Page 39 of The Demon Prince

As if she dreamt of him coming to her in the middle of the night while she allowed him every dark desire. She was more than just food. She was an indulgence to his worst and best memories.

Times when he had thought he could be human.

She was the sacrifice. The moment in time when he would remember exactly how much he had once wanted to love and be loved. She was the proof that though he was a monster, though he had sunk to his lowest in years, that he was still capable of control.

He could still consume without murdering. He could still be a person around others, even though he had known for a very long time that he was nothing but a beast. An animal.

A lost cause.

“No,” he hissed. And perhaps there was power in his words, because even Spite recoiled from him. “I will not be the monster to her. She is welcome here. Do you understand? Welcome and alive for the rest of her time in this castle and for all times after this. You, however, are not welcome. If I see you again, I will crush you beneath my heel. Do you understand me?”

“One cannot kill a spirit.”

“Perhaps not.” He leaned over the little creature, seething and desiring to tear into it for all the harm it had caused. “But you forget that I am Gluttony. There are many things I have yet to try to consume, little spirit. But your kind is not one of those. I have eaten many spirits in my time, and devoured many souls in my attempt to become something other than what I am. Do not tempt me to try again, Spite. And oh yes, I remember now who you are. You’ll find it is very easy for a demon king to end your suffering.”

The spirit rolled off the table and disappeared into the shadows. And though it should have felt like a victory, he remained alone and defeated.

Gluttony once again braced himself against the table, head dangling between his shoulders as he tried to get a hold of himself.

“I am not always a monster,” he whispered. “I am in control.”

ChapterFifteen

Although the castle was as beautiful as it was terrifying, Katherine quickly realized she wasn’t needed here. There wasn’t anything for her to do. He asked her to stay for a few more nights, and every night was the same.

She would cuddle into the bed after a boring day of doing nothing and poking around the castle, hoping to find something entertaining, and then he would wake her when the moon was at its peak.

Every night she staggered out of bed, a little more tired than the evening before, and allowed him to cut through the same scab on her wrist. He never took too much blood. In fact, she thought he was rather careful to make sure that he didn’t drain her. Or even really take enough to affect her all that much.

But she was already tired of it. Just last night, she hadn’t even been able to fall asleep by the time he’d come to her room. Not because she was anticipating his arrival, but because she wasn’t tired.

Katherine was used to doing things. Anything. Sometimes when the clinic was quiet, she would be the person to wander out to people’s homes. Just to talk with them, make sure they were healing well enough or that their stitches weren’t infected.

She had never had such a long amount of time where she did nothing. Katherine was dying from it. She was certain. And though she would have told any patient that no one could die from boredom, she was quite certain that she was wrong. Because she was going to die.

Today, she would not stand for it anymore. She had dresses to wash, shifts that had turned into sweat stained messes, and she had enough energy to burn. If there wasn’t a laundry room in this place—which she was certain there had to be—then she would make do in the kitchens. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time that she’d washed her clothes in a sink.

Wandering out into the hall, she paused to listen as she always did.

There were no sounds here. None. Every house she’d ever lived in had the normal sounds of life. People shuffling around, creaking floorboards, the soft scrape of mice chewing in the walls. All signs that another person was around her and that she wasn’t alone.

Here? It was only silence.

Unnerving, unnatural silence, as though the entire world held its breath because it didn’t know who or what would arrive next. Would yet another victim present themselves to the demon king? Would he rip out their throat this time or would he let them live?

They were morbid thoughts, but what else was she supposed to think? Wandering through the dark halls, usually with a candle in her hands because light never penetrated through the dusty windows, she had come to think of herself as living in a tomb.

Maybe she was already dead, she mused as she rounded a corner and picked up the candelabra she left just for this purpose. The small matchbox next to it was already running low on matches, but she kept forgetting to ask Gluttony about getting more.

Perhaps because their interactions every night always felt like a dream. He was there right at the edge of sleep, every time she thought maybe it was a nightmare, but he was always so kind about it. Gluttony looked over her wrist, watching her movement, perhaps to see if she walked funny from lack of blood.

Katherine always had the thought that perhaps this man did not understand humans very well. He only took a few thimbles full of blood every night, and then food always appeared in front of her door. Piles and piles of food, as though he thought she ate as much as a village.

But she knew enough about humans and loss of blood, so she ate. Just as much as she wanted.

“I’ll get fat if I stay here too long,” she mused as she wandered down the hall. “Now, if I were a laundry room, where would I be?”

Her village had one that they all shared. It was very close to the water, and had a wall built between the swamp and it, so a tiny stream of liquid could trickle through without risking anyone’s lives if a creature fell through.

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