Page 32 of Her Demon Daddy

“Stop! I didn’t do anything, please!” she screams before they walk her through it.

Please take me through the portal, too.I think as the xaphan gripping me walk me toward it. I feel strange gratitude, knowing I’m following Siara, but also an omnipotent feeling of despair as they walk me through the shining blue light.

17

SIARA

Thirteen.

That’s how many months it’s been since I’ve been on Protheka. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen the sun or touched real grass or known what it was like for the season’s to change. I never thought I would miss the planet where humans were ruled by dark elves, but my life there had been better than the dungeons.

On Protheka, we had toiled away, and every day had been a threat. But there was a semblance of freedom. I had a purpose, a life, and the demons blew that up for me. And for what? To place me in a cage for an indefinite amount of time.

I had been gone for thirteen months At least, that’s what I think. In the dungeons, it was hard to tell time. Without a sunrise or sunset, I couldn’t keep track. And we slept so often, being bored and starved, that I couldn’t count on that, either.

But our meals were so infrequent that I knew they must come once a day. I counted each one. And I was on my 395th when I was ripped from an island I was just starting to make my peace with.

My mind whirls with that information, struggling to piece it together. Thirteen months and my sentence was still going. Time may be endless, but I had never allowed myself to quite consider that.

I’m not sure if it is the effects of the portal or not, but suddenly, the concept of time has lost its meaning with me. Maybe that’s what happens when you only know four walls for a year, but all I can feel is my mind stretching.

My body burns and hurts, and I feel like I’m being hurtled at a speed that should not be achievable. Am I even conscious? Am I even alive? I can’t find the answers in here. All I can think is…

Thirteen.

That’s how many months I spent in the dungeons. Memories press against the back of my eyes, my first days there. I was shoved in an overcrowded cell with no one to cling onto. Cries and screams kept me awake at night until I felt suffocated with my own fear.

I remember when the demons started to take people. I said nothing with the first. I ran away from the door – just like all the others – with the second. It’s shameful, I know, but I was scared. And I felt so much younger than I do now.

And then that door opened a third time and I lost it. Lost my will to live, my mind, my patience. It was all gone.

“What are you doing with them?” I had shouted at the skull-headed demons. Their exposed jaws used to scare me, but at that moment, all I wanted to do was snap the bone that had no protection. “You can’t just take us like this!”

No one stopped me as I surged forward, and for that I’m glad. I do wish they had cared, even if it was an eighth of what I did. Maybe something could have happened.

But they laughed as I shoved my way toward the door, and I stumbled at the last minute. The demon closest to me caught me by my jaw, stopping my fall and squeezing hard.

“It’s not your turn, human.” His beady eyes roamed over me. “But soon. I’ll see to it personally.”

But like always, he was lying.

Because I sat in that jail for thirteen months more, suffering the pain of my failure as everyone else was taken but me.

Twenty-One.

That’s how many days since I met Asmodeus. Three weeks since I had learned that maybe not all demons were like the ones I had met.

I knew the bone-headed demons. I knew the ones who looked too similar to dark elves that invaded my settlement. I even knew that there were some more powerful than the dark elves that held open the portals that ripped us from our homes.

But I did not know there were demons with true hearts. That would look at me with kindness, that would pay such close attention to me.

To be pampered in a King’s bed, to have breakfast summoned for me… These were not things I thought I’d find on a demon’s island.

And yet, with Asmodeus it was different.Hewas different. Just not as different as I had hoped he would be.

It might have been twenty-one days with him, but I’m starting to wonder how many days were real. How many were a lie?

If I were to guess, I’d say twenty-one. Twenty-one days with nothing but winning me over by any means necessary and for what?