Page 65 of Demon Food

I gasped, frozen in place as an ethereal sensation leaked down my chest like so much icy water.

“Darling, I know no one who looks like me has ever given you a reason to trust, so I dare not even ask you for it,” he said, stepping closer as the hands snaked everywhere. My chin. My arms. The nape of my neck. “I dare not think for a second that I’m deserving.”

I couldn’t move. He was gripping my neck gently enough for me to breathe and hard enough for me to whimper. All I could do was blink up at him wide-eyed while he moved closer still, unbothered, smoking as his hands controlled me without a single touch.

“You wouldn’t trust the darkness of a nightmare,” he whispered, smoothing an invisible, icy thumb over my cheek. “And you shouldn’t trust me.”

My body squirmed, but he pulled me closer. Tighter into his touch, into the force of his body where the air smelled of ashes and earth and sex.

“But here’s the thing,” he said, his voice dropping a full octave. “I don’t need your trust.”

I whimpered as an invisible hand smoothed through my hair, gripping it by the roots, tilting my head back.

“I don’t need it any more than I need your permission to stand between you and yourself. Every inch of this skin. I’ll fight for every precious inch.”

What was happening to me? My body was aching, clawing to be this close. To be the soul in his arms, melting beneath his ghostly touch.

“I’ll fight,” he whispered. “I’ll lie. I’ll possess.”

He suddenly held my face with both hands. I couldn’t tell where he ended, and the ghost began, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t looking anywhere but into the molten red of his demonic eyes as he hovered his lips above mine and said, “I’ll fucking bleed for you, human.”

I was frozen, unable to make sense of my own thoughts as they slipped by, one right after the other. I didn’t know what I wanted—what did I fucking want? But his tongue was skating over his teeth like it was desperate to taste something and the only thought I could grasp was how that tongue had been inside me when he possessed me. He’d been inside me.

My voice was a breathy cry as I said, “Alek⁠—”

He pushed me.

I stumbled backward, grunting when my hip collided with his desk. The ember on his cigarette burned bright as he hollowed out his cheeks to suck hard, like it was the only thing giving him life.

“You’ll sleep in the bed, human.”

It was spoken like a command from a king. And just like a king, he didn’t wait for me to respond.

Without an explanation, without another glance, the future ruler of Novithia was gone, vanishing into the washroom. And I was, once again, left standing in a hazy fog of his seductively sweet smoke.

19

FELORÉ

It was a dream I was having. The kind of dream where I knew it wasn’t real, but then wasn’t it? Weren’t parts of it real? Like the water.

Freezing, mountain snowmelt—just like when I was a child—rushed over my feet where I sat riverside next to Alek upon the only sunny patch of grass beneath a dense covering of trees.

Alek. Of course, he was grinning. Nothing but cheerful grins while a breeze licked his thick hair and the water rushed past his ankles.

The only suspect thing about it was how healthy he looked. He wasn’t coughing. He was smiling, his teeth scraping his lower lip like he was biting back some delectable secret. He leaned in close to my neck, and the warmth of his breath scattered gooseflesh down my arms.

“You,” I whispered, nuzzling against him. “I don’t fucking trust you.”

“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said, his long tongue snaking from his mouth to lick the shell of my ear. “I’ll hurt you, darling.”

I shook my head, but his tongue was so wet, and I wanted to feel it wrapped around my ear.

“I’ll hurt you,” he repeated. “But I promise to make it good.”

I didn’t know why I was letting him touch me so much, or why we were this close, but my body was igniting.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked, his hands pulling me tighter as he pressed his lips against my ear.