Page 74 of Her Males

The elves don’t look nearly as offended as I thought they would, and they glance amongst themselves before directing their attention to a male sitting next to Kato. I lean forward to see around the shifter’s enormous body, but once I do, I spot an elf hunching in his seat with a look of shame.

Kato laughs and smacks him on the back, his rough touch accidentally shoving the man’s chest into the thick, wooden table.

“Filthy,” another elf spits.

It takes me a moment to understand what’s happening, but once it clicks, I can’t stop the loud bubble of laughter that erupts from my lips. This poor elf must have a baby female, and he’s being inadvertently outed for his untraditional sexual habits with his mate.

“Filthy is not bad,” Kato says. “Our mates love us to be filthy, and we’ve produced many baby girls to prove it.”

I raise a brow, surprised he’s mentioning shifter females. After the awkward silence that erupted when I asked about them yesterday, I was under the impression they would never be brought up.

Kato seems more open than the other shifters, though.

My throat runs dry at the mental image of him lifting his skirt and showing me his penis yesterday. Even the unmated man refused to show me his, probably out of respect for the female he hopes to have someday.

Maybe that’s why the shifters chose Kato to be their liaison.

He’s open enough to bridge the gap between the shifters’ secrecy and the elves’ reserved ways.

The men around the table look uncomfortable as Kato jokes about being filthy for his mate.

“That aside, how did you come across this?” the shamed elf asks.

Mammon opens her mouth to respond, but Kato answers before she has the opportunity.

“The Wrath Trio claimed Charlotte,” he explains. “She found the report in the incubus’s office and came to Mammon with the findings when her males were too slow to help.”

Mammon looks beyond livid, her cheeks flushed as she works her jaw side to side. “They weren’ttoo slow. They did nothing to help, and they sat back and watched while our numbers dwindled and theirs grew. They planned to attack when we grew too weak to fight.”

My skin bristles.

My males might not have done the right thing, but they were trying to fix their mistakes. They were going about it all wrong, but they were trying nonetheless.

“They were working on securing an alliance with Levia, and they were starting conversations with the shifters,” I clarify.

Kato grunts. “Can confirm.”

The elves still look pissed, but I’m happy to note it’s considerably less than it was moments ago.

“Aziel will still need to be punished,” the shamed elf says. “Despite his actions of late, he allowed this to be sat on for decades. I assume you’ve thought this through, Mammon.”

Mammon nods and gestures to the tablets. “Document two.”

The elves flip through their tablets in search of it. The shadows didn’t provide a copy for Kato and me, and after a tense moment, I grab the tablet Kato pushed away earlier. He watches as I fiddle with it, his hot breath hitting my shoulder.

I can’t figure out how to turn it on.

“Stupid fucking…” Kato mumbles, snatching it from my hand and turning to the shamed elf.

The man scoffs as Kato steals his working tablet and replaces it with ours. I hear an elf across the table laugh, but I avoid looking in his direction as Kato sets the new one on the table in front of us.

Hoping the slight tremor in my hand doesn’t show, I swipe to the first page of the document and begin reading.

Mammon has outlined a six-month plan.

She wants to use Aziel’s money to build protected facilities in every realm, and then she wants to create an entirely new organization that oversees the new facilities. It sounds similar to the child protective services humans used to have, where one person monitors the well-being of a set of females.

If there are signs of abuse or the women are unhappy, they’ll be rehomed to the nearest facility. The long-term plan is for all females to be given access to land and money, but that will have to wait until the risk of being snatched has decreased.

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