Page 33 of Her Demon Daddy

I think I’m about to learn the truth. About all that has happened and about him.

That scares me even more than anything else I have faced.

Four-eight.

That’s how many hours we have until Asmodeus stands trial. It’s such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, and right now, it feels like my eternity.

It shouldn’t. It’s not me on trial, and yet, the thought of it makes my heart throb and throat squeeze tight. Fear grips me harder, harder than it did when demons ran loose through my settlement or sneered at me between bars.

Those forty-eight hours can stretch out to so long. 2,880 minutes. 172,800 seconds.

The thought of having to make it through that long sounds unbearable, and I’m not even sure if I’ll have Asmodeus by my side.

Do I want him there? I don’t know.

But I’ve grown too used to having him. At meals and in my spare time. We were bonding, and even though he had hurt me a few times, I could tell it was never his intention. He just wasn’t used to being near someone.

“I didn’t expect the King to know how to spar,” I had told him the first time he took me to the arena practice room.

I could hear the grin in his voice and tell from his body language he was relaxed. He may have wanted to hide himself from me, but I could see through the cloak. He used it like a barrer and it was coming crumbling down.

“There are a lot of things you would be surprised to know about me.”

I’d lifted my weapon, weighing it in my hand. I’d nearly called back that the same could be said for me, but there was something about his voice that encouraged me to ask something that had been weighing on my mind.

“Tell me one of them.” I know not to go too far. “Why do you keep yourself so separated from everyone else?”

Most people would deny it. But Asmodeus wouldn’t suffer me as a fool – at least I had thought so at the time. Instead, his answer was soft. “Because it was what I was destined for.”

I think in that moment I knew I wanted to show him he could have more.

One.

Only one night has passed since I met the man under the hood. And I cursed myself afterward for waiting so long.

Seeing Asmodeus in his full glory, beautiful horns and toned body, made me regret taking so long to get there with him. I didn’t care about a single one of his insecurities. Not his dark eyes that I loved or his scarred flesh that I appreciated.

And now, I don’t know what to make of it.

For him to tell me this secret, to let his guard down around me. It was shocking. I remember how hard he tried to hide it from me. He argued vehemently when I told him to remove it when we sparred, and once I ripped the fabric and he all but panicked.

“I’m sorry,” I had shouted as he twirled away from me, fingering the hole I had made. I don’t know if he had even heard me as he murmured to himself about getting it fixed. “Was it…was it something important to you?” I’d thought it was just a cloak.

“It is!” And then, as if thinking better of his tone, he turned his head and said much more calmly. “Not the cloak. But the reason for it.”

I didn’t ask then what the reason was. I could sense he wasn’t ready to share it. But I wonder if I had, would he have revealed himself to me sooner? Or was this more strategic than I had ever realized.

To me, it had been three weeks of happiness getting to know him and one magical night. But to him, what was it? I don’t know if I want that answer.

Now, as I dig through the past, I’m not sure how to interpret my memories. Each moment was special, and I started to see everything about Galmoleth in a different light.

But no matter how much time has passed, not the thirteen months or twenty one days or one night, I am no closer to the truth. In two days’ time I will know more than I ever have, and I can only hope that my heart can take it.

All the time in the world won’t matter if it has all been a lie.

Now, the real question is how much time will it take to recover from this? Will it be days, weeks or months? And how many?

I can count out my past, of the things that have changed me. But I don’t know what lies ahead.