Chapter 36

ChapterThirty-Six

He had a hard time coming down from the rage. He wanted to rip into more of them. To feel their soft flesh parting beneath claw and fang. Mortals were so easy to torment, so easy to destroy. All it took was one crook of his claw and they folded underneath the weight of his anger.

But he was not here to hunt. He was here to save someone, and that meant he needed to turn his back on those who wished to murder him.

To murder her.

His vision turned red again as he remembered what he had seen. Spite had found him in the castle, and though the little spirit could not speak, it had given him a sense of urgency and warning. So he had run. He’d sprinted through the swamp, darting past every creature that thought to stand in his way.

And they parted for him like waves on either side of his body. He knew if he had called them to fight with him, they would have swallowed this town up. But his Katherine had a heart big enough to save a town like this and he knew she would not want to see more of them harmed. So he stilled the anger in his chest. He bottled up all the rage and need for more blood, more pain.

Gluttony eyed the crowd one last time, knowing that they would not test him as he turned away from their hate-filled eyes. But he still listened and scented for any movement as he gave them his back, because he no longer trusted them.

They would feel his punishment soon. But for now, the death of their loved ones was punishment enough.

Katherine lay on the boardwalk, her hands planted in front of her. Propped up like this, she almost looked like one of the rusalki on their rocks, waiting for a young man to come into the water and save them. She was beautiful, even bloodied as her nose and mouth were.

But she was also shaking. Her hands trembled against the rotting wood beneath her and her eyes darted from him, to the bodies, to the blood. Always ending on the blood.

He had been too rough in front of her. His Katherine had seen death before. After all her years in the almshouse, he knew she had seen enough death to last her a lifetime. But he had forgotten how much it would affect her to see this. These were still her people, attackers or no.

So he crouched lower, pressing his own palm to the bloodied wood to make himself seem small. Less threatening as she watched him like a cornered, trembling mouse.

“Katherine,” he said quietly, taking one small movement closer to her. Crawling, as it were, with one hand stretched out to her. “Katherine, you are safe.”

Her eyes flicked up to him again, and he knew what she must see. A monster drenched in blood, long tangles of dark hair hanging around his horned head. He knew his face changed as well. His body bulking with muscles, while his face became blocky and more filled with fangs and sharpened teeth.

He tried to make himself small. Gluttony knew that right now, she probably didn’t see him. All she likely saw was another person who was coming toward her, wanting to hurt and harm and maim. What they had done to her...

He had to close his eyes and grit his teeth to stop himself from spinning on them again. He could still feel their eyes. The scent of their blood was in the air, and it made him want to feast even more. It made him want to rip out their still beating hearts and offer them to her like some goddess on a bloodied throne he had built.

But he was not that monster. Not for her.

Gluttony was not just his battle form, waiting for the next fight to feast upon blood and organs. He was a man who loved a woman, and that truth burned through his chest so powerfully that it made his entire body ache.

He loved her.

Oh, he loved her more than the sun loved the moon. He loved her more than forever and wanted nothing more than to rot with her until nothing was left but them.

So he kept that hand outstretched, holding out his claws with hope in his eyes and a heart that pounded only for her.

And he waited. He kept his back to the daggers, pikes, and torches that people were surely ripping out of their homes as they prepared to fight a demon who had killed so many of them. He waited, knowing that he showed his weakness and they both might be in danger. Because he did not care.

Let them try to kill him. He would gladly die if it meant she was safe and happy.

She took a deep, rattling breath. Her wild eyes locked on him and him alone. He wondered if she was feeling like a mouse trapped against the floorboards while a cat loomed over her. But no, not his Katherine. For all that she was different, for all that she had suffered, she had remained impossibly brave.

Her fingers looked so tiny against his as she slipped them into his grip and held onto two of his fingers. The most she could hold onto comfortably, he had a feeling. They were connected to each other again. Close enough so that he could feel her heartbeat through her fingers, and it was enough for him. At least for now.

“Can you stand?” he asked, his voice a low grumble. Though he tried to be softer with the tone, it was impossible in this form.

But she looked up at him with those big, wide eyes and he knew that she saw him. She knew who held onto her hands and she knew that right now, she was safe.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Katherine winced and her gaze flickered away from his for a mere moment to look down at her bad hip. “They kicked me.”

“I know, love.” He held onto her fingers, squeezing them tight. “I know they did.”

And oh, his heart broke all over again.

She would have given up everything for them. Katherine’s heart was so big, she would likely forgive them even this. She’d look back on the memory with fear, but she would swallow it so she could be there for her people when they clearly weren’t themselves.

He was not so forgiving.

Once he had her back in his arms, he turned his glare on the people behind them again. Baring his teeth in a wicked snarl, he slowly slid his hand down her palm. Seeking the pulse at the base of her wrist with his fingers, before bending again to slide his grip underneath her elbow.

It took so little effort to lift her, and that only made him even more angry. Because she was so delicate and bird-like and they had attacked her without hesitation. Like she was the monster they needed to expel from their home, when he was the one they wanted to hurt.

So they had attacked the person easier to harm. The smaller target because they knew her injuries would hurt him even more than if they had tried to carve out his heart. He knew what this was. He’d seen this tactic a hundred times in his long life, but it had never hurt so badly.

Like the monster he was, he curved himself around her. A beast with horns, claws, and a long, whipping tail behind him as he wrapped Katherine in his arms.

“Pet,” he said quietly. “I need you to put your arms around my neck. Can you do that?”

She nodded and reached for him even as someone shouted her name in the crowd.

He turned with her, his gaze narrowing on an older gentleman who stood in the crowd. Everyone seemed to look at him with some level of respect, so he could only assume this was a man of power.

Katherine looked at the man too, but then she turned away and tucked her face into Gluttony’s neck.

He softened. If this man had any power over the woman he loved, then he no longer did. Gluttony was the only one she sought out for reassurance, and he was the one who had saved her. Not this man. For the first time in a very long time, Gluttony felt... powerful.

He pointed at the stranger with a long nailed hand, his teeth peeled back in a snarl that surely revealed every glinting point of his sharpened teeth. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said, his voice warped with fangs. “This woman is mine.”

“Lust at first bite, I take it?” the man challenged.

He would not reveal the true depths of his feelings for the first time with a crowd before them. He had no intent on allowing this man to goad him or Katherine into saying anything they were not ready to say.

So he turned away from the man instead. He stepped off the boardwalk and ignored the gasps as he walked off the planks and into the swamp. The villagers of this town were not his problem, but the injured woman in his arms absolutely was.

He strode through the water that splashed against his now massive thighs and quickly disappeared from the sight of the village.

It was time for Katherine to meet the others in his kingdom. The ones that she’d feared most of her life, because he had encouraged those who were different to feast upon whatever they wished. Hunt the humans, he’d said all those years ago. Hunt them, and destroy them for all I care.

But now, he had one in particular who was his and his alone.

Someday he would introduce her to the loup garou and the other more terrifying beasts of his swamp. He would show her that there was nothing to fear in their monstrous forms, as long as he was with her.

But for now, he had one intent and one alone.

The rusalki were the softest of his strange creatures, although likely they would still terrify Katherine. They were... well, not the most beautiful of creatures when they were not attempting to lure men. How they appeared to either sex was rather different in most cases, but they were also quite magical on their own.

And they would be able to heal her. They would make her more comfortable.

Slogging through the water, he noticed when Katherine came back into herself. She jolted in his arms, her fingers curling a little more tightly around the back of his neck.

“Where are we going?” she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder and peering about them for the first time.

They were far from the walkways. Farther than any human likely had ever attempted to journey. They wouldn’t have gotten far if they tried.

But this was a wonderland to him. The scent of peat and the earthy addition of bog water filled his lungs. Fireflies danced around them, mingling with dragonflies that rushed to get ready for the night. Wild lilies on their bright green pads floated around his knees. And in the near distance was a weeping willow whose tendrils brushed the water with delicate fronds. Tiny ripples fluttered out of reach as the slightest breeze knocked them into movement.

It was peaceful here. Beautiful. Not an ounce of humanity to touch it.

“Oh,” Katherine breathed. “This is lovely.”

“I have a favor to ask,” he said as he strode more confidently toward the willow.

“Anything.”

“Not of you, pet.” Gluttony felt his lips twist into a smile, though. Because even injured and frightened, she trusted him to take care of her. And he would. For the rest of her days.

Ducking underneath the delicate fronds, he stepped into another world. The rusalki lived underneath the curtain of the willow. Their beds were carved into its giant trunk, although many of them still slept underneath the water in their algae covered beds. There were four of them lounging on the roots of the tree, weaving new crowns for their heads.

They did not have their faces on, though. The faces they wore for men were beautiful and lovely. Young women who had never seen a day of hardship in their life.

These were their true faces. Rotting and sunken in death, as they had died in the bog. Most were pushed into the water and drowned by their partners. Some because they did not love the man in return, others because they were pregnant and their partners did not wish to be fathers. Or to marry.

Rusalki were dangerous creatures who lived with hatred in their hearts. Their purpose was mostly revenge, and to drown all men who came near them. They dragged them into the depths, tangling them in their long hair as their slippery bodies escaped the men’s reach. Once he drowned, they were rumored to feast upon the man’s flesh.

One of the rusalki sat up quickly at his approach, her black hair tangling around her nude form. Her dark eyes flashed in those sunken sockets before she recognized him.

“Gluttony!” she said, and the others perked up.

Soon they were swarmed by countless women, their skeletal figures making soft creaking noises as they peeked over his arm to look at Katherine.

“What happened?” the first rusalki said, her eyes large and wide with emotion.

And Katherine... Oh, he’d thought she would tremble in his arms with fear. He thought looking upon those thin, emaciated faces, ghostly pale and ashen with death, that she would feel some ounce of fear.

But he had forgotten who he held in his arms.

Katherine’s eyes filled with tears. Not in fear, but sadness as she choked, “They attacked me. I was one of their own, and they... They kicked me. They knocked me down and if Gluttony hadn’t come, they would have...”

She couldn’t say the words, considering the young women who stood before her knew exactly what would happen. They had not survived their fates, and they knew what death by drowning felt like.

Tutting, the rusalki reached as one to take Katherine out of his arms, but he refused. “She cannot walk,” he grumbled, stomping through them to reach a small, flat section at the base of the tree. Then he settled her carefully, making sure she was comfortable on her rump before he took a step away from them all. “She needs healing.”

“Healing,” one of them said. “We do not heal.”

“You do.”

“Our magic is in death.”

Gluttony took a deep breath, reminding himself that even though he was in battle form, he did not have to be the monster. “We both know you are lying. I’m calling upon our bond and the boon you owe me, ladies. Put her back together.”

They all looked at each other, then back to him, then made a sound of a collective sigh. “Then we are no longer in your service?”

“You’ve never been in my service. The lot of you do whatever you want,” he grumbled. “Fine. Yes. You can consider yourself free of all debts.”

They clustered together, a menagerie of bony elbows and hollows between ribs. Then they turned again, and he heard one of them say, “We will care for her, demon.”

And so he settled in the roots a small distance away, bracing his forearms on his knees as he watched the women cluster around his heart. For he had surely ripped it out of his own chest and given it to Katherine.

Because she owned him, he realized. Mind, body, and soul.