The Summoned Demon: 9. The Demon's Bride

Mara lay awake in the silence of her apartment.

Her body still bore the bruises of his punishments, the ache between her legs a constant reminder of the nights she’d lost to him. But more than the marks on her skin, it was the gnawing in her chest, the emptiness that hollowed her out whenever he was gone, that broke her.

She had tried to fight him. Tried to banish him. Tried to hold on to some semblance of the life she’d known.

But the truth was inescapable.

She wasn’t Mara anymore. Not entirely. She was his.

The shadows thickened in her bedroom, the air heating with a familiar pulse. Her heart leapt. She didn’t move, didn’t resist, as he appeared—towering, naked, eyes burning with that infernal hunger.

This time, she didn’t flinch.

“You came back,” she whispered, breath trembling.

“I never left,” the demon said, voice low and rough. “And I never will.”

He expected fear. He expected pleading.

But she rose from the bed, bare