I made it until Saturday morning before I snapped.
Friday had been a blur of pointed looks from coworkers, whispered speculation about my "romantic surprise visit," and Sarah cornering me at lunch to demand every single detail about what happened in that conference room.
"He looked so intense," she'd gushed. "Like you were the only person in the world. It's so romantic!"
Right. Nothing says romance like emergency supernatural energy transfers because your forced demonic binding is failing.
I'd gone home at five, as commanded. Azryth had been working in his office, door closed. We'd eaten dinner in silence, well, I'd eaten. He'd mostly pushed food around his plate while staring at his tablet like it contained the secrets of the universe.
The air between us felt different, charged. Heavy with everything we'd felt during that transfer and were both determinedly not talking about.
I'd gone to bed early. No shared dreams, but I'd woken up three times anyway, hyperaware of him across the hall, his presence, his emotions bleeding through just faintly enough to be distracting.
By Saturday morning, I was done.
I found him in his home office, surrounded by papers and looking like he'd been up for hours. Maybe he had been, I was starting to suspect he didn't sleep much.
"We need to talk," I announced from the doorway.
He didn't look up. "I'm working."
"I don't care. We need to talk. Now."
That got his attention. He set down whatever document he'd been reading and looked at me with those unreadable ember eyes.
"About?"
"About the binding, about all the things you haven't told me." I crossed my arms. "I want a full explanation, every clause, every risk, every tiny detail you've been conveniently leaving out."
"I've told you what's necessary."
"You told me the basics. Stay close, don't die, we're magically married forever." I moved into the room. "But yesterday, during that transfer, I felt things, implications and layers to this binding that you haven't explained."
His jaw tightened. "The transfer allows for emotional bleed-through, you felt echoes. Nothing more."
"Bullshit." I planted my hands on his desk, leaning forward. "There's more to this contract, I know there is, and I'm done being kept in the dark about the thing that's literally controlling my life."
We stared at each other.
A battle of wills.
He broke first.
"Fine." He stood, moving to a cabinet against the wall. From it, he pulled out an old leather-bound book, ancient, the kind of old that made you think of medieval libraries and forbidden knowledge.
He set it on the desk between us, opening it to a page covered in symbols that hurt to look at.
"The binding contract," he said. "In its original form."
I stared at the page, the symbols seemed to move when I wasn't looking directly at them. "I can't read this."
"You don't need to read it. I'll translate." He pulled the book closer, running his finger along the text. "The basic clauses you know, shared lifeforce, proximity requirements, mutual survival dependency."
"Right, the fun stuff."
"Then there are the secondary effects. Emotional bleed-through, which you've experienced, shared dreams during periods of high stress, gradual power-sharing as the binding matures."
"Power-sharing?"
"You'll develop the ability to channel more of my energy, use it more effectively." He turned a page. "It's already beginning, that's why you were able to banish that spirit at your office."
"So I'm becoming part demon."
"You're becoming more compatible with infernal energy, not the same thing." He paused. "There are also physical effects, increased durability, faster healing, enhanced senses."
"How enhanced?"
"You'll notice over time. Better hearing, sharper vision, the ability to perceive supernatural entities more clearly." He gestured at the spirits that had followed me home and were currently hovering near his bookshelves. "Which you've already discovered."
I looked at the spirits. They waved.
I was not waving back.
"What else?" I pressed. "What aren't you telling me?"
His finger stopped on a particular passage, his expression went very carefully neutral.
"There's a clause regarding emotional entanglement," he said slowly.
"Emotional entanglement."
"The binding is designed to encourage connection between the bound parties, to create stability through genuine attachment." He still wasn't looking at me. "As the binding matures, it will naturally push us toward... deeper emotional involvement."
Something cold settled in my stomach. "Define deeper emotional involvement."
"Affection, trust, and eventually..." He trailed off.
"Eventually what, Azryth?"
"Love." He said it like a curse. "The binding is designed to facilitate genuine emotional bonds, including romantic ones."
I stared at him. "You're telling me this magic contract is trying to make us fall in love?"
"It's encouraging emotional compatibility, yes."
"That's the same thing!"
"Not entirely, the binding can't create feelings that have no basis. But it can... amplify existing connections, remove barriers, make attachment easier." He finally looked at me. "It's a survival mechanism, bound parties who genuinely care for each other are less likely to do something that might endanger both of them."
"That's manipulative as hell."
"That's infernal contract law." He closed the book partway. "Most bindings of this type are voluntary, entered into by parties who already have an established relationship, the emotional encouragement is meant to strengthen existing bonds, not create new ones from nothing."
"But we don't have an existing relationship. We barely know each other."
"Correct." Something flickered across his face. "Which makes our situation... complicated."
There was more, I could tell by the way he was avoiding my eyes, by the tension in his shoulders.
"What happens if the binding succeeds?" I asked quietly. "If it does push us together and we end up... actually caring about each other?"
"Then the binding stabilizes permanently, becomes unbreakable by any means short of death." He opened the book again, pointing to another passage. "It's the ideal outcome, from the contract's perspective."
"And if it fails? If we resist the emotional push?"
"The binding weakens over time, becomes unstable, eventually.."
"Eventually we die. Got it. Die if we separate, die if we resist the binding's matchmaking bullshit." I laughed, bitter. "Great options."
"There's a third outcome," he said quietly.
The way he said it made my blood run cold.
"What third outcome?"
He hesitated, actually hesitated. Azryth Valek, who faced down everything with cold confidence, was hesitating.
"Tell me," I demanded.
"If genuine emotional attachment forms," he said slowly, carefully, "but remains unreciprocated... the binding becomes parasitic."
"Parasitic how?"
"The party with stronger feelings begins to experience soul deterioration, gradual at first, then accelerating." He met my eyes. "Eventually, their soul is consumed entirely, leaving only an empty shell bound to someone who can never love them back."
The words hung in the air between us.