Page 104 of The Female

He groans and fights it at first, pushing against me in fear, but I ignore it and enter anyway. I know it’s risky entering a fate’s mind, but he’s keeping things from me and I need to understand what’s happening if I’m to fix it.

His thoughts are a maze, and I shut my eyes to focus as I find a memory of Asmod. He and Valentine sit at our dining table discussing my bond with Gray, and I clench my hands into fists as I hear the insults he spits toward my incubus.

He’s lucky I wasn’t there.

The conversation shifts to the uproar that bonding with Charlie would cause, and I mentally groan as Silas and Gray fall perfectly for his trick. Nobody would be dumb enough to think we’d bond with the human, and Asmod was sneaky in the way he put the idea in their heads.

I’m sure Gray was already thinking about it, always the optimist, but I can feel in Silas the moment he realized it was an option. The fucking warmth he felt in his chest as the potential settled over him has me reaching up and pinching my nose.

Asmod likes that I’m with Gray, and he only cares that we don’t choose a female who will take my affections away from his kingdom. The humans are practically extinct, and bonding with her means I have one less consideration to make in my decisions.

It’s less competition for him and his people. He wants us to choose her.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I groan. “Gray wants to bond with every woman he finds himself in a relationship with. You shouldn’t have supported those thoughts.”

Gray, even on his best days, is petty and stubborn. If he’s gotten it in his head that we should bond with Charlie, it should’ve been removed immediately and not left to simmer. I suppose it makes sense why he was so against Shay.

He isn’t thinking of Charlie as a female who will die in sixty years. In his mind, itisCharlie versus Shay.

“You need to tell him it’s not going to happen,” I order.

Silas surprises me as he kicks off the wall and shakes his head.

“No. If Charlie wants to be our female, I think she deserves the opportunity to fight for it,” he says.

“Fight for it?” Is he dumb? “She wouldn’t stand a chance against even the weakest demons. They’d snap her neck in milliseconds.”

Well, they’d try to. Despite my annoyance toward the human, I have a feeling I wouldn’t be able to sit back and let anybody hurt her.

Silas sucks in a deep breath before turning his back to me and heading toward the door. My lips curl at the disrespect, but I hold in my instinct to punish him for it.

I can’t leave them for the pits and demand they respect me the moment I return. Even I understand it must be earned again.

“Not everything is about physical violence, Aziel,” he mutters.

Silas glances at me as he pulls open the door, his exhaustion apparent even through the blood coating his face. His chest deflates as he lets out a quiet sigh, and with a subtle shake of his head, he turns and leaves.

26

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CHARLOTTE

ISTAB ATmy eggs while the three men continue arguing amongst themselves. There’s not one good reason Gray dragged me here for breakfast.

I’m still recovering from Silas’s painful rejection, and now I’ve got to sit here listening to Aziel and Shay cooing at one another like fucking birds. It’s nauseating, and I don’t understand how Gray and Silas have put up with him for so long.

“Is your plan to sit here and glare at me this entire meal?” Aziel asks.

I glance up from my plate to see whom he’s speaking to, and I feel my eyes widen as I realize he’s talking tobothGray and Silas.

Both men sit on either side of me, thanks to Gray, who forced me between them, and they look just as miserable as I feel inside. Even Aziel and Shay look stiff and uncomfortable, their backs straight and knuckles white from how hard they hold their forks.

Gray scoffs and readjusts in his chair, his arm brushing mine.

Shay makes eye contact with me in what feels like a challenging gesture. I return the angry stare before thinking better of it and dropping my gaze to the table. These people aren’t my family, and I’d be stupid to act cocky. While my mom and dad might have gotten angry and yelled, these demons are quick to blow past all reasonable responses and jump straight into fighting and murder.

I’m smaller and weaker than them, and at the end of the day, I need to be in their good graces if I want to stay alive. Especially if I want Aziel to continue protecting me. I aim to remain as inconspicuous as possible in the hopes they forget I’m here.

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