Page 9 of The Demon Prince

Both Greed and Envy hated each other. Perhaps because they saw their own flaws in each other.

“That’s not why I’m calling,” Gluttony grumbled. He wished he had a glass of good wine, but then he remembered that red wine looked like blood.

His brother’s drink did not. Amber and glistening, made of honey, no doubt. He could almost smell it. The honey that would pour down his throat, burning along the way down like fingernails scratching at him. Begging him to stop... No, that wasn’t what he wanted. Begging him to continue—

“Ah,” Envy said, sitting forward in his chair and eyeing Gluttony like the project he was. “A bad night, then.”

“The worst in a long time.” Gluttony raked his hands through his hair, shocked when he couldn’t even get his fingers through the tangled snarls.

His hair was down to his ribs in a waterfall of darkness. He had to brush it often, or it would snarl like this. When was the last time he’d brushed it? When was the last time he’d even thought about what he looked like while he stood outside her window, like the animal he had become?

“Gluttony,” Envy said, his voice breaking through the thoughts. “Tell me.”

The words rushed out of him. “There is a woman in the village. I’ve never seen her before, but I don’t go there anymore, now do I? I know how I make them all nervous. It’s not fair for me to wander amongst them when I know what I am. A monster. The beast who torments and feeds off his people. I understand their hesitation, but I can’t stop. No matter how hard I try. I can’t... I can’t...”

“Take a deep breath. You’re spiraling, brother.” Envy leaned forward again, tapping his hand on his own desk, but the sound still came through. Steady thuds. One, two, three, in time with the breath that Gluttony was supposed to be taking.

But every time he breathed in, it was like her scent was stuck in his nose. He could smell her. Taste her on the back of his tongue. Just the slightest hint of flavor that wasn’t the true bloom of how she’d really taste and he knew it would be so much better if he could just sink his teeth into the side of that lovely, swan-like neck and draw everything of her deeply into his mouth. Would she even let him?

“What did you do?” Envy’s voice broke through again.

“Nothing.” Gluttony blew out a long breath, drawing himself back to his lonely office with his brother, who wasn’t even here. “I haven’t done anything with her, to her, or around her. She’s just... there. In her room. And I stand as far back as I can without waking her.”

He let the words trail off, though, because they weren’t entirely true. She had woken. Just a few nights ago, she’d seen him standing there, and she’d reacted like a hellhound had come to hunt her soul.

Envy’s eyes narrowed, and he knew his brother had seen the thought pass in front of his eyes. “So you did something, then.”

“She saw me a few nights ago, and I’ve been here ever since.” He lifted his arms and let them fall limp back onto the chair. “I can’t seem to move. If I stand, my feet take me to the door and if I sit here, at least I’m not bothering her.”

“It’s been a long time since you’ve been this obsessed.”

“I know,” he snarled. “That’s why I called you.”

Perhaps it was something in his tone that finally got through to his brother. Envy seemed to shake off the effects of his alcohol and nodded. “So this one is different, then. Tell me why.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t said a word to her before, nor do I know what she does in the town. She always smells like blood, though.” Perhaps she worked at the almshouse. It wasn’t animal blood that followed her around like the ghost of another person. It was human blood. “The other blood isn’t the temptation. If anything, it’s a good mask, because I hate the smell of them on her skin. Hers though... It’s underneath all of it. It’s honey and wine, a mixture of scents that I cannot seem to banish from my thoughts.”

“When was the last time you fed?”

“Not long ago.” Gluttony could feel his cheeks pale at the memory. Even now, his stomach rolled at the flavor that remained when he burped. “It was less than satisfactory. I spent hours vomiting afterward.”

“And she had freely given herself to you?” Where was his brother going with this?

“Of course she did,” he snapped. “I haven’t taken anyone unwillingly since the first, and even then, you know she had... she’d...”

His dear Larissa. The only young woman who had ever looked at him and seen something other than a monster. She’d been so kind and sweet to him for the two months that she wandered up to his castle. She was the first he’d ever fed from, completely unwilling at the time, and she’d been terrified of him afterwards. But he’d gotten a taste for the forbidden and suddenly she hadn’t... minded.

Oh, she hadn’t sought him out to feed from her. Of course. No woman in her right mind enjoyed the sensation of someone sucking out their life blood, but she had endured it. For him.

Until she’d shown up on his doorstep that fateful night and then everything had gone to shit.

Dragging a hand down his mouth, Gluttony shook his head. “No reason to bring that up now. You know the story.”

Some of his brothers believed him, others didn’t. Wrath didn’t care what the actual story was. All he cared about was that a woman was dead and it was Gluttony’s fault.

And it had been. In a way.

Envy pursed his lips, tilting his head back to the ceiling as he thought. One of his tattoos writhed underneath his skin. The four snakes usually rested above his heart in a knitted pattern, but sometimes they moved. This time, one slithered up to encircle his neck and hovered above the pulse there. “Forgive me for suggesting this, brother, but do you believe the consent is the problem?”

---