Page 100 of The Cannibal

I made an exaggerated gasp and looked to Phoebe. Her mouth dropped open, eyes wide.

“Graced with a compliment?” I blinked in faux surprise as if it were a dream.

“Who knew there was a gentleman burrowed somewhere in that walking corpse.” Phoebe placed her numb hand over her heart.

“Get all your squabbling out now before we have guests.” Luka rolled his eyes.

“Just because you’re afraid of our incoming guests doesn’t mean I am.” I went back to writing.

“Well, you should be,” he said with all sincerity.

“Of who? Mister— Oh, sorry. Sir Astor?”

“Don’t think about it,” he said. “We are already in bad graces.”

“I don’t know why we can’t just capture him. Torture is an effective technique in the ways of persuasion. No Nest to help him, just a single man.”

The words must have struck something, even Phoebe was quiet.

Luka’s eyes were grave. Not just unamused at my comments, but he may have even looked a bit pale. “Do you think this is funny? Some type of game to you?”

“Well, I’m not important enough to hear about the intricacies of the situation. So I suppose so.” I slapped my pen down since no one would be letting me focus today. “Why not? I’m making suggestions from what I know. But don’t let me stop you from enlightening me.” I gestured in front of me for him to continue.

“A single man.” He repeated my previous statement but with much more venom. I couldn’t tell if he was insulted at the statement or thought it was understated. “He is a thing that has survived every fall of every empire, so fortified in his skin that he could drink your poisons like water.”

“How old, exactly?” I raised a brow.

“Much older than you could possibly imagine.” Luka looked almost pained at my dismissal. “You have not seen the things I have.”

“He can’t be as bad as you say,” I scoffed. “Perhaps his mystique comes from rumors. Have you really seen it or just heard it? Because last I remembered, you had a reputation for being quite impenetrable, and look where you are now. The oh-so-powerful Nest that Phoebe was raised in, also gone. Silas had played up how dangerous the Vipera are before to scare me, and I found a way to dissolve them like slugs under salt⁠—”

“Leviathan is the exception,” he said with certainty. “You will never be able to kill him. Ever. No one will.”

“If he’s so terrible and scary, why didn’t he just massacre us all when you and Silas killed the Nest?”

“That was entirely Silas’s doing,” he corrected my statement.

“Well, Phoebe still speaks with him.” I gestured to her. Her eyes were completely down in her lap, her nails picked bloody.

The life drained from Luka’s face as his gaze slowly landed on Phoebe.

“What do you mean?” he said quietly, then raised his voice. “Phoebe.”

“He talked to me too.” The admission more of a defense for Phoebe, rather than rationalizing the nuances of father dearest.

The white of Luka’s damaged eye marbled with thin black liquid. When his gaze snapped back to me, a drip of blood ran down his face, following his scar. His eyes were so wide, what little light came into the lab from the skylight reflected from the back of his eyes.

“When?” His voice was so dastardly it was as if I’d told him of some great crime.

Phoebe was beginning to look a little sick.

“When I first woke.” I shifted in my seat. “If he wanted to kill me, he would have in my sleep, don’t you think?”

I was unsure if Luka heard a word I said. The blankness of his stare had me questioning how fast I could run. It was a deep instinctual vibration, my spine tingled a bit.

“Did Silas tell you about his mother?” Luka changed the subject but remained just as eerie.

I shook my head.