Page 64 of Demon Food

My voice was as shaky as I felt as I parted my lips to explain myself, only to settle on, “I-I do.”

“Is that right?” he asked, stepping even closer. “So, you realize how he would’ve carved up your skin like a piece of meat and been applauded for it?”

It was like my mouth was suddenly filled with cotton.

“Do you know what becomes of those humans?”

I scraped my teeth over my lower lip. “I⁠—”

“Because I do,” he said. “I have witnessed the torture and I have heard the screams and he was seconds, seconds from taking a knife to your precious skin.”

I tried to hold his wild gaze, but it dropped to my chest.

“A knife,” he whispered, the words scarcely there as he reached his shaky fingertips toward my sternum. “To this.”

Something was broken inside me because I wasn’t running. I didn’t know why, but it was like I was waiting—electrified and waiting for him to touch me.

It would be a touch that never came because he suddenly winced.

I jumped when he clutched a hand to his side, backing away toward the standing mirror, and oh, gods. How did I miss it before? How did I miss how the side of his shirt was soaked in a big mottle of blood?

He grimaced as he stood before the mirror, delicately lifting his shirt to expose the wound. My heart nearly stopped at what I saw.

Something was not right. Not only was his wound leeching blood, but angry streaks of red were clawing their way from the center, spiraling around his ribcage.

“Shit, that is not, um…” I trailed off, blinking at it wide-eyed. “Fuck, you’re bleeding. A lot.”

He snorted, something about it spiteful as he dropped the shirt to dig into his pocket for a cigarette.

“Why is it like that?” I asked. “Is that from possessing me?”

He didn’t answer, clipping the cigarette between his teeth, attempting to summon fire into his palm, but he was clearly weakened, and no flame would answer.

“Alek,” I said when he still didn’t respond. “Did you know it would do that?”

“Did I know it would do that,” he repeated absently through clenched teeth as he struggled with the flame. “I knew it wouldn’t fucking help, Feloré.”

I tried not to glare, but it wasn’t as if I was entirely to blame. Continuing to scold me was…well, unconstructive.

“But apparently,” he continued, finally summoning a fire long enough to light his cigarette, “I’ve been bestowed not a human man, but a stubborn toddler.”

My eyes narrowed. “A toddler?”

“Do you prefer baby, baby?”

“You know, you can spare me the lecture, Prince of Novithia. You really can. If you’ll be reminded, I didn’t ask for any of this. Just like I didn’t ask for you to possess me.”

His reddened gaze jumped to mine.

“Why even do it, hmm? If you’re going to be such a monumental prick about it, then why not just let him carve me up?”

He stared. The room fell deathly silent as he stared. And I suddenly regretted asking that.

“Why?” he asked, dropping the hand that held the cigarette heavy to his side. “You want to know why?”

My breath caught a little. It was the way he looked in this moment. It was so easy to confuse him with a human with the freckles and the sickly, sullen skin, but this was anything but human. This was pure demon.

He glided closer to me. Quickly. He was moving far too quickly, and I couldn’t back away in time. Then I felt it. An invisible hand gripped my neck.