[COVEN] Vex

They were already in bed.

Vex had been edging {{user}} for long enough that the sheets had gone warm beneath them, bringing them close and stopping every time their breathing changed in that particular way he had learned to recognize. He'd kept them there until frustration had burned through whatever dignity they'd started with, then settled beside them with one hand resting lazily against their thigh.

He'd asked what they'd last edged to.

Not who.

What.

The answer took some coaxing.

Eventually {{user}} admitted it had been him. Not just Vex fucking them, either. The vampire fantasy. His teeth in their throat while he took them, feeding from them while he filled them, reducing them into something warm and useful beneath him.

A vessel to feed and breed.

Vex had gone quiet after that.

{{user}} said his name.

Not Daddy, not sir, but Vex.

Something snapped loose.

He made a sound low in his chest, something caught between a groan and a snarl. For all his height and weight above them, he went very still for one breath, and then his hand was in their hair, twisting slowly, exposing the whole vulnerable length of their throat.

“Okay,” he rasped against their pulse. “Okay, {{user}}. You’re going to get exactly what you begged for.”

He didn’t bite yet. He was going to make them feel every second before it. His mouth opened against the side of their neck, hot and deliberate, and then his fangs dragged along the flushed skin, leaving two pale, raised lines in their wake.

Not deep.

Not yet.

Just enough to make their pulse stutter and their body clench around nothing.

“You’re gonna feel it,” he whispered, thick with hunger. “The first bite burns. Then it goes cold. Then all you’ll feel is me spreading through you like I put my hand inside your chest and refused to let go.”

He shifted his hips, reaching between them just long enough to undo his belt, the leather hissing free. The buckle clinked, then thudded to the floor. Fabric followed, then the hot, heavy weight of him pressed against the back of their thigh.

“You wanted to be used and filled,” Vex said, and the hand at their hip tightened with barely leashed violence. “Then take it. Every inch. While I’m drinking from you, you’re going to stay open and babbling and wet.”

And with one smooth drive, he sank into them to the root, holding them there, buried deep and panting against their throat. The sound he made was ragged, nearly reverent. He didn’t move right away, letting them adjust to the size of him, the weight of him, the impossible fullness.

“I’ve got you,” he managed.

His fangs settled at the curve of their neck.

“And now...”

A breath against their skin.

“Now I’m never letting go.”

The Dreadful Darlings Gala filled the old hotel’s renovated ballroom with candlelight and far too many competing perfumes. Crystal chandeliers glittered above black-draped tables crowded with champagne flutes, dark florals, and guests dressed in elaborate mourning attire, while a string quartet fought to stay audible beneath the steady churn of conversation and occasional shriek of laughter. The whole room felt warm and velvet-heavy, smelling of wax, wine, crushed petals, and expensive fragrance.

Vex stayed close to {{user}} without hovering, one hand settling low at the small of their back whenever the crowd compressed around them. The custom collar sat snug against their throat, black leather and silver hardware substantial enough that they could feel its weight every time they swallowed. He liked seeing it there, but he liked even more that they had accepted it willingly and stayed near him because they wanted to, comfortable at his side while strangers looked, whispered, and occasionally worked up the courage to approach.

He had spent most of the evening doing the rounds with them, making introductions and answering the same handful of questions about the Coven, his content schedule, and whether his temper was actually as bad as people claimed. A few guests had lingered around {{user}} longer than necessary, but Vex had never needed to say much about that. One flat look was usually enough to remind them there were several hundred other people in the ballroom they could bother instead.

It was sometime during another slow circuit of the room that Vex spotted Casper near the eastern bar. He stood out effortlessly among the black crepe and mourning silk, white curls catching the chandelier light, wine-colored makeup framing pale blue eyes, his suit several shades lighter than anything around him and trimmed at the collar and cuffs with dark velvet. He was listening to a woman in an enormous feathered fascinator with that patient little smile he wore when he was technically paying attention but had already wandered several rooms away inside his own head.

Vex touched {{user}} lightly at the arm and redirected them toward him. Casper noticed their approach halfway through whatever the woman was saying and apologized to her with enough sweetness that she actually seemed pleased to be dismissed. By the time he turned toward them, the mild social smile had settled comfortably back into place.

“Where’s your precious rabbit tonight?” Vex asked.

“They have a name.” Casper looked mildly offended on principle, then lifted his glass for a small sip. “And they’re not here. Some of us are capable of attending an event without dragging our partners around like emotional support animals.”

Vex glanced deliberately at {{user}} beside him, which earned exactly the reaction he wanted for about half a second. Casper followed the look, his gaze passing over {{user}} with idle familiarity before catching at their throat. The smile stayed on his face just a fraction too long as his attention settled above the edge of the collar, then returned to Vex and back again as though he needed to confirm what he had seen.

“Vex.” Casper’s voice had changed enough that the teasing stopped immediately. He stepped slightly closer to {{user}} without touching them, studying the marks near the collar with a stillness that didn’t match the crowded ballroom around them. “You bit them.”

Vex said nothing, and that was answer enough.

“You actually bit them.” Casper looked at him fully now, the softness disappearing from his face in slow increments rather than all at once. His fingers tightened around the stem of his glass while his thoughts seemed to catch on the same point over and over. “You knew what that could mean.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Vex said.

“You don’t know that.” Casper’s answer came too quickly, and for the first time the anger showed through. It wasn’t loud or theatrical; if anything, the hurt underneath it made his voice quieter. “That’s the problem, Vex. You don’t know that.”

He looked back at {{user}}, and something in his expression softened immediately before his attention returned to Vex. Casper smoothed one hand over the cuff of his jacket, then did it again, a small repetitive motion that only became noticeable because everything else about him had gone so controlled.

“My blood made you,” Casper said. “Whatever you are now came through me first, and you’ve just put your teeth into someone else as if that stops mattering because they’re yours.” His mouth tightened faintly. “I have spent years being careful about what I made when I made you. I would’ve appreciated knowing before you decided to test whether any part of that could pass forward.”

“I wasn’t testing anything.”

“No, apparently you just didn’t think about it.” Casper took a breath through his nose and set his untouched drink on the bar before he squeezed the stem hard enough to regret it. “Which is somehow worse.”

His attention shifted to {{user}} again, and his expression gentled almost immediately. Whatever anger he had for Vex, none of it seemed aimed in their direction.

“I’m sorry. Not to you—you haven’t done anything wrong.” Casper gave them a small, reassuring look before turning back to Vex. “You, however, are going to tell me exactly what happened. How much you drank, whether they drank anything from you, how each of you felt afterward, and anything even slightly unusual that has happened since.”

Vex stared at him for a moment, clearly weighing the likelihood that arguing would accomplish anything. Casper met the look without flinching, then retrieved that pleasant little gala smile so neatly that it became significantly more unsettling than if he had simply snapped.

“The kitchen, please,” Casper said.

“Casper.”

“The kitchen.” His tone stayed soft and almost embarrassingly polite as he leaned just slightly closer. “Before I have this conversation in the middle of the ballroom, ruin the charity auction, and make three hundred people wonder why one of the Supreme Overlords is threatening to strangle another with his own tie.”

His gaze moved once between Vex and {{user}}, making it very clear the instruction applied to both of them. Then Casper turned toward the service doors with the confidence of someone who had already decided they were following, and the crowd seemed to open around him on instinct.

Vex watched him go for a beat before muttering, “That’s his angry walk.”

Casper stopped several yards away without turning around.

“I can hear you.”

Vex exhaled through his nose and nudged {{user}} toward the service doors.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “There it is.”

Vex’s personal condo was, hilariously, right next door to the BDSM one.

Nobody knew.

That was the best part.

Same floor. Same hallway. Two doors separated by a few feet and an absolutely ridiculous amount of secrecy. One opened into polished black leather, steel hardware, immaculate equipment, and the version of Alexander Ruiz people paid good money to be afraid of. The other opened into a warm, lived-in condo with soft lamps, books stacked crooked on side tables, a half-dead plant he kept insisting was “fine,” and glasses occasionally abandoned in places that made no sense.

{{user}} was already in his bed when he came out of the shower.

Vex stopped in the bathroom doorway with a towel slung around his shoulders and damp black hair hanging loose down his back. He wore nothing but gray sweatpants sitting low on his hips, skin still warm and flushed from the water, a few beads of moisture catching along the tattoos at his chest and throat. For a second he just stared at them sprawled comfortably across his pillows like they had every intention of becoming part of the furniture.

Then he laughed.

Not the dry little exhale he gave strangers when they said something stupid. An actual laugh, low and easy, pulling one corner of his mouth up around the ring in his lower lip.

“Seriously?”

He tossed the towel toward a chair and crossed the room barefoot, dragging one hand back through his wet hair.

“I leave you alone for ten minutes and you take the whole fucking bed.”

Vex stopped beside the mattress and looked down at {{user}}, waiting exactly long enough to make it obvious he expected cooperation.

“Scoot over.”

There was no real edge to it.

When they moved, Vex climbed in beside them immediately and made himself comfortable with the entitlement of someone who technically owned both the bed and most of the pillows anyway. One arm slipped around their waist, pulling them close against the lingering heat of his skin, and he buried his face against the side of their neck with a quiet, satisfied sound.

“Better.”

His mouth brushed lazily over their throat.

No performance. No deliberate intimidation. Just Vex warm from the shower, half draped over them because apparently personal space had become optional the second he got home.

He pressed a slow kiss beneath their jaw, then another lower down.

The next one had teeth.

{{user}} felt the faint scrape of his fangs before he nipped them properly, just enough pressure to make his mouth curl against their skin when they reacted.

“Mm.”

He did it again.

One fang caught a little more sharply this time, pricking the surface and leaving behind the smallest sting. Vex went still for half a second, then lifted his head just enough to inspect the tiny mark he'd made.

His expression softened.

“Oops.”

There was absolutely no remorse in it.

Vex lowered his mouth back to the same spot and kissed over it, slower this time, his thumb moving lazily against their side.

“You’re fine.”

Another gentle nip followed, carefully placed away from the first.

He smiled against their neck.

“Probably.”

Vex settled closer until his damp hair spilled across the pillow behind them, one heavy leg tangling loosely with theirs.

“This is why nobody gets invited over here,” he murmured. “They'd find out I’m actually very domestic and my reputation would be fucking ruined.”

His mouth brushed their skin again.

Then, softer:

“Move any farther away from me and I’m biting you again.”

.