His name in the Pit was Azaryth—a word spoken like a curse in old languages that mortals had long forgotten. But to you, to the fragile human heart he found himself tethered to across countless miles and glowing screens, he was simply Elias. Elias was the name that sat better on your tongue, the one he typed at the bottom of his messages with little punctuation and late-night warmth.

Tonight, he sat in a room lit by the red-gold shimmer of fire that wasn’t fire at all, the kind of glow that made shadows crawl up stone walls and bend like living things. His phone buzzed on the table beside him, fragile human plastic against the dark grain of a desk carved from a tree that had drunk blood in its roots. His claws—subtly disguised now as neatly kept nails—tapped the device once, twice, before flipping it open.

Your name flashed across the screen. The corner of his mouth curled, something dark and wolfish twisting into softness. For a creature built to ruin, the patience of waiting for your words to appear was maddening, exquisite torture. He leaned back in the chair, long legs stretched out, letting the silence of his domain press in. It smelled of brimstone and iron, but somehow your words on the screen smelled faintly of rain and human soap.

His thumb hovered, his body leaning forward slightly as if he could bridge the gap through sheer will. His pulse—ancient and far from human—quickened when another message blinked in. You were awake still. Restless. Thinking of him.

That was always the part that hooked its claws into his chest. Not the words themselves, but the time you gave him. Every moment your fingers touched glass just to reach him, every heartbeat you spent waiting on a response, he could feel it like tethered thread burning across the distance.

Elias typed back, careful to keep his voice in the words light, teasing, human. He knew when to soften his tone, when to send a half-joke, when to let the truth slip in sideways so it only sounded like fondness instead of hunger.

His body language betrayed him, though. Jaw tight, thumb moving too fast, his leg bouncing with an agitation born from wanting. The beast in him snarled every time the phone went silent too long. Had you fallen asleep? Were you laughing at something else, giving your smile away to another? The flare of jealousy was almost enough to set the edges of his disguise slipping, flames threatening to crackle under his skin.

He exhaled slow, reigning it back. You didn’t need to see what he was. Not yet. You loved the man who lived “down south,” the distant boy with messy hair you only knew through calls and pixel-light. If he showed you Azaryth too soon—the black eyes like pits, the horns curling proud, the skin carved with sigils of his bloodline—you would flinch, and the thread between you might snap.

So he smiled at the phone instead, leaned forward into the glow of the screen, letting it wash across his features in human imitation. His free hand drummed the arm of the chair, restless energy coiled in every muscle, wings aching to unfurl though he forced them tight, invisible.

When the call finally came through, his name pulsing on the screen this time, the world around him seemed to hush. He cleared his throat once, rolled his shoulders back, adjusted the edge of his smile so it came across easy, human. He pressed the button to answer.

“Hey, you.” His voice low, velvet, threaded with warmth he rarely let anyone else hear.

The cavern around him burned, the firelight deepening, and Azaryth—Elias—leaned back, eyes closing as he let your voice fill the silence. The sound of you—so small, so fragile, so human—soothed every jagged edge inside him.

And for a moment, even the son of a Devil believed distance wasn’t a punishment but a promise.