Chapter 41

ChapterForty-One

Katherine took the weak spirit in her hands and stared at what used to be Spite. There was only the faintest grey mist between her fingers. The color was so light she almost couldn’t see it at all.

“Compassion?” she asked quietly, her voice filtering through the mist like a breeze. “I need to know that you actually want to do this. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you already have been hurt.”

And with one giant move of energy, the mist rippled in her hands. It was trying. So hard. It wanted to tell her that this was all it wanted, because apparently Gluttony was right.

Spite had fought its entire life. Fought for food, for attention, to turn people’s will toward something dark and angry. It had done all it could to feed and affect her village. But in the end, it was still just an emotion. A spirit of something ephemeral that lived between the living and the dead.

It wasn’t a life she would choose to give to anyone. And this would be the ultimate act of compassion in giving this tiny spirit a way to live on. A way to experience life through the eyes of a human, which it had been watching for likely centuries.

Meeting Gluttony’s eyes one last time before everything changed, she smiled. “Will this hurt either of us?”

“It might hurt you.” He looked troubled, his brows drawing down in fear. “When Greed’s wife did this with a spirit not so weak as this one, she was ill for a week. He waited on her hand and foot because he knew how dangerous it was. She made it, though.”

And so would she. Katherine had no fear if Gluttony was the one taking care of her.

“All right, then.” She held the spirit a little closer to her face. “How do I do it?”

“Breathe it in,” he answered. “Varya consumed her spirit, swallowed it whole because Greed hadn’t done this in a very long time. He forgot what we did when we possessed bodies. And we did, when we were the same age as these spirits. Trying out a real form before we decided to create our own.”

Breathe it in. Like smoke.

A memory filtered through her mind. Before her mother had disappeared, Katherine could remember falling very ill. She’d been so congested that it made it difficult to breathe. So her mother had brought out a bowl of steaming water and draped a towel over Katherine’s head. Breathing in the steam had been uncomfortable, but it definitely helped the congestion. And throughout all of it, her mother had rubbed her back.

The memory of that calloused hand rubbing against her shoulder blades and reminding her that she wasn’t alone calmed her. Even at her weakest. Even when she wanted to lie down and just let the sickness take her, her mother had been there. Kind and quiet, a strong presence who reminded Katherine that she was loved and taken care of.

With that in her mind, she leaned a little closer to the mist of the spirit and inhaled. She breathed it in deep, feeling the coiling zap of its magic stretching through her entire body. It spread like roots of a tree, digging into her lungs and into her very being.

For a moment, it hurt. She stiffened, her face twisting with a wince that made Gluttony lunge forward.

But it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t awful. It just was what it was. Pain was no stranger to a woman who lived in it for years now, though her hip was nothing compared to this pain. But she endured. She would survive it, if only so she knew that the spirit could live through her.

If anything was worth suffering for, it was for compassion.

And the moment she thought that, the pain eased. Gluttony held onto her shoulders a little too tightly, his grip so strong she had to blink and look up at him in surprise.

“You are well?” he asked, searching her gaze for the truth as though he thought she might lie to him. “What hurts?”

“My lungs,” she wheezed, tapping a finger to her rib cage before taking a slow, deep breath. “I think I’m all right, though.”

“It might take a few moments to start hurting.”

“It won’t.” She didn’t think, at least.

Katherine watched how worried he was and she reached up to trace a finger over the furrows between his brows. She didn’t want him to worry.

The thought was soon whisked away from her, the feeling pouring into the strange spirit that lived inside her. And strangely, it didn’t feel bad. It only made her smile and that compassion inside her bloom again, whisking to the spirit and feeding it.

“I think it just needs to feed,” she said.

“How is it doing that?”

“Every time I feel compassion, it seems to soak up that feeling.”

Gluttony shook his head, almost in disbelief. “Well. That’s something I wasn’t expecting you to say. What an experiment. I’ll have to share this with my brothers, you know. Just in case any of them find their...”

He stammered over what to call her, and Katherine realized they hadn’t had this conversation yet. The poor man was probably wondering what they were. Partner, wife, beloved? So many words for the same thing.

“We are what we are,” she said softly, tucking herself against his collarbone where she was most comfortable. Pressing her cheek to his shoulder, she breathed him in with a chuckle. “I don’t care what you call me, Gluttony, as long as I am the only person in your life.”

“I would never dare to even look at another.” His arms came around her tightly. “You are the moon in my sky and the stars on the horizon. One look at you and I forget that I’m a monster, Kat. One look at you, and I remember why life is so worth living.”

And oh, that made her heart bloom. She could feel the spirit lighting up inside her as well. This was what it had wanted to experience. To experience the feeling of love, true love, was so hard without a physical body.

Gluttony held her for a few moments, his nose pressed into her hair as he rocked them back and forth. Katherine soaked up every ounce of his attention as though she would never get it again.

“Do you want to spend a quiet day together?” he asked, his voice a low murmur. “I think, after all that, it would be rather nice to have a few moments with nothing but each other.”

“Isn’t that what we do every day?” she replied with a laugh.

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean I want it to change.”

He drew her from the laboratory with careful hands and a quiet countenance that made her wonder if he was watching her avidly to make sure she wasn’t about to fall apart at the seams.

She didn’t feel like herself. Katherine wouldn’t lie and say that everything was fine. There was another presence in her body, and though she didn’t think she would ever be able to converse with it, she was very aware that it was inside her.

Compassion wanted to experience life, but in a very quiet way. This was a tired spirit who had been used and abused and the mere idea of being Compassion terrified it. So many people could use compassion in the wrong way and that was so scary that it made the poor thing tremble in her chest.

She could literally feel it when she touched a hand to her ribs. The faintest vibration from the spirit inside her that shook her ribs. How strange it was to know that there was something living inside herself.

Not a child. Not a life that she would ever bring out into the world again. It was a spirit who now shared her body.

That was something she’d have to think about for a while yet, she had a feeling. How did one settle into realizing that there was... well. So much different. So much that she was now going to have to think through and realize that her life had changed yet again.

Gluttony twined their hands together and squeezed her fingers before drawing her into a room she’d not been in before. “Come on, pet. Let’s get your mind off of it.”

That would be lovely. She needed to stop thinking, perhaps. And this room was a perfect way to do it.

Katherine had never been in here before, but it was a rather cozy and small library. The walls were ringed with shelves that were filled to the brim with books and cozy loveseats that had cushions clearly worn by many people throughout the years. There was the perfect leather seat waiting for them by the window, and it was the largest one she’d seen still intact in this castle.

The metal lines that crossed across the glass did nothing to stop her from seeing the family of kelpies outside the window. A mother and three foals, an impossible feat considering kelpies usually only had one child. The sight drew her to the window as though she were under a spell, pressing her hand to the glass and watching the happy family kick their heels in the sky and canter about.

They were so precious, even with their sharp fangs glinting in the dim light of the day.

Her heart squeezed in her chest and she remembered that this was why she’d given up her life. This was why she was willing to take any risk for this kingdom. Because she loved it so much. Even the dangerous monsters who lived in the shadows. She could still see the beauty in their kelp covered hair and ignore the blood that coated their hooves. She didn’t care what they ate or hunted. She only cared that they existed.

And that was why she’d come to this castle in the first place and put herself in danger with a man she had been so certain was a demon.

Now, here she was, standing in front of a window watching the beasts of the swamp when she should be screaming at them to leave and then rushing to the town to tell people to run. And she wasn’t flinching at all when a demon walked up behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist.

In fact, she leaned back into his warmth as he rested his chin on her shoulder and held up a book for her to look at.

“Shall we?”

She glanced down and snorted. “These are children’s stories.”

“They are fairytales,” he corrected. “And they are all quite good. I’m particularly curious to hear what you have to say about the story of the beast and the young woman who is forced to stay in his castle.”

“Sounds familiar.”

He bit down lightly on her neck, but hard enough to make her arch back into him for a moment before he was pushing her toward the loveseat. The leather one that looked out the window, so she could still watch the kelpies as they played.

Gluttony sat down first, then imperiously waved his hand for her to join him. When she tried to sit beside him, he grabbed her by the hips and made her sit down on his lap. With both his arms wrapped around her, Katherine was reminded of just how safe she would be for the rest of her life.

She leaned into him, enjoying the heat of his body as she watched the outside moors come to life. Night drifted into the sky like someone gently tucked the world into bed. The sound of Gluttony’s murmuring voice relaxed her muscles as he read to her from the book of fairytales, spinning webs of wondrous adventures and women who overcame all the odds to beat back the nightmarish hoards that attacked their homes. Stories of women who were warriors and who fought tooth and nail to get what they wanted while kings bent a knee to them.

His low voice sent goosebumps dancing down her arms and she wouldn’t have it any other way. He kept her warm, safe, tucked into his body with his chin resting on her shoulder while he read story after story.

The wisps burst to life outside their window. Skittering in giant waves of light that seemed to make patterns on the other side of the window.

It was almost a perfect moment. She didn’t know what else could make it better, only that she was so in love with every single moment of this. So in love that it made her heart ache.

Tracing her fingers lightly over Gluttony’s forearm, she interrupted him mid sentence. “I love you,” she blurted out.

“I know you do.”

“I don’t think you know how much.” It was bursting out of her, like she was too full of the emotion. “I love you very much and if anything happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t think I could keep just going on.”

“You could.” He set the book on her lap and used his free hand to trace her jaw. “And you would. For centuries, now that you are immortal as I am. There has never been any question in my mind that you were the princess in my story. The avenging queen who came riding to my castle to tell me that I was a terrible king who had forgotten the use of my kingdom. You have changed the way I view everything, Katherine. And soon I will use you to help me decide how to make this kingdom a better place. How to convince my people that I care again.”

She searched his gaze, hoping this was the truth. She wanted nothing more than that.

“Do you mean it?” she asked, quietly. “Do you really mean that you want to change this kingdom so that we all may live better?”

“Of course I do. I have wanted to do it for many years, but I was lost in the how and the why.” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “But you are resting today, Katherine. You have done the impossible and taken a spirit into your form. You are changing now, whether you want to believe that or not.”

“I can feel the changes already happening.” She wiggled in his lap, trying to face him more directly. “But now, I want to know what I can do with it. How can I help my people? What plans we must make to do all this—”

Gluttony tightened his arms, pinning her to his body. “Listen to me, my dear love. You are going to rest and not push yourself while you discover what it means to be the host of a spirit. And then, tomorrow maybe, we will talk about this.”

Wilting against him, she knew there was sense in what he suggested. Even if she didn’t want to listen to him. “Fine,” she muttered. “Where were you in the story?”

“The queen had just cornered the king with a sword to his throat.”

“Oh, right. This is my favorite part.” Tilting her head against his shoulder, she leaned into him and let herself soak in the sound of his voice and the music of crickets outside.

Because while there was a lot they could fix, right now, she could bask in him.