The Demon's Bride

Chapter 3 - The Reception

Az grinned, lips thin and predatory, and let go of her hand as the crowd broke ranks and began to slither forward in cliques. Already, the first of them had peeled away from the perimeter—a beast of a demon with twisted horns lacquered to a wet shine and a suit that cost more than most humans made in a year. Cassie clocked him as one of the vice ministers, the kind that did the paperwork for massacres.

“Minister Garland,” Az murmured as the brute closed in, his voice sugar-smooth, untroubled by the threat. “What a delight.”

Garland’s eyes didn’t move. They bored into Cassie, pupils a thin slit amid a ring of molten gold. “She’s not what they say,” he rumbled.

Az arched a brow. “And what do they say?”

Garland’s broad tongue snaked out to wet his lips, a gesture so practiced it was almost delicate and almost courtly, except for the teeth glinting at its end. “They say you’ve been weakened,” Garland said. “That your appetites are...tame.”

Az flashed that half-smile of his, all boredom and threat. “You know gossip degenerates here. Cassie, meet Minister Garland. If you need a favor involving arson or ancient poisons, he’s your man.” For a moment, Cassie felt herself weighed, not as a threat but as a curiosity.

Normally Cassie wouldn’t lament at being underestimated or considered prey. It had been that way since she was born and the predatory gaze was usually her own father's, but this was hell and in hell being prey meant a death sentence or worse.

Cassie chanted inside her head and suddenly cracks echoed like shots as Garland's knees snapped.

The surrounding demons looked shocked at what appeared to be a minister kowtowing out of nowhere before a human witch, while a few guests looked amused.

Az simply looked at Cassie once more with heat in his eyes.

Cassie held Garland’s gaze, counting the microtremors running through his body as the magic tightened around his tendons. It wasn’t an overt display—subtlety was safer when your audience was all apex predators. She released the pressure, letting the vice minister rise at whatever pace his self-respect could manage. Garland’s snarl was mostly for show. The fear underneath was fresher, hungrier; she practically tasted it when he stormed off, muttering something in a dialect that soured the air.

Az leaned in, so close she caught the hint of gunmetal and ozone on his collar. “Well done,” he said, tone pitched for her alone. “They’ll think twice now.”

“We need to wrap up the reception as soon as possible. We need to consummate our union to complete the binding spell.” Cassie kept her voice as glassy as possible, eyes fixed on the sinuous masses clustering around the buffet. The demons favored rare steak, barely seared and glistening on black crystal platters.

The human guests clustered in little knots along the hall’s far edges, pale and overdressed, the officials’ wives and enchanters and unaligned witches flickering through the gathering like nervous charges in a Van der Graaf generator. Cassie felt for them in a way she couldn’t quite explain. She’d been the outsider at a party before, but never the appetizer.

Az led her through the crowd, his hand light on her lower back. The heat of him leaked through the fabric. She could sense the micro-calculations of every demon they passed, the way their gazes darted between her and the Prince. Like wolves, testing a new scent. Every instinct screamed for her to turn sideways, let them see she had teeth. Instead, Cassie smiled at the next knot of demons, a red-lipped baring of her own. It worked: they parted, just barely.

They made it to the second marble dais under the cathedral’s ribs. A musician in the gallery tried to play a traditional waltz, but the instrument couldn’t keep a key for more than two bars before sliding into some infernal improvisation. The demons liked it that way, apparently.

The Prince’s suite was accessible via a private corridor, an architectural afterthought finished in obsidian and studded with small, glittering teeth. Asmodeus steered her there at a brisk pace, ignoring the various dignitaries attempting to intercept him with outstretched hands, the spoken invitations to after-parties or midnight duels. Two highborns nearly collided in their effort to block Cassie’s way; Az didn’t break stride, but Cassie caught the static sizzle of a warding hex as both would-be interlopers jerked back, whining softly in the wake of the Prince’s power.

She’d half expected a gauntlet, a sequence of transactional toasts and veiled threats, but the crowd seemed content to regroup, to let whatever rumors Garland was already spinning filter through the gathering.

Cassie moved through the corridor with Az and the sudden hush behind her was—strangely—a relief. It was quieter here, the lighting more muted, the air itself less saturated with ego and raw intent.

At first, the silence made her skin crawl; she’d spent too many years in a shadowed room with books her only salvation.

But Az just kept walking, his stride loose, unaffected. Cassie found herself unconsciously matching his rhythm, something she’d never have allowed herself to do with anyone else.

When they reached the doors to the Prince’s suite, Az waved a hand with casual superiority and the locks—mechanical, magical, and molecular, from the look of them—unclasped with an audible click, like teeth coming unlocked. He held the door open, sweeping a mock bow. Cassie entered first, letting the air cleanse her of the stink of the crowd.