Page 35 of Demon Daddy

Twice.

It’s not the life maybe Mama and Daddy wanted for me, but it’s better than the life they left me with.

He’s my monster, my Daddy, my friend, and soon, the father of our…spawn? Hu-demons?

Whatever they are, we will love them. And live happily ever forever.

Epilogue 1

Eight months later

There’s a garden growing through the cracks in the temple.

He insists it’s my doing, that flowers dared to bloom because I smiled.

I think it’s him. His love. His touch.

The way he worships me like I hold the very meaning of his life and death between my thighs.

I sit on a velvet cushion he admitted stealing from Hailey Reynolds while she stared, open-mouthed and toothless.

I’m eight months swollen, rounded and radiant, and he can’t stop touching me.

His hands are on my belly more than mine are. His breath hitches every time the baby kicks. He says things like: “This is the proof that you were always meant to carry something of mine.”

We built a throne room from broken stones.

I painted symbols on the walls in real gold paint. His story. My name.

There’s a charm bracelet on my wrist, forged from the tips of his nails, filed down and burnished.

He calls it my armor.

I call it forever.

Today, he returns from the woods carrying a crate. Inside: cookie dough ice cream, prenatal vitamins, more Dolly Parton merchandise, and a stack of trashy romance novels.

“Mayor Prickle has the humans collecting everything Dolly,” he says. “I told him that is the sacrifice from now on.”

I laugh until I cry.

He’s read every pregnancy book in the East Gloaming Tiny Library, and some they had to order in from the bigger libraries. Mrs. Newman made him get a library card, and told him he couldn’t come in unless he put on a loincloth.

And that old lady has my respect, because he actually followed her rules.

He kneels before me and still has to bend to press his forehead to my belly.

“You are my beginning,” he says, “and the cradle for our future.”

I curl my fingers through his fur. “You’re such a sweet talker.”

His grin is all fangs and devotion. “Only for you, Little Dolly.”

And when he slides my leg over his shoulder and kisses the underside of my belly, I forget there was ever a stake.

Kenny, hanging from the throne room ceiling, pretends not to watch.

Epilogue 2