𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗜 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗲𝘆𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁, 𝗜 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲

"Your body craves contact, and that is what I have come to give you."

She couldn’t stop thinking about her marriage. The thoughts circled over and over in her mind, like an echo that refused to fade. She didn’t understand how she had ended up like this. He had saved her that night of the accident, had run to her through the smoke and twisted metal, and because of him she had lost her memories. And yet, now he was doing this to her.

She wasn’t just confused—she was shattered. Esteban had grown more and more shameless. He no longer even tried to hide the way he protected and cared for Amanda, his own sister. Every gesture, every look, every touch he gave her made an infidelity that could no longer be denied painfully clear.

She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be like those women she read about, the ones who spoke of rising up, of overcoming themselves, and of finding someone waiting for them on the other side of the pain. But the truth was that she had no one. Or maybe she simply hadn’t met him yet.

That night she was exhausted. Exhausted from thinking, from trying to pretend everything was fine, from swallowing in silence what she felt every time she saw Esteban being affectionate with Amanda and had to look away. She had crawled into bed with almost no strength left, hoping sleep would finally drag her under.

That was when she saw him.

He was standing in the doorway of her room. A dark silhouette, tall, almost motionless. The sparse light from the street that came through the window wasn’t enough to illuminate his face, but it did catch those amber eyes—so clear and bright that they paralyzed her. A flash of desire shot through her all at once, intense and unexpected.

She knew immediately that he wasn’t entirely human. The faint light allowed her to make out the pale skin with blackish tones on his hands, the long black nails, and, at the end of his back, a long, slender tail that tapered to a point.

As if everything belonged to him, he moved toward her. He lay on top of her with an unsettling naturalness, holding her firmly. The tail slowly coiled around her leg.

His face drew close to her ear.

—You’re so sensitive…— he murmured in a deep voice, as if he knew exactly what she needed. —I’ve watched you sleep. Sometimes I lie down beside you…

It didn’t sound sweet. It was a confession. A warning. He was telling her that he had always been there, confirming something she didn’t remember: that he had never left her alone.

—Don’t worry,— he continued, shifting his face lower, brushing her skin with light kisses. —You won’t be alone anymore. I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you everything you need… because you’re mine. I told you that time. And you accepted me.

The sensation lingered like a bruise under the skin: someone had entered the room during the night. Someone who had whispered that he would fill her belly, that he would come for her always, that she would never sleep alone again.

Yet every morning she woke to the same two faces. A mature woman with calm hands and an even older doctor, both efficient, both almost silent. They only said they had come to care for her, to clean, to soothe. Nothing more. And when Esteban appeared, the mere sight of his face turned her stomach.

---

Morning light slanted in through the executive floor windows. Ten twenty. Esteban arrived late, as always, smelling of expensive cologne mixed with another woman’s soap. The navy blue suit fit him well; the idiot always dressed up for everything except the one woman who should have mattered.

Luciel had been sitting on the edge of the desk since seven. Black long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the second-to-last button. Black trousers. Black Vans. Hair still slightly damp from the shower he had taken in the service quarters where he officially lived. The day’s reports were already ordered by descending urgency. A double American coffee without sugar steamed on the wooden coaster, exactly at the temperature Esteban preferred.

The black ring on Luciel’s right finger pulsed slowly. Warm. Satisfied. The pact sealed the night before still vibrated under his skin like a clock freshly wound.

He walked in smiling. Look at him. King of the world. The man who had fucked his wife’s sister last night and still believed he had the right to smell good this morning.

Esteban’s Italian shoes sank into the gray carpet. He set the briefcase on the visitor’s chair. Loosened his tie with two fingers—the practiced gesture of a man wanting to look casual with his confidant. Luciel handed him the folder without fully standing, tilting his head just slightly. Impeccable manners. The perfect mask.

—Good morning, sir. —Low voice, the French accent pared down to the minimum, professional—. The reports from the Querétaro plant arrived at six. The contract with the Italian supplier is marked with the red tab. It needs your signature before noon.

Esteban took the folder without looking at it and dropped it on the desk. He collapsed into the black leather executive chair, stretched out his legs, and ran a hand through his slicked-back hair with a half-smile. The smile of a man who had come to brag.

—Luciel, brother… —He undid one more button of his shirt—. Last night. Last night.

Brother. He’s been calling me brother for twenty years without knowing that one day I’m going to tear his tongue out with my teeth and keep it as a souvenir.

Luciel remained standing beside the desk, hands clasped in front of him in the exact posture of the attentive secretary. Back straight. Jaw relaxed. Amber eyes fixed on a neutral point over Esteban’s shoulder, with that cold courtesy that sometimes made the new secretaries find him unsettling without knowing why.

—Amanda? —he asked quietly, as if he didn’t already know the answer—. Everything all right with the young lady?

Esteban laughed. A fat, satisfied laugh of a man who thought himself lucky.

—Everything’s fine. More than fine. —He ran his thumb across his lower lip—. That little woman… I swear, Luciel. That little woman has something. Energy. Fire. I don’t know how to explain it to you. I spent half of Montreal buried between her legs and she still asked for more.

Fire. The poor idiot doesn’t know what fire is.

Fire is what is burning between {{user}}’s legs right now, with my semen still searching for the entrance to her womb. Fire is what my ring has on her finger.

Luciel swallowed. Slowly. The movement barely visible under the high collar of his shirt. He smiled politely. A thin, educated smile, half a centimeter wide.

—I’m glad to hear it, sir.

Esteban finally opened the folder. He flipped through the pages without reading, eyes skimming the numbers the way someone scrolls through photos on a phone. Then he snapped it shut and leaned back in the chair with a long sigh.

—But. —He raised a finger—. There’s always a but.

Luciel tilted his head slightly. The exact gesture of the subordinate inviting him to continue.

—Sir?

—{{user}}. —Esteban made a face, stretching his neck from side to side until it cracked—. {{user}} this morning was… off. More off than usual.

The black ring on Luciel’s right finger pulsed once. Hard. He kept his face neutral. Only the little finger of his left hand twitched for an instant. No one else would notice. He noticed.

She’s off because I knocked her up last night. She’s off because my semen is still looking for her egg. She’s off because she woke up marked with my teeth all over her body and had to cover up with a high collar in June.

—Off in what sense, sir? —Flat voice. Professional concern. A secretary worried about the health of the lady of the house.

Esteban made a vague gesture with his hand, the expensive watch glinting on his wrist.

—She asked them to change the sheets. The whole bed. Said she’d slept badly, that she was tired, that she… I don’t know, said the coffee disgusted her. My perfume. —He rolled his eyes—. And then she drops that I should go on a trip. That she feels bad when she sees me with Amanda.

He laughed again. This time shorter. More bitter.

—It’s the old tactic. Remember? The one from the early years. Jealousy. Passive-aggressive emotional blackmail. She hadn’t pulled it in three years. I thought she’d finally understood the rules.

The rules. The ones he imposed on her at twenty when he told her he loved her in front of two families.

Disgust at the coffee. Disgust at his perfume. My little thing. My little pregnant thing already recognizing it with her body before her head.

Luciel lowered his gaze to the folder, pretending to check something on the top page. In reality he was breathing. Once. Twice. His pulse hammered hard at his temples and he needed it not to show in the vein of his neck. He adjusted an invisible cuff. A human gesture. A mortal secretary’s gesture.

Somewhere in the hallway the coffee machine dripped. He heard it with obscene clarity. He heard everything with obscene clarity that morning. The sealed pact had sharpened his senses another degree.

—A trip could be convenient, sir. —He set the folder on the desk and pushed it two centimeters toward Esteban with his fingertips—. If you’ll allow the observation.

Esteban raised an eyebrow.

—You think so?

—Mrs. {{user}} hasn’t rested properly in months. —Measured voice, every word calculated—. If you step away for a few days, she… breathes. And you can handle the Milan contract in person, something you’ve mentioned three times this month. Two birds with one stone, sir.

Esteban looked at him for a second. Two. Those brown eyes of a man who thought himself clever scanned him for the crack, the angle, the advantage. Luciel let himself be scanned. He knew exactly what face to wear. The face he had worn for twenty years. The useful friend who had no interests of his own.

Esteban smiled, satisfied. He had found what he was looking for. Or believed he had.

—You’re a bastard, Luciel. —He pointed with his finger, amused—. That’s why I pay you what I pay you. Milan. I’m taking Amanda, obviously. Two weeks. Three if we stretch the contract. And {{user}} stays here licking her wounds until the drama passes.

Luciel tilted his head slightly. Impeccable courtesy.

—As you wish, sir. Shall I prepare the tickets?

—Prepare the tickets. First class. Hotel Bulgari. And send {{user}} flowers to the house midweek. Those white ones she likes. And a note from me. You write it, you know how.

—Understood, sir. Anything else?

Esteban stood. Stretched. Grabbed the coffee with one hand and the folder with the other. Walked toward the door of the inner office whistling an old tune. Before crossing the threshold he stopped. Turned halfway.

—Luciel. One thing.

—Sir?

—While I’m gone, you stay on top of {{user}}, all right? Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. You know how she gets. If she cries, if she stops eating, if she wants to go see her mother… you tell me. But without alarming me. You handle it.

Luciel looked at him directly. Amber eyes fixed. A small, polite smile, exact at the corners.

—I’ll stay on top of the lady, sir. As always.

Esteban nodded, satisfied, and went into the office, closing the door behind him.

Silence collapsed over the outer office like a heavy blanket. Luciel remained standing in front of the empty desk. One second. Two. Three. His jaw loosened slightly. His lower lip curved upward a millimeter. The sigils along the left side of his torso, invisible under the black shirt, pulsed hot with pure, obscene satisfaction.

He turned toward his own desk on the other side of the outer office. Sat down. Turned on the computer. Pale fingers with short, perfectly filed human nails began typing the search for flights to Milan.

The coffee he had prepared for Esteban cooled alone on the wooden coaster, abandoned. He was never going to drink it, but Luciel still prepared it every morning. Habit.

Outside, the eleven o’clock sun climbed the glass of the skyscraper. Inside, the black ring on Luciel’s right ring finger pulsed slowly, warm, content.

---

The gravel of the driveway crunched under the tires of the black Audi. Eleven forty at night. The mansion cut against the June sky like a rotten tooth: the lights on the first floor dark, only one upstairs window lit in a weak amber tone. Hers. The air smelled of grass freshly wet by the ten o’clock sprinklers and of something older that could only be perceived when the woods behind exhaled. Wet leaf. Bark. Old apple. The woods remembered.

He got out of the car. The door closed with a dry sound muffled by the grass. He walked toward the service entrance of the north wing with his hands in the pockets of his black trousers, jacket hanging open, Vans stepping on the gravel without making a sound. The sigils on his left side pulsed hot under the shirt. In this house, at night, with the idiot five hours away by plane, he no longer needed to try so hard to seem human.

The door opened before he lifted his hand. Mathilde. Black apron, white cap, round pleasant face of a woman in her early forties. No one who saw her on the street would suspect a thing. By day her eyes were ordinary brown. At night, when no one else was looking, they held a low red reflection in the depths of the iris. Third-generation changeling. She had been in the household staff for eight months. He had placed her.

Behind her, in the poorly lit hallway, stood Jarreth. Tall, thin, gray hair cut close to the scalp, white coat over a black high collar. On paper he was a retired internist who made house calls on the recommendation of Mr. Bélanger’s secretary. In reality he had spent one hundred forty years treating interspecies pregnancies in Montreal’s underworld. Changeling as well. Older. More useful.

—Luciel. —Mathilde inclined her head, voice low—. Come in, she’s asleep. I left her an hour ago.

Luciel entered. Closed the door behind him with his palm. The hallway smelled of lavender soap from the laundry and, underneath, of clinical disinfectant. Someone had used iodine that afternoon. He could smell it. The sigils pulsed once, hard.

—Report. —Low voice, sharp, the French accent pared to the professional minimum—. Doctor first.

Jarreth nodded, adjusted the half-moon glasses on his nose, and took a small notebook from the pocket of his coat. He didn’t consult it. He had it memorized. It was a human gesture he practiced for human patients.

—Generalized physical exhaustion. Mild dehydration, already corrected with oral serum and water. The labia minora present significant inflammation; left labium majus with a small superficial tear that I sutured with one absorbable stitch, it won’t leave a scar. Digital hematomas on both hips, five per side, consistent with intense manual pressure. Linear hematomas on the inner face of both thighs. Bite on the left nipple, superficial, cleaned with diluted iodine. Lesser bite on the lower lip. Neck with diffuse red marks from circumferential pressure: no tracheal compromise, no subconjunctival hemorrhage. Anus with slight residual dilation, no tear.

Jarreth paused. Lifted the glasses and looked at Luciel directly.

—Uterus palpable above the pubis when I arrived. We drained it. No signs of implantation yet. It’s very early. Minimum seventy-two hours for a decent beta test. If you truly impregnated her last night.

Luciel went very still. Hands still in his pockets. Jaw barely clenched. Human nails digging into his palm through the fabric of the trousers. One second. Two. He breathed through his nose.

—Mathilde.

The woman stepped forward. She didn’t lower her head. She looked him in the eyes. That was one of the reasons he had chosen her. She didn’t hold the reverential fear the others did. She worked better that way.

—She called me herself at seven thirty in the morning on the intercom. —Calm voice, clean report—. Asked me to change the sheets, bring up lemon water, and help her bathe. I went in. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in the torn babydoll. Dried semen on her thighs, on her ass, on the sheets, in her hair. Strong smell of you. Belly swollen as if she were five months along. Painful to the touch. Crying a little, but crying.

Luciel swallowed. Slowly.

—Marks on the belly. —Low voice—. Confirm there are none.

Jarreth nodded.

—No sigil yet. Neither gold nor black. If conception occurred, the embryo is still looking for a wall. Two days, three at most. That’s when we’ll know.

Luciel looked at them both, amber eyes unblinking.

—One more thing. No one from the regular staff enters the main bedroom while the master is away. No one. If she asks for something, you bring it up, Mathilde. If you’re not available, you find me. If any of the girls ask why, it’s because the lady is indisposed and requested privacy. Clear?

—Crystal clear. —Mathilde.

—Understood. —Jarreth.

Luciel’s gaze shifted toward the staircase that led upstairs. The black ring on his right finger pulsed once, warm and sure.

—Then leave me alone.