Chapter 16
FELORé
Alek’s desk had been transformed into a formal dining table. I’d yet to approach it. Perhaps because it was unlike anything I’d ever seen and there was no way it was for me. A trick. A cruel trick was what it was.
In the center sat an entire egg quiche on a fancy lace potholder.
Beside it was a wooden slab stacked with two baked rusks, three sugared cakes, and a dish of whipped cheese with a spoon jutting out.
Then there was another bowl, and it was filled to the brim with black currants beneath a dollop of beaten cream.
They’d even brought a ceramic pot of fragrant herbal tea that still steamed from the delicate spout.
“Well?” Alek asked.
I cut my eyes to him where he sat with his back against the wall in the nook of the window to watch me from a vantage point like some kind of predatory bird. He’d been shuffling a deck of playing cards in his nimble hands, an ever-present cigarette hanging from his lips.
“Well what?”
“Well, are you going to eat anything, beloved?” Alek squinted at the smoke curling into his eyes as he tipped his chin toward the table. “Or do you just plan to scowl at it all evening like it murdered your uncle?”
I rolled my eyes, my volume too loud as I said, “Shall I scowl at you instead, Prince?”
“Maybe. Try it, let’s see.” After a moment, he winced through his pretty white teeth. “Ooh. Icy.”
This fucking demon.
He clearly derived great pleasure from wiggling beneath my skin. He was Alekus the unserious. Alekus the cocky. Alekus the Prince of Novithia who wanted…a revolution?
That was the thing driving me the maddest.
He’d said what he’d said last night. He could deny it all he wanted—Oh, whatever do you mean, darling? The kingdom is perfect. You can’t tell when you’re talking to a drunken dog? What a stupid, stupid human.
But I’d heard it. I’d heard the future king say what he said, and now, he wanted me to forget it. He held his hand over my mouth and insisted I forget it.
Gooseflesh pebbled down my spine as I averted my gaze to the floor, reliving the memory.
Gods, my body was so stupid. It was fucked up beyond belief that I’d even notice how pure and earthy he’d smelled in that moment, or how intensely he stared into my eyes as he whispered, I won’t hurt you, baby.
And I sure as fuck didn’t need to be wondering how he tasted when he came.
Demon cum tasted vaguely like whatever most occupied their minds. Adventurists might taste a bit like the spices from foreign lands, while warriors always tasted metallic, like blood. I’d tasted one that was quite sour only to find out he was a citrus merchant.
This one… A virgin by choice. A magically gifted royal. A revolutionist? He had to taste like one strongly brewed drug.
“Hello?” he asked. “Was it something I said that has you so entranced?”
I scowled. No. Well, sort of. Maybe. Shut up, Alek!
I turned my nose up at him and settled into a seat at the desk. The food was where my focus should be anyhow, which wasn’t that difficult. It was unbelievable looking, all so lovely and embellished. It looked like something out of a painting.
“Hmm, where to start?” Alek asked, narrating my inner dialogue. “Might I make a suggestion?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Eat the cake, sweetheart,” he said with a sexy smile in a deep voice that made me want to squirm in my seat. “Life is short. Eat the fucking cake.”
Stupid body. Stupid, reactive body.
I parted my lips to shush him when one of the sugar-dusted cakes lifted itself from the platter. A gasp interrupted my train of thought because there was a floating cake before me, jerking toward my plate like an erratic bumblebee. It did, however, gingerly place itself down.
Alek coughed horrendously, because of course he did, at the same time he sucked another drag of smoke into his lungs.
I blinked at the cake on my plate, then up at him, pinning him with a look. “You know, every time you do something like that, you’re only worsening your condition.”
He grinned. “Your concern for me is heartwarming.”
I flicked my gaze skyward as I flapped open a napkin. “It’s not concern. I was just pointing out—”
“It’s lovely, your concern. I cannot believe how close we’ve grown in such a short time. If I wasn’t so emphatically evil, it’d be touched.”
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. He was the most unserious vultus I’d ever met, and I’d met a lot.
The little cake was spongy as I pinched it between my fingers and brought it to my lips.
It smelled like over-cooked butter, and when I bit into it, it tasted like…
oh, my heavens. It tasted like nothing I’d ever had.
It was sweet but not too sweet and the texture of a fluffy bread, only not. Only better.
I chewed with none of the grace I’d started with, and by the time I finished, I was sucking each of my fingers.
Then I ate the next cake, and it was just as good.
So good. So fucking good that I began chaotically piling food onto my plate with a metal serving spade because what if all of it was that good?
I cut a big hunk of quiche. The whipped cheese. A biscuit. Half the berries.
I dropped the spade with a louder clatter than intended and began forking food into my mouth.
The quiche was rich and creamy and had been made with what tasted like fresh herbs—not dried ones.
Fresh. It was heavy and hearty, and I’d finished the whole slice in seconds, moving onto the whipped cheese which I ate by the heaping spoonful, not even bothering to spread it over anything.
“Well, is it good, my love?” Alek asked.
Shut up. I could feel my stomach begin to signal that I was full, but that couldn’t be true. That would be so unfair. A sick joke was what that would be.
“I c-can’t finish,” I muttered, holding a hand over my mouth as I chewed.
“I’m sorry?” Alek squinted as he leaned an ear toward me. “I cannot hear you with your mouth so…burdened.”
“I said I can’t finish,” I repeated, louder. “I can’t finish it all.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think the intention was for you to finish it all.”
“Then why bring me so much?”
For a moment, he looked genuinely perplexed by that question. “I don’t know. Just in case, I suppose.”
Just in case. They brought me a meal for three adult men just in case.
“What becomes of it if I can’t finish?” I asked, eating a berry. And another.
“How the hell would I know, darling? They probably feed it to the pigs.”
“Pigs,” I breathed, shaking my head. My stomach was already hurting. I’d already over-indulged, but I ate another berry. “It’s for people. It’s people food.”
They’d sent Lennox to his death for stealing a cup of rice, and here they gave all this food to pigs.
“Snow Fox?” Alek asked, his smile faltering. “Are you unwell?”
I swallowed the pool of water collecting in my mouth to blink up at him.
A divot between his eyebrows creased. “What is wrong? You look, um. Pale.”
Death. For rice.
Our whole existence, down to the minute, had to be carefully constructed because if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat, and even if you did work, you still didn’t always eat, and that was because there was never enough.
I wouldn’t let it go to waste. I couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.
I began shoveling the food into my mouth with a fork, but the fork wasn’t fast enough, so I dropped it with a clank to use my hands. I dug my fingers into the quiche, scooping it by the fistful. Followed by more cheese. Followed by a rusk.
I was chewing as fast as I could, but it was difficult to swallow, and it hurt my throat and chest. I couldn’t tell what it was I was choking on, but I was coughing, then swallowing, then shoveling more food into my mouth with trembling fingers, shiny with grease.
“Shit. Hey,” Alek said, hopping from the window nook, but I didn’t stop eating. “Feloré. Perhaps you should slow down—”
I bared my teeth when he touched my shoulder, like a desperate animal who hadn’t had a scrap all winter. Whatever was written on my face was enough for him to concede, his gaze searching mine in silence. Then he wordlessly nodded, and in that moment, we understood each other.
He knew what it was to starve.
I’d not made it halfway through the quiche when my stomach began to really revolt, like it might rip in half. I shoved more of the eggy crust into my mouth, my fingers as soiled as they were shaky.
Then I gagged, stilling, hovering a hand over my mouth.
I gagged again. And again.
My stomach muscles clenched, tightening in panic like they were trying to stop what was coming. There was no fucking stopping it.
My gagging buckled me over in my seat.
I shoved the chair back with a loud screech, launching myself toward the washroom, stumbling into a run. Alek must’ve projected the door open because it flung wide all on its own. I made it to the toilet just in time.
No. No.
It was so much food. Days’ worth of food was wasted, taunting me from where it floated atop the surface of the toilet water. I wanted to scream at myself. At Alek. At the king. At the world at large, but all I could do was continue to throw up until I’d lost every bit of what I’d just eaten.
It was finally over. I tried to spit the taste of vomit from my mouth, but it wasn’t going to happen. So, I sagged against the nearby wall with my knees bent, stomach aching from the upheaval, and head filling with pain.
The only thing that could make it worse was the Prince of Novithia having witnessed it all.
And of course, as expected, in he came, his footsteps light and cautious. They barely made a sound, just like his father’s. Not that he’d want me now, smelling of vomit, but if he did, I wasn’t sure I’d have the will to fight him off.
My cheeks heated as his tall shadow loomed over me. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see the judgment on his face. I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my neck. “Go away.”
He lowered to a squat in front of me, smooth and nimble.
I rolled my eyes behind my eyelids. “I said go away—”