He grinned, almost apologetic. “I told myself I wouldn’t do this like a cliché,” he said, popping the lid. Inside, crimson silk cradled a ring like nothing I’d ever seen: a blood-red ruby, roughly the size of my thumbnail, caged in wrought gold and flanked on either side by three tiny black diamonds. The kind of ring that said “I want to own you, but only if you eat me alive first.”
He looked at me, then at the ring, then back to me. “I never wanted to do the thing people do. The wedding, the contract, the forever promise.” He exhaled, the sound almost a laugh, but not. “But then I met you, and I realized I was already ruined for anything else. I don’t know how to be good, Annie. I don’t know how to be normal. But I know I want you, and I know I want to keep you, and—” He looked away, down at his hands. “If you want it, I want forever. With you. And the cat, and the stupid car, and all the junk food we can eat before we both die of cholesterol poisoning.”
I stared at it. Then at him. Then back at it, because the alternative was looking him in the eye and having my brain splinter.
Then I lunged, nearly toppling the entire bed, and slammed into him, bare thighs straddling his hips. I buried my face in his neck, soaked through with all the things I could never say. I must have made some kind of strangled seal-bark of a noise, because Samiel started to panic.
“You don’t have to—if you’re not sure, or if this is too much, just?—”
“Shut up,” I said, tears streaking down my cheeks, “and give me the goddamn ring.”
He laughed and jammed it on my finger. It was cold, then molten, then part of my entire hand—giant, ostentatious, dramatic. Absolutely perfect.
“You know,” I said, blinking at it, “most guys would hide this thing in a donut or something. Not just, like, haul it out after a marathon hatefuck with Cheez-Its.”
He grinned. “I don’t own a donut big enough for you. Or a box.” Then he watched my face—waiting, with a terror that made him so much less monster and so much more boy.
“Yes,” I said, and the word ricocheted around the room, louder than my own orgasm before. “Yes, you idiot. Yes, yes, yes.” I couldn’t stop repeating it. I didn’t want to.
He let me tackle him. He tucked me under his chin, arm heavy and possessive across my waist, and for a long time neither of us said a thing.
When I finally caught my breath, I twisted the ring so it caught the light. “We’re really doing this,” I said. “I’m going to have to introduce you to my parents, aren’t I?” The thought was so outrageous, I started laughing again.
He did not laugh. “I’ll meet them. Whenever you want.” Then, softer, “Who do you want to tell first?”
I thought about it. My mom was the obvious answer, but weirdly I also wanted to show Mayor Vepar, to include the cat somehow, to maybe send a mass email to every ex I’d ever had, subject line: SORRY, YOU LOSE.
But mostly I wanted to stay there, in that room, with the man who brought me ice cream and ruined my body and put an actual demon’s engagement ring on my finger, and never, ever leave.
“I don’t care who knows,” I said, stroking his cheek. “It’s my favorite secret. Let’s keep it for just a little while.”
He nodded. “Our secret,” he said, and I realized it was the first time he’d ever saidourswithout sounding like he meant mine alone.
We lay there in silence, sticky and exhausted, and I thought,This is what it means to be claimed, not caged. I’d found the line. And I’d decided, for once in my life, to stay.
The cat, sensing the shift in power, jumped up on the bed and immediately began licking the ice cream off my leg. I let her. I let the world be as strange and perfect as it wanted.
And for the first time in forever, I felt safe enough to want more.
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
Annie
Though Samiel and I signed the paperwork the day our ninety days were up, we didn’t have a wedding. We wanted to wait. After our legal ceremony, we were given a binder labeled "Unholy Matrimony" with a sticky note from Mayor Vepar reading, "Congratulations! Our wedding planners can accommodate any request, from blood fountains to human sacrifice (decorative only)." I flipped through glossy photos of couples—some with horns, some without—exchanging rings under moonlit gazebos and dancing in ballrooms with chandeliers made of what looked suspiciously like bones.
"I want the lake," I said, pointing to a sunset ceremony where lanterns floated on dark water. "Just us, the dock, and maybe twenty people who won't ask if your tail is real."
Samiel agreed with me easily, and we planned a wedding for our families and only a handful of friends.
The night before, we hosted a dinner for our families to meet. Samiel insisted on catering. Your only job tomorrow is to show up and make me the happiest demon in existence."
My parents arrived first, Dad's pickup crunching on the gravel. Mom burst out with her arms already open, enveloping me in a hug that smelled like cinnamon, Virginia Slims, and home.
"My baby girl," she whispered, voice catching. My brother arrived with a homemade cake wobbling precariously in his hands. My sister followed minutes later, having driven six hours straight from Orlando, leaving behind what she affectionately called her "mini-monsters" with the in-laws just to be here for me.
Next, Samiel’s parents arrived. His mom was tall with angular features that she accentuated with a cat eye to die for. His dad was a carbon copy of Samiel—just with salt and pepper hair. The last to arrive was Azazel, Samiel’s older brother. Though he had the same coloring as Samiel, he was bulkier with short-cropped hair, much smaller horns, and a full black beard. He seemed gruff, but hugged me all the same. Samiel had dinner set up on his deck so everyone could sit together.
