Tenebrys wanted to tell her that he would never accept food from her. He wanted to pounce on her and give her a lesson inwhy you never put your back to a shifter you didn't know. His dick throbbed harder at the thought. He glanced down at the prominent bulge in his trousers. Mortified, he did the only thing he could do to hide it and sat down.
10
Delphi's stomach fluttered with nerves, but she did everything to pretend she wasn't bothered by Tenebrys's sudden appearance.
She focused on ladling the stew into one normal bowl and another that had to have been used for baking. Tenebrys was huge, so it would probably be a more normal size for him. He hadn't stormed away or tried to lock her up yet, so she took that as a small victory.
When she turned back around, he was sitting at the end of the wooden table she had scrubbed and dragged near the fire. She placed the bowl in front of him with the biggest spoon she could find. He stared at it like it might bite him.
"What is it? Do you not use a spoon?" she asked.
"No. It's…" He sounded a little lost, not looking away from the food. "It's only that I was sure there was nothing left in this kitchen."
"It doesn't have much other than utensils and some spices. They still smell okay to use," Delphi said, fixing her own bowl and sitting beside him. She pushed a small dish of salt and pepper towards him.
"The vegetables I rescued from the garden, and Felix gave me the venison. I can't remember having so much meat to cook with," she babbled on.
His golden eyes just looked at her as if she had grown two heads. Delphi ignored it and scooped a mouthful of stew into her mouth. The hot, meaty flavor made her groan.
"What do you mean that you haven't had meat?" Tenebrys asked. He sniffed at the stew, as if trying to detect any poison.
"I don't suppose you noticed the other night, but we are dirt poor. I had to grow our food or trade for it just to keep something in our bellies."
"Narcisse didn't help? He quite liked luxury when I knew him."
Delphi rolled her eyes. "He liked it all right. He squandered every bit of money he ever made. The day you turned up, I was ready to kill him because he had found my hiding place and had drunk all of my money."
A soft growl rolled out of Tenebrys like thunder in the distance. The hair on the back of Delphi's neck stood up.
"Is that why you were running into the woods?" he asked.
Tenebrys ignored the spoon and lifted the bowl to his lips. He lowered it again, a strange expression on his beastly face, before trying it again. The tip of his tongue licked his lips, and Delphi went hot. He stared at her expectantly.
Right, he had asked her a question. Delphi tried to pull herself together. "It was one of the reasons I was running away. He was trying to marry me off to Louis, the son of a lord he screwed over in Bellemere."
Delphi focused on her soup, and the whole horrible story rolled out of her. She didn't know why she was being so open with him, but she had no one else to talk to.
There was also no other way he would see that she was nothing like her father either. She didn't know why it mattered so much to her. She had never cared what anyone thought.
Tenebrys ate in silence, so she kept filling it, telling him about how she never knew her mother, the way Narcisse had managed to mess up every commission he ever got, and how they had ended up in Grisvallon.
"You are really going to sit there and say nothing?" she asked him, after she had gotten to the bottom of her bowl and he hadn't murmured a word.
"Sometimes it's better to remain silent in an interrogation and let the nervous prisoner ramble," Tenebrys said, lifting his glossy black shoulders in a shrug.
Delphi's eyes narrowed. "You don't have to be a smug dick about it. I'm trying to prove to you that I'm not like my father. I know some alchemy, but not much. I want to help you instead of paying the price for Narcisse's mistakes."
"It sounds like you have been paying for his mistakes your entire life," Tenebrys grunted irritably.
"I know you're angry at me because I'm his child, but I'm angry at you for using me." Delphi pointed her spoon at him. "You used some kind of fucked up dream magic to find me and get to him. Can you at least tell me why? What happened to this place?"
Tenebrys's golden eyes flicked back to the pot. "Any of that stew left?"
"You can have more if you answer my question," Delphi said, getting up and reaching for his bowl. His hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist. It was so big that it reached halfway up her forearm. A dark thrill of danger shot through her veins, and she dared to hold his gaze.
"I think you are mistaken about how this works, little flower. I own everything in this château, including you. You don't get to make demands on me," he said in a soft snarl.
Delphi wasn't going to be intimidated by another bossy man. Or beast, for that matter. "Fine. Kill me then. I don't care anymore."
