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  THE KRAKEN’S SACRIFICE

  A DEAL WITH A DEMON NOVEL

  KATEE ROBERT

  TRINKETS AND TALES LLC

  Copyright © 2022 by Katee Robert

  Editing by Manu Velasco

  Copyediting by Tara Rayers

  Map by Abigail M Hair

  Cover art by Anna Moshav

  Cover design by Elizabeth Stokes

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To every person who asked why there wasn’t DP in the dragon book…

  CONTENTS

  Content Notes

  1. Catalina

  2. Catalina

  3. Thane

  4. Catalina

  5. Thane

  6. Catalina

  7. Thane

  8. Catalina

  9. Thane

  10. Catalina

  11. Thane

  12. Catalina

  13. Thane

  14. Catalina

  15. Thane

  16. Catalina

  17. Thane

  18. Catalina

  19. Thane

  20. Catalina

  Epilogue

  CONTENT NOTES

  Below, please find all tropes, tags, and CWs for the book. This list was compiled to the best of my knowledge, but may not be exhaustive. Reader discretion is advised.

  * * *

  Tropes: Grumpy/Sunshine, monster romance

  * * *

  Tags: I’ll fuck the brat right out of you, widower, party girl covering up how empty she feels, I got hurt and so I decided emotions are for the birds and I won’t feel them anymore, forced proximity, if you don’t give me attention I will MAKE you give me attention, auction, tentacles make everything better, orgasms are definitely the proper response to terror, let me teach you how to swim, men will literally lock you in a tower for your own safety instead of going to therapy, he can’t just fuck self-confidence into me…but can’t hurt to try, prehensile cock

  * * *

  Content warnings: Abuse/neglect (mental/emotional, parent to child, historical), spousal death (historical, non-graphic, off-page), explicit sex, vomit (non-graphic), pregnancy termination (non-graphic), incidental injuries for magical purposes, grief, body shaming (historical, referenced briefly), reference to age play and to DDlg, slight dollification, use of unconventional gag

  1

  CATALINA

  “I will ask again. Are you sure?”

  I’m not sure what it says about my life that I’m sitting in a sticky booth at a dingy hole-in-the-wall bar staring at a handsome dark-haired white guy. Except, apparently, he’s not a guy at all.

  Or at least not human.

  One would never know he’s a demon just by looking at him, but as Azazel turns his head, the light glints strangely off his eyes. A flash of red that sends a shiver down my spine. Not that I’m about to let a little fear dissuade me.

  I have nowhere else to go. My family have finally washed their hands of me. My friends are tired of my bullshit and have faded away. But the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was getting fired last week. I may or may not have been a tiny bit behind on my rent, and my landlord says I have to be out by the end of the month.

  Tomorrow.

  When you’re at rock bottom, sometimes the only thing to do is keep digging.

  Azazel shifts, and the shadows seem to flicker strangely around him. They sure as hell aren’t following normal patterns in response to the neon lights over the bar. “Catalina.”

  I jolt. “I’m listening.”

  “This is of the utmost importance.” He leans forward and braces his elbows on the table.

  I wince a little, because it’s just as sticky as the booth and his suit looks expensive. “Really, you probably shouldn’t touch anything in here. You’re going to ruin your suit, and, like, I don’t know if demons have money, but you’ll definitely need to drop a metric shit-ton on dry cleaning.”

  He sighs, and it takes the wind right out of me. I know that sigh. It’s the “Catalina is wasting my time” sigh. I’ve heard it in countless variations over the years. From my parents, my teachers, my bosses. I am nothing if not consistent.

  Catalina, the disappointment.

  I clear my throat and work hard to smother the desire to prove I’m exactly the disappointment he already decided I am. Living up to expectations. Or down to them, more specifically.

  “I read the contract.” I hadn’t believed that any of this was real, but at this point, a demon peddling contracts can’t be worse than my human options.

  Mainly, having to crawl back to my mother and beg her to let me move home. The thought makes my stomach roil. I’ll do anything to avoid that outcome. Anything. “I accept.”

  Azazel makes a slight move that’s almost a flinch. “If you need more time to think—”

  “I don’t.” I speak too fast, too frantically. It takes effort to inhale slowly and moderate my tone. “I read the contract,” I repeat. “I accept the terms.”

  Seven years of service in the demon realm.

  But at the end of it, I get what I most desire.

  Mainly, money. Enough that I’ll never have to worry about it again, will never be beholden to anyone ever again. I want to spend the rest of my life on a yacht surrounded by beautiful people who will dribble champagne into my mouth and feed me strawberries and tell me I’m pretty. Who will never decide I’m too much and withdraw their attention and love. Yeah, I’ll have bought that love, but if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that money paves the way to happiness. If that happiness is false and lasts only as long as the money does, who gives a fuck?

  The only person who can tell the difference will be me, and I’m happy to close my eyes and pretend.

  Azazel looks at me for a long moment, then finally nods. “So be it.” A flick of his long fingers, and the contract rolls out across the table in my direction.

  All the details are the same as when I last read it. Seven years. I’ll serve, but no one can force me into doing something that will harm me. If I become pregnant, I will leave my baby in the demon realm when I return to this one.

  I have absolutely no intention of getting pregnant, so that’s not an issue.

  A pen appears next to the contract, and I don’t hesitate. I grab it and scribble out my signature. “Are we going now?”

  The contract rolls back up toward him, and he grabs it. He narrows his eyes at me. “Normally, there’s more fear and weeping.”

  He’s scary, but he’s nowhere near as scary as my mother, who’s so cold, she might as well have been carved from ice. It doesn’t matter what I do or say, because she won’t give me even the smallest reaction. Whether he knows it or not, he’s saving me from having to prove her low opinion of me correct. Again.

  No use thinking about that. I signed the contract. It’s over. Or, more accurately, it’s only beginning. Can a demon back out on a signed contract? The thought makes fear flicker for the first time. I clear my throat. “Look, if you get off on that sort of thing, you should have said something from the beginning.” I lean forward and widen my eyes. “I’m so scared, Mr. Demon Man. Terrified. Shaking in my boots. Please take pity on me and put me out of my misery.”

  He rolls his eyes, and a small smile curves his lips. “I take pity on whichever of the territory leaders you end up with. Come along, Catalina.” The words aren’t unkind, but they contain echoes from past years.

  Your poor teachers, having to put up with your recklessness.

  Oh, wow, you must be a handful for your girlfriend to deal with.

  God, what boy would want to date someone who dances on tables and flirts with everyone who crosses their path?

  You, Catalina, are a disappointment.

  There’s only one way to escape the ghosts in my head, but Azazel takes my hand before I can do more than sweep a look around the bar. It’s just as well. For all my bravado, I don’t actually know what I’m walking into, and getting sloshed beforehand would be just another mistake in a long line of mistakes.

  It’s tempting all the same.

  The room goes wobbly and transforms to black in a swirling motion that makes me vaguely sick. And then there’s a lurch that feels like my guts are actually yanked right out of my body. I open my mouth to scream, but there’s no air to draw in.

  Is this what dying feels like?

  My feet hit the ground hard, almost as if I jumped from a high distance, and I crumple to my knees. “Ouch.”

  “You didn’t pass out. Interesting.”

  The voice above me still carries the cultured tones of the bargainer demon, but there’s a rougher edge to it now. It’s deeper too. My head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, but I manage to lift it and look at the . . . creature . . . standing next to me.

  No, not creature. It’s Azazel. He may have grown over a foot, gained a bunch of weight in muscle, turned crimson, and sprouted horns, but . . .

  Actually that’s a lot.

  I hiccup. “You really take the demon thing literally, don’t you? How very Christian devil of you.”

  “We came first, Catalina. Where do you think they got the inspiration from?” He sighs, and the sound cuts right through me.

  Or maybe that’s my stomach suddenly surging
. “Az—”

  To his credit, he responds quickly. He moves faster than anyone has right to and manages to produce a bucket from somewhere, then shove it under my face just as I throw up. I’m nearly certain I feel his hand rubbing my back, but figure that must be a hallucination.

  Azazel may have more use for me than anyone else in my life on account of me signing the contract, but that doesn’t mean he really wants me around. And now I’m puking in the hallway.

  Typical Catalina.

  Sometime later, his low voice penetrates my fog of misery. “It’s normal to have side effects from jumping realms. Frankly, I’m impressed you managed not to fall unconscious. Most people do.”

  I close my eyes and try very hard not to think about how my mouth tastes right now. Surely the demon realm has toothpaste, right? Except I can’t focus on that, because Azazel’s pity crawls around beneath my skin, and I’d do anything to claw it free.

  I let myself tip back on my ass, effectively breaking the contact with his hand on my back—not a hallucination, apparently—and force a grin. “Oh, please, this has nothing on the time I took a wrong turn and ended up in a biker bar that only served Jack Daniels.” Not strictly true. My boyfriend and I had a fight, and he left me on the side of the road, but I’m not about to admit that. It’s just sad, not entertaining, and I am nothing if I’m not entertaining.

  He blinks those eerie dark eyes at me. “What?”

  “Bikers only respect like two things—or at least these bikers. I can’t pretend to speak for bikers as a community just because I had one interaction with the people at this bar.”

  Catalina, stop fucking talking.

  But I can’t. I never can. Not when my nerves are strung tight like this. It’s not fear. That would be ridiculous. But . . . nerves. “Anyways, those two things are fighting and drinking, and I am a lover not a fighter.”

  “Catalina—”

  I talk right over him, his impatience only driving my words to bubble up faster, spill from my lips as if I can outrace his disappointment. “So I obviously couldn’t fight any of them if I wanted to keep my good looks and avoid a hefty hospital bill, which meant the only option was outdrinking every single person in the bar.” The memory still makes me shudder. No fear there, of course. Just nerves. “They found me as charming as you do, and I managed to walk out of there with cab fare and only a tiny bit of alcohol poisoning.”

  I probably should have gone to the hospital, but if I’d done that, they would have called my emergency contact, a.k.a. my mother. Instead, I spent three days on my bathroom floor, wishing for death. Or, if not death, because that’s very permanent and I have commitment issues, then a nice little coma that I would wake from feeling refreshed.

  “Catalina, sleep.”

  I barely feel the press of Azazel’s fingers on my temples before everything goes gray, then fades to black. “Neat trick,” I slur.

  Even falling into a magical sleep isn’t enough to make me miss his irritated sigh.

  2

  CATALINA

  I spend two days recovering in the nicest room I’ve ever seen. I don’t have much choice, seeing as how I’ve been locked in. Hard not to take that personally, but I’m doing my best to be agreeable, so I try to keep myself occupied in the room itself instead of scheming on ways to break out.

  To be fair, the room is luxurious. It looks like something out of a movie about what Hollywood people think ye olden days looked like. Giant bed filled with enough blankets to make a comfy burrow. Lush carpets underfoot to cushion the stone floor. Thick curtains on a window overlooking the city.

  The city itself looks like an old-school version of cities everywhere. Or maybe even a current one. I’m not a city expert. There are tall buildings and short ones, and I got bored staring at them after the first hour.

  Finding out the bathroom had indoor plumbing was a great relief, and the shower is very large, but that only occupied me for a short time too. Same with the wardrobe filled with some of the fanciest clothing I’ve ever gotten my hands on. All in my size, which is another neat trick. I indulged in a fashion show worthy of any movie montage, but I exhausted the clothes quickly enough.

  Azazel appeared briefly to give me a tattoo that apparently functions as a verbal translation spell. Nifty thing, that. There’s also a secondary tattoo that apparently marks my demon bargain. But that meeting is far too short for my liking. He obviously doesn’t want to spend any more time in my presence than strictly necessary.

  Boredom set in quickly.

  Food appears at regular intervals, but no matter how much I try to watch the door, I never see the person who brings it. Must be magic, but that knowledge doesn’t help me decrease the boredom. It builds and builds inside me, making my skin too tight and my mind staticky.

  Azazel locked me up because he didn’t want to deal with me. Just like my mother used to. Oh, she called it “grounding,” but I’m pretty sure when most kids are grounded, their doors don’t have locks on the outside.

  I shudder.

  “No. Enough of this. I made a bargain with a demon and now I’m entitled to an update,” I say aloud. I don’t give a fuck that I haven’t been hurt and that I’ve been fed and clothed and nothing has been asked of me. Anything would be better than this. Anything.

  Which is how I find myself kneeling in front of the lock and trying to pick it. A skill I learned far younger than I’ll ever admit . . . and the same one that prompted my mother to install a dead bolt on my door.

  “I am not thinking about that right now,” I mutter. The bobby pins I pulled from my hair are stronger than most—an expense I justify for this very reason. Having no escape makes me feel like an animal in a trap.

  I have no illusions about how far I’ll go. I will gnaw off my own limb to escape.

  Thankfully, the only thing between me and relative freedom is a locked door. A locked door that seems to be resisting me, but a locked door nonetheless.

  “Come on.” I twist the pin, feeling for the lever. “Please. I can’t stay in here. If I do, I’m going to start screaming and never stop.” Dramatic? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.

  The lock clicks.

  I blink. I hadn’t even found the lever yet . . . or at least I didn’t think I did. Half-sure I imagined that click, I try the handle.

  Unlocked.

  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Cat. You’re just better than you thought you were.” Gods, I don’t know what it say that I’m talking to myself, but it’s not a good sign. I’m losing it. I need to get out of this room. I push to my feet, take a moment to fix the fall of my dress, open the door, and step into the hall.

  “Neat trick.”

  I scream and practically levitate six feet to the right. A mocking laugh responds. I spin to face the voice and find an unfamiliar bargainer demon. This one is built shorter and more delicate than Azazel—but still plenty tall by human height standards—and they have a second set of horns curving up from their eye sockets. I frown. “Are you a guard?”

  “Merely a curious party.” They grin. “Name’s Ramanu. Pronouns are mostly they/them, but really any will do.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I smooth my hands over my dress, nerves making me want to bounce on my toes. They don’t seem dangerous—or at least not more dangerous than anyone else in the world. Worlds? Realms?

  I clear my throat. “Are you going to make me go back in my room?”