Page 101 of The Demon Prince

Rusalki were dangerous creatures who lived with hatred in their hearts. Their purpose was mostly revenge, and to drown all men who came near them. They dragged them into the depths, tangling them in their long hair as their slippery bodies escaped the men’s reach. Once he drowned, they were rumored to feast upon the man’s flesh.

One of the rusalki sat up quickly at his approach, her black hair tangling around her nude form. Her dark eyes flashed in those sunken sockets before she recognized him.

“Gluttony!” she said, and the others perked up.

Soon they were swarmed by countless women, their skeletal figures making soft creaking noises as they peeked over his arm to look at Katherine.

“What happened?” the first rusalki said, her eyes large and wide with emotion.

And Katherine... Oh, he’d thought she would tremble in his arms with fear. He thought looking upon those thin, emaciated faces, ghostly pale and ashen with death, that she would feel some ounce of fear.

But he had forgotten who he held in his arms.

Katherine’s eyes filled with tears. Not in fear, but sadness as she choked, “They attacked me. I was one of their own, and they... They kicked me. They knocked me down and if Gluttony hadn’t come, they would have...”

She couldn’t say the words, considering the young women who stood before her knew exactly what would happen. They had not survived their fates, and they knew what death by drowning felt like.

Tutting, the rusalki reached as one to take Katherine out of his arms, but he refused. “She cannot walk,” he grumbled, stomping through them to reach a small, flat section at the base of the tree. Then he settled her carefully, making sure she was comfortable on her rump before he took a step away from them all. “She needs healing.”

“Healing,” one of them said. “We do not heal.”

“You do.”

“Our magic is in death.”

Gluttony took a deep breath, reminding himself that even though he was in battle form, he did not have to be the monster. “We both know you are lying. I’m calling upon our bond and the boon you owe me, ladies. Put her back together.”

They all looked at each other, then back to him, then made a sound of a collective sigh. “Then we are no longer in your service?”

“You’ve never been in my service. The lot of you do whatever you want,” he grumbled. “Fine. Yes. You can consider yourself free of all debts.”

They clustered together, a menagerie of bony elbows and hollows between ribs. Then they turned again, and he heard one of them say, “We will care for her, demon.”

And so he settled in the roots a small distance away, bracing his forearms on his knees as he watched the women cluster around his heart. For he had surely ripped it out of his own chest and given it to Katherine.

Because she owned him, he realized. Mind, body, and soul.

ChapterThirty-Seven

The rusalki patched her back together as best they could. They hadn’t been lying when they claimed their magic was more in death than life. Katherine had never been healed quite so painfully before. But they were kind. Their hands were gentle as they touched every one of her hurts and cooed over each bruise.

They knew what it was like for people to betray them. They knew the bone deep hurt that now lived inside her soul. A hurt a regular healer couldn’t touch.

Bony hands held hers, squeezing her fingers through the pain and the anguish that they slowly ripped out of her being. Over and over. Tearing out pain with their fingers until she couldn’t feel it anymore.

They snapped their fingers and claws at her, tearing at the air over the wounds on her body. She thought it mad before she watched her skin start to knit back together. Bruises disappeared after they ripped at her body and suddenly, she was well. Katherine had never been subjected to such magic.

And throughout it all, she watched Gluttony. He stayed frozen in place, his fingers pressed against his lips as the battle form slowly disappeared from his body. His horns were first. They slipped back into his skull, sliding down until they were little nubs and then nothing at all. His claws went after, sliding back into his hands in much the same way as his horns. Then his bloated body returned to normal, his tail last as it slowly disappeared and suddenly, it was her man seated there against the roots.

Though he wasn’t anywhere near as large as he had been, she was still awed by how big he was. He was a massive creature who would stop at nothing to keep her safe and the ease that brought her? Katherine hardly knew how to deal with the feelings that blustered through her.

Finally, the corpse women stepped away from her and stared down. “We cannot heal your injured leg.”

“It is an old injury.”

“It is one that is filled with more pain than we can take.” The woman in front of her, missing half her face, had tangled hair that was so knotted it was hard to tell how long it might be. But it still plastered down beyond her hips, tangling around her breasts and making her appear to have been dipped in a pool of ink. “We would take it, if we could.”

“You carry enough pain.”

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