Page 24 of Taken to the Deadlands

I felt like pushing a bit more. But this time she surprised me by taking a deep breath and continuing.

“After a while, I would offer them passage home. I learned to do that after the first one slit her wrist in front of me to provoke me into a frenzy,” she explained.

“How many?” I asked.

“Three. The second one didn’t make it through the portal before it collapsed. In her anguish, she fought me and I—you can guess what happened.”

I nodded.

It should be horrifying. I should be disgusted. But instead, it made me feel things I shouldn’t. I just sent her a small smile.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s hard, I know, but don’t give yourself over to guilt. I can see it messes with you.”

The hope in her eyes was almost enough to break me.

What the fuck am I doing, telling her it’s okay to lose control and attack humans?

But a part of me understood her struggles and recognized just how much she was trying to change.

Even if thinking that way could be my downfall.

Chapter 11

Aris

“It looks… very appetizing,” Mia said with an obvious grimace. Sarcasm was heavy in her tone.

My smile fell, and the pride that had ballooned in my chest deflated.

The past couple days, I had taken food to her room for fear of her being around Thera. This was the first time I had Mia eat in the formal dining room on the first floor. I decided to mark the occasion by helping Thera prepare some of the human delicacies I had learned fromher.

We didn’t have the same types of animals or vegetables they had in their realm, but they were easily substituted for low-level demon meat and whatever roots and vegetables we could find here.

This wasn’t the first time I had fed a human, but it was the first time I had been so openly insulted.

There were five dishes in front of her, all of them smelling good to my senses. They might have looked like piles of slop, but surely she would at least try them, right?

“It is,” I said, feeling my chest puff. It was good food. I knew that much. And when she finally got over herself and tried it, she would too.

She gave me a look before casting her gaze to the closest bowl. It was stewed demon meat in a bed of grains and a mix of the roots that we dug up here for flavor. All of it human-safe.

“It’s almost like you’re trying to woo me or something,” she muttered, waving her hand around and gesturing to the room. “First you invite me to eat with you in the dining room, andnowyou even prepare a feast?”

I shifted in my chair, casting my gaze to my own bowl. It was very different from hers. Broiled demon meat, though unlike hers, mine hadn’t come from the herbivores that roamed the realms where we purchased our meat. Mine came from carnivores. The tougher meat that would give me more sustenance to replace what I was missing by excluding humans from my diet.

Maybe she’s disgusted by my food?

Besides the point. Not sure about wooing, but I was trying to… thank her?

I wondered if she knew how much her words on the cliff meant to me. How the acceptance of my realm andmemeant to me—to someone who had been relatively alone for centuries with no one to converse with.

No one to share this world with.

“Humans eat meals together,” I said. “And I was thinking we could start as well.”

When I peeked up at her, there was a delightful coloring to her cheeks and ears that caused my stomach to flip.

My mind kept trying to remind me that Mia was only here to reachher, something she had not done yet, and that all of this was going overboard.

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