Bonus | The Female: Chapter 35.5

Winner: Backstory to the Wrath females

AZIEL

I fiddle mindlessly with the edges of the stack of papers on my desk as Silas reads over the copies I made for him earlier. I'm honestly shocked that our team was able to figure it out so quickly, and make a mental note to call them out by name in any future documentation.

They worked harder than I anticipated, dedicating all their time to studying the couple and all their body excrement.

"This is good news." I note.

All Silas has been talking about for the past couple of years is the need to preserve the females, and as much as I agree, the topic of conversation has long grown stale. The wars happening across all realms has put us in a position where we are losing more people than we are creating.

The Wrath numbers have dwindled to scary numbers, and the Fates are all but extinct at this point. As far as I know, Silas is one of the last, and even if they wanted to repopulate, there aren't enough to get the numbers ever back to where they were before.

"That it is." Silas agrees quietly. I watch as he scans over the pages one last time before setting down the thick stack on my desk. "Would you like me to call a meeting?"

I nod. I'm sure that this information will lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of follow-ups and requests for additional data, and I'd rather get it over with as soon as possible. It will be annoying and tedious, but I have to admit that I am excited about the prospect of seeing our worlds return to normal.

Every meeting and party I've attended in the past fifty years has felt like a sausage fest, and the abundance of testosterone is making the males more prone to fighting. As a result, women stay at home for fear of being stolen by another man, and men take it upon themselves to take the wives of the weaker Demons.

My Wrath may thrive off the chaos, but I'm growing tired of it.

Even the pits don't excite me anymore.

Gray makes his anger known as he busts his way into my office, the door slamming off the back wall and denting the plaster with the force of his push. I raise my eyebrow as he makes eye contact with me and huffs, his chest expanding before sinking back in on itself.

He looks like shit.

Silas turns toward him in shock, his jaw clenching as he takes note of Gray's current state. I'm sure that I'll be getting an earful from the Fate later today on my treatment of the Incubus. The two do love to gang up on me and accuse me of starving Gray, but it's not as if the man isn't allowed to go and seek nourishment elsewhere whenever he is hungry.

Not once have I ever stopped him from frolicking off with one of his whores, and I don't understand why he insists on holding out for me.

Gray gives Silas his best sad boy eyes as he heads over to the couch and throws himself down on top of it.

I turn to Silas with a sigh.

"I'd like to get this over with quickly, so the sooner you can set up a meeting with the other leaders, the better." I inform him

Gray scoffs loudly at my words, capturing Silas and I's attention once more.

"Don't set up a meeting yet." He states.

My eyebrows furrow, and I tilt my head to the side slightly as I absorb what he's saying. Why the fuck not? Gray was the one who insisted and begged us to do a study on the Wrath couple in the first place.

Both Silas and I were shocked at his adamancy toward it, especially since the Lust kingdom isn't having any issues with their females. I have to admit, though, that my Wrath loves how much he defends my kind and how eager he was to find a solution for us.

Most of my people have decided to stop trying for children, their houses too clogged down with young boys. It's not exactly a massive issue given our extended life spans, but for the other breeds, it's detrimental.

We could easily put a pause on our growth and pick up again in a couple hundred years, but that's enough time for some of the weaker breeds to go completely extinct.

"And why not?" Silas questions Gray.

Gray stares at Silas as if the man has grown three heads, his eyes bulging out and lips pulled into a flat line. I hold back a smile at the sight. Silas never has to endure the probing questions and constant bickering from Gray, and I can't help but be filled with satisfaction when he does.

"It wouldn't hurt to give the Wrath's a couple decades head start on growing the population." Gray explains.

I hum, but shrug away his concern. It's a thought that I've had many times myself, but given the scope of the problem, I don't think this is information we should hoard.

"In a couple of decades, hundreds of breeds will be dead." I state.

Gray laughs and shrugs, his reaction concerning. I turn toward Silas to see his response to Gray's carelessness, happy to note that he's already looking at me in shock. Gray tends to get grumpy when he's hungry, but never so much so that he's condemning entire species' to die.

"Don't you want the Wrath kingdom to be the strongest?" Gray asks.

"We already are." I argue. "Besides, the fight is half the fun. There's no excitement when everybody is too weak to even stand a chance."

With a quiet sigh, I glance back down at the documentation on my desk. It took years of intense study to find the cause, and it's going to be hard to share this with the other realms without them taking advantage of the information. The female bodies evolved this way in response to the traumas they were enduring, and I wouldn't be surprised if, when the men hear the information, they try to find a work-around instead of just treating the females better.

The Ogres and Humans will probably end up injecting their women with an oxytocin drug that forces their bodies to produce females, which isn't ideal but also isn't my job to worry about. Even with the help of females, both breeds aren't expected to live for much longer.

They're way too destructive, and their penchant for throwing themselves into situations they only half understand will be their death.

"That's what the Fates once thought, too." Gray murmurs as he props himself up on his elbows and levels his stare with Silas. "And now there are none of you left."

Silas snorts and looks away before crossing his arms over his chest. That was a low blow, even if it is the truth. The Fates, at one point, were the strongest of the Demons, but years of violent and merciless hunting has brought them to the point of almost extinction.

"He makes a good point." Silas says through clenched teeth. "It wouldn't hurt to wait a couple of years to give the Wrath's a head start. I don't think that decades is an appropriate amount of time, but ten or fifteen years feels fair."

I blink, surprised. Is Silas seriously considering this?

Turning towards Gray, I frown as I take note of his shit-eating grin. And here I was thinking that I was the cruelest of us. Sucking in a deep breath, I search through my paperwork until I come across the one that highlights the projected lifespan of the breeds at the highest risk of obsoletion.

Ten years will hurt most of these, but the numbers agree that it won't be detrimental to any of them. Even the Humans and Pixies would be able to make it through with enough numbers that repopulation is an option.

It would force them to take action quickly, too, which is ideal. The Humans are known to put things off until the last minute.

"Ten years." I state. "But we can't push it off much further than that."

Gray grumbles that that's not enough time for the Wraths, but I ignore him and look to Silas for agreement. Gray is bright, but much too young to be taken seriously in these matters. He doesn't have enough foresight to be a good leader, and is too ruled by his emotions.

Silas takes his time looking over the figures himself before giving me a thumbs up. A small part of me wants to ask him to go into the fated world and see how that timeline works out for us, but I resist.

He could get in trouble by looking for answers that benefit only him, and the last thing I need are the Fate spirits pulling my dad out of Tartarus to kill him. The thought alone of my father being let loose brings a shiver to my spine, but I push the idea away as I turn to watch Gray.

He's laid back down on the couch and let his eyes fall shut, and if it weren't for his rapid heartbeat, I'd think that he was asleep. The Incubus lets out a shaky breath as Silas and I continue our planning, his body practically rattling at the effort. Why won't he just go to the Lust realm and find a Demon to sleep with?

His constant need to starve himself until I feel bad and let him feed in my dreams is beyond annoying, and I have half a mind to buy him a female just to get him out of my hair. He's been asking for us to pick one for years, and while neither Silas and I are anywhere near ready to bond with one, I have no issues with giving Gray one to fuck with for a handful of years.

She will keep him occupied and strong. A win, win.

"I'll take my leave." Silas speaks up as he places his hands on my desk and rises to his feet.

I watch him through narrowed eyes as he walks around my desk and pulls open the bottom drawer next to my knee. He ignores my presence as he grabs a hand lotion that I didn't even know was in there and sets it down on top of my papers.

I frown at it, my frustration growing as he gestures to the shaky Gray.

"Feed your Incubus." He scolds.