Read Octavia's War for Free Online Page A

try very hard. Since Remmy had outlined the basics of the trinity thing, she’d had trouble focusing on anything else. Her mind was an eagle, floating high up over the top of prey, watching it, waiting for the moment to strike.
    “We’re supposed to just believe you about this trinity thing?” she said to Remmy, although it was a token protest. As soon as he had mentioned it, something in her had leapt with recognition.
    “I believe him,” Ángel said quietly.
    She looked at him. “Just like that?”
    Ángel shook his head. “It explains everything. Something was happening last night, even this morning. Something neither of us could explain. We weren’t thinking supernatural because it didn’t involve ghosts or woohoo stuff. It was just sex, only it was there and it was taking up all the air around us.”
    Octavia couldn’t keep her gaze on his face. She looked away, not willing to acknowledge that he had put his finger on exactly what had been going on. Ángel’s explanation was precise and elegant. That didn’t mean she had to like it.
    Instead, she looked directly at Remmy. “Can we stop it?”
    “Do you want to?” Ángel asked.
    Octavia’s insides rippled. “Of course I do. This…thing is telling me what to do and worse, it’s telling me how my sex life is going to go from now on. Forever, according to him.” She pointed at Remmy.
    Remmy grimaced and glanced at Ángel. “Octavia has a small issue with people trying to tell her what to do.”
    It seemed to her that something passed between the two men. An understanding.
    Ángel’s expression didn’t change. He just gave a nod.
    “It’s also telling you two what to do. Don’t you resent that? Either of you?”
    Ángel leaned across the table and snagged the tequila bottle. He swirled the last inch around, looking at it. Then he held the bottle out to her.
    Octavia shook her head with an impatient movement.
    Ángel shrugged and swallowed the last of the tequila. He put the bottle back on the table with careful movements and kept his hand around the neck. “I’m not superstitious,” he said. “My mother was, though and she was always of the opinion that the supernatural world paid normal folk no mind until they drew attention to themselves in some way. Then, she said, it was their fault whatever happened after that and complaining about it wasn’t going to change anything.”
    “You think you deserve this?” Octavia said, appalled.
    “I think we got picked for a reason. Maybe, to fight this war that Remmy is talking about, with the…Grimoré?” He looked at Remmy, raising a brow. “Is that right?”
    “Yes, to both. The trinities are army units, designed to fight. They get their strength from the bonding. The sex side of it is just the way the bonding is made permanent.”
    “So even after this war is won, we’re still stuck with each other?” Octavia asked, her horror building.
    “That’s the current thinking, yes,” Remmy said. “No one knows for sure. It’s a first for everyone involved.”
    “And that doesn’t piss you off, Bear?” she asked, her voice rising again. “You’re being pushed into sex with a man and a woman who you barely know and you never get to walk away from it. How can you stand there and look so calm?”
    “That’s the thing,” Remmy said slowly. “I don’t mind. Last night, when I was talking to a friend, the one who said I might be the first of the trinity, I did mind. I minded a whole hell of a parcel. Now…I just don’t.”
    Octavia tried again. She looked at Ángel. “You must surely hate this, Ángel. You’ve spent years trying to carve out a life that wasn’t what your father wanted. Now all that has gone.”
    Ángel gave her an odd little smile. “What makes you think that I might have objections to this? I mean, even if the bonding thing wasn’t pushing us into it?”
    Octavia closed her mouth and sat back. “Oh,” she said softly. She looked at the two of them again. “There was