Page 34 of The Demon Prince

He tried to fix this. “I’m a demon.”

“No, you aren’t.” She lifted a hand and placed it on his chest. Right over the spot where his heart thundered against his ribs. “You have a mortal body that your spirit has given powers, yes. But you are not a demon. You’re a spirit who has taken flesh.”

Staggering away from her, he waved the words away with a coarse laugh. “You have no idea how dangerous those words are, you foolish girl.”

“Why?”

He shook his head, denying this conversation had ever happened. He needed to think. This lovely, perfect woman who smelled like honey couldn’t know the danger she put herself in.

His brothers would kill her if they realized she existed. They’d come right out to his kingdom and slit her throat in her sleep. No one could know what they were. Where they came from. There were so many vulnerabilities that would be revealed if everyone knew the truth about the demon kings.

“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand down his mouth. “Fuck. I need...”

She took a step away from him again, her eyes going even wider. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Yes,” he hissed before shaking his head and pointing down the hall. “There is a room I made ready for you. Go there while I... I have to figure this out.”

And he knew he was scaring her, but he needed time. Time to think. Time to plan how to keep her alive.

ChapterThirteen

Katherine wasn’t exactly sure what she’d done to make him so angry. He’d stomped away from her like she’d insulted his very existence. Though, at the very least, he hadn’t fed from her yet. Small reassurances, but… it was something.

What would it be like? To have someone pierce her flesh with their teeth and then drink her blood? It seemed wrong. Abhorrent. Something that only the worst sort of monsters did.

And yet, she was the fool who had offered this. And truthfully, she wasn’t sure why she’d offered it. Katherine wasn’t all that special as she pretended to be.

Maybe he was right. Maybe she just wanted to be a hero.

She meandered through the hallways, comfortable by herself. She probably should have run after seeing those red eyes flash with so much anger, but she hadn’t. Instead, she took her time. Peering through the shadows and trailing her hands along the walls so she could find her way. He’d made it seem like the room would be easy to find, but it wasn’t. Not really.

She looked into six other rooms before she found one with a fire cheerily crackling in a hearth that had recently been cleaned. The bed was too large for her, and could have fit five people in it. Black sheets slid down the sides, and there were no posts around the edges like she’d expected in a place like this.

The mayor’s wife had once had a meeting with all the women in the town. She’d informed them that they were living like paupers, and not a single person would dare to have a bed without posts. In fact, every woman with any means should have one. Not to mention a vanity table with a mirror that wasn’t cracked or warped, at least three different kinds of face powders, and ten different pairs of underwear.

Even the memory made Katherine snort as she strode into the room. No posts on the bed, but at least there was a vanity table in the corner with a mirror.

Then she sat on the edge of the bed and it felt like she was sinking into a cloud.

“Oh,” she murmured as she flopped onto her back. “This is the difference.”

Her own bed was only filled with straw. There were many nights she’d woken with one poking into her side and she’d had to get up and pound the mattress with her fist until everything settled. And it had been filling her room with a very strong scent of mold, so she knew she’d have to empty it soon.

She had no idea what stuffing filled this heavenly bed, but she could only assume it was angel wings and fairy dust.

Even her hip didn’t hurt so badly when she was lying on this. Like the mattress was cushioning her wounded body, easing it into a state of relaxation that she hadn’t felt since before her injury.

The sound of sinister snickering moved up from underneath her bed. A dark shadow pooled beside her injured hip, still shuddering with glee as it watched her. “That was well worth it.”

“You tricked me,” she murmured, although she wasn’t all that angry. “You said he would be intrigued by a woman who could see spirits.”

“And he was, wasn’t he?”

“I think you and I have very different opinions on what intrigued means.” Katherine rolled onto her side so she could look at the little spirit, her head cushioned on her bicep. “He looked more horrified, shocked, and then angry with me.”

Spite snickered again, this time rolling onto what she assumed was its side before righting itself. “He did! Ah, it was perfect. He was so mad at you and the entire world for putting you in his path. Beautiful, that’s what that was.”

And she was understanding that trusting this spirit would be difficult. Her mother had always said spirits fed off of the emotion, but this one seemed a little different. Almost as though Spite had to feed off the actions of humans, rather than just the emotion within them. Because Katherine certainly didn’t want to see Gluttony get angry with her, nor did she want to make his life more difficult.

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