It had never entered his head that his son was not his own blood. But here he was, face to face with the evidence that this child he had raised was, in fact, not his at all.

He wished that he had known this before he’d killed the boy.

Three years he’d spent grooming and preparing him, feeding him lashes of coconut milk and porridge, cakes and pastries, the best cuts of meat, fattening him for the slaughter. Only to find out now — when it was too late, when he was starving — that he wouldn’t be eating his own flesh and blood.

So she had strayed, his wife. Which didn’t much matter, except now his stomach rumbled, empty.

Another Blood Moon wasted.

He would hunger, then, for another three years, until the red orb returned.

But he would be ready, he thought as he stared hungrily at his wife, ripe and almost full to bursting with their second son.

He would be ready…and he would feed.