Reia sat at a long banquet table, feeling ridiculous since there were at least twenty seats and only three of them were filled. The chairs were large, and her toes barely skimmed the ground as she sat upon her chair.
The walls were stone with more red drapes and a tapestry that rested against the wall behind the head chair. Two crystal chandeliers were unlit above them while two large candelabras sat on the table. The table was made of shiny polished oak with natural swirling patterns and had chairs that matched.
With her head lowered, she looked up at Katerina sitting opposite to her through her lashes. Jabez was seated at the head with his boots upon the table and leaning back.
Sleep had eluded her for most of the night. Tossing and turning, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking. She missed Orpheus, and her worry for him wouldn’t allow her to rest properly. She knew he must be distressed, knew he would be fretting.
She could almost imagine him whining as he ran here, and that made her heart hurt terribly.
She was tired as she sat with them, pushing food around her plate while trying to eat it. It was a nice breakfast of eggs and bacon.
It was more like a late brunch. The sun was bright against the windows, high in the sky, but the windows were blackened by some kind of swirling magic, preventing the Demons inside the castle from being burned by its light.
She wanted to eat. She hadn’t had a normal fried breakfast like this since she’d started living with Orpheus, but her queasy stomach couldn’t handle it.
Katerina and Jabez were talking to each other, being overly playful because he obviously demanded it even though Reia was sitting right there. She didn’t like his wandering eye over her.
“I didn’t think Elves were real,” Reia commented, trying to redirect their conversation.
“Not in this world,” he answered, folding his arms behind his head and stretching his half-naked body out which made his muscles flare. “I come from another world, just like all Demons.”
“By using a portal to get here?”
Orpheus had mentioned a portal.
“That’s right. We come from a land that is similar to this one, but filled with Elves and Demons. Elves are our food, but they are very quick, strong, and have magic. I am the product of a Demon and an Elf mating.”
“If they are hunted for food, why would an Elf have sex with a Demon then?”
“Who said it was consensual?” he bit with a growl.
It seemed as though he wasn’t happy about this, that his birthing was the product such a violent action.
“Like when they eat humans, Demons change. They grow smarter, stronger, and obtain strange desires, like acting similar to humans and Elves and mimicking them. As far as I know, I am the only hybrid.” He lifted his hand and flicked his pointed ears. “I was hunted for what I was, because I am an abomination to the Elves. So, I escaped with the magic I had from birth, and I gained more from eating them until I was able to create a portal.”
“And that portal led to here,” Reia finished for him, placing her fingers over her mouth in thought.
“Exactly.” He put his hand back behind his head. “And then I brought the Demons here so they could eat and we may one day go back and destroy the Elves.”
“You brought them here to make an army? Like for a war?”
He nodded, his lips thinning. His dark brown eyes seemed to wander as they dazed over.
“The Demons let me be a king because I can do things for them, make life easy for them, gave them a place where they can hunt freely. They are steadily growing smarter and stronger so that one day we can go back and kill the Elves.”
His voice was laced with hate while he bared his Demon fangs with a sneer. She figured he despised the Elves for hunting him. “They were slowly dying from being hunted into extinction, I have allowed them to grow.”
“Have Elves been here then?”
He shrugged.
“If your kind know of them, then most likely, but that was probably before I created the portal and made the shade of the Veil.”
So, it’s all his fault we’ve lived in fear for almost three hundred years. She lowered her gaze to her food before he could see she was glaring.
“You made the Veil?”
“Took me many years to grow the trees, it wasn’t an easy task, but the sunlight has always burned them. The Demons needed a safe place to live. This canyon that spans one fourth of this world was the perfect place for my portal to appear in. I did make it a little bigger, though.”
Katerina remained quiet, seeming to understand why Reia was curious about this.
When I get out of here, should I go back to my kind and tell them all this? Maybe she and Orpheus could tell the world the truth so they could figure out a way to drive the
Demons back into their home world. Then the Elves could deal with them once more.
“I go back frequently so I can grow my magic by consuming more Elves. They are still too strong for me in their numbers.”
Something made his entire body twitch, and he lowered his hands so he could twirl them.
“Is something wrong?” Katerina asked him while lowering her eating utensils.
Eventually a smaller ball of liquid silver than the day before began to form. He threw it in the air, and it flattened in front of his face. Reia couldn’t see anything as the back of it reflected her own face like a mirror.
“The Mavka has entered my territory. He will be here shortly.”
