My Ordered Incubus Was Not As Advertised

The incubus I bought online was a complete bait and switch.

The product page promised a sweet, obedient, and thoroughly domesticated companion.

What I actually got was a feral menace.

I pictured coming home to a hot meal, a spotless apartment, and someone eager to warm my bed.

Instead, I came home to cold leftovers, a wrecked living room, and a shrieking disaster of a demon.

Warming my bed? I wouldn't let this guy near my sheets in a million years.

Just as I was about to completely lose my mind, a direct message popped up on my phone from the seller.

"So sorry about that, ma'am! We accidentally shipped you the wrong inventory. Would you like to process a return or exchange?"

I looked up. Jax was currently tangled up in the living room drapes, dramatically threatening to hurl himself out the second-story window if I didn't give him my undivided attention.

My vision literally went dark with rage.

"Return it! Come get him right now!"

I was typing my furious reply to the seller single-handedly while trying to pry the feral demon out of my curtains with the other.

By the time I dug him out of the expensive fabric, I hit send on my final message.

I finally turned my attention to him. His demonic tail was whipping back and forth in a frenzy, and he glared at me with absolute outrage.

"Blair, what are you doing? Let me go!"

"Are you an idiot?" I snapped. "If you fall and break your neck on my property, I'm the one going to supernatural prison."

Incubi were a rare and heavily regulated species.

That legal red tape was the only reason I hadn't seriously humbled Jax during the absolute hell he had put me through these past few weeks.

My words left him sputtering. He choked on his own rage for a second before his face flushed bright red.

"Don't try reverse psychology on me! I have my pride, you know! I would rather die than submit to you!"

"Let me go this instant! I don't want anything to do with you! I hate you!"

My phone buzzed in my hand. I caught a glimpse of the seller's confirmation message on the lock screen. A massive wave of relief washed over me.

I didn't bother arguing. I didn't even care how hard he was thrashing in my grip. I just opened my hands and dropped him.

Jax hit the hardwood floor with a loud, undignified yelp.

Ignoring his angry shouts about how I dared to drop him, I turned my back, dragged my exhausted body into my bedroom, and locked the door behind me.

But a few minutes later, I stepped back out.

Jax looked up, his expression screaming I knew you'd come crawling back.

I completely ignored him. Keeping my face deadpan, I walked through the apartment, deadbolting the front door, locking all the windows, securing the cabinets, and packing away every single fragile item I owned. I yanked the half-shredded drapes off the rod and tossed them in the trash.

Finally, I flipped the main circuit breaker, plunging the entire apartment into darkness.

I clicked on a heavy-duty flashlight, pointing the beam directly at Jax's bewildered face.

"You can stop throwing your little tantrums, Jax. I am officially done playing nice."

I walked back to my bedroom door and delivered my final ultimatum over my shoulder.

"I already processed your return. The agency will be here in a few days to collect you."

"Since you hate me so much, you are free to go."

"Pack up whatever garbage you brought with you. You're moving out."

With that, I slammed the bedroom door shut, locking him out of my sight and my life for good.

That night, I had nightmares about that chaotic demon.

Looking back, Jax and I hadn't even lived together for a full three months.

It all started when my best friend, Stella, saw how much the corporate grind was destroying my soul. She insisted I look into the paranormal companion market.

"Blair, you have to trust me on this. The modern incubi they breed now are incredibly sweet. They are literally domestic perfection. They just want to take care of you."

"They aren't even that expensive anymore. Just get one. It will take so much stress off your plate."

To prove her point, she practically dragged me over to her condo to meet her own supernatural househusband.

Despite her nagging, I was skeptical. Work was absolutely crushing me, but I didn't see how buying a magical roommate would fix anything. Who could possibly take care of my life better than me?

But after spending one evening at Stella's place, my entire perspective shifted.

Her incubus greeted us at the door with a warm smile, handed us silk pajamas, poured us perfectly temperature-controlled water, and drew a steaming, lavender-scented bath.

By the time we stepped out of the bathroom, he had a gourmet dinner waiting on the table.

During our post-dinner gossip session, his presence was flawless. He chimed in at all the right moments, matching our energy, laughing when we laughed, and validating every complaint we had about our bosses.

Right before bed, he gave Stella a gentle, expert shoulder massage. The combination of his magic, the soothing ambient music, and the incense he burned had me sleeping like a rock.

The next morning, a hot breakfast was waiting for us. On our way out the door, this absolute saint of a demon wrapped Stella in a tight, affectionate hug.

Walking to the subway, my mind was entirely blown.

That level of care was intoxicating.

Buying one of these guys seemed like the ultimate life hack.

Stella nudged my ribs with her elbow, flashing a smug grin. "See? Told you. Order one tonight. You won't regret it."

That very evening, I used the exclusive referral link Stella sent me and placed an order.

The profile I selected featured a stunning, elegant man with soft eyes and a gentle smile. According to the bio, his temperament was top-tier.

I messaged the agency for details, and the handler immediately bombarded me with glowing photos and endless praise for this specific incubus.

"Just a quick heads-up," the seller typed. "He can be a little possessive. If you adopt him, you absolutely cannot bring another incubus into your home."

"Not a problem," I replied.

"All sales are final once shipped. No refunds."

"Got it."

The transaction went through seamlessly.

In my mind, I had it all mapped out. I would come home to a warm, peaceful house. We would take care of each other and build a quiet life together. He could share my bed if he wanted, but no pressure if he preferred his own space.

But I never could have predicted the absolute holy terror that would show up on my doorstep.

When Jax first arrived, he was undeniably breathtaking.

His features were sharp and striking, matching the agency photos perfectly. The only difference was a tiny notch missing from his right eyebrow, something I assumed happened during transit.

His physique was flawless. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and incredibly long legs. He was built like a Greek god, with muscle definition that belonged on a magazine cover.

He was definitely broader and more muscular than his pictures suggested, but I didn't care. I figured it was just the camera angle.

I was so excited to welcome him that I actually took a day off work to catch up on sleep, determined to be well-rested and in a great mood for his arrival.

After all, this was the creature I planned to spend the rest of my life with.

The delivery handlers dropped his enchanted transport crate in my living room.

Trying to contain my excitement, I carefully unlocked the heavy iron latch and reached my hand inside to guide him out.

"Welcome home. I promise we're going to have a great life toge..."

Before I could finish the sentence, he lunged. His teeth clamped down viciously on my fingers.

I screamed in pain, ripping my hand out of his mouth with a violent jerk.

Blood dripped down my knuckles. He crouched in the shadows of the crate, his eyes glowing a cold, menacing violet in the dim light.

I cradled my throbbing hand against my chest. My heart was pounding, and the pain radiating from my torn skin was intense.

But seeing him curled up like a frightened, cornered animal, I swallowed the angry words burning on my tongue.

We stayed locked in a tense standoff until I finally backed down.

Figuring he was just severely traumatized by the shipping process, I opened the door to the spare bedroom, left him alone, and retreated to the kitchen to bandage my hand.

For the next twenty-four hours, I watched him through the security camera I had installed in the hallway. He stayed huddled in the darkest corner of his room, refusing to move.

Worried he might be sick, I tried cracking the door open just to talk to him.

But the second the hinges creaked, his head snapped up. He glared at me with such intense, suffocating hostility that my stomach dropped.

The memory of his teeth sinking into my flesh was still too fresh. I didn't dare push my luck. I quietly closed the door and backed away.

This exhausting dance dragged on until Sunday evening.

I was sprawled on the couch, brainstorming a marketing pitch, when I heard the spare bedroom door click open. I instantly leaped to my feet.

He flinched, taking a defensive step backward into the shadows.

I immediately threw my hands up in surrender. "Don't panic! I'm not going to hurt you!"

Patience won out in the end. That night was the first time he actually spoke to me.

He told me his name was Jax.

It suited him.

We exchanged a few basic words, and I gave him a quick tour of the apartment layout.

Sensing that his defensive walls were finally lowering, I pulled a sleek black debit card out of my pocket and placed it on the TV stand right in front of him.

I offered him my warmest, most genuine smile.

"Jax, from now on, you're in charge of running this house. Don't stress about money. That account has plenty of funds for groceries and whatever else you need. I'll handle the earning."

I took a slight step forward, tentatively opening my arms. "We're a team now, okay?"

Jax was a solid half-head taller than me. I looked up at his handsome face, hoping for a breakthrough. But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him subtly shifting his weight backward, recoiling from my approach.

What was his problem?

I frowned, opening my mouth to ask if he was okay.

Before I could speak, he snatched the debit card off the console, took three massive steps back to put a solid distance between us, and actively avoided my gaze.

"Whatever," he muttered.

For a while, I genuinely believed he was just shy. I convinced myself he needed time to adjust before he felt comfortable with any physical affection.

I thought the worst of our friction was behind us.

I massively underestimated Jax.

I was in the middle of a crucial strategy meeting at work when my phone blew up. It was my frantic next-door neighbor, screaming that my apartment reeked of natural gas.

I burned rubber getting home, only to discover that Jax had tried to cook a meal, completely failed, and left the stove burners running on full blast without a flame. He was inches away from suffocating himself.

"How is this even possible?" I yelled, ripping every window in the apartment open to air out the toxic fumes. "Your bio literally said you were a master in the kitchen!"

I dragged him by the collar into the center of the room, lecturing him at the top of my lungs about basic fire safety.

He just stood there in absolute silence, staring at the floor, still clutching a blackened, melted spatula in his hand.

When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were brimming with defiant resentment.

"I don't know how to cook," he mumbled defensively. "Incubi don't even eat human food. You don't actually care about me at all."

His voice was so low I barely caught it. "What did you say?"

Those words seemed to trigger something volatile inside him.

He violently hurled the burnt spatula across the kitchen, didn't even bother taking off his apron, and stormed down the hall. He slammed his bedroom door so hard the framed pictures on the wall rattled.

I stood in the kitchen, completely bewildered.

I had zero clue what he was throwing a tantrum over. To make matters worse, my boss was blowing up my phone, demanding I get back to the office immediately to salvage the meeting.

Trapped between a furious boss and a sulking demon, I resorted to knocking gently on his door.

Because of his "shyness," we slept in separate rooms, meaning I couldn't just walk in when he threw the deadbolt.

I swallowed my frustration and tried to coax him out. "Jax? Are you mad? I wasn't trying to yell at you, I was just terrified you were going to get hurt. I'm sorry, I should have controlled my temper better."

Dead silence from the other side of the wood.

I kept pleading for a few more minutes, but the notification pings from my boss were becoming increasingly unhinged. Left with no choice, I shouted, "Order some takeout on the card!" before grabbing my purse and sprinting back to the office.

That was just the prologue to my misery.

From that day forward, a switch flipped in his brain.

If I left the apartment for five minutes, he would miraculously cause a disaster that required my immediate return.

The second I sat down at my desk, a crisis would unfold, forcing me to hail a cab straight back home.

Once, while I was buried in paperwork, he pulled a stunt so ridiculous I refused to leave. I demanded over the phone to know if he genuinely had a death wish.

He went dead silent, hung up on me, and then spammed my messages with texts reading: I hate you.

All the shy, timid behavior he displayed on his first day completely vanished. He evolved into an absolute tyrant. He refused to communicate like an adult, relying solely on variations of "I hate you!" to express his feelings.

I tried sitting him down for a rational conversation. It was utterly useless. My words went in one ear and out the other. He was committed to chaos.

It got to the point where I started questioning his motives.

Maybe he wasn't trying to get himself killed.

Maybe he was actively trying to put me in an early grave.

Whenever I was on the brink of closing a massive deal, my phone would ring with an emergency dispatch notifying me that my incubus was in critical danger.

I was legally obligated to drop everything and rush to his side. The authorities warned me that ignoring these calls could result in criminal charges for magical neglect.

This exact nightmare scenario played out seven different times.

By the time my boss finally pulled me into his office and screamed at me until his face turned purple, I walked out feeling entirely numb. I wasn't even angry at the demon anymore. I was just questioning my entire existence.

Jax was put on this earth to destroy my life.

And now, here we were.

After finally sleeping peacefully alone in my dark apartment, I woke up feeling refreshed for the first time in months. I grabbed my phone and typed a quick response to the seller: I'll be ready for the pickup.

I stepped out of my bedroom, expecting to deal with more of Jax's attitude.

Instead, the apartment was completely empty.

The front door was wide open, swinging back and forth on its hinges in the morning breeze.

I stood frozen in the hallway, my jaw dropping.

The living room window was shattered.

The front door was breached.

The console table drawer where I kept the emergency cash? Gone. The entire drawer was ripped out.

And stuck to the wall directly across from my bedroom door was a crumpled piece of paper.

Stop trying reverse psychology on me. I'm running away. You are the worst!

That absolute bastard.

I slammed my fist into the doorframe and immediately dialed the paranormal authorities.

"Hello?! I need to report a robbery!"

Jax and I sat on opposite ends of my ruined living room, covered in drywall dust.

To prevent another psychotic episode, I had secured every door in the house and locked all my valuables inside the heavy steel safe in my bedroom.

Now, sitting in an apartment that looked like a bomb had gone off, I unscrewed the lid of my thermos, took a slow sip of tea, and stared him down.

"Give me my money back."

Jax set his jaw. "No."

"Then pay me for the broken window."

"No."

"Then stop terrorizing my life for the next three days!"

"No!"

I inhaled a massive, shaky breath. "Then what the hell do you want from me?!"

Jax went completely silent.

The tension in the living room was suffocating. I forced my racing heart to slow down, pinching the bridge of my nose before trying again.

"Jax, let's just talk about this calmly, like normal friends."

That specific phrase somehow triggered him all over again.

His head snapped up, his eyebrows pulling together in a fierce scowl. "What do you mean, 'friends'?!"

I paused mid-sip, my fingers tightening around the metal thermos. I stared at him for a long moment before slowly nodding.

"Fine. You're right. That was a bad choice of words."

Jax's expression instantly relaxed. "Exactly. You..."

"We shouldn't use the word 'friends'," I continued, trying my absolute hardest to view this from his twisted perspective.

"Considering how much you despise my existence, 'friends' is a massive overstatement."

"How about 'casual enemies'? Does that work better for you?"

Jax looked at me like I had lost my mind. "What?"

"Wait, you..."

I cut him off, completely out of patience for his semantic games. "Okay, Jax. Let's talk it out like casual enemies."

"Do you just inherently hate my personality, or did I do something specific to piss you off?"

"I'll admit I don't know the first thing about taking care of an incubus. If you hate my guts, just say it. You're getting shipped back to the agency in a few days anyway. We might as well clear the air so we can part ways without wanting to murder each other."

To my absolute shock, Jax panicked. "You're actually sending me back?! Where am I supposed to go?!"

I rubbed my temples, the exhaustion seeping into my bones. "Where are you supposed to go? How is that my problem? You're a fully grown demon, you'll figure it out. Besides, if you stay here, I'm the one who's going to end up dead!"

My temper flared, and my words came out infinitely harsher than I intended.

Jax's eyes widened in genuine disbelief. He couldn't process why the woman who had spent months coddling and appeasing him was suddenly speaking to him like he was garbage.

I took another long drink of tea, trying to cool the fire in my chest. I needed a minute to collect my thoughts before trying to reason with him again.

Suddenly, the front door creaked open.

Jax and I both whipped our heads toward the entryway.

The cold, fluorescent light from the hallway spilled into the apartment. Standing right in the doorway was an incubus whose facial features were a near-perfect mirror image of Jax's.

"Blair."

The newcomer's voice was like warm honey. He wasn't confined to a shipping crate; he simply carried a sleek leather duffel bag over his shoulder.

He looked exhausted from travel, yet his eyes crinkled into a breathtaking, affectionate smile the second he saw me.

"I apologize for the intrusion. I simply couldn't wait to see you, so I caught an earlier flight."

"I picked up some fresh groceries on the way. What are you craving? I'd love to cook for you."

I was still trying to process why my front door was unlocked, completely incapable of forming a coherent sentence.

But Jax practically exploded off the sofa.

He stared at the newcomer, absolute horror washing over his face. "Silas?!"

The second that name left his mouth, combined with the uncanny resemblance between the two demons, all the puzzle pieces clicked perfectly into place.

It explained why the product page promised a domestic angel, but the delivery box contained a feral nightmare.

It explained why the demon I received was noticeably more muscular than his photos.

It even explained the tiny scar missing from the edge of Jax's right eyebrow.

My brain worked in overdrive, finally realizing the massive logistical screw-up that had ruined my life.

But the two demons were already locked in a bitter standoff.

Silas stepped gracefully into the apartment, not even bothering to close the door behind him. He turned his warm, flawless smile toward Jax.

"Hello, little brother," he said gently, though his words were laced with ice. "I was informed about the shipping error."

Jax was furious. "She bought you too?!"

Silas didn't blink. "No. She requested a return on her defective product. It is time for you to go home."

"Why the hell is she returning me?!"

"It's time for you to go home."

"I was here first! I belong here!"

"It is time for you to go home."

"..."

I sat on the couch, completely dumbfounded. Were these two actually related?

Even though Silas didn't seem like the most forgiving guy on the planet, his demeanor was already lightyears better than Jax's.

I set my thermos on the coffee table and stood up, ready to formally evict Jax from my property.

"Please, allow me. You shouldn't strain yourself," Silas said smoothly.

Before I could take a step, Silas crossed the room in a blur, clamped his hand around Jax's bicep, and physically dragged him toward the open door.

Jax, despite his massive frame, was hauled several feet across the floor before his brain caught up with his body. He started thrashing wildly. "Silas! Let go of me!"

"Jax, be a good boy. Stop making a fool of yourself."

"Let me go! You don't understand anything!"

Silas's grip was like a steel vise. Panicking, Jax pulled his arm back, balling his hand into a heavy fist, aiming straight for his brother's face.

My instincts kicked in. I cleared the distance between us in three massive strides, pulling my arm back as far as it would go.

Smack!

The sharp crack of my hand connecting with Jax's cheek echoed through the silent apartment. The sheer force of the blow sent him stumbling backward. He caught his balance, clutching his rapidly swelling face, staring at me in absolute shock.

"Did you... did you just hit me?" he stammered.

"I sure did," I replied, my voice dropping to a dangerous chill. "And you deserved it."

I had trained in kickboxing for eight years. I wasn't some fragile pushover.

I stepped firmly in front of Silas, shielding him. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I tapped the screen and shoved my digital termination certificate right in Jax's face.

"Our legal binding contract has been officially severed. You are trespassing on private property, and you just attempted to assault my incubus. That slap was self-defense, and I am perfectly willing to defend myself again."

I didn't give him an inch of breathing room. "Now. Drop my money on the floor, and get the hell out of my house before I count to three."

Jax opened his mouth to argue, but I raised my voice, cutting him off like a whip. "Three!"

The sheer venom in my tone visibly rattled him. He flinched, taking a half-step backward. For a fleeting second, a flash of genuine hurt crossed his eyes.

I didn't care. "Two!"

He gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling. He violently threw my stolen credit cards and cash onto the hardwood floor, spinning on his heel and marching toward the hallway.

"One."

I finished the countdown, my expression completely blank.

Jax stopped in the doorway, standing exactly where Silas had been moments before. He looked back at us standing shoulder to shoulder, his chest heaving with ragged breaths.

The edges of his eyes were rimmed with red. "You're going to regret this, Blair. My brother isn't the saint you think he is..."

I wasn't in the mood for any more of his desperate manipulation. I looked over my shoulder at Silas. "Close the door."