Page 33 of Demon Food

I skimmed my tongue over my teeth.

“Fire?”

I jumped when every candle in the room roared to life with a crackling pop, and there were a hundred candles in here, scattered on every surface.

My heart galloped through beats. I’d seen them summon fire before, but I’d never seen it done quite like this. He didn’t even need to concentrate. The magnitude was perplexing.

He dug into his pocket, fishing out a small, white paper scroll stuffed with dried leaves, which he bit between his teeth. Instead of just using any number of the candles in here, he tapped his fingertips through an intricate configuration, and fire erupted into his palm.

Dipping the end of the scroll into the flame, he hollowed out his cheeks to suck, then shook out his hand to extinguish it.

“I would argue that you,” he said, pointing the smoldering herbs at me, “don’t look like a human.”

I’d heard that once or twice. It was the eyes. And the hair. Although, what usually followed such a sentiment was: But do you taste like one? Does the color on your bottom half align with the top? Yes? Let me see. Come sit on my face.

My nostrils flared when he exhaled a spicy smoke into the washroom, its scent warming like roasted cardamom and star anise. “Of course, I’m human.”

“Oh, I know, darling,” he said. “I can smell you.”

I swallowed.

“What is your name?” he asked, leaning back against the vanity with his ankles crossed in an air of nonchalance that didn’t match the mood in this washroom. Especially considering all the broken glass that covered the floor and his bleeding side from where he’d been stabbed seconds ago.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, eyeing him cautiously like the lethal predator he was.

“Oh, come on,” he said, flicking ashes onto the floor. They floated to the tile like tiny feathers. “What am I going to do with your name, love? I can’t stab you with it, for example.”

I flicked my gaze down to the stab wound in his side, which was beginning to bleed through his shirt in an alarming, growing circumference. Strange. He should’ve begun healing by now.

“Tell me yours first,” I said.

“We’re negotiating?” His expression brightened as he held a palm to his chest. “I’m Prince Alek. It’s a pleasure.”

My mouth lost its moisture. Alek, as in short for Alekus. I was right. This was the future king of Novithia.

“Now your turn, human.”

I couldn’t soften my shoulders if I tried. “Feloré.”

“Fe-lor-é,” he whispered, his tongue dancing over his teeth, like he was tasting each syllable. “North. The Scandörian mountain region.”

I tried not to jolt in shock, but that was an awfully obscure piece of knowledge for him to gather from the pronunciation of my name. “How do you know that?”

“Because I am the future king of these lands.” He sucked a drag from his herbs. “And those lands. And a few others.”

Yet, I’d just stabbed him, then promptly called him a demon. And he wasn’t retaliating.

“Just like how I know your name means snow…” He squinted, eyes searching the walls. “Rabbit? Is that right?”

I sucked my cheeks. It was a bit embarrassing. “Snow fox, actually.”

“Snow fox.” His gaze wandered up to my hair. Then his face split into a sparkling smile. Gods, his teeth were moon white and flawless. “Well, that is just so fitting, isn’t it?”

This was perhaps the strangest thing to ever happen to me in my life. So, he wasn’t going to cut out my tongue for slander or retaliate for stabbing him. He wasn’t even going to try to fuck me. He was just going to lean against the vanity. Casually chatting.

“How old are you?” I asked. “Nineteen? Are you nineteen?”

“By all means, ask questions at your leisure,” he said, wafting a hand around. “Perhaps next time, you’ll even ask the questions first, then stab.”