The Demon King’s Bride by Skye Wilson
Bea
“Okay, what the fuck was that?” Joan perched on the counter of the vanity and cut right to the chase. “Because what it looked like was you making out with Simon—which I know good and well you’d never do.”
“Not if you were in your right mind, anyway,” Ava added with a wince. She touched the back of her hand to my forehead. “Are you feeling okay, Bea? Are you like…drunk, or something?”
“I’m not drunk,” I promised her. “And I’m feeling…okay. I guess. I think.”
“After the way you kissed Simon? Obviously, you’re not.” Joan crossed her arms and gave me a maverick’s stare. “Who are you and what have you done with our Bea?”
“I’m not the one you should be asking that.” I sighed. How the hell was I going to explain this to them? Every option sounded crazier than the last—which meant I was just going to have to settle for the truth. “The man that I just married… That wasn’t Simon.”
“Does he have a less dickish twin brother that we didn’t know about?” Ava asked. “A clone, maybe?”
“It sure looked like him,” Joan agreed.
“Not a twin. And not a clone.” I sighed again. “He says he’s a demon.”
“Simon? A demon?” Ava’s eyes went wide as she blinked several times.
“I’d buy it,” Joan scoffed. “I did see him make a pass at a cocktail waitress during the rehearsal dinner last night, you know. But that doesn’t explain why you were making out with him just now.”
“No—that was Simon hitting on the waitress,” I said with a sigh. “But from the moment I walked down the aisle onward… He hasn’t been Simon at all. He’s a demon, and I don’t mean that metaphorically.”
Ava and Joan stared at me for a long moment without saying anything.
They thought I’d lost my mind.
I wasn’t entirely sure that they were wrong.
But instead of calling me crazy—which I was pretty sure they had every right to—they just looked at each other and shrugged.
“Okay. So he’s a demon, then.” Ava was the first to speak. Her brow furrowed with focused seriousness. “To interfere with a wedding like this, he must be a pretty powerful one. Usually they steer clear of those.”
“Usually?” I blinked. “What do you mean, usually?”
“She means they don’t like hanging out in places full of ringing church bells and happy tears and declarations of love,” Joan explained. “But then again, I guess you and Simon were never really—”
“How do you two know so much about demons? You’re both taking this…surprisingly well,” I pointed out. Better than they’d taken the sight of me making out with a man they thought was Simon, at any rate.
“My mom’s told me about them, mostly,” said Ava. “You know how she is—all crystals and horoscopes and moon phases. She knows all sorts of stuff about this kind of thing.”
“Uh-huh.” Slowly, I nodded. I guessed Ava did have a point. Just looking at Ava’s mom, you’d never be able to tell she was into all of that witchy nonsense. But every time I’d visited Ava back in college, I hadn’t managed to escape without having my palm looked at and my tea leaves read. It checked out. But historically speaking, Joan was always a little more of a skeptic. Or she had been, once upon a time. I turned my gaze to her. “And you?”
“I watch a lot of horror movies. Read a lot of spooky books.” Joan lifted a shoulder lazily. “As for trusting you… Call it gut instinct, I guess.” She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. “It sounds…plausible, somehow. Don’t ask me why. Like something out of a dream that I forgot the plot of as soon as I woke up.”
“What does he want with you, though?” Ava asked, looking worried again. “To hurt you, do you think?”
“I think he wants to protect me, actually.” I pursed my lips. “A shadow-thing attacked me just a little bit ago. He killed it. He can make fire appear in his hand. He showed me his wings. And when I walked down the aisle—when he kissed me… he didn’t look like Simon at all. He looked like…” I fanned myself with my hand, suddenly feeling incredibly warm. “Like if Don Draper from Mad Men and Gerard Butler had a lovechild.”
“Weird,” said Ava. She wasn’t wrong.
“Hot,” said Joan. She wasn’t wrong either. Not even a little bit. “But…okay. Let me play devil’s advocate for just one sec. Are you sure that Simon didn’t just…drug you, or something? Slip something in your champagne so maybe you wouldn’t realize what a horrible husband he’d be and pull a Runaway Bride before he could tie you to him for life? I’m okay with you macking on a demon, Bea, but if this is just some kind of trick Simon is playing on you—”
“I don’t feel like I’ve been drugged.” I imagined if I did, all of this would make a lot more sense. But the fact of the matter was…
I’d seen things today that defied all normal logic and reason.
All of this felt incredibly real.
“If he’s not Simon, who is he, then?” Ava furrowed her brow. “Did you get his name? In those demon possession movies, the priest always tries to get the demon’s name.”
“I’ve always wanted to try my hand at an exorcism.” Joan stroked her chin. “You think he’d let you tie him to a bed while I go rustle up some holy water and a crucifix?”
“We’re not exorcising him,” I told Joan sternly. “He says his name is Abaddon. Don, for short. He says we’ve, ah…met. Before. But my memories were taken. Or something.” I started pacing. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all myself, truth be told.”
“Then you know how suspicious that sounds,” Joan pointed out. “Hey, Bea, I’m a magical demon hottie! Don’t worry about the way I’m wearing your husband’s skin—you know me! You just don’t remember, because, like, amnesia and shit!”
“It is kind of suspicious,” Ava agreed. “Demons work in lies, Bea. That’s kind of their entire thing, you know? Simon might not be tricking you, but this…this entity might be.”
I cringed. “Are you going to call me crazy if I tell you that I…kind of trust him?”
I did. I knew it was insane, but there was something between Don and me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Every time I tried to grab hold of it, it slipped away through my fingers. Like trying to snatch a stream of water or make a rope out of sand.
I felt it every time he touched me and every time we kissed.
“Oh, honey.” Joan shook her head. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
“If he’s as hot as you say he is…” Ava shrugged. “We’d call you crazy for wanting to bang Simon. Not some infernal hot guy. Simon’s not bad looking, of course, but if this demon guy is some kind of succubus sex god…”
“We haven’t fucked,” I promised them. “I’m not that stupid.”
“You mean you haven’t fucked yet,” Joan corrected me.
A blush was rising to my cheeks.
They had a point. They knew me well.
Being essentially engaged to a man I didn’t want to marry from the time I was born hadn’t exactly led me to make the most…intelligent decisions about boyfriends in the past.
But at least when I made bad decisions, they always looked good at the time.
“He says I’m in danger. More demon shit,” I explained. “He says that Simon’s responsible. That Simon made a deal with something from Hell, and now…I’ve essentially got some kind of satanic price on my head.”
“And where is Simon?” Joan asked.
I blinked. “Um…”
Ava snorted. “Bea! You didn’t even ask, did you?”
“I tried!” I threw my arms out in frustration. “I’m kind of dealing with a lot right now, thanks.”
Which was true. But just as true was the fact that, all things considered…
Simon had always been kind of an asshole.
If he’d made some kind of deal with the Devil that put me in danger…was I really supposed to care?
“Look, we get it. This is a lot.” Joan grabbed my lipstick from the vanity and brought it over to me. She held my face steady with one hand while she applied it to my lips with the other. “If even part of what this Don creature has told you is true, then you’re right not to worry about that weird little fucker you were supposed to call a husband.”
“But if it’s a lie…” Ava hugged herself as her voice trailed off. Her eyes were full of concern.
“Something weird is definitely going on,” Joan said as she capped my lipstick again. “But until we find out what that is… We just don’t want you to get hurt, Bea.”
“I don’t want me to get hurt either.” I pressed my lips together to help set the lipstick and resisted the urge to run my tongue between them. I was nervous. Maybe even afraid. With Don around, it had been hard to tell exactly what I felt. “Or the two of you, for that matter. I don’t know what other evil shit might be lurking around this wedding now.”
“We’ll be fine.” Joan’s eyes glinted with promise. “I don’t remember if you recall, but I do know three different martial arts. If any demons crashing your reception tonight try to fuck with us, I’ll kick their asses straight back to hell. This so-called husband of yours included, if he doesn’t stay in line.”
“If he isn’t Simon, are you actually even married to him at all?” Ava asked.
I considered it for a moment.
She had a good point, but in my heart, I already knew my answer.
He was.
“I feel married to him. If that makes sense,” I said after a long pause. “It feels… like fate, or something.”
“That’s sweet, darling,” Don said from the doorway. He looked like Simon again. From his blond hair to his blue eyes to his broad-but-could-be-broader chest. But even though he looked like Simon, his words and his attitude and the suave way he leaned against the doorframe—those were undeniably all Don. “I feel exactly the same way.”
“Well. Speak of the devil,” Joan quipped. Her eyes narrowed as she looked Don over. “What fiendish things are you up to, I wonder?”
“Joan,” Ava hissed, but Don seemed more amused than angered by Joan’s words.
“Just thought it might be time for me and my blushing bride to make our grand entrance to the reception,” Don said. “If she’s ready, that is.”
“Do you want us to stay with you?” Ava asked me quietly.
“Maybe we should work this guy over for some information first,” Joan suggested, cracking her knuckles. “Find out what’s really going on here.”
“I’m fine,” I promised them. “I’ll see you on the dance floor. Okay?”
Joan and Ava both hugged me before they left. As Joan headed past Don, she gave him a look of blatant dislike. Ava glanced up at him in suspicion, but quickly turned away.
As for me…
I went and got my shoes.
Don was right.
If we were going to keep up this charade, we’d need to go face the guests eventually.
Part of me still wondered why I was even keeping it up at all.
“Wait,” Don said as I moved to slip my feet back into my heels.
“Why?” I knitted my brow together. “I can’t exactly go back downstairs barefoot.”
“No, you can’t.” Don crossed toward me and took the shoes from my hands. “But I can at least make them more comfortable for you before we go.”
I gasped as flame appeared beneath his palm again.
“Don! You can’t just set my fucking shoes on fire! Those are vintage! They’re priceless!” I dove for the heels in desperation—how the fuck was immolating my shoes going to make them more comfortable?—but Don pulled them up out of my reach.
“I’m not setting them on fire.” He ran the flame in his palm over the pair of heels quickly. To my relief, they didn’t go up in smoke. “Demons invented high heels, you know. Making them wearable is the least I can do to atone for it. Besides…” He smiled down at me as he handed the heels back over. “You’ve got pretty feet. It would be a shame to leave them aching all night.”
I swallowed hard as I placed the heels back on the floor.
Right. That was why I hadn’t called security on Don.
It wasn’t the ache in my feet that I was worried about.
Every time he looked at me—every time he was even in the same room as me—there was a much more present ache in my body. It was settled right between my thighs, and it was almost impossible to ignore.
I might have still been in some kind of demonic danger, too. It still sounded crazy, and I knew it…
But I couldn’t rule it out. Not entirely.
Not now that I’d seen fire appear in Don’s hands and wings spring from his back.
When I slipped my feet back into the heels, it made his story even more convincing.
Just like he’d promised—they were actually comfortable now.
If that wasn’t proof of some kind of magic going on here, I didn’t know what was.
But I needed more than proof. I needed answers. Real ones.
And to get those, I needed more time with Don.
Preferably, alone.
“Are you ready, my bride?” Don offered me his arm and a charming, lopsided smile.
I took a deep breath, then took his arm in my hand.
“I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”