Devil's Vow

My life was supposed to be defined by dusty archives and a finished dissertation-not by the scent of ozone and the weight of a gaze that shouldn't exist.

It started with a single page of an ancient grimoire and a moment of pure, exhausted desperation. I didn't mean to draw the sigil in my own blood. I certainly didn't mean to tear a hole in the fabric of the world. But when the shadows in my attic took the shape of a man with eyes like molten amber, the contract was already sealed.

Now, Azrael is bound to me, and I am tethered to a creature who thrives on the very desires I've spent my life suppressing. He offers me forbidden knowledge and a power that could rewrite every failure I've ever had, but his price is a "nightly offering" that blurs the line between a sanctuary and a cage.

I can feel my humanity slipping away with every touch, every lesson in his dark magic. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the one being studied, or if I'm simply the latest soul being prepared for a fall.