Deal with the Devil

34. Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-three:

Amelia

TW: Minor Emesis

Put the book back, okay cool…how do I do that?

Of course, her first thought was to stand in front of a mirror. Knox’s mirror. She called Persephone’s name to no answer. She even tried his downstairs office, putting the book on the shelf and stepping back. It felt close but not close enough. She needed a connection to the Nightmare Realm, a way to get back to it. You’re thinking like a human…

You’re not human anymore.

Amelia kept applying human tactics to an eldritch problem. Instead, she climbed the steps and headed for the upstairs office. Opening the door, she was drenched in darkness and a thick stench. Lighting a candle she found in the hall—thanks to breaking the lights last time she was in here—she found the horrors of their fight. Declan was nothing but discarded, rotten parts strewn around the room. Rick, headless and flattened against the floor, sat near the far end.

Glancing down at the book, she followed the thrumming toward the center of the room. The flame danced as she stood at the center. She looked for Persephone before sighing and rolling her eyes. Of course, the witch would leave her with more riddles than answers. Amelia eyed the book for answers but found none. It was just her and a room full of rotting bodies…and a fucking candle. She hung her head back in exhaustion.

It's gotta be a simple thing…just…just put it back.

Amelia pursed her lips, lifting her head and eyeballing one of the bookshelves. All of them were empty, the discarded books having attacked Rick in the chaos. Stomping up to the shelf, she tapped her fingers with irritation against the fleshy cover of the tome. Then, she shoved the book into place on the shelf. Her candle was snuffed, and she was engulfed in darkness. Amelia kept her eyes closed for a long time, trying to keep her fear at bay.

When she opened her eyes, fingers still wrapped around the spine of the book, she was in a red library. Swirling balls of angry fire danced over her head. Books slithered out of their shelf to peak at her with eyes embedded in their covers. When she snapped her attention to them, they shoved themselves back into the shelf.

“Ah,” she slipped back from the shelf. “Library of Madness.”

Amelia wasn’t sure how she knew, or why it came to her head, but she wasn’t going to ask many questions. She didn’t know much about her new existence as a horror, but she imagined this was par for the course for one. Amelia followed the aisle of the library, letting her fingers trace the spines. Some had actual bones, some were leather bound, some were…less gross than a flesh bound book, some were worse.

She stepped out of the aisle into the middle of a massive circular library. The shelves went on endlessly, standing up into a cloudy ceiling of a room. When Amelia glanced down, she wasn’t in her pajamas. Instead, she was dressed in red robes cinched with black cords. Her bare feet slid across obsidian stones toward the center of the library to soak it all in. Arms out to her side, she spun in a slow circle. It smelled just like the Mumfords bookstore. Paper and thick dusty jackets with a hint of coffee. It brought a weird smile to her lips.

“Amelia?”

She stopped her spin, staring wide eyed into the shelves. Knox’s voice haunted her as she searched for him. In the dizzying shelves of endless, unknowable knowledge, she couldn’t find him. But she heard him call her name again. When she turned around again, there was a single book on a desk that hadn’t been there before. Typical. Amelia pulled out the chair at the desk and sat before the book. The flask provided by the crone was on the desk next to the tome as it flipped open. Fluttering pages nearly scraped her nose as she leaned into it. The book stopped on a page and settled.

Drink the flask.

Amelia took up the silver container and twisted off the skull top. It didn’t smell of anything. It didn’t taste of anything. It didn’t feel of anything. Amelia tossed her head back and let the nothingness pour down her throat. Yet, she felt something splash in her stomach. It cramped immediately upon impact. Churning and swirling until she bent over in pain. Amelia’s forehead pressed into the crinkling pages of the tome as she clutched her belly. Worse than anything, it was like someone put a hand mixer in her organs and flipped it on high. Her toes curled hard enough to pinch. Amelia’s eyes slammed shut and fireworks went off behind her eyelids. Her body wavered, flopping left then right in attempt to make it comfortable again.

Then she fell out of the chair. The vomit happened first. It spewed out of her and left her whirling in her own body. Amelia slapped her sweaty palms against the floor, weakly dragging herself away from the desk.

Oh great…it was poison.

“Not poison, pet, but I doubt that makes it taste any better,”

A warm chuckle followed by a tender rub to her back brought Amelia’s rogue guts back under control. She glanced up from the floor to Knox, looming over her in all his purple glory. Slicked back hair, broad smile full of razor teeth, tail flicking behind him, her Knox stood before her. She sat back on her calves when she realized the vomit was gone.

“How did that work? I thought…I just… I had your soul.” She took his offered hands.

“Our contract stated you got me in exchange for a lie…it never said you had to keep it. You devoured me when I broke the contract. You just needed to cough me back up, so to speak.” He brushed the back of his knuckles across her cheeks lovingly. Amelia leaned into his touch, stumbling forward into him. “Hello, pet.”

“You absolute fucker,” she hissed, throwing her arms around him. He grunted as she fell against him, collapsing in his arms. Knox chuckled softly, clutching her just as tight. Amelia rubbed her face into his collar. He even smelt like her Knox. Like he’d never been torn apart. Breathing him in, she greedily drank in every bit of him. The feel of him in her arms, his kiss against her hair, his fingers burrowed into her sides, all of it. Amelia was finally home again.

“Amelia,” he sighed dreamily, kissing her over and over.

After an eternity soaking him back in, she ripped out of his arm and slugged him across the face. Knox cackled as he stumbled backward. Amelia’s fists quaked as she roared, “How fucking dare you pull that shit with me, you absolute fucker! How dare you rip my heart out like that and die before me! How dare you break your promise to me! Did you do this because you knew I’d be able to bring you back? Huh? Was that a backup plan of yours? Did you know that outcome too? Huh?”

Knox licked his already bleeding lip before peeking up at her. “Pet, I had no idea you’d be able to bring me back or that Persephone would even offer her services. I’d done nothing to deserve her help. Nor have I earned your mourning me enough to threaten an eldritch god to bring me back. I mean, pet, you’ve always had the absolute gall, but what you did with Persephone? Aravis? Beheading Declan? You continue to amaze me…and surprise me.”

Amelia panted for air, hunched over as her body sank from the release of pent-up rage. “What were you thinking?”

“When?” He raised a brow.

“When you looked me in the eye and told me you wouldn’t die, Knox.” She tossed her arms out with exasperation.

“Amelia…I looked at you and thought to myself, would I rather be owned by you for all eternity or be dead…and there was never any question.”

Knox closed the distance between them, his hands finding hers until he was pulling her into his chest. Amelia gasped as he dropped her palms for her cheeks, holding her locked in his intense gaze. Golden cracks sparkled around the royal purple orbs that bore through her. His thumbs brushed against her skin, leaving her shivering.

“I have been yours, Amelia, since I cornered you in that rotten cabin in the woods. I have not thought of anyone else, considered any other outcome, nor wanted anything but you since that moment. And whether you carry my soul in your pocket or allow me the pleasure of being at your side, I belong to you.”

Amelia stood there, breathlessly. He waited for her to find the words. For an author, she’d never felt at a loss for words until she slithered her hands up his torso to cup his face. Her palms glowed with red and black lines as she breathed, “And I belong to you.”

Lines of inky magic ran up her wrists, across her forearm, and bit into her shoulder.

A different type of contract…a different type of deal sank into her flesh…a deal for the rest of eternity.

“Now, pet, let’s go home. I have blood to get out of the floor, a staff to apologize to, and an empire to run…with you at my side.”

Amelia let him lead her back through the library, a portal crackling ahead of them in the middle of an aisle. They would need to deep clean the house and sanitize everything. Plus, there was the need to throw open all the windows to let the stench out. And, of course, she would need to go see her sister and Brayden. They ought to know she’d survived. Not to mention she owed the Mumfords a huge apology as she was likely going to need to quit.

But after all that! Amelia smiled to herself as she buzzed with a new idea. A new book brewed in her mind as they returned to King’s Fall.