Page 11 of Demon Food

“That’s who he is.” I pointed a finger toward the door where his lover just left. “A barbarian. A murderer.”

Landry rolled his gaze skyward, dropping his head back. “It’s not that simple, and you know it. To call him a murderer—to call any of them a murderer—is only half the truth.”

My chuckle was as dark as I felt. “Is that the half where the one you fooled around with just now has fucked someone to death?”

He didn’t have a rebuttal for that because there was nothing to argue. It was a fact. He knew it was a fact. Everyone knew it.

A vultus killed the first human they bedded. There had never been an exception.

I’d heard it compared to a baby rattlesnake. While a seasoned demon could take what they needed from a human, leaving them blissfully groggy, a virgin took and took, sucking the lifeforce from their prey until it was too late.

We called it the point of no return. It was those last crucial moments of a feeding that made the difference between a deep sleep for a human and never waking up. A vultus who’d done it even once before could control himself and stop before his human’s heart gave out.

May the gods have mercy on the poor soul who found themselves in the bed of a virgin. It would be their last.

“If you must know,” Landry said, “his first had typhus fever. They were in so much pain they were begging to go. He did them a mercy.”

My head jolted back an inch. “You asked him about his first?”

“Yes. Unlike you, I don’t immediately treat them all like they’re monsters. They can’t help the way they are. It’s their nature. It’s in their blood the same as a wolf or a bear. And people give themselves willingly.”

It took everything I had not to shake him. Yes, people gave themselves to the vultae willingly, sacrificed themselves of their own free will. And yes, sometimes it was a terminally ill person who was ready to go, but most of the time, it wasn’t.

Most of the time, it was a person doing it in exchange for wiping clean their family’s debt. A debt they put us in. The crown. The kingdom. A debt we would never be able to reconcile otherwise, leaving our children more impoverished, born into generational poverty that could be forgiven with one very noble sacrifice.

The people who offered themselves, did it to give their children a fighting chance. So, how much of a choice was it really?

“I’m just—” He squeezed his fists, fighting with his own words. “I’m just so tired of pretending like I don’t love it. Like it’s not the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Look at me, Feloré.”

My nostrils flared as I averted my gaze to the floor.

“No, look at my body.” He swung his arms out, flopping them at his sides. “Tell me what you see.”

I didn’t want to. Not because he wasn’t beautiful. Gods, he was so beautiful. But because he knew I didn’t have an argument.

He’d been born with two nearly unworkable legs. It was what had drawn me to him from the second he’d been escorted into my orphanage as a tiny, ill-fed boy.

I’d felt obligated to take care of him since the moment I laid eyes on him, like someone had secured a cord from my heart to his and said, Here. He’s your responsibility. Don’t let anything happen to him.

He was the thing I lived and fought for. My purpose.

“They don’t look at me and see anything wrong,” he said. “The vultae don’t say, What’s wrong with your legs? Why don’t they work? Is it because you’re sick? They look at me and simply see someone who’s fun and sexy. They notice my smile and my eyes. Do you have any idea what that’s like for me?”

“But you don’t need them. I tell you you’re perfect all the time, because you are. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

His jaw tightened. “Do you have any idea how exhausting that is?”

I searched his gaze for a long time. “What?”

“Do you have any clue how draining it is to wake up every day and have to pretend like I don’t hate my body? Sometimes, I just want to hate my body, Feloré. But I have to pretend like I don’t because you couldn’t stand it if I hated it. Just like you would never admit that sometimes I’m a burden to you.”

My eyes rounded. “There’s nothing to admit because it’s not true. I do the things I do because I love you. Because I want you safe and cared for.”

“But not happy,” he said.

“Of course, I want you fucking happy, Landry.”

“So long as it’s the happiness I get from living the life you planned for me, right?”