Page 100 of The Demon Prince

So they had attacked the person easier to harm. The smaller target because they knew her injuries would hurt him even more than if they had tried to carve out his heart. He knew what this was. He’d seen this tactic a hundred times in his long life, but it had never hurt so badly.

Like the monster he was, he curved himself around her. A beast with horns, claws, and a long, whipping tail behind him as he wrapped Katherine in his arms.

“Pet,” he said quietly. “I need you to put your arms around my neck. Can you do that?”

She nodded and reached for him even as someone shouted her name in the crowd.

He turned with her, his gaze narrowing on an older gentleman who stood in the crowd. Everyone seemed to look at him with some level of respect, so he could only assume this was a man of power.

Katherine looked at the man too, but then she turned away and tucked her face into Gluttony’s neck.

He softened. If this man had any power over the woman he loved, then he no longer did. Gluttony was the only one she sought out for reassurance, and he was the one who had saved her. Not this man. For the first time in a very long time, Gluttony felt... powerful.

He pointed at the stranger with a long nailed hand, his teeth peeled back in a snarl that surely revealed every glinting point of his sharpened teeth. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said, his voice warped with fangs. “This woman is mine.”

“Lust at first bite, I take it?” the man challenged.

He would not reveal the true depths of his feelings for the first time with a crowd before them. He had no intent on allowing this man to goad him or Katherine into saying anything they were not ready to say.

So he turned away from the man instead. He stepped off the boardwalk and ignored the gasps as he walked off the planks and into the swamp. The villagers of this town were not his problem, but the injured woman in his arms absolutely was.

He strode through the water that splashed against his now massive thighs and quickly disappeared from the sight of the village.

It was time for Katherine to meet the others in his kingdom. The ones that she’d feared most of her life, because he had encouraged those who were different to feast upon whatever they wished. Hunt the humans, he’d said all those years ago. Hunt them, and destroy them for all I care.

But now, he had one in particular who was his and his alone.

Someday he would introduce her to the loup garou and the other more terrifying beasts of his swamp. He would show her that there was nothing to fear in their monstrous forms, as long as he was with her.

But for now, he had one intent and one alone.

The rusalki were the softest of his strange creatures, although likely they would still terrify Katherine. They were... well, not the most beautiful of creatures when they were not attempting to lure men. How they appeared to either sex was rather different in most cases, but they were also quite magical on their own.

And they would be able to heal her. They would make her more comfortable.

Slogging through the water, he noticed when Katherine came back into herself. She jolted in his arms, her fingers curling a little more tightly around the back of his neck.

“Where are we going?” she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder and peering about them for the first time.

They were far from the walkways. Farther than any human likely had ever attempted to journey. They wouldn’t have gotten far if they tried.

But this was a wonderland to him. The scent of peat and the earthy addition of bog water filled his lungs. Fireflies danced around them, mingling with dragonflies that rushed to get ready for the night. Wild lilies on their bright green pads floated around his knees. And in the near distance was a weeping willow whose tendrils brushed the water with delicate fronds. Tiny ripples fluttered out of reach as the slightest breeze knocked them into movement.

It was peaceful here. Beautiful. Not an ounce of humanity to touch it.

“Oh,” Katherine breathed. “This is lovely.”

“I have a favor to ask,” he said as he strode more confidently toward the willow.

“Anything.”

“Not of you, pet.” Gluttony felt his lips twist into a smile, though. Because even injured and frightened, she trusted him to take care of her. And he would. For the rest of her days.

Ducking underneath the delicate fronds, he stepped into another world. The rusalki lived underneath the curtain of the willow. Their beds were carved into its giant trunk, although many of them still slept underneath the water in their algae covered beds. There were four of them lounging on the roots of the tree, weaving new crowns for their heads.

They did not have their faces on, though. The faces they wore for men were beautiful and lovely. Young women who had never seen a day of hardship in their life.

These were their true faces. Rotting and sunken in death, as they had died in the bog. Most were pushed into the water and drowned by their partners. Some because they did not love the man in return, others because they were pregnant and their partners did not wish to be fathers. Or to marry.

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