Page 10 of The Beast's Heart

“It’s why we were late.” He glances at Meredith. “I wanted to look nice.”

“I can completely understand that. I spent a while choosing my own outfit.”

Geoff snorts. I hear the unspoken,“And that’s what you came up with?”

Ray sticks their head out of the kitchen and calls, “Dinner’s ready!”

Alisha lifts Enrique onto her hip and we all file into the room and find seats around the table.

Dinner is chaotic. As one of six children, I’m accustomed to chaotic dinners, but this isn’t the warm cacophony of family talking over each other.

Enrique kicks and cries whenever Alisha tries to set him on his own seat. Mal outright refuses to eat the hearty stew that Ray has prepared, no matter what punishments Meredith threatens or how Lily-Iris coaxes. There’s screaming, there are tears. Ben joins in on the tears when he accidentally spills down his front. I try to help him mop up and reassure him that The Beast won’t have him sent away even if his nice shirt is ruined.

“Feeling out of your depth yet?” Geoff asks when I return to my seat beside him. He has to raise his voice so I can hear him over Enrique’s cries.

Completely.But I’m not about to admit it. “Oh no, not at all, this is fine.”

There’s this meme of a dog in a burning room saying something similar. I feel a bizarre kinship with that anthropomorphized hound right now.

Then, at once, a ringing silence falls. Adam’s walked into the kitchen.

Meredith stands so quickly her chair squeaks across the floor and nearly topples. “Beast. I didn’t know you wanted to join us. We would have waited.”

“No need.” His deep voice echoes in the sudden quiet. He circles the table, moving behind me to help himself to a portion of stew from the counter. Geoff leaps up to get him a chair, which he sets between us.

“What do you think of your new teacher?” Adam asks.

The children are still and silent. Mal glares into his bowl, Ben holds his breath, trying his best to cover his stained shirt with his arms, Enrique stares, wide-eyed, from Alisha’s lap.

“We think he’s fabulous,” Ray says. “Don’t we?” Their gaze lingers on Ben, who nods while biting his lip. I’m more grateful than Ray could imagine for the show of support.

“That’s good.” Adam takes the seat Geoff offered and settles beside me. I’m more aware of his presence than I’ve ever been aware of anybody. My shoulder prickles where we’re nearly touching in the cramped space.

Adam starts eating and it’s as if a spell has broken. The frozen figures around the table animate once more. I picture the scene as if I was on the outside looking in. We must look like a misshapen Dungeons and Dragons party all crammed around this table in this old kitchen: Adam, a half-giant barbarian, Ray the tattooed fighter, Meredith the straight-spined high elf, Lily-Iris the kind-hearted gnome, her father the wise old wizard and so many halflings. Geoff would probably be a bard. The type who seduces every woman he sets eyes on. And me? The token nondescript human along for the adventure.

“You’re not eating, Malakai,” Adam notes in his low growl. “Something wrong with the food?”

Mal gulps and shakes his head. He reaches for his bowl and his hand trembles.

“You don’t have to,” I say before I have a chance to think better.

Adam’s stormy gaze flicks to me and I want to sink into the floor, turn invisible. “I won’t have good food going to waste. You’ll eat what’s put in front of you unless you can offer Ray a good reason why you won’t touch their food.”

Mal sinks into himself, cheeks going red, but he doesn’t move to eat.

“It’s all right, really—” Ray starts, but the look that Adam gives them silences them.

I force a cheerful note into my voice and boldly attempt to break the tension, or at least move attention away from Mal. “When I was young, I went through a phase where I wouldn’t eat potatoes. Can you believe that? Potatoes. Who doesn’t love potatoes? I can’t even tell you why I didn’t like them. Possibly the texture. Of course, I love them now. Grew out of it.”

“I like potatoes,” Ben says. “Especially mashed potatoes! My gran makes—” His forehead wrinkles. Then he swallows and, as if he’s physically swallowed down a bad memory, he says, “I mean, I used to have them at Thanksgiving.”

There’s a whole tragic story in the unspoken words.

“I’ll be sure to order some more potatoes next week,” Ray says, matching my forced brightness. To me, they add, “We get deliveries every Thursday. So if you ever need anything, add it to my list by Tuesday.”

“You don’t have any other contact with the outside world?”

It’s Adam who answers. “Contact, we have. Via satellite. It’s slow as hell but it gets the job done.”

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