Page 28 of The Demon Prince

She swallowed hard, and Gluttony knew he’d caught her.

So that was the way of it then.

Here he had been, thinking that perhaps this brave little thing wanted him for the same reasons he wanted her. He thought she could feel the burning deep in her soul, and that she knew what it felt like to need another person so badly that it turned her inside out.

Instead, she hoped to become a hero. A martyr. Her people would see her as the woman who gave herself over to the monster who wanted to kill them all.

“So that is the real deal,” he snarled, already feeling that cold numbness taking him away. “You wish for your people to finally see you, is that it?”

“Excuse me?”

“You want them to look at you as someone other than a young woman in the boarding house who will never get out. You want to be the hero of the story, the person who saves the day even though no one asked you to save them? I can promise you, pet, no one is going to believe that you are anything but who you already are. The people in that village see others as they wish. No amount of sacrifice will change that.” Gluttony growled and then rounded his desk. Angrily, he tore a piece of paper out of the top drawer and wrote out a contract. Nothing too difficult, all too easy to write these days after years of it, and then thrust it out to her. “Sign your life away then, pet.”

She took the paper carefully, not crumpling the edge like he had. And then she took her time, reading over everything that he’d written down. She’d find no difference than what they’d already said in their conversation, and yet she still handed it over to him and pointed at a line. “I would like that to say for an undetermined amount of time.”

“Contracts are binding for only a certain amount of time.”

“I would like it to say an undetermined amount of time,” she repeated before flicking her eyes up to him and holding his gaze. “I don’t care what contracts usually say. I will save my people for as long as I possibly can.”

Gritting his teeth, he fixed the line before giving it back to her. “Satisfied?”

Once again, she took her time reading it over before nodding. “Do you have a quill?”

Again, he flashed his fangs at her. “Oh, no, pet. You’re making a deal with a demon. Don’t you know you have to sign in blood?”

She winced, but still held out her hand without fear. And when he took a needle from his desk, it took every ounce of his power to not fall upon her like an animal. One press and a delicate bead of blood bubbled up on her pointer finger. Gently, with shaking hands, he placed her fingerprint on the piece of paper and then let her draw her hand back.

“You’re mine now, pet,” he said quietly, watching the blood dry. “You have one week to return to me before I hunt you down. And the next time we see each other, I will feed.”

Gluttony listened to the pattering sound of her footsteps as she raced away from him. He stood frozen beside his desk, watching her blood until the front door slammed shut.

ChapterEleven

Oh, she was a bigger fool than she realized. Scolding herself for being this dumb, Katherine limped back down the boardwalk toward the town. It was a long walk. Plenty of time to berate herself for all the moronic decisions she’d made back in that castle.

What came over her when she was near him? Was he magical enough to cast a spell upon her? Surely that was the only explanation for the heat that swelled whenever he was too close. Or perhaps that was the reasoning for why her mind wandered and she forgot everything she’d worked so hard to plan on the way up here.

How the hell was she going to make any money if she was at the castle all the time?

If she was sore for two full days after going there, then she wouldn’t be able to work. The almshouse certainly would not provide her with a tall stool to sit on while she stitched people up. So she’d have to let them know that her hours needed to be limited.

But she didn’t have the funds for that. She couldn’t pay her rent if she didn’t have the money, and she already stretched her pay as far as it could go.

Where would she stay?

Why hadn’t she asked him for money as well as to feed only from her?

Groaning, she paused halfway back to the town. At least she couldn’t see the castle anymore, which meant that terrifying demon also couldn’t see that she’d stopped to rest.

Somehow, he had yet to notice that she had been previously injured. Or if he had, he made no note of it. Katherine was always hyper aware of her walk when she was near him. Some part of her didn’t want him to realize that she was... broken.

Sighing, she used the dilapidated railing to lower herself down onto the worn boards. Here, they were a little better structurally than the ones she was most used to. Because of course, the pathway to their king needed to be well taken care of.

She snorted. Far be it from anyone to let the path crumble and then make sure no one else could bother him. And that he couldn’t bother them.

But... Looking into the water at the souls who slowly rose to the surface, eyeing her feet as though they could yank her into the water with them, she wondered if Gluttony could still make it to their town even if there were no floating boardwalks.

Tilting her head, she stared into the water with a frown. “Would you drag him down with you? Or let him pass?”

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