Page 15 of His Human to Charm

One Day Before Kidnapping

“Just go talk to him!” Simone groans as she grabs the pillow out from under her head and launches it at me across the room. “I’ve heard you pacing in front of that door for the last five minutes. Either go out and talk to him, or I’m going to do it for you.”

“Go back to sleep,” I snap back at her.

Simone and I have only been sharing the room for about twenty-four hours, but in that time, we have learned we are very different people who somehow bring out the worst in one another. It’s like bickering with my younger brother again, but it’s a full-grown woman that I didn’t know anything about until yesterday when I walked into the room with her glaring at the stone wall. I was already crying after walking back into the great hall to see Toron speaking with the other demons. I thought for a minute he would come to talk to me and explain why he wasn’t in bed with me when I woke up. Nope, he had more important things to do, which had me crying and running back to my room. Simone made sure to ask me what my problem was in the most annoyed tone I’d ever heard from anyone, and somehow, it helped snap me out of the fit I was throwing myself.

“I can’t sleep when you stomp around.” Simone throws her hand around, searching for the second pillow and flinging it at me when she finally finds it. “How are your feet not sore?”

“I pace a lot,” I mumble, turning to face the door again. I’ve been trying to convince myself to go and talk to Toron for the last five minutes. No, scratch that. I’ve been trying to convince myself to talk to him since I first met him, and I’ve been failing at it so completely that it’s becoming pathetic.

“Yeah, and it’s annoying.” Simone sits up in the bed, her eyes narrowing on me when she spots the red rims of my eyes. “Please tell me you haven’t been crying again.”

“I haven’t,” I lie.

“Bullshit.” Simone rolls her eyes and hops from the bed. “I’ll go with you if you want, but you need to figure this shit out. I’m tired of your crying. You’re tired of me bitching about your crying. Let’s fix it right now by going and having a normal conversation with him.”

“He left me—“

“Yeah, yeah, you woke up all alone in bed, hungover, and wanting your alien man.” Simone grabs my upper arm and starts to half drag, half guide me through the bedroom door. “Go ask him why he wasn’t in bed. I’m sure he has a good reason, considering you’ve told me the man’s been sleeping outside your room since you’ve been here and is fated to be with you.”

“But what if he doesn’t want to be?” I whine.

“Shut up.” Simone’s answer isn’t what I want to hear, but damn if it doesn’t make me stop whining.

In the short time I’ve known her, I’ve come to learn that she’s not someone to mess with. She doesn’t take anything from anyone, and she especially dislikes how the demons all seem to moon over the human women. The one she arrived in the tribe with has tried to visit our room a few times, and every time she tells him to fuck off. It only makes him smile and promise to return when she is done being insufferable. I haven’t said anything to her, but I’m pretty sure she’s kind of into him, even if she’d never admit it.

“We’re going to go say hi to him, then you’re going to ask him if he’s interested in you. When he says yes, you can decide if you want to bone him right then or go to his room. You will not be having sex in our room, though. I have to sleep in those sheets, and I’m not sleeping in alien jizz.”

“Simone,” I groan her name, but it doesn’t seem to phase her. I wish I were as easy with my words as she is. She says everything so confidently, like it isn’t embarrassing to be talking about alien sperm.

“You’re a grown woman, Alice.” Simone turns to me, eyes locking onto mine, as she gives me the same pep talk she’s already given me once before when I told her I was going to talk with Toron. I never went to talk to him after her first pep talk. “A grown woman that can have a normal conversation with a man she wants to bang. If you and him can’t talk about sex, I don’t know how you’re going to mate. So, go out there and just ask him, okay?”

“Okay.” I nod my head, stand a little taller, and try to make myself believe that I can talk with Toron. When I hesitate at the door, Simone sighs and swings it open.

Toron’s fast asleep in the chair down the hall, the blanket he keeps there wrapped around him tightly. I smile when I see him so relaxed and cute.

“I shouldn’t wake him,” I whisper to Simone, but it only has her rolling her eyes as she stomps toward him.

“Hey!” She yells down the hall loud enough that it has Toron jerking from his slumber, eyes growing wide and lips pulling back at her until he realizes I’m with her. He relaxes the anger showing on his face and offers me a small smile, completely ignoring Simone, who I’m trying to hide behind. “Alice has something to ask you.”

“Fuck you,” I whisper to the back of Simone’s head so quietly that I don’t even know if she’s heard it until she whips her head around, a single brow raised at me, daring me to say that to her face. Instead, I focus on Toron and try to ask him if he still wants me or if he has changed his mind since I woke up the morning after asking him to share a bed with me, all alone, with him passed out in the chair down the hall.

“Why did you—“ I start to ask, but Toron’s hiss has me silencing myself before I finish asking the question.

“Get in your room.” He stands from his chair, his head snapping toward the dining room.

“Now,” he snaps, pushing Simone and me back down the hallway. His body is tense, and his eyes are hard. Even his claws seem longer and sharper like something’s happened.

“What’s going on?” Simone asks.

She doesn’t put up a fight in being corralled back into our room, which is weird for her. The seriousness of the situation hits me when I see Simone trembling. I’ve been in this room for the majority of my time on this planet. Simone’s been out in the wild with only one other demon for about a week, and I haven’t even thought to ask her what it was like out there. It never crossed my mind until right now when I see the fear in her eyes and her willingness to follow Toron’s orders.

“I do not know, but something is wrong with Yril.” Toron’s body flinches slightly, and he turns his head back down the hallway. “Something is very wrong.”

“He’s the one still out there, right?” Simone asks, her hand reaches behind her, finding mine and squeezing it.

“Yes, he and his mate have been out there many days,” Toron says. Once we’re in the room, he grabs the handle and begins to close it. “Both of you, stay in this room and lock the door until I return, yes?”

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