Demonic Contract

by Catherine Banks

  The minotaur snorted at Edan as he entered and pawed the ground.

  “A minotaur? You own a minotaur?”

  “He attacked Tora when she was a child and this is his punishment,” Dad explained.

  That minotaur was the first I had ever seen and had almost killed me.

  “So, if I kill him, I won’t be in trouble?” Edan asked.

  “Bring it on, little boy,” the minotaur threatened Edan.

  “Time is running out,” Dad reminded him.

  Edan fully shifted into his dragon form and charged the minotaur. The minotaur dropped his head down and charged Edan. Edan blasted the minotaur with fire and then latched onto him with his thick jaws. The minotaur bellowed in pain and tried to break free, but Edan didn’t let go.

  “This is a little one sided,” I whispered.

  “He has two more steps,” Dad reminded me.

  Edan pushed through the next hallway still in is dragon form. You could see his rage seething off of him like steam. Why was he so mad? He had agreed to do this. I should be the mad one. I was the one locked in a cage that hung over lava.

  I was still two floors below him. Dad changed the opponents constantly, so I had no idea what he would face next. What I did not expect was for him to crash straight through the floor to get to me. He landed on top of my cage, making the cage sway around.

  “Ah!” I screamed.

  “Hello beautiful,” he said after shifting to his human form.

  “Having fun?” I asked.

  “What caused you pain earlier?” he asked and broke the lock on my cage.

  “Being stabbed in the leg,” I explained and showed him the blood dried on my leg.

  He growled and tore the door off of the cage. “This was not what I thought would happen.”

  “You’re not even to the final event yet,” I informed him.

  He wrapped his arm around my waist and leapt back up through the hole he had created. “What’s the final event?”

  Dad clapped his hands and Edan and I stood in the center of the arena. “The final event,” Dad said with a smile. “Is to defeat the previous record holder in a match to death, knockout, or submission.”

  I brushed myself off and stretched my sore muscles.

  “Who is the previous record holder?” Edan asked, pumped to start fighting.

  I swung my leg around and knocked his legs out from under him with a wide smile on my face. “Me.”

  He chuckled and stood back up. “I should have known.”

  Taking a defensive stance, I raised my hands up and whispered, “Bring it on, Prince.”

  “Which form would you prefer?” he asked me as he circled me slowly.

  The response I almost blurted was not one to be said with my Dad watching. “Whichever you think will be able to defeat me,” I replied instead.

  He smirked and then shifted into his dragon form.

  My smile widened and I let out more of my demonic power, letting my body shift into my true form, the one I could take only when in the Demon Realm. While in the Demon Realm, I could grow to stand ten feet tall and my body grew within proportion. I flexed my wings out and roared at him.

  Edan roared back and charged me. I jumped up over his head and landed on his back, Before I could wrap my hands around his neck, he rolled onto his back and pinned me beneath him.

  “Lazy,” I grunted and bit into his shoulder.

  He growled in pain and rolled away to let me up.

  I wanted to fight him, but I didn’t want to kill him. It presented a lot of issues for me considering my normal fighting style was to kill. He shifted forms again, going back to his human form, and leapt up onto my back with his arm around my throat.

  I cut one of his arms with my tail, grabbed with one hand and tossed him up and over me.

  “I could end this by roasting you, but I’d rather keep your hair on your head,” he told me.

  “I’m trying to figure out how not to kill you,” I admitted.

  He chuckled and I felt his power open a moment before he disappeared. I turned around, trying to find him, but saw the puff of dirt from his last location too late. He pinned me to the ground with his teeth around my throat.

  “Edan wins!” Dad announced.

  “Cheater,” I grumbled.

  He kissed my neck and whispered, “Once you know all of my tricks, our sparring matches will be much harder. I had to take you down quickly while I still could.”

  I let him pull me up and shrank back to my normal height.

  “I have to say, having a girlfriend that much taller than me is very strange.”

  I chuckled and kissed his lips. “Lucky for you, I only get that tall here in the Demon Realm.”

  “As the winner, I give you my full consent and blessing for your relationship.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled while Edan smiled proudly.

  “And, with that, Edan and I must speak alone.”

  “Why?” I asked nervously.

  “Man business,” Dad said with a wink. He set his hand on Edan’s shoulder and the two disappeared.

  “Wonderful,” I growled.

  I transported myself to my room in the castle and flopped down onto my bed with a sigh. I’d lost. I couldn’t believe that I’d lost a fight. Edan had defeated me in front of my dad and my entire race. Would my dad make me do extra training since I had embarrassed the demon race?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Edan refused to tell me what my dad had discussed with him, so I spent the next day sulking on my couch while Emily baked me cookies.

  “I know it’s frustrating to lose,” she said as she mixed the dough. “But isn’t it a good thing to find a boyfriend who is stronger than you?”

  “I’m not upset about losing.”

  She tilted her head as she looked at me.

  “Okay, I am upset about that, but that’s not why I’m sulking. My dad and he spent two hours talking and he refuses to tell me what they discussed.”

  “He passed the tests, so he approves of your relationship, which means it can’t be anything bad.”

  “It’s my dad,” I reminded her. “It could always be bad.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said and tried to console me.

  She brought me out a small bowl of cookie dough with a spoon.

  “I love you,” I whispered and took a big bite.

  Someone knocked on the door and Emily went to answer it. She opened the door and sputtered nonsense before backing away.

  Dad walked inside and I stared in disbelief at him.

  “Hello is the appropriate greeting here,” he told me.

  “What? Why? What are you doing here?” I asked angrily.

  “No one saw me come in,” he promised.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “I need to talk to you,” he explained.

  “Emily, this is my dad,” I said and waved at her.

  She came over and curtsied to him. “Your Highness.”

  He smiled and bowed. “It is an honor to meet you, Emily. You’ve been a wonderful friend for my daughter.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Em, can you give us a moment?” I asked.

  She nodded and left the dorm room immediately.

  “What’s going on?” I asked nervously. He’d never visited me at the college before.

  “There was something I didn’t tell you,” he began. “When Demon royalty begins a serious relationship, they create a contract with their significant other.”

  “A contract?”

  “In order to ensure that we aren’t taken advantage of or harmed, we make a contract with them to ensure everything goes well.”

  “Are you saying that I have to make a contract with Edan?” I asked as fear constricted my throat.

  He nodded. “I already told him about it. He’s aware of the type of contract you would need to create and what would happen should he break it.”

  Oh no. That was why he wouldn’t talk
to me about it.

  “I guess that means our relationship is over,” I whispered sadly. “And I finally found someone who didn’t care I was a demon. I didn’t think it would end like this.”

  “Not so fast,” Edan said.

  I growled, startled that he had appeared without me hearing.

  “You scared me,” I whispered.

  “You’re so quick to give up on us.”

  “I’m not giving up on us!” I snapped. “I don’t want us to end.”

  “Then let’s hash out the contract.”

  “Edan, are you sure? A contract with a demon…”

  “It’s not a contact with a random demon. It’s a contract with you, my girlfriend.”

  “This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly.”

  “Why are you so scared?” Edan asked softly.

  “This one doesn’t seem inclined to kill you,” Dad noted.

  I growled. “Thanks for pointing that out.”

  Dad sighed. “Daughter, I understand that you’re dealing with something unknown to you. This is something that is done to protect you and I won’t allow you to continue without doing this. The contract can be cancelled by you at any time. It won’t harm him unless he does something against the terms and conditions. And, you get to write those.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked Edan.

  He smiled and said, “I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.”

  “Alright,” I mumbled.

  “Let’s get this contract worked out.”

  Dad set down a thick document on the coffee table and then sat in the corner of the couch. “I’ll be here if you have questions.”

  “You already had one written?” I asked in disbelief.

  “You’re my only daughter and my heir. I had this written when you were five.”

  I wasn’t certain if I should be offended or pleased.

  Edan snapped his fingers and his assistant appeared next to him. “You rang, sir?”

  Edan pointed at the stack. “Brief this please.”

  He bowed to me. “A pleasure to see you again, Princess.”

  I inclined my head. “It’s nice to see you as well.”

  He looked over at Dad in shock and then bowed to him. “Your Highness.”

  Dad smirked and inclined his head. “Nice to meet you.”

  Pleasantries out of the way, he put on a pair of glasses, chanted a spell, and then went through the entire document in two minutes.

  He removed the glasses and tucked them in his shirt pocket. “You cheat on her, try to harm her, harm her, or anything a typical boyfriend shouldn’t do and she gets your soul for ten years.”

  “Dad,” I groaned.

  “It’s hardly a punishment,” Dad argued.

  “And if she does any of those things?” Edan asked.

  “You are allowed to punish her as you see fit, aside from permanent mutilation or death,” his assistant answered.

  “That’s a rather broad area for interpretation,” I commented.

  Dad shrugged. “I figured you would be smart enough not to do anything to warrant punishment.”

  “The contract expires once you are married or once one of you dies,” the assistant explained further.

  “Anything you think needs changing?” Edan asked.

  He had a lot of faith in his assistant. It made me view him in a different light.

  “No. It’s a pretty basic contract as far as royal courting goes.”

  Dad looked at me smugly.

  Yeah, eat it up. I wasn’t going to give you the satisfaction of saying anything.

  “Great, thank you,” Edan said and dismissed him.

  Dad held out a pen and a knife to Edan. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “What happens after I sign and apply a blood fingerprint?” Edan asked.

  “Then Tora seals the contract with you and you’re both marked.”

  “The mark is permanent,” I explained to Edan. “Even if we break the contract and go our separate ways, I will always have the mark with you and be able to locate you.”

  “I’m aware.”

  I wanted to ask if he was sure again, but bit my tongue. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done one,” I reminded Dad.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said with no encouragement whatsoever.

  “You’ve done one before?” Edan asked.

  “Not for this, but I’ve made a contract before,” I explained.

  “For what?” Edan asked.

  I held out my arm to show him my talisman, currently a bracelet. “To have this made. It has my blood in it, so I wanted to make sure that he didn’t do anything else with my blood or do anything funny to the talisman.”

  He relaxed a bit and then signed his name on the contract. I felt a tug in my core as he signed, the document already tied to me by Dad’s magic. Edan cut his thumb and then pressed a bloody thumbprint to the document. I took the pen from him, signed, put my thumbprint and then rested my hand against the center of his chest.

  “Contract number two has been signed by both parties. This contract will remain in effect until marriage, death of one or both of the signees, or by my will. Do you agree, Prince Edan of the Dragons?”

  “I agree.”

  My magic gathered, my body changed, and I drove a red tether into Edan’s soul. He growled, but didn’t move.

  “Our contract is sealed.”

  “Our contract is sealed,” Edan repeated.

  “You are marked and though the contract may end, the mark will never disappear.”

  “Understood.”

  “What was that?” Edan’s mother asked with a snarl as she threw open my door.

  Dad was up and standing between us before I could even react. She looked at him and her eyes widened.

  “Easy,” I whispered.

  Dad teleported back to the couch and looked as though he had never moved.

  “Just tying the final knots for our courting,” Edan explained.

  She exhaled and ran a hand through her hair. “You should have warned me. I freaked out.”

  “Sorry,” he apologized.

  “You marked him, right?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, now it’s official. Now you’re under a Demonic Contract,” she said with a wide smile. I’d never met someone who had smiled about their son being bound to a contract with a demon before.

  “Picture!” she ordered. Dad was one step ahead of her and set up a camera on the far side of the room.

  Edan kissed the side of my head and whispered, “Tomorrow we are running away from them for a few days.”

  I nodded and then leaned my head against his chest, hearing his heartbeat and feeling him through our dual markings.

  We stood together and his mother said, “Everyone say, ‘Demonic Contract.’”

  “Demonic Contract!” we said as the camera took the picture.

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