A Demon's Temptation

The air in my chambers was thick, heavy with the scent of sulfur and something else, something entirely new and disquieting. Evan Aris sat before me, bound but unbowed, his gaze steady as he met my own. It was a look I hadn't encountered in millennia – not defiance, not fear, but a quiet, almost defiant innocence that pricked at the edges of my carefully constructed apathy. My fingers, usually as still as the obsidian throne I commanded, twitched against the armrest.

“You understand your position, human?” my voice, a low rumble designed to curdle the blood, was, for once, laced with a subtle tremor I couldn’t quite suppress.

He inclined his head, a slow, deliberate movement. “I understand I am your captive.”