Second Chance with the Demon

By Chace Verity

Crystal Barefield loves developing romance-focused video games at FlirtHoney, but her office is a trash fire of misogynistic coworkers and crunchy deadlines. In order to survive the toxic environment, she has to keep to herself and refrain from showing emotions. Her isolating lifestyle has worked fine for years, but everything crumbles when she reunites with the demon she wanted to forget.

It's been eighteen years since Crystal last saw her demon ex-girlfriend. Meena still has a voracious appetite for food, fire, flirting, and making sure Crystal's happy. Being with the demon again reminds Crystal of all the stuff she was missing in life, but she can't give up her dreams of making games—and she can't forget the way Meena disappeared so suddenly all those years ago.

When FlirtHoney's CEO introduces a new direction for the company, Crystal's career is at risk of going up in flames. Between an assignment that goes against her ethics and a charming fire demon melting her icy exterior, unwanted paths start to emerge. If Crystal doesn't find the route that will lead to her happy ending, it's game over for her dreams.

---

Second Chance with the Demon is a standalone f/f paranormal novella in the Loved by the Demon series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chace Verity
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215567814

Book preview

Chapter One

The view from Crystal’s condo looked especially incredible on that auspicious spring morning. After months of gray clouds, a wash of bright blue graced the calm sky. Beyond the busy outskirts of the ever-growing cowboy city, the snow-kissed Rocky Mountains stood majestically in the distance. A white haze danced around the peaks, reminding everyone that winter still hadn’t fully left. The gorgeous scenery hid many dangers.

It was cold and harsh outside, but it was beautiful.

Cold and beautiful. Just like the character Crystal wanted to lead the next FlirtHoney game.

In a few hours, she would present the dating simulation that had consumed the past two months of her life. FlirtHoney had just released their latest project, and it was time to determine their next venture.

As a scenario writer and coder in the rapid release romance-focused video game company, Crystal had only been able to work on her idea when she sacrificed rest or meals. There had been many sleep-deprived days and rumbling stomachs in recent weeks, but no one at work could tell. Every morning, she marched into FlirtHoney with her face made up, her blonde hair tied in an immaculate bun, and her tailored business suits wrinkle-free.

The office’s toxic environment didn’t allow her to show a sliver of weakness.

Crystal was one of three women among dozens of men in the company. She was also the only one who had worked at FlirtHoney for longer than two years. If the constant crunch that came with releasing a new game every three months didn’t run out a female employee, the barrage of sexist remarks and sexual harassment would. If the woman was transgender, she was twice as likely to leave after completing her first game.

With some help from her therapist’s various affirmations, Crystal had learned to harden her heart over the years and tune out her male coworkers’ unnecessary remarks on her appearance or life choices. Coping was easier when one could turn disgusting pigs into villains destined to have bad endings. None of her awful coworkers ever realized they had been written into a game.

Most of the sexual harassment Crystal had initially faced died once she casually revealed she was a lesbian during a meeting regarding FlirtHoney’s first queer romance options in a game. The men who thought they could change her wound up exiting the company after she threatened to go public with the harassment. Crystal’s boss wasn’t a great man by any means, but he also didn’t want his company’s reputation to get tanked. It would be hard to market wholesome and inclusive dating games if the world knew the developer was putrid trash.

Not impossible, of course, but difficult.

FlirtHoney had a horrible atmosphere, but Crystal Barefield wasn’t going to let a bunch of tactless bigots interfere with her dreams. She wanted to create games that made players feel like they had found a genuine community and maybe a deep, meaningful relationship or two. She wanted to make games that made lonely people feel less alone.

Most importantly, she wanted to create a lot of them. Crystal wanted as many games that had her touch as there were flowers in the indoor botanical gardens she visited for inspiration.

Were there other game companies she could work for? Of course. But Crystal had been playing games with various guys for over thirty years and had been a semi-permanent resident of the Internet for more than two decades. The thirty-five-year-old gamer knew the kind of men she currently worked with existed in most companies. FlirtHoney at least paid well, and she had the benefit of knowing how to deal with the pests in her metaphorical backyard.

Going somewhere else might crush her and her garden of dreams.

After driving to the downtown office, Crystal sat in her car and flipped through the proposal on her work laptop. The underground parking lot had few people, giving her some peaceful space before the storm.

All her files were in order, but she wanted to look at her characters for encouragement. She wasn’t much of an artist, having given up her serious pursuits with drawing as a teenager, but her rough sketches fulfilled their roles as concepts. FlirtHoney had the perfect pixel artist she wanted to lead the game’s visual direction.

Crystal studied her sketch of the main character. The protagonist would have many customizable features—including their gender and pronouns—but no matter what the player chose, the game’s world would view the protagonist as attractive. Many players came to FlirtHoney games to fulfill the fantasy of being seen as desirable just for being them.

And what wasn’t interesting about a standoffish member of isolated royalty with a magical ring who gets lost during a riot and winds up taking shelter in a small town? The main character would spend the game getting their icy exterior broken down by the warm villagers. Learning new jobs and hobbies would lead to meeting new romantic and platonic options, but building existing stats could also affect relationship outcomes, making each run feel fresh and exciting.

Crystal’s gaze lingered on her favorite romantic option she had designed, a muscular woman who was the village blacksmith. The character’s visual motif would be fire—bright red hair, flames embroidered on her clothes, etc. Even her pupils would resemble the shape of a blazing fire.

Aside from the muscles, the blacksmith reminded Crystal of the first woman she had fallen for, an explosive and vibrant character named—

Well, it didn’t matter what she had been called. She hadn’t been real.

Crystal shook her head, chasing away the images of the tiny horned creature who still made her heart skip a beat. Not real. Not real. Not real. All the women Crystal had ever loved had been fictional.

The game creator smacked her cheek a couple of times, denying her brain’s request to recall a sweet, soft kiss on her skin.

If it had actually happened, she would have had no problem reminiscing. But it was silly to imagine some fake person’s hot tongue probing between her lips curiously, treating her both like a precious item and an object to be dominated in the same breath. None of that had been real.

Meena had never existed.

A few practiced affirmations later, the steely blue eyes in Crystal’s rearview mirror matched the mountain view she had observed earlier.

Many people considered her beautiful, but did anyone see the razors and spite hiding under her thick eyeliner? What about the disgust coating her tongue every time she critiqued a fellow writer’s work that treated the player like a pathetic loser? She hid so many things. Even the light brown freckles along the bridge of her pale nose had been masked by her heavy makeup.

Crystal could see the aspects of herself she hid, at least, which gave her the confidence to continue pursuing her dreams. No one but her had to know the real her.

No one ever even tried to break through the carefully crafted illusion (except to unsuccessfully piss her off), so what was the point of dropping the pristine image?

As long as she could create games she liked, that was all Crystal needed.

She grabbed her belongings and headed inside the building.

Proposal Day. A day full of exciting creative exchanges. Even if her project wasn’t chosen this time, she could take the feedback she’d receive from her colleagues to revise appropriately. Her last few ideas had been (rightfully) regarded as mediocre, but she believed in her current project.

The only major thing wrong with it was that it didn’t have much of a title. A Monarch’s Extravagant Experience in a New Area was a mouthful. Naming things had never been Crystal’s forte. The team could come up with something better, but it would help if she entered her boss’s office with a catchy placeholder name.

Maybe she could turn the current title into an acronym. The important words would spell out—

Crystal nearly dropped her laptop bag when she realized what the acronym would be. MEENA.

Why was that name following her around so much today? Was she on the verge of another mental breakdown? Impossible. She was overworked and exhausted, yes, but her mind was strong. She spent an eighth of her earnings on therapy and antidepressants. Logically, she shouldn’t have been having issues with her brain.

This was a concern she should bring up in her next session, but her current therapist didn’t know about Meena. Explaining Meena would be useless. Crystal’s parents had spent a fortune on that particular kind of treatment back when she had been seventeen, anyway. Reopening that wound would be like wasting their money.

This is just temporary. Everything I’m feeling is temporary.

After a few more grounding affirmations, Crystal knocked on her boss’s door.

Scott invited her inside with his usual boisterous voice. The self-proclaimed CEO never seemed to lose his enthusiasm for work (except when dealing with someone filing sexual harassment complaints). As Crystal entered, he welcomed her with a bright grin. She replied with an expressionless nod.

He peered at her from his extensive computer setup. Despite not doing any marketing, coding, writing, composing, voice acting, or artwork for FlirtHoney’s games, he had three monitors he used for work. One screen constantly displayed cryptocurrency coin values.

Howdy, Crystal! What can I do for you? Take a seat! You’re looking beautiful, as always. Hey, you like the new carpet I got in here? Ten thousand bucks! What a steal for this quality, eh?

She stood by the door, not wishing to spend much time in here. Scott’s office always had a weird smell to it, something reminiscent to her big