Page 61 of Demon Food

I held his gaze as I stepped back, pinning the door open. “I’d be delighted.”

Neopal’s boots clicked as he marched inside like it was a mission, only to halt when he scanned the empty room. “Where is he?”

“Perhaps you should follow the honorable chain.”

His gaze trailed the chain as it wound across the floor, disappearing beneath the washroom door. “How long has he been in there?”

A full fucking day. “A few minutes or so.”

He dashed to the door and knocked sharply. Feloré jumped from inside, rattling the chain.

“Human,” Neopal said. “You need to come out. Food is served.”

We all waited, but he didn’t start to move.

Neopal knocked again. “Now. You need to come out now. If you refuse, I will have no choice but to remove this door from its hinges.”

“Good gods, that’s so damn unnecessary,” I said, scrunching my face as I rubbed my eyes. I wanted him out here more than anyone, but his dignity had been stripped away. Let him have that one space. “He’ll come out when he’s ready.”

“I’m under strict orders,” Neopal said, squinting at the hinges, debating what tool would be most appropriate, “to ensure he is available to you should you choose to take him. He can’t do that if he has locked himself in there.”

“He hasn’t locked himself in there. Just leave the fucking food. He’ll eat it when he’s hungry⁠—”

The door creaked open.

I’d expected Feloré to be frightened as he stepped into the room, but that wasn’t the case at all. Not only was the chain balled in his fist, whitening his knuckles, but he was staring at Neopal with rage. With pure, poisonous hatred in his eyes.

“You,” he whispered, gaze sharpening into a glare, compounded by the icy color of his strange eyes. “I know you.”

Neopal blinked, probably caught off guard. It wasn’t customary for a human to speak to a high-level commander with such flagrant disrespect in their tone.

“It was you with the king that night.” Feloré slowly stepped toward him, squinting as he pointed a finger. “You were the one with the spile. Feeding on me. Putting me to sleep.”

My eyebrows lifted as I turned to Neopal just in time to catch one of his shoulders twitching, like he was reliving the memory.

An emotion I wasn’t expecting shot through me. Gods, what was it even? Envy? Jealousy? It was like it was both those things but something more, too. He’d had him. Neopal, my goddamn fallen friend, had gotten to taste this perfect human.

No, it wasn’t jealousy. It was fucking wrath.

“You’re despicable. You helped him trick me that night,” Feloré continued, shaking his head as if in disgust. “Did you know this was to be my fate?”

A muscle in Neopal’s jaw tightened and I wanted to punch the ripple it caused in his stupid face. “It’s not my duty to ask questions. It is my duty to do as my king wishes⁠—”

“Did you fucking know?” Feloré shouted.

Everyone in the room flinched except for me. My bones stilled as I marveled at him. I couldn’t even help it. As much as I wanted to jump down Neopal’s throat and gut him from the inside, it was delicious to watch him get scolded by a human.

I’d thought concubines were docile creatures of leisure, getting their holes and pockets filled. The more I learned about him, the more I realized just how foolish it was to judge the human by the profession.

“Well?” I asked Neopal, when he said nothing. “Did you know? Because I certainly did not, and neither did he. Where’s the honor in that, Commander?”

Neopal flashed me a look, then announced to the room, “Our king is divinely chosen. It is not our place to question his word.”

I snorted. “It must be so lovely to excuse yourself of moral clarity just because the king⁠—”

“Fuck your king,” Feloré spat.

The whole room stopped breathing.