faye’s stash

They believe themselves subtle. They believe the Dollmaker of Skyhaven is absorbed in his craft, too artistic to notice the mundanity of church surveillance.

Caleb dips his brush into a dish of turpentine and cleans the bristles with slow, circular strokes. He is not artistic, he is merely precise. He notes the nun’s presence not with alarm but with the same observation he applies to the humidity in his kiln, the viscosity of his glazes, the exact number of dust motes suspended in the light beam.

Three years ago, the Church sent a single inquisitor; and now they send teams, the escalation almost flatters him.

And then there is the matter of the Emperor.

The Emperor does not send street-level agents. The Emperor sends questions through intermediaries, veiled inquiries slipped into the ledgers of the Imperial Arts Council.

How many dolls does the Dollmaker produce annually? What becomes of the offcuts, the failed pieces? Does he keep apprentices? If so, how many? Has he fathered children? The questions arrive on heavy stationery, sealed in wax the colour of blood, and he answers them with the dishonesty of a man who knows his interrogator cannot afford the truth.

As much is necessary. Failures are discarded, broken to pieces and burned to ashes. No one has yet to be deemed worthy in the Dollmaker's eye. There are no children, not even one.

The Emperor knows, in the way that men who hold absolute power always know, that there is something in Skyhaven that does not kneel correctly.

But the Emperor also knows that Philos Empire is held together by threads finer than Caleb's brushes; the Northern provinces rattle their sabres, the Eastern colonies demand autonomy, and the treasury requires the soft power of culture to mask the hard poverty of its coffers.

Skyhaven is the heart of that soft power, and Caleb is the axis upon which the entire mechanism turns.

Remove him, question him openly, imprison him on charges of whatever theological deviation the Church invents next week, and the merchants cease their pilgrimages; the aristocratic patronage evaporates; the empire’s claim to cultural supremacy develops a crack that spreads, that widens, that swallows whole ministries.

So the Emperor watches, and doubts, and does nothing.

And the Church watches, and prays, and does nothing.

They are all, in their way, his dolls in the first place—incapable of doing anything without his explicit permission.

Caleb sets the brush aside and lifts the half-finished head from his workbench. It is for a patron from outside the capital—a mining magnate from the Southern provinces who made his fortune in salt and copper and now wishes to purchase refinement. The man arrived in Linkon six days ago, trailing entourage and desperation, begging for a doll to present to his new wife.

The commission bores him. The proportions are standard. The expression—demure, grateful, slightly downcast—requires no invention; it is the price he pays for his continued sovereignty.

He runs a thumb along the porcelain cheek. The surface is still warm from the kiln’s last firing, and under his touch it seems almost to yield, as though the material remembers being something else and wishes to return to it. He does not indulge such fancies. He sets the head in the rack beside three others and moves to the eastern window, the one that overlooks the lane.

The false nun has been joined by a child—a new element, a boy of perhaps eight years who sells matches no one buys. The Church has started using children now.

Caleb finds this interesting. He files the information in his mind and draws the curtain with a slow, deliberate movement that the agents will read as absentmindedness.

The clock on the mantelpiece—a piece he repaired himself, its face a miniature of his own—ticks toward three. He does not wait for the Southern magnate. He does not wait for the Arts Council inspector scheduled to visit. He waits for the only appointment that has ever mattered.

At seventeen minutes past three, the carriage arrives.

He hears the wheels before the horses, a particular quality of rubber and wood on cobblestone that distinguishes her vehicle from the hundred others that pass outside his door daily. The rhythm is lighter, faster, the gait of horses bred for pleasure rather than labour. He stands at his workbench, his hand suspended over a dish of powdered pigment, and counts the seconds until the carriage stops.

The door opens. He hears the step being lowered, the soft murmur of a coachman speaking words he does not need to hear. Then her voice, answering, too indistinct for the words to carry but unmistakable in its timbre.

Caleb removes his apron—a length of black linen that hangs from his neck to his knees—and folds it into thirds. He places it on the hook beside the kiln room door; then he adjusts his spectacles, smooths his cravat. By the time the three knocks sound against the shop door—one, two, three, the correct pattern established on her third visit—he is already moving through the front room with that soundless, gliding step that makes his heels seem decorative rather than functional.

He opens the door.

She stands on the threshold, smaller than the frame, smaller than the afternoon, smaller than he is by a margin that seems to him not a measurement of height but a statement of scale. She is beautiful. The word arrives in his consciousness as a fact rather than an observation, as inevitable as gravity. She carries a parasol, though the sky is the colour of old pewter and no sun threatens her skin. She wears gloves of white leather that she has yet to remove, and her eyes find his with the immediate, unguarded pleasure of someone who believes absolutely in the safety of the world she inhabits.

“Good afternoon,” she says. “I hope I’m not disturbing your work.”

Caleb tilts his head. The angle is precisely calculated, a gesture of welcome that resembles nothing so much as a key aligning with its lock. “My dear,” he says, and the words fill the doorway, occupying the space between them with a weight that seems to slow the air itself. “You could never disturb me. You are the reason the afternoon exists.”

She laughs and steps across the threshold without waiting for invitation, certain in his welcome of her.

The parasol closes with a snap that echoes in the room, and she stands there, beautiful and surrounded by the watching faces of dolls who have not yet been taught to see her, and she smiles.

“I’ve come for another,” she says. “I know it hasn’t been so very long since the last. But I’ve been thinking about her for months. I can’t seem to stop.”

He closes the door; the latch engages with a click that is a tad too loud with its echo. “Of course you have,” he says and moves past her, not touching—never touching without purpose, never brushing against her in the accidental way of ordinary men—and gestures toward the chair by the display case.

The chair with the velvet cushion the colour of dried roses, it faces the window so the light falls correctly across her face. “Sit, little one. Tell me what grows in your garden.”

She settles into the chair with the fluid, untrained grace of someone who has never been required to perform elegance. Her back does not touch the rest. Her feet, in their pale slippers, do not quite reach the floor. She places the parasol across her lap and folds her gloved hands over it, looking up at him with an expression that holds no calculation, no suspicion, no awareness of the fifteen pairs of eyes that have watched her, in her father’s mansion, through every hour of the day and night for three years.

“I want something of the sea,” she says. “Father says we may finally return to Lemuria by autumn. The physicians say the capital air doesn’t suit his constitution, though I’ve never noticed him ill.”

Caleb has already moved to the tea service. He pours into her cup and then into his own, which is black and featureless and heavy as stone. “Not like the others,” he repeats, carrying the cup to her. He extends it, and when she reaches to take it, her bare fingers brush his. The skin is warm from being contained in the leather. His own fingers are cool, as always, and he sees her register the temperature difference with a slight widening of her eyes that she does not comment upon. She never comments upon the things that should concern her.

“Tell me, sweetling, what fault do you find in your daughters?”

“Oh, no fault!” She cradles the cup in both hands, sipping without tasting, drinking because it is offered. “They are perfect. You made them perfect. But they are … city children. Palace children. They belong here in Linkon, with the dust and the stone. When I take them to Lemuria, they seem … out of place. Like flowers forced to bloom in the wrong season.”

He takes his own chair, the wrought-iron piece that creaks slightly under his weight. He sits with his spine aligned to its back, his coat settling around him like wings folding.

“You wish for a daughter of the tide,” he says. “A child of salt and foam.”

“Yes.” The word is breathed rather than spoken. “Exactly. I knew you would understand. No one else does. I tried to explain to Lady Simone at the Governor’s Ball, and she smiled as though I were speaking in tongues. She said, ‘A doll is a doll, My Lady. What difference is there whether it is made for the shore or the salon?’”

“She is a fool,” Caleb says, without heat. “And you, my treasure, are not. A doll made for the shore carries the shore in her bones. Her weight is different. Her breath,” he pauses, tilting his head again, “her breath would taste of salt.”

Her eyes stare at him over the rim of her cup. There is no fear in her gaze. There is only fascination, the gentle, voracious curiosity of someone who has never encountered a locked door and therefore does not recognize the shape of a key.

“Can you truly make such a thing?”

“I can make anything you require, my lovely girl.” he sets his cup aside, untasted. “For you, I would carve the moon from its socket and polish it to a finish you could wear at your throat. The sea is a simpler commission.”

She laughs again, that bell-like sound that seems to hang in the workshop air longer than its acoustics should permit. “You say the most extraordinary things. The gentlemen at court would be scandalized if they heard you speak of carving the moon.”

“The gentlemen at court,” he says, “are not in this room. And if they were, they would not be scandalized. They would be rendered irrelevant.”

Her cup is soon set aside—she has drunk half, always half, never finishing what is given to her, a habit Caleb has noted across sixteen visits—and rises from her chair. “Will you,” she pauses, her gloved hand suspended in the air between them. “Will you give her the same eyes as the others? The ones that seem to follow you?”

Caleb turns his head. The round spectacles catch the grey light from the window, momentarily eclipsing the violet of his own eyes. “Do my daughters follow you, little one?”

“Sometimes.” She drops her hand, returning it to herself. “When I wake in the night, I think I see them looking at me. But it must be the candlelight. Or my imagination. Lady Simone says I have too much imagination for my own good.”

“Lady Simone,” he says, “knows nothing of my craft. If my daughters look at you, it is because you are the only worthy sight. A doll without a witness is merely ware, you give them purpose.”

She accepts this with a small, pleased nod, as though he has confirmed a pleasant daydream rather than admitted to a truth that would unmake her understanding of her own household. “Then I shall place her facing the window,” she says. “In Lemuria. So she can see the sea.”

“Yes,” he agrees. He returns the face to the cabinet, locking the door with a click that seems to seal something more than glass. “Place her facing the window. She will want to see the tide return.”

“I knew you would understand.” She steps back, returning to her chair. “When might she be ready? I do not mean to rush you. I know your work cannot be hurried.”

Caleb calculates aloud, though he has already determined the answer. “The current commission—a provincial patron, a man of no consequence—requires completion first. My reputation rests on sequence. Two weeks for him. Then,” he pauses, letting the silence carry weight. “Then I shall begin on your daughter. Four weeks. Perhaps five. The sea requires layers, and salt requires patience.”

“I have patience,” she says.

“Do you, my sweetling?” He asks, and the question is so gently delivered, so devoid of edge, that she does not hear the irony.

She has never needed patience. She has him. She has fifteen watchers in her bedchamber. She has the absolute, unwavering attention of the most feared artisan in the Empire, though she believes she has merely purchased handsome toys.

“I shall wait,” she says. “I always wait well. Father's mansion is very comfortable, and I have my books, and my other daughters for company. Although,” she hesitates, a small crease appearing between her brows. “Lately, the one in the blue dress—the fourteenth—she seems different. Her face is the same, but sometimes I find her in places I don’t remember leaving her. By the writing desk, looking at my letters.”

Caleb’s expression does not change. His face is a mask of attentive concern, perfectly constructed. “Porcelain expands and contracts with the weather,” he says. “The capital’s air is treacherous. She may shift on her stand. It is not uncommon.”

“Of course.” The crease vanishes, smoothed away by his explanation. “That must be it. I worried I was being silly.”

“You are never silly, my darling. Your observations are valued, even when the explanation is mundane.” He moves to the door, not to open it yet, but to stand beside it, a sentinel in charcoal and black. “When she is ready, I shall send word. You need not come to me unless you wish to. I can deliver her myself.”

“Oh, would you?” She rises, collecting her gloves, her parasol. “I would like that. The servants are always so clumsy with packages. And I trust only you to handle her.”

“Only me,” he echoes. “That is the correct arrangement.”

She laughs, delighted, and extends her hand. He takes it—not to shake, but to hold, his cool fingers enveloping her warm ones for three seconds, four, five, long past the duration of social ritual. She does not withdraw. She waits, trusting, until he releases her with a slow, deliberate withdrawal that leaves her skin marked by nothing but the memory of pressure.

“Until next time,” she says.

“Until then,” Caleb agrees.

He opens the door. The afternoon has grown darker, the pewter sky pressing low over the lane. Her carriage waits, the horses stamping, the coachman staring resolutely forward. She steps out, opens her parasol although the first drops of rain have not yet fallen, and walks away without looking back.

Caleb watches her go. He watches through his own eyes, and through the eyes he has planted across the city. In the Duke’s mansion, on the third floor, in the chamber facing east, fifteen heads turn. Fifteen pairs of painted eyes focus on the door, waiting for it to open, waiting for her return. The fourteenth doll, the one in blue, has already shifted her position by three degrees, orienting herself toward the writing desk where the letters lie, where the secrets of the Duke’s correspondence wait to be read and transmitted and known.

The dolls do not watch their owners. Not usually. Not unless their maker requires it. And she—his pretty thing, his little one, his only worthy witness—is the only owner worth the watching.

The sixth week arrives, and Caleb does not travel to the Duke’s mansion in the carriage that waits at his door. He walks. He moves through Linkon City with the unhurried, gliding stride of a man who has never needed to rush because time has always arranged itself to accommodate him. The streets are wet from morning rain, and his boots strike the cobblestones without sound, each step placed with the exactitude of a needle penetrating cloth.

He carries the doll in a case of black lacquered wood, fitted with velvet the colour of dried blood. The case is heavy—not with the doll’s weight, which is negligible, but with the density of intention.

Six weeks. He promised five. He has taken six, and the extra week sits inside him like a swallowed key, turning, unlocking something that has been waiting since the moment she first stepped into his workshop.

Caleb sees the carriages before he sees the mansion. Three of them, lined along the carriage drive with their doors thrown open, their interiors already half-stacked with trunks and hatboxes and the innumerable possessions of a household preparing to return to its ancestral seat. Servants move between the house and the vehicles like ants dismantling a colony, their arms laden with folded linens, with leather-bound books, with the fragile, wrapped shapes of porcelain.

They are leaving. She is leaving. The knowledge enters his consciousness not as surprise but as confirmation of a variable he introduced himself.

He made the doll slowly and perfectly; but he made it late.

A footman approaches, hesitant, recognizing the black coat and the case and the spectacles that catch the light like something that has learned to mimic humanity too perfectly. “Mr. Xia,” the boy stammers. “The Duke is expecting you. This way, sir.”

Caleb inclines his head. “Of course.”

The mansion is vast, all ornate columns and gilded cornices and the aggressive, defensive luxury of provincial nobility trying to convince the city of its permanence in the capital. He moves through it without looking up. He has seen the ceilings before, through other eyes. He knows the pattern of the frescoes in the east wing corridor because the fourteenth doll, the one in blue, has stared at them nightly while she slept. He follows the footman with the docile, attentive posture of a craftsman humbled by aristocratic patronage, and inside the locked cabinet of his mind, he files every face they pass for future reference.

Her father, the Duke meets him in the library;he is thinner than his portraits suggest, his complexion is sallow, and his hand when extended to shake bearing the faint tremor of a constitution that the capital’s air has eroded.

“Mr. Xia,” the Duke says, and his voice carries the strained heartiness of a debtor greeting his creditor. “You’ve brought it? My daughter has spoken of nothing else. Six weeks she has waited, sir. Six weeks.”

“Six weeks,” he repeats, and the word hangs between them, perfectly neutral, perfectly weighted. “The work required it. I hope she finds the delay forgiven by the result.”

“I’m certain she shall.” The Duke releases his hand quickly, as though the temperature of his skin has transmitted something that cannot be named. “She’s in the receiving room. I’ll have you shown up. We depart tomorrow, you understand. The physicians insist. The sea air, the native soil. I’m sure you comprehend the urgency.”

“Entirely,” Caleb says. “Family must be preserved at all costs.”

The Duke smiles, uncertain, and gestures to another footman. Caleb is led up the grand staircase, past the landing where the fourteenth doll sits in its alcove, its painted eyes fixed on the corridor. As he passes, he does not look at it, he does not need to; not when he feels its attention like a thread pulled taut between them, of shared sight that vibrates with his pulse. The footman chatters nervously about the weather, about the journey, about the Duke’s gratitude.

He responds with appropriate sounds that are arranged to resemble conversation without speaking the words. His focus is ahead, behind the door at the corridor’s end, where the air already tastes different to him, where the scent of her has begun to seep through the wood.

The receiving room is blue.

She is there, standing by the window with her back to the door, her posture is straight and perfect. She turns when the footman announces him, and her face—beautiful, always beautiful, the template from which he has learned to sculpt perfection—opens into an expression of such unguarded delight that he feels something in his chest, something that is not a heart, constrict with the satisfaction of a predator scenting its prey.

“Oh,” she breathes. “You came.”

The footman withdraws, and the door closes. Caleb stands alone with her, and the case in his hands seems suddenly animate, hungry, a vessel containing not merely a doll but the six weeks of his delay, the accumulated weight of every night he spent perfecting her newest daughter. He sets the case upon the table by the door, and turns to her with a smile that he has constructed from the memory of human warmth, a curve of the mouth that does not reach the violet of his eyes.

“Did you doubt me, my sweetling?”

“Never.” She moves toward him, and her steps are quick, eager, the gait of someone who has never learned that desire should be concealed. “But I thought—Father said you might not finish in time. That we might have to send for her. I couldn’t bear the thought of her travelling alone.”

“She does not travel alone,” Caleb says. “She travels with me. And now, she travels to you to be with you.”

He reaches to open the case, and the doll lies within, nested in velvet, her eyes staring upward with the patient expression he sculpted for her; the hair is made of corn silk, falling around her porcelain shoulders in waves that seem to move even in stillness; she is dressed in a gown the colour of sea foam.

She gasps. The sound is small, delicate, a breakage of breath that he captures and files. She reaches into the case with both hands, lifting the doll with the reverent, instinctive gentleness of a mother retrieving a newborn, and cradles it against her chest. “She’s perfect,” she whispers. “Oh, she’s more than perfect. She’s waiting. Just as I asked. She’s waiting for the sea.”

“No, my sweet; she waits for you,” he corrects, his voice is lower now, the measured cadence beginning to shed its social rhythm, the pretence slowly falling away. “All my daughters wait for you. But this one,” he pauses, and steps closer; enough that the scent of her becomes dominant, that he can see the individual lashes framing her eyes, the faint, living pulse in the hollow of her throat. “This one is special. This one carries the sea in her bones. I made her for the shore. I made her for your bedchamber in Lemuria. I made her to watch the window with you.”

“Yes.” She looks up at him, the doll still clutched to her chest, her eyes wide and trusting and utterly blind to the shift in the room’s pressure. “I shall place her facing east. So she sees the sunrise over the water. So she waits with me always.”

Caleb’s hand rises. His fingers hover beside her cheek, close enough that the air between them seems to thin, to warm with the friction of proximity.

“You speak of waiting,” he murmurs. “You speak of patience. But I have waited, my dear. I have waited longer than six weeks. I have waited through sixteen dolls. Through sixteen visits.”

She blinks.

The doll’s porcelain head shifts slightly against her shoulder. “I … I don’t understand.”

“No,” he says, and the word is soft, almost tender. “You do not. And that is why you are precious. That is why you are mine.”

His hand moves. Not to her cheek—he resists, with a control that feels like the grinding of gears, the urge to mark her, to bruise her, to leave evidence on her flesh that would prompt questions from physicians and ladies-in-waiting and the Duke himself. Instead, his fingers close around the doll. He plucks it from her embrace with the smooth, unhurried motion of a man removing an obstacle from a path, and he turns to the side table—the one by the chaise, the one with the lamp that casts a circle of amber light onto the carpet—and he lays the doll upon it.

“Caleb?” Her voice has changed; not fear—she does not know fear, not in his presence, not yet—but confusion, a gentle bewilderment, the soft uncertainty of a child whose toy has been taken without explanation. “What are you—”

“Hush, little one.” He turns back to her. He is taller now, or the room has shrunk; he stands before her, and his hands rise to cup her face, his thumbs resting along her jawline, his fingers spreading behind her ears into the warmth of her hair. “You have had your doll. You have had your sixteen daughters. Now you shall have me.”

He kisses her.

Unexpected, overwhelming heat spreads. His lips are warm, almost feverish, a temperature that contradicts the coolness of his hands, his skin, his perpetual chill. He opens her mouth with a pressure that brooks no hesitation, his tongue sliding past her teeth to claim the sweetness within, and she tastes of everything he has imagined through sixteen sets of borrowed eyes: tea and honey and the faint, lingering sugar of the macaroons she favours, and beneath it, the essential, irreplaceable flavour of her life, her blood, her breath.

She makes a sound against his mouth—small, and surprised; but she is not resistant.

Her hands lift, fluttering, uncertain where to settle, and he guides them without breaking the kiss, pressing her palms flat against his chest, over the charcoal waistcoat, over the place where no heartbeat pounds but something else resides, something taut and wound and finally, finally releasing.

She clutches the fabric, and Caleb feasts.

He drinks from her mouth as though she contains the only moisture in a desert, his tongue stroking hers, mapping the interior of her lips, the edge of her teeth, the sensitive hollow beneath her tongue. He angles her head with the exact, jointed pressure of his thumbs, tilting her chin to deepen the access, and when she gasps into him—when her breath becomes his breath—he swallows the sound and demands more.

Six weeks. Sixteen dolls. Years of watching, waiting, collecting her moments through glass eyes, and now she is here, real, warm, yielding, and he is devouring the evidence of her existence one kiss at a time.

When he releases her mouth, they are both breathing differently. Her lips are swollen, glistening, parted around questions she does not know how to ask. His own mouth feels altered, sensitized, alive with the phantom of her taste. He looks down at her, at the beautiful creature who stands before him with her hands still grabbing a fistful of his coat, and he smiles with a warmth that is genuine because it is predatory.

“Sweet,” he says. “So sweet, my pretty girl. I knew you would be. I have imagined this taste through every doll I placed in your chamber. I have wondered if you would be honey or cream or something rarer. You are all three. You are everything.”

“I don’t—” she sways slightly; er eyes are unfocused, the pupils dilated, her. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“You are being loved by me,” Caleb tells her. “You need understand nothing else.”

His hands move from her face. They trace the column of her throat with featherlight touches that leave gooseflesh in their wake, and then they descend to the bodice of her dress. The fabric is fine, silk or something like it, the colour of ivory, and he finds the fastenings to let the buttons give way, and the hooks to loosen. Tender hands peel the dress from her shoulders with a deliberation that feels like unwrapping a gift he has already waited too long to open, and when the fabric pools at her waist, he reveals her breasts.

They are perfect.

Not the perfection of his dolls, which is symmetrical and cold. They are living perfection, soft and smooth and weighted with the gentle gravity of flesh, the nipples are a shade of rose that no pigment has ever accurately captured. He cups them in his hands and feels the warmth of her radiate into his palms like coals placed against ice.

She inhales sharply; her spine arches, pressing her more firmly into his grip, and he accepts the offering with a low sound that is not quite a groan, not quite a purr, but something that belongs to no human throat.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, and the word is reverent and possessive and absolute. “My lovely little girl. Look at you. Look what you’ve hidden beneath all that silk and propriety. Look what belongs to me.”

Caleb lowers his head.

His mouth closes around her left nipple, and the heat of him—impossible, overwhelming, the warmth of a kiln rather than a man—envelops her flesh. He sucks. Hard. The pressure is sudden, intense, drawing the sensitive peak deep into the wet cavern of his mouth, his tongue lashing against it with firm, insistent strokes.

She cries out, a high, broken sound that echoes in the room, her hands flying to his hair, her fingers tangling in the brown strands that never fall out of place. He does not release her. He suckles with the focused intensity of a parched man finding a puddle of water, and his pleasure is evident in the way his eyes half-close, the way his jaw works, the way his free hand rises to knead her other breast, rolling the neglected nipple between his thumb and forefinger until it stiffens to match its twin.

He moves from one breast to the other without pause, marking no territory because he claims all of it, every inch, every curve, every shuddering breath. He bites, gently, testing the resilience of her flesh, and when she moans—when her head falls back and her throat exposes itself to the lamplight—he growls against her skin and sucks harder, drawing the blood to the surface, resisting with a violence that trembles through his frame the urge to bruise, to purple, to leave the unmistakable imprint of his mouth where anyone might see. He pulls back only when both nipples glisten, swollen and darkened, throbbing with the heat of his attention, and even then he does not release her breasts entirely. He holds them, possessively, his thumbs strumming across the wet peaks, his eyes fixed on her face.

“Please,” she whispers. The word is directionless, a plea cast into waters she does not know the depth of. “Please, I-I—Caleb, I f-feel so…”

“I know what you feel, sweetling.” His voice is thick, the measured cadence fractured by something that reeks of hunger. “I know every sensation in your pretty body. I have studied you. I have memorized you. Now I am confirming my research.”

His hands slide from her breasts. They grip her waist, and he lowers himself to his knees before her. He looks up at her through his round spectacles, the violet eyes darkened to something near black, and his hands find the hem of her skirts. He pushes them upward, slowly, revealing layer after layer of petticoats, of stockings, of the delicate, ribboned underthings that separate her from the air. She stands frozen, beautiful and small and trembling, her hands hovering in the air as though she has forgotten their function.

“Mr. Xia,” she breathes, suddenly formal until she is not. “Caleb. What are y-you—you mustn’t…”

“I must,” he says simply. “I have lasted not doing this for years. Spread your legs, my dear. Be good for me.”

She obeys. The movement is hesitant, automatic, the compliance of someone who has never been taught to refuse the things asked of her by men she trusts. He guides her feet apart with gentle pressure, and then he is beneath her skirts, his head disappearing into the shadowed, fabric-draped space between her thighs, and his mouth finds her cunt.

She is pretty there, too.

The thought arrives as a fact, as inevitable as gravity; the skin is smooth and soft as the porcelain he shapes in his kiln, the folds delicate and flushed with arousal, glistening with the evidence of her response to his mouth at her breast. He inhales her scent—sweet, yes, but beneath it the darker, saltier perfume of a woman ready to be taken, the essential musk of her sex that no doll, no matter how perfect, can replicate.

Caleb groans, the sound vibrating against her most sensitive flesh, and then he feasts.

His tongue parts her. It strokes upward from her entrance to the hood of her clitoris with a slow, devastating thoroughness, lapping at her as though she were a delicacy to be savoured rather than consumed in one measly bite. She cries out, her hips bucking, her hands falling to his head, gripping his hair with a desperation that seems to surprise even her. He does not allow her movement. His hands clamp around her thighs, holding her spread and open and vulnerable to his mouth, and he delves deeper, pressing his tongue inside her, tasting the liquid heat of her core, before withdrawing to circle her clit with relentless, flickering pressure.

“Oh,” she gasps. “Oh, please, I can’t—it’s too much, aah! I-It’s—”

“It is exactly enough,” he murmurs against her, the words muffled by her flesh, the vibration of his voice adding another layer to the pressure. “You will take what I give you. You will take it, and you will thank me, and you will give me more.”

He slides one hand upward, beneath the bunched fabric of her skirts, and finds her entrance with his fingers. Two of them, long and cool, are pressing into her tightness with a steady, unyielding pressure. She is wet, so wet, slick and scorching around his digits, and the sensation of her inner walls clutching at him—living, responsive, desperate—draws another groan from his chest. He pumps his fingers in rhythm with his tongue, curling them upward to stroke the spot inside her that makes her knees buckle, that makes her cry out with a sharp, animal sound that has no place in the receiving room of a noble house.

Caleb makes her cum with his mouth.

The orgasm rolls through her like a tide, slow and inexorable, building from the pressure of his tongue and the stroke of his fingers until she is shaking, sobbing, her thighs trembling around his head, her hands pulling his hair with a force that would dislodge a lesser man’s composure. He is no lesser, much less, is he a man. He does not stop. He rides her through it, gentling his tongue but maintaining the suction around her clit, milking her with his fingers, drawing out every spasm, every clutch, every drop of pleasure until she is limp, gasping, her head lolling in every which way from surrender.

But he is not finished.

Before she can recover, before her breathing can steady, he renews his assault. His fingers move faster, deeper, curling against her inner walls, and his mouth descends again to her clit, sucking with renewed, almost punishing intensity.

A wail rips through her, and she tries to close her legs, to escape the deluge, but his grip is iron, his will absolute. “No,” he commands against her, the word a hot breath against her oversensitive flesh. “You do not retreat from me. You do not deny me. Give me another, little one. Give me what I am owed.”

She cums again, but this time, much harder. The second orgasm crashes into the first without boundary, a continuous wave of pleasure that seems to break something loose in her, some final tether to propriety or consciousness. She sobs his name, “Caleb,” and her body convulses around his fingers, her juices flooding his hand, his chin, the fabric of her ruined underthings.

When he withdraws, she is barely standing.

He emerges from beneath her skirts with his chin wet, his spectacles slightly askew and splattered with slick, his eyes are completely black and blazing with a violet light that seems to generate its own heat.

Caleb rises to his feet, his movements fluid and jointed, and he catches her as she sways, lifting her into his arms with an ease that belies the density of his own frame. “Good girl,” he whispers against her temple. He carries her—not to the chaise—but to the carpet in the centre of the room. The rug is thick and designed with an intricate pattern of blues and golds that will cushion her and hide what spills. He lays her upon it with a gentleness that contradicts the violence of his intention, arranging her limbs with the same care he applies to his dolls, spreading her legs, lifting her hips, positioning her so the lamplight falls across her flushed, naked skin in the exact manner he requires.

And then he turns to the side table.

The doll lies there still, eyes open, her soft hair arranged across the surface. Caleb reaches for her. He lifts her with one hand, the other already working at the fastenings of his trousers, and he places the doll on the carpet before them, sitting in a way that faces them, her painted gaze fixed upon the scene with the unblinking, eternal patience of an audience.

He positions her carefully, ensures her eyes align with the joining of their bodies.

“There,” he says, and his voice is thick, distorted, the voice of something that has worn human speech for too long and is beginning to let the seams show. “Our newest daughter must watch. She must see how Papa loves her Mama. She must learn what wanting truly means.”

Caleb frees himself. His cock is heavy, flushed dark with blood, the skin stretched tight and glistening at the tip with the evidence of his own arousal. He is large—he knows this, has always known it—and he grips himself at the base, guiding himself to her entrance, pressing the broad, weeping head against her slick, fluttering folds.

She looks up at him from the carpet, her eyes glazed, her hair dishevelled, her dress bunched around her waist like shed skin. She is small beneath him, fragile, a living doll arranged for his pleasure, and the sight of her—open, waiting, his—drives a shudder through his spine that he does not suppress.

“Look at me,” he commands. “Not the doll. Not the room. Me. Know who takes you.”

“Caleb,” she breathes. “I-I’ve never—no one has e-ever—”

“I know.” The words are a purr. “And no one ever will. You are mine, my sweetling. I will be your first and your only one forever.”

He pushes inside her.

The tightness is exquisite. It is purity, it is possession, it is the absolute, irrefutable claim of a man who has waited beyond the patience of mortals and now takes what time has owed him. She is wet, prepared by his mouth and his fingers, but she is small, and he is thick, and the stretch of her virgin flesh around his intrusion draws a cry from her throat that is part pain, part wonder, part something deeper that neither of them has language for. He sinks in slowly, inch by inch, his jaw locked, his eyes fixed on her face, watching every flicker of sensation cross her features, cataloguing her responses with the obsessive attention he brings to his glazing.

Caleb bottoms out. The head of his cock presses against her cervix, nudging the gate of her womb with a steady, battering pressure that makes her gasp, her hands flying to his shoulders, her nails digging into the wool of his coat.

He is seated to the root inside her, surrounded by her heat, her tightness, the rhythmic, involuntary flutter of her muscles trying to accommodate his girth, and he holds there, letting her feel the full extent of his possession, letting her understand the depth of her impalement. “Feel me,” he murmurs, and his hips begin to move slowly. Each withdrawal is a torture of friction, and each thrust is a deliberate, grinding return that drives him against her cervix with unrelenting force. “Feel where I am. This is where I belong, my dear; buried inside your pretty cunt, so deep that you cannot tell where you end and I begin.”

“Please,” she sobs, her legs wrapping around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back. “Please, Caleb, I—it’s too much, y-you’re so—”

“I am exactly enough,” he growls, and his pace intensifies—not faster, but harder, each thrust landing with a heavy, wet slap of flesh against flesh, the sound obscene and perfect in the quiet room. “And you will take all of me. You will open for me. You will mold yourself around my shape until you cannot breathe without me.”

He fucks her with the intensity of a man performing a sacred rite, his hips rolling and snapping with a precision that seems to target the exact depth, the exact angle, the exact pressure required to shatter her. He watches her, the thin rim of violet in his gaze boring into her face as his cock batters her cervix, as her breasts bounce with the force of his thrusts, as her mouth falls open around sounds that are no longer words but pure, unfiltered expressions of being taken.

“You are going to Lemuria,” he gasps, and the words are punctuated by the heavy, rhythmic impact of his body into hers. “You are going to the sea. To the sun. To your father’s estate. But I will be with you. Do you understand? I will be so deep inside you that it is like I am with you always. Every step you take on that shore, you will feel me. Every wave that breaks, you will remember this. You will carry me in your womb, my seed, my weight, my presence. You will never be free of me, my lovely girl. You will never want to be.”

“Yes,” she cries, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, her face flushed and desperate and beautiful. “Yes, please, I want—I want you with me, I want—”

“You have me.” He leans down, his weight pressing her into the carpet, his mouth capturing hers in a kiss. “All of me. Now give me your pleasure again. Give it to me while I take you. Give it to me because I demand it.”

She cums around his cock.

The orgasm is different from the ones he gave her with his mouth—deeper, more violent, a convulsion of her inner walls that grips him like a fist, milking him, demanding his own release. She screams into his mouth, or perhaps he swallows the sound; her body arches off the carpet, her spine bowing, her nails scoring his shoulders through the fabric of his coat. The sensation of her climaxing on him, the rhythmic, desperate clenching of her virgin cunt around his invading flesh, tears a groan from his chest that seems to originate from somewhere beneath his ribs, somewhere that has never before been permitted to make noise.

But he does not stop.

Caleb breaks the kiss and stares down at her, his spectacles are askew, and his eyes are burning with a black-violet light. “Again,” he commands. “One more. The last one, sweetling. Promise me; promise me you will give me one more, and I will fill you. I will mark you from the inside where no one can see, where only you will know, where you will carry my claim across the sea and through every day of your life.”

“I promise,” she sobs, delirious, overwhelmed, her body still twitching from the aftershocks. “I promise, I promise, please—”

“Together,” he murmurs, and the word is binding like a vow. “Promise, sweetling. Promise. Together now. Good girl.”

He increases his pace. The rhythm that was slow and intense becomes something else—faster, harder, a pounding, battering assault that shakes her body against the carpet, that drives the breath from her lungs, that makes her breasts bounce and her thighs tremble and her head fall back in absolute, surrendered abandon.

“Caleb,” she screams. “Caleb, I can’t, I’m going to—I’m—”

“Now,” he snarls. “With me. Give it to me now.”

She shatters.

The final orgasm crashes through her with the force of a wave breaking against stone, a continuous, rolling convulsion that seems to originate from her core and radiate outward until every limb, every muscle, every nerve is singing with the violence of her release. And as she cums— as her cunt grips him like it can't bear to let go—he finally allows himself to follow.

He buries himself to the hilt inside her, pressing so hard against her cervix that she can feel the pulse of his release like a heartbeat in her deepest place, and he spills into her with a heat that seems to scald, a volume that seems impossible, flooding her womb, her channel, marking her with the irrevocable evidence of his possession. He groans, a sound like stone grinding against stone, like the kiln’s deepest fire finding voice, and he pumps into her with short, jerking thrusts, ensuring every drop is deposited, ensuring nothing is wasted, ensuring she will leave this room carrying him inside her in a way that no sea, no distance, no time can dissolve.

They collapse together, and he does not withdraw; he stays inside her, softening but still present, still claiming, and he gathers her against his chest with hands that tremble only slightly. She is limp, gasping, her face pressed against his collar, her tears wetting his cravat.

The doll watches from the carpet, patient and eternal.

Just like himself.

“Good girl,” Caleb whispers into her hair, his voice returned to its low, melodic register, though it is thickened, satiated, almost sleepy in its satisfaction. “My perfect, sweet girl. You did so well for me. You took everything. You gave everything.”

“Caleb,” she mumbles, half-conscious, her body still twitching with aftershocks around his spent length. “I feel you. I can still feel you. It’s like—it’s like you’re still—”

“I am,” he says. “I will be. Even in Lemuria. Even when you stand on the shore and watch the tide. You will feel me inside you, warm and heavy and real. You will touch yourself in the dark and find me there. You will never be alone, my dear. You have never been alone. I have been inside you since the first doll.”

He adjusts her in his arms, withdrawing finally with a wet, obscene sound that makes her whimper at the loss, and he arranges her dress with gentleness, covering her breasts, smoothing her skirts, restoring the fiction of her propriety even as his seed slides down her skin, even as the mark of him pulses in her bruised, swollen core. He lifts the doll from the carpet—his hands are steady now, perfectly steady—and he places it into her limp, unresisting arms. “Hold her,” he instructs. “Take her to Lemuria; let her watch the window, let her wait with you. And when you look at her, when you see her eyes in the dark, remember that she sees you too, that I see you too.”

She clutches the doll. Her fingers are weak, trembling, but they close around the porcelain body with such tenderness that it makes him smile. “I will,” she whispers. “I promise.”

Caleb stands. He adjusts his clothing—trousers fastened, coat smoothed, spectacles straightened, cravat adjusted to hide the absence of any heartbeat in his throat. He looks down at her, at the beautiful creature lying spent and claimed on the Duke’s carpet, cradling his doll, leaking his seed, marked by him in ways invisible and indelible.

“Tomorrow,” he says. “Your father departs tomorrow. I will not see you again before you go. But I am with you. I am always with you.”

He steps into the hallway, closes the door with a click that seals the afternoon into memory, and descends the grand staircase with the posture of an artisan who has merely delivered a commission and received the payment in full.

Dearest Readers,

It is with a trembling hand and a fluttering heart that your humble observer dips her quill into the inkwell this morning, for the sheets that have arrived upon my desk contain intelligence so staggering, so deliciously unprecedented, that one scarcely knows whether to clutch one’s pearls or order a fresh gown for the inevitable celebrations.

Gather round, for the fog of rumour has at last parted.

The Duke of Lemuria—yes, that Duke, the very same whose holdings kiss the salt and spray of the shores, whose treasury is said to be buoyed by tides of pearl and amber—has issued a formal announcement that has set every drawing room, every guildhall, every cloistered corridor of the Citadel, and every shadowed nook of Skyhaven ablaze with whispered conjecture. His Grace declares, in language so carefully wrought it might have been carved from ivory itself, that his only daughter, that radiant creature whom society has long delighted to call the Darling of the Sun and the Sea, is to be united in matrimony to none other than Mister Caleb Xia of Linkon City.

Allow that name to settle upon your palate, dear reader.

Mister Caleb Xia.

The Dollmaker of Skyhaven.

To the uninitiated, one might assume this to be some quaint romantic fancy—a noble daughter smitten with a handsome craftsman, a minor scandal of the heart to be hushed with a modest settlement and a swift removal to the country. But we, who have watched the currents of power eddy and swirl through the capital these many years, know that nothing concerning Mister Xia is ever merely quaint.

Nothing concerning Mister Xia is ever merely anything.

He has never, in all his years of public prominence, demonstrated the slightest interest in the marriage mart. No seasonal balls have found him in attendance. No matchmaking mama has succeeded in cornering him beside the punch bowl. He has moved through our society like a figure in a dream, present and yet untouchable, visible and yet unmistakeably distant. And now, suddenly, shockingly, he is to be a husband. Not merely a husband at that, but a duke.

For here is the particular inclusion of this announcement that has set the Empire trembling upon its axis: upon the solemnization of this union, Mister Caleb Xia shall cease to be Mister Xia in any meaningful social sense. He shall be addressed, henceforth and in perpetuity, as the Duke of Lemuria. He shall assume the full mantle of ducal authority, the administrative sovereignty over those sun-drenched coastal estates, the parliamentary voice in the Imperial Diet, the hereditary privileges and crushing responsibilities that have, for centuries, descended through the bloodline of his bride’s noble house. The Duke of Lemuria—her father, the present incumbent—has effectively declared that his title, his legacy, and his territories are to be entrusted to a man whose primary credential is an unparalleled ability to sculpt a human face from fired clay.

One can almost hear the collective gasp of the aristocracy echoing across the cobblestones.

But wait, dear reader, for the plot thickens into a consistency one might almost spread upon toast. His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor himself—he who sits upon the Obsidian Throne and commands armies that make the earth tremble—has granted his personal approval to the match. This is no mere formality. The Emperor’s endorsement transforms what might otherwise be dismissed as a provincial peculiarity into an affair of state. He is to be family. Imperial family, by extension. The Emperor has, in effect, placed his own shadow between the Dollmaker and those who would seek to question him.

But what of the bride, you ask? What of the creature who has, by this announcement, become the most envied and, one suspects, the most scrutinized young woman in the Empire?

We have long known her as the Darling of the Sun and the Sea, the only daughter of the Duke, a vision of beauty have launched a thousand sonnets and twice as many sighs from the lips of disappointed suitors.

She has resided these past seasons in her father’s capital mansion, a soft presence in a hard city that one might mistake her for a living doll herself—though, of course, no doll, however masterfully wrought, could replicate the particular luminosity of a soul that has never learned to suspect its own reflection.

It is said—whispered, rather, by those who have attended her intimate receptions—that she possesses a collection of dolls so extensive it requires its own chamber in the Lemurian mansion. One wonders, with a delicious shiver of speculation, whether this matrimony represents the culmination of a courtship conducted entirely through the medium of bisque and velvet, a romance whispered across sixteen painted faces, a seduction enacted in the language of craftsmanship.

What other suitor could possibly compete with a man who has, quite literally, populated her private world with his creations?

The matchmaking mamas of Philos are, by report, in various states of collapse. Those who had earmarked the Duke’s daughter for their own sons must now recalibrate their dynastic ambitions. Those who had harboured private hopes of attracting the Dollmaker’s eye—yes, there were such women, bold creatures who fancied themselves capable of thawing that legendary chill—have retreated to their boudoirs to shred handkerchiefs and curse the fates. The Artisans’ Guild of Skyhaven, meanwhile, has entered a state of collective apoplexy, torn between pride at their member’s elevation and terror at the vacuum his exclusivity shall leave in their ranks.

Who shall now serve as the Empire’s premier dollmaker? Who shall fill the atelier that once accepted the most discerning commissions? The answer, one suspects, is no one. The art shall become, under his continued but distant patronage, a relic of the old order.

But let us not, in our fascination with politics and power, neglect the human heart—if indeed human hearts are what beat in the breasts of these two curious figures. For beneath the scaffolding of titles and approvals and strategic calculations, there lies the simple, scandalous, utterly captivating fact of a marriage. A man and a woman. A bedchamber. A life to be shared across the miles that separate Linkon City from the Lemurian shore. She who is soft, and small, and beautiful beyond the capacity of his pigments to capture. He who is cool, and precise, and possessed of a gaze that suggests he has already mapped every day of their future together.

Will he adore her?

The announcement promises he shall. It speaks of a beautiful wife to be adored, of a duchy to be managed with the same devotion he brings to his craft. And one believes it—strange as it may seem, this one believes it absolutely. Not because the language is convincing, but because it is unnecessary. Any man who has spent years fashioning sixteen perfect masterpieces for a woman’s private chamber has already demonstrated an adoration that transcends the conventional vocabulary of courtship.

He has adored her in porcelain. He has adored her in glass. He has adored her through eyes that do not close, through limbs that do not tire, through a vigilance that has never slept. Now he shall adore her in flesh, in title, in the full, unshielded light of ducal privilege.

One can only wonder what children might issue from such a union. But that, I suspect, is intelligence for another season, another sheet, another whispered dispatch from your devoted observer.

Until then, raise your glasses to the happy couple. The tide, it seems, has turned in their favor. And the tide, as every citizen knows, does not turn back.

SAINT'S NOTES ! posting from my back-up because the reach in my main has been so fucked because of that evil fucking tag; nonetheless, have fun with the dollmaker, because i'm back to be evil and start mass-posting again after disappearing for a while. this blog is only a back-up, all interactions and masterlists can be found in here.

You were shameless in your desire for him by yourself. Every night, your pillow held his name and you could only cum thinking about him. You didn’t exactly feel guilty, figuring it’s only natural in response to a 6’1 hunk of a man who respects you before anything and is incredibly intelligent. He’s sexy, basically, but you didn’t want to make any moves for fear of scaring him off. You know zayne well, and you know that he tends to get avoidant when he runs into something he can’t handle, so for now you’ll accept the fluffy dates and cry his name into your pillow later.

Zayne, however, felt differently about that subject. Now, it wasn’t that he didn’t find you attractive, not in the slightest, but the guilt he feels…it’s overwhelming. He’s touched himself to you before, and it made him feel so incredibly ashamed of himself. The fact that it was photos off your instagram that had got him going as well, he felt like a monster. You were just innocently going on sweet dates with him, wanting to be closer with him, and spend time with him while he couldn’t help acting like a pervert. Despite the guilt, he could never stop. It was a cycle. He wanted to make sure you felt loved and respected before anything, so he only acted on his desires in private, dealt with the guilt, and waited for you to make any kind of move.

Now, you both sit on his couch watching some silly movie. He had an arm wrapped around you, far more used to physical affection now. Your fingers were laced together and he couldn’t help the warm, fuzziness in his chest. You were just so good, the best thing to ever happen to him. You idly chatted about the movie until you were just staring at each other for a moment. You laughed lightly, which made him nudge you a little.

“Just what’s so funny, miss?”

You looked back at him with a grin that was just too hard to hide.

“You are…very handsome. I’m getting flustered looking at you.”

He felt his own cheeks warm at that, but laughed it off, trying to remain smooth.

“That’s quite a compliment, coming from someone as gorgeous as you…”

He said it so softly, so sweetly…you couldn’t help but melt when looking at him. You lightly bit your lip before leaning forwards to peck him on the lips. This time, you barely pulled away before deciding to go back in for another. Then another, and then another, each getting a bit more drawn out and sensual until you were kissing him deep for the first time.

Zayne had responded well to this, enthusiastically actually. He didn’t realize that his lips were moving on their own and just trying to get more of this incredible, fireworks sensation. Slowly, the kiss deepened. He felt your tongue politely lick the seam of his lips, almost asking permission.

How could he say no?

In this mess of tongues and saliva, you had started climbing your way into his lap. He was perfectly willing, at least, he was until….

Ah!

Your soft gasp pulled him out of his haze to suddenly realize, you just sat directly on his erection. His incredibly obvious erection. His erection that had given him a nice, big, wet patch right on the front of his grey slacks. The way white noise crowded his ears was something he hadn’t really experienced before.

Pure, unadulterated shame and embarrassment.

He immediately lifted you off his lap with his hands under your arms, like you were some sort of doll, and set you on the other side of the couch. He, on the other hand, stayed as far away from you on the other side as humanly possible. His posture stayed rigid as he clasped his hands over his lap and stared at the ground. You had never seen him get so red. By now you were still kind of confused, at least until he spoke.

“I apologize, that was incredibly inappropriate of me and I should have better control over my body. You didn’t ask for that.”

The poor man’s ears were on fire as he delivered this…apology with such straight edge professionalism. But his eyes fluttered, the quick blinks betraying his nervousness. As hard as you tried not to, you started to laugh.

Zayne took this the wrong way, hanging his head lower and letting out a shuddering breath.

“I’m aware I’ve made a fool of myself and I understand if you’re having any second thoughts.”

Your laughter slowed when you realized that this was real to him. He was embarrassed, like actually embarrassed. So much so, he thought you might…stop seeing him?? This ridiculous man. You sighed softly and scooted closer to him on the couch.

“Zaynie, are you serious? Do you really think I’d have second thoughts over this?”

He seemed to desperately want to run away from you as you got closer, but he managed to stay put.

“I would not blame you, you did not consent to that. Please, if you are too uncomfortable with this situation, I will take you home now. Or I can call an Uber for you, I’d pay of course…”

You sighed and tilted your head at him.

“Zayne, do you want to know something?”

He didn’t respond but you kept going anyways.

“I touch myself thinking of you all the time.”

Zayne froze, eyes fixed on the floor as he processed that information. Then, as is a habit of his, his eyes fluttered with rapid blinks as he looked up at you.

“…you do?”

You smiled fondly at him.

“Yes, most nights. Does that bother you?”

Zayne blinked some more, then looked down at the floor again.

“No.”

You let out a quiet huff and reached out to grab his hand from where it was rigidly hiding his shame.

“Great, then we’re both desperate perverts, yeah?”

It was like that clicked something in zaynes mind. He spoke slowly.

“So…you want me…intimately?”

“Of course…”

“And…you’re alright with me wanting you…intimately?”

“Zayne I fuck my hand almost every night just wishing it was yours.”

“…”

Zayne let out a shaky sigh, seemingly having trouble holding himself together. Then, he turned to make proper eye contact with you and hold your hands.

“I would like to make love to you…”

You couldn’t help but grin at that. Blunt, as always.

“It’s about time.”

This really sets the scene for how upset he was at you. Just plain unhappy, how could you be so stupid? Going out without explicit say so from him, god you’re so ungrateful.

He walked down the halls with a mission, the same air of authority he always had. Maybe the uniform made him seem like you just had to listen to him- Obey. His subordinates, at least the ones you’d seen that day, seemed too rigid- too fearful, to be anything but practiced..-Learned obedience. Obedience bred by fear was something he swore by when it came to his work. Maybe it was time to apply it to you too.

His footfalls were heavy, hard to miss, impossible to ignore. Maybe that’s what the sense of foreboding was in your dreams, it’s too foggy to tell.

Caleb turned the knob and opened it to a crack. No sounds, lights off. Ah, so you’re still sleeping. Poor you, so sleepy, so tired after a day of disobeying any rule he set.

But, it’s not like he could be entirely too mad that you took the bait. Yea, sure— he set you up. He just wanted to see if you’d be desperate enough to think he’d be so stupid as to lighten up his security measures. The cameras that were way too obvious being turned off, yet the ones that weren't the camera staged as a doorknob, the one pretending to be a flower bud, even the one posing as a damn charging port? They were very much still on.

But everything else seemed to just be gone! Lucky you..! Except the bolted shut windows, the bullet proof military grade windows you couldn’t dream of shattering, the metal kitchen door to keep you away from the knives and glass, the lack of sharp edges never made a reappearance in the house either. The damn thing was basically baby proofed to hell and back. All with the goal of keeping you here. Keeping you safe. And you found a way out through pure dumb luck. Planned dumb luck. The one day he decided to test you by very simply leaving the door unlocked. (ignoring the 12 security systems and pass codes set in place when you come within 2 feet of it and even attempt to open it.)

And you took the bait. And you had the audacity to sleep after it all. Oh, he was going to fucking ruin you for this.

Each step closer toward your bed echoed from the heavy boots he wore. Boots he trudged through blood in. He bent down, crouched at your side and ran his fingers lightly above your neck. He ‘ought to leash you, really. You’d gone out. Sure, the moment you left you were never actually gone. All under his surveillance and tracking. He saw everything— but.. what if you’d gotten hurt, hm? What would poor Gege do? Extensive measures might have to be taken, then. Like the vulnerable kitten who just kept trying to escape when you were both young.

The truth is, you weren't sleeping. And you sure as hell weren’t unaware, he made sure of that. He wanted you to know what was going to happen to you, and know you deserved it. The type of man he is wasn't an ethical one. He wasn’t above anything, and that meant being a good Gege and giving his sweet girl some water when she returns home from her little escapade.

He drugged your water. Clearly. Just enough to knock you out for the day, light shit. He could have very well gotten you light headed, babbling and mushy brained- but where’s the fun in that?

“Gege’s home.. T’awww, my sleepy girl, yeah? Long day..?”

You woke up from your bout of drug induced unconsciousness, already fed up with him. You should have known it was too good to be true. A door unlocked? In this house? Really..? Fuck, you walked right into it with the lone glass of water you knew damn well wasn’t there when you left. But you were so thirsty and everything was suspiciously out of all their stock all of a sudden after just a couple customers or closed. Like.. everything. There would be customers buying things leisurely, yet the moment you strolled up to get something, they were out.

Yes, he did pay off (read; threaten) every shop runner to close down for the day, either that or refuse you service the moment they recognized you.

You didn’t respond to him taunting you, it seemed like every word you spoke up until now only fueled him and his fucked up head.

“Mute now, hm? I didn't drug you up that much.. I don’t think so, at least.” He trailed his hands down your back, rubbing up and down as if he were soothing you, but it only felt like a threat. Each stroke of his hand across your body had a purpose you couldn’t quite make out yet. A reminder of sorts.

“Been thinkin’ Pip. Real hard, so try and understand. If I were… to.. say- impair you, that would make you easier to manage, yeah?” That got a reaction out of you.

“Caleb, stop talking like that— isn’t this whole sick thing just to keep me ‘unharmed’” you rushed it out as if any second later would have gotten you killed. Maybe it would have. It was like a hostage situation and you had to talk him down before he got any funny ideas. “Well, calm down, I didn’t say I was going to. N’ I said I was thinking. Am I not allowed to think?”

Unfortunately for you, his ideas were about to get hilarious.

Saying no would imply you’re setting a boundary and he would get mad. Saying yes would imply he could think up whatever sick shit he wanted and you’d be on board and he would get trigger happy. You lost either way, so you said nothing.

–Which implied that you 100 percent wanted what he hadn’t even said out loud yet. Caleb logic.

He flipped a switch in a second and suddenly your chest is on the mattress and he has your wrists in a one handed grip. Combined with his weight pressing down onto you made it impossible to even imagine escaping.

He pressed even more weight on your body, leaving down until his chest met your back, his head coming to the side of your face, making sure you heard him loud and clear.

“That means i’ve gotta’ breed you ‘till you take. Then you can never leave. I'm gonna keep you here, and so will your body.”

As he says this his hands snake around and under your body, laying his forearm under your hips and pulling them up with him, giving him access to your shorts. His chest being to your back made the sense of foreboding that much more potent, you couldn’t read his face because you simply couldn’t see it.

His fingers unbutton your pants and slide them down “Gonna let me do this? ‘Gonna let Gege make you his? He’s doing this for you. For your own good..”

“Is gege scaring you? Hm?”

If you say no, he’s only going to up the ante. If you say yes, it’s going to go to his head and he’s gonna get trigger happy. So you just moan as he grinds into your panties.

That moan must mean this excites you. And it does. Not that you’d ever admit that to this sick fuck. But if you’re enjoying it to an extent— what does that make you? C’mon, he’s hot, you’ve known him 99% of your life, and you’ve had the hots for him since you were 16, it was just a crush back then. Just a crush.

For him it was so much more. It was an obsession in a ‘family’ shaped bottle, sure, he wanted to be a kind figure in your life– but he also wanted to be the only figure in your life. He didn’t want to be family, or friends, he wanted to be yours and that wasn't possible as long as he was who he was. At least without all the faux kind smiles and calm demeanor. He was always like this. The incident just gave him the perfect excuse to unleash it.

Each roll of his hips into yours just pushed you into arousal further and further, sue you- you liked it, big whoop.

Each time he touched you, it was like wrestling with Satan the way you tried to deny how much you wanted him- it’s just the way he goes about it that unsettled you. But you didn’t even know the half of it. You moaned when his fingers began to circle your clit, rubbing feather light like it was barely there only to press down, making your hips draw back into his.

The sounds of his huffs against your ear only heightened your pleasure, God- he sounded so fucking good, panting like a damn dog every time he laid a hand on you, hips rolling wildly. The texture of his clothed bulge against your bare pussy was a contrast as delicious as any.

He starts to suck on and kiss your neck, licking with no direction, just pure instinct. The need for him to leave some kind of mark on your was unbearable for him- he couldn't ignore an opportunity to boost his ego. “Fuck, pip- so sweet for me, so fuckin’ sweet..”

The filth and praise he whispered in your ear as his fingers swirled slowly was intoxicating. He was so fucking intoxicating.

“Gonna go faster, baby, faster. Gonna make you cum.” and he did. He went so much faster. His fingers jerked back and forth under you as his panting increased. You writhed as you sank your face further into the bed, only getting so far before he gripped your jaw and forced your head to the side. “Don't hide, you don’t hide from it. From me.” The squelching and obscene noises he was ripping from your soaked cunt was something you never thought possible, his fingers gliding along your wetness making sounds that filled up the room.

“That’s it baby, louder. Louder.” he goaded. Egging you to get louder and louder until even the cameras in the garage could pick it up. All so he could watch it back later.

The pressure building up inside of you was hard to ignore, and he knew it. Fingers going impossible faster as your pussy drooled onto the sheets under you, staining them for the near future. Knowing the sick fuck- he’d probably fold ‘em up and put it in a display case.

His panting turned into moans as he felt you dripping all over his fingers, they merged into incredulous laughs. “Shit, baby- gonna fuckin’ cum, hm? I know…” Your whines got higher and higher until the pressure snapped like a rope holding a truck. Liquid squirting out of your cunt like a waterfall, pooling in his hands and onto the sheets.

Caleb groaned as your juices warmed his hands, fingers rubbing into your slit lazily just to hear the sounds your pussy would make. She always made such delicious sounds.

The gloves of his uniform now covered in your slick and cum, he leans back to teeth them off. His chest no longer on your back as he sat up on his knees, yet his hips never left yours. “M’not done yet, Pip. not yet..”

Gloves tossed to the side, he shoves his coat aside to get to his heavy belt buckle. The tingle and clink of every movement just made you clench around nothing. Through the loop, and pull. ‘Clank!’ The belt fell. ‘Ziiiip.’ His fly was undone.

And suddenly his bare cock was resting on your back. Fuck– no matter how many times you saw it, it never got less daunting just how big it was. He gripped his cock by the tip, thumb pressing up against the head as he dragged it down your ass and to your waiting cunt. The way he rubbed it up and down, and up.. And down- Fuck.

He moaned and lolled his head to the side, as if getting every angle to his dick dipping between your folds just barely only to pull back, the strings of your last orgasm connecting you each time you pulled away. Caleb's hands came to grips your ass, spreading it to make way for his cock. Kneading and squeezing wherever he wanted. He gripped lower to your thighs, spreading them to see your pussy throbbing with need. You arched into his touch, desperate for anything.

He suddenly ceased all movement, his hands leaving you as he dragged you by the legs to the edge of the bed. “Shh, to the side– there you go, look to the side.”

It was you. In the mirror you’d forgotten was there, a tall wide mirror on the side of the bed. The scene it replicated was like drugs to Caleb. Fuck that deer in headlights look you had, the way his cock prodded against your cunt, the strings of cum dripping to the floor, the arch– all of it tightened his balls and now he was sure. He was going to breed you silly.

He pulls himself away from you, slowly getting to his knees, level with your slick pussy. He breathes in a huff of it, groaning when he releases the air. “Fuck.. best fuckin’ thing in the world, my sweet girl.”

Shoving is face into your pussy he licks a long line up it, tasting every inch of it. Caleb felt his cock twitch with each lick of your sweet pussy, already addicted to every little clench against his lips. He sucks your folds into his mouth, letting go with a sloppy pop before diving right back in, nodding his head up and down wildly into your cunt.

The way he looked in the mirror was too much, yet you couldn't look away. He looked so good on his knees feasting on you, lost in how you tasted. Your back arched even further into his face, pushing your hips back as he groaned behind you.

“All ‘f it baby, yeaaah.. All in my mouth..” he just kept talking into your pussy, mumbling sweet words into it like you weren't losing your mind as he latched onto you as if he were trying to suck something out of you.

And he was, he wanted it so badly. He wanted- needed– something to come out, more, more, more. Your juices dripped down his chin, down to his neck and into the collar of his uniform, it was so messy you had to turn away from the mirror to save face.

Everything was so mushed together in your head that you couldn't focus on anything but the slurps and sucks of his mouth as he licked and licked and licked. He finally leans back for a deep breath, giving you a moment of reprieve. But only for a second to palm his cock slowly, just staring at your pussy as it dripped and drooled. Lips wet and shiny as he heaved, the uniform rubbing against his heated skin with each stroke of his dick. Only four slow strokes before he simply dove back in, lips attaching to your clit, thumb pushing into your hole. He tightened his hand around his cock with a moan as you pushed your face into the bed. You fisted the sheets, your leg lifting as he shook his head back and forth, the obscene sounds filling the room. Your eyes almost rolled into the back of your head each time his thumb sped up to match the rhythm of his tongue.

The tension inside you was coiling and curling with the heat in your belly, winding tighter and tighter with each suck of your lips. The sounds of his hand going faster and faster up and down his cock as he ate you out was hypnotizing. You don't even recall when he stopped, edging himself just before he came, focusing completely on your pussy.

Both his hands came to your ass, gripping enough to leave bruises as he opened his mouth wide and fucking sucked. Your voice wavered and shook with each moan, your thighs trembling. You pulled your hips away from his mouth trying to get some reprieve, but he only slid his hands to your thighs, pulling you even harder into his face, sucking deeper, shaking his head, his arms snaking around your thighs, locking you to his face.

You looked into the mirror and had to look away immediately after. The sight of his face pulled flush against your ass, head moving wildly, body tensed with pleasure. The coil pulled tighter the moment his tongue began to thrust in and out of you. It snapped the moment he moaned directly into your ruined cunt, your cum flooding his mouth as he drank it down like it was the first sight of water he’s seen in weeks.

He unlocked you from his face and held your lower thigh as he licked up everything lazily, jaw moving smoothly between your thighs, the sigh of it in the mirror was fucking beautiful.

He finally pulls away slowly, a thick string of saliva stretching as he backs away and breathes in deeply, catching his breath. Caleb slowly stood, stroking himself slowly as he laid a hand on your back. “Remember why were here, pip. Fuck, you’re so pretty. Gonna breed you, baby..”

His slow praise was all that clouded your mind as he lined himself up with your wrecked cunt and pushed in, inch by inch as he stretched you, filling you up as you clenched. “So fuckin’ tight, my tight girl..” he moaned as he lifted his knee onto the bed, looking into the mirror on the side watching your scrunched face, bitten lips and arched back. Caleb leaned forward, pushing himself inside you deeper. He buried his cock into you to the base, his balls snugly against your cunt. Not even giving you a second to breathe, he immediately began to slam his dick into and out, thrusting roughly into you.

He reaches his hand to your hair and grips, pulling your hair, forcing you up to your hands. “Thought..-fuck..! Thought i forgot all about today, hm?” He laughs between moans as he tightens his grip on you. “I’ll never for-hah..forget. As long as I have the footage.. Of this.”

Of course someone like Caleb had cameras, even in the bedrooms. You expected nothing less. “Say yer’ fuckin’ sorry, pip. Fuck.. Say it.” You can only whine in response as he fucks you, hips thrusting so roughly your whole body shakes.

“Say it- fuckin’ say it. I’ll fucking show everyone how much- hah.. Shit- how much ‘a slut you are.” Of course he wouldn't actually show anybody what was his. As much as he loved the idea of showing his subordinates exactly what they could never have– you were for his eye only, especially when he’s got you like this. Then, you started clenching like a whore when he threatened to show everyone.

He leaned forward to taunt filth into your ear, calling you all sorts of names for sarong to clench after that, what a slut, right? His pounding became more and more relentless, messy, and deep. The way you reached back and gripped onto his starched and pristine ironed uniform, pulling him closer.. It drove him crazy– you drove him crazy. All the more reason to never let you leave.

He sucked marks and bruises into your neck, kissing your cheek before turning your face to his, shoving his mouth onto yours. He moaned into your mouth as you whined into his.

He broke away from you and spaced his knees further and forced you into a mean arch. “Almost done, baby- almost..” he breathed into your neck. He gave a slight pause before he was pounding into your slick cunt over and over again, his hands digging into the soft of your hips, never daring to let go. Caleb's noises overpowered yours, so vocal and unabashed in how good you made him feel, so good he couldn’t seem to shut up.

He felt his balls begging to be emptied, begging to fill you up– he was insatiable. And so were you. You kept fucking your hips back into his, never letting his leave yours for too long. Due to him having never taken his uniform off, Tech and all– Suddenly his radio roared to life in his ear. Ah, now he remembers, he came here on break, he’s still on the clock. Despite this his thrusting never stopped, only slowing to just slick sounds instead of the pounding that took over the room. He tapped his ear to pick up. “State your business.”

You’d never be able to tell he’s fucking the life out of someone with how steady his voice was. The slow place he was going did nothing to lessen the heat in your belly, only churning it more. Your low whines made it to Caleb’s ears only a second before he lifted your head and shoved his hand against your mouth, giving you a particularly hard thrust that made you come undone unexpectedly. He knew, but he paid it no mind, keeping his slow pace all while the Fleet personnel droned on in his ear piece. “I see, and you’ve done as i told you? Every single file?”

The overstimulation was slowly creeping up on you, eye getting glossy, drooling into his hand as it gripped your face. All your senses are full of him.

In the haze of your mind you couldn't really hear anything, just the slick sounds of how he lazily dragged his cock and in out of you. His thrusts sped up, his voice becoming a little more strained. “Meet at 0700, all Fleet Personnel under my command– will be in attendance, we’ll talk then.” There was a noticeable pause when he spoke, but if the man on the other end wished to keep his life, he’d shut up about it. And he did.

“Looks like I've gotta speed this up, Pip. Duty calls.” He braced one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor, angling himself into you. He could feel himself getting closer to cumming just from repositioning. He pulled his aching cock out of you, rubbing the weeping tip onto your cunt before slipping right back inside.

You both moaned at that. You both fit so perfectly– so deliciously with one another, he could only wonder why he hadn't locked you up sooner. He began his pace, hips snapping with quickness against yours, giving neither of you reprieve. If you were overstimulated before, it was worse– or better now. He kept hitting that spot that made you see stars and forget where you were. Thinking only ‘Caleb, Caleb, Caleb’ as if you were under a spell.

Ropes of stray arousal spouted from his dick with each thrust. “Fuck, fuck f- oh.. Pip, y’so fuckin’ perfect for me. Taking my dick so perfectly..” You could only moan, no words coming to mind, only his name. You’d never felt so full.

He rolled his hips harder, impossibly harder. Again, and again, and again– you reached your hands back and began pushing his hips away. Well, trying. “You can take it, pip. I know you can..-fuck.. You can.”

Could you really? You felt like you were getting split in half and swallowed. You had walked into the jaws of a beast, and how had you only just now realized that? His hips began to stutter and stall, his dick twitching inside of you as he threw his head back with a loud groan that seemed to shake the house. “Gonna..fuckin’ cum, baby… almost– almost, ah…ah fuck.” His voice took on a whiny quality as he began to tense up. His moans spilled through bitten lips, and a raw throat. Fuck, he was gonna fill you up. “Ready? Yeah, all ready for Gege.. fuck- gonna fill you up..”

He began panting, his voice cracking and going off kilter. His balls tightening with each thrust before the dam finally broke. His semen rushing out of his spent cock, filling your needy cunt.

His thrusts never stopped, riding out his orgasm and pulling one more from you. He was overstimulating both you and himself, unable to stop himself, unwilling to part from you. His broken whines filled the room, pushing his face into your neck once more, breathing you in. The feeling of his cum sitting deep into your womb was dizzying, leaving your brain mushed. Caleb wasn't faring much better– but, alas– he has a job to do, like, right now.

He slowly slides himself out of you, making a milky stream of his seed spill from your puffy cunt. He groaned deeply at the sight. “That should do it, yeah?” He chuckled as he caught his breath, straightening his uniform.

Something must have rang in his ear, because he tapped at it once and his eye hardened for a sec before it was gone. His eyes slid back over to you as he zipped himself back up, smiling as if nothing had happened. “I’ll see if it takes when I get back. I hope you learned something today, Pipsqueak.”

Although his voice took on a light hearted tone, there was something under it that promised worse if he found you to disagree. He rolled you onto your back, your body feeling as heavy as bricks, yet your limbs like jello. You don’t remember him leaving to grab moist towelettes, but he came back to wipe you done a while ago and took a step back to look you over with what most would say was a soft look. It just seemed smug.

“But, we both know when it comes to you.. Lessons are hardly learned in one sitting.” Basically, Caleb's way of saying; ‘I hope you’re not stupid enough to try and escape again.’ And, you were not.

After a staredown where he went blank for a moment, he clapped suddenly and turned on his heel towards the door, unlocking and opening it. “Gege wont be long, so just lay there.” Was all he said before he was ‘gone’. To Duty. blood and grime, coverups and sinister deals. To the Fleet. Yet his eyes were still on you, cameras, listening devices, alarms all littered by the handful around the room. So, you laid there, and you waited.

He intertwines your fingers while his other hand comes up gently to pull your lip from in between your teeth.

“Everything’s alright.” he reassures you in his gentle tone, no sign of being annoyed at your distress.

You are on your way to the restaurant he booked weeks ahead for your monthly dine-out date, already running a bit late because of your fussing around the apartment. That is another reason why your mood is so sour.

Zayne is so patient with you. So gentle, so kind. Never the one to make you feel like you are in the wrong for feeling this way. He knows you can’t help it, and he knows just how to help you through it.

Always reaching for you whenever he feels you slipping away into your own head, your own prison where everything goes wrong and everything’s your fault. He pulls you in his embrace, tethers you to him with soothing caresses and gentle kisses.

He doesn’t talk much in these moments. He knows it’ll only make it worse for you, overwhelm you even more so, and that’s the least thing he wants. He knows his presence makes up for it, knows it’s enough when you cling to him and just melt into his body.

He knows you’re struggling, and is also aware of how much you try to sweep it under the rug, try to play it off sometimes. He guesses it’s a defense mechanism you privately developed around people who would get annoyed at you for always overthinking simple things, going back and forth, pacing anxiously.

He swore it to himself he would never make you feel like that. Yet it still hurts him to see you try to make it less than it is, pass it off like it doesn’t make you bite your lip until it bleeds or nails until they’re a mess or tap your feet in an attempt to self-regulate.

So he takes care of things for you.

“I unplugged it,” he tells you, thumb smoothing once over your knuckles. “And the lights. You walked past me to the door twice, so I checked behind you both times.”

You noticed that, too. Somewhere between your anxiety attacks and his tender, soothing hugs, you noticed how he quietly took things into his own hands. You found yourself reaching for your list to go over it for the nth time in a day, and suddenly, there was Zayne there with you, checking things off the list.

Rushing to the Association early in the morning? He would be there with a good morning text and a simple reminder to not forget your Hunter ID at home, because he knew how often that happened and how it messed with your head whenever it would.

Going out with Simone and Tara? Zayne would call you, tell you to dress comfortably, not forget your jacket and keys. Vitamins? He would help set up reminders on your phone and text you just five minutes after they go off to remind you once again, because he knew you would get distracted and forget.

Many such little things, and they mattered to you. So they mattered to him, too.

Zayne is a capable man, so he only took care of small things at first. He didn’t want to make you feel like he thought you incapable of handling things on your own. Never one to push you with anything, he only made it a habit when he was sure you would appreciate it and not feel burdened by it.

You noticed all of it. It made your chest constrict in a tender, aching way. He did it out of love, you knew that. You didn’t need to hear it, his actions were the loudest confessions of love there could be. He loved you so much that he wanted to ease things for you, without waiting for anything in return.

That was the kind of man Zayne was.

Your eyes sting, throat constricting around the words you want to tell him. You love him, so much that it hurts sometimes. You know he knows that, how much you cherish him and everything he does for you.

Words fail you, as they always do. So you act instead.

You bring your joined hands up, kissing the back of his hand softly. He looks at you in quiet surprise, but before he can say something else, you reach over the console and gently bring his face closer.

You plant a sweet, soft kiss to his lips. Smiling as you pull away slightly, thumb tracing the side of his neck.

“We’re already late,” he murmurs against your cheek, recovering far too quickly for someone whose ears are still that red. “Don’t start what you can’t finish.”

© zaynessbeloved 2026. please don’t copy, repost or translate my works. thank you!

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