Would the parents try to change or hide those half-breed traits, or would they embrace them? Embrace them, he decided, considering their bright smiles. And those children would make it to adulthood feeling valuable just as they were, rather than feeling like they fell short of an impossible expectation. Astaroth had done the opposite. He’d taken in a young child, then shaped that child to reflect the person Astaroth had secretly wished he could be: a pure-blood, ruthless demon, unafflicted by the doubts and fears of humans. There was no such thing as a demon entirely unafflicted by doubt or
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