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The voice is too far away to determine which it is, and that’s an improvement, I guess, but I’d expected not to hear them at all.
“Go away,” I say out loud, reaching for my phone to text Claudia about a new necklace now instead of tomorrow.
Lily, our very survival is in your hands. Please. Hear me out.
I strain, trying to hear which voice it is before it clicks. This is the sad voice. The sorrowful one from before, so at least it wasn’t a new, stranger demon.
I roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of that thought.
I type out a quick message, thumb hovering over the send button, as Eden’s words play back in my head.
She’s strong enough to kick them out and hold on to some of their second sight. She’s not the damsel in distress she seems.
I’m not, am I?
I’m no one’s doormat.
Or a princess in a tower waiting for some asshat with a toothy smile and good hair to rescue me.
I drop the phone on my bed and grab the snake pendant.
If I kicked them all out before, I can do it again. Right?
I lift the necklace over my head and yell, “Who are you and what do you want!”
But my words are drowned out by screaming. An unearthly, bone-chilling scream, the likes of which I’ve never heard before.
Thankfully, it quickly dies off, replaced by that same, mournful voice.Thank you, Lily. Your warding is very good. Excruciating, in fact. Whatever you paid your witch, you should double it.
“Don’t do that,” I say aloud with derision.
The demon says nothing for a few beats.
I’m sorry, my lady. Don’t do what?
Along with the voice in my head, I also pick up on the general vibe of his words. He seems truly surprised—confused, even—by my statement.
“Don’t try to be charming and nonchalant about this. This is not a nonchalant situation. You’ve been violating my body for months now, and I’d like to know why.” I grip the pendant tight in my fist, ready to slam it back around my throat if this demon tries anything weird.
Shame fills me like thick, choking smog. But it’s not mine.
I am incredibly sorry for that, madam. When we first started possessing you, your mind was such a dismal place, we couldn’t adequately connect with your body until we’d corrected your hormone levels. Serotonin and dopamine, to be precise. The fastest way to achieve that for most species is through sexual release. But I swear we only ever used your own phalluses, and we never touched you.
Huh.
When I said “violated”, I meant the possession thing. But now the disappearing dildo made sense.
They got me off so they could stand being in my head.
I cast a glance at the suction cup ring on the picture over my bed. I mean, it tracks. But I am already too overloaded to sort out how I feel about it. I put that in a drawer in the back of my mind to deal with later. Much later, probably.
“Why are you possessing me? That’s the more pertinent question.”
Isn’t it obvious? You, Lily, are the strongest host we’ve ever come across. With your body, we hoped to collect the most souls and secure our place in the next leg of the trials.
“Trials. So you’re using my body to win some game?”
Win, yes. Game, absolutely not. My kind is made to fight for our place in society. If we don’t place well at the end of the last trial, we’ll be banished from civilization, forced to make our own way in barren land with no resources.
