Page 76 of The Demon Prince

She wanted to argue that there was so much more, and yet he didn’t want to hear it. She knew that.

His shoulders lifted up and down in another deep breath. “Soon enough, we talked more about what I was. Who I was. She wanted to know everything about being a demon, and I was so tired of being alone. I wanted to talk with her. I wanted to know what she thought when I bared my very soul.

“And she liked it. She liked me. I remember the first time she kissed me.” He lifted a hand and pressed his fingers to his lips. “I’d tasted hundreds of women in the thousand years of my life, but none of them had been so willing as her. She wrapped me right around her fingers and that was why, years later, after she’d finally given up on her dream of escaping, I was so surprised when she came here and offered me her neck.”

Katherine frowned and couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why would she do that?”

“She knew the temptation. Larissa was a smart woman. She knew the only thing I’d never tasted was... her. The life that flowed in her veins. Through all of your veins.”

To her immense relief, he finally turned back to her and sat down in his chair. The desk between them might as well have been an ocean. He looked so... defeated.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes as he continued to tell her what had happened. “At first, that was our relationship. She came here with the expressed interest at having me feed from her. Even after her father betrothed her to a man from another village.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“No one did.” He shook his head, his lip curling in disgust. “Her father saw her as a trophy. A prize to be given away to the person he deemed most worthy of touching his offspring. But she didn’t want to be touched by anyone but me. And I...”

He stopped talking.

Jealousy churned in her belly for a few moments before she had to thrust it aside. Spite tucked itself against her belly, and she almost could feel it wriggling into her body. She wanted to hear him say terrible things about Larissa, not that she was lovely and that she...

Katherine breathed, “She loved you.”

Gluttony nodded. “In her own way. But I did not love her back. I am a demon, Katherine. The feelings of love and devotion are so far from what I am capable of. It crushed her. I think in some part of her mind she’d always thought I would save her from the marriage. That as their king, I could order her father to give her to me.”

“It would solve a lot of her problems.”

“But I couldn’t do anything at all. I couldn’t save her anymore than I could gift her freedom. She would have been nothing more than a blood slave if she stayed with me.” His fingers tapped a rhythm against his knee, and she wasn’t certain he was aware he was doing it. “I told her as much, and she disappeared for a while. I feared something had happened to her, but then... she came back.”

Just like Katherine had. Just like he’d been so afraid that she wouldn’t.

Gluttony saw the thoughts in her eyes and nodded. “Yes, that’s why I’ve always been... nervous that you wouldn’t come back. Because she almost didn’t. Her father had beaten her bloody, and I was the monster who stood there, looking at this beaten woman, wondering if her blood would taste sour because of what had happened.”

Her heart twisted in her chest. She knew that this was some kind of compulsion for him. How could she not? Katherine had always seen the way he watched her with hunger when it had been too long since he had fed. She understood the need drove him sometimes, but... that was cruel. Even for him.

He nodded. “Ah, you see now. I am not proud of the reaction, nor do I believe anyone else should be subjected to my dark thoughts. It took only a moment for her to thrust herself in front of me. I thought for a second that she had come seeking my help. And if she had asked me to hide her, I would have.

“But that was not why Larissa came to my castle that night.” He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing with emotion. “She asked me to drain her dry. That I should have the last meal and to know what death itself tastes like. That she couldn’t live like this anymore. Not in this kingdom. Not with her father. And not without my love.”

“So she...”

“She wanted me to kill her,” he finished for her. “She asked for it, and I did what she wanted without question. I should have stopped. I should have begged her to reconsider or to think for a few more moments, but I did not. I held her in my arms and I listened to the sound of her dying breath as I drank from her. And even now I remember how peaceful she sounded.”

Tears gathered in his eyes, turning those red orbs glassy as he seemingly begged for her to understand what he had done. He wanted her to condemn him for murdering a young woman.

What a terrible memory to rule his life.

Slowly, Katherine stood. She set Spite down on the chair. The little spirit was almost liquid as it watched her walk around the desk and then kneel in front of Gluttony.

Placing her hands gently on his knees, she looked up into his eyes to make sure he understood what she was about to say. “You are not a monster for giving a woman release from this world.”

“Katherine—”

“No, Gluttony. You’ve said what you’ve had to say, and you have given yourself too many years of torment. Now it’s my turn to talk.” She squeezed his knees. “She was an adult, not a child. Though perhaps to you, all of us seem like children after a thousand years of watching us live and die. But she knew what she was asking of you. Would she have changed her mind if you had stopped? Maybe. But she also might have reminded you that she was very ready for the end and that her life had gone in a very wrong direction.”

“She wouldn’t have—” Gluttony stopped when she lunged forward and pressed her hand over his mouth.

“You don’t get to speak for the dead,” she said with an angry snarl. “You might be a demon king and perhaps you now know what death tastes like, but you cannot speak for the souls of those who have passed on! Enough, Gluttony. You carry your past deeds like a weight on your shoulders and you should have put them down a long time ago.”

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