Page 121 of Demon Food

“And wherever you go, I follow?” he asked. “Your demonic puppy.”

I huffed out a chuckle, pressing my forehead against his. “My demonic puppy.”

CLANK.

The sound was sharp, clattering from the open window.

I shot up in the bed. “Is that⁠—?”

Another clank followed.

It was something hitting the side of the palace wall.

“Go see,” Alek said, still smiling.

I ripped the covers off and rushed to the window as the clanking continued, like metal striking stone.

I crawled into the nook and peered out. It was a female vultus. She was ferociously jamming something into the stone wall. Something that appeared to be a metal spike.

It sparked as she drove it in with incredible strength. Then she wedged her fingers between the stone to climb up onto it where she stood, testing it with her weight. She retrieved another spike from a satchel strapped to her back and drove that one into the stone.

This was her. Amara. And she was building a fucking ladder.

I squinted down at the figure on the ground holding a small torch, and a smile broke across my face. I could hardly believe my eyes, but it was him. It was Landry.

“Alek,” I said, stumbling from the nook on my dash back to the bed. “It’s her. Get up. It’s time to go.”

The look on his face was all wrong. He should’ve been matching my speed. He shouldn’t have been lying there so calm with his smile so fucking tender.

“Oh, my gods,” I said, my eyes widening. “Oh, my gods, you were never going to go.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Snow Fox.”

My heart was pounding in my ears. “No. No, get up.”

“I can’t, darling,” he whispered. “You and I both know I can’t. I won’t make it.”

Another metal spike struck the wall. And another.

I rushed to the bed and gripped his wrist in an attempt to haul him from the bed, but I hadn’t noticed how limp his body was. He was nearly dead weight. If I pulled him too hard, he’d crash straight to the floor.

So, I scrambled into the bed to cup his face in my palms. “Alek, listen to me. I know you’re tired, but you have to get up. It is your doctor we are going to see. If anyone can help⁠—”

“You are going to see him,” he said, his breathing labored. “Learn everything you can from him. Whatever solution he might have, I trust you with it.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. A scratching came from the window, and then there was a figure crawling through—too huge and muscled to be moving that gracefully, like a jungle cat.

Amara’s tall frame filled the nook when she rose to her full height. She was a vision with her chest and arms bulging with strength and her sleek armor shining in the firelight. I flinched when she hopped onto the floor.

“Hello, Amara,” Alek said.

She stopped cold, the expression vanishing from her face.

“You don’t need to say it.” Alek smiled with lips cracked and dry. “I already know I look like shit.”

She didn’t say anything, but a slow inhale filled her broad chest as she gazed upon her prince.

“This is Feloré,” Alek said. “Please take him to the doctor. I want him safe no matter what. Those are my wishes. Understood?”