Chapter 31

ChapterThirty-One

Katherine came out of a dream in a daze. Her heart sluggishly beat in her chest, and she didn’t want to let go of it.

She’d been dreaming a lot lately. Every time she closed her eyes, Gluttony appeared in her room. He crawled up from the foot of the bed, all liquid muscle and lithe heat that blanketed her body in comfort and affection. He always wound his arms underneath her head, tilting her neck for his fangs that were so gentle as they pierced her skin.

Her entire body would flush with desire. She’d wriggle closer to him, wrapping her arms around his lean hips while she tried to keep herself still. She didn’t want him to know how much she desired him. Grinding against him would only be an embarrassment as she revealed just how much she wanted him.

But it was hard.

Every night, it was so difficult to keep herself still while his tongue lapped at the wound on her neck that never seemed to close anymore. And every night she found herself growing a little more limp.

Katherine slept more, but she considered that to be a mere blessing to catch up on all the sleep she’d missed. She wasn’t going back to that village. Not with all the shadows that watched her every move and all the people who wanted to hate her for what she had done.

They were ungrateful.

Thoughtless.

They didn’t see what she could see, and that was all right in its own way. She didn’t need them to understand her choices, because now she was here. Languidly lying in bed until the late hours of the morning, waiting for the telltale knock on her door as a demon brought her food.

This time, though, she had a hard time even tilting her head. Trying to swallow, she realized her mouth was so dry. And she was tired. So very tired.

Katherine felt like there were two people in her mind. One exhausted individual who was enjoying laying in bed and wanted to close her eyes for a little while longer. And another person screaming in the back of her head that something was very, very wrong. She needed to get help. This wasn’t normal and if she didn’t get up, then something very dire might happen indeed.

The knock came again. Gluttony rarely entered her room without announcing himself. He liked to give her a semblance of privacy, perhaps because he understood that she’d never had that luxury before. Not in the boarding house, and not even in her old home with her parents.

“Gluttony,” she whispered, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and lisping her words.

Did he hear her?

She needed him to hear her because she didn’t know what was going on. She was fine. Just yesterday, she’d walked around this room with a determination to clean it and make it much more presentable. Had she been a little light-headed? Of course. But that was normal for her. She wasn’t as distracted, and perhaps her hip hurt a little more than usual. Pain was so much a part of her life, it was hard to tell when something else was happening.

But something had absolutely happened. She could barely move at all.

Her fingers scratched at the bed even as he walked in. Gluttony’s back was to her, giving her even more semblance of privacy. “Envy arrived again this morning, just thought you’d want to know. Ridiculous man, he won’t get out of my fucking castle. I know he annoys you as much as he does me, so I thought perhaps we could commiserate together this morning. He’s set up in the kitchen, certain that we’ll come down there and have to talk to him, but I do not have any wish to do so.”

Normally, she’d laugh with him. Normally, she would have the energy do something other than flop her head to the side to watch him.

When he turned and saw her, she knew how sick she must look. The plates in his hands clattered to the floor, and he lunged. Gluttony moved so quickly it was hard to track his movements. One moment he was at the door, the next he was frantically running his hands down her body.

“What happened, pet?” he asked, his eyes trying to see every part of her and his hands quickly following suit. “Where are you hurt?”

She must look terrible if he thought she was injured. She wasn’t, but... Maybe something else was wrong.

“Sick,” she muttered, and the single word emptied all the air in her lungs. She had to wheeze in a breath that rattled in her chest.

“You’re ill?” His eyes widened even more, his face turning pale and ghostly. “I don’t know how to help you.”

She did. There were certain things she’d want to check. Her temperature for one, but he wouldn’t know how humans normally felt. Then she’d want to pinch the skin on the back of her hand to make sure she wasn’t dehydrated. There were a thousand things to do, and maybe he could bring her to the almshouse.

But the word was too hard to form. It took every ounce of her energy just to keep her eyes open and watching him. And somehow, he seemed to understand that.

Gluttony gently moved her hair away from her face, touching each strand with reverence. “My poor pet. We’re going to fix this. I promise.”

He scooped his arms underneath her, turning her into his shoulder with such slight movements that she barely noticed the difference between the bed and him. And then he was moving from the room, carrying her as though she weighed nothing through the halls.

Everything blurred as they moved. She couldn’t quite guess where they were going, but then she noticed a small dent in the wall and thought they were heading to the kitchens.

Why there?

That made little sense. She wasn’t hungry. Not at all. This wasn’t hunger. It was a weakness that spread through every ounce of her form until she couldn’t think or breathe or stay awake.

“Katherine,” Gluttony murmured in her ear. “Stay with me.”

Of course. That was the smart thing to do. She had to stay with him and not move and let him take care of her because she certainly couldn’t do it herself right now. He would take care of her.

He always had.

Katherine blinked her eyes open. When had she closed them?

The warmth of the kitchen played across her icy skin. She hadn’t even realized how cold she’d been until she felt the blast of hot air from the furnace. And oh, it was so much better now that she was here. Now that she was actually warm.

Gluttony held her in his lap as he sank down beside the fire. Katherine wanted to protest. The stone floor must be so hard on his knees. He could just lay her down on the stones. She was more used to the discomfort of it than he was. Just a few moments of sleep and she would be better.

“Gluttony.” Envy’s voice sliced through her mind, forcing her out of that dream-like state and into the present. “What have you done to her?”

“She said she was sick.”

A hand picked up her wrist and let it flop back down against his chest. “Sick? That’s what she said? You’ve nearly drained her dry, you fucking idiot.”

But... No. That wasn’t right. That couldn’t be at all. She would have known if the dreams were real. If she’d actually whispered those words of pleasure and hope in his ears. She’d said too much in those dreams, about how she was so happy she’d chosen to stay here, and that if he knew how she really felt...

In what world did Katherine believe that was just a dream? Of course, he’d been coming into her room every night. After they’d spent the night together, after they’d tasted each other, why would he stay away?

She could pretend that she hadn’t known what was wrong with her because of the blood loss, but that wasn’t truthful. She had known. Why would he not come to her room and roll her into his arms?

Oh, she was a complete and utter fool. How could she forget that she was in the home of a demon king who only wanted to feed off of her? How could she ever think for a moment that she was in a normal castle with a normal prince who had somehow developed feelings for her?

Fluttering her eyelashes, trying to stay awake so she could hear more of this conversation, she looked up at Gluttony.

He was staring down at her. An expression of complete and utter loss marring his usually handsome features. Carefully, oh so carefully, he brushed her hair behind her ear. “It’s not blood loss,” he whispered, the words meant for only the two of them. “Is it?”

It was. She had seen it before in so many patients. They were cold and listless, struggling to stay awake. Sometimes it took every ounce of her strength to get food into them without watching them drown because they simply could not stay awake for it.

It would be a vicious fight for her to stay alive and well. But it would happen.

“Gluttony,” Envy hissed. “You have to let me take her.”

What?

No!

She didn’t want to go with this brother who had seen her only as a broken little doll. Envy would do gods know what to her, and the last thing she wanted in the end was to be parted from Gluttony.

She wanted to be with him. He would take care of her, and she trusted him to do so. Not his brother.

And yet, she felt his arms quiver. He shook against her and then pressed his warm face against her icy neck. He breathed her in, pressing a slight kiss to the side of her throat. Right over the wound that never quite healed.

“Be safe,” he whispered against her skin. “Be brave. Envy will not hurt you because he has no wish to harm me. You understand?”

No! She didn’t understand. Why was he handing her off like a sack of grain or a wounded animal that only his brother could fix? She just needed rest, food, she needed...

Katherine couldn’t fight as they handed her between the two brothers. Her head lolled against Envy’s chest, so much broader and harder than Gluttony’s. The faintest plush feeling of chest hair underneath her cheek felt so wrong when she knew what Gluttony felt like.

Then she heard the rumble of Envy’s voice in his chest. “You’re doing the right thing, brother.”

There was no response from Gluttony. And she already knew he was taking it out on himself. He’d all but told her that she was precious to him, and he’d already harmed her.

Broken her.

Proven that she was just as weak as the rest of the village thought.

It had just taken him a little longer than most to find that weakness and to flaunt it against her.

She fought to keep her eyes open as Envy strode to the back of the kitchen. She felt his hands shift underneath her, making some kind of motion with his fingers, and then all she could see was a bright flash of green.

“Wait,” she whispered, and in one last expulsion of energy, she rolled her head on his shoulder to look over it. Just enough for her to see past the bulk of the demon carrying her.

Gluttony still knelt by the fire, on his knees. He stared down at his clawed hands, his silhouette the picture of a man who had given up entirely. But he must have felt her eyes on him because he looked up and there was still hope there. Just the tiniest amount.

He had better hearing than most. So she whispered, her dry throat clicking as she said, “I will come back.”

Envy strode through his magical portal and then everything blinked out of existence. For a few moments, she wondered if she’d died. Then, faint light filtered back in and she could see that they’d stepped into a gray room.

Gray everything, actually. The stone above her head had been meticulously polished and then carved with visions of snakes slithering over her head. They were so detailed she could see each individual scale and the pupils of the creatures that almost seemed to move and watch her as she was carried beneath them.

Envy wasted no time. He carried her to a corner, where he put her down on something plush and soft. It was warm and comfortable, and she was so tired.

The demon she did not know banged around in the corner for a bit before he approached and held something to her lips. “Drink.”

Katherine did not know him or the substance he wished to pour down her throat. She stubbornly sealed her lips shut and did her best to glare at him, hopefully looking at least a bit intimidating.

She failed.

Envy rolled his eyes and kept the vial against her lips. “If I wanted to kill you, little human, I could have done it in a thousand ways already. I will not poison you.”

He had a point.

Katherine opened her lips and the cold liquid seared as she swallowed. But it was an almost instant affect. She could feel her entire body fill with strength for a moment, before it leaked out her ears like it had never been there at all.

“It’ll help rebuild all that blood you have lost,” Envy muttered as he turned from her. “There are more I will make, and you will take them every day. If you’re so insistent on risking your life with Gluttony, then the both of you need to learn how to be a little more careful. Foolish idiots. You should not and will not continue to do it like this.”

She swallowed, her mouth feeling a little more wet. “Water?”

“Yes, yes.” He lifted a hand above his head, scraping over the vials above him before coming up with another greenish colored liquid. He held that out to her as well. “Drink this, and I’ll get you water.”

“What is it?” Her voice was still little more than a croak.

Katherine took the few seconds between his replies to look around. She thought maybe this was a bedroom. She was lying on a cot with so many pillows it was hard for her to guess how many there were. A workbench in one corner was covered with books and dusted with what looked like strange glitter. Until she realized most of the shelves above that desk held crystals and stone.

So not glitter. Shards of precious stone.

Everything else was rather sparse, if one considered carved walls sparse. It was beautiful here. Full of magical carvings and creatures that she hardly recognized at all.

The stone shapes moved, following their master around as he muttered under his breath. And Envy was far too large in this room. He took up all the oxygen just by existing and she wanted... well, she supposed she wanted him to leave.

“Here.” He tossed one more vial at her, and it thudded onto the bed beside her. “Take all those and sleep. I’ll be back with food and water.”

And then he left her alone in this cold, stone room with no windows. Like he’d brought her to a tomb.