Page 93 of The Demon Prince

“Henbane?” she asked, her brows furrowing. “This would make more sense than I wish to admit.”

“Why’s that?” Gluttony took a step closer to her, his front pressed to her back. “I have never heard of it before. Nor had I met anyone else who knew what it was.”

“My mother used to grow it in a pot by the window. She said never to touch it, because it’s very poisonous.” Katherine tilted the vial a little, marveling at how well he’d ground it. “She said her people used to eat it in small doses. It will put a mortal into a trance so they can speak with the divine powers of the realm.”

“Ah,” he breathed. “So that is how they are using it to control us. What happens when one of the divine is given their own herbs of power?”

Katherine shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

“Indeed.” He took the vial from her, a small frown wrinkling his handsome brow. “Shall we, then?”

It was rather daunting to watch him pour the remaining black smoke into the henbane. If she was wrong, then they would have wasted the last specimen. She’d seen him use that smoke time and time again. Watched it change color a thousand times, or sometimes shattered the black jar in his hands. Gluttony would leap back, swearing whenever that happened and grumbling about meddling mortals.

But this time, nothing happened at all. The black smoke remained black. If anything, it darkened even further. It changed into a substance that made her heart feel bitter and cold.

There was something deeply wrong with that smoke. Something that made the hairs on her arms stand on end.

“There it is,” he breathed, gently setting the vial down. “Henbane. So that’s what they’re using to attack us.”

“Attack you?”

“A group of mortals has been using this to incapacitate demons like me. They throw this smoke at us, and if we inhale it, we pass out. Gone. Asleep. For hours on end and we cannot stop it.” He eyed her with no small amount of appreciation. “You might have saved us all, Katherine.”

“I did nothing at all.” Wringing her hands, she stepped closer to him. As though her next words needed to be kept a secret. “Gluttony, henbane is a sacred herb of the dead. It can even poison the soul, so the legends say. It transcends life and death itself.”

His expression turned troubled. “I need to speak with my brothers about this.”

“Perhaps you should.”

And then she froze when he looked at her again, his eyes flicking up and down her body before he nodded firmly. “And so will you.”

She would what?

ChapterThirty-Four

He wasted no time. Namely, because Gluttony felt as though he couldn’t enjoy her or her company until he proved himself worthy of it. If he could show his brothers that he was, finally, not the fuck up of the family, then maybe everything would change.

He’d deserve to have a woman like her. He’d deserve to wake up next to her. Not as the monster he was, but as the man he could be.

To her credit, Katherine didn’t seem to mind that he’d dragged her back to his office. She followed him with a bemused smile on her face, keeping pace with him even though it made her limp even more pronounced.

He’d massage her again later. Gluttony would do anything to run his hands all over her body again, to drag his talons along her back and to feel the plump cushion of her hips.

He wanted her. Everything about her. Every inch of her body and soul, that was what he wanted. And this was the only way he could feel like he deserved even the slightest bit of her.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked before they’d reached his office.

“Calling my brothers.”

At that, she yanked her hand away from him. Or at least, she tried. He was significantly stronger than his little mortal, and she couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

So he continued dragging her all the way into his office and then plopped her down in a chair. Crouching before her, he braced her hips with his arms as he forced her to look at him. “You deserve to be in this room just as much as them.”

“Talking to a room full of demon kings is rather intimidating, don’t you think?” Her wide-eyed stare proved just how intimidated she was. But that was silly.

Leaning forward, he bumped his forehead to hers and then leaned back to grin. “You’re better than the lot of them combined. And they won’t really be in the room.”

“What do you mean?”

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