Page 72 of Demon Food

He snorted.

“Why do you laugh, Snow Fox? You do not think your hands possess the skill required to be a doctor?”

“It is not that,” he said. “I was chosen to be a concubine. Your given lot in life is permanent. As permanent as this metal through my tongue.”

My gazed zipped to his mouth. I was struck with the sudden urge to forge some metal cutters out of thin air.

It was because of that feeling I got when I thought about it. A damn possessiveness flaring in my gut. I didn’t want to think about him as a concubine. If the idea of sharing them was supposed to be arousing, then why did I feel so fucking infuriated?

“What age were you?” I asked.

“I don’t know, fourteen, maybe,” he said, peering closely at my side. “Fifteen. One of the maidens at my orphanage escorted me into a room where a vultus I’d never seen before sat at a table. He barely looked up from his book long enough to say, Well, this is an easy one. Whore.”

My eyebrows shot up. “That was it?”

“That was it.”

“How did you feel about that?”

“How did I feel,” he repeated quietly, more to himself than me, like he’d never been asked that question. “I suppose I felt grateful I’d get to learn how to read. The whores are the only ones in an orphanage who are taught to read.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because of A Magnificent Constitution, of course.” He spread his palms over my wound. “Why else?”

My heart. A little piece of it broke.

“But you don’t survive by following the rules, so I read other things. I bent the rules.”

“Like what? What’d you read?”

“Anything I could get my hands on. I’d trade things for books. Things I’d find on the street or things I’d stolen.”

I switched to Vultaen as I asked, “Is that how you learned to speak Vultaen?”

“No,” he answered in Vultaen. “My parents taught me—” He gasped, slapping a hand over his mouth.

I blurted out a chuckle.

“Shit,” he whispered. “Shitfuck, Alek.”

“Shitfuck, huh? It’s so poignant. Did your parents also teach you that?”

“No, I don’t, um. You know.” He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “I don’t⁠—”

“You don’t what, darling? Speak fluent Vultaen? Read and possibly write it, too?”

He was sucking his lower lip into his mouth, but a smirk was growing. Gods, it was cute. “How did you know?”

“Oh, I stalked you outside the washroom. For a really long time. I got a cramp from standing there so long. I regret nothing.”

At that, he chuckled.

“No.” I gasped, perching up on my elbow. “That was it? That was the thing that finally made my fanged fox laugh?”

He instantly squashed his laughter.

“Oh, baby.” I clicked my tongue. “That’s adorable to think you can take it from me, but it’s far too late. I’ve already seen it. I have seen your smile.”