MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The contract materialized on her kitchen counter as if it had always waited there. The parchment, thick and cream-colored, bore flowing script written in what looked disturbingly like liquid shadow. The words seemed to shift slightly when Cathy tried to read them, rearranging themselves to match her understanding.

Jeremy stood at the counter with the calm of someone accustomed to binding souls to eternal agreements. "There. All standard demonic contract language, with our specific terms clearly outlined. You need only sign and provide the binding agent."

"Binding agent?" Cathy repeated weakly.

"Blood," Jeremy said simply. "Or its equivalent. Demonic contracts require a signature in something vital. Blood is traditional. Tears work in emergencies. You witches sometimes use condensed magic, but it is less reliable."

Cathy looked around her destroyed kitchen. The flour had mostly settled. The remains of her kitchen table lay in splinters. The burned protection charms still smoldered on the stovetop. She needed something visceral, something that would make this real.

Her eyes landed on the jar of cranberry sauce sitting on the counter, left over from last week's failed attempt at a protective spell.

"No," Jeremy said flatly, following her gaze. "Absolutely not. I am the High Prince of Gluttony, not some minor imp to be bound in jam."

"It is practically blood," Cathy reasoned, already reaching for the jar. "It is red, it is organic, it is from something that lived. Technically, does not cranberry sauce contain the essence of the berries?"

Jeremy stared at her as if she had suggested signing the contract in children's tears and butterfly wings.

"Cranberry sauce," Jeremy repeated, his dark eyes narrowing with what might have been curiosity beneath the disdain. "Explain."

"Demonic contracts require something vital," Cathy said, drawing on everything she had read in her mother's forbidden library. "Blood is traditional because it carries intention and life force. But cranberries were alive. They fermented, transformed, which means they carried intention too. Intent to preserve. Intent to transform."

Jeremy stared at her for a long moment. "You are applying hearth logic to infernal binding."

"Is it working?" she asked.

A slow smile spread across his face. "Infuriatingly, yes."

"This is ridiculous," he said finally. "I should consume you where you stand. I should take my chances with the reserve and simply eat your aunt."

"But you will not," Cathy said, surprising herself with her confidence. She dipped her finger into the cranberry sauce, coating it in the dark red substance. "Because a contract is sacred, and you are going to be a respectable warlock fiancé instead of a notorious soul-eater. So you will accept my cranberry sauce, and we will both pretend this is a normal binding."

For a long moment, Jeremy simply stared at her. His dark eyes were unreadable, his expression frozen between offense and something that might have been respect.

"Cranberry," he said slowly, as if tasting the word. "The High Prince of Gluttony, bound by fruit preserves. When I return to Hell, my rivals will never let me live this down."

"Then I guess you had better make sure this works out," Cathy said. She touched her cranberry-covered finger to the space at the bottom of the contract where a signature line had begun to pulse with light.

The moment her finger made contact, the magic went absolutely wild. Black and gold light erupted from the parchment, spiraling up her arm in threads that burned cold rather than hot. But the sensation did not stop at her arm. It sank deeper, flooding through her chest, her stomach, pooling low in her belly with a heat that made her gasp.

It felt invasive. Intimate. Like being touched everywhere at once by invisible hands that knew exactly where to press, where to linger. Her back arched involuntarily, and a sound escaped her throat that she had never made before, half gasp, half moan.

Jeremy's hand tightened on her wrist, steadying her. "Breathe through it," he commanded, his voice rough. "Contract magic is always intense for the first binding. It is learning you. Learning what you taste like, what you want, what you need." His other hand came to rest on her hip, grounding her. "That is it. Let it have you."

The contract's language rearranged itself, settling into final form. Cathy watched as her name appeared in elegant script alongside terms that made her stomach clench: Seven days of service as contracted consort. Full access to the Johnson Family Reserve as payment. The contracted party maintains authority over the first party within the bounds of the agreed-upon role. Upon expiration of the contract, both parties are released from obligation.

"There," Jeremy said, his voice oddly strained. He released her wrist. The connection between them severed like a cut cord. "It is done. You are, for all intents and purposes, my fiancée. And I am bound to protect you from harm and fulfill my duties as your romantic consort."

"Romantic consort?" Cathy repeated, reading the line again. "We did not negotiate that."

"The contract adjusted itself," Jeremy said smoothly, though something in his expression suggested he was being less than forthcoming. "Demonic contracts are sentient, in a manner of speaking. They adapt to the true desires of the parties involved."

"My true desire does not involve being a romantic consort," Cathy said firmly.

"Does it not?" Jeremy asked, meeting her eyes. "Or is that precisely why the contract included it? Because part of you knew I would be far more useful to you as a lover than merely as an actor?"

Before Cathy could form a response, the contract flared once, burning the cranberry sauce signature into permanence. Magic, black and gold twisted together, spiraled up both their arms like binding vines.

Cathy gasped as the bond settled into place. She could feel him now. Not just his physical presence, but something deeper. His hunger, vast and ancient and barely leashed. His satisfaction at having secured her. And underneath it all, a possessiveness that made her skin prickle with awareness.

Jeremy's smile sharpened to something predatory. "There. You are mine now." He stepped closer, backing her against the counter. "For seven days, Catherine Johnson, your magic, your meals, your very essence belongs to me." His hand came up to rest over her heart, feeling it race beneath his palm. "I wonder how long it will take before you stop thinking of this as a bargain and start thinking of it as something else entirely."

Before she could respond, a violent knocking shattered the moment. But Jeremy did not move away. His hand remained pressed over her heart as he called out, "Enter."

The door opened to reveal Aunt Drusilla herself, eyes sharp and assessing as they landed on Jeremy's intimate positioning. "The Council," she said coldly, "has moved up the hearing. You have three days, not seven. I hope your commitment to each other is as genuine as it appears."