Chapter 6 All That Glitters #2
“No, you can’t start calling me that ei—oh.” Kat bit her lip as he extended a glass jar and tiny spoon. She nodded, but when he offered her cream next, she just shrugged.
He flicked his tongue over his bottom lip, black eyes squinting in thought, and Kat’s spine shivered—he was studying her, and she did not like it. “How do you typically take your tea?”
“I don’t know,” she blurted, hands finding each other in her lap and fingers twisting up. “Cream is expensive—I didn’t know you could put it in tea.”
Azrion grinned, but it wasn’t tinged with amusement at her stupid admittance, only with excitement. “You should try it this way then to see if you like it.”
She watched the milk bloom in thick clouds below the tea’s surface, not a drop of it spilling when Azrion tilted the spout back with confidence she couldn’t imagine. She reached for the cup, but he laid a finger on the rim.
“Do let it cool first.”
Kat swallowed, hands shoved once again into her lap. A quick look around told her a pair of demons was staring, though they snapped their heads away the moment she set her human eyes on them. She squeezed her knees together, wishing she could slide beneath the table entirely.
Nope, it’s fine, this is fine, everything is fi—
“For you.”
Oh, fuck.
Kat glared at the bouquet Azrion brandished then slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. He just grinned back, and anger bloomed in her chest more brilliantly than any of the flowers being thrust in her face.
Gods, it was so easy to be angry with this demon.
Kat chose to scream curses into pillows when she was alone or stab her needle a little too hard into its pin cushion instead of show irritation to anyone.
Her sister only saw it when things were exceptionally bad, but Kalypso was safe.
Azrion, though? Kat hardly knew him, yet she dared flash him her most murderous eyes, her crankiest thoughts laid bare on her face.
And he just kept grinning.
What an idiot. A self-important, decadent, boisterous, safe idiot.
A tingle in Kat’s chest tugged at the harshness thrumming through her body. Was that it? The reason she’d agreed to come without an escape plan? Beyond the coin and the fact this was her best chance to help her sister, was she here because Azrion was…different?
He still made her nervous—everything did—but he wasn’t exactly suffocating, and he’d yet to turn on her.
So many others were one frown away from flinging insults or fists, but not him.
Even when she let herself be more than a quiet, helpful shadow, he didn’t try to squash whatever she grew toward.
It was like she could feel herself expanding just from being near him.
But expanding was scary—much scarier than hiding away in the windowless sorting room where no one would ever see her or that potential for meanness she kept hidden away.
Though Azrion probably deserved a little meanness.
Kat snatched the flowers and hid them in her lap. “Thank you.”
Azrion frowned then, but only in a confused sort of way. “Another human courting custom I got wrong? Let me guess: gifting flowers is akin to challenging one to a duel?”
She shook her head, shoulders drooping. The blue blooms were so pretty, and she’d just crushed half of them for no reason other than her embarrassment. “I just don’t know what to do with them,” she muttered.
Azrion flourished a hand at an empty vase, one he had probably prepared long before her arrival, and she’d just failed to notice in her panic when sitting down.
She stuffed the flowers in, and he balanced the vase—helpful, but also annoying.
The two fell into blessed silence when it was done, and Kat focused once again on her breath.
And then Azrion again opened his mouth. “As I was saying, darling, thank you ever so much for joining me this evening. I will admit, I had a moment of doubt late last night while I was lying in bed contemplating how our rendezvous might turn out, but here you are, defying my worst fears that I would be sitting here alone, forlorn, heartbroken.”
“Don’t say you were thinking about me in bed ever again.
” She picked up her cup as Azrion laughed with something like earnestness.
She found herself smirking too, so she hid her lips behind the rim.
Her first sip was a nutty, creamy surprise, and she almost said as much then decided one borderline salacious joke was enough.
Azrion could pretend to be as friendly as he wanted, but he wasn’t getting the same out of her.
“I thought about you while I was making breakfast too,” said Azrion as he folded his arms and leaned in.
“And while I was out for lunch with my friend Fenthorn, and he’s usually very good at taking up all of one’s thoughts with all of his talking.
You popped into my mind while I was fixing a rather complex water rune for your little red friend too.
Even magic can’t stop your aura from clouding my thoughts. How was your day?”
She put down her cup and glowered again. He was lying, of course, and she didn’t need a word of it if all of this was meant to be fake. “I thought we were here to discuss the details of this…partnership.”
“Straight to business, I see. I admire your devotion.” He clicked his tongue and picked up a pastry, took a clean bite, placed it down on the edge of his saucer without dropping a crumb, wiped off his undirtied hands, and encouraged her to eat as well.
It should have been annoying—and it was, at least a little—but Kat found herself mesmerized.
Every move, every breath, was calculated.
Azrion probably thought it all culminated in the perfect mask, but Kat knew too much about masks herself to fall for the charms of one.
He had to be other things beneath it, just like how Kaly hid her softness, how her father had hidden his fear, how her mother had hidden—
Azrion was waiting, and the knot in Kat’s stomach drew tighter.
He wanted her to comply before he would go on.
She flicked her gaze to the pastries—an easy thing to give into—felt her fingers twitch like they would move on their own, heard that familiar voice screaming from the back of her mind to just take a bite, just be good and do it.
But she fought it all and remained still.
Even her breath refused to come. No, she silently told him with everything but her voice.
The demon just shrugged, and because her personal bar was in the lowest of the hells, Kat’s whole body softened with relief.
“In regard to our arrangement, I’ve written up a contract.” From the inner pocket of his coat, Azrion pulled out a scroll and presented it to her. “There’s plenty of room for any amendments you’d like to make.”
Kat’s reprieve from dread ended as soon as it came, a chill running up her spine despite still wearing her cloak. “A contract? For a relationship? How in the hells does that work?”
“I thought you might appreciate something to hold over my horns to make sure I pay up—which I will, of course, but you have no reason to believe me, do you?”
“Good point,” she said, only a little annoyed to give it to him. “Actually, that’s very…thoughtful.”
He preened at her simple, passionless compliment, his new grin not that smug, all-knowing one, but sweet and almost bashful. She strangled the chuckle that wanted to slip out at how dopey he looked.
A breeze blew through the courtyard then, rustling the contract and Azrion’s silver hair. Kat was hit with a new smell, one that wasn’t sugary or toasted, but something earthier. Something that was coming off the demon that reminded her of being tucked up safely in the trees.
He smoothed the parchment out on the table, and she laid a hand against the bottom to keep it flat.
The softness shocked her—vellum, she assumed, because she had stolen some once and never forgot its feel.
Kat silently thanked Kaly for insisting she learn to read many years ago even if her sister didn’t spend half as much time burying her nose in the same books—the contract was fucking long.
But as she read, she found it was just full of frilly language, too many long and labyrinthine sentences, and a plethora of unneeded parentheticals—none of which were bad things and should have been expected at this point in the series.
Ultimately, it read that the two were entering into an agreement of their own free will and could leave it at any time for any reason—Kat without consequence, but Azrion would have to pay her no matter the circumstance.
That was surprising enough that she mindlessly reached for a pastry as she continued to dissect the longer paragraphs.
“What does this word mean?” She pointed with the half-eaten sweet and littered the fancy vellum with crumbs.
“Lykalia,” he said, and the strange word was almost obscene on his tongue.
“It’s a celebration of sorts, but we may achieve our goal before it occurs.
See here, I’ve written out a calendar of the dates that will require your company.
Any one of them may inspire Melora to come running back into my waiting arms.”
Kat had become distracted by one of Azrion’s long fingers sliding gracefully over the vellum toward her, but then she heard that tightness in his voice when he mentioned the female demon.
She sat back and inspected his face. “I want to know more about her.”
“Why?” he asked, and the word carried none of the music the rest of his speech did.