Page 100 of Demon Food

My gaze snapped to his.

“Well, it’s okay to stare,” he said, arms pinned behind his back as he stared himself. “They’re beautiful. That’s why we hang them. To celebrate.”

My voice was hoarse when I tried to speak. “Celebrate what, exactly?”

“Taking our first, of course.”

I whipped my head back to the paintings. These were paintings of their first human. The one they killed.

“Each member of the royal family gets their own. Would you like to see mine?” He placed a palm on my lower back. “It’s just up here.”

I wanted to recoil, but I let him lead me further down the hallway where four paintings were clustered together, pressed inside intricate silver frames.

“Ahhh, here we are,” he said, pointing to one of them. “I remember it like it was yesterday. How it felt to take my first sip. It was like being born again.”

My forehead wrinkled as I gazed upon the painting. It looked just like him, only younger. He was completely naked, his body toned and muscular. He was kneeling upon a bed, his cock buried inside the body of a person with cinnamon hair, their lips parted into an O as they gazed upon his face.

Beneath the painting was a plaque inscribed with a date, and elegant swirling letters that read: King Sorlen of Novithia.

I leaned in, squinting at the plaque. Below his name, in much smaller print, the letters plain, was the word: Archamon.

“That is the human’s name,” the king said, pride in his voice as he smiled at the painting. “See, there is great honor in being a royal’s first. Your name is recorded in history. Admired by all for years to come.”

My swallow was dry as I blinked at the painting. This was honor? Here was a person remembered not for who they were or what they accomplished. Rather, for getting fucked by a king.

“Here is my late queen,” he said, opening his palm to the next painting. “The mother of my vultlings.”

My eyes rounded as I gazed upon it.

Oh, my goodness. Alek’s mother. I could see the resemblance in him with her flowing black hair and cat-like eyes—molten copper, the same as his, only lined in black. The painter had chosen to focus only on her such that you barely noticed the thin, balding man whose cock she was riding.

“Wasn’t she lovely?” the king asked, eyes glazing over as he viewed the painting.

Yes, she was lovely. She was gorgeous.

But I couldn’t keep my focus on her, because the next painting stole my attention.

My heart careened as I stepped in front of it.

It was…Alek.

Or at least a healthier version of him, his skin radiant and the dark circles no more, but there was also a severity in his expression that I’d never seen before. There was a malice in his eyes.

I didn’t realize I’d been backing away from the painting when I felt the king’s fingers wrap around my shoulders, holding me in place.

“Isn’t it unnerving?” he asked.

I nodded. Something was wrong with him. Unnamable and yet horrifying. I couldn’t describe it. It was just so very wrong. This wasn’t the Alek I knew.

“They look so much alike, don’t they?” the king said, and realization dawned.

This wasn’t Alek. It was his twin. Prince Tobian of Novithia, read the plaque.

“It used to be impossible to tell them apart, but not anymore,” said the king, a weariness in his tone. “Not since Alekus’s hunger strike.”

Chills scattered down my arms as he guided me forward. I wanted to ask what was wrong with him. Why he looked like that. You couldn’t see the face of the woman whose mouth he took. You could only see his. There was a darkness there.

The king gestured to a blank space on the wall. “Here is where Alek’s painting will go.”