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Chapter 35

ChapterThirty-Five

She planned to surprise him. Katherine knew that very little could surprise Gluttony after a thousand years of life, but she was determined that he would like what she had to bring him.

Besides, it was long pastime for her to empty her room at the boarding house. She’d only kept it because she’d been so afraid that he would send her back here and she wouldn’t have anywhere to stay. But now, it was very clear that Gluttony intended to keep her, and she was... well, she didn’t really mind that fate in the slightest.

When he’d fallen into one of his rare, deep sleeps, she’d snuck out of the castle with a tiny bundle of gray light following her. Spite hadn’t been around very much lately, nor did it speak any longer, but it clung to her like a child did its mother’s skirts. Even now, as she approached the boarding house, she probably looked like a madwoman.

Katherine held her arms around the tiny spirit that no one else could see. It whimpered, the pitiful noise grating on her nerves as it traced a tendril gently down her cheek.

“Everything is fine,” she said quietly, opening the front door and making her way to her old room. “You and I are going to be just fine.”

And she believed that. This time, her journey through the town had been relatively quiet. Though there were a few whispers and pointed stares, no one tried to talk with her. In fact, everyone ignored her. Like she didn’t exist at all.

Such a reception was fine with her. If they wanted to fire her from her job, cast her off like she was dirty laundry, then that was fine with her. She wanted nothing to do with them, either. They were blinded by their own hatred, and Katherine had no business being around people like that.

It took a bit of maneuvering for her to get the key out of her pocket while still holding onto Spite. But she managed well enough and opened the room. It didn’t appear that anyone had been inside, a small blessing considering she’d been gone for a while. Usually, if someone left their room for long enough, others would go through and see what they could keep for themselves.

Of course, she didn’t have much either. Maybe that was why no one had bothered her things.

She set the pale little spirit down on her bed that had a fine layer of dust on it and started packing. She could fit all her things in a single trunk at the end of her bed, and Katherine should have been a little embarrassed at how quickly she managed to fold, roll, and stuff everything in its place.

But she left out a single book, which she waved at Spite. “This is a book on herbs for speaking with the dead. It was my mothers, and is the only thing I own that was hers. She’d lent it to a friend long before she died, before our house burned down. A few years ago, the old woman remembered it and gave it to me.”

Flipping through the pages, she sat on the edge of the bed with a huff of disappointment. “I remember thinking this was so foolish. I didn’t want to end up like my mother. Muttering about spirits and how no one else could see them. She seemed insane at the time.”

Her heart squeezed and Spite slithered into her lap. It was getting a little stronger these days, but it certainly didn’t look like itself anymore.

Setting the book on the bed, she gently ran her hand down the back of the spirit. “You don’t look like yourself at all, little one. Is something wrong?”

It shook its pale head and seemed almost like it was ready to speak. But then they both heard a thud on the outside of the room. Katherine almost asked, “What was that?”

Why would she, though? She knew it was nothing good.

So much for getting through this visit without having someone causing an issue. Although, she supposed, that was unavoidable. She needed to find someone to help her carry this trunk back to the castle, and that wasn’t going to happen easily. No one wanted to risk their own necks to help Gluttony’s “favored”.

Sighing, she settled the little spirit back onto her bed. “You stay here where it’s safe. If someone comes into this room, hide. Run to the castle if you have to, but do not try to help me. Do you understand?”

It gave a worried little chirp.

Not at all like the Spite, she knew. The bitter little spirit was all too happy to cause trouble and mischief. But this version of it seemed... concerned. Worried. Fearful even as it plopped off her bed, made its way to her window, and then disappeared past all the people who had gathered there. They couldn’t see it, and for that, she was very thankful.

Shaking her head, she took her time walking through the boarding house. She knew there was an argument waiting for her, but she didn’t think they would actually hurt her. No one had put their hands on her before, but they might ban her from the town.

She had to be all right with this treatment. They would not accept her choices and she would not accept theirs.

Katherine lifted her hand to shade the sun that split through the mist as she walked out to greet her people. A whole crowd had formed in front of her window, and thus in the center of the town. So many faces she didn’t recognize, and many more that she did. They were all gathered together, strangers and friends alike, to glare at her with hatred in their eyes.

“Why are you here, witch?” Someone shouted.

“I’m gathering my things.”

“Leaving curses, more like,” another person muttered.

It was hard to tell who was speaking in the crowd. They all seemed to mutter over each other until all she could hear was a garbled mess of fear and disgust. They didn’t want the crippled hag to wander through their homes, leaving bad luck in her wake.

They’d never thought of her like this before. She might have come from an unfortunate family history, but she had never been some creature for them to look down upon.

Who had spread these lies? This venom that had infected her people?

Narrowing her gaze, she looked through the crowd and found them. The strangers who had infiltrated her town. They watched her with vivid eyes that saw too much. Eyes that expected her to fight or grow angry. To prove that she had turned into a monster just like the man they all hated.

But that was not who Katherine was. She’d never wanted to harm her people or make their lives harder. She just wanted them to see her as a person and to let her exist.

So instead of arguing back, she merely clutched the book to her chest, ducked her head, and started through the crowd. There was no other path for her to go. She had to walk through them to get out of the town, and maybe Gluttony would return with her to get her things later. The room was unlocked, so maybe she would be looted. But they were just things.

This was starting to feel like it could get out of hand, and she didn’t think it was safe to stay a moment longer.

The first shove came from her left, thankfully. She placed all her weight on her good leg and stumbled. But at least she stayed upright. They learned after that. More hands shoving, pulling, pushing, moving her left and right until her bad leg eventually gave out.

She’d gotten a considerable way through them, though. So when she hit the planks, she was near the edge of the boardwalk. She stared into the green water, all the more colorful in the sunlight, and she saw everyone’s reflection behind her.

Angry faces. Faces that had always looked at her with pity, but now, she only saw hatred.

She couldn’t stay here. They were going to kill her, and in a very painful way. She just wanted to go back to Gluttony. Back to safety.

“Hey!” Grace’s voice split through some of the others. “What are you doing? Shame on you! Let her through.”

But as she turned to look over her shoulder, she saw hands on Grace’s waist. They tugged her away from the crowd, away from helping her friend, and she knew this was going to get bad. Quickly.

A boot connected with her jaw. She bit through her tongue and the bitter taste of blood bloomed. She gasped and some of the warm liquid trickled down her chin. Who had kicked her? Why would they do that?

But apparently that’s what the rest of the mob had been waiting for. They started kicking however they could, connecting with her ribs and her hips. Seeking out the soft places on her body that would hurt the worst for her. All her nightmares came to life.

“Witch!” they shouted. “Cripple! The gods did this to you because they knew what was in your heart.”

Her heart had always been good. Always. No matter what had been thrown in her way and she wanted to argue with them. To say that they were the ones who had been poisoned, not her. Their souls were tainted black with jealousy and rage.

But she couldn’t say anything with blood coating her tongue and her arms over her head, desperately trying to protect her face and neck from the boots that flew from every direction.

A low growl rumbled across the moors. She heard him long before she saw him. Everyone had frozen and Katherine peered through her arms to see a dark shadow surging across the water. Not the boardwalk where there were broken planks and meandering pathways, no.

Gluttony raced to her side in a straight line. Monsters be damned, they all fled from the sight of the enraged demon who sprinted among them. The water didn’t even slow him down, but how could it? Even the moors flinched away from the horned beast that charged through them.

Her demon. Her monster, who hated to see her even get a paper cut, let alone endure a crowd of people attacking her. And she knew, in that moment, she could choose to save them. She could throw herself over the edge of this boardwalk and he would be forced to save her. But...

She didn’t.

She hesitated and in that split second, he attacked. He lunged for whatever flesh he could find. Hauling himself out of the moors and onto the town center with a powerful thrust of his body. His claws came first, slicing through the nearest man, who had been the last to kick her.

Katherine watched the man’s eyes go wide as he pressed his hands to this throat. The blood that spurted out between his fingers was almost comical. Like she was watching a play rather than a man die right in front of her.

Gluttony went for the next in a blur. His teeth sank into the woman’s neck and he ripped at her skin, gristle hanging between his teeth as she staggered away from him. And even in this moment she could see that the marks he left were not the same as the countless people she’d seen in the almshouse. It wasn’t the same. Not even his claw marks were the same.

No one here would see that, though. All they would remember was the monster who stood among them, heaving with ragged breaths as he dripped swamp water onto the planks. He was massive. Far larger than she’d ever seen him with horns so tall they jabbed at the sky. His red eyes glowed and he could barely keep his mouth shut around the rigid fangs that gleamed in the sunlight.

Then came the screams. Countless screams and shouts as the villagers tried to run from him, but he was so fast. She noticed he didn’t attack everyone, only the people whose boots she recognized.

Their blood splattered onto the raised planks until it looked like a river of red flowed through her town. He only slowed when people had run so far from him that he needed to choose who he chased after.

A group of strangers had remained, knives and wickedly curved blades now in their hands. One of the men she recognized from the boardwalk, and he stood tall and strong as he called out, “So the demon is here after all.”

Gluttony grinned, blood dripping down his chin. “You asked for a demon the moment you attacked her. And thus, you have received one.”

One of the men rushed forward, and then two others. But Gluttony didn’t even flinch. Those long claws reached for them, dragging them closer and allowing their blades to pierce through his flesh. He didn’t even react. He just leaned down and ripped out their throats with his teeth before dropping them dead to his feet.

The crowd still watched from a safe distance, and they all seemed to hold their breath as he pointed at her. “She is mine,” he snarled. “Any who touches her again will face my wrath. I will not stop at merely killing you, for that is a mercy. The next person to touch her, I will drain dry. Slowly. In front of all your loved ones, as I make them watch you die in front of them. Do you hear me?”

She could hear the sounds of dragonfly wings as they returned after the tussle. The fluttering sound vibrated next to her ears. The faint burble of the moors behind her, and the chuff of a kelpie who had been drawn by the scent of blood. It was all there, but not a single sound of human life. Not even a moan from the people he’d harmed because he’d killed them so quickly.

She started shaking. Her fingers wouldn’t stop moving, twitching, and then her hands followed like she didn’t know where to put them because that river of blood was coming closer to her. Katherine wanted to move away from it, but that would put her right in the moors. The creatures behind her had already been drawn to the scent of blood.

Blood that she’d spit into the water herself. Blood that her own people had drawn because she had dared to have feelings for this man who had been the only one to step in and save her.

But he’d done so much.

Eyes wide, heart thundering, she lifted her head to see that no one was offering to help her now either. They didn’t care. They just stared at two people they believed to be monsters.

Perhaps she should have hated them for that. Katherine wished she could get angry at someone, but the only person at fault was her.

She had started all this. She’d turned her town’s life upside down, and she’d changed Gluttony, too. And she wouldn’t apologize for any of it. She was sorry they were all hurting, but sometimes it hurt to do the right thing.

“Do you hear me?” Gluttony snarled, his voice pitched low and deep. His gaze sliced through the crowd one last time, so loud he made people flinch away from him.

Even the strangers seemed to back away. But not before Katherine saw the darkness in their eyes.

This wasn’t the end of their attacks against him. She feared it might be just the beginning.

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