Chapter 6

Kael

I woke with silk in my mouth. Not really — but it felt that way. Warm, heavy, soft where it pressed against my cheek and shoulders and the back of my knees, like the bed itself wanted to keep me pinned here.

It smelled like her. Smoke and candlelight and something I still tasted at the back of my tongue when I swallowed — that slice of sweetness she'd dragged out of me drop by drop until my body forgot how to hold it in.

I cracked my eyes open slow. Light filtered through the edge of the drapes — soft and gold, nothing like the sharp sun that usually crawled through the cheap cracks in my mother's roof. I was warm. Too warm. The sheets held my scent, raw and low and thick enough to make my ears flick when it hit me all over again.

I was still naked. The silk stuck to my thighs, damp where my tail twitched and caught under the edge of the covers. I shouldn't have been here. I should've woken on a cot somewhere cold, the hush gone, her hands gone, the taste of her mouth burned out by shame and the cheap promise of five thousand in a brown envelope.

But she was gone. I knew it the second I lifted my head — pillow cool where her breath should have been. No weight behind my back. No claws at my neck or mouth at my ear telling me good boy one more time just to see if I'd beg.

I should've been relieved. Instead the silence crawled in around my ribs like it didn't know what to do with all the space she left behind.

I pushed up onto my elbows. My whole body ached — not bruised exactly, but soft in a way that made heat prickle low in my spine. The place she'd touched last — deeper than I'd ever let anyone near — still felt raw when I shifted my hips under the covers. My cock twitched uselessly at the memory, heat licking at the edges of the shame I couldn't bite down.

A noise caught in my throat — half-breath, half-laugh, broken before it made it past my teeth. Idiot. Shouldn't feel good about any of this.

I spotted the envelope before I saw my clothes. Thick paper, black seal, her mark burned in gold across the flap like a mouth that never stayed shut. I dragged it close with trembling fingers, half-expecting it to vanish if I blinked.

When I broke the seal, bills spilled across my thigh — neat stacks, clean ink, too many zeroes. I counted once. Twice. My pulse stumbled on the third.

Twenty thousand.

Not five. Not ten. Not small money for a polite taste she'd pretend to forget. Enough to pay off the landlord who threatened to gut my mother's roof every month I was late. Enough to buy her medicine that didn't taste like stale herbs and half-lies. Enough to make me wonder what the hell she'd bought from me in return.

The room smelled like her, but the taste in my mouth was mine — salt and the soft sour edge of panic I tried to swallow down.

She'd fed too deep. I knew it. She'd fed like she meant to carve her name somewhere I couldn't scrape it off later.

My claws flicked out, just enough to press tiny crescents into my palm — a reminder I was still awake. Still here. Still alone, even if the silk stuck to my thighs like a brand.

I shoved the money back into the envelope, throat tight. My clothes were folded near the foot of the bed — cleaned, pressed. The charm I'd worn stitched back into the seam, neat as a wound half-healed.

She knew. Of course she knew. She'd tasted it all.

A sound caught at the back of my throat — not quite a growl, not quite a plea. I didn't know what it was. Didn't know what it made me, curled up in silk that smelled like her with heat still humming in my belly like I'd left a piece of it under her tongue.

I dragged my clothes back on — careful, slow, trying not to think about the soft ache between my thighs, the raw stretch that made my tail twitch against the covers.

Get out. Before she comes back. Before I asked her to do it again. Before I begged.

I clutched the envelope so tight the edges bit into my palm. Twenty thousand. Too much. Too easy.

The air outside her club tasted colder than I remembered. I'd thought stepping out would strip her off me — peel her mouth from my throat, her scent from my skin, her warmth from my bones. But it didn't. I felt her in the soft ache between my thighs, the damp heat still clinging where my clothes touched raw skin, the weight of that envelope heavy enough to pull my shoulders down with every step.

The city hadn't woken yet. Dawn bled slow across broken roofs and rusted drainpipes. My boots found the familiar cracks in the sidewalks I'd walked my whole life — past the shuttered pawn shops, the boarded windows, the peeling paint that never stayed covered no matter how many times the landlord pretended to care.

I should've felt clean. I should've felt like I'd bought my mother one more month — one more bottle of bitter pills, one more week before the landlord threatened to toss us out again. Instead, my chest rattled with the thought of what I'd given her in return.

She knows.

Lilith Voss — name like velvet, smile like teeth behind silk. She knew. She'd tasted every piece of the thing I'd hidden since I was old enough to know why other boys my age kept their claws sharp and their heads high. Omega. Soft. Breedable. Something extinct for a reason.

And she hadn't let me walk out untouched. She'd pressed her mark deep — not teeth, not claws, just her warmth inside my bones where no charm could scrape it clean.

My hand squeezed the envelope so tight the corners bent, paper biting my palm with every block I walked. Twenty thousand. Too much for a secret. Too little for what she'd taken — and what she'd keep taking if she wanted.

I climbed the cracked steps to our door. Three flights up, damp wood under my boots, familiar squeak in the third stair that told me I was almost home. I pressed my key to the knob — but the door swung inward before I turned it.

Two men waited inside. Too clean for this hallway. Jackets pressed sharp at the shoulders, shoes that had never tasted this building's filth. One had a thin folder in his hands — closed tight, not for me to see. The other's eyes flicked to mine — polite, empty, the kind of look that said he already knew what I'd done before I even opened my mouth.

"Kael, yes?" The taller one spoke — voice smooth enough it made my tail flick where it curled against my thigh. "You'll want to come with us."

My claws pricked out on reflex. "Where's my mother?"

The man didn't flinch. Just turned slightly — enough for me to see the empty cot behind him. The threadbare blanket folded clean. The pillow gone. No faint sound of her cough echoing through the cracked wall. For a second my breath stuck behind my teeth.

"She's safe," the shorter one said, too quickly. "She's receiving care. A private hospital. The best money can get. Courtesy of…" He didn't finish. He didn't need to.

My heart slammed once against my ribs, sick and sharp. Her.

Of course she'd moved first. Of course she'd bought the one thing that could keep me from bolting.

"Come," the taller one said again. Not a threat. Not a request. Just a statement — the same tone she'd used when she told me open your mouth.

I followed. What else could I do? I tucked the envelope deeper in my coat pocket where my claws couldn't tear it to pieces. My boots found the steps without thinking — down again, out into the new sun spilling soft gold over the alley's broken fences.

They didn't talk as they led me to the car — black, too polished for this street, the door already open like they knew I'd slide in without a fight. I didn't fight. I pressed my spine to the cold seat and kept my eyes on the window. I tried not to taste her on my tongue every time I swallowed.

The drive blurred past — streetlights flickering out one by one as the day found its teeth. We pulled up to a hospital I'd only seen in rumors — glass too clean, walls too white, the smell of real medicine already catching at my nose before I stepped out.

Inside, they moved me like a shadow down the corridor — past polished floors, quiet nurses, wards lined with pale curtains. They opened one door. My mother lay inside — hair brushed, blankets clean, an IV line I couldn't have afforded in three lifetimes dripping soft warmth into her arm.

She looked up when she heard my boots catch on the tile — eyes glassy but clearer than they'd been in weeks. Her smile cracked something behind my ribs.

"Kael," she rasped, voice softer than the pillow under her cheek. "What did you do?"

I wanted to lie. I wanted to say nothing — to tell her it was charity, a stranger's kindness, some old favor I'd cashed in. But her eyes stayed on mine — soft, sharp, the same way they'd pinned me when I was small and thought I could hide scraps of stolen bread behind my back.

I dragged the plush chair closer. Sat down hard enough my tail flicked against the cold leg. I felt the envelope in my pocket — twenty thousand. My throat tasted like salt when I tried to swallow.

"Who?" she asked again, softer now.

So I told her. All of it. My voice cracked once when I said the word succubus, cracked again when I said omega. By the time I reached the part about her soft mouth on my neck and the contract I'd never signed properly in my head, her eyes were wet. Not angry. Just old sadness — the kind that said she'd give anything to pull me back into her ribs and keep the world from biting down.

"It's enough, Ma," I said, voice raw. "She paid for all this. For you. You'll get better. You'll breathe clean again. That's what matters."

Her hand found mine — small, shaking, the only part of me that stayed warm enough not to flinch.

"You sold too much, Kael," she whispered. "Be careful what you let her keep."

But I'd felt it in her bed, in my bones, in the ache still blooming low in my belly — it was already too late for that.