Page 119 of The Demon Prince

Katherine was so tired of demon kings who refused to see what was right underneath their nose. “It suggests that you are completely and utterly without thought or reason. If one kingdom had a rebellion that was starting to boil in it, why would others not feel the same? You have ruled our world for a thousand years. Has no one ever tried to change that before?”

He shrugged in response, but she could see how troubled he looked. “There have been many rebellions, but they are always contained within the kingdoms themselves. No rebellion has ever spilled over between multiple kingdoms.”

“Maybe it has something to do with when the light bridges appeared. The history books say the kingdoms never used to be able to connect with each other, but now they can.” Katherine tossed her hands up in the air. “I don’t care, Envy. I don’t care about any of this. I want to get to my man. Gluttony is in danger while we’re talking about the possibility of a rebellion you already know is happening. This is a waste of both our time.”

If he wouldn’t let her go, then she would carve her own path. She didn’t care if that meant wandering right through the swamp. She’d do it. Thigh high in the muck and the mire, through all the dangerous creatures that she’d always been warned about.

No one and nothing would stand between her and the man she loved. No old wounds, no terrifying creatures, not even this demon king in front of her.

Envy’s eyes hooded, darkening with interest as he surveyed her. “You really would do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Even give your life?”

She met his gaze, so he knew how true her answer was. “Without question.”

“Fascinating,” Envy muttered before he rubbed a hand over his lips. “This is the first time I’ve wanted to steal you, little human. What does it feel like for Gluttony to know he has a human so devoted to him?”

“Terrifying, I imagine.” She gestured between the two of them. “Clearly, since he told you to kidnap me before I got involved in anything.”

He hummed low underneath his breath before nodding. “I suppose that makes sense. Humans are a rather expensive and delicate pet to keep.”

Somehow, it made her even more angry for him to call her by that name. Gluttony used it as a way to express his affection for her. He only called her pet because he adored her and wanted to keep her safe and happy. This demon? He called her that as an insult. Proof that he still thought she was lesser than him simply because she wasn’t a magic practitioner or whatever it was that he might actually respect.

Scoffing, she turned away from him and started toward the edge of the walkway. “I’m going to help him.”

“You’re going to die,” Envy replied. The words were blunt and sharp-edged. “They want to kill him, but he cannot die. You can.”

“He had me consume a spirit,” she hissed. “I am as immortal as you.”

“You aren’t, actually.”

She froze at the edge of the boardwalk, her toes hanging off the rotting wood. “What do you mean by that?”

“Possession is a delicate process. The spirit inside you can keep you alive indefinitely, but you are still mortal.” Envy stood beside her, his eyes on the moors and not on her. “We are spirits taken flesh. They could cut Gluttony’s head off and he would likely grow a new one.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Not personal experience.” Tiny wrinkles appeared between his eyes. “But there is one of us who has endured all of it and wears the scars to prove it. We are impossible to kill, Katherine, but you are still a mortal. You stand before me, all flesh and blood and bone. I could cut your head off or stop your heart and there would be nothing you could do to stop me. And it would end. Your life would stop and the spirit would leak out of your body, off to find another. Mortal wounds will always affect you.”

And maybe that should have been the only warning she needed. Maybe she should have felt the shiver of fear and the worry that death would find her. But Katherine didn’t feel that at all.

She just shrugged. “Then I will be more careful.”

“You aren’t afraid of death at all, are you?”

She thought about his question, letting it mull in her mind and roll over like a stone in the sea. But it was a stone that had been in her mind for many years. She’d already worried it smooth, the sharp edges of anxiety and fear turning into a quiet acceptance. She’d lived with that fear for such a long time that it no longer had any bite.

“No,” she finally replied. “I have lived my life hand in hand with pain. I know what it feels like to come close to death, and I know what it feels like to live a life only half awake. I’ve been held back from so many things because I cannot do them while watching other people do them with ease. When I was younger, I thought this made me half a person. Less whole than the others. But now I know I am just as much a complete person. Life can be lived with modifications to the fullest extent. Perhaps even more than people who are already whole, because I live in this world and see it for what it really is. Not for what it can give me.”

His gaze softened a bit, and his eyes flicked down to her hip as though he had any right to even look at it. It wasn’t for him to see. It wasn’t for him to pity her. She had an injury from when she was a child, but she was still a person.

Maybe Gluttony was the only one who could see her in the right light. It was all the more reason to love him and throw herself into keeping him safe.

He deserved it. He had never once looked at her hip as something that made her weak or lesser.

Turning her attention to the swamp, she nodded once. “I’ll go straight through the swamp. There are creatures there, but I have met some of them before. Perhaps that meeting will be enough for them to let me through.”

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