[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This Chapter 12: In Which I Learn Love Might Actually Kill Me (Li

I made it until Saturday morning before I snapped.

Friday had been a blur of pointed looks from coworkers, whispered speculation about my "romantic surprise visit," and Sarah cornering at lunch to demand every single detail about what happened in that conference room.

"He looked so intense," she’d gushed. "Like you were the only person in the world. It’s so romantic!"

Right. Nothing says romance like ergency supernatural energy transfers because your forced demonic binding is failing.

I’d gone ho at five, as commanded. Azryth had been working in his office, door closed. We’d eaten dinner in silence, well, I’d eaten. He’d mostly pushed food around his plate while staring at his tablet like it contained the secrets of the universe.

The air between us felt different, charged. Heavy with everything we’d felt during that transfer and were both determinedly not talking about.

I’d gone to bed early. No shared dreams, but I’d woken up three tis anyway, hyperaware of him across the hall, his presence, his emotions bleeding through just faintly enough to be distracting.

By Saturday morning, I was done.

I found him in his ho office, surrounded by papers and looking like he’d been up for hours. Maybe he had been, I was starting to suspect he didn’t sleep much.

"We need to talk," I announced from the doorway.

He didn’t look up. "I’m working."

"I don’t care. We need to talk. Now."

That got his attention. He set down whatever docunt he’d been reading and looked at with those unreadable ember eyes.

"About?"

"About the binding, about all the things you haven’t told ." I crossed my arms. "I want a full explanation, every clause, every risk, every tiny detail you’ve been conveniently leaving out."

"I’ve told you what’s necessary."

"You told the basics. Stay close, don’t die, we’re magically married forever." I moved into the room. "But yesterday, during that transfer, I felt things, implications and layers to this binding that you haven’t explained."

His jaw tightened. "The transfer allows for emotional bleed-through, you felt echoes. Nothing more."

"Bullshit." I planted my hands on his desk, leaning forward. "There’s more to this contract, I know there is, and I’m done being kept in the dark about the thing that’s literally controlling my life."

We stared at each other.

A battle of wills.

He broke first.

"Fine." He stood, moving to a cabinet against the wall. From it, he pulled out an old leather-bound book, ancient, the kind of old that made you think of dieval libraries and forbidden knowledge.

He set it on the desk between us, opening it to a page covered in symbols that hurt to look at.

"The binding contract," he said. "In its original form."

I stared at the page, the symbols seed to move when I wasn’t looking directly at them. "I can’t read this."

"You don’t need to read it. I’ll translate." He pulled the book closer, running his finger along the text. "The basic clauses you know, shared lifeforce, proximity requirents, mutual survival dependency."

"Right, the fun stuff."

"Then there are the secondary effects. Emotional bleed-through, which you’ve experienced, shared dreams during periods of high stress, gradual power-sharing as the binding matures."

"Power-sharing?"

"You’ll develop the ability to channel more of my energy, use it more effectively." He turned a page. "It’s already beginning, that’s why you were able to banish that spirit at your office."

"So I’m becoming part demon."

"You’re becoming more compatible with infernal energy, not the sa thing." He paused. "There are also physical effects, increased durability, faster healing, enhanced senses."

"How enhanced?"

"You’ll notice over ti. Better hearing, sharper vision, the ability to perceive supernatural entities more clearly." He gestured at the spirits that had followed ho and were currently hovering near his bookshelves. "Which you’ve already discovered."

I looked at the spirits. They waved.

I was not waving back.

"What else?" I pressed. "What aren’t you telling ?"

His finger stopped on a particular passage, his expression went very carefully neutral.

"There’s a clause regarding emotional entanglent," he said slowly.

"Emotional entanglent."

"The binding is designed to encourage connection between the bound parties, to create stability through genuine attachnt." He still wasn’t looking at . "As the binding matures, it will naturally push us toward... deeper emotional involvent."

Sothing cold settled in my stomach. "Define deeper emotional involvent."

"Affection, trust, and eventually..." He trailed off.

"Eventually what, Azryth?"

"Love." He said it like a curse. "The binding is designed to facilitate genuine emotional bonds, including romantic ones."

I stared at him. "You’re telling this magic contract is trying to make us fall in love?"

"It’s encouraging emotional compatibility, yes."

"That’s the sa thing!"

"Not entirely, the binding can’t create feelings that have no basis. But it can... amplify existing connections, remove barriers, make attachnt easier." He finally looked at . "It’s a survival chanism, bound parties who genuinely care for each other are less likely to do sothing that might endanger both of them."

"That’s manipulative as hell."

"That’s infernal contract law." He closed the book partway. "Most bindings of this type are voluntary, entered into by parties who already have an established relationship, the emotional encouragent is ant to strengthen existing bonds, not create new ones from nothing."

"But we don’t have an existing relationship. We barely know each other."

"Correct." Sothing flickered across his face. "Which makes our situation... complicated."

There was more, I could tell by the way he was avoiding my eyes, by the tension in his shoulders.

"What happens if the binding succeeds?" I asked quietly. "If it does push us together and we end up... actually caring about each other?"

"Then the binding stabilizes permanently, becos unbreakable by any ans short of death." He opened the book again, pointing to another passage. "It’s the ideal outco, from the contract’s perspective."

"And if it fails? If we resist the emotional push?"

"The binding weakens over ti, becos unstable, eventually.."

"Eventually we die. Got it. Die if we separate, die if we resist the binding’s matchmaking bullshit." I laughed, bitter. "Great options."

"There’s a third outco," he said quietly.

The way he said it made my blood run cold.

"What third outco?"

He hesitated, actually hesitated. Azryth Valek, who faced down everything with cold confidence, was hesitating.

"Tell ," I demanded.

"If genuine emotional attachnt forms," he said slowly, carefully, "but remains unreciprocated... the binding becos parasitic."

"Parasitic how?"

"The party with stronger feelings begins to experience soul deterioration, gradual at first, then accelerating." He t my eyes. "Eventually, their soul is consud entirely, leaving only an empty shell bound to soone who can never love them back."

The words hung in the air between us.