Page 88 of The Demon Prince

“What is it?” Her voice was still little more than a croak.

Katherine took the few seconds between his replies to look around. She thought maybe this was a bedroom. She was lying on a cot with so many pillows it was hard for her to guess how many there were. A workbench in one corner was covered with books and dusted with what looked like strange glitter. Until she realized most of the shelves above that desk held crystals and stone.

So not glitter. Shards of precious stone.

Everything else was rather sparse, if one considered carved walls sparse. It was beautiful here. Full of magical carvings and creatures that she hardly recognized at all.

The stone shapes moved, following their master around as he muttered under his breath. And Envy was far too large in this room. He took up all the oxygen just by existing and she wanted... well, she supposed she wanted him to leave.

“Here.” He tossed one more vial at her, and it thudded onto the bed beside her. “Take all those and sleep. I’ll be back with food and water.”

And then he left her alone in this cold, stone room with no windows. Like he’d brought her to a tomb.

ChapterThirty-Two

He threw himself into his work. How could he be so foolish? He had known how fragile she was. Not because of her past injuries, but simply because she was human.

But it had seemed so natural for him to feed from her every night. And she’d enjoyed it. How could he ever forget the sound of her faint moans in his ears and how she’d twisted her body so he’d settled between her legs just right? She’d wanted him, and he had been so caught up in his own need that it was hard for him to think of anything else.

Like her safety.

Like how much he needed to control himself because he was a glutton for everything he could get his hands on, and that included her. He would break her if he had his way with her, and he had known that from the start.

He’d just forgotten about it. Like the fool he was.

Envy visited him once a day to keep him informed on her health, but every day refused to bring her back. There were too many factors for her health right now, and Envy had practiced magical healing for a very long time. He would make sure that she was perfectly well, but he would not return her until then.

And every day, Gluttony wondered whether or not she was happy. Envy’s kingdom was... well, it was more than this. Every other kingdom was more than this. And his brother liked to take things that weren’t his.

Gluttony tortured himself by imagining all the wonderful things Envy could show her. The halls of living carvings. The underground city that opened up into a giant cavern lit by a single hole above their head. How the clouds had come into his kingdom and almost every single person within it knew how to cast at least some spells.

Envy’s kingdom was full of magic and sights that no human ever got to behold. He wouldn’t blame Katherine if she wished to stay there. He wouldn’t blame her in the slightest.

What did he have to offer here in this kingdom? Nothing but danger and gray days.

He got so close to solving all the puzzles with his alchemical solution. He was almost certain that he knew exactly what it was, and that was more than enough for him to feel some sense of pride. But all he felt was a sense of loss when he could not share it with her.

Then came the day that the portal opened in his lab. He stood as he always did, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes that were surely surrounded by dark, bruised circles. He expected Envy to step through with another disappointing update, but what he saw in front of him was a vision in white.

Katherine wore one of Envy’s white robes that so many people wore around him. It clung to her shoulders, scooping deep between those lovely breasts. And she was still so pale. But she was alive, and the portal closed behind her without a single word from his brother and he...

He almost fell to his knees in relief.

“Katherine?” he said, taking a shaky step toward her. “Are you well?”

“Well enough.” She took a step toward him as well, almost as though she wasn’t sure if he’d want her to. “Are you well?”

“I...” No.

He wasn’t.

He’d fallen apart without her and had a thousand worries dogging every step. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to tell her that he would protect her for the rest of his life, but he didn’t know how to do that when he also wanted to devour her whole. Every moment without her had felt like he walked on broken glass, and it had torn into his very being to know that she was not here with him. He wanted her.

Gluttony needed her.

Every part of his dark life had lit up with her here and the mere thought that he had almost ruined it made him want to gouge out his own eyes.

But this was not about him. He had been the one to hurt her, and now he would be the one to welcome her home.

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