. He had really long, dark lashes. “It seemed familiar. Perhaps it reminds me of something.”

“I don’t need that right now. You hang onto it.” Rey cleared her throat and thrust the book back into his hands. “I’ll get you some more stuff to read if you want, I promise. But for now, let’s do this.” She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. He jumped in surprise when the screen zapped into being, and she flipped through the channels until she landed on the Food Network.

“Here,” she said, holding up the remote and pointing at the buttons, turning the sound down while someone made sushi in the background. “Push these to change the sound, these to change the moving pictures, and this one to turn it off and on. You’ll learn a lot about the world this way. Just don’t watch too closely whenever a man is being a dick. And don’t copy anything you see unless it’s cooking, alright? Just because it’s on TV doesn’t mean it’s good. Maybe just stick to the History Channel and Food Network.”

“‘Good’ is not a universal concept in any case.” Ben raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think?”

“I can’t get into a debate on moral relativism before I’ve had coffee.” Rey grabbed her keys and her work bag and opened the front door, motioning around the apartment. “Don’t leave this space. Eat whatever you want. Do not go outside. That’s an order—you have to obey my orders, right?”

He didn’t respond. He only looked at her.

Rey sighed for what felt like the thousandth time since last night. “Whatever. I’ll be back this evening.”

She slammed the door behind her and sprinted towards her old, battered Prius.

Already off to an appropriately chaotic start.

“Oh my god Rey, you’re so late this morning, Mitaka’s gonna blow a gasket if he—whoa! You look exhausted.”

“Thanks for pointing that out, Rose, much appreciated.”

Rey raced to her cubicle, a steaming cup of coffee with about seven sugars and a healthy glug of cream added from one of the company’s bodegas clutched tightly between her fingers, with Rose trotting just behind and struggling to keep up on her much shorter legs.

The coffee was one of the many perks the Empire Group had built into the Theta headquarters: little cafes on every floor, filled to the brim with snacks and drinks, hot and cold, healthy and not, and all of them free. It was one of the ways Theta kept its employees working in the office for longer hours, but it didn’t stop Rey from filling her pockets and taking an obnoxious amount of them home with her most days.

If part of her pay was in the form of “free” snacks, then by god, was she going to eat them.

Rey lifted the cup to her lips and chugged the sugary, caffeinated ambrosia, ignoring how it scalded her throat as it went down. They only had another ninety seconds before their morning standup team meeting, and she needed all the help she could get while Mitaka prattled on about their latest client briefs and made them all recite the minutia of their to-do lists for the day, coffee-sloshed-onto-her-shirt be damned.

“Yeah, well, I had a late night,” she finally gasped to her work-wife when she came up for air. Rose was a balm, and she was eternally thankful that both of them had been hired at the company around the same time. She was short and plucky, with a round face, jet-black hair, and a take-no-shit attitude Rey needed infinitely more of on a daily basis.

“The good kind?” Rose asked with a waggle of her eyebrows. She knew full well that Rey was swiping on dating apps again, even if she didn’t know the extent of how horribly that was going.

“Truthfully, I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh!” Rose shrieked, eagerly bouncing on the balls of her feet as they rounded the corner to their meeting. “You’ll need to tell me more about it at lunch. If I’m going to be single as all hell, one of us needs to live vicariously through the—”

“Hey Tico! Johnson! Get in here!”

“Coming, Mitaka!”

They trotted into the conference room and slid into their seats right at nine, Rey just barely managing not to slosh the other half of her coffee all over her already-wrinkled blouse. She dropped her bag at her feet and opened her laptop while her manager, Mitaka, stood at the head of the table and began his usual self-aggrandizing speech about their projects and the metrics their client support team was supposed to hit this quarter. Same old, same old.

It was always like this, every single morning, day in and day out. Soulless droning about profitability and client satisfaction, none of which she truly gave two shits about. She was an exceedingly good copywriter, and for what? For this? And besides that, she didn’t care what everyone else had on their to-do lists. None of it really mattered. It was all corporate posturing, everyone trying to look busy and indispensable for their manager so that their heads weren’t on the chopping block when the next round of layoffs came.

Rey hated these meetings.

When someone else started in on plans they had to collaborate with software engineering on some new project, her attention wavered. She looked down and caught sight of her hand again. The odd symbols from last night were still there, still stained dark against her skin, and the more she looked at them, the odder they were.

God, she really must have been exhausted—because the more she stared, the more those symbols seemed to vibrate, their shapes shimmering and twitching as if they wanted to stretch themselves and climb right out of her skin. Heat began to rise around her fingers, and she only had time to frown at the sensation before a sudden sharp pain shot through her hand. She yelped and jumped out of her seat in surprise.

When she looked up, her entire team had fallen silent. Everyone was staring at her.

“Something you want to add, Rey?” Mitaka snapped. “Have any concerns about the marketing campaign you’re running?”

“No. No, everything’s going fine on that front. I’ve got the prospective client contact list put together and I’m already drafting email copy for the first round.” She clutched her hand to her chest and her manager’s gaze followed.

“Did you get a new tattoo or something?” He narrowed his eyes at her and jutted his chin at her hand. “I don’t remember you having any before.”

She shook her head. “No, not yet. Just…trying it out. Inkbox drawing.”

“Inkbox?”

“Yeah, you ever heard of Inkbox?” Why was her voice suddenly so high-pitched? That was weird, right? Oh god, she was acting weird. She tried to laugh it off, though now she was wondering how long she might have these symbols scrawled all over her hand. Would it be as long as she kept her soul, or would they stay even after it was gone? “They’re a company that sends you a special stain to try out tattoo ideas. Fades after two weeks, thought it might be cool.”

“Ah, okay. I see. Have a seat so we can get back to the meeting.” He waved her away absently and they all continued with the standup.

It was a relief when she could wander over to claim her usual cubicle. Company policy was that most people didn’t have dedicated workstations, and everyone was more or less itinerant instead, choosing to vary where they worked every day in order to “encourage more regular and spontaneous collaboration.” Or so their Empire Group corporate overlords said, anyway. But unofficially, most people defaulted to the same places. Rey and Rose had decorated cubicles next to one another, strategically claimed in a sunny corner near a window overlooking downtown. Paper cutouts of daisies and hand-lettered literary quotes adorned the walls of Rey’s, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she slid into her chair.

But it was short-lived.

“Hey, Johnson. Can I talk to you for a second?”

She winced and looked up. Mitaka had followed them over, and he always insisted on using last names with his team for some reason. Perhaps it was because no one was allowed to call him by his first. Rose shot her a worried look and then stepped away, giving them the semblance of privacy. But Rey knew she’d be straining to listen with every fiber of her being.

“Yes?”

“Look, I know there’s been a lot of restructuring in the company since you first started with Theta about a year and a half ago, but I’ve noticed that your performance has been slipping as of late.”

“Slipping?” Panic rose in her chest. “What do you mean?”

“You aren’t hitting your metrics. We haven’t seen as much of an uptick in new client adoption of our ad sales from your campaigns as we need to in order to hit the quotas leadership is expecting.” He drew in a deep breath and sighed as if he were very disappointed in her.

“I don’t know if that’s my fault, Mitaka. With the economy the way it is, everyone’s pulling back on spending, and since the higher-ups decided to increase the costs of our ad tiers, I noticed that—”

“You showed so much promise when you came on board and you came so highly recommended, we had a lot of hope that you’d be able to hack it here at Theta. But I’m hearing rumblings of more company layoffs coming soon.” Mitaka drummed his fingers idly along the top of her cubicle. “You don’t want your employee number to come up in the next round, do you?”

“Well, no, of course not, but—” A layoff now would be devastating. She had so many loans to pay, and almost no savings to speak of. Austin was expensive, and getting more so by the day.

“Then you’d better get to it. I’ll put in a good word for you with management, but only if you hustle with my campaign. I want to see results trending upward by the end of the quarter. That’s in a few weeks, Johnson.”

He walked away before she could respond, and Rose stomped angrily back over to their corner once he was out of earshot, her nails pressing furious indents into the spongy cubicle wall when she grabbed it.

“God, what a dick,” she spat. “He’s acting like he came up with this whole thing in the first place.” She made a disgusted noise. “‘My campaign.’ Fucking prick. This was your idea. You had the idea, you created it, and you designed the strategy. Why is he taking credit?”

Rey sighed and shook her head. “He always does this. You remember last year when I generated the concept for the Theta Thanksgiving pitch? He didn’t even put my name in the credits on the Powerpoint. He just added, ‘and the rest of the Marketing Team.’”

“Ugh, I forgot about that. That’s how they get into management roles, isn’t it? Claiming the credit for the true talent and doing jack-all themselves.” She put a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “But don’t let him get you down. Your copy for this campaign is brilliant. You’re an incredible writer. This place is too small for you—you should be using those talents elsewhere.”

“Thanks, Rose. You too, honestly. This is one of the biggest social media companies on the planet, but I appreciate the sentiment.” She smiled gratefully at her and plugged her phone into her laptop to charge. After a moment, it sprang to life, and the screen filled with notifications. Rey groaned as Rose slid into the chair next to her.

“Oh Jesus, did you forget to charge your phone last night or something? Was it that good?”

“It was definitely something,” Rey muttered. She dismissed several unimportant alerts and cringed when she got to all the angry text messages Finn had sent her last night. No wonder he’d pounded so hard on the ceiling last night—and the door this morning. She was going to need to buy him cookies or something to placate him. At least he had a sweet tooth she could exploit.

Rose peered over her shoulder while Rey swiped to the next set of notifications. “Oh yeah, how are the dating apps going? Heard anything else from that hot lawyer?”

“Not really. Well, I mean, yes,” she shrugged. “We’re still mostly just talking about film, but we haven’t gotten to the scheduling-a-real-date stage yet, since he says he’s working on a big project. Lots of billable hours, burning the midnight oil, that kind of thing. The one I have on Saturday is with someone else.”

“Oooh, let me see. Is he cute?” Rose motioned for her phone and Rey tapped into the chat history before handing it over. “His name is…Snap? That’s, uh,” she pursed her lips and swept them to the side. “That’s something.”

Rey peered over her cubicle wall to make sure Mitaka hadn’t decided to double back and crash their decidedly not work-appropriate conversation. “Yeah, he’s not that cute, but he says his politics are liberal and he wasn’t posing with any tigers in his photos. And he actually managed to propose a day, location, and time for a date. Maybe I’ll at least get a drink out of it.”

She’d completely forgotten she was supposed to go on a first date with someone new this weekend, and truthfully, she hadn’t given him a second thought since the events of last night. But the reminder came crashing back now that she was staring at his latest message on Hinge (“still on for saturday at easy tiger?”) nestled just above the one from the hot lawyer telling her about rewatching his favorite Park Chan-wook movie he’d last night and wanting to know if she’d seen it. She hadn’t.

She liked movies just as much—if not more than—the next person, but having Wikipediaed the synopsis of Oldboy, she definitely didn’t think it would’ve helped with her mindset yesterday.

Rey fired off two quick responses, the first a terse “yes,” the second in the negative before turning back to Rose. “To be honest, I don’t know if I’m feeling up to it. I should probably cancel on him, shouldn’t I?”

Before Rose could answer, a text message pinged through, and Rey blanched, trying to swipe it away before her friend could see—but it was too late. Rose had already snatched her phone out of her hands.

“Oh my god, is Beau still texting you? Are you shitting me? You need to block him.”

Rey sighed and held out her hand for her phone so she could read the message from her ex. “I’ve tried,” she muttered. “He just gets another number and starts in again.”

“Then change yours.”

“I shouldn’t have to. You know what a pain that is. I don’t want to have to go through that.” She pulled up the text.

Unknown | Rey, this is Beau again. Can we please talk? I don’t know what I did wrong. I just want to see you.

The better question would have been what did he do right? They weren’t even together that long, Rey knew she wasn’t in love with him, and she never would be. She’d only really gone out with him for a few months, and mostly because they’d actually met in person at a friend’s party, he’d asked her out, and she was available. It was the most milquetoast, mediocre liaison she’d ever had in a long series of mediocre sometimes-boyfriends and even more mediocre sex, and once she realized nothing was ever going to improve, she’d cut ties.

Beau hadn’t taken it well.

Three months later and he was still begging.

Rey scowled at the message and swiped to block and delete.

“Don’t cancel on Snap.” Rose leaned over and tapped the phone screen insistently. “You need to keep getting out there, even if that one’s not as cute as the hot lawyer. Let me see the lawyer’s picture again?” Rey showed her and Rose gave a low whistle. “I mean, he’s good-looking, right? And tall? And probably really gainfully employed?” She nodded and Rose leaned over, tapping the screen to scroll up and down his profile. “Nary a fish pic in sight. Great spelling and grammar, good taste in music, has interests in common with you, photos seem to be recent, and doesn’t say that he’s, ‘Looking for someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.’ Those are all green flags.”

“I guess so.” The main problem was that he didn’t seem quite as attractive now as he had earlier in the week, and Rey wrinkled her nose when she looked at the photo of him wearing a plaid shirt outside at a craft brewery. He was just fine.

“Use Snap as a warmup for this one. You’ve only just put yourself out there for real this time, Reybs. You need to get your sea legs back. Go. And at the very least, you’ll get to talk to someone new as practice, right?”

“Yeah. Right.”

At her unenthused answer, Rose smacked her on the shoulder. “Hey. You doing ok? Or was the sex you had last night so good that everything else pales in comparison now and you can’t even think straight?”

“I didn’t have sex last night, Rose.”

“Then what the hell were you doing, and why do you look so exhausted? It sounded like something interesting happened.” Rose scowled at her. “How dare you lead me on. I got all excited for some proper tea over nothing?”

Rey huffed and opened her laptop again. She already had thirty-five new unread emails this morning, not even counting all the notifications from her team flying back and forth on their company’s messaging software. “I stayed up late watching The Good Place and eating too much salt and sugar. Alone. Wasn’t anything remarkable.” There was no way she was telling Rose the truth.

“And drawing on your hand?” Rose pointed at the weird markings winding around Rey’s fingers. “I’m a little mad that you didn’t tell me about the tattoo idea before. Can I see?”

“Sure.” Half the company was covered in tattoos and piercings, and she and Rose were almost exceptional for not having any. Neither of them even sported vividly dyed hair. She let Rose take a closer look at her half-finished demon binding.

“What is this?” Rose ran her fingers over the strange symbols. “It’s cool. Looks like it means something special.”

“I don’t know, exactly. Just something I saw in a book once. Thought it might look good.” Another jolt of pain suddenly shot through her arm and her fingers twitched.

“You sure something’s not wrong?” Rose looked up at her friend in concern. “That’s the second time you’ve jumped like that.”

Shit. Was something wrong? Did Ben try to go somewhere—or had Rey strayed too far from him? She glanced nervously out of the window. All she had to do was get through the day and then she could regroup at home. With a demon, of course, but he seemed nice enough, all things considered. Comparatively, anyway. At least he obviously liked to read, and he’d been very quiet last night—so quiet, she’d actually been able to drift off for a handful of hours, even after such an odd experience.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She shook her hand out and turned back to her laptop. “Just some muscle spasms or something.”

Rey managed to make it through the workday, and she bolted out of the office at six on the dot, throwing herself into her car and practically speeding through rush hour traffic to the nearest Target. She made a beeline for the men’s section, and after throwing everything she could possibly think of into her shopping cart and then some, she checked out and raced home, huffing up her apartment’s stairs with armfuls of plastic bags stuffed to the brim.

She was just about to fumble with her keys at the lock when her door was suddenly yanked open by a large, brooding demon with big, hazel eyes.

“Quit opening the door like that,” she snapped.

He only huffed and took the bags from her, plucking them all away in one hand. That was hardly fair. His were large enough to hold all the bags she’d needed both arms to carry. “Why?”

“Because you don’t know who’ll be on the other side, and I’m not exactly keen to keep coming up with stories about who you are. I didn’t ask for you to be squatting in my apartment.”

“But I knew it was you. And yes, you did ask me to come here. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

She rolled her eyes and followed him inside, tossing her keys onto the entry table and letting her work bag fall heavily to the ground. He hadn’t needed to point out that detail yet again. Exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks, and she flopped down on the couch and covered her eyes with her arm. A cooking show was still playing on the TV with the sound muted across from her.

The rustling of plastic bags brought her attention back to the matter at hand. “I bought you some clothes,” she muttered. “I hope they fit—or that they’re at least good enough to get you out of the house so we can go shopping or something. But I’m not made of money you know, so I don’t know how long I can keep supporting you. Living in Austin’s expensive, and I have student loans to pay off.”

The couch shifted and sagged by her head as Ben sat next to her. “I could fix that for you. Did you think about what you desire today?”

She uncovered her eyes and looked up at him. He held one of the plain black t-shirts she’d bought him and was examining it with interest, his long, thick fingers plucking awkwardly at the tags still attached to it. Something was different, and it took her a second to work it out.

His accent had faded since this morning.

She pushed herself up and took the shirt from his hands, ripping the tags out and off with quick snaps of her wrist. “You’re not speaking as stiffly and your accent’s different. You sound more American and more modern than you did last night. Why is that?” Rey handed it back to him and he tugged it over his head. Luckily, the XXL she’d gotten fit him, though a part of her found herself missing the sight of his chiseled bare torso after all.

He pointed at the TV. “I watched the moving portrait box like you suggested and imitated what I heard. I could try to make you one of the meals I saw, if you’d like. You don’t have much stored in your larder, though.”

Alright, so maybe his vocabulary hadn’t quite caught up to his accent.

Ben pointed at her fridge next. He wasn’t wrong. Rey wasn’t much of one for cooking, and she usually only kept leftovers and cheese in there. Theta provided free lunches every day in the cafeteria. “I would need to visit your garden and find a butcher, if you don’t have livestock,” he continued. “Or perhaps there’s a market nearby?”

Rey stared at him. He almost sounded like he’d grown up here. “Honestly, it’s remarkable. You’ve adapted that quickly?”

“I’m a quick learner.” His lips tilted up into another smirk. One wry dimple carved into his cheek.

Those dimples were dangerous.

“Yeah, I gathered. I’ve never seen anyone read that fast.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never seen a human read that fast. I’m not human.” He picked up the remote and turned the TV off. “At least, I haven’t been for a very, very long time.”

“Wait. You mean you used to—”

“So about our contract—”

“Hold on just a minute.” They’d spoken at the same time, and Rey held up a hand to cut him off. “You used to be human?”

It was his turn to sigh and look away. “All demons start out as normal humans. I’m not a special case.” He pulled another of the plastic bags into his lap and started digging around in it, but didn’t seem particularly enthused about anything he found there.

“How many of you are there?”

“Not as many as you’d think. There are only nine of us that I know of. It’s not exactly easy to become a demon.”

“How long have you been one?”

Ben stopped his rustling and stared off into the distance. He was silent for a long while before he frowned. “I…don’t really know. I don’t remember. No one’s ever asked me before.”

That seemed odd. Rey reached over and took the bag of clothes away from him. Her fingers brushed against his, and she noticed that his hands were still far colder than they ought to be. “Are you dead? Are demons…an undead thing?”

“What?” He looked at her curiously before chuckling. “No, Rey. Demons are an energy. What can’t die can’t be undead.”

“Then how do you have a body if you’re an—an energy?”

“I already told you: you gave me one. You called me here, and your will gave me a body.” He leaned forward and shifted the bag to the couch to take both of her hands in his. His gaze was sharp and intense, and his fingers were cool and soothing on her burning hands. It had been really hot in her car. “And for the record? I find it very uncomfortable being bound to a physical form like this.” He swept his thumbs on the backs of her hands and she had to suppress a shiver. “So I would like to discuss how to get myself out of it. Can we talk about the contract today?”

“Oh. Alright.”

Her stomach dropped. He didn’t particularly want to be here. And maybe he didn’t particularly want to be here with her.

She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t particularly want to be here with her either.

And on top of that, she had sort of abandoned him all day, and last night, and she did keep telling him how much she didn’t want him there, and how inconvenient he was. Rey hadn’t really considered how it might feel to be on the receiving end of those sorts of sentiments.

Actually, that was a lie.

She had.

She’d heard them all her life.

It felt terrible.

“I’m sorry, Ben. I didn’t mean to leave you here alone all day. You must want to go home. You’re right: I did call you here, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have read those words out loud if I didn’t know what they were. That was dumb, and I don’t really know why I felt like I had to.” She squeezed his hands and let them drop. “Let’s have a look at your contract.”

His face brightened and he swept a hand through the air. Sparks trailed in its wake, and they coalesced into a shimmering rectangle that solidified before her eyes into an unfurled roll of parchment. Red, looping letters skated across the scroll in flourishing, calligraphic handwriting, and as Rey watched, the letters there shifted from a language she couldn’t read into English. It floated down towards her and she plucked it from the air. It felt solid and real between her fingertips, and she read through it quickly.

It was simple and straightforward enough. The demon lord Kylo Ren, also known in this incarnation as “Ben,” agreed to provide her with whatever her heart desired most in exchange for possession and ownership of her soul. She could determine what it was she most desired at her leisure, and he would stay embodied for as long as it took her to decide and for him to grant it. Once it was granted, he would become her soul’s new primary steward and would take it away from her to do with what he willed once her mortal life ended.

Rey looked up from the contract. “So what happens after I lose possession of my soul?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it possible to live without one?”

“Of course. Plenty of people do.” He motioned towards the door. “You probably cross paths with the soulless every day without even knowing it. Not everyone who’s born has one. They’re really delicate, and easily lost. If you manage to make it to death with yours retained and intact, you’ve lived quite well, all things considered. And I can feel that your soul is especially bright. They’re not all created equal.”

That was news to her. Nothing about her soul felt at all luminous these days. “If I give it to you, do I lose my emotions or something? Or my passions? Or, say, my will to live?”

He shook his head. “No. You won’t feel any different than you do now.”

Rey threw her hands up. “Then how is this thing I apparently have valuable in the first place? What do I even get from having one?” This was why she didn’t believe in them—it was a silly notion if it didn’t matter in the end.

“You need a soul to reincarnate.”

That gave her pause. “Wait—reincarnation?!” She shifted her weight on the couch, struggling to prop herself up straighter on the plush cushions in her haste to look at him properly. “So you’re saying the Buddhists and Hindus are right?”

“Not exactly. No one has it right, but those are very old religions. They’ve been around since before I started visiting your plane, and they’ve got the right idea with that one, at least.”

“What happens if I can’t reincarnate?”

“The cycle ends once you die. You just simply…cease. Nothing remains of your energetic consciousness to come back in another form. It’s the end.”

Rey stared at him. “Give me a pen.” She held out her hand and motioned for one urgently. “Now.”

Ben blinked at her in shock, and she smoothed the scroll out on her coffee table while he pulled his fingers through the air again, a feathered quill forming from more red and gold sparks dancing at his fingertips.

“You seem entirely too excited by this prospect,” he muttered, his expression twisting into deep concern and distrust. “I’m exceedingly alarmed by how enthusiastic you suddenly are.”

Rey snatched the quill from him as soon as he passed it to her and pressed the nib to the parchment on the line marked for her signature. “You haven’t been here for a long time, Ben, and you don’t understand how shitty this world has become. The climate is dying. Our planet is on fire. People buy automatic weapons, walk into a public place, and open fire on crowds and in schools and no one does anything to stop the killings. It happens over and over and over again.

“Women are raped and assaulted and killed, and the evidence that could put their aggressors in jail rots in storage closets while they deal with unimaginable trauma just because they dared to go out on a date—or not—with a man. Children starve and half the politicians in this country vote against feeding them for free in schools, and people keep electing and reelecting them to office anyway. The only thing that matters in this world is money. Corporations own everything, including our government, which hates its own people, by the way—especially if you’re a woman, a person of color, queer, trans, an immigrant, or any other marginalized identity. 

“The threat of nuclear war looms ever closer by the second. Plastic particles are embedded in everything, including our water, our soil, even our own goddamn organs. We’re drowning in seas of our own garbage. Most of the earth’s water is polluted. Whole animal species die out every day because of us. We’re losing biodiversity at an alarming rate, which will inevitably spell our own slow, miserable doom.”

She looked him in the eyes. “Birth is a curse and existence is a prison, especially under this system of American late-stage capitalism, and the only true release is the oblivion of a final death. Life is nothing but pain and anguish and we all die alone and afraid at the end, just like how we came in. So let me be perfectly clear, Benjamin: I never want to come back here once I’m gone. I never want to do this again, much less over and over for no apparent reason.”

She tapped the contract with the quill. “This is why I don’t believe in God. Because what sort of sick, twisted bastard of a deity would be cruel enough to create us only to abandon us to ourselves—and then make us do it over and over again? How is that love? How is that kind, or benevolent?” She shook her head sharply. “No. Absolutely not. If a God did that, then it’s evil, and I’m glad it’s apparently dead. So you know what? I’m out. Living on earth is the true Hell, and what you’ve just offered me is liberation. It is salvation.” Rey reached over and clasped his free hand in hers. His eyes grew wide and his pupils dilated at her touch.

“I don’t think you’re a demon—you may actually be an angel. So thank you for offering me this deal. It sounds divine, and I’ll gladly give you my soul in exchange for even a modicum of help in this shitty-ass hellscape of a world while I still have to live in it.”

Rey turned back to the contract. She gripped the quill hard in her hand and scrawled her name quickly across the line.

But nothing happened. No letters formed where she’d written them.

The line stayed blank.

“That’s….hm.”

She tried again, but still nothing happened. Not so much as an imprint was left on the parchment from the nib.

“Hey, Ben?” She shook the pen and held the nib up to the light, studying the carved translucent membrane. It was empty. “I never use quills. Does this thing not have ink? Is there an inkwell or something I’m supposed to use? Or do I need a knife so I can cut my hand open and sign in blood…? That’s traditional, right?”

When he didn’t respond, Rey glanced over at him. He was staring blankly down at the contract, his face pale and his mouth agape.

“Ben?”

“That quill doesn’t need ink. It should have signed your name in your ethereal ichor—your soul’s unique identifier—when you wrote it,” he whispered, slowly raising his gaze to meet hers. “There’s only one reason why that wouldn’t have worked just now.”

His eyes were wide with horror.

“You can’t sign over your soul to me because you’ve already sold it.”

Chapter Text

“What the hell do you mean, I’ve ‘already sold my soul?!’”

Rey hadn’t been able to stop herself from shrieking, but Ben wasn’t listening. He was staring wide-eyed at his hand, his binding visible again and glowing like fire and embers around his fingers and his wrist.

“You shouldn’t have been able to call me,” he whispered, turning his hand over and gaping at the arcane symbols scrawled across it. “Your soul doesn’t belong to you. I shouldn’t be here. Why can’t I leave?” He shook his hand and screwed up his face in concentration, but let out an anguished grunt when nothing happened. “Why can’t I leave?!”

He kept repeating it, the phrase only growing in urgency as he stared at his hand.

“I should be able to leave. Why can’t I leave? WHY CAN’T I LEAVE?!”

It wasn’t at all reassuring that the demon was starting to look just as freaked out as she was.

It only made her own panic that much stronger.

He was really trying to leave her right now.

“BEN! Ben, don’t you dare leave me now!”

Rey dropped the quill and lunged for the demon, and he launched himself off the couch and stumbled back from her. She collided with his chest and wrenched her fingers in his shirt, scrabbling at him frantically. He grabbed her wrists and held her in front of him, his face filled with alarm. 

“What do you mean that I shouldn’t have been able to call you? What do you mean, ‘I’ve already sold my soul?!’”

He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes on her. “I shouldn’t be here. I’ve never seen this before, this has never happened to me before, I don’t know what to do!”

“BEN!” she roared again. He startled and finally stared at her, his eyes wide and his chest heaving. “What is going on? What did you mean about my soul?”

“You can’t consent to give something you don’t own, that’s what I mean!”

“Who the fuck has my soul? Who could have taken it?!” Rey pounded on his chest, but he didn’t so much as flinch. It was like trying to shove a mountain.

“I don’t know, Rey! I just got here! I shouldn’t even be here if you were already contracted!” His brows knit together and his eyes darkened. “Wait a moment. Have you ever signed any other contracts?”

“I’ve signed dozens of them, Ben! Dozens! So many things require contracts!”

Credit cards.

Housing.

Loans.

College.

Work.

Literally everything, all the way down to the water she needed to live, required service agreements or contracts of some kind.

The world was bound by them.

And apparently, so was her soul.

Rey had never actually been all that concerned with the concept of her soul before, but suddenly the thought of not having control over something so essential, something so terribly hers, something that should have belonged to her and her alone absolutely horrified her.

Now that she was aware she might have lost something so vital without even realizing it, she was terrified. And everything about this whole situation shifted in an instant.

The world tilted on its axis and swam beneath her feet.

She felt sick.

“I need—” she gasped, gripping his hands and gripping them with all the strength she had. “I-I need help, I need you to help me, please. Please, Ben.”

Ben bit his bottom lip and nodded, drawing in several deep breaths. He ran his hand through his hair and rolled his lips together, pressing them into one thin, straight line. “Alright. Alright, let’s just—let’s just calm down and think about it for a second.” She could see the gears in his mind turning. He rolled his lips one more time and his nostrils flared as he hummed. “If you’ve signed a bunch of contracts, then you probably signed it away in one of those. Did you read the fine print?”

“Fine print? No, no one reads the fine print! I’m not a lawyer!” she wailed. “I’d rather die than go to law school!” Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

His mouth dropped open. “Oh, Rey. You really should read the fine print. It’s important for anything. It’s—”

But her own mind was spiraling out of control now. The more she thought about it, the worse it got. “So you—you’re telling me that I’m never going to be able to own a house in this economy and now my soul has a landlord too?!”

“I guess that’s one way to put it. Someone certainly swindled you out of it at some point.”

Rey looked up into Ben’s wide, dark eyes, and something in her chest cracked open. “I don’t want my soul to have a landlord!” she sobbed, tears beginning to fall in earnest now. She tried to sniff and wipe them away, but they just kept rolling. “I wanted to do what I wanted with it! It was mine! It belonged to me! I wanted to give it to whoever I wanted to have it, not for it to be subject to eminent domain!”

Anguish washed over her, and for once in her life, she let it. She buried her face in Ben’s shirt and sobbed harder. And after those first sobs, she couldn’t stop.

Ever since one or both of her parents had left her at that fire station when she was only a few days old, her life had been relative shit. Moved from foster home to foster home, always being passed over by couples wanting to adopt because she was too old, or didn’t have the right disposition, or maybe she just wasn’t cute or smart or charming enough. Somehow, she’d never been enough, had never been deemed worthy of being chosen.

She’d been stuck with the Teedos as foster parents for all of high school, and with how much labor they’d made her do around the house, they made willful neglect look like a dream. She was a maid that came with a check from the state. She never looked back once she left their home at eighteen with whatever she could carry on her back.

Her one exception and only escape had been when she was accepted on partial scholarship to Boston College. One of only a few times she’d been chosen by anyone or anything, and even then, it had been hard. She’d had to work and go to school, juggle paying for food and dorms, changing majors and taking out loans to cover the difference. And when she graduated, she’d moved all alone to a strange city where it had been hard to integrate into any sort of community. None of the people she’d ever dated had even opted to stay with her, and while Finn and Rose were friends, they certainly had their own lives to be concerned with. They cared about her, but it wasn’t enough.

Nothing had ever really belonged to her. Not friends, or a family, or even a home.

She was so lonely. So incredibly, deeply lonely.

She must have been defective—that had to be why. This confirmed it. There must have been something so inherently deficient about her that nothing she had in life could ever stick with her, including her own soul.

This was it. This was her lowest point.

Rey hadn’t managed to keep ownership of her soul.

She couldn’t even retain enough autonomy to decide to sell it herself.

It had simply been taken from her, like everything always had been.

Sobs wracked her chest, and there was nothing she could do to stem the tides flooding from her eyes now. “I don’t even want it!” she cried into the soft black fabric of Ben’s t-shirt. “It hurts too much, I don’t even want my soul, and now I can’t sell it because someone else already stole ownership from me?” Rey could hardly breathe. “You want it and I can’t give it to you! But you don’t want to stay with me either.” Saying those words out loud hurt her more than she thought they would. “You want to leave me too, just like my soul, and just like everyone else.”

She sobbed so hard that she sucked for air. But just when she began to feel so lightheaded she might pass out, cool arms slid around her and held her close. Ben’s hands seemed unsure as they pressed into her back, but he eventually shifted and lifted her off the ground, cradling her against his chest and tucking her under his chin as if she were a child.

Rey let him.

She let herself be held.

And then he spoke.

“You’ve got it wrong. I don’t want to leave you, Rey.”

His voice rumbled deep in his chest, and when she couldn’t detect one hint of snark or guile or untruth in his tone and his words, the relief that she wouldn’t be alone rushed through her and cracked her open all over again.

Rey wrapped her arms around Ben’s neck and melted into his body, the near-perfect form he kept insisting she’d given him, and she closed her eyes while she cried. She had no idea how long she stayed like that, but she abandoned herself to him as he shifted and sat back on the couch, caressing her hair gently. When she finally ran out of tears to cry, she laid against him and simply breathed, trying to recover what she’d only just learned she’d lost. And while that was futile, she did at least feel better.

Or empty. But empty was better than anguished.

Ben had stayed silent throughout her outburst. She quieted and pressed her ear against his chest, letting herself enjoy the feeling of being held close by someone for once, even if that someone was a demon she’d accidentally summoned from Hell during a depressive episode. The chill radiating from him was soothing on her heated skin, and she rose up and down on top of him while he breathed, quietly and slowly.

But he didn’t seem to have a heartbeat.

He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t exactly alive, either.

She pulled away from him and opened her eyes. Ben had been watching her the entire time, his dark, molten eyes soft and concerned.

“I’m sorry, Rey. I didn’t mean to make things worse. I panicked too.”

He lifted a hand and wiped her tears away from her cheeks with his thumb. His hand was large enough to cover most of her face, but he was terribly gentle. Something about a demon being so soft with her brought the ache back into her chest.

“It’s been a very long time since I’ve held someone, I think,” he murmured. “Did I do it right?”

“Yeah,” she sniffed, half-choking on another sob that turned into half a laugh. “Yeah, you did good. Thanks.” She tried to smooth the wrinkles from his new shirt, but that was a lost cause. “And I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to go to pieces on you like that.”

“That’s alright. It was shocking. I’ve never seen this before.”

She sniffed again and wiped her sleeve across her nose. “Who did you last hold?” It really wasn’t any of her business, but she asked the question before she could stop herself.

But Ben only shook his head sadly. “I don’t think I remember. I only remember the…the feeling of it.”

When he looked away from her, she realized what he’d meant by telling her he was uncomfortable being embodied the way he was. If he’d been human long ago, it was likely a reminder of those days—perhaps a reminder of everything he’d ever lost, if the hurt lurking behind his eyes was to be believed.

And Rey knew full well how painful it was to be human.

No wonder he hadn’t wanted to stay.

She changed the subject. “So did I lose my soul too, in addition to the ownership of it? Do you know where it is?”

His jaw twitched and his eyes flared, the amber and moss tones in them brightening back into the flickering red and gold they’d been before. They darted all over her face and body until he closed them and leaned forward to press his forehead to hers. He lifted a hand and placed it over her heart.

It raced at his touch.

“It’s right here,” he murmured. “You still have it. It didn’t go anywhere.”

Relief. “Can you see it?” He nodded. “What does it look like?”

He opened his eyes again and pulled back from her. The flames flared brighter as he met her gaze. “It is full of light. Strong. Exquisite.” Ben lifted a hand and brushed her hair away from her face, carefully tucking it behind her ear. “You have a beautiful soul.”

Another tear spilled down her cheek. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever told her. “You think so?”

Ben nodded again. “I’ve seen so many of them over the millennia, but perhaps none have been as lovely as the one who called to me last night and pulled me out of my solitude.”

Solitude. Had he been alone for five hundred years?

“But I don’t own it anymore.” She wiped her face again with the back of her hand. “That’s a bit of a problem, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. It is, for both of us. You, because you never know what whoever has it might want with it, and they could try to control you, or kill you, or even destroy it.” One of his eyebrows arched. “Which, for the record, is not what I want. Taking your soul away from you and owning it are two different things. It’s the difference between me unburdening you at your request and someone else placing a collar around your neck. It’s a matter of autonomy and control. They could…well, maybe we shouldn’t go into those specifics right now. It won’t help.”

Ben sighed deeply. “But this does very much concern me now, too. It looks like I’m trapped here with you until we figure all this out.” He gave her a crooked grin and held up his hand with their half-written binding scrawled across it. It lit up again on his skin, highlighting the cuff around his wrist. But it and his smile faded quickly. “Though you should just think of it this way: at least your soul is intact, even if it doesn’t belong to you right now. Mine isn’t.”

Rey’s face fell. “Wait, what?”

He blinked, and the flames in his eyes extinguished. They calmed back down to that odd, swirling hazel. “My soul was…torn. Ripped asunder. And that is a much harder problem to solve than yours, believe me.” His fingers twitched near the scar on his face, but he clenched his fist and let it drop. It was almost as if touching it would have burned him.

She lifted a hand and hovered it near his cheek. “Is that what this is? And why you can’t change it?” He winced, and then nodded slowly.

“It’s ugly, isn’t it?” he muttered. “It made me a monster.”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t think so. Not at all.”

He snorted. “Don’t lie. I saw how you screamed at me when I arrived. You were terrified. You threatened me with a knife—I could understand that much, at least.”

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to just pop up in the middle of my living room like that, looking like you did. You scared me! You were huge! Did you honestly think appearing to a single woman in her home like that was a good idea?”

“Alright, I’ll concede that that might not have been the best idea in retrospect. But I thought you surely knew what you were getting into. Most who summon demons do.” His gaze softened as he looked at her. “Do I look so monstrous to you now?”

She bit her lip. “No.” He was the least monstrous thing she’d seen all day, original form or no. But she didn’t want to think about that too closely. “Does it hurt? Your scar?”

“Yes. But not in the way you’d think.”

Rey’s hand trembled as she pressed it carefully to the old wound. He sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes widened. But when she didn’t shy away from the pain drawn there, he closed his eyes and sighed, leaning into her touch. His head was heavy, and he winced again when she gently grazed her thumb across the thick, jagged scar.

“This isn’t a trick, is it?” she whispered. “You acting like this, I mean. Is it to get something out of me?”

He covered her hand with his own. His palm dwarfed hers. “You were fully ready to sell me your soul. Do you think I’d lie to you now?”

“No.” She swept her thumb across his cheek again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you hurt.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” Ben cleared his throat and gently pulled her hand away from where his soul had been wounded, his eyes searching hers again. He stared at her silently for what was beginning to feel like an uncomfortable stretch of time, and Rey fidgeted under his scrutiny.

“What? What is it?”

“Do you know who your ancestors were?” he finally asked.

“My ancestors?” That wasn’t a question she’d been anticipating. “No. I’m an orphan—I don’t even know who my birth parents were. Why?”

“You…seem familiar,” he murmured carefully, his brow furrowing. “It’s been almost five hundred years since I was last summoned, so I was wondering if I’ve met one of your forebears. Perhaps one of them had your eyes.” The furrow deepened. “How did you summon me if you didn’t understand the words you spoke?”

“They were on a piece of paper I found tucked in an old book years ago. I didn’t believe in demons before last night, and the thought never occurred to me that I might actually summon one.”

“How curious…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Well, no matter. I’m here with you now. And we need to get the ownership of your soul back.”

His hands dropped to rest at her waist as naturally as if he’d always placed them there, and when his fingers curled softly into her hips, that simple movement shocked Rey back to her senses.

Too close.

Too—

She jumped out of his lap and nearly fell backwards over her coffee table, and Ben straightened sharply, catching hold of her wrist to stop her.

“Uh, wow. Um…th-thank you. Nice reflexes,” Rey stammered as he pulled her close. She settled back onto her feet and shifted anxiously between them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be all over you like that. We only just met yesterday, I can’t believe I—”

“You may do that anytime you wish,” he said, his voice dropping low and rumbling deep. “Need I remind you of what I told you when you summoned me, Rey?” He tilted her chin up with his cool fingertips to make her look him in the eyes, and when he ran his thumb just under her bottom lip, she shivered. “I am here to serve you. In any way you might wish.”

No, this was—

The way he said that was too—

She pulled away and strode over to the kitchen, grabbing one of the Target bags full of toiletries and taking it with her as she tried to gather herself. She had no idea why her hands had suddenly started trembling. “Are you still trying to seduce me into giving you my soul, then?” she huffed, turning her back to him. “You don’t have to go through the trouble. You even said so yourself. I got so upset that I couldn’t give it to you when I tried just now that I ruined your new shirt before you’ve even gotten to wear it. I don’t think you have to work so hard.” She began to sort through the things she’d gotten him, laying them out on her sparkling kitchen surfaces and taking them out of their packages, desperately needing something to do with her hands to steady them.

But while she was wondering how he’d even managed to get the stains out of her cheap apartment countertops since last night, she felt something at her back. Her gaze dropped to a shadow darkening across the toiletries from behind her, and it seemed to grow and broaden as he approached. While she watched, the shape of two thick, curling horns sprouted from the sides of his head. Rey closed her eyes.

She’d wholly forgotten what he was.

He wasn’t like her. He was still something else beneath that human façade.

He was wearing a mask, and she’d forgotten to be afraid of it.

The thought crept through her mind and chilled her bones.

And then he spoke.

Whoever said I was trying to seduce you for your soul?

Rey froze. The hair prickled at the back of her neck, and her apartment was suddenly entirely too quiet. All the sound had abandoned her. The only thing that remained was the beating of her own heart thudding in her ears, loud and fast. He’d whispered those words so softly, she almost doubted she’d actually heard them.

She spun to face him, screwing up just enough courage to snap her eyes open—but he wasn’t behind her at all. The space between her and the fridge was completely empty, and Ben was still sitting on the couch on the other side of the apartment, running a hand idly through his thick, luxurious hair and picking through the clothes she’d set out earlier, examining each item curiously. No horns, no flaming eyes, no clawed hands dripping with shadow. Nothing but the ordinary form of the man he’d taken at her behest.

He was just Ben.

“Here’s what I think we need to do,” he said calmly, his fingers deftly plucking more tags out of the new clothes the way he’d seen her do it. “We need to go through every contract you’ve ever signed, every single one you can find or procure, and I need to take a close look at the language to try to see if there was any magic, demon or otherwise, involved. Once we know how you lost your soul, we can figure out who has it and why—and how to get your rights to it back.” When she didn’t say anything, he paused and looked up at her from across the room. “Rey? Are you listening?”

“Were you standing behind me just now?”

Ben looked at her quizzically. “No? I caught you when you almost fell and then sat back down. You went over there by yourself. Why? Is something wrong?”

Rey whirled around again. Her apartment was quiet, but nothing was in the kitchen with her. Perhaps she’d simply imagined it. She loosed a shuddering breath and ripped the packaging away from a toothbrush.

“No reason.”

“Alright.” He held up a pair of flip-flops with an expression of confusion bordering on disgust. “What are these?”

Ben stumbled down the apartment stairs, trying desperately to keep the flip-flops on his enormous feet, his hand locked vise-like onto Rey’s as she dragged him out to the parking lot and shoved him into her little beat-up Prius.

Well, it was rather less like shoving a man inside than it was trying to wrangle a feral cat into a carrier.

“What is this thing?!” Ben hissed, bracing his hands on the door frame.

“It’s a car!” Rey ground out through gritted teeth while she pushed. “Just get in the damn thing!”

“It’s too small inside—how do you expect me to fit?” He dug his heels in and she could feel the sweat already pooling at the small of her back. “And what’s a car?”

“It’s like a carriage!” She gave up and doubled over, panting and resting her hands on her knees. “God, Ben, please just get inside,” she gasped between breaths. “People are staring.” Rey turned and waved over her shoulder at the elderly couple a few spaces over, frozen in their tracks and gaping at the scene in front of them. “Good evening, y’all!” she yelled with a beaming smile, plastering on the charm as thick as she could. “He just hates hybrids, you know?” She jerked her thumb over at Ben. “Prefers trucks.”

The old man nodded knowingly and the couple turned their attention back to their own car.

“Ben. Get inside.”

He took one look at the fury in her eyes and finally obeyed. The way he had to fold his long legs to fit inside made it look like he was wedging himself into a clown car. He braced himself against the dashboard with stiff arms and alarm written all over his face.

“Did you have to make yourself so large?” she asked with a groan as she slid into the driver’s seat and turned the keys. Her Prius stuttered for a second but purred to life after all. “There you go, BB,” Rey murmured, running her hand fondly along the dashboard. They’d been through a lot together, and while she was making a lot better money these days, she still couldn’t afford to get rid of the plucky little vehicle—and she wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.

When Ben didn’t say anything, she looked over and caught his eye. “What?”

He’d startled when the car’s engine turned over and was clearly still gathering himself.

“How many times do I have to—you know, never mind.” He scowled at her darkly before closing his eyes.

“What? What was that look for?”

“I can only change so much about my essence. I have an identity too, you know.” His scowl deepened and he gestured at his body. “It isn’t all about what you think is convenient. It hurts if I try to shrink any smaller than this. I’m not made like that.”

“Alright, fine.” Rey scowled right back at him before motioning to his seatbelt. “But put that on or I could get pulled over.” She backed out of the parking lot and began to drive slowly out of her complex.

“Put what on?”

“The belt.” She shot him another look. “Why are you so grouchy all of a sudden?”

His face reddened. “What kind of carriage is this? I have never been in such a thing before. A mechanical carriage drawn by—what, exactly? I’d rather go back to 1500. The world made sense back then. At least I know how to ride a horse.”

Rey leaned over and angrily clicked the seatbelt across his chest and lap for him before grabbing the wheel with both hands again. “This is Texas, you still could ride a horse. It isn’t as if we don’t have them. And you’re deflecting.”

“I have never heard of such a place. Where exactly are we, anyway? What country?” He pointed accusingly at her. “You thought my accent was strange, but I had been all over the known world by the time I was last summoned and I never heard such a one as yours.” Then he pointed to his own mouth. “Or this.”

“We’re in what you’d call the New World, for fuck’s sake, only it wasn’t new at all, it already had plenty of thriving, well-established indigenous civilizations who were perfectly fine on their own before Europeans came over and ruined everything. And—”

Hold on. His leg was bouncing up and down so hard, his foot and flip-flop were slapping against her floorboards. He kept looking out the car window, and if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was trying to hide how nervous he was.

Except she did know better.

“Are you upset that I took you out of the apartment?”

“No,” he snapped.

“Wait a second—are you scared?”

“NO.” He shouted it that time, and jerked his head hard enough to hit it on the grab handle. He winced and rubbed the top of it gingerly, mussing his dark waves. All it did was make them even more perfectly tousled.

“Oh my god, you are scared. Are you joking? Big bad demon lord is scared to leave the house?” She barked a laugh. “I’m just taking you to get real shoes and some dinner, so don’t get your panties-that-you-refuse-to-wear in a twist.”

He’d rejected both the briefs and the boxers she’d bought for him, claiming they were too constricting and uncomfortable. She’d decided to try again with him later, maybe once she wasn’t so starving.

“We’re not going anywhere frightening. We’re not even trying to get my soul back yet.” She pointed at his stomach, which had very audibly growled while he was pulling on the pair of athletic shorts she’d gotten him. He would have been too hard to fit for clothes without actually knowing his measurements, so she’d settled for items with lots of give until they could go shopping properly. And based on how disgusted he’d looked as he’d slid them on, he hadn’t been kidding about how uncomfortable he felt in this body. “Did you eat at all today?”

“I’m not used to feeling hunger. I don’t think I noticed.”

“So that’s a no. But you breathe, right?”

“Of course I do. You would find it unsettling if I didn’t.”

“How can you breathe and be hungry but not have a heartbeat?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

She glanced over at him. He was looking out the window with his arms crossed over his chest, his foot still bouncing away on the floor of her car.

“You’re being awfully surly.”

“You left me alone all day.” He shot her another hurt look. “Didn’t you feel it when you went too far away? The pain?”

Rey gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Yes. What did it feel like for you?”

“Like I was being ripped in half again.”

Again.

Her irritation ebbed. If he’d discovered anything, it was certainly how to make her feel bad. She’d likely reached the end of their tether, and while it had only been a mild annoyance to her, it might have been excruciating for him. Rey hadn’t considered that.

Or perhaps he was just being dramatic.

Hard to tell.

After a long stretch of silence, Ben finally spoke again, only just managing to glance over at her. He had seemed to calm down as he’d looked out the window and watched the world rushing past. “Do you…have to leave again tomorrow?”

His tone was a little pathetic and more than a little plaintive. What kind of demon was he, anyway? Weren’t they supposed to enjoy pain or something? Or was that just the difference between being a Sadist and a masochist?

Though to be fair, he didn’t seem to be either, given how he’d reacted to her own anguish.

“I do have to go tomorrow. I have to go to work every day except for Saturday and Sunday. And a few holidays.”

He scoffed in disbelief. “You were gone all day, and you have to do it that often? Why? No one should work that much. It’s not necessary, not even servants and slaves worked like that back when—”

“When what, Ben? In ancient times even serfs got more time off than I do? Tell me something I don’t know. Welcome to modern America, where our work schedule is apparently worse than Hell.” She parked the car and punched his red seatbelt button, enjoying the way he pressed himself back against the cushion in alarm when the harness automatically retracted. “Come on, let’s get you some shoes.”

Academy Sports and Outdoors was one of the only places with decent shoes still open at that hour, and Rey nearly cried when she handed over her credit card to buy him the only remaining pair of Air Jordans they had in stock in a men’s size 14. Ben hadn’t been able to make any choices for himself during this whole ordeal, so she watched while he picked them out himself, grousing the entire time about style and feel until he tried on that pair. Those, apparently, were at least acceptable for the time being. They were also painfully expensive. He laced them up and wore them back out to the car looking relieved not to be saddled with the flip-flops anymore.

“Do you need money, Rey?” he asked when they got back inside BB. “Are you struggling?”

She sighed. “Yes and no. I’m a lot better off than most, but I have a mountain of debt I’m trying to shovel my way out of, and things keep getting more and more expensive. I wasn’t planning on buying a—a—” she motioned towards him “—a particularly large man-demon’s wardrobe from scratch. Most men come pre-equipped with at least some accessories.”

Ben hummed and nodded sagely. “I see. Well, I can solve all those issues for you once we get ownership of your soul back, and perhaps I can help in the meantime. You shouldn’t have to work.” He buckled his seatbelt across his own lap this time. “I don’t like it.”

“That’s a lovely thought, Ben, because you’re right, I don’t dream of labor, but—”

“I’ll be the one to provide for you.”

“What? Oh god, no, it’s—it’s fine.” She held up a hand. “It’s fine, you don’t understand how things work here, you have to have government identification and a work history and usually a university degree or other training to get a decent job, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to do that since you weren’t exactly born—” She paused and frowned. “Recently? At—at all? And—”

“Then who is your usurer? Take me to the Jew who loaned you money and I will have words with him. I am certain we can come to an understanding about relieving your debt. They are usually quite reasonable.”

Rey’s mouth dropped open as she stared at him. He was dead serious. He was looking at her expectantly, as if he really were waiting for her to tell him precisely from whom she’d taken out loans. The very individual who had handed her the money.

“Oh. Oh, Ben. That is so sweet of you. But, uh…” She hesitated while she chose her words carefully. “But uh, you see, I didn’t—”

He shifted in the seat and took one of her hands between both of his. His palms swallowed hers whole. “Rey, I would like to pay you back for the accommodations you’re providing me, especially considering that the circumstances of our bargain are highly irregular and I cannot use many of my powers for you until our contract is signed.” He nodded gravely, the look in his eyes sincere. He withdrew and clasped his hands together in his lap over his athletic shorts. “These limitations are…regrettable. I want you to know that my current inability to grant your desires is in no way indicative of my power or my virility as a demon.”

“‘Virility?’” she whispered, hardly daring to believe her ears.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day, and your situation doesn’t sit right with me—not at all. I will just have to make do in whatever capacity I can until we find out who owns your soul,” he continued. “And if that means providing for you in the way a man should for their woman, then I am ready to do so, particularly since I am currently residing in your home, and you are very obviously unmarried. It is only right. I don’t want things to look untoward, especially if it might affect your social standing.”

“My…my social standing.” Rey pressed her mouth shut. “I really do genuinely appreciate that sentiment, Ben. I-I do. That is, uh…extremely gallant of you.” She patted him lightly on the shoulder, and his face brightened. “Tell me something: when was the last time you were summoned?”

He thought for a moment, tapping a thick finger on his full bottom lip. “Around 1516, I believe.”

“Ah. Yes. I see. 1516,” Rey repeated, her eyes wide. “And who exactly summoned you?”

“A Hessian man named Johann Georg Faust. I served him for...twenty four years?”

“Doctor Faustus?!” she shrieked. “You—you were summoned by Faust?!”

“Oh yes, he was a scholar and an alchemist.” Ben rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose you could call him a doctor.”

The car was too hot.

Everything was suddenly suffocating.

She needed air.

Rey opened her door and threw herself out of the car, turning to rest her forehead on its warm surface while she sucked in deep breaths. Night was barely falling and it was still easily over a hundred degrees outside, and the heat was both soothing and stifling, though it wasn’t at all the only reason she was sweating. The other car door opened and a large shadow loomed over her a few seconds later before an enormous hand descended to rest heavily on her back.

“Rey? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” she breathed, still trying to stop hyperventilating. She flipped around to face him and rubbed her eyes, doubtlessly smearing what remained of her mascara from this morning all over her eyes. She didn’t care. “I only accidentally summoned Mephistopheles for a Faustian bargain. No big deal.”

“‘Mephistopheles?!’”

Ben’s voice had gone odd, somehow both low and sharp, and he bent down to try to look her in the eyes. His own gaze was rapidly darkening, his pupils contracting almost to pinpoints. “Who is he? Did you lie to me when you said you’ve never summoned another demon before?” A growl rumbled in his chest on the heels of his question, and he gritted his teeth.

Uh oh.

He was working himself up over that name.

Red was spreading far too rapidly up his neck and across his cheeks for comfort, and his shirt began to stretch across his broad chest, threatening to tear.

“Have you spoken to another? Is that who owns your soul?” His volume rose with every question. “Who is he?!” he finally roared.

The way he was seething, he appeared to be growing larger and taller before her eyes. His shorts tightened around his legs and grew even shorter. Tiny, dark bumps sprouted on the sides of his head, peeking through his shadowy hair. Black mist curled at his fingertips and began to slowly creep up his hands and forearms, their thin, smokey tendrils licking at his skin and swirling around his forming claws.

He was losing control.

“If he is another demon I don’t know about, I’ll rip his head off. Or better yet, I’ll tear his soul to shreds for daring to bargain with you. You belong to me.” Flames flared in his eyes, rimming them in gold and scarlet where moss and bark had been just seconds ago.

“Whoa there, tiger! Calm down! I’m not cheating on you with another demon.” Rey straightened and rested her hands on his chest, rubbing circles in an attempt to soothe him. “Just breathe for a second, alright?”

Ben drew in a deep breath through his nose, nostrils flaring. A tiny twitch beneath his left eye vibrated and then gradually settled as he breathed again, and again. She matched his gaze and framed his face with her hands.

“Listen to me, Ben: I swear to you that I have never summoned any other demon. You’re my one and only. Promise.” She patted him again gently, and he seemed to settle even more at her touch, shrinking slightly and deflating back down to his normal size before his new shirt could tear. His budding horns receded, leaving only his glossy waves shining in the golden light of sunset. The shadows on his hands disappeared, and the claws threatening to grow tucked themselves back in from his fingertips.

“Then who were you referring to?” He was a lot calmer when he asked this time, his brows knit together.

“It’s a literary reference. You are Mephistopheles.”

His brow only furrowed deeper. “No,” he shook his head and looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “No, I’m the Demon Lord Kylo Ren.” He tapped his chest indignantly. “Ben. Your Ben.”

Rey sighed and buried her face in her palm, rubbing gently at the space between her eyes. “Honey, you’ve been written about. You’re incredibly famous: there’s a whole Kit Marlowe play about you and Faust from the Renaissance, and another by Goethe—in two parts, even. I’ll show you later, but whoever first wrote the story changed your name to Mephistopheles.”

Ben looked absolutely disgusted, and he drew back from her and wrinkled his large nose in disdain. “Why would they change my name to something so stupid?”

“I have no idea,” she deadpanned, grabbing his hand and dragging him back to the passenger seat. “But we’re going to go eat before you cost me any more money in clothes because you’re hangry.”

Rey almost couldn’t get Ben to enter the Torchy’s Tacos.

He just stood in the parking lot, staring up at their sign in disgust.

“Ben, come on, let’s get dinner.” She tugged at his hand, but he still didn’t budge.

“Is that,” he finally asked, pointing up at the devilish-looking red cherub with horns and a pitchfork, “supposed to be a demon?” He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, still gaping at the sign.

“A demon or a devil, I suppose, yeah.” Rey tugged at his hand again.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“Kind of.” She pointed at the tagline on the sign. “You get it? ‘Damn good’—it’s a demon because the tacos are damned good? And you’re from Hell, so you…you’re damned? D-damned…good.” Rey plucked nervously at her hair. “Alright, so maybe this wasn’t my best joke.”

His mouth moved, but the only sound that came out was a half-strangled noise. “Why is it on fire?” he eventually managed.

“A lot of things in there are hot, flavor-wise,” she replied, wiping sweat away from her forehead. “Hell is supposed to be hot, right? Like Texas. Honestly, Texas may be even worse. It certainly feels hotter than Hell right about now. And it’s maybe worse in other ways.” They were on track to break a streak of historic high-temperature records this summer, and people still somehow denied human-induced climate change.

Ben finally turned to look at her, even more aghast now. “Is that what they teach you in schools? That Hell is hot?”

“Well, technically, I guess they teach that in certain schools. But yeah, evangelical Christian preachers ramble on about burning in hell, fire and brimstone, yada yada. Whatever, I don’t really know, I wasn’t raised religious.”

“Hell is cold, Rey. It’s iced over, dark, and cold. Eternal winter, but without snow.”

She blinked up at him. “Oh. I guess that’s why you run so cool?” Honestly, she was glad for it right now. He wasn’t sweating at all, and it was actually quite refreshing holding his hand, like wrapping her fingers around an ice-cold soda can. She could practically see the vapor curling off of his skin from the temperature difference compared to the heat in the air.

If he was his own air conditioning, did he even get hot? Or was he always cold?

Could he feel temperature at all?

If she licked him, would he feel like a popsicle on her tongue?

Rey clamped a mortified hand over her mouth even though she hadn’t voiced the thought.

“What?” Ben gave her a quizzical look.

“Nothing. Just get inside, I’m dying out here.”

“But—h-hey!” he stammered, stumbling after her, still pointing at the sign. “This is offensive! That is not what I look like!”

“You’ll get over it when you try the queso.”

They went inside and Rey ordered their food.

And when they got it, all she could do was watch in awe.

She’d never seen anyone inhale anything so fast.

Some of the smoked brisket dropped out of her democrat taco (made trashy, i.e. smothered in melted cheese), but she was hardly cognizant of the fact that her tortilla was rapidly disintegrating between her fingertips. She was too enthralled by the scene before her.

Most grown men might comfortably eat two or three of the tacos here, with chips and a drink. They were very filling. Four was a lot. Five was stupid, wholly ill-advised, and possibly dangerous.

Ben had just inhaled his eighth.

The extra tacos he’d devoured were supposed to be leftovers for him when she went to work tomorrow, and their table was covered in the rumpled corpses of aluminum foil and plastic baskets. Where the fuck was he putting them all? Was he storing them between the ridges of his eight-pack? Her eyes darted down to his stomach, but found no change she could discern in his chiseled physique hidden beneath his t-shirt.

And he thought the Torchy’s logo was offensive.

He’d even slathered that last one in diablo sauce, the hottest sauce they made—which didn’t seem to phase him—and he was busy washing it down with the large unsweet tea she’d gotten him from the soda fountain, his throat undulating as he chugged the entire thing in one go.

Based on his reaction to the M&M last night, Rey didn’t think he’d much care for sugar and probably wouldn’t be ready for a soda, but he was more than ready for the chips and queso she’d also ordered.

“This is cheese, you said?” he finally gasped when he came up for air, jabbing curiously at the golden, melted delicacy with a corn tortilla chip. “And I eat it with this? Not a spoon?”

“Yep. That’s cheese. And, well—actually, I suppose you could eat it with a spoon.”

“I see.” When he crunched on his first chip, he froze.

His pupils dilated.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “What have I done?”

The queso went even faster than the tacos.

And Ben was awfully quiet in the car on the way home.

“You doing alright there, buddy?” Rey ventured. “Did you go too hard?”

“I haven’t eaten in centuries,” he moaned.

“I could tell.”

“That was incredible.” He ran a hand across his face. “I’ve never tasted such flavor. Thank you.”

She thought about it for a moment while she put the car in park. “You know, that’s a great point. Spices are probably so much cheaper than they used to be back in your day, old man.” She nudged him playfully with her elbow. “And we just sort of use them willy-nilly. Put them all over everything with no thought.”

He was silent for a moment. “‘Old man?’” he finally repeated. She could already see another incoming scowl forming.

Rey huffed. “Well, yeah. I mean, how old are you, really? Far older than me. You’re constantly talking about centuries-this and millennia-that.” She unbuckled herself and clicked his seatbelt off as well. He kept forgetting about it, so she kept having to reach over and help him. “What are you? At least two thousand years old or something? I’d say that qualifies you as an old man.”

There it was. Ben scowled at her while he untangled himself. “I’m not old. I’m ageless. There’s a difference.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. That’s exactly what an old man would tell a twenty-eight-year-old he wants to bang.” She shut the door behind her and he scrambled out of the car.

“‘Bang?’” Another frown. “Hey, that’s not exactly—wait! Do you…do you really think I look old? Is that where this is coming from?”

Rey snorted. “No. God, no. I’m teasing you. You look like you’re in your thirties—not much older than me. Quit worrying. Why are you so concerned?”

“You’d better be jesting,” he grumbled. “Do I have to keep reminding you that you’re responsible for the way I—”

“Yeah, yeah, I made you this way. It was my subconscious that gave you what I consider to be ‘the most pleasing form,’ I get it. Don’t worry. I won’t hold you responsible for your face.”

“What’s wrong with my face?!” He nearly tripped over his feet as he stumbled up the stairs in his new shoes after her. “Rey—”

She ignored him and unlocked her door. But when she stepped inside, something felt off. It felt warmer than it usually did.

“Huh.”

“Fine. Keep making fun of the body you gave me. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It doesn’t matter.” He was still grumbling as he followed her inside, but that wasn’t what was bothering her.

Rey tossed the keys on the table near the door and locked it. “Hey, you didn’t happen to mess with the thermostat today, did you?”

“The what?”

“Nevermind.” She strode over to it and adjusted the temperature before flopping onto the couch with a sigh. “So what do we do now?”

Ben sank down next to her and tossed the discarded flip-flops to the side of the coffee table. Good thing they were cheap since he seemed to hate them. “Do you have any copies of contracts I could look at?”

“Oh yeah. Good point.” Rey grabbed her personal laptop and fired it up, searching through her cloud drive. Thank god all of her job contracts had been digital and she’d at least been prudent enough to keep copies in an archive. She found the folder full of PDFs and clicked on it. Ben watched over her shoulder with rapt attention.

“What is—”

“A computer—a laptop, more specifically. It’s a good thing you’re supposedly such a ‘quick learner’ because you’re going to have to catch onto an awful lot of lingo awfully quickly. The concept of this one will break your sixteenth-century brain if you don’t.” She tried to explain how her laptop was a machine that created images out of light based on math, and how it ran on lightning and was connected via energy to every other computer on the planet. She also explained how you could find nearly every scrap of information humanity possessed within it, whether it was true or not.

“So it lies?” Ben asked, a telltale wrinkle between his brows now seemingly permanently etched there.

“Sometimes. But only because people lie, so you have to be careful about where and who you get your information from.” She pulled up the copy of her Theta contract and slid the laptop onto his thighs. “Here,” she muttered, grabbing his hand and placing it on the trackpad. “You can read it like this.” She wrapped her hand around his and moved his finger up and down for him to show him how to scroll, but when she glanced up, his eyes weren’t on the screen.

They were on her.

“Ben, are you paying attention? Did you get that?”

He gazed down at her under long, dark lashes. “I like spending time with you, Rey,” he said abruptly.

Well, that was from left field.

“You…you do?”

“Of course.” His eyes lingered on her mouth. “I like you, even if you do snap at me.”

She stared at him blankly. “But you hardly know me. And we just met.”

“I know.” He blinked back at her, his deep voice calm. Like it was when he’d tried to soothe her after he first appeared last night. “I’m glad you summoned me. You’re lovely.”

Rey didn’t really know what to say. No one had really ever told her she was lovely, or even pretty, and only sometimes cute. She’d been skinny and scrawny growing up, lanky and leggy until she’d grown into her limbs, covered in freckles she wasn’t particularly fond of and saddled with mottled hazel eyes and boring brown hair. She wasn’t anything particularly special. That had been made abundantly clear to her over the years.

But she’d spent plenty of time looking at Ben over the past day, and she would’ve been a fool not to notice how sad his eyes were, especially when he thought she wasn’t looking.

They only ever seemed to brighten when they landed on her.

Her cheeks burned.

“No.” She shook her head. “No, you don’t really mean that. You’re just saying that to—”

“Will you stay with me tomorrow?” He turned the hand she held over and squeezed hers softly, his eyes pleading. God, his palms were huge. “Please? Or will your, uh…patron not compensate you?” He pressed his lips together. “I understand that you don’t live the life you deserve. But the faster we solve things with our contract, the faster I can change that for you. We need to do research, and that takes time. It would be better to do it together.”

Rey sighed and glanced at her work bag. Technically, she could work remotely, even though Mitaka didn’t like it. But when she looked back at Ben, she knew didn’t want to work at all.

She did want to stay with him.

And he had a point.

“Alright,” she finally sighed, giving his hand a squeeze back. “I’ll call in and say I’m too sick to work tomorrow. Food poisoning. They won’t ask questions and should let me have some time off for that, which we can use to figure this whole soul thing out.”

“You’ll stay with me?” Ben’s plush lips broke into a wide, crooked smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling with its brilliance.

It brightened his entire face.

He was unbearably handsome when he smiled like that. He looked positively human.

It was too much.

Rey shot off the couch—and Ben’s face fell at her reaction to his smile. “But I need to—t-to take a shower right now, so I’ll be back. After that.” She motioned to the bathroom and his concerned frown was back. “Don’t come in there. Just…read through those contracts for me while you wait.” She darted over to the bathroom door and clicked the lock behind her before lunging to the bathtub and running the water.

Cold.

She needed it cold.

She was burning up.

Her trembling hands were sweating so profusely she almost had trouble with the faucet, and she was barely able to stand the feeling of stripping her clothes off before plunging herself under the cool stream. She leaned her back against the shower walls and drew in deep, shuddering breaths.

This was all a trick.

It was all a lie.

He couldn’t be that sweet.

He was a demon. He wasn’t human. He was constantly reminding her of that. She’d seen that strange shadow in the kitchen earlier this evening. He was unnatural—or supernatural, she wasn’t sure.

And that was precisely it.

She wasn’t at all sure of what she was dealing with. Of who he really was, or what he could do, what he truly wanted. And now all of a sudden, in less than twenty-four hours, he was living with her, lying on her couch and eating her food while his pretty mouth said pretty things. Told her she was pretty. All the things she’d ever wanted to hear from someone.

He knew what she wanted.

And he was tempting her with it.

Ben had made himself into exactly the sort of man she’d find most attractive, and oh, was that proving true right now. Why was he so soft when he wasn’t scowling? Why did he have to smile at her like he did? She hadn’t heard half as many kind things from the men she’d gone out with over the years, not by a long shot. So much of it was, “Hey baby, you can even cook me breakfast in the morning if you want, I don’t mind,” and “Tit pics, plz,” and “Nah, I don’t eat pussy, that shit’s nasty.” None of it was ever, “You’re lovely,” or “I like spending time with you,” or “I will provide for you,” or “Please stay with me.”

She was the only one who ever said that last phrase.

No one had ever said it back to her.

Until Ben.

The cold shower wasn’t helping. Rey gasped and pushed her hair away from her face, her breath still ragged and her chest heaving. She closed her eyes.

When she did, the bathroom grew silent.

The sound of the shower faded away.

Except—

Footsteps.

They were quiet, light, nimble. The air grew heavy next to her, and with that heaviness, she felt a presence.

It almost felt as if something had entered the shower with her, but there was no sound of the curtain being swept aside, no darkening of the shadows in front of her eyelids. But it was undeniable: all of a sudden, she wasn’t alone. She knew it. She could feel it. Fear licked along her spine and she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

Her heavy, wet hair slipped over one shoulder by itself, as if it had been brushed aside by strong, deft fingers.

Lips pressed against the side of her neck, as gentle as a whisper, more tender than those of any lover she’d ever had.

Rey, he breathed in their wake, cool air curling through his mouth across her burning skin.

Her name was a whisper, a prayer, low and wanting.

Her eyes snapped open.

Rey was alone. Her heart nearly pounded through her chest, and she screwed up enough courage to peek around the shower curtain.

No one was there.

Nothing was different.

Her bathroom door was still locked.

But a set of two large, damp footprints shone on the tile floor under the lights of her bathroom mirror, glistening towards the door as they evaporated before her eyes.

Chapter Text

Eight was too goddamn early in the morning.

Rey groaned. She was drenched in sweat, practically sleeping in a pool of her own making, and she rolled over in it as soon as she shut her alarm off and automatically opened Theta’s internal employee messaging app. When she tapped on her chat with Mitaka, she worked to suppress a shudder. All of their previous messages loaded and she was immediately reminded of how far behind she was on her metrics for this damn marketing campaign.

It wasn’t just her soul that was at stake.

It was also her job.

She sighed and summoned up her best acting skills while she typed.

Rey | Mitaka, I’m sorry, but I can’t work today

Rey | food poisoning or stomach bug

Rey | it’s bad

Rey | please don’t ask questions

Oh god, he was already typing back.

She rolled her eyes in disgust. Sure, Theta expected their employees to have work communication apps installed on their personal phones, but it was kind of disgusting how constantly plugged into The Job™ her manager was. It was like he was a capitalist automaton that didn’t eat or sleep or do anything else. Even when he was supposedly “on vacation,” Mitaka was always checking in with his direct reports or sending them assignments, even once going so far as to send her work via satellite internet while on a Mediterranean cruise last year.

And then there was the time during the winter storm a few years ago when the state’s entire power grid went down and his electricity and water went out for a week. He still messaged Rey daily from his phone while charging it on a solar-powered generator:

Mitaka | Hey Johnson, have you sent follow-ups with those new prospects yet?

Rey      | Do you even have water?

Mitaka | No, but I’m concerned about our campaign adoption numbers. I’ll chip through the ice and get a bucket from my neighbor’s pool later.

Absolutely zero concern for his well-being—or for anyone else’s.

Vile.

Rey’s own power had gone out and she’d spent a week wrapped in a pile of blankets, sans internet and freezing in her apartment, unable to drive anywhere because of all the ice and Texas’s general unpreparedness for anything resembling an actual winter. Meanwhile, people died and Mitaka was still thinking and asking about bottom lines and profit margins.

His latest messages pinged through now.

Mitaka | Get some rest and feel better.

Mitaka | You sure you can’t check in later, though? You can always work remotely today if you feel up to it.

Mitaka | Maybe send out a few emails to our client list or something.

Mitaka | Don’t forget: end of the quarter’s coming up fast.

Check in later?

Was he serious?

She was entitled to sick time. It was in her employee contract. Why couldn’t she just use it for once?

Mitaka had just couched a reminder of his potential layoff ultimatum in feigned concern. Rey had never called in sick at Theta, not once, and she hardly ever took any of the company’s “unlimited vacation” (a complete lie, there were so many limits). She could have needed to go to the hospital today for all he knew, and he just essentially told her to keep working anyway. Scorching red heat rose into her cheeks, but it wasn’t just from how hot her room was last night.

It was rage.

You know what?

Fuck this shit.

Rey | I need to sleep - I was up all night throwing up

Rey | can’t remember how many times

Rey | it was coming out of both ends

Rey | there was blood

Rey | can’t keep water down

Rey | I can barely type

Mitaka | Jesus, Johnson, I didn’t need details.

Mitaka | Get some fluids and give me an update on Monday.

Prick.

He should have told her to go see a doctor after that, not see you on Monday.

No job was worth this. Ben was right. What was she even doing with her life?

Rey closed her Theta messaging app and uninstalled it completely before throwing her phone angrily onto her bed. What a crock of shit. Why was she expected to kill herself for these fucking jobs? It wasn’t like she even really enjoyed what she did, or believed in Theta’s mission. It was solely to pay the bills and to try to dig herself out of debt and into a better life. She hadn’t switched to majoring in English to write marketing copy for a money-hungry mega-corporation.

Rey had wanted to write books. Pen novels. Tell stories. Make people feel things.

All the rest of this?

It was bullshit.

But how could she write or even try to do any of that when she could barely make herself feel things these days?

Well…

She’d felt a few things recently, at least.

Rey glanced at her closed bedroom door. Regardless of what her work life looked like, she’d have to face her demon eventually. Despite the heat in her room and the sweat dripping down her back, a chill went down her spine at the memory of those fading footprints on her bathroom floor.

Were those real?

Or was she losing her mind as well?

She certainly felt like it.

After last night’s miserably cold shower, Rey had come out of the bathroom to find Ben in the exact same spot where she’d left him, dry and dressed and not appearing at all devilish. If anything, he only needed a backwards baseball cap to look like he had come straight from the gym—or a frat. It was unsettling to see him appear so positively normal, and she’d shaken her head to try to clear it.

It was true that Rey hadn’t really been sleeping well for months now, so maybe all those long nights of little to no rest were starting to take their toll. Maybe she was starting to imagine things. The only thing stopping her from thinking she’d completely conjured Ben up from the depths of her subconscious in the first place was the fact that Finn had seen and interacted with him yesterday. That one concrete conversation involving a third party was doing an awful lot to anchor her to reality at the moment.

But after what she’d felt in the shower, it would have been hard to look at him if she hadn’t found him so damn attractive in the first place.

Rey had slid back onto the couch next to Ben, folding her legs beneath her and wrapping a towel around her hair to dry. She’d changed into pajamas—fresher ones than the stained, crumb-filled set from the night before—and peered over his shoulder. He was still focused on going through her PDFs, and it seemed as though he’d figured out the trackpad of her MacBook just fine since he was busy looking at a contract of hers from a few jobs ago.

“Have you come across anything?” she asked.

Ben shook his head. “No. I don’t see anything about souls in any of these, though I’m learning a lot about what’s usually required of you in your jobs.” He wrinkled his nose, and his nostrils flared in disgust. “They own you in every other way. Every idea you have while working there they can claim as their own. Who does such a thing?”

“Corporations. The bottom line is everything. They’ll take anything they can to make money for their leaders and drain you dry in the process. The workers see very little in comparison.”

“Does your king not stop them? Not that I have a good opinion of kings, and not that they don’t also do such things, but perhaps if he is a benevolent one he might—”

“Oh, Ben. Baby. Let me stop you there.” She snorted at the look he gave her when she called him baby. “I’m going to have to give you a history lesson. Here, give me that.” Rey motioned towards her laptop, and he passed it to her, a curious brow raised. “A lot has happened that you’ve missed over the last five hundred years. There are no kings in America—at least, not in the way you’re referring to.”

Ben watched as she pulled up Wikipedia and summarized the quickest version of American history she could muster. When she handed the laptop back to him, he began clicking on article after article, zooming through them quietly, his eyes racing down the screen. The more he read, the more unsettled he seemed to be. Every once in a while, he’d glance up at her in surprise, and she’d nod.

Ben mostly stayed very quiet. It had to be strange, downloading such a huge amount of information about how vastly different the world was from the last time he’d been here half a millennia ago.

“This is insane,” he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief as he raced through American history. “Representative democracy? Slavery abolished? Women voting? World wars? The moon?!”

And while it was fun to watch him have a not-so-minor existential crisis, Rey began to fade. She hadn’t slept much the night before—or in the weeks before, really—and it was warm in the apartment. She showed him what Google was and how to use it, got up, and plugged her laptop in before making her way to her room, yawning so wide her jaw clicked.

“I can’t stay up, Ben. But I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Rey. Sleep well.”

He’d turned his attention back to her screen, typing something into the browser search bar by slowly hunting and pecking with his index fingers while she’d softly shut the door on him.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to give an ageless demon unfettered access to the internet, but he was presumably a very grown man. If he was going to turn out to be a dick, it wouldn’t be social media that would do it. And besides, he really needed to catch up on a lot of things if she was going to try to hide him in this society at all while she was stuck with him.

The uncanniness of her experience hit her hard once again at that thought.

What the hell?

She’d actually summoned a demon.

A real, live (live?) demon, made flesh.

Rey huffed a sardonic laugh and tumbled straight into bed.

But she had not slept well.

It was just so goddamned hot outside, still a hundred degrees after midnight, and living on the top floor of a shittily-insulated old apartment building wasn’t doing her any favors right now. Her room was even hotter than the living room had been, and she tossed and turned the entire night, sweltering on top of her sheets and unable to get anything that had happened over the last two days out of her mind until her alarm was screaming in her ear.

Dawn came all too soon.

Summoning a demon was enough to drive anyone insane, but then learning that you’d somehow already signed away your soul while also having to feed and clothe a being from Hell? Rey was one person. One single person just trying to carve out a decent existence in a cruel world, and…perhaps failing at it miserably, if how she felt when waking up this morning was any indication. Both her career and her sanity were hanging by a thread.

Well, it could be worse. She could be homeless. Again. At least she’d been keeping her head above water on that front so far, even if she constantly felt like she was drowning on every other.

Rey buried her face in her hands and drew in a deep breath—which turned out to be a mistake. The heavy whiff she got of her nearby armpit was rank, and she recoiled with a groan. Her cold shower last night had done little good with how much she’d sweat in her sleep, and she was completely disgusting again. Her hair was plastered to the sides of her head, and her tank top hung damp from her underarms. At least she officially had the day off now. That was something. She sighed and gathered some clothes to take with her into the bathroom.

When she opened her bedroom door, Rey froze in her tracks.

Ben wasn’t where she’d left him on the couch last night.

Had he left? No, he couldn’t have: her front door was still locked, and even if he had left, he wouldn’t have gone far. She assumed she would’ve felt it in her hand if he had. But when she looked over at the bathroom door and saw light leaking from beneath it, she tilted her head curiously.

She hadn’t actually shown him how to use anything in there. What was he—?

Her question was answered when the door suddenly opened and Ben stood in the doorway looking quizzically down at her, steam swirling out in curls behind him. The pair of extra-long black joggers she’d gotten him were slung low on his hips, a towel was draped around his bare shoulders, and he clutched a plain white t-shirt in his hands. He’d used the body wash she’d bought him.

She knew that because, unlike her, he smelled incredible.

Masculine and clean, like soap, chased with just a hint of citrus and cedar.

And his scent wasn’t the only thing delicious about him: those joggers were showing off his physique to great effect.

Her mouth nearly watered.

“Good morning, Rey.” He motioned over his shoulder with his thumb. “Your hot, indoor waterfall is amazing.”

“Yes,” she muttered, her eyes trailing down his chiseled torso. Still no sign of where he’d put all those tacos from yesterday. “That is definitely what that is.”

His expression shifted rapidly from curious to concerned. “Everything alright? You seem a little—” he held out a hand and waved it in front of her, “—out of sorts.” His eyes settled on her forehead. “You’ve been scowling.” He stepped over to her and attempted to smooth away her wrinkled brow with a single thick finger. “Did I do something wrong?”

His touch snapped her out of her trance and she slapped his hand away. “Oh—no. No, you’re fine. You’re very fine.” When she realized what that sounded like, it only made her sputter more. “Wh-what I mean is that it isn’t you. At all. You’re great.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. This was how today was going to go, wasn’t it? “I’m upset with my manager, but I got off from work today, so we’re good to go try to figure stuff out.”

His face brightened. “Oh! Great news!”

“Yeah.” She pointed at the bathroom. “You done in there?”

He stepped aside and ushered her in, yanking the shirt over his head and beginning to towel his hair dry as he made his way back over to her laptop. “You know, the last time I was summoned, bathing frequently was considered extremely unhealthy,” he called over his shoulder before settling back down on the cushions, crossing his long legs along the length of the couch and drawing the computer back into his lap. “This is the second time I’ve seen you go to wash yourself in less than a day. I’m glad things seem to have changed.”

Rey paused before she shut the door. “I do have to agree with you there, Ben. I am very glad that hygiene is generally an acceptable and encouraged thing for most people these days.”

As soon as she’d succeeded in making herself presentable, she opened the door to find Ben typing away. He was lounging with her laptop as if he’d grown up using the thing, his fingers flying across the keyboard like a digital native. It was a stark difference from last night, and Rey stood there for a moment, staring at him in dumbfounded surprise—though she really should have been prepared for this by now.

He was, after all, an exceedingly quick learner.

“Rey?”

Ben was watching her from the couch, his typing halted. He set the laptop down and stalked over to her, studying her closely. A hint of fire licked at his irises. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m…fine. Perfectly fine.”

His brows twitched together. “You don’t seem fine. What’s wrong?” He put his hands on either side of her head and tilted it between them this way and that while he examined her. When he swept one thumb just beneath her eye, she shivered.

“Ben, your hands are cold!”

He ignored her. “These dark circles,” he muttered, tracing the length of them with worry. “I don’t like them. Humans aren’t supposed to have these so regularly, correct? This is the third day now that I’ve seen you with them.”

She yanked her head away from his hands and turned back into the bathroom with a huff, flicking the light on so she could quickly dab concealer under her lids. “Well then, fine, Ben. Just tell me you think I look awful, why don’t you?”

“That’s not what I meant. I don’t think you—”

“You didn’t need to point out that I look like shit, okay? I just need coffee.” She patted the makeup into her skin with her fingertips and blended it out. “What did you find out last night?”

He grew quiet for a moment and leaned on the doorframe, crossing his arms over his broad chest while he watched her cover the evidence of her insomnia. He rolled his jaw before finally answering. “I can find nothing that would take ownership of your soul in any of the employment contracts you showed me.” He turned and motioned over his shoulder with his thumb, indicating the desk she never used. It was a purchase from a few jobs ago when she’d been fully remote, but she never used it and mostly ended up only working from her couch in sweatpants for the entire duration of that position. “I also checked the paper files that you keep in there. You’re terribly disorganized, by the way. It took me some time to find your housing documents.”

Rey slammed her concealer tube down on the counter. “Alright, I get it, just tell me that I’m fucking terrible at everything. I’m well aware that my life is in complete and utter disarray, believe me.” She threw her hands up and squeezed past him out of the bathroom, shoving him slightly and ignoring the way he looked down at her when her fingers brushed against his chest.

Coffee.

She needed coffee.

Her Keurig was waiting for her on the counter, and she grabbed the first coffee pod she could find and shoved it in the machine, setting a mug underneath before angrily punching the button to make it brew. Ben followed her warily into the kitchen.

“So was it my apartment complex that stole my soul? Did they decide to make me give them more than two months’ rent as a deposit? Are they holding it as collateral?” she asked bitterly while she dug around in her fridge, sniffing suspiciously at her creamer. She pulled it out with a shrug and reached for the sugar next, spooning it into the mug while the coffee dripped into it. "I wouldn't put it past Plutt."

“No,” he said shortly. “Your landlord does not own it, either.” He ran a hand through his hair in agitation, combing through the thick, dark waves tumbling luxuriously around his cheeks and halfway down his neck. His hair was half dry, and when Rey caught sight of it over her shoulder, she shoved back the annoying urge to run her fingers through it too, just to see what it felt like. He was probably one of those guys who could get away with using 15-in-1 shampoo-conditioner-bodywash-facewash-degreaser-shaving-cream-toothpaste-dish-soap-delouser-whatever and still look like a model.

It was wholly unfair.

And completely unnecessary.

Why had her subconscious felt the need to go that hard?

She tapped her spoon sharply on the rim of her coffee mug and turned around to face him fully.

“Then who the fuck has it?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes darkened and he shifted his stance forward, bridging the gap between them. “And I don’t appreciate you taking your anger about it out on me.” He drew himself up to his full height.

“I’m not, Ben.” She stood on her tiptoes and jutted her chin up at him. Just because he was so goddamn tall, it didn’t mean he was allowed to loom over her like that.

“Yes, you are, Rey,” he ground out through gritted teeth, clenching his fists at his sides. “It’s not my fault we’re in this predicament.”

“It’s not mine either!”

“I never said it was!” he barked. “I’m trying my best to help you, and you’re being rude this morning!”

Rey jabbed a finger into his chest, and the fact that his pecs were so well-developed that it felt like she was poking rocks only made her angrier. “I didn’t ask for you to be here,” she hissed back, punctuating each word with a stab of her finger.

“Yes. You did.”

“Not. Intentionally.” She jabbed him twice more.

Fire flared in Ben’s eyes, and he grabbed both of her wrists in one enormous hand, pinning them above her head against the wall in one swift, smooth motion. His chest was heaving, and he braced his other hand next to her face, if only to fully demonstrate how much larger he was than her.

“Quit. Prodding. Me.” He growled the words, his voice rumbling deep in his throat. “That hurts.”

He was so close, his nose nearly brushed against hers.

His words were like ice, and her lips tingled as his breath curled across them.

Her hands began to tremble.

“Get out of my face.”

A spot under Ben’s left eye twitched. His gaze, which had been fixated on her own, flashed gold for a split second before dropping briefly to her mouth.

“No.”

He rolled his jaw again and pressed his lips together into one thin line, his eyes wandering back up to hers. They were dark and heated. Rey tried to pull her wrists away from his grip, but he held them more tightly against the drywall.

“No? No?!” She was positively seething now. “Let me go, Ben!”

“Make me,” he snapped.

Rey tried to knee him in the balls, but he was too quick. His eyes darted down at the movement and he lifted his own leg to block her, pressing it against hers and pinning her even more firmly than before.

“I order you to let me go!” she cried, struggling against his strength.

It was useless.

He barely had to tighten his grip to keep her pinned.

The realization that he was toying with her froze her in place more thoroughly than she already was by his body.

“Let me…let me go.” This time, her command was a whisper.

Unsure.

Afraid.

A slow, smug smile spread across Ben’s wide mouth, and he raised an eyebrow. “No.” He drew the word out, lingering on it this time, savoring it as it crossed his lips.

Rey paled.

“What?” she breathed.

The demon leaned in close and put his mouth next to her ear. “We’re not in a contract yet, sweetheart,” he murmured softly. The back of her neck prickled in warning. “I’m bonded to you, but I’m not beholden to your orders. Not yet.” He drew back slightly and tucked a strand of hair gently behind her ear with his free hand, his eyes molten once more, his lids heavy and languid. “So I’ll ask you again: are you going to keep yelling at me for no reason?”

Rey’s mouth had gone dry, and she swallowed. This entire time he’d been in her apartment, he could have done anything he wanted to her.

He could have, but he hadn’t.

The initial fear from when she first summoned him was back in full force.

Back, but mixed with something else entirely.

“No,” she finally managed to choke.

“Are you going to keep prodding me?”

“No.”

"Or trying to kick me between the legs?"

“No.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

Ben’s fingers twitched around her wrists, but while he relaxed his grip, he didn’t release her immediately. Instead, the way he suddenly shifted his stance to press closer to her and twisted his fingers along her skin felt more like a delicate caress. More like his fingertips were tracing the curves of her hands, testing the strength of her will, gauging the heat of her body—which was only rising the longer his cool, calloused touch lingered.

He was enjoying this.

All of it.

It felt like Ben was enjoying all of this, the contact, the banter, her growing warmth so contrasted against his preternatural chill. Rey’s breathing quickened at the thought.

Because the truth was she was enjoying it too.

She was enjoying the thrill it gave her, the feeling of his closeness, of his size as he loomed over her, the way his eyes grew molten, how they seemed to hunger the longer he stared greedily at her mouth—as if she were something delicious he wanted to devour.

It was too much.

It was too dangerous.

“I—I thought you said you were here to serve me,” she finally stammered.

“I did say that, and I am. That’s what the contract is.” Ben finally drew back from her slightly with an amused huff. “But there’s a big difference between ‘serving’ and ‘taking abuse,’ Rey.”

“I thought you had to take my orders.”

He held up a finger. “You assumed I did. You never asked for clarity, you never asked for stipulations, or rules, or details. And you clearly need to learn how to do that, or else you’d still probably have ownership of your soul. That’s not my fault, either. But right now, we’re in this together—and not as servant and master, but as equal partners. So let me help you as one.” He eyed her forgotten coffee on the counter and indicated it with his chin. “Will that make you feel better?”

He was right. She hadn’t needed to treat him like that, and once he pointed it out, all the fight fled from her body.

“Probably.”

“Good.”

He must have felt it, because as soon as she slumped down in defeat, Ben released her and picked up the mug, giving it an interested sniff before holding it to his mouth and taking a sip. She waited quietly and watched his face while rubbing her wrists. He hadn’t actually hurt her at all, but it was the shock of it still vibrating in her bones that bothered her. She could feel his touch still lingering on her skin.

Meanwhile, his eyes lingered on hers while he sipped her drink.

“Sorry, Ben,” she muttered. He took another silent sip and rolled it around in his mouth, and she pointed at the cup while he mulled it over. “What do you think of the coffee?”

His mouth twitched. “It’s too sweet for me.”

“You’re probably one who’d take it black, then.”

“Black?” He quirked a brow and looked curiously at the contents of the mug. “But this liquid is brown.”

Rey shook her head and breathed a sigh of relief. This was good. This was more comfortable, more familiar. “If you take your coffee ‘black,’ it means you like it bitter and darker. Stronger. More intense.”

“Ah,” he purred. “I see.”

The way he looked at her again was less comfortable.

She tried to ignore it. She tried to ignore the way it made her feel, the heat it stirred anew in the pit of her stomach. “Do you want to try some plain?” Her face was already burning up again, despite her best efforts.

“Yes. I do believe that flavor would appeal more to my…particular taste. Bitter, I mean. I like things strong. Intense,” Ben responded, still eyeing her with deep interest. "With bite."

When she moved back over to the Keurig, he handed the mug back to her with a smirk and waited while she made another cup for him, watching over her shoulder and resting his hands on the counter on either side of her. He was so broad, he was at least twice as wide as she was. And he towered over her.

“Do you have to be right behind me?” Rey finally asked, glancing up at him with another scowl while she waited for his coffee to brew. “You’re looming.” For someone who obviously learned so quickly, he still didn’t seem to have picked up any real concept of personal space.

“Yes.” Ben tilted his head as he looked right back down at her with another growing smirk. “I rather like being this close to you—even if it hurts when you jab your finger into my chest like that.” A single crescent-shaped dimple appeared, carving itself deep into his cheek, and he bent down to mutter in her ear again. “But you like it too, don’t you? Me, being here with you. Like this.”

Rey froze.

It suddenly became very difficult to breathe.

“You can protest all you want, sweetheart, but I know the truth.” He lowered his voice even further. “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.” Ben slid one hand up the back of her neck and brushed some of her hair away from her nape. But he didn’t pull his hand away.

His fingers stayed right where they were, massaging gentle, soothing circles just below the base of her head—like he somehow knew that was where she carried most of her tension.

Like he knew she needed him to touch her there.

Her heart pounded in her ears. Gooseflesh prickled everywhere his fingers swept, sending fire licking across her skin despite his chill.

“Tell me you don’t want me right here and I’ll give you space,” he whispered into her hair. “I promise.”

The Keurig finished gurgling. Rey shrugged his hand away, plucked the mug from the machine, and turned to give it to him.

She could have told him to back away from her.

She didn’t.

Instead, when his fingers grazed gently against hers as she passed him his mug, she said nothing.

She kept her mouth shut.

And so Ben stood right next to her in the kitchen, his side pressed against hers, while they drank their coffee together in silence.

Chapter Text

Ben’s eyes were the widest she’d ever seen them when they entered the Central Austin Public Library downtown.

The coffee did make Rey feel better, and once she was properly caffeinated and kolaches had been obtained (Ben ate an entire box by himself. Good god, feeding him was going to get expensive), they’d determined that more information was necessary. He’d also insisted on bringing her laptop with him, and it was currently tucked safely in a messenger bag slung across his chest.

But he wouldn’t tell her what he needed it for.

“Do you have a library I can visit? I need to learn more about this world, and fast,” Ben had said between bites of the pastries in the car as Rey changed directions, heading for downtown instead of home.

“Wasn’t the internet enough?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “I saw that you learned how to type overnight. That was impressive.”

Another one disappeared down his throat, that one swallowed almost entirely in one bite. Rey envied his wide mouth for that ability; she’d inhale food that quickly too if she’d been born with the equipment for it.

But Ben still shook his head. “I prefer books to your internet. As to the typing, I got frustrated with how long it took me to find the letters, and I wanted to do it like you did. So I used Google the way you showed me to find tutorials and practiced while you were asleep.” He gave her a wry look. “Or not asleep.”

She ignored that. “What were you doing on my laptop this morning anyway? What were you writing?”

Another kolache disappeared, and he held a finger up to his lips as he chewed. “That’ll be a surprise,” he finally said once he’d swallowed.

“And where do you put all that food?”

“I put it in my mouth. Obviously.” He splayed his hands out in front of him and furrowed his brow, looking at her like she was clearly an idiot. “Rey, I have seen you eat multiple times now, I know you know where to put food. I’ve even seen you hide it between your brea—”

“No, that’s not—” Rey sighed and shook her head, resisting the sudden urge to bash it on the steering wheel. “What I mean is…Ben, how can you eat this much? That is a lot, any normal person would gain weight eventually, but you—”

“Are you asking if I need to relieve myself?”

They both got very quiet at his not-quite-accusatory question.

“Maybe,” Rey finally muttered, turning into the library’s parking garage. At least he put what she was thinking much more politely than she had in her own mind.

He stared at her over the top of the empty box of kolaches. “Do you honestly want to know the answer to that question?”

“No.”

Yes.

Yes, she did.

Desperately.

But he didn’t volunteer any additional information, and she couldn’t quite screw up enough courage to ask, despite suddenly wanting to know everything she could about magical demon physiology.

Maybe she’d get lucky and find a book on it here.

As soon as they entered the central atrium and Ben spied the five levels of stacks crammed full of books, she had to thrust out a hand and grab him by the back of the shirt to keep him from sprinting away.

“Rey, this is almost like the Library of Alexandria!” he whispered, his expression full of reverence. “It isn’t nearly as big or as full, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything comparable!”

“First of all,” she said, reaching over and grabbing a map of the library from a table of pamphlets to thrust into his hands, “you really owe me a long, extended storytime. I’m going to need you to recount everything you can remember before you showed up in my apartment.”

“Easily done.” He nodded sagely. “I would love to regale you with—”

“Second of all, I’m not going to be able to keep up with you here and I already know it.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes again. The coffee had helped, but not as much as she was hoping it would. “But I also don’t want to lose you in this big building. You don’t have a phone. How am I going to find you?”

“You won’t need to.” Ben grabbed her hand and held it up, spreading her fingers wide and showing off her half-drawn binding in the light. “I’ll always be able to find you. You did the work of tying us together, so now I’ll be able to seek you out and follow our link. That much feels the same as when I have a soul contract with someone.”

“Will you know when I want you to come find me?”

“I think so, yes.” He glanced around and pointed to a table just on the edge of the romance section. “But just to be safe, how about we meet over there in—” he pointed next to the clock above the elevators, “—one hour?”

“Is that enough time for you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But either way, I don’t like being separated from you for long.”

“Fine. One hour.” She nodded at him and he bounded across the library at a quick clip, studying the map and disappearing into the stacks like some feral animal eagerly escaping into the woods. All she needed was a blurry photo of him from a cryptozoologist to convince anyone he was a Sasquatch, what with the way he moved and how big he was.

At least he loved books.

That was both an admirable, and, frankly, rare quality in a man. Especially since he seemed to like fiction so much. What was it with straight guys and nonfiction, anyway? Why were they always reading the worst shit? Didn’t they need to escape from—?

Oh.

No, probably not quite as much, no.

Rey shook her head to clear it and pulled out her phone, navigating to the Austin Public Library’s website. She logged into her account—dormant and untouched since she moved here five years ago and her optimism hadn’t yet been strangled by reality—and pulled up the search page.

“‘Demonology,’” she muttered to herself as she typed the word into the engine and hovered awkwardly in the atrium. Even though librarians were some of the best people on the planet, risking one of them asking too many questions about her interest in that particular topic wasn’t something Rey wanted to chance.

She chewed on the tip of her thumb while she waited for the page to load, but the results weren’t at all what she was looking for. It was mostly a list of YA novels and trashy romance titles that likely had to do with fucking demons, but none of them were the sort of reference or nonfiction she was hoping to find. She bookmarked a few titles to save to her account for later and typed in something else.

“Demons” had the same result, and she pursed her lips as she stared at her phone. She’d sort of forgotten this was Texas: while Austin was weird and liberal as all hell, the rest of the state outside of major metropolitan areas probably wouldn’t look too kindly on the sort of books she was looking for right now, especially given the easy access for kids here. A university library might have been a better choice for more scholarly resources, and that was what she needed. She needed to know more about what she was dealing with.

If any of the blue-haired church ladies who insisted on hanging around and volunteering near the capitol caught wind of what she was searching for, they’d probably call her a witch.

Hold on.

Witch.

That was the answer—or at least the right direction. Witchcraft could be considered a religion, and they had to have at least a few books on that here. And weren’t witches notorious for summoning demons or devils or whatever? Supposedly?

Rey typed in “witchcraft” next and pulled up a whole host of books, all found on the first floor. She made her way downstairs and navigated the stacks to the sections on nonfiction and religion, running her hands along the out-turned spines, just like she used to do when she worked in the library during college. She pulled a few tomes off the shelves here and there, but mostly she wasn’t finding what she was looking for. This wasn’t the type of witchcraft she was interested in, and she inevitably put every book back.

There were books on herbology, crystals, tarot, mediumship. Some titles referenced witchcraft that sounded more like self-help, like how to manifest strength within yourself and other hokey new-age-psychological bullshit. That was all fine and dandy for some people, but she was really looking for more of the classical variety. The thing that used to get women hung, or occasionally burned and drowned.

You know, the good stuff.

The actual soul-selling stuff.

The stuff she may or may not have performed accidentally a few days ago.

Rey put the last book back on the shelf (Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within by Juliet Diaz) and drew in a deep, frustrated breath. What sort of books would Faust (or Johann, as Ben kept referring to him) have used to summon theirs? That was what she needed to find. She tapped her foot and thought furiously, a vague sense of unease rising into her chest.

And the longer she stood there, the more upset she felt.

At first she didn’t know why—until it hit her all at once. It was the smell that made her heart ache. She’d missed the scent of paper and binding, of cloth and leather and stories, and the books here reminded her of her days working in the library with Dr. Holdo. Why couldn’t things have stayed that way? Being a student wasn’t any sort of picnic, but in hindsight, it was a whole helluva lot better than the life she had now. She’d only been able to afford ramen, but she was happy. She’d been happy. The smell of old books and dusty shelves reminded her of when she felt herself.

When was the last time she felt that?

When was the last time she’d really smiled? Really, and truly, with her whole body?

Or when was the last time she’d felt at peace?

There were some moments with Rose where they laughed so hard her stomach hurt. But those moments were fleeting. They never lasted, not in the way that mattered. As soon as Rey went home alone, a weight always descended upon her chest, holding her down, drowning her in her own sense of insignificance. Nothing ever felt right. Nowhere had ever truly felt like home.

Rey took a step forward, waffled on her feet, and then backed up again, her agitation growing. Why? Why were things like this? Why did she feel so damn uncomfortable everywhere? Why hadn’t she ever truly fit in anywhere?

Why was she so miserable?

Was it her fault?

Was it the world?

Why was it so empty, so pointless?

Why had her parents abandoned her?

Why hadn’t she ever been chosen?

Why did she have to work like this, breaking her back and her spirit for pennies, wasting her days and nights on thankless tasks that blew away on the wind as soon as the quarter was over with no real lasting impact? She wasn’t helping anyone. She wasn’t making the world better. She wasn’t even really making her own life better.

Why was she wasting it all away?

Why was she so alone?

Why couldn’t she be happy?

And then another thought crept in behind that last one:

What if she just gave up entirely?

It wasn’t the first time she’d had that thought—she was contemplating it again only a few days ago. But now she knew that if she did, according to Ben, she’d just be reborn and have to do it all over again from scratch.

Rey sped up as she started searching frantically through the stacks, the shelves around her closing in the more she thought about it. She couldn’t seem to focus on any of the titles, their covers all blurring together into one indistinguishable, multicolored mass.

Maybe she hadn’t lost her soul recently.

Maybe she’d lost ownership of it a long time ago.

Would it be better to just start over?

Wipe the slate clean?

Or would it turn out worse if she simply ended this life early?

Could it be worse?

It could.

That realization rattled through Rey and she paused, her hand stilling on the spine of a book that hadn’t quite been placed all the way back into the stacks.

It could be worse. It could be much worse.

Because while she didn’t have ownership of her soul anymore, at least she had Ben.

At least she had someone who’d sworn to actually stick by her and help her for once.

It was perhaps the first time she really had someone who meant what he’d told her.

A tear coursed down her cheek, and she sniffed and wiped it away. Thank god no one was in these stacks today—no one else was hovering in the religion section to watch her cry. Then she was reminded again of yesterday, when Ben had broken the news to her and she’d broken in turn, and he’d held her so carefully, so fully. And then she’d snapped at him earlier like that.

She was a bitch.

A bitter, disillusioned bitch.

More tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sniffed again as she scanned the shelves in front of her. The book she’d stopped on stood out, and she plucked it away from the shelf halfheartedly, peeling it away and staring at the odd words in front of her.

She stilled when she saw the arcane symbols etched onto the cover.

They were awfully familiar.

Some of them were even twisting along the fingers holding the book.

“Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis: The Lesser Key of Solomon,” she whispered. “What is this? Are you going to help me figure out what the hell is going on?” Curiosity overtook her, and she wiped her face on the back of her sleeve before flipping to a section towards the beginning.

She gasped.

Holy shit.

The answer she’d been looking for was right there on the page, staring straight up at her.

Rey had inadvertently asked the book a question—and then flipped to a page that felt right. She’d just practiced the same sort of bibliomancy that she used to in the library.

And just like always, the book had answered her question.

“Ars Goetia: The Book of Demonic Spirits,” she read softly to herself. “The first part, called GOETIA, showing a list of the Lords of Hell and how to summon and bind them.” She turned to the beginning and read the note from the publisher.

It was an odd book, claiming to be a modern printing of a seventeenth-century grimoire compiled from materials several centuries older: the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the De praestigiis daemonum, the Liber Officiorum Spirituum, and the Livre des Esperitz, among other equally-esoteric-sounding old books. According to the modern preface, these texts all influenced the publication of The Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot, which may have even shaped Shakespeare’s characterization of the witches in Macbeth.

Rey turned back to the spot she’d initially found, and her eyes grew wide when she saw the list inscribed in that section.

It was of nine demon lords, each one with a description beneath their name, and each with a sigil to call them forth to this realm. The first seven she’d never seen or heard of before: Ap’lek, Albrekh, Cardo, Trudgen, Ushar, Kuruk, and Vicrul.

The eighth name on the list was one she knew.

“Ben,” she whispered, tracing a finger along the sweeping curves and angles of his sigil.

She couldn’t remember exactly what had been inscribed on the piece of parchment from the old copy of Paradise Lost, and while this did look very similar, it was much less than what she had seen, simple and stripped bare. Her incantation and sigil had been much more intricate, much more complex, with other arcane symbols sweeping around the edges of what she saw here now. And there was no Latin phrase written here.

Instead, it just had his name:

Kylo Ren.

The Eighth Spirit in this Order is KYLO REN, a great Lord, and obedient only to SNOKE. He appeareth in the form of a Great Man, tall and wide and of fair mien, with eyes like Flames and a Crown of black horns upon his head. He hath a deep voice, and his speech is such as becomes the Summoner once bound together. This Spirit can learn and teach all Arts and Sciences, and other secret things, and bestow gifts upon his Summoner. He can discover unto thee what the Memory is, and where it lies, or any other thing thou mayest desire, for the price of thine own immortal soul upon thy death.

She turned the page.

There was nothing else about him.

“That’s—that’s it?!” She flipped the page back and forth, scanning the list and tabbing through the rest of the book. The text was obscure and opaque, and the rest of it was detailed magical instructions on how to practice and call up the demons listed there, but she hadn’t needed any of the things the book said she did. She hadn’t done a sacrifice, she hadn’t used purified water (and certainly had never purified her body as instructed here). There were no silver knives, no hawthorn wands, no facing certain directions, no spices or special ingredients (unless salty goldfish cracker crumbs and M&Ms counted as offerings). She hadn’t needed any of that, and now here she was, saddled with her own clingy giant of a supernatural being.

Rey reached the end of the book and went back to the passage written about Ben. Compared to the other demons in the list, he was portrayed the kindest by far and was written about the most favorably. None of the others were referred to as fair, and he sounded positively benevolent in comparison to the first seven, who would bring death and rot and ruin if insulted—or if they simply felt like it.

But who was this Snoke he was supposedly obedient to?

She turned to his entry.

The Ninth Spirit in this Order is SNOKE, the Eldest Lord of Hell. He appeareth in the form of an Old Man, withered and Wizened, mighty and Terrible, and speaketh with a hoarse voice like rolling thunder. He is very furious at his first appearance. He causes Diseases and cureths them, gives Life and taketh it. He may bestow Great Wealth to the Summoner, if bargained for sufficiently. He is Not to be Summoned unless by the moste desperate of Men, for his price is High, and thou wilt pay for it both in Life and in Death. Thou must solely summon Him within the Circle, and then command him into it by the Bonds and Charges of Spirits as hereafter followeth.

The information ended there. No general instructions about what to do with a demon once you had one, no seventeenth-century wisdom on their physiology when they were in human form, no advice on what to do if you were bonded to one but unable to sign a soul contract to either get rid of him or let him make all your wildest wishes and dreams come true—like debt relief and not having to cook anymore and being able to sleep for a full eight hours every night. But at the very least, it had confirmed what Ben told her. He’d been truthful.

It was oddly reassuring.

“Rey?”

She jumped at his voice when her demon turned the corner into the stacks where she stood, and she put her hand over her heart to try to slow its beating.

Speak of the devil.

“Oh my god, Ben. What are you doing here? You scared me.”

“Sorry about that.” He walked up to her with a pile of books in his hands. “You didn’t show up at the table, so I came looking for you.”

Rey checked her phone. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. It’s been over an hour already?” She glanced back up at him with a frown. “I must have lost track of time.”

But he was too busy staring at the book she held to respond, his eyes gradually widening. He reached out and plucked it away with one large hand, and he barked a sudden loud laugh when he turned to the title page.

“Ha! Wow,” he breathed, his face breaking out into a crooked grin. “Oh, I haven’t seen this text in centuries, not since Johann called for me. His was in Latin, though.” He snorted and handed it back to her. “And it’s still terribly inaccurate. Magic doesn’t depend on material objects—it’s immaterial. You can only work with intangible components, like energy. Intention. And souls, of course.”

He shook his head and huffed in amusement. “I can’t believe humans still think they need all that ceremonial stuff to call up a demon. You just need the right magic, words, and vision, not all that other junk.” Then his face grew dark. “And I still can’t believe Johann never amended that text before he died like I told him to. I am not obedient to Snoke. Not anymore. That information’s outdated by at least a millennium. Maybe more.” Ben tapped the page angrily and then turned on his heel, heading towards an empty table.

Rey trotted after him. “Wait, wait, wait—this other demon is real?”

“Of course he is.” Ben dropped his stack of books on the table and sat down heavily. “They all are. I told you there were nine of us.” He indicated the book she held with a nod of his head. “That list is accurate. A version of the Ars Goetia was around when I was last summoned, and whoever wrote the original text definitely knew their way around proper magic more than most. Either they had called up some of us to talk or bargain, or they were working through a list from someone else who had. But I don’t know who actually wrote it. Could have been any of the men who’ve summoned me over the centuries. Or none.”

“How many times have you been summoned?” She slid into the seat next to him. It was around lunchtime and most of the other library patrons were probably over by the cafe grabbing food and coffee or up on the rooftop gardens. It was a good thing they were alone in this section.

Ben stopped and thought for a moment, tapping a finger against his plush bottom lip. “I don’t exactly know—eighty-one, I think? Not including you.”

“Eighty-one?!”

That felt like an awful lot of souls.

But Ben didn’t seem to notice her dismay. “I was called a lot more often a long time ago. People used magic more back then, before what you’d call the Dark Ages.” He gave her a smirk and held up a book on medieval European history and flipped idly through it. “They weren’t all that dark, actually. That’s a misnomer—or maybe more of a deliberate obfuscation.”

He put the book down and picked up another, glancing at its pages while he spoke. “They just lost a lot of the records from that time prior to the nineteenth century. And the spread of Christianity did sort of put a damper on the more…interesting spiritual practices of other, already-existing religions. I was summoned more before the Church was so widespread.” His smirk faded. “I wonder why I haven’t been summoned since Johann? There are always outliers and heretics.”

“Well, I mean…maybe demon-summoning just sort of fell out of fashion? It can’t have been that easy to figure out how.” He gave her a heavy look and raised an eyebrow, and Rey bit her lip. “Okay, fine, maybe it was easy for me, but it was also an accident. Someone else did all the hard work and I just stumbled into it.”

“I’m glad you did,” he mumbled as he pulled another book from his stack and opened it, flipping through it and reading it at lightspeed, just like all the others.

“What’s Hell like?”

“About what you might expect.” He considered her with a tilt of his head. “Actually, given the fact that you referenced fire and brimstone, maybe not.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully and ran his hands longingly over the cover of his next literary victim. “It’s cold and dim, barren and desolate, a wide, sweeping wasteland. The silence is deafening. It would be enough to make any human go mad.”

“Did you go mad?”

Ben’s dark gaze slowly rose to meet hers. “Do I seem mad to you? Or human?”

“No. You seem more reasonable than most people, actually. All things considered, I mean.”

“Well, there you go.” He turned back to his stack. “But Hell’s not exactly a party. It’s not a nice place. Your stories don’t lie about that.”

“Did you ever interact with the other demons there?”

He paused and blinked, staring out across the wide seating area around them with his eyes suddenly out of focus. “No,” he finally responded. “No, not really. We can’t cross into each other’s circles. We can speak with one another through the void, but I cut out the others’ voices long ago. I do not wish to hear their torment. My own pain is heavy enough to bear.”

He quieted and went back to reading. Rey watched his eyes dart across the words, the strong profile of his nose and the white slash of the old scar cutting across his face highlighted under the bright lights of the beautiful library, and she wondered again at how lonely he must have been.

How lost, and forgotten.

Ben finished another book and put it aside on his growing stack, and she plucked it away, flipping curiously through its pages. It was a complex, technical breakdown of twenty-first-century economics—and it was just one among many, mixed in between more classical literature and pulp romance titles. She frowned.

“Why did you pull these particular books from the shelves?”

He chewed on his bottom lip but didn’t look up at her. “A librarian approached me asking if I needed help, and I decided to try to look like I wasn’t reading the way I was. She was very helpful, though—pointed me in the direction of some of her favorites.” He slid one out from the bottom of the stack and handed it to Rey. It was a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice. “She was right. I loved that one.”

Rey clamped her hand over her mouth. Jane Austen was her favorite, and the only reason she didn’t have a copy of Pride and Prejudice on her own shelves anymore was that she’d read hers so many times, it had fallen apart. And she’d still never gotten around to replacing it, not since her own life had begun to disintegrate.

She looked back over at Ben to find him watching her curiously. He reached into his pocket and slid a little piece of plastic over to her. “And the librarian also got me some identification.” He tapped on the little picture of him there in the corner, and Rey took it between her fingers. “The library is part of your government, correct? So this is a government ID? You said I needed it to get a job.”

She looked down at the little card he’d passed her. Ben was half-smiling in the tiny photo, small and crooked, with one dimple partially carved into his cheek. Only a hint of uncertainty lurked behind his eyes.

A demon with a library card.

She couldn’t help but smile back at it.

And then she checked the name and birthdate there. “‘Benjamin Solo?’ Born on November 19, 1983?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “First of all, why? And second of all, you still have to have proof of government ID and an address to get one of these.” She froze. “Wait. That’s my address. How did you—?!”

“Solo is from the Latin ‘solus,’ or to be alone.” He took the ID card from her and slid it back into his pocket. “It seemed fitting. As did a Scorpio sun birthday.” An eyebrow quirked right back at her. “You think I don’t know my astrology? I’m extremely well-versed in the sciences, you know.”

Astrology as a science.

Of course.

The book did say that he was a scholar.

Or a nerd, more like.

“Thirty-nine, though? And my address? Really?”

He shrugged. “Felt more plausible than two thousand.” Then, a snort, followed by a mischievous gleam in his eye. “And I do currently live at your address. It isn’t a lie.”

“Well, sure, but you would have had to be on the lease or have a bill in your name at my apartment to—”

He cut her off abruptly. “As for the rest, I still have some power to facilitate my own needs. I just can’t use it in direct service of you. Not yet, anyway.”

“You’re still going to need more than an enhanced library card if you want to get a job. And that’s notwithstanding passing muster during an interview process. It’s a lot harder to get a job these days than it was five hundred years ago, that I can promise you.”

“I know.” Ben leaned over and nudged her shoulder playfully with his, the corners of his lips tilting up into another smug grin. “I’m working on it. Have a little faith.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I’m not talking about faith in God, Rey. I’m talking about having faith in me,” he purred, his eyes heating as he studied her face.

But before she could say anything else, he turned back to his stack and disappeared into the pile of words he’d gathered there.

Chapter Text

Lunchtime came and went, and while Rey was starving, Ben was still reading.

Even though they were at the downtown library location, she didn’t worry about any of her coworkers wandering in on their lunch hour from the Theta headquarters down the street. Most people hardly left the building once they were there for the workday, and Mitaka certainly never deviated. He always ate lunch in the cafeteria—if at all—and he usually had too many meetings for frivolous things such as “breaks.” So when Ben suggested they take one of their own to grab something to eat at the library’s cafe, it didn’t give Rey pause, despite the fact that she’d claimed to be dying of stomach issues this morning to get out of work.

What did shock her was when Ben pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket to pay for their food.

Rey had taken her card out once they ordered to tap it against the reader, but when Ben brushed her hand aside and shifted his broad body to block her from paying, panic washed over her. After he took the receipt from the cashier, she grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the side, yanking him down to bring his ear closer to his mouth.

“Where the hell did you get that?!” she hissed through gritted teeth. “You didn’t steal it off the nice librarian who helped you, did you?”

He gave her a wry look. “What sort of person do you take me for? I would never intentionally steal from a lady,” he whispered back.

“I swear to God—”

“God’s dead, I’ve already told you. Swearing to it is useless.”

“Ben.” She gripped his hand harder. “And I’m telling you, if they caught you on camera lifting someone’s wallet, I can’t help you when they arrest you and that is the last thing we need. Where did you get the money?”

He looked down at where her nails had gouged half-moon indents into his wrist and grinned. But instead of responding directly, he turned her hand over in his, lifted it, and slowly pressed the back of it to his lips.

All the blood rushed out of her face at that contact.

She could feel his amusement radiating through her skin, and that only made her yank her hand away even more quickly than she might have otherwise.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Mischief lingered on his mouth, rendering it positively wicked. “Providing for you. Like I told you I would.” He’d purred that. That was a definite purr.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” His brow quirked.

“You know what I’m asking.”

Ben gave her a long look. His dark eyes roved over her face, and the longer he studied her, the odder Rey felt. She couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking or what he might have been looking for, but whatever it was, he’d only just seemed to have found it when their order was called. He broke his stare and turned to gather their food, leading her to an empty table in the corner before calmly sliding her soup and sandwich over to her when she sat.

“Ben—”

He cut her off before she could finish. “As I have already stated, it’s not fair for you to bear the burden of my presence here alone. I agree with you there, and that’s not how this arrangement was supposed to go. I don’t like it.” He pulled his own plate off the tray and looked curiously at his sandwich. “I don’t like when things deviate too far from the established norm when it comes to my duties as a demon. And not only that, but I don’t want you even more stressed than you already are. It’s not good for the health of your body or your soul. So I’ll simply ask you for this, Rey: if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask me the question, alright?”

Ben lifted the food to his mouth and eyed her over the top of the bread before putting it down again. “And can you trust me a little, please? I’m working on some plans, but they won’t happen overnight. This world moves remarkably fast, but not that fast. Not from what I’ve read.”

“Won’t you tell me what you’re planning?” Rey pushed her soup idly around the bowl with her spoon. “I’ll feel better if I know.”

“I’d rather keep it a surprise.”

“Why?”

“More fun for me that way. It’s been half a millennium since I’ve had any.”

She looked up at him just as he took a massive bite of that sandwich with his wide mouth. He always seemed to be starving, and she knew his lunch wouldn’t last five minutes. Maybe not even two.

“You’re asking a lot of me, you know. I barely know you.”

“We’re bound together and I’m living with you.”

“I met you a day and a half ago.” She leaned over at the table and lowered her voice accusingly. “And you’re a demon.”

“So?” Half the sandwich was already gone, and he put it down so he could rest his elbows on the table and tent his fingers, his expression still quizzical but bordering on offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rey pointed at him with her spoon. “Didn’t you go read up on yourself today? Demons don’t exactly have a good reputation in our literature.”

Ben’s groan was bone-deep. “I did go read those plays you mentioned, and they’re slanderous.” He lifted a finger and pointed right back at her. “That is not how things played out with Johann, I am not any sort of ‘devil’—” the air quotes he used were indignant “—and I am not evil, thank you.”

He shoved the rest of the sandwich angrily into his mouth before starting in on his own bowl of soup. When he tried some of it, he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Good soup,” he murmured, giving it an appraising—but pleased—look before gesturing curiously at it. “What is this, again?”

“Tomato. It’s a nightshade from this continent, same family as eggplant. Aubergine. Whatever.” But Rey’s scowl only deepened, and she reached across the table and slapped his arm. “Quit trying to distract me. You stole that money from someone.”

He swallowed with a snort. “Baseless accusation. You don’t know where I got that from. For all you know, it could have been a gift given in good faith. And besides: stealing isn’t inherently evil. It’s a morality issue, not a philosophical one, in my opinion.”

She stared at him blankly. “What are you, a lawyer?”

Ben opened his mouth, paused, and shut it again before rubbing his chin pensively. “Maybe I should be…” It was Rey’s turn to groan, and he leaned over and tapped the side of her bowl with a grin. “Eat the soup I bought for you. We’ve got more work to do.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon at the library, though this time Rey didn’t let Ben out of sight. Or at least, she tried not to. But he kept gravitating towards the business and law and technology sections of the library, alternating between those books and ones on history and pop culture and politics, obviously trying to catch up on everything he’d missed over the last five centuries in a way that Wikipedia just couldn’t quite fulfill.

She sat at a nearby table and tried not to nod off while doing research of her own.

Eventually, Rey had to drag him away from the stacks at four before traffic got worse. Ben left carrying a massive pile of books, but none of them were for him.

All of them were titles that he’d picked out for her to read.

“I can’t finish that many books before they’re due, you know,” she told him as they exited. “I’m not capable of reading as fast as you, and I don’t have the time between work and, you know, trying to figure out who owns my soul.”

“Maybe not, but these were really good, and we should try to find time,” he insisted. “It’s important to do things to quiet the mind and feed the soul, even if you don’t own yours right now. And you enjoy reading, don’t you? You have such a nice little library at home.”

“I did used to like it, yes, enough to have majored in literature, but I wouldn’t call my books a—”

“These are excellent stories and myths, all very well-written. Like this one.” He held one up and she buried her face in her hand when she saw the title. “It’s quite the tale.”

“I’ve already read Lord of the Rings, Ben.”

“Oh.” His face fell and he lowered the book in disappointment. “Well, then, uh—”

“You’re going to lose your shit when I tell you they made these into some pretty amazing movies. And I have the extended editions at home. We can watch the first one tonight.”

His brows knit together. “I read about movies today, but I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“You’ll see. But we’ve got something more important to do first.”

Their next stop was a grocery store. Eating out was going to be an issue otherwise.

And you would’ve thought she’d brought Ben right out of hell and straight to heaven.

“There’s everything here,” he kept whispering, picking up produce and staring at it with wide eyes. “This isn’t even in season. And what is this? I’ve never seen the like. And—”

Two hours they spent in H-E-B, filling up their basket with everything Ben wanted to try. And honestly, Rey secretly loved watching him discover new things. She hadn’t ever really thought about it, but he was right: this was so much easier than farming and raising your own livestock for slaughter, and she’d never really appreciated it before.

“Just put the chicken in the basket,” she said with a shake of her head while they stood in the poultry section.

He was still pointing at the packaging. “You don’t even have to butcher it? Or pluck the feathers from it? It’s already done?!” He held up one of the two rotisserie chickens she’d put in the cart for tonight and poked at its plastic casing in wonder. Two, because he’d probably eat an entire one by himself. “This one is even already cooked.” He held it up for closer inspection, his eyes glinting with desire. “This is amazing.”

She yanked it out of his hands and dropped it back in the cart while she hid a soft smile. “Come on, Renaissance man. Let’s go.”

No one ever really thought about what convenience these days entailed, but it was nice to be reminded of the magic in the minutia for a moment.

When they got home, Ben lingered in the kitchen with her and helped her put the groceries away. Rey glanced over her shoulder while she was elbow-deep in the fridge as he puttered around and tried to set out ingredients for dinner. He’d wanted to try cooking something like he’d seen on TV, which was frankly…sweet. She wiped some sweat away from her forehead while she arranged the cold ingredients on her shelves and tried to remember the last time someone had cooked for her.

The Teedos never did. She’d had to make her own food when she was placed with them, and it was four years of canned soup and tuna, hastily thrown-together sandwiches, and boxed or frozen dinners while she was in high school. Mostly prepackaged and none of it at all filling or nutritious.

She’d lived in the dorms in college, and none of the boys she dated then could cook, not even on the illegal burners some of them smuggled into their rooms.

And here in Austin, she’d never been with anyone long enough to even invite them over for anything more than Netflix and chill. She mostly went over to their places, and even that never lasted long before things went sour, Beau included.

Which didn’t matter anyway, since he couldn’t cook. He mostly lived on takeout and energy drinks while he played Call of Duty and spent entirely too much money on UberEats when he got hungrier for something more substantial than Funyuns and Mountain Dew from the icehouse down the road. Rose didn’t cook either, and Rey and Finn weren’t exactly that close yet. He was still trying to just get her to even show up for a game night. They weren’t make-dinner-together kind of friends or neighbors.

Had anyone she knew actually made her a meal before?

The thought sat heavy in her stomach.

She sat on the floor and stared at the carton of fresh half-and-half she was putting away while Ben chattered in the background. He was already busy picking at one of the open rotisserie chicken containers and shoving bits of the bird in his mouth while he read the back of a package of rice.

“I haven’t ever cooked this before, but I tried some once when I was traveling with a summoner in the orient. Well, I suppose that was a really long time ago, but it can’t be too hard to make, can it? They just cooked it in pots over fires on the ship, and your equipment is much nicer than what we had.”

“I have a rice cooker you can use,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded oddly far away, distant and resonant in a way that made her feel like she was floating outside of her own body.

The words on the dairy carton began to blur together.

“I don’t know what that is, so you’ll have to show me. Or I can check your Google to be sure I do it right.” At the mention of Google, she heard him shift behind her and leave the kitchen, probably heading into the living room to grab her laptop. “Now chicken, on the other hand—that I know I can cook, though I still can’t believe we don’t have to tonight. This one you bought is delicious.” The keys on her keyboard clacked. She had the brief worry that they'd be covered in grease until she remembered how fastidious Ben was. Certainly more than her. “I’ve always loved game birds and poultry, and I don’t know how many times I’ve roasted a bird over a fire. I’m confident I can make you a good one next time.”

Then Ben went very quiet.

“Actually…I don’t know how many times I’ve cooked game over a fire.” She could practically hear his frown. “Huh. Odd. I have the sense that I…”

He trailed off, but he was right.

This was weird.

“What kind of spices do you like the most, Rey?” The pivot to lightness in his tone when he finally spoke again was almost a little too fast. “You’ve tried more of them than I have.”

It felt weird.

“I don’t know,” she replied absently, still staring at the carton in her hand. It was too heavy all of a sudden. “Just dig in my pantry and put whatever smells the best to you on there.”

It felt weird because it felt nice.

It felt…

Natural.

“Okay. I’ll see what you have and give it a try. They mentioned recipes on the cooking shows I watched, so maybe I’ll look for one.”

But why did it ache?

Her hand began to shake.

Rose was the only one who ever even came over to her apartment. But now Ben was here. He had been here for a few days, and he took up so much space both in her apartment and in her thoughts that the sudden idea of him not being here, of him not asking a million questions, of not feeling him near her, or of her suddenly being left so very alone again came crashing down on her like a ton of bricks.

He was right this morning:

Rey liked him near her.

She liked him right beside her, in fact.

He called it. Knew it and understood it before she had.

But the question was this: was it because she actually just needed someone, anyone around? Was she simply that lonely?

Or was it someone like Ben who she'd been lonely for all this time?

Her chest tightened.

But he wasn’t completely real.

Was he?

Rey looked down at the dark, twisting symbols wound around her right hand and fingers, painted onto her skin like some infernal tattoo. Was it the bond that had made her so uncomfortable during the hour she’d been apart from him in the library?

But that didn’t make sense. He was just over in the room next to her right now, and somehow she was missing him.

Her lungs felt heavy. She was having trouble breathing.

Something leaden dropped into the bottom of her stomach.

What is this?

What’s happening?

Before she could answer that question, there was a knock at the front door.

She gasped, finally sucking in all the air she hadn’t just been breathing, and stumbled to her feet. “Wait, let me get—”

But Ben had already stepped over and opened it.

“Oh. Uh…hi? Is Rey there? Who are you?”

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK—

It was Rose.

Rey threw the carton inside the fridge and slammed the door shut before lunging for the entryway. Rose was peering curiously around Ben, a plastic bag full of Pedialyte and Sprite and a box of saltines clutched in her hand. The second she saw Rey’s face, her expression darkened, and she shoved the demon out of the way, stepping angrily into the apartment.

Given how tiny Rose was, it was impressive how far she managed to make Ben stagger.

“You whore!” Rose yelled, letting the bag fall heavily to the ground while she jabbed Rey in the shoulder. “You took a fucking sexcation day without telling me?! I’m your best friend! How dare you!”

“Hey!” Ben shouted. The scowl he wore would have cowed any lesser person. “Don’t you call her that! Who do you think you—”

But Rose whirled on him and pointed up in his face. She was shorter than Rey and had a long way to reach, but Ben still recoiled at the force of her glare. “Who the hell are you? I haven’t heard anything about you! You’re not that hot lawyer!”

“Lawyer?” Red began to creep up his neck. “What lawyer? I’m her—”

“Friend. He’s an old friend from college, Rose. We’re not fucking, he’s just staying with me.” Rey grabbed her arm and whirled Rose around to face away from the demon. His frown was back in full force at the mention of someone else, and she was not even going to broach that topic. “And I told you to stop answering the door!” she snapped at Ben.

Rose lifted an indignant hand and shook it in his direction. “Oh, but you couldn’t tell me that you had some tall, hot guy staying in your apartment today and that’s why you needed to skip work all of a sudden?”

“‘Hot?’” Ben muttered softly to himself. His confusion was palpable. “Why does everyone here think that it’s hot in—”

“Since when did guests merit last-minute stomach viruses, huh? Mitaka said it sounded like you were dying this morning, so I went to CVS after work and got you a bunch of shit to make sure you were alright! I worried when you didn’t text me back!”

She hadn’t?

Oh fuck.

Rey grabbed her phone out of her pocket and checked it, and there they were: a whole host of increasingly frantic missed messages from Rose over the course of the day. As soon as they’d walked into the library, she’d put it on silent and had completely forgotten to check it.

She buried her face in her hand. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I missed these—I guess I was just distracted.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I’m saying, Rey. You scared the shit out of me. I thought I’d show up here to find you dead or something.”

Rey threw her arms around her friend and gave her a huge squeeze. “I’m really sorry. Please forgive me? I’ve just been kind of out of it lately.”

Rose waited for a moment before pursing her lips and hugging her back with a resigned sigh. “I can’t stay mad at you. Just tell me the truth next time, okay? You know I’ll cover for you.”

“I know.”

Rose looked at her again and held a concerned hand to her forehead. “You sure you don’t have a fever, though? Do you know how hot it is in here? My pits are weeping.”

“It’s so hot outside, my AC is struggling to keep up, I think. But we just got back, and you just came in from out there, so I can’t tell. Give it a minute to adjust, I’m sure it’ll cool off.” Rey pulled away and looked up at Ben. He was watching her, his face more relaxed than it had been a minute ago, and he was eyeing Rose warily, as though he wasn’t entirely sure she might not still pull a knife on him or something.

Though Rey couldn’t fault him for that.

It had happened to him as soon as he’d arrived, after all.

She sighed while she looked up at him and decided she might as well get this over with. “Rose, this is Ben Solo. Ben, Rose Tico, my work bestie from Theta.”

He held out his hand. “It’s lovely to meet you, Rose.”

Rose slid her hand into his and her mouth dropped open when it completely disappeared inside Ben’s massive palm. But she closed it and recovered just as quickly. “It’s nice to meet you too. Sorry I went nuts, I just know that Rey doesn’t have anyone to rely on, so I was super suspicious.” Her brows knit together slightly. “She’s never mentioned a Ben from college before. Were y’all close?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “We weren’t, but we…reconnected this week.” He glanced at Rey. “I’m thinking about moving here permanently, and Rey was nice enough to put me up on her couch while I’m visiting.”

Wait a second.

Those lies were entirely too smooth.

When did he come up with—

“Oh, that’s cool. But maybe rethink that relocation plan.” Rose wrinkled her nose. “Frankly, we don’t need any more people moving to Austin. I don’t care how many ‘Best Of’ lists our city gets put on, the traffic is a goddamn nightmare and we don’t have any public transit to speak of. Housing costs are through the roof, and while the food is incredible, the city is nowhere near as weird or artistic as it used to be—not to mention the fact that summers are hotter than Hell, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“I do know that part about the heat, yes.” Ben tried to contain a snort but was only partially successful.

“It’s not even August yet. Just wait. You won’t like it as much as you think you will, that I promise you.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m having the time of my life right now.” A crooked smile grew across his lips. “But I’ll keep all this in mind, thanks.” His eyes flicked back over to Rey’s. “I will say, though: the tacos are amazing, and the queso might be life-changing.”

“Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with you there.”

“Plus, I’m really enjoying spending time with Rey.” His expression softened. “I only regret not being able to have done that sooner.”

Rose narrowed her eyes and looked him suspiciously up and down. “Yeah…yeah, why didn’t you snatch her up back in college, then? You’re so exactly her type, it’s uncanny. It’s like she ordered you right out of a catalog.”

At that, he smiled so wide, his face split nearly in half.

Things were going south and fast. “Rose, we’re not dating, he’s not—”

But Ben only crossed his arms over his broad chest and interrupted her right back, still beaming like an idiot, his glee at Rose’s statement barely contained. “We were simply in very different places at the time, I suppose. I’d just gotten out of the military and went to college kind of late. We only had one history class together, and I didn’t get to study with her as much as I wanted, what with her work in the library and all.”

What?! How did he—

Rey openly gaped at him—until she remembered.

The contracts.

Of course he’d filed that detail away from examining her work contracts.

Rose pursed her lips again and Rey began to sweat harder. An interrogation was incoming, she could feel it, and she needed to—

“So what do you do, Ben? What are you hoping to bring to our fair city?” Rose crossed over to the couch and plopped down on it. She was clearly in it for the long haul.

Oh shit. Rey opened her mouth to interject. She needed to put a stop to this and she needed to do it now.

“H-He—He’s—“

“I’m a financial analyst.”

“You’re…what?” Rey’s mouth dropped open even wider.

What the fuck? When did he—

She stared at Ben over the back of Rose’s head, but he completely ignored her and focused on her friend, sitting on the other side of the couch and lounging comfortably on it as if he owned the damn thing.

“Oh cool. For who?”

“First Order Dynamics out in Boston, currently, but I’m looking to make the jump to a better climate and figured I’d check out the tech industry here in Texas. I’ve heard good things. And while we get plenty of funding from the government, as I’m sure you can imagine, I don’t like Massachusetts.” He met Rey’s eyes, and she could have sworn she saw a ring of gold flash around the outer edge of his irises for a split second. “It’s far too cold.”

“Yeah, I could definitely see that. Don’t want to deal with all that snow?”

“No.” Ben chuckled. “Too much ice, too. I like the heat. It’s just the sort of permanent change I need.”

Permanent. There was that word again.

Why had he said it twice?

Rey grabbed Rose’s shoulders and tried to pull her off the couch to usher her towards the door. “Okay y’all, this has been a lovely chat, but I really wasn’t prepared for company. Additional company.” She laughed nervously and pushed harder when she felt Rose dig her heels into her floor.

Wait.

The floors, oh god.

The symbols that had called Ben here were still burned into the wooden planks, and it was a wonder Rose hadn’t commented on it.

She must have been far too busy looking up at Ben rather than down.

“Hey, excuse you! I was getting to know your new—”

“Why don’t we hang out some other time? Not on a work night—maybe Saturday night?” Rey wiped more sweat away from her brow. “Ben and I are trying to hammer some stuff out about our new living arrangement, and—”

“We can’t hang out Saturday.” Rose turned and stared at her. “You have a date, remember? You’re meeting Snap for drinks?”

“Jesus Christ!” Rey buried her face in her hands. Why was everything happening all at once? Why couldn’t she stay on top of her own life? “I completely forgot! I—”

“You know what?” Rose patted her shoulder softly. “You seem stressed. I’ll come over some other time, just as long as you answer my fucking texts, alright? Don’t make me think you’re lying dead on the floor alone in your apartment with half your face eaten off by your cat, yeah?”

“I don’t have a cat!” Rey wailed.

“Good! See? You remembered something!” Rose pressed a kiss to her cheek and made her way over to the foyer. “Maybe still drink that Pedialyte, you’re sweating an awful lot.” She turned to Ben and motioned between them while she opened the door. Heat spilled inside in visible waves, the setting sun tainting them a light amber across the mangled floors. “Make sure she hydrates and goes to bed so that she doesn’t actually get sick.” Her finger stopped on Ben. “And you and me, sir? Next time: interrogation.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted lazily in her direction with two fingers. “I'll take care of her. I promise.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to it.” Rose nodded sternly at him. “‘Night, y’all.”

When the door clicked shut, Rey could have collapsed from the sweet relief. And, in fact, she did.

She crouched down and hugged her knees to her chest, burying her face in her arms and breathing deeply to try to calm herself. After a few breaths, she did feel her heart slow its roll and try a little less to beat straight out of her chest.

But it didn’t last long.

Footsteps padded heavily across the wooden floors towards her, and she peered through the cracks in her arms. Large, bare feet appeared before Ben lowered himself into a crouch in front of her, his lips pressed into one thin, unamused line. His red and gold eyes were blazing with fury when they came into view.

“What’s this about a ‘date’?”

Chapter Text

It was impressive how that one speck of beer cheese managed to cling to Snap’s beard so tenaciously.

Rey had watched as it fell from the piece of soft pretzel he’d shoved in his mouth at least twenty minutes ago, tumbling across thick, smacking lips only to land right at the dip of his chin, quivering with every word he spoke through gasping bites of boiled, salted bread.

It was mesmerizing. 

She had no idea what those words he spoke were. No clue what he was talking about. The siren song of the dancing congealed dairy tangled in his face fur was far too strong. He could have been telling her that he was a Russian spy or a NASA astronaut or the president of Croatia for all she knew, and it would have been the same. If he were to ask her a question right now, she’d be thoroughly fucked. 

Which was honestly completely out of the realm of possibility, since he hadn’t asked her a single question once she’d sat down across from him at the outdoor beer and bread garden.

The date with Snap—or Temmin, apparently, though no one but his mother ever called him that—had held so much potential for what it was supposed to be. Easy Tiger was already one of her favorite meetup spots in town (how could it not be? They specialized in all things yeast. The bread was to die for), so she’d agreed to go when he’d suggested it, and he seemed alright based on his profile. Perfectly normal. Just some decent-looking bearded millennial who probably liked to watch football while drinking craft beer on the weekends and play pickleball with his friends on Tuesday nights after work. It should have been a perfectly fine rip-the-bandaid-off date.

But, of course, she hadn’t known at the time what a gigantic problem that particular date might cause at home. 

Literally, given how gigantic and demon-shaped the problem currently squatting in her apartment actually was.

“I’m coming with you!”

Ben hadn’t exactly roared it when she’d explained what Rose meant by a “date” last night, but he might as well have.

“You are not coming with me on a date.”

“Yes, I am!”

“No way in hell!” Rey held a finger up in his face. “Pun fucking intended!”

He batted her hand away, his scowl only darkening as he stepped forward. “Since you’re refusing to cancel it, yes, I am coming. Did you forget about our bond?” He held up his own hand, the twisting, gold and red symbols flashing to life across his skin. “How far away is this—this ‘Easy Tiger?’ Farther than your place of employment?”

“Well, it’s—well, yes, but—”

“Do you want to be in pain the entire time you’re being courted? Does that sound fun to you? I know you felt it when you were at the end of the tether yesterday.” He bridged the gap between them and leaned down so close his nose almost grazed against hers. Scarlet red fury flushed his cheeks. “And do you know how I know?” He pointed at his scar and gritted his teeth. “Because I felt it on my face, Rey. Do you have any idea what it feels like when your face suddenly tries to tear itself in half? I do. And I don’t appreciate it.”

Her eyes darted to his scar again, tracing those jagged edges where the deep, puckering wound had stitched itself together long ago. There wasn’t a lot she could say to that.

Ben’s eye twitched at her silence while he took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. The red began to recede. He turned back to the package of rice and ripped it open carefully before consulting whatever recipe he’d pulled up on her laptop. “And bond aside, you need a chaperone.”

That single word—and the way he said it—set her off all over again.

“A chaperone?! Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

He calmly measured out the grains and poured them into the battered mesh strainer he’d found in her cupboards while nodding. “It isn’t proper for a beautiful young woman to go meet a strange man alone. Especially since he suggested meeting you at what sounds like a tavern. How seedy is this place, anyway?”

“It’s not at all seedy. It’s a perfectly respectable restaurant!” Rey stood on her tiptoes, curling her lip in disdain at his nonchalance as she yanked him back around to face her. “And not only that, but I don’t need a goddamn chaperone, you patriarchal asshole. You’re not my father, and even if you were, I wouldn’t let you police me like that. That’s not how the world works anymore, and I’m not some delicate flower!” Then she stilled. This was bullshit. “And why the fuck don’t I need a chaperone with you, huh, Ben? You are a strange man.”

He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “What?!”

“I barely know you! You appeared buck-naked in my apartment two days ago, and frankly, you count as very strange in more than one way. How is that for propriety? Is that what a gentleman does?”

“How I appeared to you initially was merely circumstance! It was outside of my control.” The red was back, rapidly creeping up the sides of Ben’s neck towards the tips of his ears. “I would never hurt you or do anything to you without your consent. You know me more than this ‘Snap,’ and we both know that I am far more attractive to you than—”

“Are you even technically a man? You sure do love reminding me that you’re not human.”

Oh, that did it. 

She’d been expecting it this time. Had known exactly what sort of button she was pushing, and yet—

And yet, she'd stared him down and pushed it anyway.

His mouth opened and closed and opened again—and then closed once more. His eyes dropped between his legs for a split second, as if he couldn’t believe she’d actually dared insinuate what she had when she had very definitely seen his rather prodigious cock more than once.

“How—are—a-are you joking?!” His chest heaved as he sputtered, and his shirt tightened across it. Ben was swelling again, growing larger, taller. His shorts were rapidly becoming even shorter, his skin lightening to an uncanny, icy pallor while his eyes blazed fiery red and gold. His hair darkened, and the hint of two horns struggled to burst through his shadowy waves.

Suddenly, her kitchen seemed so very small, and his gaze so very dark. 

But then he quieted. Ben took a deep breath and closed his eyes. And the next time she blinked, he was normal again. 

When he opened his eyes, he rolled his jaw—and glared. “I most certainly am a man, Rey,” he murmured, his low tenor rumbling deep in his throat. “In all the ways that matter most.” He picked up the rice in the strainer again and stared at it blankly. “I only want what’s best for you. I only want to keep you safe,” he told the grains. “And if it’s pleasure you’re seeking, you know you don’t have to leave this apartment to find it.”

The silence that fell between them at his words was so palpable, she could cut it with a knife.

When he finally met her gaze again, the weight she saw there was far too heavy for her to bear.

“You know what?” Rey’s voice shook. She hated that it did, but she couldn’t stop it now. “It’s not just ‘pleasure’ I’m looking for. I want so much more than that, Ben. And I’m not going to find it by never going outside.”

She’d turned on her heel and slammed her bedroom door on him, leaving him standing stock-still in the kitchen. 

When there was a soft knock on it about an hour and a half later, she didn’t answer it immediately. 

“Rey? Are you hungry?”

She didn’t even answer when he tried again.

It didn’t matter that she could hear the regret in his tone.

Instead, she watched the shadows shift beneath the door, alternating between dark and light until she heard something being set down on the ground before his footsteps receded. Only when she heard the hiss of the shower through the wall did she open her door. 

He’d left a tray at her threshold with dinner, a generous cut of the rotisserie chicken laid atop a cooling bed of rice dressed with broccoli and drizzled with some sort of citrus-garlic sauce. A single red hibiscus flower had been clipped from somewhere—a neighbor’s porch plant was missing a bloom, if she had to guess—and set in a shot glass of water next to a tumbler full of iced tea. And he’d written her a note on her napkin in a beautiful, calligraphic hand that looked as if it had jumped straight out of an illuminated manuscript—or it would have, if it’d been scrawled with a quill and ink instead of with a ballpoint pen.

I sincerely apologize for behaving like a prick.
Your life is not mine to control.
It is still difficult for me to comprehend how different things are now compared to how they used to be.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.

Yours,
Ben

It was the same handwriting she’d glimpsed on her soul contract. 

With a sigh, she eyed the bathroom door again before pulling the tray inside. And when she came back out in another hour, Ben was sitting shirtless on her couch, staring silently at her laptop screen, his thick, dark waves only half dry.

The kitchen had been scrubbed spotless.

When she sank onto the cushions next to him, he glanced at her, hope lighting up his face even as his brows knit together in concern.

“Rey, I—”

“I’m sorry for being a dick to you too. That was a low blow. And being tired doesn’t excuse that.” She held out the old iPhone she’d dug out of her closet. “Here. I got you a present. Kind of.”

He took it from her, his bewilderment only growing as he stared down at the dark glass. His hands were so large, her old phone almost looked as small as a pack of cards in his paw. “What’s this for?”

She sighed and rubbed the space between her eyes. “It’s a cell phone, like mine. It has the internet on it and you can fit it in your pocket. I added another line to my plan, so you have your own number and everything. And a camera, like the one that took your picture at the library today.” She tapped the cracked screen to make it light up. She’d set a picture of books as the background. “You can’t come on the date with me, but you can wait for me in the car. And when I’m gone at work, or running an errand, you can call me if I go too far away. Or you can text. I’ll show you how. It’s an older phone and the battery doesn’t last long, so you’ll need to make sure to keep it charged. I’m sorry this one is damaged, but I don’t have enough money to buy you a new one and adding another line was more expensive than I wanted it to be.” Her mouth went dry when she imagined what her credit card bill was going to look like this month. “But it works.”

“I don’t mind if it’s a little cracked,” he muttered softly as he looked up at her. “Not if you don't."

"I...suppose there's a reason I kept it around." Her cheeks burned. "As a backup."

He went quiet for a moment as he looked at the battered old phone in his hands. "It’s a tiny laptop? Of my own?” he finally asked. She nodded, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he swept his thumb along the glass. “Everyone I’ve seen here has one of these. I was wondering what exactly they were.”

She nudged his shoulder with hers. “Yeah, well…welcome to the twenty-first century. You’re a real boy now.”

He shot her a sharp look before softening—and then snorting. “Thank you. I know this was probably yet another undue burden for you, and I—”

“So what do you think?”

Rey jerked her leg so hard, she bashed it on the underside of the picnic table where they sat and had to bite her lip to stop from crying out. 

Shit. 

Snap had finally asked her a question. 

She was too busy thinking about that look Ben had given her last night, the way the green and brown of his irises had flashed whiskey and amber in the low lamplight of her living room while she showed him how to use his new old phone. He seemed to especially enjoy the camera app, and when he’d taken a picture of her scowling at him in her sleep tank and messy bun and put it as his lock screen instead of the books, her stomach had flipped over on itself at the sight of that deeply pleased crooked smile of his and—

“Uh…about what?”

“My board game idea?” Snap smacked his lips again before raising a hand to his mouth and licking salt from his fingers. That one drop of congealed cheese still quivered in his dark beard like some weird gelatinous beacon, shining bright to guide sailors home from the sea. How had it not fallen yet? Had it melded with his hair? “I was telling you about how I want to be a professional board game designer.”

“Oh. Oh, right, right, yeah. That’s the dream, yeah?” She laughed nervously and took an idle sip of her beer before staring down at the half-eaten loaded waffle fries she’d ordered. They were supposed to be sharing the appetizers, but Snap had already inhaled all of the pretzel and most of the missing fries. Not even the whipped salted butter had been safe from him, and he’d made sure to swipe the cup clean of it with his finger. “Remind me what the day job is? You’re at a tech company too, right?”

“Customer service account management at Indeed, but they laid me off a few weeks ago. Kind of ironic, actually, that the company that’s supposed to help you find a job fired a bunch of people.” He grabbed his beer and chugged a good portion of it, sighing in satisfaction. Some of the foam dribbled down his chin and landed next to the speck of cheese when he belched.

Oh. The bubbles were just sort of...hovering there. Looked like the cheese had made a new friend. 

Rey couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“Uh-huh,” she muttered absently, still staring. “Right. God, that sucks doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, my mom’s not happy about it. She liked when I was paying her rent. Now she wants me to save the money.” More of the fries disappeared. “I just applied for a part-time position as a cashier at GameStop, though. That should be fun. Fifteen percent employee discount, I’ve heard.”

That—

Hold on.

“Wait. Do you—do you live with your mom?” Rey finally managed to break her gaze away from the food party currently assembling and crawling its way towards Snap’s neck. “I thought you said you owned your own house?” He’d definitely said he owned a house in the messages they’d exchanged. She was fairly certain she’d even sent a screenshot of it to Rose at some point. (“I think this one might at least have his life together somewhat?”)

“No, no, I live with her in her house. She owns one down in South Austin. Has since the eighties. I’ve got the basement to myself. Lots of space for my cat to roam.”

“I…see.”

Snap was racking up lies and half-truths like trophies. He’d told her he had a job when they’d first started talking—which he apparently hadn’t, given the timeline he just admitted to—and that was besides the fact that he was at least four inches shorter than what was listed on his profile. There was no way he was cracking six feet tall; he was five-eight at best. Rey wasn’t even wearing heels and they saw nearly eye to eye.

It wasn’t that being short was a sin. It was more the principle of the thing.

At least own up to it.

She was still trying to figure out what to do with this latest revelation when movement flashed out of the corner of her eye—and a familiar towering head of dark hair poked out through the door leading towards the indoor part of the restaurant.

“Oh no. No no,” Rey muttered under her breath, slouching on her bench slightly and trying to hide her face. But it was no use. 

She knew the weight of the familiar, uncanny gaze trained on her now.

Snap had just started in about how his mom was letting him use the garage to brew beer on weekends when Ben made his way over to the half-empty table behind Rey, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of her before he stepped his long legs over the bench and cheerfully took a menu from the server when he sat. 

“I’ll have a….PHP Bearded Seal Nitro. And the prosciutto baguette, please. Actually, make that two.”

Did he even know what that was?

Or did he just pick it at random?

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore him, but she could feel him sitting there. A refreshing chill was rolling off of him in waves, tumbling down and swirling around her as it chased away the high summer heat. It swept along her back, and she did her best to repress a shiver. Could anyone else feel it, or was it just her? No one else seemed to notice that Ben was a walking fridge, at least not as far as she could tell.

BUZZ.

Her phone vibrated on the table. She swept it into her lap without looking at the screen.

“The last batch that I made for my thirty-fifth birthday was really too hoppy, but it had nice body.”

BUZZ.

“I only lost a few bottles that exploded and—”

BUZZ BUZZ.

”Oh for fuck’s sake,” Rey muttered under her breath. She pursed her lips as she turned her phone over and glanced down.

She didn’t have to be psychic to know who the messages were from.

Ben 😈 | So this is the one you were meeting?

Ben 😈 | The one you chose to leave me behind for?

Ben 😈 | Wow.

Ben 😈 | …why exactly did you agree to let him court you, again?

The amount of time it took for the next two to come through was just enough for the heat to creep back into her cheeks.

She couldn’t quite decide whether it was from anger or embarrassment.

Ben 😈 | Do you want to lick that cheese out of his beard? Is that the attraction?

Ben 😈 | I know you love cheese.

“Shut up,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

Alright, maybe it was both.

And maybe giving him a phone and spending last night showing him how to use it had been a grave mistake.

“What was that?” Snap had actually come up from his beer long enough to notice that she was looking down at her lap and not at him.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Ben was sniggering. Was the bench behind her too far away to donkey-kick without being noticed?

Another series of text messages pinged through.

Ben 😈 | Has he asked you a single question besides that one?

Ben 😈 | You look miserable.

Ben 😈 | I can feel you scowling.

This was definitely a mistake.

Rey was just about to respond when another message from Ben beat her to the punch.

He’d gotten entirely too fast at typing on a virtual keyboard in the last day.

Ben 😈 | I like when you scowl at me.

Rey | BEN

Rey | STOP IT

Ben 😈 | You scrunch your nose.

Ben 😈 | Like one of these: 🐰

Ben 😈 | It's charming.

Ben 😈 | Very cute.

She immediately dropped her scowl.

When did he figure out the emoji keyboard?!

Ben 😈 | You know, we could have stayed home and had far more fun - just the two of us.

The scowl was back in full force.

“You’re such an asshole,” she hissed.

“Wait, I’m—what?”

Okay, fine, this date was shit. Ben was right, but she wasn’t going to let him know that quite so quickly. The heat in Rey’s face increased from a simmer to a boil as she typed furiously back.

Rey | YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY IN THE CAR

Rey | THAT WAS THE DEAL

Rey | I AM GONNA KILL YOU

The ensuing snort behind her back was only that much more galling.

Ben 😈 | Oh, I’d dearly love to see you try.

Ben 😈 | That could be fun.

Ben 😈 | (And we don’t technically have a deal.)

Ben 😈 | (Yet.)

Her fingers flew.

Rey | Where there’s a will there’s a way and I SWEAR TO GOD I’ll find one

She could practically feel his shoulders shaking with mirth behind her.

Ben 😈 | Oh sweetheart, God won’t save you.

Ben 😈 | It’s dead, remember?

Ben 😈 | You could always swear to ME instead.

Rey | I’m VERY creative

Ben 😈 | I bet you are.

Ben 😈 | I can’t wait to see HOW creative.

“Oh, fuck you.”

The sniggering behind her intensified.

Ben 😈 | Is that a promise?

Ben 😈 | I’d be delighted if you did.

Rey | NO

Ben 😈 | We'll see.

Rey | 🖕🏻

“Okay.” Her date stood and threw his unused napkin onto the table. “I’m done. I don’t like when chicks stay on their phones during a date. Pisses me off.” Snap snapped his fingers at the nearest server and tried to motion her over. “Hey! Hey, can I close out my half of the tab?”

Rey didn’t look up.

And he didn’t wait for the server to answer. Instead, he followed her inside, grumbling all the way.

As soon as he was gone, Ben grabbed his beer and slid into the empty spot at the picnic table across from her, pausing only to brush the stray grains of sea salt and pretzel crumbs away from the seat. 

“There,” he drawled when he’d finally situated himself. “Much better company, don’t you think?” He beamed sweetly when the server came back and placed his sandwiches in front of him. “Thank you. I’m sorry you have to deal with the likes of the one who was sitting here before me in this line of work. I hope he didn’t give you too much trouble?”

Rey didn’t miss how the waitress blushed and smiled softly at Ben’s attention as she shook her head, but waited until she walked off to glare at him again. “You ruined that for me.”

All sweetness he’d just held for their waitress turned smug. He was entirely too pleased with himself. “I didn’t ruin anything. You did. But if you'd like to blame me for it, I'll happily take the credit for saving you from that idiot.” He gave the sandwiches an appraising once-over before taking his beer glass and tapping its rim to hers. “Sláinte.”

She made no move to take her glass in hand and clink his back. “It was rude.”

He tilted his head and gave her a look. “You could have ignored those messages. You didn’t have to look. Or answer. And yet, you chose to.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but you’re very hard to ignore.”

“Oh really?” He leaned forward on one elbow, his voice dropping lower and dripping with pleasure. “You find me hard to ignore? Can’t take your eyes off of me?” He saluted her with his beer glass, and she rolled her eyes.

“Shut up.” She sighed. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re right. I do.” Ben leaned back and took a sip of his drink. “Ohhh.” It was his turn to heave a deep, contented sigh. He hummed and closed his eyes, throwing his head back while savoring the dark, stout brew on his tongue. “I haven’t had beer in ages.” 

She ignored him, settling firmly into indignance instead. “Either way, my point stands. Your behavior here was very rude.”

“I wasn’t the one who was rude.” He set the glass back down with a smirk as he studied her again, his strange, heterochromic hazel gaze simmering with mischief. “But what I did—and how you reacted to it—was efficient. Did you honestly want that beard with all those crumbs in it anywhere near your sex? I wouldn’t, even if he was the type to enjoy that particular activity—and he wasn’t. Trust me, I know. You can tell. He didn’t have the mouth for it.” Those sinful lips of his parted, revealing gleaming, charmingly crooked pearly white teeth, and he waggled his brows salaciously at her groan before glancing down at the table between them. His grin faded and he frowned slightly. “Did he not bring you flowers? Or some token of his affection?” He bent down and looked under the table. “There’s nothing here. I only see your purse.”

“No, Ben. He didn’t bring me anything. No one does that for first dates anymore, that’s not really how it’s—”

He straightened with a scoff—and a disgusted expression. “Then he wasn’t worth your time anyway.” He swept his hand dismissively through the air before taking a massive bite of one sandwich.

“You should have stayed in the car.”

“I was bored,” he mumbled in between bites. “Coming here to save you was far more fun.” 

“I told you to stay there. I can handle myself. I didn’t want you to white-knight for me.” She picked at the remainder of her waffle fries. They were all soggy now and probably had more than their fair share of Snap’s spit on them. He was a projectile talker.

Gross.

“That may be the first time anyone has ever accused me of such a thing.” He tossed the keys onto the table between them before reaching for his beer again. “But I rather like the idea.”

“You can’t do this every time I go out with someone.”

“I most certainly can. If these men you’re meeting can’t handle a bit of a challenge, then they don’t deserve you. And I very much look forward to challenging—and besting—my competition.”

“It’s not a competition.”

His nostrils flared. “Again, since I’m making my intentions known—”

“What intentions?!”

“You’re mine. You’ve pledged yourself to me. I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.”

“I’ve told you I’d give you my soul, not anything else.” Rey leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “You. Are. A. Demon,” she hissed. “You don’t even have a birth certificate. Or a social security number. Or a driver’s license. You functionally don’t exist. I can’t date you, because how can I—”

“And since you’ve informed me that you plan on letting other men court you while I am living with and bonded to you, then yes, I would say that this is very much a competition, and a spiteful one at that.” He held up a finger. “But I’ll allow it. Because it’s one I’m going to win. Handily.” He slid the second sandwich he’d ordered over to her. “Here. You still look hungry.”

Right on cue, her stomach growled. And the second it did, Rey seriously considered throwing the sandwich in his face purely out of spite.

But that would have been a terrible waste of perfect bread.

How dare he be so right.

Instead, she only grabbed her car keys and pocketed them before reluctantly swiping up the prosciutto baguette he’d gotten for her and stuffing it into her mouth. When the flavor of it properly hit her tongue, she moaned.

It was achingly delicious.

“Did you know what this was before you ordered it?” she asked as she chewed. “Or did you just—”

“Of course I know what prosciutto and baguette are. The roots of those words have been around for a long time.” He pushed her own beer glass closer to her next. “And I also looked it up before I got out of the car. But I think you should get to talk now. So how about you tell me all about your time at university, especially since we went there together. It’ll help with our cover story, yes, but according to Google, it also seems to be a popular topic on one of these dates.” He took another long, slow sip of his beer.

“We are not on a date.”

Ben’s shit-eating grin only widened over the rim of his glass.

“Sure, sweetheart. Keep telling yourself that.”

“That one, Aragorn, actually knows how to handle a sword. Impressive, for a playactor.”

“Do you know how to handle a sword, then?”

Ben scoffed. “Of course I do.” He scrunched his face at her in disdain—as if the answer should have been glaringly obvious. “Why wouldn’t I? Everyone should. And I am exceedingly good at it.”

“Of course you are.”

“I could teach you, if you’d like to learn.”

Once they’d finished dinner, Ben had pulled out a neatly folded stack of bills from his pocket and paid both of their tabs and tip with a wink—and Snap’s, who actually hadn’t followed the server inside to pay and instead had simply dined and dashed. It was a treat, Ben said, to make up for the piss-poor courting experience he’d witnessed. No lady should have to suffer the tribulations of unemployed self-centered bores with no proper table manners who don't know how to treat a beautiful woman the way she deserves, etc. etc.

Rey opened her mouth to ask him where he’d stolen the cash and then thought back to their conversation at the library. 

He was right. It was better that she didn’t know. 

Plausible deniability and all that. 

(He was definitely picking pockets.)

But either way, he was also right in that it did feel nice not to have to foot the bill for once. It was nice that he’d stepped up again. She didn’t want to think about how that made her feel, especially considering how many times she’d been stuck with the tab over the years. 

So she didn’t.

Instead, she’d dug around in her TV console as soon as they’d gotten home until she resurfaced clutching a dusty box of DVDs: The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition set.

“Alright, Ben. Get ready.” She swiped the dust off and enjoyed the horror that briefly flashed across his face at the sight of it tumbling to the ground unheeded. If he was going to fuck with her on dates, there were plenty of ways for her to fuck with him right back. “If you loved the books, I can’t wait to hear what you think of the films.”

He’d eyed the box suspiciously. “So these are like plays that one watches in their home at their convenience?”

“Precisely.”

“They live in a box? Just like that?”

She nodded again. “Yep.”

“And it is not magic? The players are not shrunk and kept inside that box or anything?”

She had to laugh. “No, they record their performances and this is just the medium on which we play them back. The actors are normal people. They live their lives in other cities and make other projects like this that get recorded and replayed later. It’s just a job for them.”

Ben shook his head. “This world is so very strange. Why you wouldn’t want to see such a thing on a stage, I’ll never understand.”

He understood very quickly. 

After she’d showered away the sweat from Easy Tiger (it was sweltering, even past sunset, though of course Ben hadn’t even so much as glistened with how cold he generally ran. He still looked pristine, still smelled fresh and clean from his shower that morning, like soap mixed with something else, something ancient and otherworldly and wholly him), she changed into soft shorts and a tank top, and they’d both settled onto her couch while she fired up her old DVD player.

And as soon as Galadriel’s narration started, Ben was enthralled. 

His eyes went wide and he leaned forward in his seat, staring in awe with his hands braced on his knees and his mouth agape. It was as if he were watching real magic being made on the screen, and he was silent for quite a long time. 

She had more fun watching him than the actual movie. 

Eventually, he did speak enough to ask a few questions and voice a few thoughts. But while he was firmly entranced by what was on the TV, Rey could feel herself fading. She’d seen Lord of the Rings countless times, and her eyes began to feel heavy. The gentle hum of hobbit voices in the background wasn’t helping, and neither was how warm her apartment was with the lingering heat of the early Texas summer still radiating up from the dark asphalt of the parking lot outside.

Rey leaned back and closed her eyes, letting herself give in to the heaviness floating around her. She hadn’t slept much last night either, instead ruminating on her fight with Ben while she lay in bed. She wasn’t used to having someone around all the time like this, and that in and of itself was exhausting. He was always there, lurking just behind the door or in the kitchen or right next to her. She wasn’t used to sharing her space or her life. And there was no escaping him. Not with the bond tying them together.

A part of her railed against it.

A part of her reveled in it.

She wasn’t sure how to feel.

But she wasn’t going to think about that now.

The light behind her eyes darkened, and she had the vague sense of Gandalf talking about the Mines of Moria. The movie grew quieter, and with it, Rey’s head tilted back. 

The more her head tilted, the more she seemed to fall. 

Until she was actually falling. 

A part of her barely still-conscious mind had expected the back of the couch to catch her like it always did if she fell asleep sitting up.

But it didn’t.

It wasn’t a jarring sense of tumbling, but rather a slipping backwards. A misstep between worlds. One second she was on her couch, and the next? The next, she’d thought she’d laid down, but there were no cushions to catch her.

She’d simply closed her eyes and tumbled into…

Nothing.

Only air. 

Only a sensation of weightlessness, but also velocity, her speed increasing the further down she fell. 

                                   Down.

                                                                      Down.

                                                                                                         Down.

Rey couldn’t exactly see. She wasn’t sure if her eyes were open, and her body was so numb, she couldn’t feel much of it at all. Everything was hazy, but what she was aware of was a coldness nipping at her bare skin, creeping along her arms and legs before finally enveloping her in a cocoon that grew icier and icier the farther down she fell, crackling along her skin like blue lightning and hardening in its wake. 

And the more she fell, the more the darkness encroached. 

It wasn’t complete darkness and shadow, but more the impression of it.

It was like drowning. 

Like slipping under the water and looking up, only to see the sunshine dancing between the waves and ripples on the surface above, growing dimmer and dimmer the further down she sank. 

The deeper she went, the less it filtered down into the depths.

The light began to wink out.

“No,” she whispered, frantically grasping at it and trying to keep it in her frozen hands. There was something about it, the light escaping from her, the urgency she suddenly felt at needing to grab hold of it and never let it go. 

The light was important.

She’d lost it.

The realization rushed over her.

Something was wrong. 

She’d made a mistake. 

But when she touched the last dregs of the light she could see, it slipped straight through her fingers like liquid silk, spilling out around her and dissolving on the wind.

When the last bit of it faded away, Rey closed her eyes.

And succumbed to the darkness.

Light flashed.

It was back.

Rey gasped and opened her eyes. 

She was lying on the ground, her breath curling white in thick rivulets in front of her, like the caps of foam-tipped waves riding on the bucking back of a stormy sea. They tumbled and twisted, circling slowly in the air before freezing and turning to ice. She inhaled, and their crystals broke and scattered before sweeping in and tearing at her lungs, stinging and piercing from the inside out with every stuttering breath.

Every breath she took shredded her.

Every breath was agony.

The ground where she lay was frozen solid, less stone than it was ice. But not the white or turquoise of the arctic glaciers she’d seen photos of in her school textbooks. No, the entire world here was completely devoid of color, all greys and blacks and blinding whites. But it wasn’t the same as the light before—it wasn’t the same as the light she’d lost.

The light here didn’t feel real.

It felt false, somehow.

As if it were generated from an artificial sun. 

It was a lie.

A taunt.

A promise of warmth that would never again be fulfilled.

She pushed herself up and looked around. The mouth of a cave was at her back, wide and black and gaping, the tunnel of it burrowing down into a silent, unknowable abyss. But what stretched before her was somehow even more bone-chilling:

An endless sea of dark waves, an ocean swirling without sound. 

There was no sky above. She didn’t know how she knew, only that it wasn’t air she was looking at—it was nothing. It was void, that same false light permeating whatever was above and scattering out into an infinite lack, like paper undrawn, like life unlived.

Everything around her except the cave stretched into infinity.

An eternal emptiness.

There was no other land. No other break on the horizon. No other person around, nothing but cold and strange, wavering light, and all of it surrounded by the weight of an all-encompassing silence. 

Rey stood and turned around. The longer she was there, the more the ice crept into her bones. Her teeth chattered as she shivered, and she tried to rub her arms to warm them. But her fingers, too, were frozen solid and stiff. Her skin felt odd. And then she realized why:

The silence was deafening because she had no heartbeat. 

For the first time in her life, there was no sound of blood rushing through her veins. No live warmth pulsing in her ears. 

She looked down at her chest. 

Where her heart should have been, there was nothing but a gaping, black hole.

An abyss, like the mouth of the cave.

An infinite abscess of absence.

She stumbled backwards in horror. She would have felt sick if she’d been able to feel anything at all, anything other than the creeping sense that something was wrong, something was so very horribly, incredibly, gravely wrong, that she’d somehow made the worst mistake imaginable—or unimaginable. She fell to her knees. The knowledge of the silence was unbearable.

There would be no escape for her.

She covered her ears with her hands.

There was nothing to hear.

Nothing except for her own thoughts.

Nothing.

And she screamed.

The sound of her shrieks echoed into the distance. It reflected off of the waves of the silent ocean, reverberated through the cave at her back, amplifying her anguish and tossing it straight back at her. Her own screams tore through her soul, ripped through her very being, and she fell to the ground, sucking for air, gasping for piercing, painful breath in between unending, unyielding screams of horror at what she’d done—at the soul-deep hurt she felt. 

She could feel nothing but unbearable, unyielding anguish .

But she couldn’t remember why.

She’d done something, but— 

Whatever it was, she couldn’t remember.

She needed to remember.

Tears fell from her eyes and froze on her cheeks as soon as she wept them, the drops immediately diamond-hard against her ice-cold skin.

“N-No,” she managed to breathe through the agonizing cold. “No, no. Please. Please, I want to go home. I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t be here.” She sobbed again. “I can’t remember. I can’t remember what I...But I shouldn’t have—”

She froze. 

Because a different sound was echoing across the empty landscape.

It rumbled in the distance like thunder, gathering in strength as it rolled across the lazy, placid waves of the silent sea.

It was laughter. 

Low and cruel, the volume of it grew, dancing around her.

Taunting. 

Terrible. 

Heartless.

Rey covered her ears again at the feeling of it rattling through her frozen bones, but it was no use. As soon as she did, whoever it was only laughed more. Harder. Pitiless and merciless, her anguish was their ecstasy, the sound of their mirth only becoming more sadistic and spiteful the more Rey curled into a broken ball of unending agony, smaller and smaller until her frozen skin split and cracked, until her bones shattered, until her soul shrank, crushed beneath the infinite heaviness of her own despair.

She sobbed.

She sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until—

Until she woke up. 

Rey woke with a gasp, startling at the sudden onslaught of sound. The movie was still playing before her eyes, the familiar colors and glow of the TV dancing and reflecting along the scorched runes etched into the ruined wooden floors of her apartment. 

She was freezing.

She shivered where she lay—and when she saw her breath curl white and cold in front of her, swirling through the heated air of her apartment as if she were outside on a cold winter’s day, a wholly different kind of chill coursed down her spine. 

But when she blinked, it was gone.

“Rey?” Ben’s voice rumbled at her back, concern creeping along its edges. “Are you alright?”

That’s when she realized where precisely she must have fallen asleep.

She was wrapped in Ben’s arms.

He’d stretched himself along the back of the couch, his legs so long that his bare feet were dangling over the edges, and he’d tucked her tightly against his chest while she slept, nestling his arm beneath her neck as a pillow. When she turned over to face him, a crease formed between his dark brows.

“Why didn’t you wake me so I could go to bed?” Her voice shook when she asked.

Her throat felt shredded, raw.

As if she really had been screaming.

As if ice really had torn through it like freshly sharpened blades.

The crease deepened. “You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to disturb you. I know you’ve been having trouble with that lately, so I thought we might try something different.” He ran his hand through her hair, soft and gentle. “I laid down behind you to help hold you on the couch so that you wouldn’t fall off, and when I did, you finally relaxed all the way. You were sleeping like the dead—heavy, like a rock.” When he buried his fingers deeper and began to massage her scalp, Rey closed her eyes again and leaned into the sensation. 

God, that felt good. 

That felt—

“Did you have a bad dream?” Ben was murmuring in her ear. The low, heady vibration of his voice was almost as soothing as the care he was giving her, and he shifted one of his legs, tangling it with hers to hold her more securely. “You can relax, you know. I’ve got you now. You don’t have anything to worry about while I’m around. You’re safe.”

Her racing heart began to slow. But…

Wait.

What had she just dreamed?

That felt entirely too real. She’d never had a nightmare like that before.

She’d never seen anywhere so desolate as that place, either in life or in her dreams.

Or in her nightmares.

Ben’s arm tightened beneath her as he slid it up her back and drew her even closer, pressing her chest fully to his and tucking her head beneath his chin. “You can go back to sleep, sweetheart.” He began gently stroking her hair again. His lips brushed softly against the top of her head as he spoke, his own voice low and seductive, gravelly, heavy, almost as if he’d been asleep himself. “It’s okay, I promise. I don’t mind. I’d like to hold you—if you’d let me.”

She nodded.

Yes, that did sound good.

This felt so good.

What if she just let go for once?

She melted into his cool embrace, sliding an arm around his neck and nuzzling closer as her body relaxed again. It felt so good to be held. When was the last time someone had hugged her like this? She suppressed a sob, but her shoulders shook slightly and betrayed her anyway.

It only made him hold her tighter.

It only made the ache in her chest where her heart beat intensify.

She sobbed again, real this time, a deep, mournful thing, grieving something she couldn’t name.

It was empty. Desolate, like the wine-dark sea in her dream.

Like the cold ice of the ground beneath her palms.

Like the black mouth of the cave.

“That’s it,” Ben whispered. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. It was so light, she almost wasn’t certain he’d swept his lips there at all, and a strange, soothing warmth spread over her body at his caress. “Let it out, and then go back to sleep. You need to rest. I’ll hold you safe and sound all night so that you can.”

Her head lolled and grew heavy in his arms. This was…good. This felt good to be held like this, by him. To let herself feel for a moment, even if what she felt made her ache. She should just do what felt good, right? The sensation of his fingers carding through her hair was so rhythmic, so hypnotic. Her breath synchronized with his, the rise and fall of his chest beneath her ear keeping in time with the beating of her own heart. 

She began to fall asleep again.

             It was easier this time to slip.

                                     To forsake the light and let the darkness take her.

                                                                        But… 

WAIT.

Rey jolted fully awake. 

Something was wrong.

Because Ben had no heartbeat to go with that phantom breath.

No warmth to go with the rise and fall of his chest. 

Instead, he was full of silence.

Absence.

Nothing.

It was wrong. All wrong.

Her eyes snapped open and she scrambled out of his arms, swaying as she stumbled to her feet.

His face fell as soon as she ripped herself away from him, and he sprung upright after her, the movie still playing, forgotten in the background. 

Her cheeks were wet with tears silently shed.

“Rey?” The hurt in his voice was palpable. “Come back to me.” He stretched out one massive hand. “Please?

Come back to me.

Please.

His words echoed inside her chest.

He was begging. 

Pleading. 

She shook her head and tried not to let her own face break. 

“Did I do something wrong?”

Rey took a step away from him. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked her that, but she couldn’t get the feeling of the nothing beneath her ear out of her head. She couldn’t shake the feeling of it burrowing into her own heart, bleeding black and dripping with despair.

“No, Ben. No. You didn’t.” He hadn’t. She wrung her hands and eyed her bathroom door. “I just—I-I just need to brush my teeth and sleep in my own bed tonight. That’s all.”

“Oh.” He rolled his lips together as he watched her fidget. His hand fell to his side. “You will tell me if I do something wrong, won’t you? You will tell me if I…”

He trailed off, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. They were so heavy with disappointment. With pain. “I will. I’ll let you know if you need to…stop.” She drew in a deep breath and crossed over to the bathroom, stalling for a moment as she rested a hand on the door frame. “Goodnight, Ben. Enjoy the rest of the movies.”

“Oh—yes. The movies. Right.” He glanced at the TV as if he barely recognized it before turning back to her. “Goodnight, Rey. Sleep well.”

When she eventually slid under her own sheets and turned out the lights, she didn’t.

She didn’t sleep well at all.

Instead, she stared at the ceiling, wondering what she’d dreamed of.

And where Ben’s heart had gone.

She turned it over in her mind and thought about it until the sun rose and peeked through her blinds, the intensity of Ben’s gaze still etched into her memory and floating in front of her own eyes.

Rey was so lost in the searing image of him that she didn't even notice when the fan of her central air conditioning system slowly petered out into silence...

And completely died.

Chapter Text

“Hey Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Does it feel warmer than usual in here to you?”

Rey adjusted the temperature on her thermostat. It was still working and said the fan was on, but it was reading as 82°F in her apartment, which was definitely not the 76°F she liked to keep the program on during the day. That wasn’t terribly unusual, though; she did live on the top floor. It was always that much harder to cool in the summer.

Ben slid over to her, large bowl of peanut butter Puffins cereal in hand. He’d picked them out at the grocery store to try, and it turned out he was wild about both peanut butter and cereal, of all things. But he didn’t seem quite as hungry today as he usually was—his bowl was still only half the size of the one he’d used yesterday.

He peered down at the display on the wall and shrugged while he crunched. “I don’t feel hot or cold from anything here, generally speaking. Well…not from anything but you, anyway.” He leaned down and nuzzled his nose behind her ear. “You’re nice and warm. I like it.”

“Hey! Hey—no!” She shivered at the sudden burst of chill against her skin and swatted him away. Frankly, he was refreshing, but she wasn’t going to admit that. “Stop it.”

He grinned before spooning more cereal into his mouth. “I don’t know what those numbers mean either,” he mumbled as he chewed. “Is eighty-two supposed to be hot? What’s the scale?” He leaned forward to study it closer and tapped curiously at the display.

Always a man of science.

“You should go read up on Fahrenheit and Celsius measurements. I’m not even going to get into that. That’s way beyond my capacity to explain.” Rey sighed and tugged at her sleep tank to get some airflow down her front. The fact that even she was teetering on the edge of underboob sweat with her A-cups was saying something about how warm it felt. She slumped back into the kitchen and grabbed her own bowl of cereal before glancing down at her just-brewed coffee and deciding to pop some ice into it.

Not a day for it to be steaming hot, that was for sure.

Ben followed her and leaned back against the counters, still munching on his breakfast. He was shirtless again today, and pantsless, though he’d at least deigned to finally try out the black boxer briefs she’d gotten him. Not as underwear, however: as shorts. She’d already had to explain to him once that he couldn’t leave the house like that, which only earned her a derisive scoff and a muttered, “How is this society so prudish, and yet so salacious? Bare legs and nearly-exposed breasts everywhere, and yet I’m not allowed to walk around outside in these…?” He’d puttered indignantly around the kitchen after that, grumbling while he dug around in the pantry for Rey’s Cocoa Puffs.

She wasn’t going to complain, however.

He was…

Well, he was awfully nice to look at.

And so much of him was on display.

Every time her eyes snagged on the bulge between his legs, her face heated. They caught on it again now, and she turned to the freezer and shoved her head in it so that he wouldn’t see.

That strange dream last night about the silent, frozen landscape had left her feeling unsettled, but Ben wasn’t acting any differently—which helped her calm down about it, at least. He made no reference to her leaping out of his arms, and she made no mention of anything she’d envisioned.

Honestly, it was just a dream. And maybe not so strange that she’d imagine something like that right now.

She’d been pretty stressed lately, after all.

And the coffee and cereal—and the summer heat—were helping remind her that she wasn’t trapped in an empty, freezing void.

She plopped some ice in her coffee and swirled it around in the glass before dipping to the fridge and dumping more half-and-half in it. “So what were you like with your other summoners?” she asked. “Did you act like you do with me?”

When Rey shut the door and turned around, she nearly jumped out of her skin and spilled her coffee everywhere.

Ben was right there behind her, bare-chested and looming.

“Oh my god!” she cried. “Don’t stand so close! Jesus.” Somehow, he hadn’t made any noise at all when he’d moved, and she shook her head with an irritated sigh. But he made no effort to back off.

“I’ve heard of him. Wasn’t much of a fan, to be honest. Religion’s never really been my thing.”

Rey ignored that. “Remember when we talked about personal space the other day?” She repressed the urge to place her hand on one of his wide, well-developed pecs and test its compressive stress while she pushed him away. His nipple was staring right at her, and she wondered how pillowy—or firm—those chiseled chest swoops were. “Were you paying any attention to that conversation?”

“Not really, no. Sorry. I was too entranced by your gorgeous green eyes.” That was a lie. The corner of his mouth twitched as he plucked her glass of iced coffee away. “And I just thought I’d help before you watered that down too much.” He still hadn’t gotten out of her way.

She scowled up at him. “What are you doing with—? Oh.”

Her ice had melted almost instantly into the hot coffee. But the longer Ben held it in his hand, the more frost began to form and creep along the surface of the glass. Before she knew it, the steam still curling off the top had disappeared and cool tendrils were dropping from the bottom, almost as though he’d just taken the entire thing out of a blast chiller. He held it up to the light and gave it a little shake to make sure it had stayed liquid, nodding in satisfaction when he handed it back.

“Better?” His hands dropped to her hips. It seemed to be his favorite place to put them these days.

The little touches like these were going to be the death of her.

“Uh…” She took a sip. It tasted like a perfectly chilled iced coffee, refreshing and creamy on her tongue. “Mhm. Yeah, thanks.” She set it down on the counter and shook her hand out while she slowly slid out of his grasp, trying to warm it back up again. “Neat trick.” The chill of his palms through her shorts lingered even after she’d stepped away. It was almost as if the imprint of them had been burned there.

He grabbed his cereal bowl and took another bite. “You’re welcome.”

“Were you this accommodating with the other people who summoned you?” She pointed at him with her spoon before digging into her own. “Or is this just me?”

“Yes—and no. I technically did whatever they asked of me per the terms of our contract. No extras.”

“And things like the coffee are…extras?” She eyed him suspiciously.

“You could say that.”

“But we’re not in a contract.”

“I know.” His eyes glittered with mischief as he leaned closer to her. “I like doing these things for you in part because I don’t have to.” He took another bite. “Makes it all the more fun.”

“What about this whole ‘intentions’ thing?”

“What about it?” He swept his lips pensively over to the side. “I’ve already told you that I’ve declared them. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not exactly. Is that a thing you do with all the people who summon you, or is it just a me thing?”

That earned her an indignant look.

“No, Rey. No. Just you. I like you.”

She snorted. “Surely that’s just because of the bond, though. You probably have to like me.”

“It is not just because of the bond. And no, I don’t.”

Her eyes narrowed further. “How do I know? How do you know? What if the magic just requires you to like me?”

“I know because I certainly didn’t like the other people who’ve called me up.” He curled his lip in disdain. “Pretentious, self-righteous, egotistical pricks, most of them. Johann included.” And then his expression softened. “But you? From the moment we met, I’ve been drawn to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course you have. I literally drew you to me.”

“Rey. That is not it.” He sighed and set his cereal on the counter so he could rub his temples with both hands. “You clearly have no idea how beautiful you are. Is it so strange that I might be attracted to you? As a woman, and not as my summoner? Is that not allowed?”

“‘Beautiful?’” Her eyebrows skyrocketed.

“Yes. Very.” Ben sighed deeply and covered his eyes with one wide palm. “And you’re also the only one who’s ever treated me like a person,” he muttered. “All the rest treated me like a servant. Or a dog.”

No. No, he had to be joking. He’d lived for God only knew how long. He had to have seen hundreds of women over the years. “You think I’m beautiful?” She scoffed. “What are you smoking?”

“Smoking?” He jerked his head up to stare at her, bewildered. “I haven’t smoked anything. You would know. You would smell it.”

“Then what game are you playing?”

“Game?!” Pink spread across his pale cheeks and rose over the tops of his ears. “I am not playing a game!”

Rey glanced down at the sweat-dampened shirt she wore with permanent stains under the pits that was so threadbare, it barely concealed her nipples. It’d been too warm that morning for a bra, but the heat index was supposed to shoot up into the 110s today.

She’d never really considered herself any sort of great beauty, especially not by modern standards. She had no idea how to do makeup or hair, her tiny tits were mouthfuls at best and meager ones at that, and while she did pride herself on her ass, it wasn’t exceptional. She was no Kardashian.

She was just sort of…plain.

Plain brown hair, plain hazel eyes, freckled skin, dopey dimples that popped out if she grinned too wide. Not too tall, not too short, her feet weren’t too big or too small. At least she’d eventually grown into her teeth. Being called “horse-face” in middle school got really old really fast.

Rey had always seen herself as more or less average or unremarkable in every way, and her experience with men had pretty much confirmed that.

But Ben was too busy shaking his head with his eyes closed to pay her reaction any mind.

It had to be that he really just hadn’t seen that many women since being embodied again. There were so many that were so much prettier than she was.

He just didn’t know it yet.

“My other summoners were mostly old, bearded men who spent their entire lives in the pursuit of universal truth. Of figuring out the laws of nature, both natural and supernatural, before trying to break them—for a variety of reasons. Which you really don’t want to do, by the way.” Ben finally opened his eyes and studied her closely. “They were decidedly not my type, even if I were attracted to men. And I am very much not.”

“You…have a type?”

“Oh yes.” He stalked forward and placed his hands softly at her hips again, shifting his body so that he could bend closer. “I do. I love a gorgeous, intelligent, sharp woman like yourself.” His fingers tightened, curling ever so slightly into her skin. “I like them fierce. A challenge. Like you. It’s fun.” She could feel the way he nearly growled that, and if she didn’t know better, she’d think he also inhaled deeply at the spot just under her ear. “So you can imagine how excited I was to see that it wasn’t another Johann who’d called me this time.” His eyes heated as he tilted his head and looked down at her, the outer ring of color sharpening from a crystal green to a bright gold. “How excited I was that a young woman managed to summon me—a woman who has treated me kindly, all things considered. It is no small feat. And truly a great pleasure.”

Kind? Rey huffed. He thought she was being kind? Either his bar really was that low, or her suspicions were correct. “Well, there you go. Are you sure your type isn’t just ‘available, inescapably bonded to you, and with a functional vagina?‘” Mostly functional, anyway. Presumably. She’d never come with a partner before, but that wasn’t unusual. Her OBGYN said her equipment worked perfectly well in theory.

Just not in practice.

Or just not with the men she’d practiced with so far.

A look of disgust crashed over Ben’s face so fast, he let go of her hips and staggered back from her slightly in shock. “Is…is that what you think of yourself?!” he eventually managed to choke out, all seductive rumbling in his chest gone and exchanged for a wiry crack in his throat instead. “Is that—”

She shrugged. “I mean, that seems to be the only true criteria for most men. Minus that second thing, of course. None of them really want to be bonded to me—or anyone else—at all.” Except for Beau.

She shuddered at the thought.

She’d gotten another imploring text from him this morning (“Can we please just talk over some coffee?”), which she’d immediately deleted before blocking yet another unknown number.

“So yeah. Available and with a vagina.”

Ben stared at her in horror for a long time before finally running a hand over his face. “This is insane,” he muttered to himself. “This explains so much.” It migrated up to his hair next, mussing the dark, shadowy waves and making them tumble all the more deliciously around his jawline. “I have a lot of work to do. So much work. I…” He trailed off before glancing back at her with a sigh. He grabbed his cereal bowl and picked at it again, but then set it back down on the counter and shoved it away bitterly.

“What? Is something wrong with your Puffins? I thought you liked them.”

“I did. I do. They’re good,” he mumbled, still too busy running his hand over his mouth to continue eating. “But it’s not…” He shook his head sharply. “Nevermind. You can have the rest if you want it.”

He left it there on the counter and walked back to her laptop in the living room, yanking it open and quickly logging in before she could say another word.

She was still thinking about the feeling of his hands on her hips while she polished off their cereal and drank the iced coffee he’d chilled for her.

Hot Lawyer | Sorry I’ve been incommunicado, my lovely. Litigation and all that. Been burning a lot of 3am oil.
Hot Lawyer | But when this court case is settled, I’d like to go out for drinks.
Hot Lawyer | Think you can wait just a little longer?

“Oh, did he come back out of the woodwork? I almost thought he was going to ghost you.” Rose stepped up behind Rey and set a Monday morning iced coffee from one of the Theta snack bodegas on her desk in front of her. She took the phone when Rey handed it over and peered at the messages. “Well, he writes nicely, at least. I mean, it’s still a yes, right?” She eyed Rey with a raised brow. “Or with Ben around…”

“Yes. It’s still a yes.” Rey snatched her phone back and frowned at the tiny profile picture bubble at the top of their chat.

He used to be more attractive.

Now she just felt…

Nothing.

“And stop asking about me and Ben.”

Rose’s other brow joined its sister high on her forehead. “You told me before the standup this morning that he’s still at your place. That’s officially more than a long weekend. So don’t lie to me: what’s going on with you two? I wanna know.”

Rey swallowed nervously. Ben brought this up with her before bed last night.

And maybe he was right.

She’d been replaying that conversation in her head ever since.

“And what are you going to tell these men, sweetheart, when they inevitably want to come over to your place and find me here?” He’d folded his arms over that absurdly broad chest of his and glared down at her. “I can tell you, few men wouldn’t feel threatened with me around as your supposed ‘roommate,’ as you’ve termed it, especially since I do not appear to have my own room, and I’m certainly not going to like them sniffing around you.”

“It’s not your choice. This is my life, and I want to live it.”

“You can. You can live it with me.”

“You told me you wouldn’t try to control me.” She was getting angry again. She could feel it rising to the surface, simmering up from deep down where she usually tried to bury it.

“I’m not trying to control you. I’m just presenting the most logical—”

Rey grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close. “Listen to me, Ben,” she hissed in his face. “I don’t want logic. I want to fall in love. I want to get married to an equal, human partner. I want to have kids, make a family. Is that what you want? Could you do that?”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. He only stared down at her, eyes blazing, until he finally rolled his jaw and pressed his lips together before placing them right next to her ear.

“I will run them all off, one way or another. That is a promise.” She’d had to suppress a shiver as his low, cool whisper swept across the hot, bare skin of her neck. “For better or worse, you and I are stuck together. So as much as I hate such a reductive title, it would make more sense if you didn’t go courting at all and simply called me your ‘boyfriend.’ Fewer questions and less wasted time, don’t you think?”

Fewer questions indeed.

But his tone had made her blood boil.

Rey had turned on her heel and slammed the bedroom door in his face—and didn’t come out again until the next morning. This time, he didn’t apologize. But he did have breakfast made and waiting for her next to her bag before she left for work: a perfectly toasted blueberry bagel smeared with a generous helping of cream cheese.

Fine. Maybe it was her favorite quick breakfast, and she wasn’t sure how he’d guessed that.

And sure, he might have been right.

Maybe dating was going really poorly. And maybe the pickings were slim. Maybe she’d end up alone, tethered to a demon for the rest of her life after one stupid, random mistake she made when she was depressed.

But she had to at least try now, even if it was purely out of spite.

If he wanted logic, then the hot lawyer was a good, logical option.

“Ben…might have moved in.” But that was as close as she was willing to get to the truth today.

“What?!” Rose looked at her like she was crazy. “You have a one-bedroom apartment. Doesn’t he need to get back to Boston?”

Rey drew in a deep breath to steady herself. Now for the larger lie. “His apartment back home burned down just after he arrived in Austin. An adjacent unit left their gas stove on while they were gone and a potholder caught fire. The entire building went up in flames.” Something like that had actually happened that weekend to an apartment building in Boston, thank god. She’d found it while Googling possible disasters for just such a story.

What lucky timing.

“Oh my god!” Rose clamped her hands over her mouth in shock. “That’s horrible!”

“Yeah.” Rey cringed inside and tried not to wince outwardly. This was awful, but she didn’t see many ways around it. Ben clearly wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how many times she hoped she’d wake up to find that this was all a dream. It never was. “He lost everything. But he also took that as a sign from the universe to stay put, so he asked if he could stay on my couch for a while. At least until he gets back on his feet and figures out what’s next.” She sighed and rubbed her temples before taking a long sip of the coffee. Ice-cold caffeine was exactly what she needed after waking up in a pool of her own sweat from a night spent tossing and turning. Again. “He’s probably going to quit his job, too. Guess he needed to make some massive life changes. He’s kind of going through it right now.”

Ben wasn’t. He mostly seemed like he was having the time of his life, actually. Or afterlife. Non-life?

She was going through it.

But whatever.

“Holy shit, Rey. So…now you just kind of have a roommate? In your one-bedroom apartment?”

“Yep.” She popped her lips on the ‘p.’ “Yep yep yep. It’s tight quarters, I won’t lie.”

Very, very tight quarters, especially with how close Ben liked to hover.

No space whatsoever to breathe.

“You know,” Rose drew the word out, making it melodic and sing-song while swinging her chair closer and leaning in conspiratorially. “This could be a great excuse for you to get a bigger bed. To be more accommodating and all. An even better hostess.”

Rey frowned. “What’s wrong with my bed?”

Rose patted her knee and gave her a pitying look. “It’s the same ratty, lumpy, full-size mattress you’ve been dragging around since college, my love. No grown man is going to want to sleep with you in that thing, much less a man that big.”

“Hey! Don’t bash my mattress!” Her frown deepened and she shoved Rose away, shaking her head at her friend’s cackle as the wheels of her chair spun her back over to her desk. “She’s been with me through a lot.”

“Yeah, a whole lotta nothin’.” Rose rolled back over to rest both hands on Rey’s cheeks and squeezed them fondly. “Look, babygirl. You’ve been wound tight for a long time. And don’t think I didn’t notice what Ben was packing in those athletic shorts when I came over the other day. It’s a weapon of mass destruction.”

“Oh my god, ROSE—”

She pulled her hands back before lightly slapping Rey’s face between them. “Buy a bigger bed and let that man thank you for sharing your space while he’s here. He looks at you like he wants to absolutely devour you.” Rose gave her a little shake, her voice raising with every word. “And you’re single! You can do whatever you want! Snap was a bust and Ben is real hot. And nice. And you know him already, at least a little, which is way better than any of these chucklefucks from dating apps. Let him give you a good dicking-down and you’ll feel a lot better, I swear.” She popped Rey’s cheeks fondly one more time before sliding back to her desk and turning to her laptop.

“You’re one to talk.,” Rey grumbled as she rubbed at her face. “When was the last time you had a so-called ‘nuclear-level dicking-down?’”

“We’re not discussing me right now, Reybs,” Rose answered lightly, fingers already flying across her keys as she composed an email. “Don’t you worry about me. Worry about yourself and how you’re gonna take a bite out of that hulking slab of grade-A corn-fed American beef with the absolutely massive hands living in your apartment.” She waved dismissively over her shoulder before slipping noise-cancelling headphones over her ears. End of conversation.

Rey heaved yet another sigh as she turned her phone over to open up the app.

Hot Lawyer | Think you can wait just a little longer?

She stared at the screen and chewed on her lip while she decided.

Rey | Sure. Take your time, and let me know when you’re free.

She wondered how large the lawyer’s hands were.

And if they might make her shiver as much as Ben’s did.

Over the next few days, the touches from those hands increased.

Ever since Ben appeared in her living room, he’d been touchy-feely. Handsy. Not in a way that was completely untoward or unwelcome, but in a way that she could just tell was all him, gentle and soft and almost unconscious.

Sweeping her hair away from her face.

Tucking it behind her ear.

Fingers caressing the nape of her neck, massaging her shoulders.

The way he liked to play with her own hands, how close he liked to stand, all of it was just how he’d been from the second she’d met him.

The demon didn’t give two shits about personal space.

She had to wonder if he was like that when he was human, or if it was a consequence of his current state—or if it was part and parcel of the whole “bond” thing they had going on.

Rey could have stopped it. She could have said something. She could have asked him to back off or told him no.

But that would have been a lie.

Because she couldn’t stop thinking about it or noticing it.

She desperately wanted it.

And because it was driving her absolutely insane—

As was the rising heat in her apartment.

It was sweltering when she got home from work on Monday, so she checked the thermostat again. Ben hadn’t known how to work it, and by his own admission he couldn’t judge how hot it was, so he seemed fine—but Rey almost couldn’t tell the difference between inside and out.

The display said her fan was on, but she couldn’t feel any airflow coming from the ceiling vents when she stood on a ladder and checked. Not only that, but the temperature had increased.

It was hovering at 90°F now.

“Oh no.” Dread washed over her. The AC unit had to be out. “Oh no, no no no.” She frantically punched the controls to turn it down, but it was set on 74°F from the program running in the background.

Her leasing office was already closed for the day, but she submitted a work order online for someone to come fix it as soon as possible. Surely it would happen quickly. AC outages in Texas in the summer were urgent.

But by the time Tuesday rolled around, she hadn’t heard anything. Nothing other than the automatic confirmation email that the work order had been received.

She went to Theta, did her job, came home.

She started to sweat.

There wasn’t anything else to do, so they spent the evening before dinner trying to track down who might have taken ownership of Rey’s soul, spreading papers and contracts out on the floor and alternating between phones and her laptop while they looked up legal information to make sure neither of them was misinterpreting the wording. Rey sat in front of a fan, doing her best not to melt into the floor.

Ben was far better at this than she was. Half of the library books he’d brought home were on finance and tech and American contract law, and he’d absorbed them immediately before asking her to pick up more. He knew what he was looking for.

He didn’t find it.

Rey had ordered copies of her student loan contracts and foster paperwork to be FedExed to her last Friday. And while those arrived quickly, they also proved fruitless. But they checked them anyway, and every time Ben’s fingers glanced across hers as they both reached for the same stack of papers, a bolt of lightning coursed down her spine.

They didn’t talk about her dating life at all.

Neither of them broached the topic.

When she went to brush her teeth before bed, Ben decided to squeeze behind her to brush his too. And because he was so very wide, and so very solid, his hand grazed the small of her back when he set it there to make more room as he passed by. It swept along the hem of her shirt at the place where it hiked up above her shorts, exposing a small sliver of bare skin. Just slightly, with a muttered, “Excuse me.”

That was all.

Nothing else.

It was 92°F inside her south-facing room. She showered cold and tried to sleep.

But she could still feel Ben’s touch lingering there even after all that, the memory of his coolness still dancing across her back while she tried to doze in the oppressive heat of her room hours later.

It heated her up in an entirely different way.

It was the worst when they made dinner in the kitchen together. Ben was still learning how to cook, so he asked her for help while he explored what all of her kitchen tools and appliances did. But the longer that went on, the more Rey was beginning to be convinced that it was all a ruse.

He was becoming an excellent cook, and naturally talented—probably because he both listened to her and followed instructions well.

Unusual.

But what he seemed to like to do the most was watch over her shoulder with one baseball-mitt-sized hand parked firmly on her hip, and the other braced against the counters. “Which button do you push again?” he’d mutter, his voice low and quiet. Or he’d ask, “Can you show me how to chop this?” or “What comes next?” and “How long should I stir that?” And meanwhile, his fingers, those damned fingers of his would tighten, or caress, or slip slightly under the loose waistband of her shorts or the hem of her shirt and sweep across her skin.

Just a little.

Completely by accident.

All while his sinfully beautiful lips hovered near her ear or brushed against the side of her head.

One thing she did notice, however, was that he wasn’t eating as much. Over the course of a week, he’d gradually shifted from inhaling everything he saw to small plates and tiny tastes, here and there, before he’d make a full serving for her.

Only for her.

Rey was so wound up, she went on Tinder and agreed to go out with the first guy who was available on Thursday night for a drink. Ben came along, sliding up to the bar on Rainey Street five minutes after she sat and waited for her date to show.

Matt was extremely late.

He was also a dick.

“Well, this is fun. And you’re such a sweet little piece of ass.” Her Tinder date put his hand on her leg, and Rey startled when he tried to run it up her skirt. She hadn’t been expecting that so quickly. She’d barely had half of her margarita. “Wanna come to my place and show it off for me?”

Ben had watched and listened silently from the sidelines, sipping a whiskey neat at the bar close by until he obviously decided he’d heard enough. When he got up and downed the rest of his drink under the pretense of shifting to a different spot, he passed by Matt just as the other man was lifting his Negroni to his lips—and shoulder-checked him.

Hard.

The alcohol splashed over the rim of the glass and all over Matt’s face and neck, dripping down and soaking his shirt. He sputtered and choked on his stool before turning to Ben and springing upright in front of him, red-faced and furious.

“What the fuck, dude! You piece of—”

Matt trailed off as he craned his neck.

“—shit.”

He barely came up to Ben’s chest.

The redness in his face fled almost as soon as it had arrived.

“Sorry. Accident. My fault.” Ben glared down at him and rolled his lips together into one thin, tight line before tossing a twenty onto the bar. “For your trouble.” He turned to Rey next with stone-cold fury burning in his eyes. When he grabbed her hand, relief washed over her. “Come on, sweetheart. We’re going home.”

“‘Home?’ ‘Sweetheart?!’” Matt’s face turned beet red again as he looked back at her. “Are you in a relationship? What the fuck kind of shit is this? You’re the one who reached out to me and asked me to waste my time on a Thursday night, you fucking—”

She didn’t hear the rest of it.

Rey only had a split second to grab her purse before Ben was leading them back out to the car, fingers tangled tightly with hers.

They rode home in silence.

Ben didn’t say one word. Neither did she, not even when they got home and Rey went to wash off the feeling of Matt’s furious gaze and sweaty, wandering hand. Instead, when she got out of her cold shower, he only put on an episode of Bridgerton and let her curl up on the couch next to him.

No “I told you so” or “He was trash” or “We should have stayed home.” Not even an accusing, “What are you doing? You did that on purpose just to fuck with me, didn’t you?”

None of that this time.

Even if it was true.

Just a single long arm stretched out along the top of the couch behind her while gentle fingers toyed softly with the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck as they watched.

The feeling of those fingertips tangling in her damp curls nearly broke her, along with how heavy her chest felt.

But it wasn’t until the next day that Rey reached the end of her rope.

It was 98°F in her room when she finally laid down on Friday night.

Rey ripped her shirt off and gasped beneath her useless ceiling fan in the stifling darkness. Two other standing fans were positioned on either side of her bed, but they made little difference. All they did was move the hot air around, making her sweat cling that much more against her skin.

It was suffocating.

She was burning up.

And not just on the outside.

She eyed the top drawer of her nightstand.

Ben had made her dinner again, not letting her lift a finger to help this time. And after they’d eaten, after they’d done the usual song and dance of combing through every contract and agreement she’d ever signed—or trying to remember and find all of them—they’d settled down on the couch for another movie night: the original Galaxy Battles this time. Had to hit all the major classics so that he could get the references if someone made them.

She’d never quite realized how much culture shaped a person.

But as the movie progressed, Ben shifted closer to her on the couch. He’d been a bit twitchy tonight anyway, picking at his food even more than usual, though he’d claimed to really like the pasta he’d made. He was looking a bit more pale than he generally did, especially around the lips, and when she’d asked him why, he’d just sort of smiled softly at her and said he was fine.

She wasn’t sure if he was or not.

Either way, when he fidgeted on the couch and shifted closer to her as he got more comfortable, he’d snaked a hand up the back of her neck, his fingers landing at her nape. He always liked to be touching her if he could, and when his cool hand started to massage the knots she carried there, chasing away the sweltering heat of her apartment as it did, he’d generated an entirely different kind of heat—

One that could also be chased away with fingers.

Or more.

But there was no way she’d say that.

The best she could do was retreat to bed once the movie was over, leaving him looking disappointed and forlorn on her old, beat-up couch. The cushions had sagged significantly under his weight since he’d taken up residence there, and she’d heard him utter a displeased grunt as he tried to lay down and situate himself on it with her laptop when she told him goodnight. A fresh stack of library books he’d put on hold and she’d picked up at his request after work waited at the ready on the coffee table next to him.

As soon as she’d closed the door to her suffocatingly hot bedroom, she’d started sweating again. And she knew she’d never have peace unless she tried something different.

Fuck it.

She needed this.

She needed to get it out of her system before she made a mistake—or what she was convinced would be a mistake. And the sweat she’d work up certainly wouldn’t make a difference at this point. She was already covered in it, even after showering twice after dinner.

Rey reached over and pulled out her vibrator, one of those clit suction ones that was supposed to simulate oral sex—not that she’d know if that’s what the good kind actually felt like. None of the guys she’d ever dated went down on her willingly if they went down at all, and all she knew was that the machine made her come when the men did not.

And it had been entirely too long.

Maybe it would help her sleep.

She glanced at the door in the low light of the moon spilling in between the slats of her cheap-ass blinds. It was still locked, just the way she’d made sure it was every night since Ben had arrived, and after that time in the shower, she’d started putting a coat hanger on the knob so that it would make noise if it twisted and turned. Extra insurance, just to make sure she wasn’t going crazy.

Not that Ben had ever tested her makeshift alarm, though. That seemed to be a sort of unspoken rule between them: as far as she was aware, he hadn’t once set foot in her bedroom.

It was the only space in her home that was still solely hers.

No shadows from a lurking demon shifted beneath the gap at the threshold; only the flickering light from the TV. He’d turned on another movie with the sound lowered when she finally called it quits for the night, which was helpful, since she had no idea how keen his hearing was. Both fans were set on high, adding an additional layer of masking sound to the room before she finally turned on the vibrator and snaked it and her hand down the front of her sleep shorts.

When she had it positioned properly, Rey cranked up the intensity—

And closed her eyes.

Usually, the first thing she tried to do was simply clear her mind and concentrate on the sensations rather than any one person or act. Touching herself was the closest she ever got to meditating, so she found that approaching it that way made her relax and get into the flow. But it had been so long since she’d been able to masturbate for a reason: she hadn’t truly been able to relax in forever. Her mind simply refused to shut up, choosing instead to analyze every tiny choice she’d made at work that day, or when she was out with friends, or simply regarding her shitty, unfulfilling life. There’d been too much mental clutter, too much junk in there getting in the way of release, and even now she was having trouble and getting all the more frustrated.

But not because she was ruminating on her job.

Because her mind kept turning to the man on the other side of the door.

Rey hadn’t fully realized until now how many of her waking hours were preoccupied with thinking about Ben: wondering about his past, about his thoughts, about his powers. Or maybe what she really wanted to know was who he actually was, and what he actually wanted—and if the way he acted towards her was all a façade, or if it was real. She was getting to know him exceedingly quickly in such close quarters, it was true, but there was still so much she didn’t know, and so much he hadn’t shared.

There were still so many questions.

“Stop thinking about him,” she whispered. “Stop it. Think about someone else.”

She tried. She really did.

But every time the image of another man began to form in her mind, Ben’s uniquely-colored eyes floated to the forefront instead. Every time she tried to imagine someone else’s hands, they morphed into the feeling of Ben’s wide palms on her hips, faded into the way he stroked her hair, slipped into how strong and long and thick his fingers were.

But above all else, she couldn’t stop picturing his perfect lips—

—or imagining the feeling of them grazing along her body.

Rey sighed.

The sound of the vibrator and fans faded into the background as she finally gave in and let herself have this, her breath quickening as she imagined the sinful delights of that wide mouth with that endearing, crooked smile framed by crescent-shaped dimples, boyish and wicked and luxurious. She gave in and panted as she let herself picture those perfect hands of his running along her body, his fingers tracing along her skin, learning her curves and the way she moved, studying her with their touch. She could almost feel them, the perfect amount of pressure while he ran them along her thighs, testing and teasing, pressing harder at the soft inner flesh to peel her apart for him while her vibrator tapped and sucked in quicker and quicker bursts, rising and falling and bringing her arousal up and down and further up again with it.

Wait.

No.

She could feel them.

When his fingers clenched, digging firm and strong into her thighs, she knew this was no fantasy.

Oh, sweetheart. Are you really so frustrated? You know all you have to do is ask.

Rey gasped.

She wasn’t sure if she heard his voice or felt it.

It didn’t matter. The words he’d growled rumbled through her all the same.

Cool air rushed between her legs, as if he’d exhaled in shivering exaltation, and Rey screwed her eyes shut even tighter.

This was a dream, it was all a dream, just a fantasy, none of it was real, she was—

Look at you. I told you you were beautiful—that much I knew. But I didn’t realize you were magnificent.

“You’re not really here,” she breathed. She hadn’t heard her coat hanger slap against the door like it did when she’d tested it while Ben was in the shower. “You couldn’t have gotten in without me hearing.”

Does it matter? I’m always with you.

He chuckled, and cool air swirled again, even closer to where she’d shoved her vibrator. Chill fingers plucked at the waistband of her shorts and panties, gradually pulling them down just enough to reveal what she held.

And she heard him inhale sharply.

Are you really this wet for me? All for me?

What a gift.

A heaviness fell over her, and the tip of his nose grazed against her mound. He inhaled again, deep and slow, and she shivered at the feeling of it, covering her mouth with her free hand to stifle a moan.

He’d brought her nearly to the brink just from the attention alone.

Let me help you, Rey.

A familiar, wide hand covered her own and plucked the vibrator gently from her grasp. She could still hear it hovering nearby, sucking softly at the air.

This contraption is quite interesting.

But it’s not nearly as much fun as I am.

Don't you think?

It thumped softly when he tossed it aside on the bed before that same heaviness settled over her legs again. His hands resumed their previous trajectory up and down her legs, rubbing and soothing, pressing and teasing.

A thrill coursed through her.

Her legs began to tremble.

We can play with it some other time.

I want to feel you for myself first.

“What happens if I open my eyes?” Her voice shook as she whispered the question. “What if I don’t find you here?”

What if you don’t open them—and find out what happens instead?

He took her hand in his and slid it back between her legs, laying his fingers atop hers before he began to massage her folds. She was just as wet as he’d said, and their fingers slipped through them easily, up and down, coming back up to circle her clit before dipping down again and exploring the rest of her.

The heat already simmering there began to build.

What a feast of heavenly delights you’ve presented me.

My sweet, fiery angel.

A growl rumbled through his chest and straight into her core.

When will you let me have a taste?

I’m hungry.

He’d whispered the words against her skin, curling cold near the ridge of her bared hip. She could sense his head laying heavy on her stomach, could feel the hitch in his voice as he asked. He sounded pitiful. Pained.

He sounded empty.

Empty of everything—

Everything, except for desire.

“I feed you,” she gasped. “You’re expensive, too.” Their fingers moved together in time, sliding through her slick and teasing at her opening, and Rey moaned at the tension bubbling and building in her stomach. It was nearly unbearable now. “G-grocery bill was high.” When his thumb pressed on her clit, she moaned again and lost all ability to speak.

You feed me, but you don’t nourish me.

He finally paused—

And slipped one of his fingers inside with hers.

I’m starving.

Lightning shot through Rey’s core at the blessed intrusion, and her stomach contracted as she clenched around the glorious thickness of their stacked fingers. In and out, he thrust them both together, working her up into a frenzy while he pressed and circled at her clit with his thumb—slowly, at first, and then faster the more she gasped.

The more he moved, the more she writhed.

It left her breathless.

The inferno raging inside her core twisted and unfurled, like a dragon awakening from slumber. She could feel it, the build as it stood, the rising tide of impending pleasure as it inhaled a single fiery breath, all of it gaining speed the faster he moved their fingers, the deeper he directed them. His went deeper than hers, and heat began to bloom and rush across her body in waves when he curled it suddenly, beckoning her to come.

Feel that? Do you feel how beautiful you are now? How exquisite?

Do you see why I want you?

He shifted over her and wrapped an arm behind her back, yanking her body closer to him.

Closer to his face.

He buried his nose between her breasts—

And growled.

So responsive.

He pressed his lips to her chest, soft and plush.

What a good girl, keeping your eyes closed and letting me help you.

He rocked his finger inside with hers, over and over and over again, as though he wanted to wring her out.

As though he wanted to pull her body all the way into his.

And consume her completely.

When will you let me have you?

When will you let me feel you?

Taste you?

Devour you.

It was almost a purr—low, animalistic, primal. The heat inside intensified at his words, a raging inferno in her bones, scorching along her skin, gooseflesh prickling at the contrast she made with the feeling of his soothing chill—like a thunderstorm forming at the meeting of two opposing fronts. His arm around her waist tightened, and the tiny, delicious pinpricks of claws dug into her skin. She moaned loudly at the sensation, and he chose that very second to curl his finger inside her again.

It was deeper this time.

As if it had gotten even longer.

Thicker.

Stronger.

Rey.

Please.

The sound of her whispered name, his voice ragged and desperate with longing, paired with that single decadent, deep curl sent her over the edge. She came apart in his hands, shivering and bucking, blind from the searing, white-hot pleasure bursting behind her eyes. Her breath was ragged and it tore at her throat, scorching as it mixed and mingled with the sweat dripping down the sides of her face and between her breasts in the heavy heat of her apartment, a heat only tempered by the sudden sensation of an unnaturally long, ice-cold tongue sweeping along her skin—

And lapping up her sweat as though it were ambrosia.

Rey’s eyes shot open and she jolted upright with a gasp.

Only to find herself completely alone.

But not for long.

A few seconds after she opened her eyes, there was a knock at her door, so soft, she almost didn’t hear it.

The light shifting beneath the threshold had darkened.

“Rey?” Ben’s voice was hoarse. The sound of the fans made it hard to discern. But she didn’t need to.

She could feel it just the same as the voice who’d spoken to her moments ago.

Somewhere deep inside.

Her heart raced. It nearly pounded through her chest as she sucked for air, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her gasps. When she didn’t answer, Ben’s shadow eventually shifted beneath the door.

It retreated.

The only thing it left behind was an odd, hollow feeling of disappointment, sinking down into her bones and landing at the bottom of her stomach.

She wondered what might have happened next if she hadn’t opened her eyes.

Or if she’d answered his plea.

Chapter Text

“Come on, come on, pick up! Pick up, you asshole!”

100°F.

It was 100°F inside her apartment on Saturday night, and the heat index outside was still 115°F. It had gotten up to 118°F, the actual temperature to 103°F, and the humidity still hovered around 80%. They’d broken records in Austin that day.

It was oppressive.

And still no word from the property manager, even when she’d tried to call again.

When the line didn’t even have the decency to click over to voicemail this time, Rey shrieked and threw her phone across the room. Ben ducked out of the way before it hit him where he sat on the couch, his already raised brows somehow creeping even higher on his forehead when the phone smacked violently into the cushions next to him and sunk straight down into the crack. He was shirtless and only wearing those black boxer briefs again, which had been steadily turning into his preferred “at home” uniform. It was galling, how comfortable he seemed walking around like that.

Meanwhile, Rey had already melted down to the floor.

And was busy having a different kind of meltdown.

It didn’t matter what Ben said.

She was in Hell.

This was The Bad Place.

“The website says that it’s after hours. I don’t think he’ll talk to you. He didn’t talk to you the first seventeen times you called today.”

“I don’t care!”

The way she screamed it was practically a sob.

She’d never experienced heat like this before. It was so hot, Rey could practically see the waves of it hovering just over her scorched floors, and nothing she did relieved it. Fans only moved the hot air around. Opening a window made things worse. The complex’s pool felt like a warm, chlorinated soup and somehow made her sweat even more when she got in the water. Window units were sold out in every nearby store. There was no such thing as a “cool breeze” in Central Texas anytime past April, much less in mid-June, and it had been weeks since they’d had any significant rainfall that might cool things down.

But somehow that didn’t stop it from being humid as balls. Sitting in a bath of crotch sweat would be more refreshing than whatever sauna her bedroom had turned into. Sleeping was impossible. She hadn’t gotten any at all last night.

And she was so incredibly tired.

She didn’t think it was possible to be more exhausted than she already was, but life always seemed to find a way to make things worse.

On top of it, her complex’s owner-slash-property manager, Unkar Plutt, wasn’t answering his phone. Rey had submitted three work orders online by now, and though she’d gotten more automatic email confirmations of their receipt, she hadn’t had any follow-up. Plutt’s voicemail inbox was full, and he wasn’t returning calls. He wasn’t in his office and no one at the leasing center would help her.

She’d gone downstairs and talked to Finn about it after work earlier in the week, but while his AC had gone out too, he was on the ground floor. The heat in his apartment wasn’t anywhere near what was floating up to hers. His situation was actually somewhat tolerable and more easily managed with an abundance of fans.

Rey drew in a deep, gasping breath and tried to fan herself with her own tank top, but it only slapped wetly against her chest. “I’m gonna die in here like this. Why did I move to his hellhole?” She covered her face with her hands. Maybe smothering herself to death would be the best way to put her out of her misery. Her palms were just as sweaty as her forehead. “No one told me it would be like this. Everyone talked about how cool Austin was, how weird and artsy and techie. ‘Oh, you’re gonna love it, Rey! The food is great! The weather is sunny and beautiful, and there’s water! And green spaces!’” She hiccuped another sweaty sob. “They all said there was air conditioning. No one talks about what happens when it goes out.”

Ben had been digging around in her couch cushions while she wallowed, and he finally rose, hoisting her phone victoriously in the air before setting it gently back onto her battered coffee table. He ran his hand through his perfect, dry hair and sank down on the floor with her.

Not a single drop of sweat clung to him anywhere on his pale, speckled body.

Bastard.

She could hardly look at him, and hadn’t been able to meet his eyes all day.

“We’ve been over your options, Rey. Only one of them remains viable.”

“Shut up,” she groaned. “We’re not doing this again.”

“If you’re this uncomfortable—”

“I said no.”

He ticked them off his fingers. “Calling your own repair company was a dead end because you don’t own the apartment, and Texas tenant law—which I thoroughly checked—says that you have to give them a ‘reasonable amount of time’ to make repairs or respond, which they define as seven days from when you first filed. And then if they don’t, you have to inform them in writing and give them another seven days to respond to that.” He paused and waited for her to react. When she didn’t, he only raised an eyebrow. “And even if you could book your own company to repair it, all the services we tried are scheduled out for at least three weeks because of how many units are going out around town. You know this.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

He ignored her and scooted closer instead. The chill radiating off of him licked at her skin, and she shivered in relief at it. But she didn’t want to acknowledge that right this second.

He’d been trying to cozy up to her all day.

And she’d been avoiding him.

It was a strange dance they were doing.

Only now she was out of energy.

“And when I suggested staying at an inn, what did you say?”

“That it’s ROT Rally this weekend,” she wailed through her fingers. “Hotel prices are out the ass right now if anywhere that isn’t total shit even has vacancy—which, given the previous problem, seems unlikely. Everywhere you checked was completely booked anyway. We’d have to drive for hours to find something with available rooms. And I really can’t afford to put anything else on my credit card. I’ve almost maxed it out as it is.”

“Uh-huh.” He slid even closer before laying down on his side next to her and propping himself up on his elbow. “And what else?”

“Rose doesn’t have the space.” That one hurt the most, and she gasped for air, trying to stave off another sob. “She lives with Paige in their parents’ garage apartment. I barely fit on their couch, and there’s no way I’m letting them near you for an extended period of time.”

She could practically feel his pleasure radiating off of him along with his chill.

“Which leaves—?”

“You are not sleeping with me, Ben.”

She turned onto her stomach and shoved her sweat-soaked hair out of her face. No amount of ice-cold showers was enough to let her sleep, not in heat this oppressive, and every night over the past week had been even more torturous than the last.

Last night more than the rest.

She’d laid there in bed, breath heaving and body shaking as she came down from the strongest orgasm she’d ever had in her life. Her sheets were tangled around her legs, her vibrator still buzzing and sucking off to the side, forgotten. Her coat hanger alarm system was undisturbed, her door still locked. And when she finally had the strength to pull her hand out from between her legs, she found that she’d soaked it with her arousal, leaving a wet spot on her panties and sleep shorts, which had only been pulled down over her legs just enough to allow someone—not her, surely—proper access. Except that no one had been in the room with her. There was no evidence of it, none except for what she’d heard and felt when her eyes were closed.

She was losing her mind.

That was the only explanation.

Aside from the fact that a demon was living with her in her apartment.

A demon she didn’t really fully know.

But fully wanted to.

“You’re so tired, Rey.” Ben—the physical one next to her that she spied out of the corner of a single open eye—brushed a soaking-wet strand of hair away from her face. “So very tired. You’re not thinking straight. Given the other night, that much is obvious.”

Her breath hitched in her chest.

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Your choice of date seemed out of character.”

Oh.

Right.

Thursday.

Not yesterday.

He hadn’t said anything when she eventually came out of her room. No indication if he’d heard her, or potentially joined her—only a soft, “Good morning,” while his nostrils flared slightly. Maybe he’d sniffed the air a little with interest as he turned his head towards her. And his eyes were dark anyway, so she couldn’t quite tell if his pupils had dilated a bit or not, but…it was possible.

(They’d definitely dilated.)

(Black had swallowed his irises whole the second he’d looked at her.)

(He’d definitely swallowed thickly.)

(He knew.)

She didn’t want to think about it.

She didn’t want to think about what he might have heard, or smelled.

Or imagined.

She was only hanging on by a thread.

And maybe Thursday had been out of character. She felt awful, and it was a stupid thing to do in retrospect, especially since Ben would have had to follow somehow if she’d tried to go to Matt’s place after all. The whole “pain when out of proximity” thing was a major issue.

But Rey had never seen the circles beneath her eyes this dark before. She’d never felt this bad before. Thinking made her head feel fuzzy, and problem-solving was like trying to calculate the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow while trudging through quicksand. Nausea plagued her nearly constantly now, and she’d spent the majority of her time at work during the week trying desperately not to nod off during meetings or sitting up in her cubicle. And even though Theta had nap pods, she couldn’t be caught dead going into one during her actual workday. Her head was already on the chopping block—if Mitaka saw her doing anything that could be construed as “slacking,” she’d be out the door in half a second and could kiss her decent salary goodbye. So much of that was going to debt already that she had little savings to speak of, and given recent circumstances—

Ben laid a hand on her back. She closed her eyes at the contact and suppressed another shiver—or, at least, she tried to. His fingers plucked softly at the hem of her tank, teasing the possibility that he might slip his hand beneath. And if he did anything more than that, she wasn’t entirely sure what she might do.

It had been easier to manage during the week while she was at work. At least there they still had air-conditioning.

Back at home today, she was stuck with nothing but simmering heat.

And Ben.

“I think I should sleep with you,” he murmured, scooting even closer so he could place that delicious mouth next to her ear. The glorious cold rolling off of him spilled over her like clouds of dry ice, and Rey had the sudden urge to try to bathe in it.

Which was precisely why she wasn’t letting him win this battle.

It was a dangerous, slippery slope, with far too many unknown variables.

“I won’t do anything but hold you,” he whispered, finally sliding his hand beneath her tank, and Rey moaned into the wooden planks at the temptation of it. He rubbed soothing circles up and down her back. “I swear it. Demon’s honor.”

“That’s not a thing,” she mumbled to the floor. “Pretty sure that’s not what you’re known for as a species. Or being. Or whatever.”

That earned her a snort.

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“I have no idea, if I’m being perfectly honest.” What he was proposing sounded amazing. He’d be her own personal refrigerator. It’d make her feel much less miserable, of that she was certain.

No.

Bad idea.

“I’ll keep my hands mostly to myself. I’ll only put them where you want them.” He slid the one under her shirt all the way to the back of her neck where he paused—and then resumed his massage.

She moaned again.

“You want it here, don’t you?” His strong fingers pulled and squeezed and dragged, kneading through the knots there before working their way down her back again. “Among other places.”

“Don’t make this something it’s not,” she managed to croak. The feeling of his palm against her scorching skin was glorious. Delicious.

Sinful, even.

“You keep protesting, sweetheart,” he growled, “but you moan so pretty.”

“Stop,” she snapped, fear that he’d heard her last night suddenly coursing through her veins. His hand froze, and she pointed at her back. “But not that. Keep going with that.”

She didn’t need to look at him to know how wicked his grin was.

“I’m just joking, Rey.”

“Liar.”

When he grew quiet—a little too quiet—Rey turned her head and studied him. But he was studying something else: the clock on the wall. It was after eleven. Ben chewed pensively on his bottom lip before glancing down at her again.

The longer he looked at her, the more serious his expression grew.

“You’re right. I’m not joking. Not anymore.”

“What?” She scowled at him. “Ben, what are you—”

She didn’t have time to finish that thought. Without warning, his fingers tightened against her back, and before she knew it, she was tilted and yanked across the floor and into his bare chest. When she was suddenly enveloped by firm muscle and facing a wall of smooth, pale skin dotted with dark moles, she was only able to shiver at the blessed relief washing over her before the world spun—

And flipped completely around.

“I’ve had enough, Rey,” Ben muttered as he stood, his voice low and authoritative. “I’ve tried to be nice about it, I’ve tried to be funny, I’ve tried to be patient, but you’re being completely unreasonable—and so fucking stubborn.” He’d thrown her over his shoulder and she could feel his voice rumble in his chest against her legs. “I’ve had to listen to you toss and turn and moan—among other things—about how awful you feel for over a week now and I can’t take it anymore.”

They were moving towards her bedroom.

“Hey! Hey, put me down! Put me down, Ben!”

She’d never allowed him there before.

It was the last place that was still solely hers in her apartment.

“No,” he spat. “This is stupid. Don’t think I don’t know that you’re desperate to sleep. And that you want me to do this.” He kicked the door open as Rey thrashed in his arms, and when she tried to kick him, he tightened his grip across her legs to hold them immobile.

“Don’t you tell me what I want!” Rey shrieked as she bucked, trying frantically to break his hold.

Ben shoved the door shut behind him. “Don’t think I don’t know—that you like—when I touch you,” he grunted, his biceps tensing as he gripped her harder and fought with her while making his way to the bed. “Do you think I can’t feel it? Do you think I’m an idiot? That I can’t sense what you really desire? Why the hell won’t you let yourself have it? I don’t understand!” Every time she tried to claw at him, he just grabbed her hands with one of his and shoved them away.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I’m telling you what you need.” He bent down and tipped her over, letting her fall to a heap on top of her covers. Her entire mattress rocked and swayed on her cheap bed frame as she bounced and flailed. “And I’m putting you to bed.”

Before she could scramble away, he was on top of her, his entire body covering her own.

He was immensely heavy.

“Get off of me!” she screamed, her face red as she tried to push him away. “Get off of me!”

It was like trying to shove a mountain.

“Stop it! Stop it, Rey! Quit fighting it!” He grabbed her wrists and yanked her arms down to her sides before encircling and pinning her with his own. “You’re still holding on. Let go!”

“No!” But he was too strong, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t free her hands to push him away. She couldn’t wrestle him off of her. He was too big, and when panic flooded over her, she reared up and put her teeth on his shoulder near his neck, ready to clamp down and bite him to get free.

But he was too quick.

As soon as her teeth grazed across his skin, Ben swore in a language she didn’t understand and jerked out of her reach. His hand shot up from beneath them and he gripped her cheeks hard between his fingers, eyes blazing scarlet and gold. He firmly pressed her head back down onto her pillow.

“Don’t you dare bite me,” he hissed in her face, his upper lip curling into a snarl. “You’re not ready for how much I’d enjoy it. And that’s not what this is right now, as much as I’d like it to be.”

She tried to snarl back at him, but she couldn’t.

He still gripped her cheeks in his hand.

They stared daggers at each other, chests heaving, neither one willing to make another move. But after a moment, the fire in Ben’s eyes faded, and he closed them, sighing as he shook his head. “You really do think the worst of me, don’t you? You won’t even give me a chance.”

Rey frowned at him when he released her face—but instead of pulling away, he only slid his arm back around her and pulled her tighter to him, tucking his head into the crook of her neck. She jerked and thrashed, but every time she did, he only gripped her harder and held her still. But now his shoulder and neck were exposed to her mouth. She could bite him. She could try to…

The fire in her faded.

He wasn’t doing anything else. Hadn’t done anything else.

He was just holding her.

And after a minute, Rey finally realized what he was doing. What he was giving her.

It was a hug.

Their chests were still heaving as they both gasped for air, and her heart was still trying to pound straight through her ribcage. She could hear it in her ears, it was so loud. But the longer he held her, the more it slowed. And the more she relaxed, the more a glorious chill radiated across her body from Ben’s. It was like the entire bed had suddenly become the cool side of the pillow. He even smelled cool, like wintergreen and eucalyptus, or a fresh pine forest covered in snow.

It chased away all the unbearable heat in her skin.

The relief was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

She went limp.

Tears welled in Rey’s eyes, and she squeezed them shut tightly, trying desperately to keep them in. But a whimper escaped anyway, transforming quickly into a sob. When it did, Ben curved over her and picked her up, pulling her upright with him as he sat back on his heels. He rested his cheek against her head and shifted a massive hand to cradle the back of it.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he whispered. “But I’ve been trying to tell you all week that you don’t have to suffer like this. You wouldn’t listen to me.” His fingers tangled in her sweat-soaked hair, and she began to tremble. “Don’t you think that if I were going to hurt you in any way, I would have done so by now?”

The tears escaped and slid down her cheeks. They landed on Ben’s shoulder and trickled down his bare back.

His fingers only tightened in her hair.

“I’ve been looking up the consequences of sleep deprivation and insomnia. You can hurt yourself, Rey. Really badly, too. Cognitive decline, cardiac issues, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anxiety, depression. The list goes on and on. You told me yourself that it’s been weeks, months maybe, since you’ve really slept. You’re running on fumes. And I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself. I can’t watch it happen anymore. I can’t listen to it anymore.”

She was so tired. So incredibly tired. And he’d known. The fact that he’d known and was trying to help her, even if she made it difficult, somehow cut straight to her core. His fingers swept softly through her sweaty hair, massaging soothing circles into her scalp, and it finally dawned on her that this being had already seen some of her ugliest moments in such a short period of time. And here he was, still trying to help her anyway.

He didn’t have to.

But he was choosing to.

No one ever chose her like this.

“You’re so untrusting. I can’t think of anything I’ve done—and certainly not on purpose—to merit that myself. How cruelly has the world treated you to make you think of me that way?” He hummed and it rumbled through her, vibrating into her bones.

Very.

The answer was very.

And Rey knew it.

She sobbed again. And again. Her shoulders shook and she buried her face deep into the crook of his neck, letting the icy feeling of his skin soothe her swollen eyes.

No one ever held her like this. Not anyone she’d ever dated, or any foster parents. Even Rose’s hugs were too short.

But Ben was always trying to hold her.

She wanted him to.

Why did she insist on pushing him away?

Did he really scare her that much?

Or was she afraid of something else?

He’d freed her arms when he pulled her into his embrace. After another moment of silence, she lifted them and wrapped them around his broad back as far as they could go. Ben drew in a deep breath at her touch and melted into her neck, his arms twisting even more tightly around her back and head.

It sent tingles coursing down her spine.

“My world revolves around you, you know,” he murmured. “I have no friends, no family, no ties to this world but you. I wait for you to come home from work—like a dog. I can’t leave. I can’t drive. I can’t use most of my powers. I’m functionally in limbo, caught between states, and I have nothing to do and no one to talk to while you’re gone and it’s quite lonely, so I cook and I clean and I do research to help you when you get back.”

She sniffed and sobbed again.

More tears dripped down his back and fell onto her covers.

“And do you know why I laid on top of you like that?”

She shook her head.

“Because something I learned this week is that deep, heavy pressure helps calm the autonomic nervous system. It can be achieved by having a partner lay on top of you—or by receiving a long, firm hug.” He tightened his hold and more tingles danced across her skin and down her spine. “Or with a weighted blanket, but that seemed like a very bad idea right now, given the circumstances.”

She huffed a laugh and felt him smile against her skin. Just slightly.

Just a little.

But then it faded again.

“Rey, I’m not trying to do anything untoward, I’m trying to help you. But you won’t listen to me. And I don’t understand why, so I tried to show you. I didn’t know how else to get your attention.” He sighed bitterly against her neck but didn’t pull back from her. “Am I so terrible?”

It was her turn to tighten her arms around him.

“No. You’re not,” she finally whispered. “You’re not, Ben.”

They sat there, quietly holding each other in the dark of her room. He was right: the longer he held her, the more her heart calmed and slowed, the more her sobs receded back to where they normally stayed buried. And the more relief she felt as her sweat gradually slowed and stopped.

It was a hundred degrees in her room and she could finally breathe.

“I’m sorry I tried to bite you,” she mumbled when she found the words again.

That earned her a chuckle. It rumbled out from deep within Ben’s chest, and she felt his smile—the wide, crooked one—bloom against the side of her head.

“I’m not, sweetheart.” He pulled back and looked at her, shifting his hands up to wipe the tears away from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Full permission to try again later.” Those eyes danced with wicked delight above such a lopsided, crooked grin, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him. “But you have to mean it next time. You can’t tease me like that.”

She snorted. “Alright. Sure.”

He huffed, low and amused, still cradling both of her cheeks with his massive paws. “It’s late,” he whispered. His hands were nearly as big as her head. “Are you going to admit that you really like it when I touch you?” He licked his lips before rolling them together. “Are you going to admit that…maybe you think about it sometimes?”

Her cheeks were a raging inferno between his glacial palms.

She didn’t have the strength to admit the truth yet.

So when she vehemently shook her head, Ben only raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands in defeat.

“Alright. Fine.” The look he gave her was both wry—and knowing. But then he cradled her face again and pressed his forehead against hers. “I’ll save calling you out on your bullshit for some other time, you beautiful, stubborn, prideful thing,” he whispered. “In the meantime, I’ll keep waiting. But will you at least let me share your bed and keep you cool?”

This time, she nodded.

“Then can we please brush our teeth and go to sleep before you make yourself sicker?”

“Yeah. We can.” It was her turn to frown. “I thought you didn’t sleep, though.”

“I don’t, but I’ll meditate and pretend for you.”

“Won’t that be boring?”

A softer smile this time, and a tiny shake of his head. “I’m never bored when I’m with you. And plus, you’ll keep me warm. It feels nice. Goes both ways.”

Heat flared again in her cheeks at the mention of it, despite the coolness of his palms. “Okay.”

When she pushed herself off her mattress and padded into the bathroom, Ben followed, striding up next to her with a steady hand placed at her back. Teeth-brushing completed, he went into her room again and swept back the covers before sliding beneath them, as naturally as if he’d done it every day of his life.

He was still so big, he nearly took up all available space on her mattress.

He waited there while she showered and washed her hair one more time.

When Rey was finished and clad in fresh, dry clothes, he curled up and scooted aside, managing to make just enough room for her to slide under the covers after him. He grabbed her and pulled, tucking her back firmly against his chest and making sure her body curved perfectly to his. Both arms wrapped around her, one sliding beneath her waist and the other crossing over her chest to caress her cheek while he hugged her closer to him.

He really was like her own personal air conditioner. It was the coolest she’d felt in her bed in ages.

They lay there silently in the dark for a few minutes, shifting and adjusting until they found the perfect angle to actually stay on the bed.

Rose was right.

It was almost too small.

“‘Autonomic nervous system,’ huh?” Rey finally whispered over her shoulder in the quiet of her room.

“Yes.” He swept her damp hair aside and nuzzled his large nose against the nape of her neck. “That’s what the scientific research papers said. There have been so many advances in medicine and the study of anatomy and physiology since I was last here. It’s astounding.”

Of course he’d been reading medical studies while she was away at work.

Demon Dr. Kylo Ren.

Or Ben Solo.

For a split second, she wondered which name he actually preferred being called. She hadn’t really asked; she’d decided for him early on. But she eventually settled on something else instead.

“You nerd.”

“‘Nerd?” She didn’t need to see him to imagine the inquisitive head-tilt he had going on behind her.

“Don’t worry about it.” She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, savoring the cool scent he’d enveloped her with—and the profound relief it brought. It was as if a fever she didn’t even know she was suffering from had finally broken. “It’s a compliment.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a refreshing change of pace from what you usually throw my way.” He inhaled a deep breath of his own at her back and released it in a long, contented sigh. “Goodnight, Rey.” Ben’s whisper rushed across her skin. Sleep nipped at its heels.

She didn’t even have the energy to respond.

It happened far too quickly.

The second she finally, truly relaxed, the darkness rushed in and took her.

And she had no sense of anything anymore.

Once she gave in, her slumber was dreamless and deep.

Rey felt like she was floating in the dark, and it seemed like she’d only just closed her eyes when she slowly blinked awake. Delicate early morning sunshine streamed through the gaps in her shitty blinds, and as soon as she stirred even the slightest bit, Ben’s arm tightened around her waist. He was still lying at her back, his body perfectly curved against hers.

It was as if he’d been specifically crafted to cradle her.

“No, sweetheart,” he murmured, slipping the hand around her waist up her shirt slightly along her ribs to hold her closer. He dragged it slowly back and forth, soft and slow. “Not yet. Close your eyes. You need more than that.” He began to massage her scalp with his other hand, his fingers drawing soothing circles in her hair. She hummed at the delicious, calming feeling of it. No one ever touched her like this.

She had no idea she’d needed it so badly.

The circular motions against her scalp spread like ripples across a pond, sweeping along her body in waves. She closed her eyes, and the world around her seemed to ripple with it, swaying and rocking her as though she were lying in a boat lost in the middle of a dark, placid sea. Ben’s comforting weight at her back slowly melted away, leaving her alone in the quiet, velvet creche of the dark. It was nice. Lovely, even, to not feel or sense anything other than true weightlessness.

It was a relief.

But after a while, something solid slowly formed beneath her, materializing into being, and with her eyes still closed, Rey ran her hand along its surface, expecting to feel the smooth skin of Ben’s pale chest beneath her fingertips. Instead, what felt like tiny, frozen rocks grazed across her palm, and when she clenched her fist, she opened her eyes with a gasp.

And found herself looking up at the gaping abyss of the mouth of a cave.

A cave she’d seen once before.

She held up her hand. Frozen grains of sand coated her skin, and when she opened her palm, they slipped through her fingers and tumbled silently back down to the beach below. The waves of dark, soundless sea curled at her back and licked at her bare toes, sending shivers up her spine. Every sweep of them numbed her skin.

She was back.

She’d washed ashore in that cold, quiet place again.

Rey scrambled to her feet, the frozen rocks and sand scratching at her bare knees, and looked down, already patting frantically at her sternum. But she didn’t find anything. No gaping, weeping hole where her heart should be was carved into her chest this time, and her hands only slipped across the thin fabric of her tank top, rendered now in stark shades of white and grey.

It was as if all color had been drained away from this place.

She exhaled a deep, trembling breath and glanced around. It was still frigid, and her breath curled before her in thick, frozen clouds, but the cold wasn’t as soul-chilling as it had been before. She rubbed her arms to warm them and tried to stop her teeth from chattering.

It felt like it would be too loud if they did.

But something was different. Something had changed from the last time she was here. The hair prickled at the back of her neck, and she ran a hand along it as she turned around on the spot and tried to find the warning.

It felt like she was being watched.

She couldn’t find anyone. She couldn’t see anything. There was only the infinite stretch of grey, false light glowing across the nothing sky. Only the endless waves of the silent, dark sea lapping at the edges of the tiny island. Only the gaping maw of the abyss stretching before her. Not a single blade of grass or hint of a tree. Not a single hint of life besides her own.

But mixed in with everything was the uncanny feeling of a presence.

An awareness.

A consciousness.

It was sinister.

It didn’t feel near, but it did feel alert. It felt as if it, too, knew that something had shifted. Something had changed. That she was in a place she wasn’t supposed to be. And the only thing Rey could really put her finger on was that it was searching for something—for her, perhaps.

She shouldn’t let it find her.

The cave was the only place to hide.

Rey squared her shoulders and steeled herself, sprinting for the opening of the abyss and sliding near-frozen bare feet across the ice-covered stone. She slipped across the threshold, and as soon as the shadow of the cave washed over her, the cold receded slightly. She turned and looked out of its mouth through the throat and saw nothing but light grey behind her—and almost nothing but black before her.

When she pressed herself into the shadows against the wall, the feeling of the presence faded away.

It couldn’t see her here.

She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did.

Rey loosed a breath, and even that was almost too loud. “Which way?” she tried whispering, and flinched at how the sound of it echoed in her ears off the sides of the cave.

This place was not meant for words.

Message received.

She pressed her lips tightly shut.

While she had the sense that she was out of sight of whatever consciousness was hunting out there, the cave itself felt empty. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and peered into the void, squinting as she looked into the distance. And the longer she did, the more she realized that it wasn’t completely black at all.

Tiny pinpricks of light glowed far away, scattering into white dots and lines, like stars twinkling in the dark.

She swallowed and set out for the nearest one.

She couldn’t see, so she went slowly at first, tentatively sliding her feet across the smooth, rocky ground of the cave. The silence was profound. The longer she went without hearing, the more it buzzed in her ears, morphing into one solid tonal whine in the background, almost as if her brain was desperate for anything to sense, any input at all. Instead, her own heartbeat rose to the forefront, solid and steady, but quickening along with her breath the closer she got to the first shaft of light.

It was nearer than it had initially seemed, and when she finally stepped up to it, she saw that the light was filtering down from a hole in the roof of the cave. Tiny flakes of snow floated in it, appearing as dust motes, glittering and dancing about in the column of light like dandelions on the wind. They landed and melted in a pool of water, its surface as calm and clear and still as black, liquid glass. There was nothing around it. No rocks, no stray pebbles, nothing but the perfect circle of a shallow pool carved into the ground.

And that was the oddest part:

Its perfection.

It was as if it had intentionally been crafted that way.

Rey peered into the water, leaning cautiously over the pool from where she stood. A shadowed version of her reflection stared back at her, but something was strange about it. That wasn’t quite her face. It was hard to see what was so different about her in the dark, so she knelt down and looked closer.

The mirror version of her looked back at her.

They both frowned.

Their frowns deepened as they held hands up to their faces, so alike, and yet so very different. And then a chill went down Rey’s spine—because the person staring back at her was a man.

A young man with dark hair.

And her exact same hazel eyes.

She reared back in surprise, and so did her twin. He disappeared from view, and Rey sat down, kicking and scrambling away from the pool. The only thing she could hear in the cave was the thunderous beating of her heart, so loud she was sure that whoever was looking for her outside would hear it. She placed a hand over her chest and slowed her breathing, trembling in the cold as she tried to calm herself. But nothing came out of the pool. Nothing else stirred in the cave.

She was truly alone.

Rey gathered her courage and crawled forward again. As soon as her face came into view in the reflection once more, she found the same man staring back at her, looking just as terrified of her as she felt of him. But he wasn’t dressed the same as she was. Instead of a sleep tank, he wore old army fatigues—a drab olive color, like something she’d seen in history books. Rey raised a hand and pressed at her cheek—the man did the same. Her expression softened, and so did his. He had a cut on his cheek, a thin slice still fresh and red, and when she touched her own face where it sat, she winced sharply in pain. But when she drew her fingers away, there was no sign of blood on them. She swallowed, and looked back at the man, showing him her hand.

He showed her his too.

His fingers were tipped scarlet.

The more she stared at that red, the first scrap of truly vibrant color she’d seen in this lifeless place, the more mesmerized by it she was. She lost track of how long she stared at the pulsing slice of vermilion cutting across the pale face of the man in the water surrounded by infinite black. Her hand lowered. Her lips parted. And before she knew it, her fingertips were pressing against that dark, glassy surface perfectly in time with the man’s own.

As soon as their fingertips touched, the cave shook.

It started as a single ripple.

And then it became more.

The ground lurched forward as though an earthquake had just rocked through the entire cave, and that single forceful surge was enough to send her tumbling headfirst into the pool, splashing through and shattering its perfect surface.

It was like diving straight into an Arctic glacier.

Cold pierced through Rey’s heart, cutting across her body and slicing it to shreds, setting every single one of her nerves aflame. She tried to swim, but it was as if her limbs had frozen. She couldn’t remember how. She tried to scream, but the pool was infinitely deep, and she could only keep sinking down, down, down into the darkness.

Until she blinked.

And everything around her snapped back into vivid color and violent detail.

Smoke clouded and stung his eyes.

Fire burned through the building.

It was going to collapse at any moment.

Rey gripped his gun and sprinted to the basement, throwing himself down the stairs with wild abandon and ignoring the thudding footfalls of his heavy combat boots. Bombs dropped and thundered in the distance while shots rang outside, bullets and shrapnel flying where the siege was still being laid. And while this was already going to be a victory—that much had been decided—he had something more important to do. 

The intelligence he’d gathered told him that he needed to be downstairs, and he needed to be down there now. 

It was what he’d been looking for. 

Years of research, and it all came down to this:

Answers.

Or death.

And nothing in between.

He turned down the stairwell and grey-green flashed out of the corner of his eye. He lifted his gun and fired, and a body fell to the ground in the doorway. Blood pooled beneath the soldier’s head, bright red and viscous. Shouting and footsteps echoed down from that hallway, but Rey didn’t have time. 

He was going to miss it if he didn’t hurry. 

If he didn’t keep moving.

The stairs twisted, leading further down, deeper, darker. When he reached the bottom, he skidded across the cold, concrete floors as he turned around the corner, blood pumping and adrenaline surging through his veins. He could hear it: the chanting down the hall. A strange light pulsed from an open archway covered in arcane symbols, rust red mixed with silver, cold and stark and foreboding. The light grew in strength with the chants; not in German, but a call and response in Latin, as he’d expected. 

They were trying to call one forth.

And not the one he was.

The light in the room at the end of the hall shifted as he ran. Something dark tinged it, the edges of it glowing black: a cold, false light limned in shadow, as impossible and contradictory as it seemed. The air grew heavy, and a frozen fog spilled from the open doorway and crept along the floor. It licked over Rey’s boots and sloshed around his feet like water, its tendrils plucking at his laces, almost as though it wished to slow him down. 

Almost as though it knew, and it was trying to stop him in his tracks. 

He gritted his teeth and pushed, finally bursting through the open archway, gun raised and at the ready. He might only have time for one shot, for one split second. Better make it count. 

He fired. 

The leader dropped mid-chant, silenced by the bullet ripping straight through his throat. 

His gray-green robes fluttered to the ground as if in slow motion, the red and black swastika on the collar at his neck suddenly drenched in liquid scarlet.

The rest of the chanters turned and shouted, and Rey opened fire, killing one after the other. The twisting, glowing symbols on the floor began to fade, their pulsing slowed, their forms marred and snuffed out by the spreading pools of blood. The swirling darkness-tinged fog dissolved and disappeared, and one by one, the dead candles around the circle began to relight. 

But then a shot from a different gun rang out.

And Rey stopped in his tracks.

His own weapon clattered to the ground.

A strange sense of peace washed over him, and with it, a knowing. This was it. His time was up. That was all he could do. It was the end of this one. But at least he’d done it well enough. As well as he could.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.” A tear coursed down his cheek, the salt of it stinging as it rolled into the cut. “I tried so hard this time. I got close.”

The blood rushed forth from the wound punched in his stomach faster than his nerves could process the pain, and the last thing he saw was the dark barrel of a pistol pressed against his forehead.

But it didn’t matter. Reinforcements were on the way. This building would be bombed. And he’d already pulled the pin from the grenade hidden behind his back. He’d never planned to get out of here alive to begin with. Not really.

He closed his eyes. 

Thunder boomed.

And everything went dark.

Rey jolted awake with a gasp, convulsing beneath the covers.

“Whoa there!” Ben’s low tenor rumbled next to her and his strong arms tensed, catching her before she could tumble completely out of bed. He grabbed her and pulled her back to him, frowning while he cradled her head and gazed into her wide eyes with concern.

She could still feel the force of the shot rippling through her body.

She could still feel the ghost of the bullet exploding through her skull.

But when she blinked, it was all gone.

Reality snapped back into place around her.

It didn’t stop her from trembling uncontrollably.

“Hey.” Ben tucked her head beneath her chin and shushed her gently, soothing her by rubbing circles on her back with his hands. They were so wide, a single palm spanned the width of her shoulder blades. “Hey, you’re alright. You’re alright. Settle down. I’ve got you.”

She looked around as she caught her breath. She was back in her room and bright, cheerful summer sunlight poured through the gaps in her blinds. Her fans were on, and she should have still felt unbearably hot if it weren’t for Ben’s body keeping her cool.

She must have slept for a long, long time.

“What time is it?” she finally rasped. Her throat was bone dry.

“It’s about one in the afternoon.” He slid his fingers through her hair, still trying to calm her down. “You got a little more than thirteen hours of sleep. Did you forget where you were?” He pulled her towards him and pressed his lips softly to her forehead. “Was it a bad dream?”

Rey glanced down at her stomach. Not a single mark. Not a drop of blood. Just the soft folds of her blue cotton sleep tank and matching shorts.

She closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck.

“Yeah,” she breathed, suddenly incredibly grateful for the familiar feeling of his skin against hers.

“Oh sweetheart. What happened? Do you remember?”

“No.” It was a lie. She remembered every vivid detail, every sound, every sensation, but there was something entirely too personal about it. It didn’t feel like she should share it. Not yet. “I don’t remember.”

“Well, it was just a dream, then. Couldn’t be that important.” He pressed his lips against her forehead again, and something about the way he did, the softness in it, how tender he was, made her heart ache. “Don’t let it ruin your day. Alright?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It was just a dream.”

Nothing but a dream.

Chapter Text

It started with a deal.

And really, Rey should have known better.

She spent a fair portion of Sunday afternoon after she woke up sitting in the shower, thinking about that strange dream. It had felt so real. Too real, much like the first one. And both of them while she slept in Ben’s arms.

Once could be chalked up to chance: a random passing fancy of her brain, a fleeting invention of unfettered imagination, unencumbered by the constraints of awareness. But twice? With the exact same frozen dreamscape? With how much she still remembered of both dreams floating around in high-definition in the background of her consciousness?

Twice was the start of a pattern.

Twice was the unraveling of coincidence.

And not only that, but something about those dreams had felt so deeply personal, every time she thought about mentioning them to Ben, she simply couldn’t. Even the idea of reliving them through the retelling seemed like too much.

But despite how unsettling they were, she’d slept better than she had in literal ages. Today was the first day in months that the dark circles beneath her eyes looked even marginally improved, or a touch lighter. And it was the first time in over a week that she hadn’t gotten out of bed only to immediately combat the nausea of exhaustion.

Maybe it was a fair trade.

Either way, it didn’t matter, because she didn’t have a choice: once Rey let Ben into the bed, she couldn’t get him back out of it.

She really should have known better.

When she finally got out of the shower, it was to find him tidying up her room. She stood there, dripping in her towel, staring at the sight of Ben sitting on the rug with his legs splayed out to the sides while he rearranged the contents of her entire chest of drawers and casually re-folded her clean underwear.

Not that there was much of it. She hadn’t done laundry in weeks.

Meanwhile, the sheets on her bed had been changed and exchanged for fresh ones, her duvet and pillows perfectly fluffed and arranged with nary a wrinkle in sight. All the visible dirty clothes strewn about her bedroom floor had been sorted into neat, intentional piles by type and color instead of the crumpled, haphazard ones she’d let stack up.

There were more thrown at the bottom of the closet, but he hadn’t appeared to have made it that far yet. That was still unexplored territory.

“I don’t know how you live this way, Rey,” Ben said, shaking out the last pair of her permastained period underwear before carefully folding it into quarters and placing it back into the top drawer with the others. “This is chaos. Absolute insanity, and a terribly inefficient use of space.”

“What are you doing.” It was less a question than an accusation. Water from her soaking-wet hair dripped onto the floor at her feet, their splatters oddly loud all of a sudden.

Her eye twitched.

Ben turned to the next pile—his own precious few athletic clothes, formerly stored in the TV cabinet with the DVD player—and began tucking them into the top right drawer. He’d apparently taken the liberty of emptying it and clearing the space for himself. “Reorganizing our room.”

“Our room?!”

“It’s time. It’s a mess in here. I haven’t even started on the closet yet.”

“I didn’t tell you that you could fully move in.”

“And you didn’t say I couldn’t. I’m sick of the couch, Rey.” He re-folded another plain black t-shirt to better fit it in the drawer. “It hurts my back.”

“You’re a shapeshifting demon. No, it doesn’t.”

“I assure you: it does. I feel plenty of pain. Perhaps more than most people, actually,” he muttered, chewing slightly on his bottom lip. “I also don’t know where you got this idea that I can just change my shape willy-nilly, but I really can’t.”

She raised an eyebrow. “‘Willy-nilly?’ Are you serious?” Where did he even pick up that dorky phrase?

He ignored her. “I have two forms. That’s it. And they’re not exactly dissimilar.” He shook out a pair of joggers and started fussing with it. It was almost insulting how perfect and crisp all of his folds were.

She threw her hands up. “Then what powers do you even really have as a demon? I’ve hardly seen you use any!”

Well, aside from one or two.

But she wasn’t going to think about whatever had spoken to her and taken her vibrator that night—and made her come harder than she ever had before.

“You’ll find out eventually, once we’re in a contract. Most of the ones I could use to service you are bound right now.”

Rey stared at him. “‘Service me?’” she whispered. Did he really just say it like that?

“But to come back to what I know you’re actually dancing around, are you really going to kick me out of your bed at this point?” He finally looked at her, and it was galling how high that one dark eyebrow soared on his forehead. “That was the best stretch of sleep you’ve had in months by your own admission. Even those dark circles under your eyes are better, and that was just from one night, nevermind your outstanding air conditioner situation.” The corner of his lips twitched. “Admit it: you like it. And I’m good for you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course that’s what this is about.” She stormed over to her closet and threw the doors open, leaving wet spots dripping into the carpet behind her. Ah, there it was: the dawning horror rushing over Ben’s face when he saw what lay inside. It was hard not to savor the feeling as he loosed a string of something in a strange language under his breath, and it only made her wicked grin grow wider while she dug out a clean-ish shirt from the nearest not-yet-fully-dirty pile. She held it up and gave the pits a quick sniff before deciding it was good enough and grabbed a pair of shorts as she turned back around.

“It’s just while the AC is out. Don’t get comfortable.” She shook her hand while pointing at the chest of drawers. “Toss me a pair of panties, will you? Especially since you’ve already dug through them all without permission like a creeper.” When he pulled out her period underwear, she sighed. “No, not those. Pick a nicer pair.”

Ben reached further back into the drawer and brandished a lacy red pair instead, indignantly waving them around like a flag. “They’re just scraps of cloth. I don’t understand the issue with me rearranging them nicely for you, or picking the ‘wrong’ ones,” he grumbled before finally tossing them her way. “These do not hold any allure for me.”

Rey caught them with a huff. She’d wondered what he might choose, and he’d gravitated straight to her favorite date-night undies.

But Ben only scowled deeper. “And I’m not going back to the couch after this. It’s lumpy and old and it hurts. You need a new one.”

She scowled right back and shoved the panties under her armpit. “Yeah, well, it’s not like you’re paying for it. So quit complaining.”

He opened his mouth to quip something back, but then seemed to think better of it, pausing for a moment while he studied her face. He licked his lips and slowly rolled them together.

“So you’re saying that if I pay for something, I’ll have rights to it?” It was clear he was choosing his words carefully.

Rey narrowed her eyes. He was up to something. “You know what? If I get new legally-obtained furniture out of this…then yes. That seems fair. If you pay for an item, then you’ll have the irrevocable right to use it. But I’m talking items, here. Inanimate objects that aren’t sentient.” She frowned and tried to figure out how else she needed to phrase things but couldn’t think of any better way to parse that. “And you also have to obtain the money you buy things with legally.”

The last thing she needed was the police knocking on her door and a demon answering it. But either way, he was functionally unemployable, and couches were expensive. Even if he had acquired some pocket change, it seemed like a relatively safe bet that he would fail at this.

But Ben had already stood and strode over to her with his hand held out. The half-written gold bond around his fingers flared to life, the red circle binding his wrist like a manacle lighting up right after it. “I can work with that. Do we have an agreement?” His charmingly crooked teeth flashed as he grinned wide and bounced his eyebrows at her. Just once.

Cocky motherfucker.

“If we can’t be in a contract because I don’t own my own soul, then what’s this?” She nodded down at his hand. “I don’t see you flash that every day.”

“It’s not a soul contract. And that appears when I get excited sometimes. It’s nothing.” He thrust it out again, more insistently this time. “Let’s shake on it.”

“Oh, when you get excited, you say?” Rey put her hands on her hips and then jerked them right back up to grab the top of her towel. It had come untucked and nearly fell.

Not what she needed right this second.

“What’s it going to do to me?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’m just very bored.” Somehow, his grin widened.

“You’re lying.”

“No, but you’re asking all the right questions this time—and minding the fine print. I’m really proud of you.” He bent down and whispered in her ear. “You’re learning.”

She wrinkled her nose and shoved him away, which only seemed to amuse him further. “Okay, fine. If this is a lesson, then what other questions should I be asking? Since you’re an expert.”

He slipped a finger through one of the wet curls near her temple and plucked gently at it. They always straightened out somewhat once they dried. “You might want to consider what I could be getting out of the deal, sweetheart. What I desire.”

“Then what are you getting out of it?”

Ben crooked that same finger beneath her chin before sweeping his thumb across her bottom lip. She sucked in a breath at the sudden burst of ice along her mouth.

“Pleasure.”

Rey took his hand. They shook on their agreement.

Her half-written bond glowed gold for a split second when Ben’s own gold-wound fingers closed around her palm, but that was about the extent of it. No other magical binding, no signatures, no contract. It was almost anticlimactic.

And then she forgot about it.

Once Monday rolled around, Rey had to get back into the swing of the work week, but now with a new resignation: her demon wasn’t going anywhere. The first week, sure, it was a strange predicament, but she’d still held out hope that maybe, just maybe, he would disappear and she could chalk the entire thing up to a particularly bad dissociative episode.

But no.

When she woke up in his arms for the second day in a row, the truth became even clearer:

Her life was different now, and she was going to need to get used to it.

It, and the dreams, apparently.

It happened again on Sunday. She found herself in that strange, cold, quiet place, devoid of color and sound and life. She’d darted into the cave to escape that uncanny sense of being watched, but this time, she didn’t stop at the first pool.

After wandering in the darkness for what seemed like an eternity, it became obvious what Rey was there for and what she was supposed to do. So when nothing happened, when she couldn’t get warm, when she couldn’t wake up or find any end to the cave, she finally gave in. She chose the closest pool and plunged into it with little preamble and not much more than a passing glance at the face she found there.

A different face adorned with her eyes.

The young woman looking back at her in the mirror appeared pained, sickly. She had dark circles under her eyes, much worse than Rey remembered them being, and the long, chestnut hair at the back of her loose Gibson tuck was coming undone, more and more by the second as she coughed and sputtered. She eventually closed those familiar eyes while she hacked violently into a handkerchief. Something in her lungs gurgled and grated, shredding through tissue as it came up, and, with a jolt of pain in her chest, Rey jerked her hand away. When she looked down at what she held, dread washed over her.

Scarlet streaked across the pure white fabric.

The taste of copper wet her lips.

She was fading. She didn’t have much time—she’d barely been able to get out of bed as it was, and she could feel the strength draining from her limbs. She didn’t want anyone to know, and certainly not her husband.

He’d never understand.

It was fine. She didn’t care about leaving him.

She’d never loved him anyway.

Rey dropped to the floor and crawled beneath her bed, barely managing to pull herself across the old, dusty planks. There it was, waiting for her, tucked beneath her mattress between the slats:

Her spirit board, carefully crafted out of a thin sheet of wood, lovingly hand-painted when she still had strength.

When she still had hope.

She tugged it out from where she’d hidden it, gasping as she turned onto her side and unclipped the planchette from the edge.

“Please,” she rasped, her chest now rattling thickly with slow, impending death. Her lungs were filled with blood. She was drowning. “Please, talk to me. Tell me you can hear me.” She closed her eyes and covered her mouth with her handkerchief as she coughed again. This time, there was no need to look. She could feel what had splattered there—and far more than before. But she still kept one trembling hand placed firmly on the planchette, begging, pleading with it to move.

“Please, my love. I need you. I need you to talk to me. Just a word. One word.” A tear coursed down her cheek, and Rey pulled her shawl more tightly around her thin shoulders. She’d lost so much weight. She wasn’t going to make it much longer. “I miss you. I don’t want to have to try again. I’m so tired. I can’t do this without you anymore.”

When the planchette didn’t move, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

He couldn’t hear her.

He was lost.

She coughed again.

And so was she.

More tears streamed down Rey’s cheeks. She reached into the pocket of her nightgown and pulled out the bottle of laudanum. She’d been hoarding it for just such an occasion, only pretending to take her doses while her wretched husband hovered over her, leering at her and secretly hoping she would die. He’d be pleased: after tonight, and after the requisite mourning period, he could finally marry his mistress.

The bitch could have the bastard.

This whole sham of a marriage had been her father’s contrivance anyway.

With the last of her strength, Rey pried the cork away from the bottle and downed it in one shot. She pulled the spirit board over to her and cradled it to her chest as she might embrace a lover—her only friend in this world, a symbol of the last vestiges of her waning hope. The room outside the bed blurred, the shadows dancing and stretching in the candlelight, and finally, a sense of peace washed over her when the pain finally began to drain away. Another tear slipped down her cheek.

“I’ll find you…next time,” she whispered, her chest rising and falling more slowly and softly with every fading syllable.

“I swear it.”

One more slow, sweet breath.

“My love.”

It ended there.

Rey woke, but not with a start. This time, she wasn’t surprised. She’d slipped into death so slowly and so gently that Ben’s arm barely tensed around her when she stirred, and she turned over to find him watching her, his expression soft, his dark hair perfectly tousled around his face like a shadowed halo. A thin band of gold glowed around his irises.

He was so handsome.

A dark prince of Hell wreathed in the growing light of dawn.

“Good morning,” he’d murmured, tucking some of her hair behind her ear. The gold faded, and a corner of his mouth twitched up, just enough for a single dimple to peek out of the depths of his face.

And that was that.

Her new normal.

They fell into something resembling a routine that week. Rey would go to work and swing by the library before coming home. Ben often made dinner for her when she got back, or went with her to run errands. They combed through documents until they ran out, with no answers to show for it, and then watched movies and TV shows to fill their evenings, still continuing Ben’s cultural catch-up.

Sometimes, at odd moments when they were apart, a sharp pain would jolt through her hand—but it would be gone just as quickly as it had appeared.

Sometimes, Rey would feel an odd receding of sound, followed by a strange tickle at the back of her consciousness—and her neck—as though there was something she was struggling to hear, or to remember.

Sometimes, she would have a date after work.

But every night, it was Ben she curled up next to on her too-small bed so she could sleep.

Because she was still without a working air conditioner.

At the seven-day mark since she’d submitted the first work order, Ben wrote a letter to her apartment complex that was so perfect, it could have been straight from a lawyer. Rey went with him when he delivered it to the girl at the leasing office’s desk, since they hadn’t been able to catch or get ahold of Plutt themselves.

All she got back was a terse email from a general address with no signature acknowledging receipt and assuring her that she was in a repair queue. If she didn’t have Ben to cool her bed and help her sleep, she would have lost her mind. The rest of her apartment was still boiling hot, even her bedroom with the new window unit she'd finally maxed out her credit card to buy.

She spent most of her time at home sweating.

But one of the ways she found reprieve was by continuing to swipe on dating apps and message the men there, solely so she had an excuse to get out of the apartment.

It felt empty, but she did it anyway.

Mostly out of spite.

Mostly because he’d told her not to.

Ben watched her do it out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t say anything about it.

But if she did go out, he would invariably ruin it.

The first time, her date was particularly shy and nervous, and right when Rey was getting him to open up, someone told the Matt’s El Rancho staff that it was the gentleman’s birthday. When the entire kitchen came out with a slice of tres leches cake and sparklers and the mariachi band sauntered over to sing a song just for him, Randy looked like he wanted to vomit. After he paid his half of the bill, he high-tailed it out of the restaurant and Rey never heard from him again. Which was ultimately fine, since he didn’t look like his profile pictures anyway and he was honestly kind of intense in an unsettling, stalker-y way.

Ben was entirely too smug about it for her liking.

She immediately booked another date as soon as possible while scowling at him.

But when he molded himself around her body that night, she didn’t protest as he ran his hands through her hair, his fingertips pressing gentle circles firmly into her scalp.

And sending tingles coursing up and down her spine.

“I’m mad at you,” she’d whispered.

“I know,” he’d responded.

That was all.

When they started sharing a bed, Ben put himself in charge of bedtime.

It was one thing Rey couldn’t bring herself to complain about. If she fell asleep on the couch, he carried her to bed. If she kicked the covers off, he tucked her back in.

He also liked to read to her until she dozed off. It was something he’d started unprompted on the second night they’d slept together, and he never stopped her from laying her head on his chest and listening to the soothing rumble of his low tenor while he told her stories.

She’d never been cared for at night like that before.

It was nice.

She liked it, and would have regardless, even if he weren’t acting as her own personal refrigerator.

But she’d never admit that.

And, of course, Ben had rules about their routine, too: they always brushed their teeth no matter what, they always slept with fans on (for the white noise, he said), and he always took the side of her bed closest to the door. When she asked why, he told her it was so that he could protect her if they were ever attacked in the night.

“Has that happened to you?”

Ben blinked at her—and then frowned. “I don’t know.” Then he shook his head. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. My point stands.” He put a hand on her shoulder and gently nudged her. “Scoot over. This is my side. You’re not sleeping on it.”

It seemed a little extreme, but he was insistent. Demanding, even.

And a little grouchy about it, too.

It didn’t help that her full bed was entirely too small for a man of his size, so he took up most of it. His feet hung off the end if he didn’t curl around her, and he was so wide, he easily covered two-thirds of the mattress.

They had to stay close.

Not only that, but now that she’d had a taste of sleep, it seemed like her body couldn’t get enough of it. Rey felt even more exhausted than she did before, and it was difficult not to fall asleep early or at her desk at work. For a solid week, she was out as soon as she closed her eyes, her world dark and silent until she opened them again in the morning—aside from the dreams.

Every night, she wore a different skin, lived a different life, died a different death.

Every morning, she woke feeling unsettled in her own body.

And all the while, she had to deal with the feeling of Ben’s hands on her skin. Touching herself and thinking of him had been a mistake; now whenever his cool fingertips slipped along her waist just under her shirt or the waistband of her shorts, it made the heat rise immediately to the surface from the memories of that night.

It made something tug between her legs, deep in her core.

It made her mouth drop open with a sharp, hungry inhale.

It made everything so much worse.

The flames licked at the edges of her skirts.

But Rey still did not scream.

The crowd did, though. They screamed and they jeered and they spat. They called her a devil worshiper, a witch, a whore, all because she had the markings of one on her skin. Constellations of stars scattered across her back, all in places she knew by heart. All the same places he’d had them. All the same places she’d once run her hands, trailing her fingers behind as she explored the firm ridges and planes of his back. She could trace them with her fingertips, draw a map of them from memory, would know them even if she went blind.

That, and because of the visions.

Visions of him.

Dark, soulful eyes.

Pale skin.

Silken hair.

Her heart raced whenever he appeared in her mind—

And in her dreams.

She’d refused to marry. She couldn’t, knowing what she did now.

But the memories—

They’d driven her mad.

Mad with pain.

With sorrow.

With loss.

And she’d told the wrong person.

What a mistake to have made in her unburdening.

Next time, she wouldn’t tell a soul.

Rey gritted her teeth and tilted her head up to the sky. She wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of hearing her pain. Of hearing how the flames sizzled across her flesh and burned her from the inside out.

Instead, she gazed up at the stars—the real ones, the ones that matched the freckles and moles speckling across her skin—across his—and she breathed in deep.

She let the smoke fill her lungs.

It made her eyes heavy and clouded her head.

She would just have to try again.

This wasn’t the one.

She would just have to try again.

A scream bubbled up in her throat just as her skin began to blister and sizzle.

She swallowed it down.

She would just have to try again.

A cry tore at her lips, just as the flames charred her flesh.

She could smell it cooking.

She clamped her mouth shut, suffocating the scream between teeth gritted so hard, she could hear them cracking.

She would just have to try—

That death was less gentle and less swift than the one before.

Her own screams lingered in Rey’s ears all day.

Her own skin burned where the flames had consumed her.

She had trouble concentrating at work.

No one paid her enough attention to notice.

No one, except for Ben—who’d frowned at her in concern when he saw how white she was when she gasped awake in the morning.

But still, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him.

That was also the same week the new items—and the packages—started to arrive.

Rey didn’t really notice them at first. Most of them must have been delivered during the day while she was at work, but when she got home one evening, she noticed a scrap of cardboard tucked in her recycling bin that she hadn’t put there. The label had been carefully removed—which she didn’t remember doing—and the box was expertly broken down. But she just shrugged and put it back.

Ben had been really fastidious about keeping the apartment clean, after all. Maybe it was something he found while cleaning her apartment. It made sense that he’d end up just as particular about recycling too. Of course he’d have looked up all the rules and best practices while she was away.

But then she started noticing other things.

Ben had respected her wishes when she told him, “Don’t fucking touch anything in my closet, that is not your shit, it’s mine,” but he hadn’t extended the same courtesy to her desk. All her papers were organized and filed back where they belonged and in even better order than before, Ben’s neat cursive gracing the tabbed labels at the top of the folders. But then there was also something new that didn’t used to be there:

A monitor.

“What’s this?” she’d asked him when she came home from work and saw it sitting there. It was a nice one too, a wide, curved gaming monitor, probably made sometime within the last few years.

Ben only shrugged. “Your neighbor’s son was selling it for cheap on your complex’s Nextdoor group, so I bought it from him. I needed one.”

“You needed one? For what? And with what money?”

He only smirked at her. “My money. And you’ll see.”

Later that week, a keyboard appeared. And then a wireless Bluetooth mouse.

When Ben was in the shower, she tried to open her laptop to find out what he’d been up to. It had been a long time since she’d used her personal computer at home while he’d been monopolizing it, but when she got to the login screen, there were two user profiles where there had never been one at all before.

His, and hers.

His was password-protected.

And nothing she tried worked to get her in.

That asshole really was a quick learner.

It was the same with his phone. All the locks and passwords she’d put on it initially had been changed, including his Apple user ID. No code she tried worked to let her unlock the screen. He even had his own email now that appeared in his updated contact on her phone: [email protected]. The only thing she had control over was his number and the payment for the line she’d added to her account.

Everything else had been stripped.

He’d thought of it all.

She met up with Cameron at Contigo.

It was another semi-outdoor restaurant that took full advantage of Austin’s gloriously sunny weather, and thankfully, the restaurant had installed fans and brought in misters to keep their patrons cool while they chatted and flirted by the bright orange and amber tones of the setting early-summer sun.

Their crispy green beans and duck fat white bean dip were to die for, but it was the burger that had sold Rey on coming: it was secretly the best burger in town, unjustly ignored by most and therefore all the more precious because of how readily available it was.

Much less compelling was her date.

Cameron was…something. Just like all the others, he’d seemed fine and normal while on the app, but now that he was sitting across from her, he’d spent most of the time quietly staring at her as she nibbled at their appetizers and frantically searched for any way to fill the void while she waited for her precious burger to arrive.

Ben, meanwhile, had done his usual song and dance of seating himself within earshot, sipping placidly on a cocktail while looking at his phone.

“So…what do you do, exactly?” she finally ventured.

“I take a lot of improv classes. I want to be a serious method actor.” Cameron went back to staring.

Ah. He, uh…certainly was serious about it, based on his tone of voice.

“I…see. Have you been in anything I would know?”

“Renaissance faires, mostly. I perform in the fight show.”

“Wait—do you work at Sherwood?”

Rey turned in her seat and closed her eyes with a sigh at the interjection. Ben was leaning towards them with rapt attention written across his face as he’d inserted himself into their conversation.

But it was the first time she’d seen Cameron light up with anything so much as resembling vigor.

“Yeah! Have you been to see us?”

“Oh yeah! You’re the viking, right? What’s your catch phrase again?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey caught Ben hiding his screen as he swept his phone back into his pocket. The familiar white glare of a Google search result page faded with the phone’s light.

Cameron straightened in his seat and puffed out his chest. “Bjorn Hjornee is always ready to pillage pussy!”

Oh god.

Ben glanced down at her, amusement dancing across those wide, wicked lips just as his eyes flashed gold for a split second. That did not bode well at all, it had to mean he was about to—

“So tell me more about your character. How did you come up with him? What exactly is his motivation for ‘pillaging pussy’?”

Oh no.

He’d kicked off all the necessary beginnings for a budding bromance.

And the next hour was excruciating.

Cameron hardly looked at her the entire time, he was so fixated on Ben and all of his inane questions, but at least Rey eventually got her cheeseburger to keep her company while she was thoroughly forgotten. After they downed the rest of their drinks and paid their check, it was Ben who got Cameron’s phone number with the promise to meet up with him sometime at the Austin Historical Weapons Guild for a duel.

And then Cameron trotted off to his beat up Toyota Camry and drove away without a backwards glance at Rey.

Ben grinned as he tucked his phone back into his pocket and slid an arm around her waist. “Hey, would you look at that! I finally managed to make a friend.”

“You’re a dick.”

“Oh come on, sweetheart,” he purred, bending down to nuzzle softly against her ear. “You weren’t going to like that one anyway. You don’t have one damn thing in common.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and curled her lip at him in disdain. “Gee, I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise with all of your questions about his character and backstory and experience with medieval weapons like halberds and pikes and whatever the fuck else you were talking about.”

“Exactly my point. You don’t have anything in common with that one. I do, actually, though I’m going to thoroughly kick his ass if I ever do get to cross swords with him. Real combat is not the same as stage combat. Trust me.” His hand migrated down and slid into the back pocket of her shorts. “Ready to go home?”

Rey grabbed his wrist and yanked it out where he was trying to so comfortably settle, but Ben only turned her anger around—literally. He flipped his wrist over, took her hand, and lifted the back of it to his lips.

She groaned and grabbed him back, fully intending to drag him home before he could get any other brilliant ideas. All he did was chuckle and trot after her to the car.

When they finally slid under the sheets together later that night, she still let him encircle her in his arms. “I’m mad at you,” she whispered over her shoulder.

“I know.”

She still let him run his hands tenderly along her waist in the dark, trailing his fingertips along her ribs. She still let him hike the back of her shirt up so that he could press his wide, bare chest to her heated skin. She still let him brush his lips across the nape of her neck before he planted a quick kiss there, cool and soft and sweet.

Rey stifled a moan at the feeling of it—at the relief.

He was always trying to touch her, so carefully, so gently.

He seemed to need it.

But the truth was, so did she.

So still, she let him.

Chapter Text

Hot Lawyer | Alright, lovely! Litigation’s done, and my team won the case!

Hot Lawyer | Can we meet for a drink early next week?

Hot Lawyer | I’m on a business trip and won’t be back until Monday morning, but sometime after then would work.

Rey | I’m free

Hot Lawyer | Drinks at Tiki Tatsuya on Monday, then? I can grab reservations at 7...

Rey | That sounds amazing. I'm in

Hot Lawyer | Then it's a date. 😘

“He’s not my husband!” Rey cried, moaning as she bore down and tried to push once more. She could barely see through the haze of the herbs someone had thrown onto the fire, and the smoke from the plants was sickly sweet. It stung her eyes and made her feel nauseous. The herbs were supposed to help make her relax, but all they did was make her more agitated.

She moaned again, but no baby came out.

Instead, blood gushed between her legs.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about!” The strange man was still screaming from outside the room. He must have been listening, and Rey covered her ears to muffle the sound. “Of course I’m her husband! We’ve been married two years as of this harvest season. You all know this as well as I!”

Her hands were swollen and cumbersome, awkward and clunky—just as her feet and ankles were. If someone were to prick her with a needle, she might pop.

The room tilted on its axis, swayed as if it were rocking at sea.

Her stomach twitched and contracted.

The midwife grabbed her arms and pulled them away from her head. “You have to push, my lady. Your baby’s breech, and I cannot turn the child. You have to try. You will both die if you don’t.”

“What?” Rey couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks as she looked down and found her belly swollen and round. She didn’t remember it being that big before. She didn’t remember being this far along. “I can’t do it without him. Where is he? Where is my husband?”

“He’s outside the room. You said you didn’t want him in here.”

Terror washed over her again. “I don’t know that man! Keep him away from me!” More pain wracked her body, and she fell back while she convulsed. Her mind went blank with another seizure, and when she came to, the room had morphed and changed again. No longer was it a grand house made of hewn timbers and masonry, but a stone hut. No longer was she wrapped in tangled blankets, but wreathed in warm furs.

But just as quickly as they were there, they were gone again.

Rey grabbed the midwife and pulled her closer. She was the only person she could anchor herself to. “I want to go home.” Sweat-soaked dark hair spilled around her face in long rivulets, sticking to her heated skin. Her nightgown was nearly soaked through, the white linen of the lower half blooming more and more scarlet by the minute.

“You are home, my lady.”

“No, I’m not! Where is he?” She wailed and let go of the old woman, curling in on her side. White flashed across her vision, and a low, guttural moan escaped through her lips. There was nothing but pain—immense, immeasurable pain. “I need him to take me home.”

This place smelled strange. It didn’t smell like home, like the salt air of the ocean or the rich loam of the hills. It didn’t smell like the fresh green of the pine forests, or cool and earthy like the rocks that formed their abode and littered the shoreline.

It smelled rank.

Confusing.

Dirty, like too many people crammed into too small of a space.

Muddled, the air clouded with the heavy scent of incense and herbs.

Her stomach heaved, and she turned and vomited over the side of the bed, pushing herself up and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and a labored gasp.

She wanted out.

A man burst through the door, cold green gaze aflame with fury, his eyes burning just as wildly as the red hair he was crowned with. The rest of his face was a blur, as if she were trying to look at it through a window smeared with grease.

All she could see was his hatred for her.

“Who is he?!” He grabbed Rey’s nightgown by the collar, and the midwife cried out as he violently shook her charge. He lifted a hand, threatening to let it fall where it may—likely across Rey’s cheek. “Who have you been whoring with? Whose child is this, if not mine?”

“No, milord!” the midwife screamed, still trying to pry him away. “She’s delirious. She speaks nonsense! I’ve seen it before in labor like this—your wife is going to die and I cannot save her.” She pulled again at his elbow. “Let me at least save your child!”

“Get off of me! GET OFF OF ME!” Rey struggled to push him away, gritting her teeth and clawing at his face with all her might. “I don’t know you! I don’t know you!” Three ruby slashes cut across his eye from where her nails landed, and he shoved her away roughly, clutching his face as he howled.

Men rushed in and grabbed the red-headed man, dragging him out while he cursed and howled. They, too, called him “my lord” and apologized. But Rey had no idea what he was lord of.

Once he was gone again, she slumped back onto the mattress and let the tears fall. The colors in the room shifted and twisted, the scarlet and gold of the tapestries covering the windows swirling into the fire burning in the grate.

It became a sweltering inferno.

Rey sobbed and gasped as her body took over, shaking while she pushed and pushed and pushed. She was outside herself, hovering over the bed, watching the scene before her like a play. The bed linens twisted in her fingers and her teeth felt like they would shatter, she gritted them so hard. And then, through the haze, there was finally a thin cry.

The midwife tried to show her the child. But when Rey spied the tuft of red hair peeking through the swaddling, she shoved the woman away.

“That thing is not mine,” she breathed. “What changeling have you switched my baby with?”

“Changeling?” the old woman gasped, staring at her with wide eyes. “My lady, this is no changeling. This is your son. You—”

“Impossible,” she spat. “That is no child of mine. My husband has dark hair. Dark like the night, with skin as fair as moonlight.” She drew in a rattling breath. “His eyes are of the forest: beautiful, like moss-covered bark.” Her chest shuddered, and her hands shook. “He will come for me, I swear it. He won’t let this stand. He will…he…”

Rey trailed off.

One last tear rolled down her cheek.

The red and gold warmth of the inferno consumed her before fading into black.

Her life slipped away between her legs, staining her bed vermillion.

The last thing to fade was the emptiness she felt inside.

Rey spent most of that day sitting and working in silence, clutching her stomach and trying to stem the tide of tears hovering at the edges of her eyes.

She still felt empty, even hours later.

When Rey got home from work, there was a pile of packages waiting for her at her doorstep.

All of them were addressed to Ben.

Rey didn’t even have the chance to turn the key in the lock before the demon in question yanked the door open. His eyes went wide when he saw her, though she did note that he looked a little odd.

Some of the light in his eyes had faded.

He had bags beneath them, too.

His breathing was labored.

His face was drawn.

He looked tired.

“You’re home a bit earlier than usual.” He took the tote bag of library books from her and then stooped to scoop up some of the packages in his arms, ushering her inside while he shepherded in all the rest with one of his huge feet.

“Yeah, I managed to sneak out of the office on time for once.” Mitaka was stuck in a meeting and didn’t have the opportunity to hound her like he normally did about her marketing campaign progress and her personal OKRs while she was trying to leave, so she’d been able to slip across the street to the library and make it home at a decent time. “Care to explain what all this is?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, fine.” Rey hung her keys and her purse on the hooks behind the door and turned to face him, hands on her hips. “I know we agreed that if I didn’t really want to know the answer, I wouldn’t ask. But now I do want to know. Where are you getting the money to buy stuff online? Because you sure as hell aren’t putting these things on my credit card. I’d be over my limit if you did.”

Meanwhile, Ben was busy pulling his books out of the bag and setting them on the table in deliberate piles. He could have read far more than the twelve a day she was checking out for him, but they didn’t want it to look too suspicious, even though the library let you have something like up to fifty out at a time. Most of the titles she was getting for him had gotten more and more jargony, and half the time she had no real idea what he was reading, aside from the few fiction books he threw into each batch.

Lately, he’d been reading Villette to her at night.

Handy, really, that he knew French and could translate those passages for her. He said it hadn’t changed all that much as a language in five hundred years.

But she shook the thought out of her head and resumed her glaring.

“I’ve been making it here and there.”

“‘Here and there?’” Her eyebrows skyrocketed.  “Ben, that’s not a—”

He glanced up at her and quirked an eyebrow. “I’m procuring things legally per our agreement, don’t you worry. Through a variety of means.”

“And what exactly are you buying?” She made to rip open one of the bags left at her doorstep, but Ben darted up and snatched it out of her hands.

“That is my item that I bought with my money, thank you,” he growled. “My thing, that I have ‘irrevocable rights to,’ per the terms of our agreement. I don’t remember that same agreement stipulating that you had the right to go poking around in my stuff, especially when you didn’t pay for it.”

Fury flushed her cheeks, and Rey stood on her tiptoes so that she could almost look him in the eye. “Oh, so you don’t like that?” she hissed. “Now you know how it feels when you poke through my shit.”

He grew quiet.

“That’s not exactly it,” he finally muttered. “I wouldn’t mind so much if it weren’t a surprise. For you.”

That took all the wind out of her sails.

“Oh.” She eyed the rest of the packages. “All of them?”

“In a way.” He picked at the corner of the plastic shipping bag he held. “Do you really want to ruin it? I’ve been working on this for weeks now. Ever since I got here, just about.”

Rey chewed on the inside of her cheek. Ben looked a little peaked—and more than usual. He had been looking that way lately, and it only made his expression now more forlorn.

“No. I don’t want to ruin it. But will you at least tell me how you’re making money?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “Do you know how much men will pay for pictures of your feet online? Turns out it’s a lot.”

Horror, quick and potent, flooded her entire body.

“Oh my god, have you been selling pictures of my feet?!”

“No, I have not!” Ben roared, throwing up his hands and running them through his hair. He hid his face beneath his palms with a groan. “I’ve been selling pictures of mine, Rey! MY FEET, I swear…” He trailed off and began mumbling in that same strange language he always seemed to default to when frustrated, shaking his head and glowering all the while.

“Feet…feet pictures?!”

“YES REY, FEET PICTURES.” He jerked his head back up and glared at her with a single, indignant finger held in the air. “There is no shame in such a thing, and it was absurdly easy. All I had to do was create a female-presenting username on a special website, post a few well-lit photos from my phone, and these men asked very few questions while sending me oddly large sums of money for the high-quality versions. There are many tutorials available on how to do this successfully. Apparently, they like the idea that I’m a woman with feet as large as mine. I’m labeled as a ‘giantess’ in those circles.”

Rey openly gaped at him.

This was…

This was unhinged.

But actually, though, she had to hand it to him:

In some ways, it was also brilliant.

“You—you know they masturbate to those, right?” Still, she couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice. She tried, but she really couldn’t. She stared down at the feet in question. They were not feminine in the slightest, though they were certainly the largest manly man-feet she’d ever seen.

Ben was a big dude in every way.

That earned her an even deeper glare. “Of course I know that. Men are idiots and think with their dicks. That’s why it was so easy.” He pressed his lips together and sighed before plunging one hand into his pocket. “But I needed some quick startup funds…for this. And for other things.”

He took out a folded piece of paper and held it up.

“Here’s one of the other ways I’ve been earning money.”

Rey took it from him and unfolded it slowly.

It was a flyer.

KYLO REN CLEANING SERVICES

The Devil is in the Details

- Cleanliness is next to godliness -

And I’ll turn your apartment into a slice of heaven

It had his number printed on little tear-away strips at the bottom. Come to think of it, she might have seen this at her mailboxes, though she never really looked closely at the notices people posted there. But she looked back up at him now.

“You’ve been cleaning apartments while I’m gone? Like a maid?”

He shrugged. “Some of the older women ask me to do it with my shirt off, but I don’t mind and they tip well when I do. Turns out there’s a group of them who meet up every few days to play something called ‘Bunco,’ and I got a lot more clients after the first one took a chance on me. All of my clients, actually. They pay in cash. I borrowed some of your cleaning supplies and ordered more online for when they don’t have the ones I like on hand. It’s been easy. And I’m really good at it.”

“Oh.”

“See?” He dug in his pocket and shoved a neatly folded stack of bills into her free hand. “Here. I’ve been meaning to give this to you—for rent. My share. I finally made enough to pay for half. Soon I’ll make enough to pay for all of it.”

Rey uncurled her fingers and fanned out the bills with her thumb. There were several hundred dollars in that wad of cash. She looked up at him and then back down at the money he’d given her, completely at a loss for words.

Ben had favorite cleaning products?

He was stripping for old ladies to help her pay rent?

He…followed through on something he’d been saying he’d do since the day he arrived?

Something short-circuited in her brain. She’d never known a man to actually do something he’d promised her. It made about as much sense as the rest of everything else happening to her lately.

Not only that, but she was stunned at how sweet this was, feet aside. Well, okay, maybe also kind of the feet.

And she had to admit: he was very industrious, actually.

And very creative.

Ben stepped over and plucked the flyer away from her other hand, re-folding it carefully before pocketing it again. “Are you satisfied?” He slid his hands along her shoulders and rubbed her arms gently. “I hope you don’t mind. I was spectacularly bored, and I’ve been working on some other things, too. I’ve been doing more than just that. And it’ll all come to fruition soon, I promise. A bit more roundabout than how I usually go about doing things for my summoners since I’m without most of my powers, but I’m making it work.”

At the feeling of his cool palms smoothing along the curves of her arms, heat burned in her cheeks.

She needed to deflect.

Rey pointed to his pocket.

“That’s, um…that’s a pretty good slogan on that flyer, actually.”

He hummed. “You think so?” His hands slowed their ascent, trailing ever so softly against her skin. It sent tingles skittering through her like tiny electric shocks. Oh, that deflection tactic didn’t work in the slightest.

“Yeah.” The heat intensified. It spread down into the pit of her stomach, and she swallowed thickly. “And I’m in marketing. I write persuasive copy to sell things, so…I-I should know.”

Ben drew himself up to his full height and gazed down at her, the light growing in his dark eyes and simmering there once again. Sometimes she forgot how tall he was, how broad, how sculpted and strong. And then there were those eyes, that odd mixture of crystal green and brown and the way they looked at her with such hope.

And…with something else.

Something much deeper.

“Is that so?” He shifted his wide hands up along the curves of her neck and Rey closed her eyes. “I’ve been reading about marketing. Is that something you’ve always wanted to do?”

She’d gotten used to the feeling of his hands on her—of him in general, actually, and the sudden realization floored her. She’d almost started to take him for granted, but when he was facing her now—

He left her breathless.

She shook her head. “I wanted to write, but not that. Not for a company. I wanted to write for myself.”

“What did you want to write?”

“Stories,” she whispered. “I wanted to tell stories. Write books. I wanted to be on a library shelf with all the other authors I loved. But…” Ben’s hand stalled and she opened her eyes. He’d stopped at the back of her neck and was looking down at her with such intensity, such rapt attention.

“But what?”

She drew in a deep breath. “The world doesn’t work that way. Dreams don’t come true. Not…not for people like me.”

Ben shifted closer to her. It was so subtle, she almost didn’t notice until it was too late. Until he’d wrapped his other arm around her back and gently pulled her towards his chest. Until her legs felt weak for some reason, so she’d put a hand on one of those firm pectoral muscles to help hold her steady.

Rey’s mouth went dry as soon as she touched him.

He bent down and placed his mouth next to her ear. “What if,” he rumbled, his voice low in his throat, “you didn’t have to work so hard? What if I worked for you? What if I took care of you?” His nose brushed against the side of her head as he buried one hand in her hair, combing through her tresses and deftly plucking the tie away from her messy bun. Her chestnut waves tumbled around her shoulders, and she closed her eyes again, leaning into the sensation of it despite herself. “What if you didn’t have to worry about money anymore? Would you write then, Rey?”

“Maybe,” she murmured.

Gentle fingers pressed beneath her chin and tilted her face towards his.

“Be honest.”

“Then yes. I would.”

“I can provide for you, you know. I want to, if you’ll let me.” His lips brushed softly against her own, so lightly and swiftly, she blinked in shock and thought she’d imagined it. She startled, but Ben only gazed down at her, shifting his hands to the sides of her face and sweeping his thumbs along the rise of her cheekbones

“But that’s…”

Wait.

What was she doing?

Rey jerked backwards with a gasp. It was as if he’d been weaving a spell around her with his words, and she’d been caught directly in his web. His eyes glowed a soft gold-ringed scarlet, but as soon as she pulled out of his grasp, the magic in them faded away, leaving them perfectly normal once more.

Maybe not mundane, exactly, but at least a plausible human color.

“Excuse you, sir,” she snapped, stooping to retrieve her hair tie from the floor before sweeping her hair back into a messy top knot. “I don’t appreciate you using your demon magic or whatever it was on me.”

“I wasn’t using any at all, actually. Just words.”

“Uh-huh. Your eyes were glowing.” She waggled a finger at him. “I’ve got your number. I know your tricks.”

“Ah. Sure. Tricks.” The light had faded fully from his eyes again, and Ben shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I guess you’d better go get ready for your date tonight. Don’t want to be late for that.” Bitterness tinged the edges of his tone.

Rey cleared her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, exactly.” She spun on her heel and retreated to the bathroom. But she still felt odd while she washed her face and fixed her makeup and changed her clothes.

Something was going on with Ben.

He’d looked hurt when she called him out.

Ben was awfully quiet.

He sat in his booth at the diner, munching placidly on an order of tortilla chips and Kerbey Queso, sipping at an iced coffee while pretending to read a book at a normal person’s pace and watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Meanwhile, Rey’s date couldn’t stop talking.

Kevin was so nervous, he dripped sweat into his migas and flung them around the table with his fork on accident, talking animatedly with his hands about his opinion on the latest Spider-Man comic book story arc. Rey couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and every time she opened her mouth, he only seemed to panic and talk even faster. She kept looking back at Ben, wondering when he was going to come over and put a stop to it, only…

He never did.

What the…

She waited. And waited. And waited some more, pushing the remnants of her pancakes around on her plate while staring at Ben from across the room. All he did was lick his fingertips and casually turn the page of his library book. Something about macroeconomics or whatever. And whatever it was, it was apparently a whole lot more interesting than what was going on with her.

Somehow, that was insulting.

Somehow, this was the worst thing he’d done yet.

Rey pulled her phone into her lap and tapped out a quick series of messages.

Rey | Why aren’t you coming over?

Rey | Or spilling food on this guy?

Rey | Or goading a waitress into sending us something he’s allergic to that you somehow know about?

Rey | You’re up to something

Rey | What the fuck is it?

Rey | What are you doing?

Ben’s phone buzzed on the table. She watched as he turned it over, glanced at the messages, put it back down, and went right back to reading his book. He never replied. He only picked up another chip and dunked it in the bowl of liquid cheese before savoring it slowly.

It was the first thing she’d seen him eat in a week.

Her eye twitched.

After over an hour of misery, Rey finally broke. She pushed away from the table and stood abruptly with a nervous laugh. “Okay, I need to get home. I have work tomorrow.”

Her date stood too, stumbling to his feet with eyes wide and worried. “Oh! Oh oh, no, I’m so sorry, I kept you and I didn’t mean to, I get like this when I’m nervous and I don’t know what to do with myself, so I just keep talking and talking and wow, I mean, you’re just so…so pretty, and you look exactly like your pictures and I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me again? Like, maybe tomorrow? Do you want to go see a movie or something? Or if that’s too much, we could go grab a drink? Or even just go on a walk at Zilker or Barton or the Greenbelt, I don’t know, whatever sounds good to you, you just tell me and—”

“I’ll message you,” she finally interjected. “I’m busy this weekend, but—”

“What about next weekend?”

“I have plans then too. I’ll message you.”

She would not. She’d rather die. Rey plastered a smile across her face and eyed the door.

“Great. Great great great great.” Kevin laughed and stretched out his hand. “Well, it was nice meeting you.”

“You t—oh. Uh…”

His hand was dripping with sweat. She pulled her own back and tried not to be too obvious about wiping her palm on her dress, but when he went in for an additional hug, she dodged out of the way.

“I’m good, thanks. Not a hugger.” Actually, she was, but this was entirely too much.

“Do you want me to walk you out to the car? I can—”

“No. Thank you. I need to go to the bathroom.”

“You sure? I can wait.”

“Nope!” Rey started to inch towards the restroom sign. “I’ll…be a while. You should go home. I have to…” She struggled to come up with an excuse. “Change my period cup. Yes. That. It takes some time, so please don’t wait up. I don’t want to keep you waiting. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem, I can—“

“I’d rather you didn’t. Nice meeting you, Kevin.”

Rey ran.

She sat in one of the stalls and scrolled social media for a solid fifteen minutes until she got a text:

Ben 🖕🏻 | It’s safe to come out now. You can stop hiding.

Rey | I feel like you’re lying - Kevin’s still there, isn’t he?

Ben 🖕🏻 | How dare you.

Ben 🖕🏻 | I would never lie to you.

Rey | You definitely would

Ben 🖕🏻 | Not when I’d like to go home and you have the car keys.

Rey | You say that like you can drive

Rey | You say that like you don’t hate the car

Ben 🖕🏻 | I don’t hate it anymore.

Ben 🖕🏻 | And I bet you I COULD drive.

Ben 🖕🏻 | Shall we find out?

 

Rey | NO

Ben 🖕🏻 | 😈

Ben 🖕🏻 | I wasn’t up to anything, by the way.

Rey | Yeah, I figured that out, you motherfucker

Ben 🖕🏻 | Ouch, Rey

Ben 🖕🏻 | Harsh language I don’t deserve for absolutely not ruining a date at all.

Ben 🖕🏻 | Not even a little bit.

Rey stepped outside of the restroom and groaned when she found Ben leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest, smirking down at her. He looked like a cat who’d gotten into cream.

“Why didn’t you interrupt that one, huh?” She threw her hands up and scowled at him. “Couldn’t come in and crash that disaster for me?”

“Didn’t have to.” His smirk grew. “Aren’t you glad to be coming home with me now? You should have seen your face. I haven’t had so much fun watching something in ages. Better entertainment than your Netflix.”

“Fuck you.”

“You keep making that promise, sweetheart, and I keep waiting for you to follow through. Quit teasing me like that.”

She grabbed him by the collar and marched him outside.

It was a relief to go home with him.

Ben stayed quiet in the car the whole ride home.

And didn’t say a single word.

When it was time for bed and they lay together in the dark, Rey glanced over her shoulder to find him watching her like he so often did, his eyes glowing a soft gold in the shadows.

She could have sworn there were two dark bumps protruding from his head, and that they were growing slightly larger and longer the more she stared at them. But it was so dark, it was hard to clearly discern things in the shadows.

It could have been her imagination.

“I’m mad at you,” she finally breathed, barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the fans.

The corners of his mouth twitched. “I know,” he whispered back before leaning forward to press a kiss behind her ear. He ran his nose after it, tracing the curves of her face and jaw, his lips trailing just behind.

They lingered on her skin longer than they usually did, cool and refreshing, and Rey gasped, her inhale trembling and unsteady. But all it did was make Ben pull her even closer, slotting her body flush against the perfect curves of his while he slid his hand beneath her shirt.

He did this every night, running his hands along her waist, dragging his fingertips across her skin, ignoring the unspoken bounds that lay between them in the form of her thin sleep clothes. She’d never met a man who cared less about clothing or modesty.

But tonight was different. This time, after starting where he normally did, caressing and massaging and exploring the lines of her torso, his hand shifted higher. This time, the flat of his thumb grazed ever so slightly along the delicate curve of her breast. She might have thought it an accident—until he swept it back and forth, slowly. Softly.

Deliberately.

She’d wondered if he might try this at some point. Wondered when it might be, and how she might feel about it when he started to try to cross lines.

He was normally so good with boundaries.

She’d been wondering when he might begin to test them, or rail against them. The icy chill of his hands somehow sent a fiery inferno licking across her skin and shivering down her spine.

Rey bit back a whimper.

However, Ben did not. He held nothing back, always seeming to opt for complete honesty in times like this, and something akin to a growl thrummed in his chest, vibrating through where their skin touched. Was it more of a hum? Or perhaps it was a purr? She couldn’t tell, and did demons purr? Were they actually like cats? Honestly, he wasn’t all that different from one. He was just as stubborn and just as persnickety. Just as particular.

But it didn’t matter. Because while his thumb continued its exploration, his other hand had slipped over her shoulders and sought out her own. It was splayed against the sheets as she tried desperately to hold herself sure and steady on her thin sliver of mattress, and when he found it, he turned it over and slid his hand over her palm, interlacing their fingers together and squeezing firmly once.

“I know you’re mad at me,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I could never be mad at you. I like you too much. You’re too lovely. You’re too funny. You’re too kind.”

There it was again, that assertion of his that she was kind. It still mystified her. She often didn’t see herself that way.

She was just about to disabuse him of that notion when Ben brushed his lips against the nape of her neck. He left another kiss lingering there, longer and slower than before, more intimate, more longing.

And then another.

And another.

The heat radiating across her body intensified, so different than the heat still lingering in her apartment from her broken AC. This one was already threatening to consume her, its threshold dangerously close to the breaking point.

She was dangerously close to being lit completely aflame.

“Ben—” she gasped, closing her eyes and trying not to writhe, surreptitiously rubbing her thighs together while she attempted to stem the heat and wetness gathering between them. She was beginning to ache, and every swipe of his fingers, every squeeze of his hands, only made it worse.

“Won’t you let me apologize, sweetheart?”

His thumb still traced the curves of her breast.

Just one, and never inching higher.

Never delving deeper.

Never offering relief. Only temptation.

Only the promise of what she could have.

She didn’t know what to do with it.

With him.

Rey stayed quiet, hoping he would continue. Hoping he might push further.

Cross it.

I’ll let you if you do.

I want you to.

But when she didn’t answer, he stopped. He froze, and after a moment, he unlaced his fingers from hers. He dropped his hand back down to her waist. And with a heavy sigh, Ben finally curved over her and buried his face in her neck with a low groan.

“Still, Rey? You still won’t give me a chance?” He drew in a deep, shaky breath—and sighed again. “I’m doing my best. I’m trying. And I want you to trust me. You do know that, right?”

He sounded tired.

Exhausted, even.

Just as much as she was.

“But you’re still going to starve me, aren’t you?”

He’d said it so low, she almost wasn’t sure she heard him.

“Fine.”

Rey didn’t know what to make of it when Ben pulled his arms away from her completely and turned over to face the door.

It was the first night since they’d started sleeping together that he didn’t hold her.

He still kept her cool with his back pressed against hers. But she didn’t know she’d miss his embrace quite so much.

She didn’t know the absence of his touch would leave her feeling quite so empty—

Or quite so desolate.

She dreamed she was a young clerk, working for a researcher, a high-ranking cardinal of the church. This was all a part of his plan: as a clerk, he had access to the special collections in the library this way, and he needed to get in there to take a look at those texts—preferably when his boss was distracted. It was a good thing he was a second son. Nobody cared if he was training to be an ecclesiastical scrivener instead of taking over the family business.

There was something in those libraries he needed to find.

Something old.

Ancient.

Esoteric, even.

It was a good thing they didn’t burn or hang heretics anymore. Otherwise, his head could be at stake.

He was on the verge of finding what he wanted, nearly there, so close, when he ran an errand for the cardinal: a new book he needed to pick up and was instructed to bring to his office. He was too busy looking at the cover and wondering if he might succeed this time to notice the coachman who’d lost control of a pair of spooked horses when he tried to cross the street.

That death was swift.

Rey woke up and immediately scoffed.

What a waste.

When she got up the next morning, the bed was empty. And so was the apartment. A note sat next to a glass of iced coffee made just the way she liked it in the kitchen, and she lunged for it, grabbing it before the sweat from the glass could further mar and blur the exquisite handwriting.

Rey,

 

I was asked to do a cleaning job this morning. It’s going to take me all day, so I left to get an early start.

Have a nice day at work.

I’ll see you when you get home.

We’ll need to get ready for your date tonight, after all.

 

-Ben

 

It was the first time in weeks she’d been home by herself, the first time in what felt like forever she’d been without Ben. She was completely alone.

And for the first time in ages, Rey glanced around her home and felt…

Strange.

None of it was familiar anymore. None of it felt like hers. The silence buzzed incessantly in her ears.

She’d thought she’d revel in the glory of having her space back all to herself.

She’d thought she’d be ecstatic to be alone once again.

But everything was far too quiet.

Far too empty.

Far too lonely.

It was awful.

She hated it.

That evening, Rey stared at Ben next to her at the table.

First of all: where had he gotten that black polo? And those slacks? And that watch? And those shoes?!

And when?

And how?

His clothes actually fit him. Like a glove, even.

He looked absolutely incredible.

Was that what was in all those packages? And in the backpack he’d brought in the car with him? She'd thought they were his latest crop of books to keep him busy.

And second of all: the words, “Oh, didn’t you know? Rey double-booked us on purpose. It’s a competitive date. Head to head sort of thing,” had just come out of his big mouth, right after he’d leaned down and kissed her fondly on the cheek in greeting.

She’d never felt the blood rush straight out of her face quite so fast.

The words were directed at her date, Nodin, who she’d finally gotten to meet up with after work on Wednesday night. They’d been messaging back and forth for weeks on Hinge, and although he wasn’t the hot lawyer, he was plenty cute, and a pilot to boot. So while his job had made scheduling difficult, he seemed sweet, and under normal circumstances, she would have been thrilled to go out to dinner with him.

But now?

Now she was contemplating murder.

“Are you shitting me?”

It was Nodin who’d voiced it.

“No.”

So much for leaving her alone. Ben beamed at the man across from him, his smile wide and wicked. He’d slid into the seat next to Rey when he’d sauntered into Justine’s what already felt like an eternity ago but was probably only a few minutes. He’d smiled and waved when he came in, as though they’d been in cahoots about it.

As though they had discussed any of this.

The demon knit his brows together in mock, good-natured confusion. “I thought she’d have told you. Whoever she likes more—whoever wins—gets to take her home. I thought it sounded fun when she proposed it.” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “I love competition.”

How did one kill a demon?

Maybe she needed to do more research.

For now, though, it didn’t matter. Because Nodin said it best:

“What in the actual fuck?" He stood up and threw his napkin down on the table before turning to Rey with a glare. “This is ridiculous. Have you watched too much of the Bachelorette or something? I didn’t sign up for one of those two-on-one dates. That’s not what this is. I even have in my profile that I’m looking for a relationship and I’m not into ethical non-monogamy. And I’m not sure how ethical this is.”

“No, that’s not what’s going on!” Rey stood up and spread her hands wide. “Look, Ben’s my—h-he’s my roommate, we’re not dating.”

The entire restaurant had gone silent.

Every person there was staring at them, including the waitstaff and bartenders.

“Roommate?!” He pointed between Ben and Rey. “So you do know him. And you live with him?”

“I can’t believe he even showed up, this is—Ben! BEN!”

He’d stood up with her and wrapped his arm around her waist, resting his hand precisely on her hip where he always did. And even though she tried to push him away, the damage was already done. Nodin’s gaze shot straight down to it.

“Nah, this isn’t worth it. I’m not into this kind of thing. I was really excited about you, Rey.” He shook his head at her rapidly reddening cheeks in disgust. “I’m so tired of dating. I want to settle down, and I thought you were perfect. But honestly, I have plenty of other options. Enjoy your date.”

He left.

They hadn’t even gotten to order drinks yet.

Ben turned back to her, his lips twitching as he tried to hide a victorious smile. “Guess I win. I think I’ll take you home.” He bent down and pulled her chair out for her, indicating that she should sit. “Unless you want me to buy you dinner first?”

Rey glared at him. She could barely contain her fury.

Meanwhile, Ben had never looked so pleased.

His eyes: glittering.

His grin: extremely shit-eating.

He tightened his grip on the back of the chair, shifting it enticingly. “It’d be my pleasure if we sat down and you let me buy you dinner.”

His voice: a low, seductive purr.

She wasn’t having any of it.

“You know what? No.” She grabbed her purse. “We’re going home.”

The last thing she saw was Ben’s grin slowly fading as she turned on her heel and stormed out of the restaurant.

The ride home was a dark blur of unbridled fury.

“I can’t believe you pulled something like that tonight!”

Rey slammed the apartment door behind her and twisted the locks shut with rage even she hadn’t quite been aware was boiling on the surface. Maybe it was a combination of him having abandoned her all day mixed with the potent mortification she’d felt at the restaurant, but it didn’t matter.

The point was, she was pissed.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. I told you that I would run all of your suitors off one way or another, and now you’re shocked that I followed through on it?” Ben splayed his hands out in front of him as if everything was obvious. “When I have been doing so this entire time? I do what I say I’m going to, Rey!”

She stared at him.

It was disgusting how good his broad shoulders and wide chest looked in that fucking fitted black polo.

And those crisp, tailored slacks.

And those spit-shined black leather oxfords.

He’d even completed the look with a watch on his wrist, glinting silver and black in the low lamplight of her living room. It didn’t look cheap, either.

It was the first time she’d seen him dressed in real clothes he’d picked out himself, in what must have been his own taste, updated for current trends.

He looked like a model.

And somehow, the fact that he looked so put together when she felt like she was coming apart at the seams only made her anger burn hotter.

“You humiliated me in front of the whole goddamn restaurant!” she cried, throwing her own hands up before slamming her keys onto the hook near her door. “I could have had friends there! Or clients!” She kicked her shoes off, not bothering to care where they landed, and yanked the tie out of her hair. She threw it at him, and he didn’t look down when it whacked him in the chest and dropped to the floor. “That’s the worst you’ve been so far. And Nodin seemed like a good one! That was actually a good guy you ran off this time! Do you know how rare that is?!”

It was Ben’s turn for his eyes to darken. “Clearly he’s not all that good simply because he didn’t stick around for you. If he was really interested after weeks of talking with you, he would have tried to best me.”

“No, he wouldn’t!” she spat right back. “Why would he? There are so many easier choices, Ben! So many, especially for the good men, and they’re few and far between!” Rey wrenched her bedroom door open and shucked out of the skirt she’d donned.

“Define ‘a good man’ for me, please.” He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest, that trademark scowl etched firmly in place between his brows. “I’d love to understand what you’re finding worthy about these men—and not me.”

“They’re human Ben! That’s for starters!” Rey grabbed her sleep shorts off the floor and yanked them up her legs before reaching up to rip her blouse off. She needed to be comfortable to maintain this level of anger. She couldn’t yell at him properly with her tight skirt cutting into her waist. “And you’re fucking not.”

“I don’t understand the importance of that criteria!” He pushed himself off the wall and stalked forward, his eyes still blazing dark. “Everything I have works just like a human male’s, if not better.”

“Of course you’d say that.” She rolled her eyes and pulled open her closet door, grabbing the first shirt out of the pile she could reach. She tore her blouse off and jammed the shirt over her head. “I told you, Ben: I’m looking for men who have their shit together. Who were born, and have parents, and exist on paper. They’re employed, they have bank accounts and things in common with me and they can give me children. I want kids, Ben. I want a family.”

The tips of his ears were tinged pink through the dark shadows of his hair. “What makes you think I can’t give you that?” he growled. “Or that we don’t have things in common? Or that I don’t have a bank account, because guess what, Rey? I do!”

She turned to face him with a scoff, hands firmly placed on her hips. This was ridiculous.

His frown deepened. “I exist on paper now!” He put one hand on his chest. “I can legally marry you. I would marry you. It would be the most honest thing to do, rather than—than whatever the fuck this is we’re doing now, where you lie to me about how you feel, and you go out, and you make me watch you pretend to want to be with other men. Do you have any idea how much I hate it? Watching you do this?” He ran his hands through his hair, and it swirled furiously around his face. His expression was more bitter than she’d ever seen it. “We both know you don’t want to. Not really. You don’t want them, Rey! You and I are bonded together, whether you like it or not—and I know you do! Stop lying to yourself, and to them, and to me! It’s not fair to anyone.”

Incandescent anger washed over her.

“How dare you tell me what I like and what I don’t!”

“And how about this for security, if that’s what you’re really looking for: you know I’ll never cheat on you or leave you.” He stepped forward and drew himself up to his full height. “I have no interest in anyone else, and I never will. How is that not an attractive quality?”

“Honestly, it’s kind of creepy and obsessive! I never have any time alone or any personal space anymore!”

“You were so lonely before I arrived, so upset that you were by yourself without anyone in the world to rely on, and now you’re angry that you’re not?” He threw up his hands. “What do you really want, Rey? What is it? You’ve never even told me what you actually desire—so what is it that you’d sell your soul for? You’ve had weeks to think about it, so surely you’d know by now! Do you even know what you want? Do you even know yourself?”

“It doesn’t matter, Ben!” she shrieked. “I can’t sell my soul to you anyway because we don’t know who the fuck has ownership of it, so I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation!” Irritation tickled at the back of her neck, and Rey lifted a hand, scratching violently at the nape. Her rage burned hot there and only prickled more and more by the second. “This is all so stupid. And I did tell you what want. I want to find a partner and get married and have a family, and I would probably sell my soul for that, and guess what? It can’t be you! You need a goddamn social security number to marry me at the very fucking least!” She dug her hands into her hair and raked her nails across her scalp, desperately needing to dispel the sensation of flames licking at her flesh. It felt altogether too much like one of her dreams for comfort.

“And I have one!” It was Ben’s turn to flush, and scarlet crept rapidly up his neck. It was the first time she’d seen color in his cheeks in a long while. “I have a card coming in the mail!”

“You do not.”

“I do!”

“Then it’s counterfeit, and it breaks the terms of our agreement.”

“It’s not counterfeit. Not technically. I…” He trailed off, and something about his expression shifted. The red drained away from his ears and neck as his eyes widened. “Rey—”

“You weren’t born, so I know you don’t have a birth certificate, which means you’re defrauding the US government. So I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to be involved when you inevitably get caught. Spare me that, for godsakes. And even if you could legally marry me, hypothetically speaking, are you really saying that you can give me children? You said yourself that you’re not exactly alive, so how can you make life? You don’t even have a heartbeat.” A shiver rolled down her spine, and she shook it away, trying to dispel all the energy roiling across her body. “And even if you can, I don’t know, get me pregnant, then what does a half-demon baby look like? Or eat? Huh?” She threw her head back and groaned. “Oh god, come on. You can’t be serious.”

“Rey!”

She wanted to crawl out of her own skin. It felt like sparks were dancing across it, she was so angry, and she could feel them, skipping and skittering and prickling along her torso and arms like goosebumps lit alight.

Rey scratched harder, but it only made it worse.

“And not only that, but you’re still not really gainfully employed. Not yet. You—”

“REY!” Ben somehow managed to look even paler than he normally did. “Take off your shirt!”

“OH MY GOD, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU RIGHT NOW!” Rey screamed. She clenched her fists so hard, her nails dug half-moon indents into her skin. “Are you fucking kidding me? You want to ogle my tits? Right this second?! Of all the fucking times, I swear to god I’m gonna—”

“No!” he cried and took a step towards her with an arm outstretched. His scowl was gone and replaced with absolute fear. His hand trembled. “Take it off! Now!”

“Oh fuck you!” she spat as she took an angry step back from him. This was absolutely ridiculous. He was being absolutely ridiculous. “I can’t believe you, I really can’t! What is wrong with you? And just when I was finally starting to trust y—”

“Rey, take it off! It’s moving!”

“What?!”

“YOUR SHIRT IS MOVING! TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF RIGHT NOW!”

Rey looked down.

Ben was right.

Her shirt was moving, and it took entirely too long for her brain to realize why:

Ants.

It was crawling with live ants.

Rey’s shirt was covered in them, hundreds, maybe thousands of them, both inside and out.

And now so was she.

Chapter Text

Rey’s world narrowed down to a single, black pinpoint.

Or, more accurately:

It had narrowed down to thousands.

Ants swarmed her shirt. She glanced up in shock—because no, it wasn’t just her shirt: they had swarmed the entire pile she’d pulled it from. She could see them moving over all of her clothes, their tiny black bodies rushing around with mysterious purpose.

And she could also feel them.

They were inside the seams, crawling in her bra, writhing over the front of it.

They were in her hair.

She was covered in them. Her whole body burned and itched and now she knew what it was from.

They were everywhere.

In the split second that realization took to click in her brain, everything else around her disappeared.

And she became wild, unbridled movement.

Everything else was thrown from her mind. Pure animal instinct rushed into the void any sort of logic might have previously inhabited, and Rey was transformed into nothing but chaos.

She knew nothing but horror.

She ripped the shirt off of her body faster than she could comprehend, throwing it clean across the room where it landed with a soft thump. Ants scattered everywhere onto her carpet, tossed into the air in a small, black, weirdly cloud-like explosion, rising up and falling down to bounce atop her light grey carpet like dark confetti.

But that wasn’t the end of it. She was still covered in them. There they all still were, crawling over her body and weaving between her freckles.

There was a high-pitched noise in the background.

It was her own screaming.

Her heart thundered in her ears. She had no control over herself anymore; all she was, all she had ever been, was frenetic movement. Primal, shrieking kinetic energy careening towards the inevitable heat-death of white-hot panic.

The world around her blurred and became inconsequential. Nothing else mattered. Her limbs acted of their own accord. She had no idea what her hands and legs were doing, only that she had one single thought that kept repeating over and over in her mind:

GET THEM OFF

GET THEM OFF

GET THEM O—

“REY!”

A deep voice shouted her name and followed it with something else. The words tried to break through her mental haze, but she couldn’t discern them. All faculties for processing language had been completely overridden in favor of thrashing and seizing wildly to rid herself of her attackers.

But then her movement was sharply arrested.

The world turned on its head. Cold, hard muscles and a smooth shoulder dug into her torso. Her room melted away, and before she knew it, she was surrounded by the basic white tile of her shower. Water hissed and battered a hot tattoo against her skin and hair, but somehow she couldn’t stop shivering. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her teeth chattered, and when she lifted a drenched hand to watch it tremble, the world spun again, but slower this time. The firm bottom of the tub materialized beneath her feet, but that wasn’t what anchored her:

It was a pair of large hands framing her face, chased by warm eyes gazing into her own.

“Hey. Look at me,” Ben murmured, smoothing her soaked hair away from her face. He was drenched too, but he’d somehow managed to strip down only to his boxer briefs and socks in however many seconds it’d taken him to grab her.

Time no longer had meaning.

It felt like an eternity.

“Look at me, Rey.” He held her face steady, but she had trouble focusing on any of his other features. It was only his eyes she could cling to. “I’m going to take your bra off. There may still be some in there and we need to rinse them away. Is that okay?”

The most Rey could manage was the tiniest nod before she leaned forward to bury her face in his chest—

And sob.

Ben’s fingers were so gentle, she almost didn’t feel him twist the hooks off at her back. But what she did feel was the sting of the hot water on all the fresh bites scattered across her body. They’d begun to burn even worse as soon as it touched her, and her cries turned to pained moans while he dragged the straps of her sopping bra down her arms. He tossed it onto the bathroom floor outside of the tub with a wet splat, and as soon as it was gone, Rey’s knees gave out.

If Ben hadn’t already been holding her steady in his arms, she would have crumpled completely.

As it was, she practically dragged him with her while she scrabbled to grab ahold of his slick skin. He slipped and grunted, folding over with her as she took them both down to their knees. He was so big, they both could barely fit in the shower. But he braced himself against the wall with one hand to keep from crushing her, and as soon as she encircled his neck with her arms and dug her fingers into his hair, cool relief from his skin swept over her.

But for some reason, that only made her cry harder.

“Calm down, sweetheart,” he whispered, running his free hand through her wet hair under the steady stream of the shower. “Calm down. I’ve got you. It’ll be okay.” He shifted and grabbed her shampoo over his shoulder from the corner of the tub, pouring a generous amount into his palms before lathering it up and finally plunging them both into her hair. “I’m going to make sure there’s no more on you.”

Rey sucked in a breath.

He was helping her, even after she’d yelled at him.

He’d carried her in here and he was helping her.

It made her start sobbing all over again.

“Ben,” she managed to breathe between gasps. Her brain was finally catching up with everything else, and she clung to him, digging her nails firmly into his back to hold herself steady while she shook. She shouldn’t have been shivering this much under warm water. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he muttered. “It’s okay.”

Ben didn’t say anything else for a long while.

Instead, he took his time washing her hair for her, picking carefully through the strands and inspecting every bit of her scalp, pulling his fingers away occasionally and rinsing them under the steady stream of water. Sometimes, when she opened her eyes, she saw tiny black specks swept away down the drain. Sometimes she didn’t.

Rey had no idea if any ants were still hiding in there, but she’d definitely pulled a shirt full of them over her head. They had certainly been in her hair at some point. But she didn’t want to see, so she tried to keep her eyes closed and her face buried in Ben’s neck, crying softly while she concentrated on his movements to ground herself. She tried to think of nothing else but the feeling of him thoroughly shampooing and conditioning her hair. She tried to think of nothing else but the water washing everything away, including the feeling of their fight clinging to her skin, when he rinsed her with the showerhead attachment.

Ben loved touching her, she knew that. He needed it for some reason. It was obvious. And it was obvious how much she liked it and needed it too, despite her frequent protests to the contrary. No one ever touched her like this.

Like him.

But all the heat that had always been lurking there between them, hiding beneath every brush of his fingertips, in every sweep of his lips, under every quick remark and wicked smirk—all of it had been replaced by something much quieter. Something much more subtle, more tender.

There was no teasing. No mirth. No jokes, no levity. Ben murmured to her softly all the while, his plush lips forming soothing words in that strange, ancient language she didn’t know, and something about its gentle, oddly familiar cadence helped calm her racing heart.

That, and the constant feeling of his fingers against her scalp.

His hands didn’t stray from their task, and neither did his gaze. She knew, because she could feel the full weight of it on her body now with hardly anything separating them. She’d been stripped bare of everything except her underwear, and even those he plucked at cautiously when he finished inspecting her hair.

“I’m sorry, but these should probably come off too. The ants were also in your shorts.”

“They were?” She had no memory of stripping those away, but she must have at some point.

Ben noded, his cheek rubbing against hers while his assent was further confirmed by the low rumble of a hum in his throat.

Rey swallowed, but managed to reach down and peel off her panties with one hand before hiding her face again in shame. Ben tossed them out of the shower with her bra. His socks finally followed, splatting one after the other onto the tile floor.

They were both a mess.

“Please don’t look,” she whispered. She could already feel the bites burning between her thighs too. “I don’t want to know how bad it is.”

Ben shook his head and lifted her eyes to meet his with a single finger crooked beneath her chin. “Rey, I’m going to look, but I won’t linger.” A corner of his lips twitched up slightly. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Then an eyebrow lifted. “And I know you’re no virgin, either. But now you’re shy? At a time when I’m not at all interested in making love?”

“‘Making love?’” She blinked at him and frowned. That wasn’t how she’d expected him to term it.

Did he really think he loved her? Or was that just his chosen turn of phrase?

He paused for a moment and seemed to consider something before tilting his head side to side. “Well, okay, fine. I am. I always am with you. But maybe not right this second. Seems like terrible timing, if you ask me.”

She must have been staring, still so stuck on the phrasing he’d used that when he nudged her chin fondly with a knuckle, somehow her cheeks burned even hotter. Rey bit her lip and closed her eyes. But his light tease was welcome. It made her feel like things were just as they ought to be instead of what they currently were.

“I-I haven’t shaved.” It was the first coherent thing she’d managed to say, and as soon as she said it, she felt weird about it.

Why was that where her brain had gone?

“‘Shaved’?” He huffed, and she could hear the incredulity in it. “Shave what?”

“Down there.” Rey pointed between her legs.

“Down where?” Ben’s eyes flicked down and his derisive huff turned into a disbelieving snort. “Why on earth would you ever shave your cunt?”

“Men seem to like it.”

He was silent for a long moment. “Men in this time…enjoy when their women look like children?” That got her to look up at him again, and when she did, she found every bit of incredulity etched deeply in his face. “Why would they want it to seem like they’re fucking a child? What man in his right mind would wish for such a thing?”

Of course he’d say something like that.

It got her to smile.

It was weak, but it was there.

“I’ve never really thought of it that way.” She chuckled softly. “I think maybe it’s so that they have an easier time finding the clit.”

“Does that actually help them?”

“No.”

Ben’s eyebrows skyrocketed.

He leaned closer. “Well, for the record, I know exactly where it is—and what to do with it—without such assistance.” His voice dropped lower and his mouth hovered next to her ear. “But you know that already, don’t you?”

The heat was back. Rey’s cheeks were a raging inferno.

She did.

And he knew it.

Wicked mischief danced in his eyes.

But Ben didn’t press the issue further. Instead, he simply rested back onto his heels with a softer expression before shaking his head as if to clear it of such a ridiculous notion. “I like my women to look like women, thank you. Especially ‘down there.’ Of course you should do what you like, but if you’re concerned about something like that, you should know by now that I don’t care.” He rolled his lips together and looked her in the eye.

“But that’s not what I’m doing right now. I’m just trying to take care of you and your body, and that’s all this is—it’s just a body. It’s a lovely one, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not what I’m most interested in at the end of the day. Remember: I can see this. ” He lifted a finger and tapped gently at her sternum. “I know what hides beneath. And yours outshines everything else for me.”

There it was again.

That reminder of what he’d told her.

And of what really mattered.

Her smile widened. “Thank you.” But she couldn’t suppress the sniff that nipped at its heels.

“Ah. There they are. I’ve been waiting to see them.”

Her brows knit together. “There what are?”

“These.” Ben lifted his hands and pressed his thumbs gently on either side of her mouth. “Your dimples. I love them. I love seeing them, but you don’t show me nearly enough.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. “If you’ll permit me to make a request, it would be to see them more often.” He swept his thumbs softly across her cheeks, almost as if he wanted to stretch her smile wider. One of his own large, crescent-shaped dimples came out from hiding in response to hers.

She’d forgotten she had tiny ones too, because he was right: she’d shown them far less in recent years than she used to.

There’d been little reason to set them free.

“I’ll try.”

“Thank you.” He pulled away slightly and matched her gaze again. “Do you at least trust me to help you now? Sometimes I can’t tell.” She nodded, and Ben exhaled with a low growl of approval rumbling in his throat. “Alright. I’m just going to make sure they’ve all been washed away and take a look at what we’re working with. I saw you have some anti-itch cream in your cabinets when I was rearranging them the other day. We’ll get you all washed up and then start trying to make you comfortable, yeah?”

We.

Rey stared at him again. There was no guile or deception in his eyes as far as she could tell, and not in his voice, either. But that wasn’t what she found the most astonishing.

Ben kept saying we.

Her bottom lip quivered.

She’d never really been a part of a “we” before. Not truly. Not where it felt real.

This time…

For some reason, this time, it did.

The thought made her face crumple all over again.

Ben grabbed her and plunged a hand into her hair, pulling her against his wide chest and into a crushing hug.

“I need to apologize too,” he finally whispered. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you in the restaurant today.”

“No, you’re not,” she croaked.

“I am.” His fingers curled gently at the back of her neck. “Do I regret driving that other man away? Absolutely not. I told you I would, and I’m merely making good on that promise. But do I regret upsetting you so much that you didn’t notice the ants when you put on your shirt? Yes. Deeply. The very last thing I want is for you to be in pain.” His fingers tightened against her skin. “I would rather bear it than you. You’ve already borne enough. That much I can tell.”

He blew out a frustrated breath and the cold air chased shivers down her spine. “What kind of horrible place is this, anyway? It’s apparently miserably hot, they work nearly everyone to death, and you’re also liable to be randomly attacked by swarms of ants?” He shook his head. His eyes were wide. “In all my travels over the centuries, I’ve never seen something like that before.”

“It is awful, isn’t it?” Another sob wracked Rey’s chest, harder this time than before. “Why does everything have to be so hard all the time?” Tears streamed down her cheeks and drowned in the hot downpour of her shower. “Why am I so unlucky?” She hid her face in his neck, squeezing her eyes tightly shut while she sucked for air. “I hate it here. I’m so tired.”

“I know, sweetheart. I know,” he muttered, still combing softly through her hair.

“Why does everything have to hurt so much?” she gasped. “It always happens to me. Why can’t something be easy for me? Just once?” She couldn’t even put a shirt on without it going wrong somehow. “I’m so tired. I can’t do this life alone anymore, Ben. I just can’t.”

Maybe she was cursed.

“You’re not alone, Rey.”

His fingers kept up their usual massage, digging deep into her scalp, just the way she liked it. He was so strong, but so gentle. How was he like this? And why? Weren’t demons supposed to be terrible? How was he still anything but?

Was it really just a case of bad PR?

Was he just a victim of terrible marketing?

Ben was too smart for his own good, supremely annoying when he wanted to be, and intensely clingy. She was fairly certain he’d burrow under her skin or literally attach himself to her hip if given half a chance, so determined was he to be next to her at all times. The attention was constant and unwavering. Sometimes, she found it completely overwhelming.

But he was never cruel. He was never truly harmful. He was infinitely helpful, a quick thinker, and an even quicker problem solver. It was true that even while he was complicating things significantly…at the same time, he really was making them easier. He was helping. Contributing, wherever he could. And he was always there for her.

He was also exceedingly handsome.

Sexy, even.

And above all else: he was funny.

Ben’s favorite thing did seem to be trying to make her smile, even while he was pestering her. He lit up when she did. She never saw him smile wider than when he managed to make her laugh.

Maybe she should let him win more often.

She wanted him to.

She wanted to smile again.

She wanted to smile for him.

Her sobs finally began to fade away.

But Ben’s grip on her hadn’t lessened in the slightest. Instead, he only tightened his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “You don’t have to deal with everything by yourself anymore—because I’m here,” he breathed. “And I’m going to help you. I’m going to make things easier, I swear it. Because I care about you, soul contract be damned. It doesn’t matter to me whether we sign anything or not, I’m here now. I know you now. And I’m not going anywhere if I can help it.”

Rey let his words settle around her.

No one ever stayed.

Everyone she’d ever loved or trusted had always left her. Or they’d thrown her away like she was garbage, even when they’d sworn they wouldn’t. Even when they’d talked about adopting her, or told her they loved her, all of it, every time, had been a lie. Every foster parent, every potential adoptive parent, every crush, every boyfriend, even entirely too many of her so-called friends, they had all lied or left. It had all always only been temporary, or conditional, perfect until she did or said something she shouldn’t. She’d never been good enough for almost anyone she’d liked or loved. Even with Rose, there was a part of her that was convinced their friendship wouldn’t last—because at the end of the day, she’d always been discarded or left behind.

Always.

Would Ben really stay?

Was this real—or was it all a lie? An illusion, like his human form?

Would he actually care about her if they weren’t bonded?

Was it just the magic making him this way?

Or was he genuine?

She couldn’t quite tell.

He pulled back and smoothed her hair away from her face before cupping her cheeks tenderly in his hands. “Let’s just finish getting you cleaned up for now, alright? And then I’ll see what I can do about the rest of it.” His eyes dropped down for a few seconds to check between her legs before they darted right back up. “And don’t worry: it’s not all that bad down there. I don’t think there were as many in your shorts. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He smiled at her, crooked and charming and sweet.

Pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.

And that was it.

Rey clung to him while he helped her shower, gentle and careful all the while. When he deemed her free of ants, he stepped out of the tub with stern instructions for her to stay there for a few minutes while he went to grab her some clean clothes and investigate where the invaders were coming from.

Ben was gone much longer than she thought he’d be, but Rey simply closed her eyes, turned down the temperature of the water, and cleared her mind while she let it wash over her body. Thinking was too hard. She was too tired, too emotionally wrung out, too exhausted from the adrenaline rush to move. There were dozens of red welts already rising on her body, their poisoned peaks raised and itchy, and she didn’t relish the thought of getting out from beneath the cool water.

It was one too many things to deal with.

So for the moment, she wouldn’t.

Eventually, Ben came back. When he pulled the curtain aside and turned the water off, he was clad in a fresh pair of boxer briefs and clutching her towel. One of his black shirts waited for her on the counter. Rey gave it—and him—a quizzical look as he pulled her out of the tub and folded her into the towel, wrapping it firmly around her body.

“Your clothes…aren’t viable,” he finally muttered, hardly daring to look her in the eye.

“‘Not viable’? What does that mean?”

Ben winced. His left eye twitched slightly. “Your entire closet is covered in ants. They’re swarming over all your clothes.”

Rey felt the blood drain from her face. “All…all of them?!”

He nodded.

“Even the clean ones?”

“Even the clean ones hanging up, as well as the piles. I’ve never seen so many ants before. There are thousands of them, so I decided that we aren’t sleeping in there tonight, and tried to vacuum up some of the ones you threw across the room before I moved the bed.” He jerked his chin at his t-shirt waiting for her beneath a pair of her underwear. “The only things that were okay are in our drawers, but none of your sleep clothes were in there. I thought you might appreciate something of mine instead. It’s…well, it’s not full of ants. I checked.” He grabbed another fresh towel from the cabinet and wrapped it around her soaking wet hair.

What a nightmare.

Rey didn’t say anything when Ben picked her up and sat her on the counter in front of him. She only closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder while he busied himself with the cortisol cream she kept with other medical supplies beneath her sink. The chill of his skin was soothing against her burning face, and it helped with her throbbing headache.

After a moment, his fingers tugged at the towel covering her back, and he pulled it down just enough to expose her skin. He wrapped one hand around the back of her head and held her tightly to him while carefully dotting the cream over the bites on her back, rubbing it in slow circles.

The cold of his hands was refreshing, and every stroke beat back more and more of the burning pain. Rey fought against welling tears again.

What he was doing for her now was so much deeper, so much kinder, so much more caring than anything she’d ever experienced with someone before. Not even her host parents had been this tender with her when she was growing up. In fact, none of them really had been loving in the slightest. She alternated between being a quick check from the government or just another burdensome mouth to feed. Why would her foster parents have hugged or nurtured her in either instance? She'd had a truly rough go of it in the system.

But this? It was intimate.

It was sweet.

And it was coming from a demon, of all people.

When he finally finished with her back and pulled away, his lips grazed the side of her head—and then warm air rushed into the space between them. Rey immediately mourned the loss of his touch. But instead of putting his hands on her again the way she longed for him to, Ben only shifted on his feet and held the tube of cream out to her.

“I don’t think you want me touching your chest. Given last night, you…don’t seem amenable to it.” He looked away and rolled his jaw. “How about you take your time in here and I’ll go make you a quick bite to eat since you—” He hesitated. “Since we didn’t get to eat at the restaurant.”

Rey took the tube from him and picked at the cap with her thumb. “Go ahead and say what you were going to say, Ben. Since I what?”

He met her eyes. Dark shadows lined his where there hadn’t been any before. Now that she was looking closely at him in the bright light of her bathroom, she realized that hers had gotten better while his had become much worse.

“Since you didn’t want me to buy you dinner. And I wanted to, you know.” He looked up at her from beneath his heavy brow. “I was jealous. I wanted to be the one to buy it for you, not…not that other man. But I can take a hint. Eventually.” He chewed on his bottom lip, and the depth of sadness and hurt in his eyes was profound. “Rey, even if you don’t want me in other ways, I still want to be your friend. That’s not going to change. It’s been a really long time since I’ve had one. So long, I can’t even remember. And I don’t want to lose that.”

He spread his hands wide in front of him, as if he, too, were stripped bare before her. She’d never seen him look so wounded. “I’ll be honest: I can’t help it if I like you. If I—if I’m drawn to you, or if I have feelings for you. And you don’t have to like me back, or have them back for me. I understand why you don’t want me here. Neither of us chose this. I know that.

“But I am here, and I would really like to be friends at the very least. You’re the first good thing I’ve had in…well, in millennia, if I’m being honest. You can’t even fathom how long a stretch of time that is. How long I’ve been alone. You aren’t the only one who was deeply lonely before we met.” His mouth cracked into a sad, crooked smile. “I’m really happy to be here. With you.”

But the light that was normally paired with his smile did not shine in his eyes. “I—I thought we’ve just been playing this whole time. Like a game.” He dropped his eyes and fidgeted, picking slightly at the corner of the towel resting atop her knee. “I really miss playing with someone like this, I think. I thought we were flirting. Having fun. But maybe? Maybe I was wrong. So I’m sorry if I truly upset you tonight.”

Her heart nearly stopped.

Her stomach plummeted.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Ben turned to leave, but Rey lunged forward and caught his hand before he could.

“Please don’t.”

His head snapped back towards her. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t take the hint. It’s…it’s not a hint.” Tears welled in her eyes again and she squeezed his fingers hard with her own. “We were having fun. I was—am—having fun. With you.”

If he thought she didn’t like him, that was far from the truth. So incredibly far.

It was only that the truth scared her far more than perhaps it should have.

"And I am so glad that you're here. With me."

“Oh.” Ben's expression softened in surprise, and he glanced down at their hands before nodding shortly. “Alright,” he murmured. “Good. I’ll…come back in a few minutes.” He squeezed her hand and swept his thumb gingerly along the back of it before stepping out into the living room. He left the door open, but turned the corner and headed into the kitchen while she looked down and assessed the damage hidden beneath her towel.

And drew in a deep breath to still her shaking hands.

It was bad. She was covered in bites all over her chest and torso and thighs, the small white venom pustules already raised and surrounded by growing, angry red welts. Not even her breasts had been spared by the hateful beasts, though it was nothing compared to how bruised her heart felt from what Ben had just said—and done.

Why did it ache more inside than it did out?

Rey sighed as she set to work dotting the cream all over the front of her body.

But somehow, it didn’t seem to help quite as much as when Ben did it.

She had just enough time to finish her task, pop a Benadryl, and pull both her underwear and Ben’s soft black shirt on when her demon reappeared in the doorway. His shirt smelled like him, all eucalyptus and wintergreen and cold, icy nights, and she was just marveling at how the fabric somehow felt just as cool as his hands did slipping across her body when he peeked into the bathroom. He took one look at her, nodded in satisfaction, stepped over to sweep her into his arms, and carried her into the kitchen before setting her on top of the counter there.

He’d been busy.

While she was in the shower, he rearranged her apartment. Her couch had been pushed all the way against the back wall to make room for her mattress, which had been ripped away from its basic metal frame and shitty box springs and was now placed in the middle of the living room floor. The bed was already made up, and he’d moved her window AC unit into the living room as well. Meanwhile, a slightly damp towel had been shoved into the bottom crack of her bedroom door in an obvious attempt to keep any potential invaders from spreading into other spaces.

But that wasn’t all.

A diagonally cut turkey sandwich and chips waited for her in the kitchen next to a glass of ice-cold lemonade.

Ben handed the plate to her before bending over the counter and resting casually on his elbows. “You know, I liked the look of the menu at Justine’s. We should go back sometime. I would have wanted to try the saumon cru and the steak frites.”

Rey tore gratefully into the sandwich and raised an eyebrow while she chewed, layering her bites with the potato chips. Truthfully, she hadn’t realized quite how starving she’d been until food finally hit her tongue. “You sure about that, bud?” She nudged his shoulder with her elbow. “Don’t think I don’t notice how little you eat these days. How did you go from devouring everything in sight to eating virtually nothing?”

“‘Bud’?” It was Ben’s turn to raise an eyebrow at her. “Does that mean we are friends? I think I’ve picked up that you don’t exactly mean a flower when you use that word.”

She snorted and swallowed another large bite. “Quit deflecting. You’re smarter than that.”

He wrinkled his nose at her. “I told you that I don’t really need to eat. I can, but I don’t have to. It’s not how I sustain myself. It was fun at first until…well, until it wasn’t.” He clasped his hands in front of him and shifted on his feet.

“How is it not fun anymore?”

Ben licked his lips. “Let’s just say that I’m working up my appetite." His gaze was intense, and when it darted down to rest on her mouth, he licked his lips. "I’m sure it’ll come back.”

But that didn’t seem like a satisfactory answer. “Does eating hurt you somehow? Are you gassy? Does it mess with your—” She tilted her head at him and frowned. “Do you even have a stomach?”

He flashed her a dark look. “Of course I have a stomach, Rey. I have a body, don’t I?”

“I mean…you sort of do, I guess. I’m still fuzzy on some of the mechanics of how you work.” She popped the rest of the first half of the sandwich in her mouth and chewed while she picked up the second. “I guess I’m confused about your anatomy, then. How do you sustain yourself? You say you’re not human, but are you actually different from one at all?”

Ben stared at her. “Yes. Yes, Rey, I’d say I’m very different from a human in some pretty significant ways, especially considering that I’m somewhere around two thousand years old.”

That wasn’t news, but it did always seem a little insane and a lot incongruous whenever he mentioned that fact. “You don’t know how old you are exactly?”

He shook his head. “People measured years differently back in the old days before the system you use, the Gregorian calendar, was implemented. That, coupled with extended periods between summonings spent in Hell outside of time means that I don’t have much of a sense of how old I am. But it’s a decent guess.”

“Does that include when you were human?”

He froze at that question. “No,” he murmured. “No, I don’t think so.”

“How old were you when you became a demon?” She shoved the rest of the sandwich in her mouth and picked at the remaining chips while absently scratching at her legs with her free hand. Ben’s arm shot out and he grabbed her wrist, yanking it away from her with a stern look before she could do too much damage.

Then he drew in a deep breath.

And sighed.

“I don’t know how old I was when I became a demon. I assume probably about as old as I look. My thirties, maybe, as you’ve said before.”

“Is that just because you didn’t know how old you were back then because of how you measured time, or is it because—”

“I don’t remember my life as a human at all, Rey.”

She went silent as he closed his eyes and hung his head bitterly.

He still hadn’t let go of her hand.

“You don’t remember anything? Nothing at all?” she finally ventured.

“I know that I was human. I’m sure of that. But…” Ben shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Nothing concrete remains. There are impressions of things that have lingered. Ghosts of memories I can’t quite see or access, but that lurk in the shadows of my mind. Sometimes there are feelings, or smells, or…or, I don’t know. Glimmers of things, I suppose. But my earliest clear memories are of falling into Hell, and…” He glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye, but his lips locked tight.

He didn’t seem to want to say whatever else it was.

“And what?” Rey put her empty plate down and clutched the cool glass of lemonade between her fingers. “And what, Ben?”

“I’m not sure I want to talk about it.” He finally let go of her hand to pick at the edges of his thumb, and it suddenly struck Rey as an oddly human thing to do. She hadn’t seen him truly nervous before, or at least in what felt like a long time.

But she already knew he'd retained plenty of his humanity after all.

She set the glass down and leaned over, settling her hand over his again to stop him. She still wasn’t quite used to how large his were compared to her own. It amazed her every time.

“I want to hear it, Ben,” she whispered. “I do actually want to know more about you. Especially if we’re friends.”

“Are you sure?” He shot her an incredulous look. “You haven’t really asked me questions about myself in a long time. Don’t get my hopes up if you don’t mean it.”

Rey’s cheeks burned with sudden shame. She’d been so preoccupied with her own situation that she hadn’t really stopped to consider the history of the being who was stuck tethered to her—tethered during a time when she certainly wasn’t at her most pleasant, and still here he was, helping her through the worst of it. She grimaced.

“I know. I…I’m normally a better friend than this. I’m sorry.” She sniffed and fought against the tears pushing at the bounds of her self-control yet again. Once she started weeping, it was hard for her to stop, and she was always a mess for a while afterwards. “I want to know more about you. Desperately. Especially about your adventures—and the Library of Alexandria. You still owe me that story.”

Ben huffed and shifted the hand she held, turning it so he could curl his fingers over the back and sweep his thumb across her skin. It was one of the few places on her body miraculously free of ant bites. “Alright then,” he finally said. “I’ll talk more if you promise to ask more. I need some encouragement too, you know.”

“Alright. I promise.” She squeezed his fingers between her own. “Deal?”

“Deal.” He flashed her a crooked smile, and when he suddenly snatched her lemonade glass from her other hand and took a long swig from it, she ripped her hand away from his and swiped it back.

“Hey! Are you trying to steal all my sugar to get out of telling me what Hell is like?”

“I just wanted to try some.” He made a face at her while she downed the rest of it. “Though I don’t think I care for that beverage either. Far too sweet. Maybe that’s why the ants went for you so quickly? Because you eat and drink too much sugar?”

She glared at him. “Too soon, Ben. Way too soon.”

“Then is it too soon to ask if maybe you’ll let me clean your closet for you now?” he purred. The mischief in his eyes was back. Maybe more subdued than it usually was, but it was there. “If you hadn’t been so messy with your clothes, perhaps they wouldn’t have come in and—”

“Ben!” She leaned over and smacked his bare shoulder with her free hand. All it did was make his beautiful lips split into a wide, wolfish grin, lopsided and charming and everything she’d missed over the last few days. He was right, just as he always seemed to be: she did like playing with him too. Why hadn’t she realized that’s what this was the entire time?

They both liked to play.

When his grin finally faded slightly into something warmer, something more heated and decidedly less innocent, she felt that familiar burn in her cheeks again. Rey shifted her attention back to the drink she held, turning the glass slowly between her palms. “Why don’t you want to talk about Hell? You know I’m super curious, and I obviously don’t judge you for being there in the first place.”

“Mostly because it isn’t at all a pleasant locale and I’d rather not go back if I can avoid it. Not exactly a luxury vacation destination, not like one of those big prizes on that Wheel of Fortune show. Or the Price is Right one. You know, when they show the pictures of the warm turquoise oceans and white sand beaches at the end? I like that idea." He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the counter. "I’d like to go to one someday, where it’s pretty and warm and I can see you wearing that colorful swimming underwear.”

“Oh, you like the idea of me in a bikini, do you?” she crooned, leaning towards him on the counter. “I thought you said that scraps of cloth don’t do anything for you.”

The tips of his ears flushed pink, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

Aha.

Caught.

“I...might have exaggerated my disinterest. It’s not something I particularly care about, but I do think it’s quite nice.”

Rey tried to keep her lips glued together to strangle a laugh. Honestly, it was adorable, and she didn’t hate the thought of a vacation with Ben, not that she had the funds right now for it. But it would probably be a lot of fun to take him on a plane, solely to see how he might react. “Well, I won’t lie: I’d love to go to the beach.” Her grin widened. “But you didn’t tell me you’ve been watching a bunch of daytime television lately. Have you been watching soap operas too?”

“Maybe.” His own grin widened. “I like the stories.”

“Do they remind you of home, then? Is Hell anything like what Sartre thought? That it’s other people?”

His smile faded fully. “No. Hell’s not like any of that. Sartre was definitely wrong. Other people being there, even terrible ones, would be a relief.” He closed his eyes and hung his head.

“The what’s it like?”

He sighed. “You really want to know?" She nodded. "Well, the first thing I remember clearly is pain. And loss. And despair. All of it unlike anything you can ever imagine.”

Pain.

This wasn’t the first time he mentioned how much he felt, or hurt.

“Everything about Hell is unsettling. Fake. The sky isn’t real, and neither is the light. There no true night, no true day. No sun or moon to rise and set. No stars at all. Everything of beauty has been stripped away. It’s all just a reflection of something else: a shadow, a shade of reality without any of the warmth.

"My circle, my domain, is a deserted island surrounded by a soundless sea. If you try to swim it, you drown and end up right back on shore. If you try to dig your way out, you suffocate in the sand and wake up back on top of it.” He shuddered. “Maybe…maybe I don’t want to go to a beach after all. Not even if it is a warm one full of sunshine.”

A chill went down her spine. Her eyes widened.

She’d seen something that sounded an awful lot like that.

She’d seen it every night for the last few weeks.

“You can’t kill yourself because there’s nothing alive about you to kill. There’s no one else around and the loneliness is profound. The emptiness is maddening. You’re completely alone, an entire vacant world devoted to housing one single, broken soul. And even if you do happen to hear one of the other demons? You can never truly see or interact with them. It’s a taunt. A trap. False hope dangled in front of you when you’re at your most desperate for someone, anyone to comfort you. But the others never will. They only make it worse. They’re cruel. Twisted and driven mad by their own delusions and their own despair.”

He buried his face in his hands. It was telling, the way his fingers dug helplessly into his hair, how his palms crept up to nearly cover his ears hidden beneath those shadowy depths. It was as if he were trying to block out the memory of it even now.

“There are no plants, no animals, just rocks and water. You have nothing and no one except your own thoughts to keep you company, and those are just as likely to make you lose your mind as anything else. There’s no escape, not unless someone summons you out of it, and even then, that’s only temporary. It’s a vast, silent, eternal nothing. It’s a prison. The worst kind.”

Rey could hardly breathe. Ben, meanwhile, gazed blankly at the counter while he spoke—as though he’d gone into a trance. As though he was no longer here, but back where he’d come from. But his lips kept moving, as though he were compelled to keep talking now that she’d finally opened the floodgates.

“The air is so cold there, it’s full of ice crystals. They shred your lungs with every breath you take.”

As soon as he said that, she blanched. She stared at him with a racing heart, remembering how it had felt that first night.

The night her chest had been so empty.

But somehow so full of anguish.

“That all seems impossible, I know, especially since I complained about being embodied when I first got here. But that was more due to the shock of the change. Once-human consciousness cannot comprehend existing without a physical form, so it makes one for itself. That’s the best that I can explain it: you are both embodied and not. Somewhere and nowhere. Sane and mad. Outside of time but trapped within infinity.”

“It’s a liminal space,” she breathed.

Ben’s head jolted out of his hands and he stared at her in surprise. “Yes, exactly. It’s an in-between. How did you know?”

“Just a hunch,” she muttered. Would he believe her if she told him that she’d seen it? Would he believe her if she told him she went there every night while she slept in his arms?

Somehow, she had the sense that he might feel worse if he knew.

She kept her mouth shut.

He snaked his hand back across the counter and rubbed his palm up and down her leg, pausing to curl his fingers fondly over her knee. “I’d much rather stay here with you,” he murmured. “Where it’s warm.” His fingers tightened. “I don’t want to go back.”

She rested a hand on top of his. “Why did you become a demon in the first place?”

His face fell at her question, and he drew his hand back, sliding it out from beneath her palm. His bottom lip quivered, and he rolled it tightly against the top one to hide it.

“Ben?”

She must’ve tread into sensitive territory, and he hesitated, glancing sideways at her before finally holding up both hands. His scar flashed golden, cracking across his face like amber lightning, and the familiar red band of light flared around his right wrist—but was quickly joined by a second on his left. They thickened and grew, creeping several inches down his arms before they finally stopped and solidified, locking firmly into place.

She’d never seen those before.

Together, they looked like angry, vengeful manacles, etched into his skin in blood.

“I don’t remember. But whatever the reason? It was enough to drive me to break universal law.” He glanced between the manacles on his wrists. “This is the consequence. That much I know.” He slowly lowered his hands and rested them back on the counter. He couldn’t seem to meet her eyes. His own were filled with infinite despair as he stared down at his palms. “I don’t recommend going down that path. It’s not worth it,” he finally whispered, his voice breaking slightly as he spoke. He’d squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Please, Rey. Promise me you won’t do what I did.”

He sounded wounded to the core.

Rey slowly pushed herself across the counter until she sat in front of him, peeling his hands apart so she could settle between them. But it wasn’t until she put a hand on his cheek that he finally looked up at her again. Ben’s uncanny gaze shot up to meet her own, the dark tones swirling and mixing with the lightest of crystal green. They always astonished her, how they looked earthy brown or amber or whiskey from far away. It wasn’t until she studied them up close that she saw the myriad colors and differences and details. They weren’t at all what they seemed at first glance.

But neither was he.

“I won’t. I promise.” She smiled softly. “Good thing I don’t know how.”

As soon as her warm palm curved against the icy chill of his cheek, Ben closed his eyes and sighed in relief. His shoulders slumped and he leaned heavily into her touch, a low groan escaping those wide, lush lips. His hand lifted and covered her own, keeping hers there, holding it steady, his fingers curling desperately around hers.

He was shaking. His breath shuddered as he nuzzled his nose into her hand, clinging to her like his life depended on it. It was as though he’d been a man starved who was finally thrown a crust of bread and had every intention of devouring it.

When he turned and pressed trembling lips against her palm, he finally opened his eyes.

They were ringed in bright, glowing gold.

And they were hungry.

Molten heat churned in her core at the sight.

He licked his lips and swallowed thickly, his gaze darting down to track the scattering of ant bites dotting her legs. But before Rey could decide what to do next with her thundering heart and simmering skin, Ben seemed to decide for her. He slowly untangled his fingers from hers before sliding his hands beneath her shoulders and drawing her into his chest.

“Let’s go to bed, sweetheart. It’s late.” He dug one hand into her damp hair and stroked it gently, closing his eyes and burying his face in her neck.

She thrust her own hands into his hair too. She hadn’t truly explored it yet, not nearly as much as she really wanted to, and it was astonishingly thick and soft between her fingers, lush and luxurious and gorgeous.

“Okay.”

Ben lifted her up and carried her to the bathroom as if she weighed nothing. They performed their nightly routine, though she sat on the counter instead of standing next to him like she usually did. It seemed he’d decided that her feet weren’t touching the floor tonight, perhaps on the off chance that there might be more ants lurking in the shadows, but Rey wouldn’t complain.

It was nice, being carried around like this, her legs wrapped around his waist while he held her like she was something precious—something deeply wanted and cared for. And when they were finished, he picked her right back up again and laid her gently down on the mattress in the living room, pausing only to turn the fans on and carefully situate their pillows before finally crawling in next to her and shooing her to the opposite side.

“That’s my side,” Ben grumbled as he glanced at the locked front door. “What did I tell you about—”

“Alright, alright, scary demon lord,” Rey huffed, “I’m moving.”

He only snorted in response, nostrils flaring before settling himself beneath the sheets and curving around her body like he always did.

They lay there quietly for a few minutes before Ben was the one who broke the silence.

“Are you mad at me?”

He’d barely said it above a whisper. It was the first time in two weeks they hadn’t had that exchange, and Rey turned to face him, shimmying her body closer so she could better nestle atop his arm.

“I was earlier tonight—but I’m not now. Do you still want me to be?”

“Maybe.” His eyes still glowed with that otherworldly gold light against the dark shadows of the living room, and she could see him wrinkle his nose at her in it, scrunching his face up into an exaggerated scowl. “I do like it, you know. You’re awfully cute when you’re mad.” He lifted a finger and tapped the tip of her nose twice.

Fuck you, she mouthed, deliberately wrinkling her nose back at him while she mirrored his scowl. The deep rumble from his amusement rolled through her, and she inched even closer, sliding an arm beneath his neck so she could feel the coolness of his skin against the bites there, and so that she could run his hair between her fingers again. It was exquisite.

But it was when she placed a hand on his right cheek again and traced her thumb softly along his scar that those gold-ringed eyes of his went wide.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for taking care of me tonight. I needed help, and you were there for me.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” he whispered back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She couldn’t quite see that well in the dark, but she could swear his mouth had broken out into a tiny, crooked smile. “You’re my girl. I’d take care of you every day, if you’d only let me.”

“I know.”

When Ben closed his eyes, they were plunged back into darkness. He pressed his lips to her forehead before touching his own to it. Their breaths slowed and mingled, synchronizing and falling in time as the events of the day—and the Benadryl—caught up with Rey.

And she finally fell asleep.

She didn’t have time to dream before she woke again.

But this time, it was from Ben shaking her gently awake.

“Rey,” he murmured, “Wake up. You’re bleeding.”

“I’m what?” She’d been so deeply asleep that she still felt like she was drowning. Swimming up to the surface had been a gargantuan task.

“You’re scratching the bites in your sleep.” There was a low light emanating from somewhere, but Rey blinked and squinted while she struggled to focus on it. She couldn’t quite place it. Strong arms sat her upright and long nails dug lightly into her back while they pulled her into a broad, cool chest.

Broader than she remembered it being.

But it didn’t do anything to quell the inferno raging across her body. She felt like she had a fever. She frowned and moaned, the pain sparking right behind as her mind woke up and became more aware of it.

Ben pressed a glass of cold water into one hand and a plastic bottle in the other. Pills rattled around inside. “Maybe take some more of those pink ones, sweetheart. Aren’t they supposed to help?”

“Takes a while,” she mumbled, struggling to press off the childproof cap off with groggy fingers. “But it does eventually.”

“Here. I’ll get that for you.”

The bottle was plucked away and two pills took its place in her palm. She popped them into her mouth as claws clinked on the glass of water that Ben helped hold to her lips. She gulped it down and nuzzled into his neck with her eyes still closed while he cleaned the bloody scratches on her arms and bandaged them with gauze.

It took him a moment, and while he was preoccupied, Rey wound the fingers of her free hand sleepily through his hair. Those dark waves of his were soft. So incredibly soft, and thick, and so incredibly silken, and the more she touched it, the more she needed to touch it. She shifted her hand and ran it higher, wanting to feel more of it, all of it, but startled slightly when her fingertips suddenly met something hard.

Hard, and smooth, twisting up from the top of his head.

Ben froze. He sucked in a breath at her touch, and it was then that she was finally able to fully open her eyes, heavy as they were. His own eyes were the first thing she saw. Without breaking her gaze, he sliced a claw through the gauze and tucked the tail beneath the rest before rolling his lips together.

His human appearance was gone.

She’d forgotten how otherworldly beautiful he was like this. He hadn’t shown her this form in its entirety since the night they met.

He was massive: even taller and longer and wider than she remembered.

And the light was coming from him.

Rey hadn’t seen him like this since that first time, though he’d apparently been hiding some things from her even then: both blood-red manacles of light etched into his wrists were on full display now, as was the gold of their half-completed binding on his hand. A completely different band of gold slashed across his left palm and wound itself around his fingers and hand, those symbols different, more ancient, more archaic, and clearly finished compared to the other. It was a complicated, twisting, swirling tattoo of light.

His eyes had shifted back to glowing gold-bordered scarlet, and even his scar was lit up in shimmering amber tones, slicing through his face like a bolt of lightning in the night. He generated enough light to clearly see by in that form, and it spilled across Rey’s face and the mattress where they lay in the middle of the room. It was by that light that she spied the shiny, jet-black horns twisting high over his head like a goat’s—and got another good look at something she hadn’t seen in weeks:

His hands beneath the bindings were covered in those dripping black shadows again, their tendrils shifting and dissolving in the air at every drop.

And so was the spot on his chest where his heart should be, right next to where he so carefully cradled her head.

That was new.

It hadn’t been there before.

But she knew it all the same.

When she didn’t close her eyes and go back to sleep, his own widened ever so slightly. He looked terribly worried all of a sudden. But Rey didn’t even blink. Instead, she simply lowered her hand and placed it over the dark abyss carved into his chest.

It was ice-cold.

Ben’s breathing quickened at her touch, his chest heaving far more than it had before. But just like every other time she’d listened or felt for it, there was still no heartbeat to be found. No warmth pumping through his veins beneath her fingertips.

Only absence.

“What happened to your heart?” she whispered, ignoring the burning itch radiating across her body.

This felt more important.

It weighed on her own chest.

It lay heavy over her own heart.

Ben seemed taken aback by her question. He startled and looked at her like she’d slapped him, and his eyes darted all over her face, as though he didn’t quite know where to look, or what to study first, or perhaps wondering if she wasn’t still half asleep and half dreaming. But when she didn’t move, or close her eyes, or speak again—when she only waited—he finally met her gaze. His lip quivered.

“I don’t know,” he finally breathed, lifting a trembling hand and running his claws through her hair. He should have frightened her. But he was still so remarkably gentle, even with those talon-tipped fingers on hands so much larger than they usually were. “I don’t know, but I…I think I lost it.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, and a tear escaped his right eye. It spilled into the path of the scar, trickling down his face and neck, shimmering in the low, amber light—before it finally slowed and stopped.

Because it had frozen onto his skin.

“I think I lost it a long time ago.”

When he suppressed a sob, he started to shiver.

Frost swirled before his mouth and nose as he struggled to breathe.

The temperature of his body had dropped.

It was even colder than before.

Rey reached up and swept the tear away with her thumb. It cracked, sparkling like a golden jewel in the soft light his magic generated before it dropped and disappeared into the shadows.

He was so heartbreakingly beautiful.

And so heartbreakingly sad.

“I’m so sorry.” She placed her hand where it had been, and as soon as he felt her warmth there, Ben surged forward with a gasp and pressed his forehead to hers. Rey kept her other hand over the frozen darkness where he’d lost part of himself, and he clutched at it as he desperately tried to hold back more tears. “I’m so sorry, Ben.” One of her own slid down her cheeks, followed by another. And another.

She ached.

She ached for him.

The flash of infinite grief she saw in his eyes before he’d closed them had struck her to the core.

“Please don’t cry,” he sobbed, sniffing as he cradled her head between massive hands. “Please don’t cry for me.” A single thumb was enough to sweep her entire cheek dry, and he brushed her tears away now even while he still shivered. “I’m not alone anymore. Not as long as I’m with you.”

When she flung her arms around his neck, he shifted her in his lap and pulled her close, burying his face into the crook of her neck.

“You will keep me, won’t you? You won’t send me away?” he whispered. “Please?”

Send him away? What on earth did he mean by that? How could she? “Ben, I—”

“I’m terrified that you will.” His tears were so cold, they burned against her skin. “I’m trying so hard to be good for you, Rey. I want to be. I want to stay with you.”

The despair in his voice was gutwrenching.

“You are good to me, Ben.” She sniffed again and wrenched her eyes shut to try to stem the tide. “You are so good to me, and I hardly deserve it.”

They held each other for long minutes while they calmed down, waiting until their sobs finally slowed and faded into the incessant drone of fans in the background. It was boiling in her apartment even with them and the window unit, despite the frost still curling white before his lips in the soft, golden light of his magic.

It was Ben who eventually pulled away first. “You’re wrong, sweetheart. You do. You deserve good things. You deserve to be taken care of.” He smoothed her hair away from her face before wiping more frozen tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “And speaking of, how are you feeling?”

Terrible. She felt terrible. Her face was swollen and puffy and everything else felt like it was on fire. Her arms were far worse where she’d tried to scratch them. “Everything burns. It itches.” It ached.

“Here.” Ben twisted his enormous frame and grabbed the tube of anti-itch cream from the side of the bed. The way he held it, it seemed comically small before disappearing into his clenched fist. “I can help you put some more of—”

Rey didn’t bother with modesty. They were well past that, and, truthfully, had been for a while.

He could see her soul.

What had she been playing at?

Fuck pretense.

What a waste of time.

She reached down and wrenched the hem of his t-shirt over her head, tossing it to the end of the bed before leaning forward and pressing her bare chest tightly against his.

Relief.

She groaned at the feeling.

Instant, blessed relief washed over everywhere his skin touched hers, cooling the fire from the ant bites and beating back the itch.

Skin met skin.

Hot met cold.

And together, they balanced.

“Well, sure. That works. We could do that too if you want, and—ohhh.” He shivered and sighed beneath her. “That is lovely, isn’t it? You’re so warm. You’re so very warm. Thank you.” Ben’s pained laugh rumbled in his chest next to her ear. The frostbitten air he breathed slowly faded away, and his skin warmed. Marginally, but it did once it absorbed her own heat. “You know I won’t say no to anything you want of me.” He leaned back and shifted, fluffing his pillow with one hand before opening the tube with the other. Cold, soothing fingers began to massage the cream over her exposed back. “Can we do this every night?”

“Quiet,” she murmured, biting back a grin. “I’m trying to go back to sleep, but your voice is even louder like this.”

“Oh, so sorry, princess. I’ll keep it down.” His left fingers joined the right, and Rey went limp under the ministrations of his perfect hands. If she ever thought she’d liked them best in his human form, she was wrong. Both of them spanned nearly the entire length of her back when he was unmasked like this. “I get it. You need your beauty rest.” He quieted, but she could practically hear his smile echoing in the dark. She could certainly feel it pressed against the top of her head.

Rey slid her hand back into his beautiful, silken hair, savoring the way his dark waves slipped through her fingers. When she found what her curiosity had her searching for, she wrapped her fingers around one of the inky-black horns twisting up from his skull. It was far smoother than she thought it might be, despite the pattern of slightly textured ridges bumping beneath her fingertips. It felt just as cool as the rest of him, and it was wide enough to where she couldn’t come close to closing her fist around it. Not only that, but the sensation of his horn slipping through her hand was oddly silken and oddly slick, given that it was perfectly dry.

She imagined that his horns might be so smooth as to shine in bright light, should he ever choose to show them to her in it.

But almost as soon as she’d migrated her hand up along the length of the horn, Ben jerked and seized beneath her, groaning low and guttural as he stopped his massage to grab her and hold her steady. His claws dug tiny pinpricks into her hips.

“Careful, Rey,” he rasped. His throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly. As though his mouth had gone completely dry. “Those are sensitive. And believe me: I love the feeling of your hand wrapped around me like that. I crave such things. I won’t be able to stay quiet if you continue, and you won’t be getting any sleep if you do.”

Oh.

“I’m already only hanging on by a thread, sweet girl.”

Oh.

“Sorry.”

Rey yanked her hand away and Ben’s amused snort rippled over her like a soft winter’s breeze. He tugged her closer to his face and plunged his hand in her hair, settling it at the back of her head where he apparently liked it best, cradling the entirety of it with one single palm. His lips brushed against her forehead, and he pressed a kiss there, so soft, so quick, so sweet. The light from his bindings and scars faded and finally extinguished, leaving them alone in the dark, right in the middle of where she’d summoned him by accident what felt like a lifetime ago.

So much had changed since then.

“Goodnight, Ben.”

“Goodnight, Rey.”

The darkness took her again, rocking her softly on waves of the steady rise and fall of his wide chest.

She fell asleep wrapped in the knowledge that maybe someone besides Rose really did care about her.

That maybe, just maybe, Ben actually cared about her very deeply.

That maybe, just maybe, this could be real.

At least, for now.

Chapter Text

It felt different this time, now that she knew for sure what it was.

Hell.

Rey was in Hell.

Ben’s Hell, more specifically.

This time, when she woke up on the shore, she sat back for a moment and gazed out at the infinite, soundless sea. She dug her feet into the sand and felt the coarse grains slipping between her toes as she drew her knees up to her chest and shivered.

It had been the same exact experience coming here every night, but she didn’t linger outside often, not after that second time when she’d felt some sort of presence lurking around at the edges of her awareness. Even her dream clothes were the same, that same sleep set she’d worn the first night, even though that wasn’t at all how she’d slipped into slumber this time.

Hell, it seemed, did not like change.

Once you were there, it kept you.

Rey loosed a long breath, studying it as it clouded before her. Centuries, Ben had spent here. Hundreds of years. A thousand. Two.

How long was that, really? How many lifetimes? She knew the concept, could technically count the number, but still it was unfathomable.

How had he not gone completely mad?

He was right.

The silence alone would have driven her insane.

Rey scooted forward and dipped a toe into the water. It was so cold that it burned her skin, and she yanked her foot away with a gasp. Had Ben really tried to swim this? Had he gotten so desperate that he’d braved such a thing, just to see if there was something else—anything, or anyone else—out there?

Knowing him now, though, that wasn’t the real question.

He was persistent.

The real question was how many times had he tried, only to endlessly fail?

And when had he finally given up hope?

She looked up. The sky was the same nothing-grey that it always was; not a half-light, exactly, and certainly not full. It was neither dawn nor dusk nor midday. It wasn’t cloudy. There were no shapes to look at. No shades to discern. No images written there to keep you company.

It was as though the sky itself were barren and stripped of all semblance of life.

It was blank.

What a desolate place to be trapped. She’d always known it was, but now?

Now it felt even worse.

“Ben,” Rey whispered, burying her face in her hands to hide her tears. “What did you do to put yourself here?”

When she spoke the words out loud, they echoed out into the distance, rippling over the placid waves of the silent sea, growing in volume despite how quietly she’d breathed them. She gasped and clamped her hands over her mouth to stifle the sound of her lungs. The world descended back into silence.

She sighed in relief.

But then the hair at the back of her neck prickled. Static grew in the air, buzzing and bouncing between the ice crystals scorching her throat with every breath she took. And as soon as she felt it, her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach.

That sinister awareness was back.

It knew.

She’d been managing to avoid it all this time, but now it knew she was there.

Something rumbled in the distance. Rey shot to her feet and stumbled backwards, reaching blindly for the mouth of the cave while watching with wide eyes as the sound vibrated across the water, shimmering and shaking along its surface like an incoming earthquake, a disturbance in this world's tectonic plates. The ground shifted. She could feel it in the sand, pulsing through the rough gravel and grains beneath her feet.

It was a low hum.

Pensive, thoughtful.

And somehow threatening.

It bordered on a menacing growl.

Rey slipped into the safety of the cave and threw herself down the vein she’d been exploring lately, plunging into blessed darkness. That, at least, felt real. Her heart thundered in her ears while she tore through the twisting caverns, following the patterns of lives she’d seen already, knowing and recognizing them by their shafts of light. There were dozens of them, and she caught glimpses of different, familiar faces with her own eyes staring back at her as they flashed in the water. But when she rounded a particularly sharp corner, her feet flew out from under her and she slipped down a slope, sliding along the frozen rock into a side chamber she’d never seen before.

Two pools, larger than the others in the main chamber, awaited her there.

Rey pressed her back against the rock wall out of reach of the light pouring in from the holes in the roof of the cave, her chest heaving while she caught her breath. She wasn’t sure how or why she knew to run, exactly, but something lurked outside. Something was looking for her, even though Ben had said this place was empty. Devoid of life. Cut off from anyone else.

But still.

There was someone there.

And from now on, she’d have to be extra careful. The only safe place seemed to be this cave, as though the entire island was made to drive its prisoner inside it.

After a few minutes, she crawled forward and peered into the perfect, mirror-glass surface of the nearest pool.

If this truly was a prison, then what were these lives, exactly?

Were they help, or harm?

And if this was Ben’s Hell, why did so much of it seem to be aimed at her?

Joachim was finally asleep.

Good.

Rey carefully crawled out of bed and grabbed his breeches, pulling them on and lacing them up quickly. He eyed the empty wine decanters on the bedside table and hoped the powder he’d slipped into his mentor’s drink would hold him until at least noon. The professor was usually a light sleeper and woke early, but Rey wanted him out for as long as possible, especially tonight.

It had taken Rey entirely too much time to get the answers that he needed out of Dr. Camerarius.

Now he was running short of it.

He grabbed his shirt and jammed it over his head, not even bothering to button his doublet before sweeping up his boots and stockings and padding quietly over to the door. He did, however, pause to throw one last look over his shoulder before heading downstairs.

This lover was not one he would mourn.

Once he was at the front door, Rey yanked his cloak off the hook and peered into the tiny, silver-backed mirror mounted on the wall. One hazel eye stared back at him from a chiseled face, and he ran his hand over his short, dark beard, making sure that it wasn’t completely mussed.

Less than ideal for whom he hoped to find, to be sure. Not the way he wished he might appear, even as handsome as he was considered to be by many.

But it was what he had this time.

Better make the best of it.

He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes while he muttered a prayer.

A prayer that today would finally be the day.

When he opened the door and stepped out into the streets, lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the clouds were already starting to open up. Rain pattered against the back of his cloak, and he rolled his jaw in consternation. It would be a deluge. But it was also now or never.

Rey drew the hood of his cloak further down to cover his face.

And took off at a sprint.

He tore through the streets of Staufen, skidding across the slick cobblestones and trying desperately to keep his feet underneath him as the intensity of the rain increased. It was cold for October, and his breath curled in front of him like swirling white fog. He hadn’t expected that journeying further south from Tübingen with his university professor would mean that it was even chillier near the border with France, but an odd cold front had rolled into the quaint village just as they arrived on the wagon.

It was a lucky thing that they were so near the All Souls Day holidays when Dr. Johann Faust, one of his professor’s old friends, had come to lecture about advanced alchemy. And it was even luckier still that Rey had been able to convince Dr. Camerarius that they should follow the old man to where he was heading next. Faust had a house hidden down in the sleepy little town for when he needed to hide—either from the church or other, more secular authorities—and he’d mentioned his intent to conduct another experiment to Joachim after the lecture—and that he was planning on calling “him” again to carry it out.

It was a private conversation Rey wasn’t supposed to overhear. But he did, and his lover wasn’t in the habit of denying him what he wanted.

He’d made damn sure of that early on.

It was well past midnight, and the night’s watch was busy patrolling the streets. Rey ducked back into the shadows when necessary, using the time to make sure he was still on track to find the house by orienting himself with city landmarks. The cathedral in the distance; the castle on the hill; the marketplace, sleeping and dark until it would be busy and bustling in a few hours’ time. The watchman passed, the rain came down harder, and Rey darted back into the streets and sprinted the last few blocks to the house he was searching for.

He needed to find Faust.

And he needed to find him now.

Rey had heard rumblings several years ago when he first started at the university about the crazy old man’s powers and talents and especially his “experiments.” Faust wasn’t shy about it. He was a flamboyant braggart driven by the promise of intellectual glory and the relentless pursuit of coin, so he opened his mouth to spill about what he’d supposedly managed to do every chance he got. He might have been dismissed as insane, a man driven mad by the devil’s work, if it hadn’t been for his familiar.

A large, black dog traveled with him sometimes.

And sometimes, it was said, that dog transformed into a man.

That, more than anything else, indicated the truth:

Johann Georg Faust had indeed managed to summon a true demon.

It wasn’t the legend itself that had lent the tale credence for Rey—it was the descriptions of the dog and the servant. The dog was large and black, with shaggy, wavy hair that looked and moved like liquid silk. He was said to be an exceedingly beautiful animal, save for one thing: a jagged scar coursing across his snout and neck.

The servant, a tall man with flowing, inky-black hair and skin as pale as the moon, carried the exact same facial scar.

It was the only indication Rey needed.

He knew precisely which demon was bound to the alchemist.

And that was confirmed for him the moment Rey saw Faust: he spied it in the odd scribblings the man was trying to hide beneath his gloves during the lecture he’d given just a few days ago, anxiously tugging his sleeves down to conceal the exposed markings on his wrists.

Markings that would brand him a heretic and give the church the excuse they needed to take his head.

Markings Rey himself was guilty of desperately desiring.

The church could damn themselves to Hell for all he was concerned.

They were corrupt enough for the devil, if Rey even believed in such things to begin with. Which he didn’t—couldn’t—or he’d find himself damned in the process. Already a known heretic and whispered sodomite, he might as well add devil-conjurer to the list, if only because there was one particular devil he desired.

The only man he’d ever truly loved.

He’d give anything to find him again.

Maybe he could wrest control of him from Faust somehow. He was a bumbling old todger, after all.

Rey’s heart thundered in his ears as he got his bearings on the unfamiliar cobblestones, and he spun on his heel as he turned down an alleyway. Faust’s house loomed at the end of the street, and all the lights were out save for one, right at the top of the third floor. It was the only domicile there with fires still burning this late, lighting the way for Rey.

He slipped around the side of the house and glanced up at the window. Shadows danced on the ceiling through the cracked, dirty glass—and then they lengthened. The firelight rose, growing brighter and changing tone, deepening from yellow to amber to a vibrant scarlet tinged gold.

Rey’s heart leapt into his throat.

There was only one thing that could cause such a change:

It wasn’t an experiment.

It was a summoning.

He grabbed hold of the uneven brick and dug his fingers and the toes of his boots into the sides of the house, climbing as quickly as he could in the rain and clinging on for dear life. As soon as he was close enough, he peered through the window.

The alchemist was standing near a table, clad in rags hardly fit for a beggar and reciting words in Latin from the pages of a battered, well-worn notebook. Bright tendrils of liquid fire twisted forth from a circle scrawled on the floor in rust-red colored chalk, mingling with the flames of the candles placed strategically around the room in wide, concentric circles, each circle layered with specific alchemical salts: bismuth, antimony, silver nitrate, the list went on and on. All were gradually consumed by the flames licking at the prepared sacrifices as shadowed, occult shapes wormed their way through the wooden planks of the house, scorching dark marks in their wake. And finally, as the old man uttered the final word, the flames burst out in a great, silent explosion of white light that swallowed the rest.

Rey shielded his eyes, blinking away the stars bursting in front of him.

And when they adjusted, he finally saw him:

Tall and pale, covered in constellations of dark moles dotting his skin like stars in the sky.

Wide, strong back.

Massive hands.

Beautiful, with dark hair, though far longer and wilder than Rey remembered. But it didn’t matter.

He would know him anywhere.

Rey gasped at the sight of him, so long desired, so long sought, and clamped a hand over his mouth. All those years of study, of deception, of climbing his way through the ranks and muscling his way into backrooms, of selling himself and his body.

All of it had finally led him here.

Tears welled in his eyes, and when he tried to wipe them away, his foot slipped. Rey jerked, digging his hands further into the spaces between the bricks to stop from plummeting to the ground. He eyed the wall warily. He was only about three storeys up, and that was high enough to hurt him plenty. But he couldn’t call on Faust through the front door now. The alchemist would never leave his demon unguarded.

Rey had two options, one of which was rapidly becoming the only.

He strained to reach forward and nudge the cracked window open with his fingertips, just enough to be able to hear over the rain.

“Facturus es quod hoc tempore dico, daemon. Te vocavi, et pactus est.”

Rey was the top student in Latin at his university, and he translated rapidly in his head: « You're going to do as I say this time, demon. I've called you, and we have a bargain. »

This time?

Had he not been obedient before?

Though that did sound just like him.

The demon snarled in response, bearing his teeth at Faust. His canines were unnaturally long, sitting like enlarged fangs in his wide mouth. His eyes burned red and gold with unbridled fury.

« You said you wanted riches—you sold your soul for gold and glory. Those were the sole terms of our agreement: gold and glory, until your mortal life is ended. » The demon’s sneer twisted into disgust. He was staring intently at the old man’s chest, right where his heart lay. « You have squandered your riches and wasted your renown. I’m neither your attack dog nor your errand boy. If you want someone dead, do it yourself. »

Then the demon reared back—

And spit in his summoner’s face.

Rey’s eyes went wide. His heart beat so fast, it felt as if it were trying to pound straight through his chest.

There he was.

His true and only love.

So different, and yet not at all.

Tears streamed down Rey’s cheeks in earnest now, mixing with the water pouring from above. He squeezed them shut in an attempt to stem the flood. Oh gods. How long had he waited for this day? How many years? How many lifetimes? How many wasted tries and failures ending in miserable, early deaths had it taken to arrive at this moment?

But the moment was short-lived. A loud, supernatural roar rattled the walls of the house Rey clung to.

And as soon as his eyes snapped open and he saw why, his own face flushed with fury. Rey lost all sense of his plans—and all sense of himself.

He shoved the window open and threw himself inside.

The cheap glass shattered at the force, raining down shards on top of him. Some of the glass sliced across his palms, and he clenched his fists as he tumbled, his vision tinted red with rage and blood. Rey clattered to the floor and stood, glaring at the scene before him, dagger already drawn from his boot and at the ready between bloodied fingers.

Faust held the demon by the hair and was pressing a heated poker to his chest. The demon’s flesh sizzled and smoked, and he roared in pain again when the old man reared back and slammed it harder into him, barely missing his heart. Now that Rey had a closer look, he could clearly see that his love was covered in burn scars, all along his back and chest and torso. There were dozens of them.

This had been happening for years.

The smell of his burning flesh was acrid. Black blood pooled and dripped down the demon’s moonlit skin, flowing to the floor where it dissolved and disappeared on the wind the second it separated from his body.

“Let him go,” Rey growled. “Don’t you touch him anymore. Don’t you dare.”

“Who are you?” Faust spat in German, his eyes wide with rage. “Who do you think you are?”

The demon didn’t move a muscle aside from his eyes, which darted between Rey and the old man. He didn’t seem to understand what either of them was saying, though as soon as he met Rey’s gaze, his brows knit together. His eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head ever so slightly—just as much as Faust’s grip on his long hair allowed. Just as much as he could, even with trembling hands and a shivering body fighting through the pain before Faust’s hand wrenched his neck into a sharper angle.

Rey’s breath faltered. His own hand began to tremble.

His heart couldn’t take this.

Did he recognize him? Could he see?

“B—Daemon. Scisne me? Videsne me qui sum?” He’d worded the question carefully: « Demon. Do you know me? Do you see me for who I really am? » Rey held his free hand out towards him.

Please.

Please recognize me.

Please take my hand.

But that only seemed to infuriate Faust further. His face reddened. “How dare you speak to my servant!” And then his eyes went wide. “Wait a moment. I recognize you—you’re one of Joachim’s students. The one he’s been fucking. You were at my lecture the other day. What are you doing here?” Faust pressed the poker harder into the demon’s flesh. He moaned and fell to his knees, scrabbling and tearing at his hair to try to loosen the old man’s grip. But every time he did, the golden binding drawn on his right palm and fingers flashed an angry red, and he jerked his hands away, shivering and groaning in even deeper pain. “You’re trying to steal my demon! My glory! My legacy!”

Faust turned to the demon and leaned down, spitting in his face as he yelled. « Throw the boy out the window. Kill him! I command you! » The alchemist let go of his hair and shoved him out of the summoning circle. The demon stumbled to his feet, scrambling to push himself up now that he could find purchase—and now that he was free of one restraint.

But as soon as he straightened, Rey craned his neck and realized exactly how big his love was now that he finally stood before him.

He was massive.

Unnaturally large.

He could kill him with a single blow.

Fear flooded through him. Rey paled and took a step back from the angry demon, glancing frantically around the attic room for a door or an exit of any kind.

The one door was locked from the inside.

He would need a key.

But he needn’t have worried. The demon turned and faced his summoner, red-hot fury creeping all the way up to his twisting, black horns. « Curse you! I curse you, you vile piece of shit! » he spat, pointing accusingly at the old man’s chest. « I will not harm the boy. He has done nothing. » He faced Rey again, his eyes pleading. When they lowered to where Rey’s heart beat, the demon paused and seemed to blanche. His eyes widened.

And then, wonder of all wonders—

He slowly knelt.

The demon lowered himself to his knees before Rey.

« Help me, please, sweet one, » he murmured, his hands held up and spread before him in supplication. Two rust-red manacles circled his wrists and burned black shadows into his flesh. They dripped down his claw-tipped hands like blood. « I beg of you. I cannot harm him myself until our contract is up. But if you free me from this loathsome trash, I’ll serve you for life instead. I swear it. »

That was all Rey needed to hear.

As soon as the words escaped the demon’s lips, Rey and Faust locked eyes. The insanity already gleaming in the alchemist’s gaze flared brighter, mixing with renewed fury. And the exact second Rey ripped his cloak away from his throat and leapt forward with deadly intent, the old man threw himself on the ground and scrabbled for the knife laying next to the bowl of chalk mixed with blood.

Rey wasn’t much of a fighter. He was really more of a scholar, adept with a blade in as much as it came to cooking or preparing ingredients for alchemical experiments. When he was a young boy, his older brother had given him enough lessons to be able to protect himself, but he was no true warrior. Not this time. But he was young and strong, a man of twenty-five. Faust was also a scholar and in his sixties no less, gray-haired and slow and frail. This should have been a quick fight, over in the blink of an eye.

But as soon as Rey slammed into him, he realized how very wrong he was.

Faust wasn’t frail. He was wiry.

He wasn’t slow. He was deliberate.

And beneath all those strange robes he wore, the old alchemist was deceptively strong.

As soon as Rey tried to tackle and stab him through the heart, the black symbols twisting along Faust’s right hand flashed gold—and the punch he threw at Rey’s cheek felt like being hit with a brick.

He must have bargained for a little more than simply gold and glory.

Rey staggered back, seeing stars and reeling from nearly having the wind knocked completely out of him. But that was just enough time for Faust to lunge forward, much quicker and more agile than he had any right to be. Rey dodged and stumbled away, barely managing to avoid taking a hit from the slashing blade the old alchemist wielded.

“You think you can take my servant from me? You think you can claim him? You, a nobody? A nothing?!” Faust screamed as Rey ducked and dodged, bobbing and weaving with his own blade held up defensively. But then he finally spied an opening: while the old man may have made up for his speed and strength, he hadn’t considered endurance.

He was flagging already.

Rey crouched and lunged forward, refusing to take the bait. He drove his dagger forward and up, slashing into the alchemist’s soft belly. Thick, scarlet blood bloomed through his ragged robes from his gut, soaking them and turning them from faded grey to deep vermillion.

That should have been it. He’d sliced deep enough to spill Faust’s guts in a single winning blow, and Rey halted as he waited for the old man to fall. But even a mortal blow such as that one apparently wasn’t enough to take Faust down.

It only seemed to make him angrier.

Rage lit up Faust’s eyes as he screamed in pain and fury, and he charged at Rey with a roar, tackling him to the ground, the force of it plunging Rey’s dagger deeper into his gut and ripping it from his hands. Faust slashed his own knife viciously through the air, and it caught Rey across the inner thigh as he thrashed. Blood splattered over the summoning circle, mixing and mingling with the chalk used to draw it. The symbols flared brighter gold, their light reflected in the wide eyes of the demon who stood watching, open-mouthed, unable to intervene in a fight between masters.

Rey cried out at the shock of the sudden pain burning through his leg, and that split-second of anguish gave Faust just enough time to surge forward and grab him by the throat with that unnatural immense strength—

And drag him over to the window.

Rey tried to scream again, but Faust only tightened his fingers and choked the sound away. The old man held him there, half in and half out, grinding Rey's back and thighs into the shattered glass on the windowsill and smearing it with blood. Rain battered Rey’s face while his life poured out of the wound in his legs, soaking his dark breeches and staining them black. He scrabbled at his neck, but it was little use; he couldn’t manage to pull Faust’s fingers away from his throat.

Insanity glittered brighter in the alchemist’s eyes.

“You think you can steal from me?” Faust shrieked, bloodied spittle flying through the air. “You think you can take away my greatest treasure? I, Johann Faust, have done the impossible! I grew up on the streets, boy,” he sneered, dropping his blade so his right hand could join the left in choking the life out of Rey. His breath was rancid, like rotting meat mixed with cheap, vinegared wine, and Rey sucked for air as he tried desperately to wrench Faust’s hands away to free himself. “I sang for my supper. I stole and performed, I scrimped and saved, I worked my way up from nothing to become the greatest magician in the world, the most knowledgeable esotericist, the preeminent alchemist, the master of the demon Lord Kylo Ren, and you think something so small as this—this needle can take out a man like me?” He looked down at the dagger still lodged in his gut and smiled. “I know the secrets of the universe! I am invincible! I will live eternal! I will—”

Faust shuddered and jerked forward. His eyes grew wide.

Rey had given up on liberating his throat and pulled the blade free—

Only to stab him again.

When he twisted and yanked the dagger out one more time, Faust’s grip finally loosened. And for the space of one single breath, euphoria washed over Rey. It felt as if he were flying.

Until the sharp sting of the cobblestones in the street down below bit into his back.

He heard the crunch of his own neck breaking in his ears.

Rain blurred his vision, mixing and mingling with the tears streaming down his cheeks. But for some strange reason, he could still hear what was happening in the attic. It was odd, he shouldn’t…

Ah.

The answer came through in the haze:

His blood.

It had mixed with the summoning circle.

He was connected to the demon now after all.

Rey’s chest rattled as he drew in a slow, shivering breath.

« A mortal wound » Kylo purred, his voice as loud in Rey’s ears as if he were standing next to him. He could hear the satisfaction and wonder in his tone. « I have been waiting for this day. Your time is up, old man. Our bargain is concluded. I’ll happily take what’s mine now. What you promised to me. »

« No! No, wait! » Faust gurgled and spat through a gasp. He must not have bled out quite yet. « No, I’m not done. I can’t be done. This isn’t the— »

But he didn’t have time to finish the sentence. The rest of his words died on a scream, and the sounds of tearing flesh and splattering blood filled Rey’s ears and mind. He closed his eyes. Long, dark claws and vicious fangs rent and ripped, massive hands tore muscle from sinew and snapped bone from bone until finally, all was quiet.

Rey lay in the street. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He tried, but he couldn’t.

All he could do was blink.

And breathe.

And even that was slowing rapidly.

After minutes that felt like centuries, a tall, shadowy figure loomed over him. Gold-rimmed irises flashed from within the hood of Rey’s cloak before pale, human hands lifted it away. A tiny ball of golden light floated behind the demon, now standing over Rey in human form.

But it didn’t change how incredibly beautiful he was.

If Rey’s heart were capable, it would have leapt. As it was, his lip quivered, and he blinked away tears when his love knelt next to him in the street. After all this time, they were finally alone. Kylo’s inky-black hair was soaked with rain, and he carefully stretched out a hand to cup Rey’s cheek.

« Thank you, sweet one. You freed me from enslavement to a madman. I owe you a great debt. » He’d whispered it, low and soft, with an expression to match. His thumb swept gently across Rey's skin. « But I’m sorry I can’t hold up our bargain, not now. You won’t last long enough for me to serve you. Your wounds are too far gone for me to fix, especially without a contract between us in place. And I don’t think you can sign one. Not anymore. » He shook his head sadly. « What a shame for someone so young. »

Kylo glanced over his shoulder at the hovering ball of light and curled his lip at it in disdain. It was small and dim, the edges of it imperfect and jagged. Dark shadows skated across it, blanketing the light and streaking it with impurities. « The old man’s soul is far inferior to yours. Far smaller, an ugly, wrinkled, shriveled thing, completely corrupted and very nearly useless because of it. » He sighed and shook his head. « Though it’ll make little difference, it’s still better that I’ll be taking it with me. It’s not a soul that should get more chances in this world. It would only make things worse here. »

The demon turned back to him with a furrowed brow, and if Rey didn’t know better, he’d have sworn that he was fighting off tears of his own. « I have to leave. I can’t stay here without a summoner—but I can bend the rules. I haven’t fully taken Johann’s soul yet. It’s what tethers me here. Until I do, I can stay with you while we wait for the end. Would you like me to? It’s coming soon. You can feel it too, can’t you? »

It was true.

He knew it.

Had known it from the second the blade bit into his thigh.

Rey tried to speak, but he couldn’t. His windpipe was far too crushed. Or perhaps it was his neck? He didn’t know. Anatomy hadn’t been his strongest subject.

His only consolation was that he couldn’t feel pain, either.

He could only feel the rain dancing upon his face and the demon’s gentle hand cradling it.

« Ah. I see. » Kylo pressed his mouth into a thin line and hung his head. « I’ll stay with you, sweet one. Come with me. Let me hold you out of the rain and keep you company. I’ll try to keep you warm by the fire. It is the least I can do. »

Rey’s love carefully picked him up in his arms and cradled him gingerly against his chest, careful not to jostle him too much. He held him as if he weighed nothing.

Kylo turned back towards the house and went inside, kicking the door shut behind him. A fire still burned in the hearth, and the demon sat heavily next to it, sighing as he slid his back down the wall to rest on the floor.

« I have never seen a soul that burns as bright as yours, » Kylo murmured. « What was it that you asked me? ‘Do you know me? Do you see me for who I really am?’ » He gazed down at Rey and swept the rain-soaked hair away from his eyes. Rey tried again to blink the tears away too—and failed. But he couldn’t stop staring. There they were: the eyes of the man he’d been searching for. Those beautiful, unmistakable eyes, crafted like the forests of home, dark and soulful and sad, swirling with browns and ambers and the clearest of crystal green moss just around the edges.

They were the eyes that haunted his dreams.

The eyes that tortured his soul.

He would have given anything to have seen them again, just one last time.

In the end, he supposed he had.

“B—” he tried to breathe. ”B—“

Blood wet his lips once more.

« Shhh. Don't trouble yourself, sweet one. » Kylo leaned down and pressed his forehead to Rey’s, holding him tighter in his arms as if he were precious. As if he were something to be protected and cherished. It only made the dying ache in his chest worse. « Your eyes are familiar. I do feel as if I know them. Have we met before? Or perhaps I have met an ancestor of yours? I wish you could tell me your family name. I might know it. »

He did know it.

He did, and he didn’t.

More tears streamed down Rey’s cheeks.

« A stranger, trying to save me? » The demon shook his head again in wonder. « With no regard for his own safety? Rarely have I met someone so selfless. Rarely have I seen such a sacrifice, much less for a lost, cursed being like myself. »

This was agony.

Rey still loved him, after all this time, with all his soul.

But he hadn’t known that seeing him again like this would hurt so much.

« And I do recognize you for what you are, » Kylo whispered. He lifted a finger and tapped twice at Rey’s chest, just over his slowing heart. « You’re a pure soul. A rarity. I could never take something as extraordinary and precious as you from this world. »

No, he didn’t.

He didn’t recognize Rey.

He didn’t know.

Not truly.

And Rey couldn’t tell him. Not anymore.

That knowledge was torture.

He strangled a bloody sob.

Kylo quieted. The fire crackled through the silence, and Rey struggled to keep his eyes open. His life fled from the wound in his leg, spilling out before the hearth, staining both him and the man he loved with blood.

All he could do was look up at Kylo in wonder.

There he was, after all this time. He’d found him. He’d actually found him.

And all fate had granted them was a few minutes together.

What a cruel, horrible mistress.

« Thank you for freeing me, » Kylo finally muttered, breaking the silence once more. « If you find me again in another life, I will recognize you. I will repay the favor a thousandfold. I would rather serve a soul like yours just once than a hundred like Faust. »

Rey drew in a slow, labored breath. I love you, he wanted to shout. Or scream. Or murmur. Or whisper.

Anything.

He’d have given anything to have the strength to say it.

But he didn’t.

Kylo pulled Rey closer and tucked him under his chin. He began to hum. It was an ancient song, one that he recognized deep in his soul through the feeling of the vibrations flowing out from the demon’s chest. A wordless dirge filled with sorrow—but softened with an odd sense of comfort and peace as much as melancholy.

It calmed him, but did little to soothe his own growing grief.

His time was up.

I love you.

Just once.

He’d wanted to utter those words just once.

But it was already too late.

He’d failed.

Again.

His world began to darken and fade.

No.

Please.

I don’t want to go.

I don’t want to leave you again.

« Close your eyes, » the demon whispered as he ran a gentle, soothing hand through Rey’s hair.

He trembled. He wanted to stay with his love, right here, just like this. It was the only thing he’d ever truly wanted.

I want to stay.

I want to stay right here with you.

« Rest. Sleep now, sweet one. I’ll stay with you while you pass from this life to the next. » Kylo buried his face in Rey’s neck, and he swore he could feel frigid tears falling onto his bare skin. « I’m here. I won’t leave you alone. You’re not alone. »

Rey’s heartbeat slowed.

Thump. Thump thump.

I love you.

It was the only feeling he had left.

Thump thump.

I love you.

Thump.

I love—

His light went out.

When one light went out, a new one was lit.

And Rey’s eyes shot open.

She was still in bed, shirtless and cool, but not in Ben’s arms. He wasn’t holding her like he had been, and for a split second, the horrific grief she’d just felt weighed even heavier in her chest than before.

The despair was unbearable.

“Ben!” she wailed, pushing herself up in a panic while she tried to remember how to use her arms and legs. They’d been dead and lifeless just moments ago. Tears still lined her eyes. This body felt wrong, all wrong. She was shorter, slimmer, smoother and softer in this form. Nothing matched, and every last inch of her skin itched and burned.

All of a sudden, it was entirely too much sensation.

It was overwhelming.

“BEN!” she screamed again, and this time, the bathroom door was ripped from its hinges as her demon came barreling out, nearly tearing his shirt in half as he yanked it forcefully over his head. The one he’d given her last night still lay at the foot of the mattress, which was still positioned in the middle of their living room.

But Rey couldn’t quite figure out why everything around her still felt so unreal.

It still felt like a dream.

She could still feel the icy rain on her cheeks.

She could still feel the heavy ache inside her heart.

It was unbearable.

Ben skidded across the floor and launched himself at the bed to grab her and pull her into his arms. “What? What’s the matter? What happened? There aren’t more ants, are there? I checked this morning and they’re still only in your closet, they haven’t made their way out.” He pulled away and examined her, smoothing her hair frantically away from her face. He was back in his human form, and he held one massive, pale palm up to her head. “Do you have a fever?” he muttered. “Hm. No, you don’t feel any hotter to me than you normally do. Maybe I just can’t tell?”

He was looking at her the same way he had in the alchemist’s attic.

His hands felt just the same as they did when he’d brushed Rey’s blood-soaked hair away from her face.

It was too much.

When she still didn’t answer, when she only stared at him and sobbed even harder than before, he frowned.

“Rey? I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

“You left me,” she finally managed. She wasn’t sure what that meant, only that they were the words that tumbled between her lips. She tugged at his shirt, wanting to check his back and chest. He’d been hurt too, and the way he’d screamed, the pain must have been horrific. She could still hear his cries echoing in her ears. Did he have burn scars there? Did he still feel that pain? She couldn’t remember now. She’d never noticed them before. Was he hiding them from her, the way he’d hidden other things?

His frown deepened. “No! No, I didn’t, sweetheart.” He pulled her into another tight hug, burying a hand in her hair as he held her against his chest. “I was right here this whole time. I was only in the bathroom.”

The way he held her now felt just like when she’d died in his arms.

But Ben didn’t know. He hadn’t known that version of Rey. There was little recognition in his eyes when he’d looked at her in the dream—or not-dream—and maybe that was what hurt the most, regardless of how he felt about this version of her in this time.

Everything that Rey had felt then lingered in this life.

She’d loved him. She’d loved him then. She still felt like she loved him now.

And she still felt like she was dying.

The tears wouldn’t stop.

She was losing her mind.

“Breathe.” Ben whispered the word and then did exactly that, drawing in a deep breath, slowly and surely. His chest pressed against hers, and she dug her nails into his back while she tried to do the same. “Breathe with me, sweetheart. Calm down.”

Rey couldn’t stop trembling. Now that she could move again, it seemed that her body wouldn’t stop.

“Shhh.” Ben shushed her again as he rested his cheek against her forehead. “Slowly. Breathe.” He drew in another slow, deep breath.

This time, she was able to mimic him.

“There. Again.”

She obeyed. Her sobs faded.

His hand had been stroking her hair all the while, smoothing sweet, rhythmic circles against her scalp, just like he’d done for her in front of the fire at Faust’s house. He hadn’t known her in the slightest, and yet, he’d comforted her. She wrenched her eyes shut to try to staunch the tears flooding down her cheeks.

He was kind to her, a complete stranger in that life.

He actually was like this.

It wasn’t an act.

It wasn’t a lie.

It couldn’t be.

When her trembling finally lessened, Ben shifted and swept his nose across her own.

“There you go,” he whispered. He leaned forward and pressed his wide mouth to hers once, soft and quick. “That’s better.” He kissed her again, this time more slowly. This time for the space of a single, deep inhale. “I’m here,” he breathed against her lips. His fingers curled behind her ear, and he ran his thumb along its shell, sweeping the pad there as tenderly as if he’d done it a hundred thousand times.

Which was also how he’d kissed her.

It was so natural, neither of them really noticed.

But when he leaned forward to press his beautiful, plush lips to hers for a third time, time slowed.

And stopped.

The sound of the fans still blaring around them faded away to nothing. This time, when their mouths met, it was an explosion of sensation.

All Rey could hear was the rapid beating of her heart.

All she could feel was the coolness of his skin against her own.

All she could taste was fresh wintergreen on her lips.

Rey sucked in a sharp, trembling breath at the force of it.

It was overwhelming, how her senses went into overdrive at Ben’s slightest touch. Her skin tingled where his hand cupped her cheek, drawing her mouth closer so he could deepen the kiss. The feeling of his soft lips moving against her own, slowly, more forcefully this time was like lighting a match in the dry, deserted forest that was her body.

All of a sudden, every bit of her was alight.

Every bit of her burned.

It burned so differently than it had before.

She needed more.

She needed him.

Rey wrapped her arms around his neck, needing to feel him closer. She needed more of him touching her, and his hands dropped down and slid like silk along her back, pulling and shifting her more solidly into his lap. She was still shirtless, still bare from when she’d needed the chill of his skin to calm her own last night, and she mourned the loss of his bare chest beneath the shirt that he wore now. But it almost didn’t matter.

Because as soon as she opened her mouth, the icy feeling of his tongue slid inside.

And Rey couldn’t focus on anything else.

Anything aside from the sudden, inexorable rush of want.

She needed him—and she wanted him.

The dam had finally broken.

Ben moaned, long and low when he tasted her. His fingers tensed sharply in her hair, and it was her turn to gasp when he pulled it at her scalp. It sent lightning skittering straight to her core, striking right between her legs, and that feeling only intensified when Ben’s moan deepened and transformed into a low growl.

Somehow, the sound of him only made her hungrier.

Suddenly, she wanted to consume him.

Rey drew his bottom lip between her teeth, just hard enough to make him feel it—just hard enough to skirt that delicious line between pain and pleasure. Ben hissed and lunged for her mouth again, chasing her lips with tiny nips of his own teeth. It was a dance, each one of them moving back and forth in perfect tandem, perfect rhythm, leading and following, questioning and exploring, spinning back only to come crashing together once more, and just when she thought he might finally pull away for the space of a single breath, he was on top of her.

He, too, was starving.

Her back hit the mattress, but she barely blinked before he had her pinned beneath the heavy weight of his body. One hand was at her neck holding her steady while the other stayed in her hair, grasping and pulling at her scalp to yank her mouth roughly back to his. Every stroke of his fingers tugged between her legs, and every one of them was stronger, more forceful, more urgent.

Because his hands were growing larger, his fingers longer.

And when she looked into his eyes, his pupils were blown so wide, his irises were nearly pure black.

“Rey,” Ben breathed as he kissed her again. “My Rey.” Every swipe of his tongue was slower. It felt longer in her mouth, but she couldn’t deny how exquisite he tasted—and how incredible he felt, the chill of his breath mingling with her own.

The heaviness over her intensified. He was growing wider, his back broader with every breath, every movement of his lips. She spread her legs open to accommodate his increasing bulk, and when she did, he pressed himself closer, grinding his hips against her.

He was hard.

And when the massive bulge in his joggers stroked across her apex, sparks burst in front of her eyes.

Rey dug her nails harder into his back. His t-shirt was stretching thinner, the seams growing dangerously taut. It was becoming precariously tight and threatening to split, but Ben didn’t seem to care. His eyes were closed. He was lost in the feeling of her mouth. She was lost in the feeling of his. He seemed drunk.

A part of her thought she might be too.

When he ground his hips into her again, she moaned. He dipped down and swallowed it, drinking her mouth in greedily, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat while his long tongue swept softly between her lips before darting back out to lick his own. He hummed contentedly.

“More,” he breathed, grinding again, and harder this time. Then again. And again. Rey gasped and writhed beneath him, unable to escape the sensation. Her release was building between her legs, growing hotter and more urgent with every insistent circle of his hips, and when Ben seemed to realize it, he immediately adjusted the rhythm and increased the intensity. Two bumps formed in the shadowy depths of his hair before both horns suddenly burst through, exploding and twisting straight out of his skull.

“Give it to me,” he rasped, grabbing her wrists and pinning them roughly above her head. His voice had dropped deeper, and he easily held both of her hands in one massive paw. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t have been able to get away.

She didn’t want to.

“Give me your pleasure, sweetheart.” He dipped down to her neck and began to mouth at it, nipping at her with his teeth and sucking sweet bruises into her skin before soothing them with the cool flat of his tongue.

When she cried out, Ben moaned and grabbed her chin and her cheeks, yanking her mouth to his so he could swallow down the sound with another long, languorous kiss. His throat bobbed as he drank it in until he broke away with a gasp. “Come for me,” he growled against her lips, tracing her jawline with one sharp claw. “Let me taste it for real this time.”

The burgeoning inferno of her orgasm was so intense, she could hardly breathe.

“Ben,” she gasped, unable to say or do anything other than entwine her fingers with his. His hips were relentless. Hers rose to meet them, riding him like she might a wave, her impending release building to what would certainly be a blissful crescendo of oblivion, and all she could focus on was the exquisite feeling of it—of him.

Never had she ever been so in sync with someone before. Never had she felt this way with a partner before. He wasn’t even inside her and here she was, dripping wet, absolutely soaked and about to come apart.

But then, in the background, there was a jarring noise.

It was a knock at their door.

Rey startled and stilled, the heat that was nearly threatening to overwhelm her receding like the tide sucked out to sea. She tilted her head back and glanced at the door over her shoulder with a frown, but Ben grabbed her face and turned her back to meet his eyes again.

“No, no, no, Rey, look at me. Please.” He seemed desperate. The glow in his eyes was smoldering, and he shoved one hand down her underwear, grinding his palm against her clit. For a second, the heat rose again, and Rey gasped as she gripped him harder and rocked her hips, dragging her core over his hand. His claws pressed more urgently into her cheek, sending sensation jolting straight between her legs. “Look at me. Stay with me. You’re so close. I need you to come—just once. Just a little, even. Can you do that for me?”

She wanted to. She desperately wanted to, and she gasped at the heavy feeling of him rubbing against her soaked underwear, at his hand on her face, at the wild look in his eyes.

But whoever was at the door knocked again. “Benji?” It sounded like an old woman. “Are you up? You said you would be.”

Rey’s hips slowed and her frown deepened. Could the woman hear them through the door? “Did you invite someone over? At—” she glanced at the microwave clock in the kitchen “At 7:30 in the morning?”

Ben stilled.

The heat dissipated completely.

Rey’s release receded. They both knew when it had passed.

Devastation washed over his expression.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Ben, I—I’m sorry. I got distracted.”

“Fuck.” He screwed his eyes shut tight and slumped over her shoulder, hiding his face in his pillow before raising a fist and pounding at it twice. His chest heaved against hers, pressing her deeper into the mattress, but after a few seconds, he began to shrink. The seams of his shirt stopped screaming. His horns slowly disappeared into his hair. His claws receded back into his fingertips, and when he lifted his head and glared at the door, the fire in his eyes had been extinguished.

The only thing that hadn’t diminished was the bulge between his legs, and he groaned deeply before planting a kiss on Rey’s forehead with a whispered, “No, sweet girl. Not your fault. I’m sorry,” before pushing to his feet. He adjusted himself in his joggers with a low, frustrated growl and tugged his t-shirt back down to try to better hide the tent still pitched between his legs while he stumbled over to the door, cracking it open just a little.

Sunlight poured in through the gap.

“Hey Maz.” His voice was tense, and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet as he opened the door a little wider.

“Good morning, Benji. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

“No, I was up. You’re fine.” Rey glanced over at him. The dark circles lining his eyes were worse than they’d been last night now she could see him in the light. He looked terrible. “You got news for me?”

Rey clutched the sheet to her chest to cover herself and turned, pushing up on her elbows and squinting so that she could see who it was. She didn’t know a Maz, but their guest did indeed seem to be a tiny old woman—one of the tiniest she had ever seen. Golden morning sunlight glinted off of snow-white hair capping a kind, cragged face that was both bespectacled and rippling with wrinkles.

A very small, withered hand lifted to pat Ben on the cheek. He bent down so that she could reach.

“I do, actually. I’ve been watching his office like you asked me to, and we were right: he’s finally here today. Just arrived. I tried to text you, sweetie, but you didn’t answer, and you’ll need to move quickly if you want to catch him. He never stays long when he does come in.”

“Got it. Let me just grab my shoes.” Ben dipped even lower and pressed a quick kiss to Maz’s cheek. “Thank you. I’ll give you a discount next time you want me to clean your place.”

That got the old woman to chuckle. “I wouldn’t dream of it, honey. I’ll be tipping you just as much as I usually do. And so will the rest of the Bunco Broads. Speaking of, we have a new recruit—she just moved to the complex. Retired like the rest of us, and certainly not inclined to do that sort of labor. I’ll give her your number if you want another client.”

“Oh yeah, thanks. That would be great.”         

“Of course.” Rey fidgeted, and Maz turned her head to peer into the dark of their apartment at the movement. She seemed to catch sight of Rey—and winked. She turned back to Ben. “And God knows you kids need the money more than I do. Times are hard. I’m well enough off, but my days are numbered.”

He scoffed. “Hardly. You’ll outlive us all, Maz.”

The old woman huffed in amusement and reached up to straighten Ben’s shirt for him, tugging a few of the stretched-out creases straighter. “I’ll get out of your hair. Good luck. Let me know how it goes with the bastard. And you and Rey should come play Bunco with us sometime, okay? We’ll have a little party at my place soon.”

“Alright. I’ll let you know when we’re free.”

“You’re such a sweet boy, Benji. You two take care, now.”

With one more fond pat on his chest, Maz turned on her heel and disappeared from the doorway.

Ben closed it and bent to grab his Air Jordans, tugging them onto his feet and tying them quickly. “Stay here, Rey.” He stepped back over to her and stooped to press another quick, insistent kiss to her lips. “Go back to sleep,” he murmured softly. “Why don’t you call out of work? Tell your manager you’re sick again and stay with me. You’ve had a rough time, and I’ll be back in a bit. This shouldn’t take long. Get some rest. We need to finish what we started.” He wrapped his hand around the side of her neck and swept his thumb back and forth along her jawline. “It would be better if you stayed with me today.”

His touch was electric.

It felt wonderful.

Rey hummed sleepily and closed her eyes. Yes, that sounded great. She’d been so close to coming just now, and she knew that if they’d only had a few more seconds without distractions, he would have broken her in the best way. Not only that, but she really was still itchy. She probably shouldn’t go to work. She should—wait.

Her eyes snapped open. She sat up sharply.

“No, I can’t miss today. I have an important client presentation this morning. My manager will kill me if I don’t show.”

It was Ben’s turn to close his eyes and sigh. He rubbed the space between his eyes with his thumb and his forefinger. “Is it really that important? You were just attacked by a swarm of ants last night. You woke up in hysterics this morning. I think you deserve to rest.” He pushed up and strode over to the door, grabbing a set of keys with a shake of his head. “Your manager can go fuck himself.”

“Well, that’s true, but...” She trailed off when Ben wrapped his hand around the door handle. “Wait. You’re really leaving? Right now?”

“I won’t be long.”

“Where are you going?” Rey lunged for the shirt at the end of the bed and pulled it quickly over her head.

“Quick errand. I’ll be right back.”

Alarm bells clanged at the back of her mind. He was being cagey. “What sort of ‘quick errand,’ Ben?”

He twisted open the door and sunlight poured in from outside.

“I’m going to go kill your landlord.”

Chapter Text

“BEN! BEN, NO!”

Rey tore after him in the parking lot.

It was a lot harder than it should have been to catch up to him. Yes, his legs were long, yes, his angry strides were wide, but it was his massive flip-flops that were the problem. They were the only other shoes near the door she could throw onto her feet, and his were easily twice as large as hers.

Giantess.

For fuck's sake.

All of her other shoes were probably still full of ants.

She nearly tripped over the shoes for what felt like the hundredth time in the last thirty seconds. “What are you doing?! Get back in the apartment!”

“No!” he turned and shouted furiously over his shoulder. “Why are you coming? I told you to stay. I don’t want you to see this.”

“Oh, I’m definitely not staying behind now!”

He did at least stop and wait for her, pacing and fidgeting in the complex’s parking lot until she caught up. As soon as she finally managed to shuffle over to him, he grabbed her hand and set off again, dragging her along while he stormed towards Plutt’s private office.

“Please don’t!” She tugged at his hand, still trying to talk some sense into him. “I don’t want you arrested and sent to jail. What would happen to me, then? I don’t even know where the prison is here, but I know it’s not nearby! I can’t be that far away from you!”

“Do you honestly think any human authorities could detain me?” His eyes were locked onto the door of an office building she’d never really paid much mind to. “And besides, I won’t get caught. Trust me.”

He was prowling—like some sort of predator.

This was bad.

“Well, at the very least you’re going to get me kicked out of my apartment if you try anything. I don’t want to be homeless again!” The summer after her freshman year in college was rough. She never really liked thinking about that time.

“Over my dead body.” His head snapped down at her with a snarl. “I’ll rip his fucking head off before he can do that to you.”

Rey blinked, taken aback by the way his voice had deepened like that. It was clear that he wasn’t angry at her, if how carefully he gripped her was any indication. He could have ground every bone in her hand to dust with a single squeeze if he wanted to, she was sure of it. But it was also clear that he was livid now that he knew Plutt was around.

His eyes were a deep blood-red, and when he’d snarled, elongated canines pushed at the bounds of his lips.

Fangs, thick and long, like the ones she’d seen in her dream.

“Ben, this—th-this is a gross overreaction, don’t you think?” she finally stammered. “It’s really not that big of a deal. We can—”

That finally got him to stop in his tracks. He stilled in the middle of the parking lot and leaned down so he could properly look her in the eyes.

“Oh, it is a big deal, sweetheart.” he hissed. “It’s a big deal to me.” He held up a finger. “First, the bastard doesn’t repair your fucking air conditioner in a timely manner, and your legal system is going to be shit at making him because it doesn’t actually care about you. I’ve studied the laws, and they’re garbage. They’re there to protect the landlords more than the tenants.” His hand tightened around hers. “The fact that you were miserable and sick because of it was the initial strike. I was already planning on making him suffer just for that the next time he set foot in the complex.”

He drew in a deep, furious breath and seemed to swell larger with it. His shirt stretched tight across his chest. It was not meant to be a muscle shirt. “And then he was obviously lax on paying for pest prevention, which was required of him in your lease. Required of him by contract.” He pointed at her arms where the angry, red splotches still burned all over her skin. “Now you’ve been seriously hurt because of his negligence. I looked it up this morning while you were still sleeping, and those were fire ants. If you had a serious allergy to them, you could have died. We probably should have gone to the hospital.” He shook his head in disgust. “I’ve had enough. This is stupid. I’m done. And so is he.”

Rey blanched. “B-But—I—hospital?!”

Ben leaned in even closer. “Yes,” he growled. “Hospital.”

The look in his eyes brokered no argument.

He was serious.

And she wasn’t strong enough to stop him if he wouldn’t listen to her.

She went quiet.

“Alright then.” He raised an eyebrow. “So we’re agreed.”

When Ben turned on his heel and resumed stalking towards the office door, Rey yanked the hem of his ridiculously large shirt down towards her knees as she trotted to keep up. She hadn’t had time to try to throw on any other clothes, and likely wouldn’t have found any other “viable” ones, as he’d termed them, anyway. It was a good thing he was so large; the shirt wasn’t exactly as long as a dress, but at least it covered her ass. No telling what anyone watching thought was happening down in her complex’s parking lot, but Rey struggled and failed to pull her hand out of Ben’s grip. He didn’t seem to notice she was even trying.

He was a demon on the warpath now.

When they reached Plutt’s office, Ben banged furiously on the door. It rattled on its hinges, and for a moment, Rey thought no one would answer. He grabbed the handle and jiggled it a few times, trying to twist the door open. But before he could snap it clean off, a deep, gruff voice answered from within.

“What is it?” The annoyance was palpable.

“Are you Unkar Plutt?” Ben snapped back. His grip on her hand tightened further.

“Yeah. Who’s asking?”

“One of your tenants. Unit 2287.”

A pause.

“I’m not available. That’s why the door’s locked. Send your inquiry via email.”

“Email?!”

Uh oh.

Rey paled.

The demon had roared the word, curling his lips back into a snarl.

Ben’s eyes had gone an even darker red. Shadows swirled at his fingertips as he grew even larger, and Rey closed her eyes and braced herself when he let go of her hand, raised a single leg, and leaned back as he kicked. Hard.

The door splintered away from the lock and off of its hinges at the force, banging inside so violently, the handle punched a hole in the drywall behind it—and lodged itself there.

“HEY! What the hell are you doing!” Plutt roared. He’d been sitting at his desk, and he rose from it now as the dust settled, his face rapidly reddening with fury.

Ben didn’t say anything. He only slowly stalked forward, bridging the gap between them in a stride or two to stand in front of the desk.

“We need to talk.”

The landlord ignored him. “You’ll have to pay for that! I’ll be charging your unit directly.” Plutt’s spittle flew through the air as his angry jowls wobbled.

He was a tall, corpulent man, completely bald, probably in his late fifties, and clearly someone who didn’t actually do the maintenance on his own property, despite his secondary title of Property Manager. Everyone knew he contracted everything out with the cheapest possible labor.

The demon seethed.

A growl vibrated through the air, its hum so low, Rey could hardly hear it.

But she could certainly feel it in her chest.

“This is a gross violation of your lease. Unit 2287, you said?” Plutt grabbed his phone and unlocked it, tapping at the phone icon with a single thick finger. “Get out. Consider yourself evicted. And I’ll have you arrested if you dare take one step clo—”

Ben lunged.

His horns exploded out of the top of his head as he threw himself over Plutt’s desk, their color a twisting, curling, deadly black so shiny, the fluorescent lights reflected off of them. Papers went flying, raining down onto the floor like bureaucratic snow. Fabric ripped and shredded as Ben’s wide chest burst through the remnants of his shirt, too big and too powerful to be contained by the seams any longer. And whatever words Plutt was going to say next were choked into an oddly high-pitched scream as the full weight of an enormous, furious demon came barreling down on top of him.

His swivel chair went flying, smashing into the drywall behind the desk and sending cracks spiderwebbing throughout while the two large men struggled on the floor. Plutt thrashed as he screamed, trying desperately to free himself from the long, black claws fully out and digging into his flesh as Ben scrambled to wrap his massive, shadowed hands around the landlord’s thick neck.

“Quit your screaming and fight me like a man if you don’t want to die!” Ben bellowed, rearing back and punching Plutt square across the jaw. A sickening crunch and a gut-wrenching thud echoed dully in the dingy office.

“Ben!” Rey cried, kicking the flip-flops off so she could stumble closer to him—but not too close. He was completely out of control, and she had no idea what he might do next. “Stop! Stop it!”

“Help me!” Plutt shrieked. Blood flowed down his face. His nose was crooked. “Help me please!”

Ben finally managed to wrap a hand around Plutt’s neck and grab him, hoisting him high into the air before slamming him down on top of the desk with one arm. Wild fury lit his eyes, simmering like the flames of a bonfire.

“Your negligence caused my girlfriend harm, you piece of shit!” His voice had gone deeper, rumbling with menace. “She’s hurt because of you! And she’d been suffering even before that, making herself sick because it was too hot to sleep. Your apartments are virtually uninhabitable!”

“Not—my fault!” Plutt wheezed. Ben’s hand tightened around his throat, incognizant of the purpled, sausage-like fingers scrabbling to loosen it. “Can’t—control—Texas summer.”

His eyes bulged.

They looked like they might pop out of their sockets.

But Ben’s eyes had gone even wider.

“Ohhh,” he breathed, tilting his head slightly. “Now that was the wrong thing to say.”

He raised his free hand, brandishing his claws beneath the flickering fluorescent lights—

—and plunged it straight into Plutt’s chest.

“Oh my god!” Rey screamed before clamping both hands over her mouth in horror. She could barely breathe.

The shadows swirling around Ben’s hands and arms when he was unmasked like this dripped down now, coalescing into a toxic pool before seeping into Plutt’s chest and disappearing. The man seized and sputtered, choking while his hands and arms flopped heavily against the bowing, groaning wood of his desktop.

The fire in Ben’s eyes flared brighter.

And with it, the temperature in the room dropped.

Rey began to shiver, her breath swirling before her in waves, just like it did whenever she was in Hell. Just like it had the night she first woke up from visiting. Even Ben’s puffed out of his mouth and nostrils as he huffed, flowing in curling, white ripples, like thick foam topping a riptide.

He leaned down and peered deeply into Plutt’s eyes.

“I’m disgusted by how this world works,” he sneered. “You’d think that pathetic, greedy, small-minded men like you would have been eradicated by now as technology and systems have gotten better and more efficient, but no. It seems that you’re still here. Still making things cruel. And stupid.” The muscles in the forearm buried in Plutt’s chest tensed, and the light began to leach away from the man’s skin. It gradually turned from red and ruddy to pale and sallow, the color abandoning his extremities and surging towards Ben’s arm.

That same color and warmth blushed across the demon’s pale skin instead.

An odd buzzing sound started ringing in the background, a single-high-pitched note reverberating in her ears. Rey reached up to cover them with a wince.

One of the fluorescent lights across the room popped, bursting white and raining down shards of shattered tube glass mixed with sparks. She jumped and ducked, crouching away from the sudden assault. But Ben still stood transfixed, staring at the apartment complex owner with murder in his eyes.

Plutt sucked for air, his mouth opening and closing like a fish tossed out of water.

“I think I’ll kill you slowly,” Ben muttered thoughtfully, almost to himself. “I already hold your soul in my hands. All I have to do is squeeze—” his forearm tensed again, sending Plutt seizing and writhing, and the tiniest smirk tugged at Ben’s lips, “—if I want to snuff out your shitty, dim light before I consume it.” He tilted his head curiously at the landlord before leaning close to his neck. He sniffed once, and his nostrils flared. He grimaced in disgust. “How do rancid men like you even have souls anyway? I’ve never understood why you insist on coming back again and again. You’re like cockroaches. And I’m sick of cleaning up after you.”

Oh fuck.

Ben was really going to kill him.

He was serious.

He meant everything he’d said.

The realization slammed into Rey like a semi.

She found her feet and sprang into action, wrapping her hands around his forearm. He was so muscular, not even both of them could encircle it.

“Ben,” she pleaded. “Ben, please stop. Please don’t do this.”

He was so fixated on Plutt, it didn’t seem like he could hear her. Instead, he only closed his eyes and leaned even closer to the man, his long tongue spilling out of his mouth to lick up the length of Plutt’s neck and cheek.

He gagged.

“As I suspected—disgusting. Your soul will taste like putrid, rotting garbage.” But despite what he’d just said, Ben’s mouth visibly watered a little. “And I doubt it will go terribly far. But it may still be better than nothing.” 

“BEN!” Rey gripped his arm harder and tugged. “Look at me. Please!”

That seemed to snap him out of his trance, and he finally turned to look at her. The gold in his eyes only blazed brighter as soon they landed on her face.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

She pointed over her shoulder at the camera mounted in the corner. “He has cameras here. They’re recording everything you do.” She dug her nails into his skin. “I know you think you can’t be held, but things are different now than they used to be. Police have guns. Prisons aren’t the same. You don’t actually know if you’d be able to get away. You said yourself that you don’t have all of your usual powers right now.” She shook her head and bit her lip. “I only just met you. I don’t want you taken from me. Not now. Not for the likes of him.” She nodded towards Plutt. The color had completely drained from his body. His skin was grey, and the light in his eyes had gone out.

He seemed to be teetering on the edge of something.

But if that edge was death, she wasn’t exactly sure.

At her words, the anger in Ben’s gaze cooled. The fire in it swiftly banked and chilled all the way back down to his usual forest hazel, and when he slowly pulled his hand out of Plutt’s chest while still staring in her own eyes, his expression softened. The warmth and color in his skin fled back towards her landlord, leaving Ben his usual ethereal pale shade once more.

“Alright, Rey. As you wish.”

Ben spread the fingers on his other hand wide to release Plutt’s throat, and as soon as he was free, the man drew in a deep, gasping breath, his weighty chest heaving as he gulped down buckets of air. Rey’s eyes widened. The color was flooding back in his skin too much, too fast, too dark, his face turning a red so deep and blotchy, it was almost purple. If he wasn’t going to strangle him, Ben might have given him a heart attack, and if he—

She didn't have time to finish that thought.

The demon lunged forward again, grabbing the human by the shoulders and yanking him around before easily throwing him back into his chair. Plutt flopped into it, his limbs as limp as a rag doll’s.

But before he could even move, Ben was back on top of him, his eyes a wild, deep scarlet once more.

“You will fix the air conditioner in unit 2287 and you will fix it TODAY,” the demon growled, baring his fangs threateningly in Plutt’s pockmarked face. His voice vibrated around the edges with sinister intent. “You will also call emergency pest control and rid the unit of an ant infestation. And if you do NOT—” the growl deepened as his voice dropped even lower, “—I WILL RIP YOUR SOUL OUT FROM YOUR CHEST, TEAR IT TO SHREDS, AND CONSUME IT FOR BREAKFAST. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!”

Plutt closed his eyes as he winced and whimpered, his thick lips quivering in fear. Blood still dripped from his nose, and there was a distinct wet spot rapidly darkening the front of his pants and running down one of his legs, pooling on the carpet below.

But Ben apparently wasn’t done yet. He bent down and gripped the armrests on Plutt’s chair so hard, his claws punctured holes in the worn foam and dug jagged gouges into the plastic. That same strange high-pitched buzz increased in intensity when he grabbed the man’s chin and yanked it upwards, forcing Plutt to open his eyes and stare into his own.

“Take out the lease for unit 2287,” he whispered. “Let me see it.”

Ben’s eyes flashed an even brighter gold. Some of the light dulled again in Plutt’s eyes, but differently from when Ben held his soul in his hand. This time, his mouth went slack and he nodded absently as he blindly reached for the filing cabinet in the corner without breaking his gaze. His eyes were locked onto Ben’s, which were intense and unyielding.

Unforgiving.

Rey watched with bated breath as her landlord, so full of bravado and apoplectic rage to start, was suddenly oddly docile and obedient. Every last bit of fight had melted out of him. The lights flickered as she took a curious step forward while he rifled slowly through the files, his fingers fumbling until he eventually pulled out her apartment’s folder. He set it gently on the desk and slumped back in the chair.

Rey stepped up and watched intently while Ben placed his hand on the stack of legal paper and stared quietly down at the text. Every few seconds, he flipped to the next page. And then the next. When she finally realized what he was doing, she stifled a gasp.

New markings were suddenly bleeding across the pages in dark, sweeping ink next to her own. Right beside everywhere she’d had to initial, another line formed—and with it, the letters BS. On the pages where she’d had to write her full signature, the name Benjamin Solo scrawled itself on the line for the second tenant in the demon’s beautiful handwriting, all of it backdated to two years ago when she’d first signed her lease. What looked like a legitimate copy of a photo ID with his name and likeness on it even materialized on the sheet next to her own.

When he was finished, Ben calmly gathered the documents, making sure they were perfectly lined up before he re-filed the folder in its place in the cabinet while Plutt sat by, unmoving and unblinking. He seemed catatonic. Meanwhile, she felt all the blood drain from her face.

Ben had just put himself on her lease.

Their lease now.

As if he’d always been on it.

She’d just watched him write himself into existence on paper.

He stepped over and crouched in front of Plutt again, resting his elbows on his knees and regarding the man with a curious, tilted head. He ran a hand through his hair, and it swirled elegantly around his face like a dark cloud of shadows. Most of his fury seemed to have dissipated, and even the darkness dripping from his clawed fingertips was gone. “Do you remember the civil conversation we just had, Mr. Plutt?”

The landlord nodded slowly.

“Good, good. And please repeat it back to me?”

“I will have the air conditioner in your unit 2287 fixed today, Mr. Solo,” Plutt recited in a voice completely devoid of feeling. His eyes were still glazed over. It was as if he had suddenly become an automaton. “I will also have emergency pest control come out and rid the unit of the ant infestation.”

“Today?” Ben quirked an eyebrow.

“Today.”

“This morning?”

“As soon as possible.”

Ben leaned forward and slapped the man’s cheek twice. It sent ripples undulating through his jowls and neck. “Alright then. And what are the consequences if you do not?”

“You will rip my soul out from my chest, tear it to shreds, and consume it for breakfast.”

“I will destroy and then eat your soul, yes.” Ben nodded sagely. “It will not be pleasant for you. I will make it hurt. The pain will be excruciating. It will be unlike anything you could possibly imagine.” He hummed. “It’ll feel worse than death. And I’ll make you watch. And remember. It will be far worse than the injuries you just sustained from falling down the stairs.” He traced a single claw fondly along the man’s brow. “Tell me how you got those bruises and broke your nose and whatever else is wrong?”

“I tripped and fell down the stairs.”

“You almost died, didn’t you?”

“I almost died.”

“Because you’re old and clumsy?”

“Because I am old and clumsy.”

“Good boy.” Ben slapped his cheek one last time before straightening and turning towards the door—but then he paused and glanced back over his shoulder, snapping his fingers lightly when he seemed to consider something. “Oh, and you’re going to lower our rent for the remainder of our lease to make up for our trouble.”

“How much should I lower it?” Plutt deadpanned. Crusted blood from his broken nose had mixed with the mottled bruising already forming a ring around his neck from Ben’s hands.

The demon rubbed his chin thoughtfully while he considered. Rey startled when she heard the light sound of his fingers grating across stubble: his chin was only half-shaven. That must have been what he was doing in the bathroom before she woke.

Ben had to shave?

She’d never seen him do it, though she’d bought him a razor initially, just in case. She’d also never seen him with stubble before. Not even so much as a hint of a five o’clock shadow.

This was the first time.

“We’re currently paying $1800 a month for a one-bedroom, right Rey?” He glanced over at her and the wicked light still gleaming in his eyes softened. “I think knocking $900 off is fair, given the market rates of the area and the comparatively shitty quality of the domicile. A fifty percent reduction, for the AC issues and the ant-induced emotional and physical duress. And so that we don’t sue you and your complex into oblivion.” Ben insistently tapped a notepad that had survived his assault on the desktop. “Make note of that.”

Plutt fumbled blindly around his desk for a pen and scribbled what Ben had told him in barely legible writing. He was still slack-jawed. It had been an unusual amount of time since he’d properly blinked.

What the hell did Ben do to him?

Did he melt Plutt’s brain?

“Does that sound good, sweetheart?”

“Uh…” Rey finally removed her cupped hands from her ears. The ringing in the background was still there, but it had lessened in intensity considerably. “Well, yeah, that’s—that would be great, actually. Really great.”

Ben’s mouth split into a wide, crooked smile. “Good! I’m so happy you’re pleased. That’s all I really wanted.” He held out his hand towards her and she slid one of her own into it. His claws had disappeared, leaving only his usual massive hands behind. He swept his thumb softly along the back of hers before turning his attention again to the landlord still sitting catatonic in his chair.

“Since we’re done here, we’ll be getting out of your…” He eyed Plutt’s bald head with disdain. “Hair. Come on, Rey.” He tugged her to his chest and swept her into his arms, picking her up off the floor and cradling her easily with one hand.

When he stooped to grab the flip-flops as they turned to leave, Rey wrapped her arms around his neck and stared at Plutt over Ben’s shoulder, watching as his chest rose and fell slowly while he sat silently in his chair, his eyes still blank and lifeless, despite the color gradually flowing back into his cheeks.

The office was in shambles. Crumpled and torn papers littered every available square inch of carpet. Half the lights had popped and exploded. The ceiling fan limped overhead, crooked and only hanging by a wire or two. The lens on the camera was shattered, its red recording light dead.

What the fuck just happened?

Once they stepped back outside, Ben bent and pulled the door back over the gap in the wall with his free hand. He slumped tiredly against the building next to it.

“There,” he sighed. “That’s taken care of. That was really bothering me. But I don’t feel—”

“Ben, your horns!” Rey suddenly hissed, pointing up at the top of his head.  The sunlight glinted off of them. Honestly, they were beautiful, but— “They’re still out! And we’re out in the middle of the parking lot!”

“What?!” Ben lifted a hand and pawed at the crown of his head. His fingers wrapped around the base of one. “Shit.” He swore again in that strange language and darted around the side of the building into what looked like some sort of service alcove, pressing his back against the wall and hiding them both in the meager shadows.

There weren’t many to hide in at this time of day, and not with how sunny it was.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

“Why aren’t they going away?” Rey whispered, wriggling in his arms to be let down.

But Ben only ignored her and closed his eyes. “I’m a little worked up, you know,” he bit through gritted teeth, gripping her tighter. His claws elongated again and dug into her thighs. “I started out the morning that way. I have a hard time getting them to go down when I’m like that. Especially when I’m—”

“Well then, do you need me to jerk off your horns or something to fix it?”

He opened one eye and glared at her. “Rey, I said they’re sensitive, not that they were full-on extra cocks on my head.” He scowled at her and pointed at them indignantly. “I mean, if you want to try that, I’m game. But I’m also liable to simply come somewhere else.”

They both looked down at his crotch.

There was still a sizable bulge there.

“Are you still hard?!”

“…maybe,” he murmured as his brows dropped into a scowl. “Hey!” He pointed at her now. “Don’t you dare judge me for that. Anger and arousal are very close together in terms of emotions, I’ll have you know!”

She slapped his finger away. “What are you going to do if Maz comes over and tries to see how things went? Or if someone else walks up? You’re demoning out in broad daylight, for fuck’s sake!”

Ben shifted and carefully peered around the corner. “Her apartment overlooks Plutt’s office,” he muttered. “It’s entirely possible she already saw. She doesn’t have anything better to do than look out the window and watch reruns of Days of Our Lives.” He melted back into the shadows and set her down, dropping the flip-flops so she could slide her feet back into them. “Hang on. Just…just give me a second.”

Ben screwed his eyes shut tight. He drew in several deep breaths, slow and deliberate. Despite the fact that he’d at least let her feet touch solid ground, he actually hadn’t let her go, and they were so close that his chest rose and fell against her own. He pressed his face against the side of her head, nuzzling and burying his nose into her hair. Rey closed her eyes too and ran her hand through his dark waves. It was hard not to enjoy the silken feeling of them slipping between her fingers.

“I don’t know that this is going to help,” she whispered. It only seemed to be making his hard-on pressed up against her front even worse, and her cheeks grew hot at the thought.

“Yes, it is,” he breathed back, deeply inhaling her scent. “It’s helping. You smell so nice.”

She suppressed a snort. It was not helping. “Shhh,” she whispered instead, trying to calm him the way he had her when she’d woken up. Maybe they’d both been a bit on edge lately. “Calm down.”

“I’m trying.” He drew in another slow, deep breath, this time shifting to bury his nose just behind her ear. “I was really angry. I have been for a while.”

“I know,” Rey murmured. She opened her eyes. His horns had shrunk slightly, but they hadn’t receded much. His hand trembled, and he gripped her to him harder when he felt her shift her weight.

“It’s not working, is it?”

He shook his head.

“You having trouble there, tiger?” She smoothed some of his hair away from his forehead.

He nodded.

“You’re not doing this on purpose, are you?”

He frowned without opening his eyes. “You think I want to be stuck out here like this?” he growled. “You think I want to have trouble controlling my own body? This is embarrassing.”

Rey sighed. “Alright.” She grabbed his wrist and held the watch he wore up to the light. Almost eight. She had to get ready for work, so they didn’t have much time. “You know what?” She eyed him carefully, from the top of his horns all the way down to the bulge between his legs. “I’m going to try this, and you’re going to go along with it.”

She lifted a hand and wrapped her fingers around the base of one of his horns. As soon as he felt her touch, both of his eyes shot open and he gripped her hips even harder, jerking forward and rubbing against her while he turned her around and pressed her back against the wall of the alcove.

“Rey—” he rasped.

“Don’t argue with me,” she huffed. “I don’t want to hear it.” She stood on her tiptoes so she could reach, sliding her hand as high as she could up the length of that smooth horn, tracing its curves with her palm and massaging them with her fingers.

Ben’s mouth dropped open and he threw his head back, his chest heaving as his breath caught in his throat. He tried to moan, but Rey leaned forward and covered his mouth with hers, swallowing it with a kiss.

“Keep quiet,” she hissed against his lips as she pulled away, still keeping up the steady rhythm with her hand. “You didn’t let me argue with you just now when you stormed in there and tried to kill my landlord.”

“Different,” he ground out. “That was…different.” He gasped for breath and closed his eyes, leaning his head up against the wall behind them.

Rey had a lovely view of his strong neck and chiseled chest and softly sculpted torso at this angle, and she bit back a wicked grin as she ran her free hand along all the deep planes and valleys of him. He really was a specimen. She never saw men built like this, not even among the bodybuilding creatine bros at the gym. It wasn’t the same. They were all show, all gloss, a flash in the pan, their muscles sculpted out of pure vanity, their look more style than substance. But whenever she looked at Ben, all she saw was raw power. Real, functional strength.

He’d threatened to rip Plutt’s head off.

And after what she just saw, she had no doubt that he could have.

And the truth was—

She’d liked it.

She'd liked the way it made her feel.

Rey snaked her free hand slowly beneath the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes had virtually rolled into the back of his head from her ministrations at his horns. “You didn’t kill him, though.”

“No. You—asked me…not to. So I didn’t.”

“That was sexy of you,” she purred, inching her fingers further down, softly, slowly. “All of it was, actually. No one ever stands up for me. Not like that.”

“I will,” he breathed, dipping down to mouth at her neck. “I always will for you. I—”

When she wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock, he sucked in a deep gasp. Rey had to bite back one of her own.

“Oh. Ohhh.” He moaned against her neck. “Y-your hand—it’s so warm.” He began to mouth at her skin again, sucking and suckling along the length of her neck as if he were starving and she was a three-course meal.

He might have marveled at the heat of her, but that wasn’t what astonished Rey.

Despite the fact that he’d at least managed to shrink most of himself down to his usual human size, Ben was still enormous. She’d seen it plenty of times. Knew it intellectually.

But seeing and feeling were two different things.

She couldn’t even wrap her fingers all the way around the base of him.

She adjusted and tried again, but it only seemed to have gotten thicker. When her fingertips brushed against the base, it felt like it had swelled, the skin soft but firm and definitely growing firmer. Rey’s brows twitched together, but before she could explore him further, Ben finally managed to rip his mouth away from her with a sharp, pained gasp.

“Rey—” he choked out, sputtering and seizing under the force of her grip, his eyes wide and wild. “Rey, please. No! If you touch me there, I’ll—”

But whatever else he was going to beg her not to do was lost in a long, low moan as she twisted and dragged her hand down the length of his hard, velvety cock. His hands slid up the back of her shirt and gripped her so hard, she was certain he would leave bruises behind.

“My god,” she whispered in awe. “Ben, how do you think you’re going to actually fit that inside me?”

He only screwed his eyes shut and stifled another groan in response.

This seemed…

This seemed like too much. She’d barely touched him and he was shaking so hard, she thought he might collapse in her arms. He looked utterly wrecked. Was he really that overstimulated too? Did he feel the same way she did when he touched her?

And then a devastating thought clawed its way to the forefront of her mind.

“When was the last time someone touched you?” It had to be at least five hundred years, but given what happened in her dream this morning, she’d hazard a guess that it was even longer than that. She shoved the memory back down before those feelings could fully resurface all the way and turned her attention back to the task at hand, twisting the one that still gripped his horn up and down the length in time with the hand in his underwear.

She could only see one of the two lengths she held, but frankly, they felt equally long.

He didn’t respond. He only dove down to bury his face in her neck again, stifling another anguished groan against her skin while his hips thrust mindlessly into the palm of her hand.

His hands still dug into her back.

For as cold as they were, they scorched her skin.

“Longer than that?”

He only panted harder, his chest fluttering against her own, as if he were fighting off tears. Rey took that as a yes, and her heart sank.

“Does that feel good?” she whispered in his ear, pressing herself up against him as tightly as she could while she stroked him.

He nodded.

He was so sweet with her. He’d probably been dying to touch her—for her to touch him—the entire time they’d been close.

Why hadn’t she let him in sooner?

“You poor thing.” Rey closed her eyes while she nuzzled her nose against his hair. He smelled so fresh and clean, that oddly cool scent he carried on his skin mingling pleasantly with those of his soap and shampoo. She could drown herself in such a concotion.

“Please, Rey,” he moaned softly, his hips stuttering as he tried to slow their movement. “Can we do this at home? I—I want to—”

“Let me make you feel good,” she breathed. He was close. She could feel it. “Just for a moment. I want to.”

“No. No, not me. I need—”

“You’ve been so sweet to me. You’ve taken care of me. Let me take care of you too. You told me you wanted to be good for me, and you are.” She dropped her hand from his horn and dug it deep into those gorgeous shadowy waves of his, caressing his hair softly as she held him even closer, pressing his face gently against her neck and chest. “You’re such a good boy, Ben.”

He moaned and shuddered at those words.

And came apart completely.

Ben was exceedingly heavy when he slumped over her, pinning her back against the shadowed wall of her apartment’s maintenance building, weighty and bulky and every bit as limp and spent as she felt. His horns gradually receded back into his dark hair, and his labored breathing slowed.

Mission accomplished, apparently.

He was still trembling quite a lot, though.

Rey pulled her hand curiously out of his underwear while he recovered, his breath curling cold against her neck and chasing her sweat away. It was covered in a large amount of sticky, pearly spend, and so were his joggers, the wet spot where he’d come soaking straight through the fabric. There was still a bulge there, despite the fact that he'd already come once. She raised an eyebrow.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting from a demon, but it certainly wasn’t something so…relatively normal. But before she could do anything with her hand, Ben shot his hand out and roughly grabbed her wrist. When he finally unburied his face from her neck and tilted his head up to match her gaze, his mottled hazel eyes were dark.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” he muttered bitterly as he ripped the tattered remnants of his shirt away from his neck before wiping her fingers clean with them.

“Did what?” She frowned. Why was he so upset? “You said it felt good, and I wanted to do it. Didn’t you—didn’t you like it?”

He sighed. “Well, yes, of course I did, but—”

“Do you have any idea what you did for me just now in there?”

“Did you think this was transactional?” His frown deepened. “Were you just paying me back?”

“I—I don’t know.” With all their talk about deals and contracts, maybe a part of her had been thinking along those lines.

But it went deeper than that.

And she knew it.

He rolled his jaw. Clearly, he was annoyed. “That’s not what this is about. And it’s not about me. This is twice now in a single morning where you haven’t come. And now you’ve cheated and made me a mess.” He finished wiping her last finger before angrily balling up his ruined shirt and tossing it into the nearby half-open dumpster.

“Well, that’s okay.” She shrugged, trying to play it off. “I don’t usually come anyway.”

“What?”

He’d frozen in place before turning slowly back to face her.

“I know you’ve said that to me before, but I had hoped you were joking.” His expression was one of deep horror, and he was extremely pale. Sweating, even. “Do you want to say it to me again? One more time, Rey. Go ahead.”

That only made her cheeks burn hotter with shame. Was it that shocking?

“W-Well, a lot of women have trouble with that. Ben, I—ah!”

But she didn’t have time to explain or backtrack, because as soon as she’d opened her mouth, he bent down, threw her over his shoulder, and was already heading back towards their apartment at a quick clip.

“You’re not going to work today, Rey,” he growled as he stomped. “Your boss can do the stupid presentation. Or reschedule it. I don’t care.”

“I could get fired if I don’t show up!” she cried, twisting to try to look him in the eye. But her core strength wasn’t that good, and she flopped back over his shoulder. “I need this job, Ben! I need this for us both!”

“No, you don’t!” He stormed up the stairs and keys jangled in his free hand. “There are more important things, and I have already sworn to provide for you. I said so the very first day I arrived!”

“I know, I know, and you’re doing a great job, but you’re not there yet.” She squeaked and clung to him as he mounted the stairs, wrenching her eyes shut.

The ground suddenly seemed dangerously far away from this angle.

“I just got our rent cut in half. I could pay for it myself and more if you needed me to right now. You don’t have to worry.”

Our rent.

It really was.

They officially shared it on paper.

Her heart raced, but it was panic. Things had been changing so fast, even in the last twenty-four hours.

It was all too much.

She wiped sweat away from her brow with the back of her arm. “I know, you did do that, and even though I’m still terrified that Plutt got footage of you as a demon, I thought that whole thing back there was incredible, but—oof!”

Rey had a bit of the wind knocked out of her when Ben dumped her unceremoniously onto the mattress in the living room before bounding back over to the door and locking it. She barely had time to push herself back up onto her elbows before he was on top of her again, his hands firmly gripping her hips to hold her in place.

“You’re going to lie back. You’re going to shut up, and you’re going to let me take care of you. Do you hear me?”

His eyes were like coals simmering red and gold in the dark. He slid his hands under her t-shirt and hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic waistband of her panties.

“I-I, um…Ben, I—” She glanced at the clock in the kitchen. 8 am. Their standup was in an hour and her presentation was just after that.

She had no clothes to wear.

They were all covered in ants.

“Quiet,” he growled. “What did I just say?” He covered her mouth with his own and murmured the words against her lips, biting the bottom one forcefully to drive his point home. “Do what I tell you to, sweet girl. It's my turn to give the orders.”

The way he said it…

She shivered.

But through sheer force of will, she broke away from him and shook her head. “I want to. I want to stay, but I need to go to work. I need to leave now so I can run to Target and buy something to wear.” Almost as if right on cue, the screen on her phone lit up with an email notification. She lunged to the side and grabbed it.

Mitaka.

Already.

He was already working early, and asking for the latest copy of her slide deck so he could review it before they went live.

Shit.

But just as soon as she’d tapped into the app to respond, Ben ripped the phone out of her hands.

“None of that,” he growled again, the primal promise in his voice more intense this time as he slid the phone back across the floor towards the wall. He grabbed her cheeks in one hand and brought her mouth up to his. “Pay attention to me, Rey. Focus on me.” His free hand tugged, sliding one side of her panties down her legs. Fire licked along her skin with it. “Not on some other man.”

“H-He’s my boss.”

“I don’t care.”

He kissed her, long and slow and insistent, and oh, it felt so wonderful. How were his lips so soft? How was he so good at this? None of the men she’d ever been with before kissed her like Ben did, savage and wild and hungry, with sharp teeth and a skilled tongue, ravaging her mouth and lips with all the fire and warmth of a raging inferno, despite his own cool nature. It was exciting. It was delicious.

It lit her up too.

When he cupped her cheek to pull her closer, deepening the kiss, gently prying her lips open with the tip of his tongue, she melted. She melted so quickly, she barely noticed when his other hand shifted and tugged her panties on the other side, slowly sliding them further down her legs.

“How come you keep denying yourself this, Rey?” he whispered between nips with his teeth and quick swipes of his tongue. His fingers curled in her hair and pulled behind her ear. She moaned into his mouth at the feeling of it tingling across her scalp. “How come you don’t think you’re worth the attention? The time?”

“I want to be worth it to someone,” she breathed, nipping at his own lips and relishing the way they reddened so prettily. He was so beautiful. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

His other hand snaked between her legs.

"You're worth it to me. Doesn't that matter?"

"Yes, of course it does."

“Then why do you keep choosing other people—other things—before you choose yourself? Before you choose the people and the things you truly desire?”

When he slid a long, thick finger between her folds, testing, teasing, exploring what awaited him, lightning shuddered through her. Rey realized how wet she was—how wet she had been.

And she jolted back to reality with a gasp.

“No, stop. Ben, stop.” She put a hand on his chest, and he immediately froze. “We can’t right now. I have to go.”

He closed his eyes.

“This is my point exactly,” he muttered, pulling his hand back with a shake of his head. He buried his face in one wide palm.“You did it again just now.”

She cradled his face between both hands and touched her forehead to his. “I know,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. “And I’m sorry. I choose other things right now because I have to. But I won’t forever. I won't for much longer. I promise.” She leaned forward and kissed him once more, deep and slow this time.

She wanted him to know she meant it.

“Let’s finish this when I get home tonight, okay? We’ll have all weekend.” When she opened her eyes, she found that he still hadn’t.

His were still closed, his eyes screwed shut tightly with a grimace.

He looked like she’d hurt him.

“Hey. Look at me, Ben.” When he finally did, all the light had gone from his eyes. That only made the ache in her chest burrow deeper. “When I come home tonight, I’m all yours, okay?”

“I want you now. And you want me now. Why don’t you just stay with me?”

He lifted a hand and covered one of hers with it before he drew her into his chest for a hug. He tucked her head under his chin, so easily, so naturally, it was as if he’d been crafted expressly to hold her like this. Sculpted, just for her, the way he always claimed to be.

“Please stay with me, just this once,” he whispered. “I have an appointment this afternoon. It would be…well, it would be nice if we went together.”

Oh.

Oh, how she wanted to stay with him. But her phone buzzed again with another email, doubtlessly marked urgent.

Rey sighed.

She pulled away.

“Can I borrow a pair of your shorts?”

Rey felt empty.

She’d felt empty all day.

It was hard to shake the sense that she’d made the wrong choice after all.

She felt it in her gut.

After driving straight to Target like a bat out of hell, grabbing the first decent work-appropriate clothes she could find, and snapping the tags off in the dressing room to wear them out while she scanned and paid for them at the self-checkout, she’d stumbled into work right on time with two seconds to spare before they started their daily standup.

And she only smelled vaguely of that weird department-store starch mixed with the light scent of heated plastic. Surely it wouldn’t take too long to dissipate. Hopefully no one would notice.

But Rose sniffed her out almost immediately.

And she cornered her in the bathroom after Rey finished her client marketing pitch.

“Hey.” Rose pinched Rey in the side and glared at her while she pointed at her neck. “What is all that you’re trying to hide under the wrong kind of makeup? You told me you were wearing long sleeves because of the ants that swarmed your apartment last night—” She paused and shook her head in bewilderment. “Super fucked up, by the way. Jesus Christ.” She shuddered before reaching up and flicking a thumb and forefinger at a spot on Rey’s neck. “But you didn’t mention anything about that.”

“Ow! What?” Rey tugged her collar away from her neck and her eyes widened in horror when she caught sight of the marks in the mirror. They were prominent. They must have developed more in the time since she’d left the apartment this morning. “Oh. Oh god.” She paled.

Apparently, there wasn’t enough concealer in the world to hide what Ben had done to her that morning. That, or it rubbed off at some point. She’d just sort of swiped it over the hickeys and smushed it in hastily with her fingertips in the car before badging in and sprinting upstairs to her meeting.

Rose grabbed her arm and pulled the collar down with a huff, standing on her tiptoes so she could inspect the damage closer. “You know you need to color correct for hickeys, right?”

“Color correct?”

“God Rey, you’re hopeless. Get over here.” Rose pulled her in front of the mirror and dug into her workbag, finally emerging victorious with a battered square palette. She popped it open and grabbed the little brush inside. “Green to cancel red, red or orange to tone down blue, purple to combat yellow, then concealer and powder on top. Got it?”

“Not really.”

“Bitch, pay attention and watch me.” She began to buff the brightly-colored cream makeup into the bruises Ben had sucked into Rey’s skin.

“You don’t think the client or Mitaka saw, do you?”

Rose shook her head. “It was dark in there for the Powerpoint and they were pretty focused on business. I’ve just been on the lookout since you haven’t really been keeping me updated.” The corner of her mouth tilted up into a wicked smirk. “Going well, I take it?”

“It’s complicated,” Rey mumbled. She thought back to the dream she’d woken up from this morning, and the ache in her chest intensified. The feelings she’d had in that life…they weren’t just fascination or infatuation or longing.

She’d loved Ben in that incarnation, deeply, wholly, truly. He hadn’t known her at all and she had the sense that she’d never actually seen him before in that lifetime, but somehow, she’d loved him anyway. Rey knew it just as surely as she knew she could breathe.

Well.

Maybe the fact that she’d apparently been visiting Hell every night had made her begin doubting some things she only thought she was so sure of.

“I don’t see how it’s complicated. He likes you. I’ve met him once and that was exceedingly clear to me.” Rose switched colors and patted more of it on top of the green. “And I don’t know if you’ve realized this, Reybs, but given how you talk about him—and how you look when you do—I think you’re head over heels for him too. Seems easy enough to me. Just go with it.”

“I’m trying. I am. Really.” She turned and spread her hands out in front of her friend. “But he just sort of…fell into my lap out of nowhere, and all of a sudden he’s living with me? I feel like I have whiplash. I feel like—”

“Is he a bad roommate?” Rose snapped the palette shut and dug a powder compact out of her bag. “Does he smell bad? Fart? Leave dirty dishes in the sink for you to clean?”

Rey shook her head. “He’s extremely neat and clean, way more than me. He seems to like cleaning the apartment. He smells wonderful, is obsessed with the shower, and he cooks for me regularly. I wouldn’t need to lift a finger if I let him have his way.” It was true. Ben was just as enamored with the “indoor waterfall” now as he had been that first time.

“Girl.” Rose reached up and slapped her cheek lightly. “And he makes out this hard? Jesus Christ, you need to marry the man already. Get on a plane and go to Vegas, stat. Does he fuck as hard as he sucks at your neck?”

“Probably? I…” Rey’s cheeks were a raging inferno. Rose was going to need a lot more of that green to hide the red blazing across her face and neck. “I haven’t found out yet.”

Rose shoved the compact back into her bag and grabbed Rey’s collar, pulling her face down to hers. “You. Need. To. Find. Out. It’s been long enough. Go home and fuck him. Tonight. And then for god’s sake, lock it down, Rey.” Rose shook her back and forth to drive the point home. “The dating scene in Austin is miserable. Stop fucking around and get out as soon as you can. That’s not what you really want anyway. You’re always going on about wanting to start a family, so go and do it.” She let go and Rey stumbled backwards, wavering on her feet. “And let me spend more time with him! I need to get to know him!”

Rey opened her mouth to contradict her, but stopped herself immediately. Rose had a point. She hardly let Ben leave the apartment. None of her friends really knew him. He wasn’t going anywhere, and…

And she didn’t want him to.

She loved having him around.

She wanted to keep him.

Desperately.

So she nodded.

“Alright. Let’s go out soon. Maybe the three of us and Paige, if she wants? Or I could invite Finn?” He’d finally texted her an invite to game night next week, and Ben had seemed really excited to go when she showed him and asked.

Maybe he needed to make some more friends, too.

“The more, the merrier, I say.” Rose turned to look at herself in the mirror and wiped some smudged eyeliner away from her eyes with her thumb. “Okay, let’s go get the rest of this bullshit day done so you can go home and get some.”

The heat in Rey’s cheeks lingered when they left the bathroom. She thought back to what she’d felt in the alcove this morning. She swallowed nervously.

Rose had no idea what sort of monster awaited her back at her apartment.

Focusing was hard that afternoon.

She wanted to go home.

Rey kept looking at the clock on her laptop, sighing each and every time she only saw a minute or two tick by. Mitaka had accosted her after she and Rose came out of the bathroom, wanting to pick apart and critique every part of her presentation. Rey wanted to punch him in the face when he told her that he’d taken extensive notes, and that, according to him, she had a lot to improve on when she was next involved in making a sales pitch.

“I’m not in fucking sales,” she muttered, grabbing a pen and tossing it idly at the padded back of her “temporary” work cubicle. When it bounced off and rolled back down to rest near her hand, she flicked it away bitterly. Rose had been pulled into some other meeting for a project Rey wasn’t a part of, and the rest of the office had gone quiet. A lot of people were on vacation this month, which, frankly, was smart. It was July, and it was blazing hot. Escape sounded wonderful.

Ben was right.

She needed a break.

And maybe they needed to get out of Austin for a while. With him contributing to the rent now, she’d been able to pay off a little of her credit card. While they couldn’t take an exotic beach vacation, maybe they could do some fun things around town. Or go on a little road trip. She should be able to swing a few nights at some motels, and no one was going to fuck with her while she was with a demon, so safety wasn’t exactly a concern.

That much had become very clear this morning.

Rey clicked into their HR portal and checked the dates of her last vacation: a week off at Christmas. That was it, and that was already more than six months ago. She wrinkled her nose at the screen and pulled up an email to her boss.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Vacation Request, July 24 - 28

 

Hi Mitaka,

I’d like to request a week off for summer vacation at the end of July. I—

Her hand spasmed.

Rey yelped and jerked it away from the keyboard.

“Ow!” She shook it out and stared at the bond markings there. She’d sworn they’d flashed red for a split second. “What the hell?” She shook her hand out and hissed.

No one had questioned her on her strange new hand tattoos beyond that first day, and thank god she didn’t stand out in Austin with them, but still. That was odd. Even though she’d gotten used to the look of them twisting along her skin, she hadn’t felt anything like that since—

The markings flickered red again before fading back to black.

Then, all of a sudden, they flared back with a vengeance.

Fire.

Rey sucked in a deep, gasping breath of pure, white-hot pain.

Fire blazed across her palm when the symbols lit up and stayed red, sending pain shooting straight up her arm and directly into her skull. She threw her head back and gritted her teeth, shoving herself away from her desk. The sensation was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, and it spasmed across her body in waves, punching her straight into the gut and folding her clean in half with a low moan.

Panic rose with it.

Something was wrong.

Rey could barely breathe. But she grabbed her phone and stumbled out of the cubicle farm anyway, panting and staggering out into the hallway.

It was a good thing so many people were in meetings or off enjoying vacations and long weekends so that she didn’t have to explain or field concerned looks. As soon as Rey got some distance away from the gigantic open-office workroom, the pain subsided enough for her to breathe again. She slumped against a wall and gasped for a moment while she opened up her messaging app. The red on her hand had faded and darkened slightly.

Rey | Ben, did you feel that?

Rey | What’s happening?

But as soon as she hit send, the raging inferno was back. Rey doubled over her arm, biting back another low groan when another spasm hit. Her markings had burst into flame again, flaring into searing, bright scarlet light, and the symbols pulled and tugged beneath her skin, twisting and dragging her towards something. It felt like they lurched violently to the side, and the force of that magic yanked Rey with it. She fell to the ground with a thud, scrambling to get her feet back under her before tearing off in the direction they’d pulled, lest the markings somehow rip themselves from her skin. The waves of white-hot pain almost seemed to subside if she followed them, and she tore across the floor, clutching a growing stitch in her side and sucking desperately for air as she ran.

Her phone buzzed and she paused just long enough to look down at the screen.

Ben 📚 | Its foen

Ben 📚 | Fine

Fine?!

No, things were NOT FINE.

But before she could respond with as much, more messages pinged through.

Ben 📚 | dnt wrry

Ben 📚 | goona fix

Ben 📚 | my fault

Ben 📚 | im srry

Why were his messages so garbled? His grammar was usually perfect. Far better than hers, even.

Something was very wrong.

Another wave of pain rushed across her body and Rey threw herself into one of the company’s sound-proof phone booths lining the wall nearby, punching the call button frantically on her phone and trying her best not to groan while she waited for him to pick up.

The second the line clicked on and he didn’t immediately say something, she knew something really was deeply wrong.

“Ben, where are you?” she gasped. “What is this?”

There was a slight stretch of silence on the other end followed by the sound of fumbling, possibly between large, sausage-like fingers. “I’m on my way to—t-to that appointment I…” He drew in a trembling breath. “I mentioned.” He’d said it quietly through gritted teeth.

The pain intensified, and Rey braced herself against the wall in the booth. “Where are you going?”

“DMV. I’ll be back home soon.”

“The DMV?!” All her panic faded away and was replaced by absolute dread. She slapped her hand against the booth’s glass. “You are not going to be back soon, Ben. You’ve never been to one before, you don’t know what—”

“Thirty minutes tops.” He swallowed thickly on the other end of the line.

He was suffering too.

“Thirty minutes of this? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’m sorry. It was an accident.” Another stretch of silence. “It’ll hurt me more than it hurts you,” Ben rasped. “I’ll make sure of it. Give me a—a second.” He grunted slightly, and then…

Her pain did recede.

Not all the way, but far more than she expected.

She straightened, but somehow she felt even worse now. Her dread doubled. “Ben, what did you just do? Ben?!”

“Sorry, sweetheart. My fault.” He gasped again, but it was stilted. As if he were trying to suffocate it. “Gotta go. See you at home.”

And then the line went dead.

When Rey got home that evening, the apartment felt strange.

First of all, it was cool inside.

She checked the thermostat. It was set on 74°F, and miraculously, it was…

Accurate.

For the first time in weeks, it was actually 74°F inside.

Her living room had been put back together. The window unit had been taken down and tucked neatly back into its box, freeing up her window once more. Her couch had been repositioned back to where it was supposed to be, and everything was dusted and pristine. It practically sparkled in the golden, evening light streaming in through partially-open blinds.

A dozen scarlet roses, the edges of their petals such a stunning, dark ruby-red that they were almost tinged black, waited for her in a glass vase at the center of her coffee table. There was a note next to them with her name scrawled on the front. She turned it over.

I’m sorry for today, sweetheart.

Dinner is in the fridge with a treat.

It was an accident.

I didn’t mean for that to happen.

Please forgive me.

-Ben

His handwriting was jagged. It wasn’t nearly as beautiful and perfect as it always was.

His hands must have been shaking so hard, he could barely hold the pen when he wrote it.

When she opened the fridge, she found containers of ready-made pasta and salad waiting for her, along with a fancy cupcake covered in dark chocolate curls.

Something about it tugged at her heart.

It was an apology.

She didn’t think he owed her one. But he obviously thought so.

“Ben?” she called, looking around the rest of the apartment. Her door was cracked and her room dark. She walked over and nudged it open.

There he was, lying still on the bed.

Her mattress was back on the frame and her bed was remade. But instead of lying beneath the covers, he was sprawled out on top of them fully clothed. She opened the door wider, and a shaft of light spilled across his face.

He winced with his one visible eye and turned away from the light.

The other was covered with an ice pack.

Something about his face looked…misshapen. His breathing was also far too shallow. His chest barely fluttered as he took slow, deep breaths.