Page 2 of Demon Food

I hated to tell him it didn’t get better no matter how hard you worked. We were all starving.

“Did you not ration your food like I told you?” I asked, smearing a hand over my face.

Just like him, I lay mostly naked, covered only with a gossamer amethyst robe to match my sofa, but unlike him, I had the finest spot in the house.

It was a cubed cutout in the wall that’d been encrusted every inch with the bellies of iridescent seashells to give it a soft but dramatic glow. As of this month, I’d been here six years, making me one of the brothel’s longest workers.

Not that seniority got me anything besides the nook, and on the rare occasion, jewelry I cared nothing about.

The newcomer poked his head inside my nook. The sheer drapes, fashioned with tiny shells along their trim, clinked as he slid them aside. “I ate the last of my food. I had to.”

I could sense what was coming, which was why I shook my head and preemptively said, “No.”

“Do you have any food?”

“No.”

“Please?” he asked, his voice quivering. “I’ll take anything, and I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

I pinned him with a look, but I was still upside down, so it was difficult to tell if he caught it.

“I haven’t been paid in two weeks, Feloré,” he said. “I haven’t had anything to eat in days.”

“I tried to warn you. It’s the slow season. The seas are too rough, and the lack of sailors makes a difference.”

“I know, but I don’t have anything left. I can barely think straight.”

Gods. I scrunched my face tight as I rubbed my eyes. Dammit. Dammit.

My anklet and the spindly silver earring I wore—gifts from the brothel owner—jangled as I pushed myself up to a seat. I reached into my satchel hidden behind one of the legs of the lounge and fished out a small purplish apple I’d been saving.

His face lit up like a child who’d been gifted a pony when I presented it to him. He crawled into my nook and onto my sofa where he tucked his knees beneath him.

He was bones. Skin and bones. “The whole thing?”

My stomach protested at the thought of giving the whole thing away, but he wouldn’t make it very far if he was too hungry to work. The moment I nodded, he snatched it from my hand and crunched into it, chewing like he couldn’t be bothered to taste it.

I couldn’t help but smile a little. He was cute. Really cute. It was the mousy curls, the boxy teeth, and the brown eyes that were so big they looked like a struggle to shut. Something about him reminded me of my little brother.

Maybe it was the way he was fresh from the orphanage and dripping in naivety. I ate all my food. Of course, he did. It was going to be a long, hard road for him. If I wasn’t careful, I’d take him under my wing, too. Then I’d have another mouth to feed.

I really had to stop doing that.

“Feloré,” said our keeper Jaxlyn, where he suddenly stood at the foot of the nook, peering down through his spectacles at a leather-bound paper register in his hands. “As usual, you made quota. Here’s your cut.”

I held out my palm as he stacked a pile of seven coins into it, one for each day.

“Lennox, I’m sorry. You did not. Better luck next week.”

I stole a glance at the new guy, or apparently Lennox, who slouched a little more, his shoulders rounding forward, highlighting his skeletal frame. He looked like he might cry if he wasn’t so exhausted.

The rules weren’t fair. Newcomers were expected to make the same weekly numbers as a seasoned whore, and yet they didn’t have a base of frequent lovers, nor were they given any of the special touches that demons loved so much. No jewelry or silken trinkets. No bits of sparkling stone for their hair.

Although I wasn’t convinced any of it mattered. In my experience, the vultae didn’t care how you’d been outfitted. You could be painted head-to-toe in glimmering gold, and it was like they either saw you or they didn’t.

He resumed with the apple, gnawing around the core until it was just a pile of seeds and rigid pieces in his palm. He’d probably eat that, too.

I tried to drag my attention from him and focus on the coins in my hand. It wasn’t my obligation to feed him. People perished all the time. If he didn’t make it, it wasn’t my problem. It fucking wasn’t.