And then—without warning—he squished her cheeks.
“You are so soft, songbird.”
Lyssena gasped, more out of surprise than protest. She hadn’t expected that, but somehow, it wasn’t the strangest part of her day. Instead, her thoughts snagged on the name he had used again, that gentle nickname he had said before she fell asleep, and now here it was again.
Also, she was very hungry.
Also, she was still alive.
Also, her god wanted her tolookat him.
What a day.
Chapter Twelve
The Alchemy of Shadow and Spice
Erevos
Now Erevos knew that he had an impressive mouth. It was a fine compliment, one he accepted with pride.
He couldn’t quite say the same for Lyssena, whose teeth were not nearly as formidable as his, but that didn’t bother him. She would never need to hunt or tear flesh to feed herself; she would only need her teeth for chewing, and as far as he was aware, she was quite capable of that. He had, after all, watched her do it for many years.
Squishing Lyssena’s face had been a small, indulgent joy, something he had wanted to do for longer than he realized. He hadn’t expected it to happen so soon; it had simply occurred when he reached for her, when he held her chin to stop her from looking away again. But once it had happened, he found the experience incredibly pleasing.
He wondered when he might be able to squeeze more of her.
She had so many soft organs.
Lyssena had lush thighs and a lower belly that rounded out beneath her gown, and Erevos found himself deeply curious about those parts of her. He did not touch them because he wanted her to feel safe first, wanted her to know that she was not in danger with him. He didn’t fully understand why the curiosity burned so strongly in him now. For years, when she was smaller, he had never once been distracted by the details of her body.
But now he had noticed the soft mounds on her chest, which he knew were for feeding offsprings in her kind, and the curve of her hips that gave way to a full, prominent behind, and how her arms had thickened, how even her face had taken on more fullness.
And all of it fascinated him.
He wanted to explore her.
Erevos rose, cradling Lyssena in his arms, and carried her toward the new table he had created. Atop it sat a bone-colored box, and beside it, two shadow-crafted plates, one resting over the other, covering the bread he had prepared for her.
He sat in the new chair and carefully settled Lyssena on his thigh.
She arched her back slightly, blinking the questions flickering behind her eyes without yet forming into words.
Erevos, however, was too eager to wait. He had longed to feed her for the whole time she was asleep, and now that the moment had come, he nearly wanted to place the entire piece in her mouth at once. But she had teeth for a reason, and he respected the form and function of her kind. He had worked too hard to ignore the process now, to disregard all the effort he had poured into creating the ingredients, shaping them from shadow, crafting them into something that could nourish her.
Erevos was a clever demon. For centuries, he had loved to create and to mimic. He had learned that chairs were made from wood, and so he mimicked their consistency, carved theshape from shadow until it felt nearly identical to what he had observed in the human world.
Once, he had watched Lyssena as a child, spinning in a small gown, and when she left the room, he had studied the garment, then recreated it, stitch by stitch, from the essence of his shadows.
Over time, Erevos became skilled at mimicking nearly any non-living thing from the human realm.
When Lyssena ate her first apple, he had watched how it was grown, how it was picked, and he had mimicked the process, learning to craft apples from shadow.
Prepared food, however, had proven far more difficult.
His first attempt had been porridge. It had failed miserably.
But then came an idea so bold it delighted him. Instead of mimicking the final product, he would mimic the ingredients. One by one, he crafted them from shadow, and then he built a small flame, an imitation of fire, born from shadow laced with oxygen he had collected from the mortal realm. He had even forged a spark-stone, using more shadow twisted into the shape of what humans called flint.
