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TATE
To sever a mated bond between demons, they must endure pain to their breaking point.
To sever a bond between a demon and a human, care must be taken to ensure the human—in this case, me—isn’t killed in the process. Although nottoo muchcare. Demons don’t take bonding lightly. A bonding was a deal, a promise, an oath, which, when broken, lowered demons in the eyes of others of their kind. Humans are already fairly low in the pecking order in the eyes of demons, and if it were possible for us to sink lower in their opinion, it would be if we broke a bond.
If the commitment couldn’t be forever, then why make it in the first place? If it wasn’t a commitment, then it was a fuck, and nothing else. A bond made between mates was one of blood and flesh, and destroying that was done only when there was no other option short of death.
So we must endure pain during the severing to remind us of the promise we were breaking.
Blood was given, and flesh will be taken.
Mike didn’t want to kill me, and despite my now unbonded mate instigating the severing of the bond, just as he had instigated the bonding in the first place, I knew he still loved me in some way. But Mike was weak. He wasn’t a true demon but a being denying his heritage, blood, and power.
And weakness could be exploited.
Did I ever love him?Maybe, in my own way. He was the family I never had, the one who tried to show me I was worthy of his love as he tried to see past the violent exterior that no one else bothered to explore. But I wasn’t worthy, and Mike wanted me to change for him.
I never would.
As a human, I couldn’t be dragged to Hell without being killed, and Hell was where a bonding was traditionally broken. So, compromises had to be made, and two demons came to Earth to sever our bond for us. The shame of breaking a bond meant it couldn’t be done in private between the two parties. Others must be notified, and two other demons must drag us apart, physically and spiritually. Bindings of red, black, and gold glowed across our skin, wrapping around us and joining us together, already painful with the sting and burn as they gripped the skin of our naked bodies. Translucent ropes wove around our arms, torsos, and legs. Ropes of power and promise were achingly and slowly pulled off us while the correct incantations were spoken, leaving deep welts as they continued to scrape against our exposed flesh long after the top layers of skin were gone.
It was excruciating, and while I tried not to give the assisting demons the satisfaction of screaming, I couldn’t hold it back. My throat was raw long before the ceremony was over, and I swore the cuts went down to the bone by the time it was finished. Mike would heal faster than me, and with the demon blood that ran through me since the bonding, I would heal faster than a normal human. But it would still take time and leave me with scars that would never fade. Wounds born of magic and demonic power were not the same as a simple cut or scrape.
I tried to remember back to before Mike and I bonded, and I don’t think I ever wanted to take that step with him in the first place. But it was important to Mike—he said he loved me and wanted to show me how much. So I drank his blood from a cut made by his hand, and as the silky, warm liquid slid down my throat, my body revolted against the demonic power that threatened to overcome my humanity—what little humanity I had left. After the second session, we were bonded, and my lifespan was increased as I was interpolated with extra strength, speed, and power. My eyes would turn yellow when I was angry, emotional, or taking part in violence or sex, and after a while, I learned to control it.
But I wasn’t a demon, only a bonded human. Mike was stronger than me, physically at least.
The power was intoxicating, and after a lifetime of being treated like scum, I wanted more. The demonic influence in my blood and body only enhanced the parts of me Mike had tried to pretend didn’t exist—the lust for violence, the pleasure in others’ pain, and the joy in taking down those weaker than me. There were always remaining questions I wanted to ask Mike. I wanted to know if he saw these things in me before the bonding and simply pretended they weren’t there, or if he was so naïve that his love for me blinded him to what I truly was.
A monster.
A man with little to no morals and even less empathy. I wasn’t ashamed of what I was, I was merely a product of my environment and genes, and I could spend a lifetime denying it or embrace it. The additional strength and yellow eyes were useful for intimidation, and I think it hurt Mike to know that I was more concerned with how these changes benefitted me than progressing our relationship.
Some demon he was. When he had told me of his hidden nature, of course, I didn’t believe him, but then he showed me his true form, and I was beyond awed. He loved me, and with a demon on my side, perhaps my life would get better. Something tugged at my chest at the idea of being protected and having someone who was looking out for me simply because they cared. A foreign concept.
But Mike wanted what I couldn’t offer—true love in return—and if I were born with the capability to love, it was long gone now. He wanted to turn his back on everything that made him the magnificent supernatural beast he was. Demons had urges—violence and sex—that, if denied, their body and inner demon would revolt against each other. Mike was determined. He wanted no violence and desired to be a true part of human society, and the more I tried to push him to join my family business—my father running one of the largest underground crime syndicates in the city—the more Mike resisted. He stopped giving into the urges, and our fucking became less violent until he was holding back to the point of being only gentle with me in bed.
I didn’t want that. I wanted the demon I had met—the protective man and his possessiveness, who had lost control and taken me against the wall of his apartment after our second date. And yes, maybe I also wanted the kind and nurturing streak that had made me feelsomething, which wassomethingmore than I had felt in my life outside of anger and hatred. I wanted his power and the power that came with us as a unit once we bonded. I wanted us to be a team, for Mike to embrace his demon as I had mine long before I knew they were literal.
I wanted to use my new power to kill my father, to make him bleed, squirm, and feel all the pain I could inflict.
And my sister… I would do things to her that would make her wish she were dead.
Mike had told me about the rules governing demons—they couldn’t kill humans without the consequence of being sent back to Hell with no option to return to Earth. However, I reminded him I wasn’t a demon but a human with demon powers and wasn’t subject to those rules.
After some months together, I’d tested out my new powers and abilities and found that violence brought with it a rush of pleasure that made my eyes flash and my muscles ripple as the demon blood merged with my own. There was some bullshit thing with a bond where, while we could have sex with other beings, it was physically painful, much as it was painful to be too far from our mate. So the woman I had cornered in a club and dragged out back to my car, I wasn’t able to fuck her in the back seat as I planned. But she was screaming and fighting me the whole way, and torturing her was sweet pleasure to me, dragging my teeth down her body until she bled and holding my father’s gun between her legs, whispering threats that made her tremble with tears.
Exhilarating.
I told Mike of my pleasures, and he looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. He didn’t understand since bonded partners meant that being with someone else was painful, why I would even try. He asked, didn’t I love him and only him? I had wondered what the pain was like of being with someone outside the bond and told him it had only added to my pleasure.
Although he tried for a short while longer to find something pure inside me that wasn’t there, that was the beginning of the end for us.
Pity, I enjoyed the sex.
MIKE
Raising my hands in surrender, I slowly approached the demon in front of me.
