Chapter 25

ChapterTwenty-Five

She didn’t want to be friends.

Katherine realized that only a few days after their conversation. She didn’t want to be friends with this strange and wonderful man who now drank from her neck when he wished. Just the touch of his lips against her skin made her entire body turn into a bonfire.

And he didn’t know.

How could he? Gluttony was so certain everyone thought of him as a monster that he’d never noticed her shivers weren’t shudders of revulsion, but something else entirely.

He thought she wanted to get away from him. He’d even mentioned it a few times that if he could let her go, he would. But she didn’t want that. She wanted to stay in the castle with him. Wanted to keep working in his lab and hear his little pleased chuffs as if he were proud of himself for little details that moved him ever closer to discovery.

She was... Oh, she was so lost in all of this and Katherine had needed space. She’d asked for time away from the castle, just to get her head on straight. Because she was starting to really like him, and he only wanted to push her away.

He was reluctant to let her leave, as Gluttony always was. The few times she’d come home late, he’d been in such a strange mood that she wondered if he didn’t know how to deal with worry.

After hours of arguments that had devolved into her threatening her own life if he came with her, he finally agreed. Though he’d given her a knife this time to put in her stocking. Just in case.

Katherine didn’t think she would ever use it, even if those men attacked her. She wasn’t cut out for violence, in any way, shape, or form.

Still, she kept her wits about her as she clomped down the boardwalk toward the town. At least now she didn’t have to hide her limp so much. She’d forgotten what it was like to walk without making sure her gait was even. Now, she tried to find that rhythm again as she approached her hometown.

“Good morning!” A young man called out. His dark hair flopped over his forehead and his bright grin revealed rows of crooked teeth.

She didn’t know this young man either. And she hated how it made her so nervous to even respond to him. But Katherine could still feel the dagger in her stocking, so she nodded back. “Good morning. I’m afraid I don’t recognize you, friend.”

“Ah, there’s a fair few of us new to town.” He winked. “I haven’t seen you around these parts either.”

Katherine made sure her hair covered the slight scarring on her face and knew that now, more than ever, she had to hide her limp. The men on the boardwalk before might have spoken of her. They certainly had known who she was, and there was only one rare factor about her visage. “I’m so sorry, I can’t stay to introduce myself.”

“Why’s that?”

“Work!” she cheerily replied as she walked past him, hoping she looked like a normal person.

Who were all these people? Ducking her head low, she made her way to the almshouse in a rush. So many strangers in this town didn’t sit right.

This town didn’t get new folks. The people here had survived on their own for years, and if people were new to the kingdom, they stayed near the light bridge that connected them to freedom. It took years for a person to give up their hopes that they might escape.

So why were they here? There was nothing in this town for them to steal or take. She had few belongings that she called her own, and Katherine knew there were many people who were in the same situation as her. Anyone who came here looking for treasure, or even work, would be sorely disappointed.

The boards to the almshouse were loose. She stumbled and caught herself on the railing, but stared down into the water not to see dangerous features staring back at her, but concerned expressions on the souls of the lost. Almost as though they knew something she didn’t.

Gulping, Katherine quickly made her way to the almshouse after that. Stumbling through the door, she closed it firmly behind her and caught her breath.

Palms pressed to the cool wood, she forced her heart to slow down. This was the safest place in town. No one attacked the sick or the dying.

Why had she insisted on coming here?

Because maybe something deep in her soul wanted to prove that Gluttony was a monster. This was the only place that blatantly screamed he was a monster. He was killing people. All the wounded in here were supposedly murdered by him, and she should hate him. Fear him, even.

A hand settled on her shoulder and she let out a shriek.

Spinning around wildly, she tried to put weight on her bad leg so she could reach the knife, but that only resulted in her falling against the door and losing her balance. She would have crumbled into a ball if Grace hadn’t grabbed onto both her shoulders and held her where she was.

“Katherine!” Grace gave her a little shake, as though that might help knock her out of this state. “What has gotten into you?”

“I... I...” Eyes wide, Katherine couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth. “There are so many strangers in town, Grace.”

Grace’s features changed. Something hardened in her eyes as she dropped her hands from Katherine. “So they’ve bothered you as well?”

“Bothered?” Katherine shook her head. “Worse than that. They threatened me the last time I came to town, and it sounded rather personal. Almost as though they knew where I have been staying. Like they’ve been following me.”

That tough expression was one Katherine had never seen on her friend’s features before. Grace had always been soft and kind, even to the hallucinating patients they’d once had. The patients had all eaten a certain type of moss that caused them to believe everyone in the almshouse was hunting them.

Grace hadn’t ever held anything against anyone. Her heart was pure as gold, and light as a wisp.

But right now? She looked like she wanted to hurt someone. She looked like she wanted to punch, and bite, and scratch until that fear deep in their bellies was gone.

“Listen to me,” Grace said, stepping closer as though she didn’t want anyone to hear what she was going to say. “Something is happening here. I don’t know what. I don’t know who these men are or where they came from, but they are dangerous. You hear me?”

“I have gathered that much.”

“The things they are saying, Katherine, it’s changing this town.” She dropped her head and whispered, “I’ve been waiting for you to come back because you need to know—”

A deep voice interrupted them. Alexander, their boss.

“Katherine, I’ve been waiting for you to return.” He stood in the hallway that led toward his office and also partially their surgery room. “Come with me, please.”

“I was almost done speaking with Grace,” she replied. “I’ll follow you in a moment.”

“Now.” His voice whipped through the air, angry and almost mean. “I’m afraid I have no time to wait today. I’m actively in a surgery.”

She looked at Grace and noted how her friend’s face had paled. So much so that even her lips had lost all color.

What had Grace been about to tell her?

Apparently, there was no time for her to listen, though. Anger bristled through her. Katherine knew this was in part because she’d been allowed more freedom in Gluttony’s home. Even a demon king would not have spoken to her like that, and yet she was expected to run to her boss’s side because he snapped his fingers.

She was not a dog. He could not order her around however he saw fit.

Squaring her shoulders, Katherine followed him into surgery. There was another woman laid out there, her body already growing cold with death. She’d smelled it so many times in her life, it was a wonder that it wasn’t stuck in her nose.

The woman still wore her clothing, a rarity when they performed surgeries. But it was hard to mistake the gashes that had ripped her throat open. So many of them. Terrible, slicing gashes that were pale and bloodless.

Again, this was not the work of Gluttony. She knew that her people must think it was. With wounds on the neck and no blood in the body, surely that was the work of a demon. But it wasn’t.

Katherine had seen what he did. She knew he didn’t rake his fangs through someone’s throat unless they moved on their own. Or at the very least, he’d never do that to her.

“Do you see this?” Alexander said. He pointed to the marks on the young woman’s neck. “This is the seventh person that’s come in today.”

“I don’t recognize her face.”

“No. They’re all strangers. I’ve never seen anything like it, but it’s made me leery.”

Alexander had once been a very handsome man. When Katherine was a child, she remembered overhearing conversations between the women of who would be lucky enough to be his wife. She’d even caught a few women arguing over who was worthy enough for a prize like him.

But time had not been kind to their resident healer. His once golden hair was now streaked with yellowed grays. His skin had sagged and sallowed, and the bags under his eyes were loose. He looked perpetually tired and even when he wasn’t tired, he just looked angry.

And right now, he was more angry than she’d ever seen him.

Katherine needed to tread carefully. Licking her lips, she moved to the other side of the body and brushed the woman’s hair out of her face. “It is a shame to see so many strangers in our town lately. They seem to not understand how things work around here.”

“Shouldn’t that change?” Alexander looked up at her then, his eyes burning with rage. “They see the problem. They understand our plight. You are quick to deny them when they are the ones offering a solution, Katherine.”

She furrowed her brows in confusion. “I’m not sure what you’re saying, Alexander.”

“Is it true that you’ve been traveling to Gluttony’s castle?”

She could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. How did she respond to that? So few people knew what she had done, and that was only because she refused to brag. Katherine hadn’t made the deal with Gluttony to be a martyr to her people. She’d done it for... Well, she wasn’t all that certain these days why she’d done it.

But she wasn’t going to lie about it, either.

“Yes,” she replied after a brief hesitation. “I have been going to his castle. I made a deal with him. My blood, and my blood alone, so that he would leave our people to their own devices.”

“And you believed him?”

“I do.”

Alexander pounded the metal surgery table with his fist. “That sounds like you still believe him, Katherine, and I thought you were smarter than that.”

Her jaw dropped open before she could catch herself. “What do you mean? He’s not doing this, Alexander. Look at the wounds! We have spent years treating women who came in after making a deal with him. The wounds don’t look like that.”

“He’s gotten more bold, more hungry. He’s eating our people, Katherine, and he’s killed before.”

One.

He’d killed one person. They’d saved all the others, and Katherine knew because she’d been there. And she couldn’t imagine Gluttony killing anyone, even though she was certain he had done it before.

He didn’t want to murder people. How did no one else see that but her?

“Alexander, I think there are a lot of people saying things that are simply not true. Right now, we have to focus on what we can see and what we can fix. That is our job as healers.” She was botching this, but really, what did the man expect from her? “I do not believe, in this instance, that he has done anything wrong.”

The man who had paid her for a rather significant amount of years lunged for her across the table. Though she flinched, Katherine couldn’t pull away fast enough. Alexander’s fingers pinched her chin and forced her to tilt her head down.

“Look at her,” he snarled. “Look at this woman who could have lived until she was well into her eighties. Look at the life he has taken and tell me again that you believe him innocent.”

Because he was so adamant, and because his fingers hurt, she looked.

This young woman had been beautiful in life, she was certain of it. Her skin was clear of any acne or scars. Her lovely dark hair billowed in pretty curls that framed her elven features. Lovely, likely a woman who many men had tried to win, and none of them had succeeded. Because she was here. Dead.

But those marks around her throat were not made by anyone’s teeth. She’d seen Gluttony’s fangs up close and personal. She knew how wide they were and what damage they might do, and it was not that.

He could not tear holes that large. He could not rip through flesh like it was paper and leave it so mangled that it appeared she had been skinned.

“This was not him,” she replied. “And if you were in your right mind, you would know it was not him. One of the creatures in the swamp, perhaps. Or those strangers who have come into our home and spread these lies.”

He jerked her head to the side, now forcing her to look at him. At all that anger that simmered underneath the surface. “He has warped your mind. Some magic spell has bound you to him.”

“I am sound of mind and purpose.” Katherine placed her hand calmly over his, coaxing him to release her face. “I know you want to point fingers at the villain, Alexander, but I don’t think we know who that villain is yet.”

He watched her like she’d lost her mind. Staring at her with wide eyes and a mouth that opened over and over before he finally said, “I cannot have a woman who sees so little working for this clinic.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are blind to those who harm others, and that makes me question why you are working here at all. Are you stealing blood for him? Draining more of these victims before they can die?”

She flinched away from him, staggering back from the table as her entire body rebelled at the accusation. Vomit rose in her throat at the mere thought. “What are you saying?”

“He’s made you into a monster for him,” Alexander muttered, before lifting a hand and pointing his finger at her. “It’s not safe to have you around my patients. You are no longer allowed in this clinic. Nor are you allowed to step foot anywhere near it.”

“You can’t fire me, Alexander. I’m your best stitcher.” Katherine tried her best to reason with him. “This is just a misunderstanding, and I can prove that these are not the same marks that he’s left before.”

“Get out!” he shouted. His voice rang out through the surgery room, echoing down the hall, and she knew that all the other people who worked here had heard him. “Get out, demon!”

Flinching, Katherine realized this could quickly turn into a dangerous situation. She did need to leave. She should run, but she couldn’t because of her damn leg.

So she strode out of the surgery room with her head held high. As she left she looked for Grace, but her friend wasn’t here any longer. The only people looking back at her were unfriendly faces filled with suspicion.

They would believe anything they were told, she realized. And this town was no longer safe for someone like her.