Page 128 of Mated to Monsters
The fickle human must wait.
I set thoughts of her aside, but her tearful accusations echoes in my head as I step into the kitchen. Did I overstep, sleeping in her bed? It hadn’t been my intention.
She came from so much worse, even on Protheka!
I’m a storm inside, cascading from regret to rage in the span of an instant. The zonak servants in the kitchen must sense my mood because they give me a wide berth as I storm about, casting spells and summoning food. I ought to let her starve until she sees fit to walk down to the kitchen and grovel for forgiveness.
But I promised her I would send it.
“Take this up.”
I’ve filled silver platters with fruits and pastries, eggs and meats. They carry them upstairs, slightly swaying beneath the weight of the offering. It’s more than she can eat, but maybe I want to prove a point.
She’s never eaten this well in her life, I’m sure of it. Her sharp bones are dangerously prominent beneath her olive flesh, and her eyes are a bit too hollow in her skull. The care I’ve shown her is such that even her beloved dark elf lover couldn’t hope to match it.
Toklys.
His name alone makes me want to spit fire.
At least he’s dead. But I can’t even take pleasure in that, because of her heartbroken eyes as she’d confessed how a demon had crushed his skull between their bare hands.
He’d given her what? Bread?
I can give her more. Much more. She’s a fool not to see it.
“Kha’zeth?” A high, lilting voice comes from behind me. I turn to face my nieces, who seem to have just woken, themselves. “Has this platter displeased you, or is it just a bad morning?”
“Or is it the human?”
“Who cares?” Valindra yawns and elbows past her nosy sisters, plopping down at the table without so much as opening her eyes. “I’m starving. Kha’zeth, please.”
I set the platter on the gleaming onyx counter and resume pacing. “I am not your servant. The zonak will return shortly.”
“But I’m hungry now.” Valindra finally opens her eyes and sniffs the air pointedly. “It smells like you’ve already summoned breakfast. But whoever for?”
Elincia scowls and pokes an insolent finger at my belly. “For himself. Selfish.”
“You’re old enough to summon your own food.”
Tanulia grins, teeth sharp. “Would you truly like us to try that again?”
I bite back a groan. I’d had to borrow zonak servants from another estate the last time they tried it, and it had taken days of spells to repair the walls, they were so stained with food. I don’t know if their collective spellwork is that deficient, or if it was a purposeful attack on my residence, but I am not eager to try again.
Not with everything else going on.
“Fine. Fine.” The platter clangs on the table, and my magic sparks stronger than usual. It takes me longer than it should to focus, and their inane prattle is not helping. “Silence for one moment, please.”
“Only if you promise to summon-”
“No.” I glower at Elincia, and she grins back. All the child wants is sweets. It’s a wonder she still has teeth. “You will eat what I give you.”
She wants the Protheka-style pastries I summoned for Natalie, but I refuse to indulge her in this. A demon’s main diet is meat, the more bloody the better, supplemented with rare spindly herbs from the harvest. Since the humans and the dark elf slaves have arrived, our diets have become more corrupted. I will not have this for my sister’s children. They are spoiled enough.
Meat, plentiful and raw, appears on the platter.
They look at me, crestfallen.
I look them over, resolved in my decision.