It’s true. A few years ago, a fortune teller told me that my soulmate was the champion who would overthrow the Dark Reign. And I, a naïve dummy at the time, believed her. I should have seen then that it was a load of crock to get me to waste more money on her tarot booth, but it kept me saving that kiss for the chosen one. By the time there were rumors of his death, I’d realized what a fool I’d been. It was hard to get close to anybody at that, when the takeover and acquisition happened, there was so much chaos. After that, well, I was too busy being Soven’s personal assistant.
I feel foolish saying it, not because I’m ashamed of being a virgin or whatever, but because who says that to her boss?
I duck out the door before he can say anything, before he can see the way my cheeks turn red, and hopefully before he realizes how much I want him to be that first kiss.
2
“I mean, there’s no ethical consumption under evil dominion,” I sigh, rolling my eyes at Janice from HR. “The ‘organic’ label doesn’t mean it’s better, it just means it’s more expensive.”
The intern had come around to get everyone’s coffee run orders, and Janice has a problem with decaf tea made with orphan tears.
Janice huffs. “They wouldn’t need to make a distinction between organic and non-organic if there wasn’t a difference.”
“Look, I’m not going to argue, it’s not for me, it’s for Sov— the Dark Lord. I don’t want to just swap something out, what if there’s a, like, dietary reason he needs it?”
Janice rolls her eyes, and doesn’t try to refute that. We’ve had this conversation a dozen times. Sometimes I think she likes being difficult.
Janice heads back to her office and I add my own coffee order to the intern’s list. I used to be able to keep up with the names, but it feels like there’s a new one every week.
Turnover is pretty quick around here; a lot of people do get sacrificed. Pentagram, candles, chanting, the whole shebang. We used to have little going-away parties whenever that happened, but there have been budget cuts. At least the severance package is good.
When the Dark Reign first started here, there were a lot of staff cuts. I was on the chopping block, so to speak. As I understand it, a number of virgin sacrifices had to be made to increase his power.
It’s so funny to think of what things were like then, compared to now. I’d been tied up to the rack, The Dark Lord had come in, let me tell you, he had been the picture of an unhappy customer, mostly because of the company’s slipshod record keeping. Lucky for me, I was an expert in dealing with unhappy clients.
He’d given me a chance that day to prove myself, and though every day he’d say this was the day he’d finally sacrifice me, every day I’d prove useful with managing things. I think I can pinpoint the moment he decided to keep me close by-- I went into his office to drop off some internal reports about an hour before he realized he even needed them.
It’s almost an hour later when the intern returns and makes the rounds to everyone’s desks, getting to me last because he forgot my office-slash-waiting-room had been obliterated and he couldn’t find my borrowed cubicle.
As soon as he sets the cups down on my desk I snatch them up, hurrying down the carpeted hallway.
I don’t like being late with anything, and that’s my main focus as I push through the Dark Sanctum’s doors without knocking, announcing as I come in, “Tea’s here!”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I can see that I definitely should have knocked.
It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be anything resembling a body under that cloak. Honestly I thought at most he was made of maybe just bones under there, if anything at all, from the way his cloak always flutters weightlessly like it really is only a piece of fabric in the wind.
But he shrugs off the cloak, and he has a body.
A body that couldn’t possibly fit underneath it without magic. He shrugs it off, distorting the rules of physics like fitting a table under a handkerchief.
He’s definitely more than bones. Out of his cloak, he’s broad shouldered and broad-chested and really just broad in every direction. My mind has a hard time grasping how the cloak could have made his body disappear into almost nothing, when his body is so much…everything.
His legs have an animal shape to them, the way you can’t really tell what’s supposed to be the knees on a deer’s back legs. But maybe that’s because I don’t spend a lot of time looking for his knees, rather the shape of his ass before his tail interrupts it.
And my heart stops, like the ground falling out from under me, when he realizes the door is open and turns around.
His face is almost lion-like, or maybe it’s bear-like and I’m just thinking about lions because of the sheer volume of his mane of— hair? Fur? The rack of four large horns?
The hair continues in a war path down his stupidly broad chest, my eyes drag across a still broad, toned, leathery torso, and stop short after his hips. Yeah, why would a Dark Lord have any need for pants?
I don’t know what to make of what I see, but that’s not like any human penis I’ve ever seen. Or any kind, really. There’s a lot going on there, and I’m half caught between a warm spike of curiosity to explore and the sheer confusion of why on earth there would be so many.
“OH MY GODS, I’m so sorry,” I blurt out and duck back out the door. Oh my gods, my gods, I’m so fired.
I swallow and open the door again just enough to stick the tea inside on the nearest ledge, and flee.
I want to crawl under my desk. I end up pacing back and forth in front of Janice’s office for a while, trying to think of what I’d even say to her. I don’t know what I’d even ask her for, maybe some reassurance that I can’t be sacrificed for walking in on the wrong moment?