To Bewitch a Devil

260 She didn’t deserve him

She gave him a confident smile, her eyes running up and down his body, undressing him before he could even take off his clothes.

And usually, Azriel saw someone like her as a challenge and would strip to their gaze, but currently, he only stood there and watched her.

“Come on to the bed, handsome,” the woman beckoned him with a finger.

But Azriel didn’t feel the need to, didn’t even want to.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you have to leave.”

The lady laughed. “Okay, if you want us to go to another chamber...”

“No, I want you to go home while I sleep in my bed,” Azriel clarified.

The demon sat up. “What?”

“And please, be quick, I have a long day tomorrow.”

.....

“Are you refusing me?” The demon asked.

“Look...,” Azriel tried to recall her name. Diana? Danielle? Dana? Did it even start with a D? Usually he forgot names if he was thoroughly drunk.

“Look, lady...”

“It’s Janelle,” the redhead hissed.

“Beautiful name, but I need my sleep tonight. So please, leave.” He said.

She had never been rejected, and as Azriel watched her snatch the folds of his covers off the bed to hide her body from his view and don her gown laid out on a chair, he knew he must be such a fool.

Janelle fluffed her hair, and could only stare daggers at him. Any other man might have taken the razor words her small mouth might have dished in a similar situation, but Azriel had the immunity of being the Commander General, and she would have a death wish to try to tear him apart.

And as she passed him, her bosom brushed against him, a reminder of what he had missed out on.

“You take a woman to erase the memory of another. And when you want to, you know where to find me, my Lord,” she whispered to him as she left.

In the silence of his chambers, Azriel hoped when he goes to bed, Penelope would not carry the hurt he had inflicted and sleep with a heavy heart.

....

I’m sorry, Zavian.

Neera tried another opening to her speech.

I didn’t know what I was doing, Zavian.

No, something less tension-building from the start.

Please hear me out, Zavian.

Neera plunked down on the bed, exhausted with frustration at herself.

Words were simple, pouring out what happened only required them, yet Neera found it the most tasking thing she was about to embark on. The words clogged her breathing every night, growing larger and larger, sitting on her chest like a rock, and the physicality of the pain manifested when she woke up, eyes bloodshot from tears of guilt.

But she loved Zavian, and if she wanted what they had to keep being the beautiful relationship it was, she had to clear the weeds strangling the roots of their marriage.

She heard the chamber door open, and quickly, she was back up to her feet. Zavian stepped in and closed the door behind him. He stood there, and she stood by the bed, the space between them a manifestation of the gap the silence between them had caused.

Neera spoke first. “Listen, Zavian...”

“No, wait,” Zavian stopped her. “Before you say anything, let me just say this.”

He closed the distance between them, and he was so close to her that Neera would have to ask him to back away when she wanted to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

It wasn’t what she was expecting. “What?”

“Listen,” Zavian cupped her face in his hands. “I know I have been troubling you to tell me what’s going on, and I have given it some thought. You have been through a lot, and all of your experiences are something no other person can relate to. So maybe it gets hard for you sometimes, I should have understood that. I should have been more compassionate instead of insistent...”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “Zavian...”

“And I want you to know, if you ever need to talk about it someday, even if I won’t understand, I would lend you my listening ears.”

“Oh, Zavian,” the tears were coming now, her sobs loud and intermittent.

“It’s okay,” he said. He pressed a kiss to the tear that escaped and wiped her face with his thumbs. “It’s okay. Take all the time in the world to heal.”

But the tears didn’t stop, even as Zavian sat on the bed and pulled her down to his side, pressing kisses to the side of her face and whispering words to assure her of his promise. She still didn’t stop.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, for the words that still remained clogged in her throat.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Zavian said in that same quiet tone. Neera could not hold back the tears, and they kept pouring more with each of Zavian’s comforting words.

She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve him.

“Please, let me speak,” Neera managed to say.

“You don’t have to.” Zavian pressed his forehead against hers. “You don’t owe me anything Neera, you don’t.”

And Neera knew she did, if only he knew the mountain load of explanation she owed him. So she knew to do so, she had to stop the river of tears gushing out her eyes, had to draw back the emotional turmoil that churned in her, abate it for her words to find their way out of her mouth. And so the sobbing toned down to sniffles, and Zavian was there, wiping, whispering, patient.

“Zavian...,” She finally said.

It must have been the breathy, needy way his name had escaped her mouth, or the close proximity of the two of them, faces so close that their breaths mingled, bodies so close that their hearts beat in synchrony. It must have been the night and the way it draped its darkness with the moon as the lantern, the moonlight sneaking through the windows with its subdued brightness, and it was in that light, Neera saw the desire flame in Zavian’s eyes.