i will die your daughter

The Hunter’s Association dispatched a small team to “liaise” with the Fleet after yet another suspicious incident involving protocore smuggling routes. You volunteered before anyone else could open their mouth.

Caleb approved your transfer request within hours. You saw the digital signature yourself: Caleb Xia, colonel, Farspace Fleet. Clean, impersonal, no note attached. He knew you were coming. He knew you’d be here, on his ship, sleeping three sections away from his quarters. And still—nothing. No welcome, no late-night knock on your door, not even a damn “hey” in passing.

Your fingers curl into fists inside your gloves, nails pressing half-moons into your palms. The ache feels good. Grounding.

Ever since he came back from Skyheaven—ever since the explosion that was supposed to have killed him, ever since he reappeared with new scars and secrets stitched under his skin—everything’s been wrong. He smiles like nothing happened, calls you pipsqueak like it’s still a joke between kids, but his eyes are different. Guarded. Tired in a way sleep can’t fix.

He keeps saying he’s fine. That whatever shadows are chasing him, he can handle alone. That you should trust him.

You’re so tired of trusting his lies.

Intel you scraped together before boarding painted a darker picture than his breezy dismissals. The Fleet isn’t fully under his command. There are factions—higher-ups with private agendas, admirals who see Caleb as a convenient shield, a decorated pawn they can push to the front lines while they pull strings from the shadows. Someone’s been setting him up, painting targets on his back, forcing him into missions that smell like suicide wrapped in duty.

And he’s letting them.

Because that’s what Caleb does—takes the weight so no one else has to. He did it when you were kids and he took the blame for breaking the neighbor’s window. He did it when he enlisted to pay for your grandmother’s medical bills after she raised you both. He’s doing it now, smiling through blood and exhaustion while whatever wolves circle him close in.

Your chest burns.

He’s yours. Your Caleb. The boy who promised under a summer sky that he’d always come home. The man who used to sneak into your room after nightmares just to hold your hand until you fell asleep. The one person who’s supposed to let you in.

Someone is trying to take him away piece by piece, and he’s helping them do it.

Not anymore.

You stop in front of the sealed door to the classified operations deck. The panel glows soft red—access restricted. Your borrowed credentials won’t get you through. But you didn’t come this far to stand outside like a good little adjutant.

You glance both ways down the empty hall, heart thudding steady and sure. Then you pull the slim override chip from your pocket—the one you lifted from a careless lieutenant during orientation—and slot it into the port.

The light flickers green.

The door slides open with a hushed pneumatic sigh.

You step inside, letting it seal behind you.

Whatever truths Caleb won’t give you willingly, you’ll find yourself. Even if it means walking straight into the dark he’s been trying to keep you out of.

The door hisses shut behind you, sealing with a soft click that echoes too loud in the sudden silence of the classified operations room. Rows of secure terminals glow faintly under emergency strips, casting blue shadows over locked cabinets and holotables. The air is colder here, sterile, humming with the low thrum of servers.

You’ve barely taken three steps when the panel chirps again—someone else is coming in.

Shit.

You dart behind a tall server rack in the far corner, pressing your back flat against the cool metal, heart slamming against your ribs. The door slides open. Two sets of boots step inside, measured and familiar. You recognize the voices before you even peek through the gap.

Caleb’s direct subordinates—Lieutenant Harlan and Captain Reyes. Older, seasoned, the kind of officers who’ve flown with him since Skyheaven.

They keep their voices low, but in the quiet room every word carries.

“The colonel’s a tough bastard,” Harlan mutters, punching a code into one of the locked drawers with practiced efficiency. It unlocks with a beep. “Runs this fleet like a damn military camp. No slack, no excuses.”

Reyes snorts, leaning against the counter. “Young blood with old-school discipline. But you notice how he cut some slack for that newcomer?”

Your breath catches. You go completely still.

“Yeah,” Harlan says, rifling through files. “The adjutant. Again. Girl gets way too much freedom. Seems like they’re… close.”

Close.

The word lands like a punch. You press your lips together, exhaling slow and silent through your mouth. They have no idea. No one does. You and Caleb have spent months making sure of it—because if anyone ever found out how deep it really goes, how far beyond childhood friends or even lovers, it would give his enemies a weapon sharper than any blade.

“Uncalled for,” Reyes continues, voice dropping even lower. “A colonel that high up, cozy with someone ranks below. He barely glances at those nurses throwing themselves at him. Beautiful women, too. Who knows what’s going on in that head of his. Man’s always been a mystery.”

Your chest tightens. You stand frozen in the dark for what feels like forever—ten minutes, maybe more—listening as they trade pieces of the puzzle you’ve been desperate to solve.

Someone’s maneuvering to take the fleet from him. Quietly. Systematically. There are names you don’t recognize, coded references to “the Board,” to off-grid funding streams and rigged inspections. Caleb’s been fighting tooth and nail to hold his position, burning himself out to keep control, to keep his people safe.

No wonder he’s been disappearing. No wonder the messages stopped.

The drawer locks again. Footsteps retreat. The door opens, closes.

You wait another thirty seconds, counting heartbeats, before you step out of the shadows.

Your legs feel unsteady as you cross to the cabinet. The override chip works again—thank god—and the drawer slides open. You grab the thinnest folders you can find, ones that look recently accessed, and tuck them inside your jacket.

Then you’re moving. Out the door, down the corridor, boots silent on the grating as you hurry toward the residential deck. You need to get to your quarters, lock the door, read whatever you’ve stolen—

“Sera.”

The voice stops you dead.

It’s low, rough at the edges, laced with exhaustion and something dangerously soft. You know it better than your own. You’d know it in a crowd of thousands, in the dark, across years of silence.

Your fingers tighten around the folders hidden beneath your jacket.

You turn slowly.

He’s standing beneath the dim overhead light at the end of the hallway, still in uniform—black colonel jacket pressed, collar tight on his neck, hair a little longer than regulation and falling into his eyes. The shadows carve sharp lines along his jaw, the faint scar that wasn’t there before Skyheaven cutting white across his cheekbone.

Caleb.

He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Like he’s carrying the weight of the entire fleet on his shoulders and still somehow managing to stand straight.

His gaze locks on yours, unreadable for a moment, then flickers—something raw flashing behind the exhaustion.

You swallow, voice barely above a whisper.

“Caleb.”

You try to smile, the same easy, teasing one you’ve given him a thousand times since you were kids, but it feels wrong on your face, brittle and fake, like cracked glass. “Caleb… I—”

“Into my office.”

The words cut clean through the air, low and clipped. No warmth, no nickname, no trace of the boy who used to tug your ponytail and call you pipsqueak with that lopsided grin. Just cold authority. You actually flinch. The hallway already feels like deep space, freezing and airless, and now he’s somehow made it worse.

You follow him in silence. The only sound is your boots and his, marching in uneven rhythm down the deserted corridor. You can’t stop stealing glances at his back: broad, rigid, shoulders squared like he’s carrying the weight of every star in the sector. The collar of his colonel jacket is turned up against the chill, and in the dim light you catch the shadow of stubble along his jaw, rough and unkempt. He looks… worn. Like he’s been grinding himself down to the bone and forgot to stop.

Your heart twists so hard it hurts.

The office door slides open with a soft hiss. You step inside, the lights coming up automatically, sterile white washing over the sparse room: a metal desk piled with holopads, a star chart glowing on one wall, the faint scent of coffee gone cold. The door seals behind you with finality.

You try again, forcing brightness into your voice. “Caleb, I was just—”

“Stealing.”

He turns. The single word lands like a slap. His eyes are flat, almost lifeless, and the way he’s looking at you is nothing like the Caleb you know. He crosses the room in two strides, hand shooting out to close around your arm. Before you can react, he yanks the stolen folders from beneath your jacket.

You yelp, more from shock than pain. “Caleb!”

He doesn’t let go of your wrist. His grip is firm, unyielding, thumb pressing against your pulse point like he’s checking if you’re real. “Illegal entry into restricted areas. Theft of classified Fleet documents. Sneaking aboard under false pretenses as my adjutant.” His voice is quiet, dangerously even. “All punishable offenses.”

You stare at him, hurt and fury crashing together in your chest until something inside you snaps. You twist your wrist free with a sharp jerk and step back, breathing hard. “Oh, really? Is that what we are now, Caleb?” Your voice rises despite your effort to keep it steady. “The second you put on that colonel’s uniform, you just… lose yourself completely? Is that it?”

His jaw tightens. “Show some respect to the Farspace Fleet’s colonel.”

He advances again, crowding you until your back meets the cold wall. One hand plants beside your head, the other hovering near your shoulder, caging you in without quite touching. He’s close enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, smell the faint trace of engine grease and sweat under his cologne. His eyes bore into yours, storm-gray and furious.

“Don’t,” he says, voice dropping to something raw and rough, “address me so formally.”

Your heart stutters, stops, then slams against your ribs. All the months of silence, the worry, the lies, the distance, every unanswered text and broken promise surges up your throat like bile.

“You killed my Caleb.”

The words come out small, trembling, but they hit him like a physical blow.

For one split second, something fractures across his face, eyes widening, lips parting as if you’ve punched the air from his lungs. Pain, raw and unguarded, flickers there, then it’s gone, slammed behind a glare sharper than before. His mouth opens, some protest or plea forming—

His comm device buzzes, shrill and insistent.

He freezes. The moment shatters.

Caleb straightens, turning away from you so abruptly it feels like whiplash. He puts a few paces between you, swiping to accept the call. His voice shifts instantly, crisp, professional, completely detached.

“Yes, Colonel speaking.” A pause. “No, we’ll look into that later. Yes… the file is here with me.” Another beat. “Dismissed for today.”

He ends the call, back still to you, shoulders rigid. The silence that follows is heavier than vacuum.

When he finally speaks again, it’s quiet, almost resigned.

“We’ll solve this when we reach home.”

He doesn’t look at you as he says it. Doesn’t move to stop you when you push off the wall, folders still clutched in his hand, and walk past him toward the door on legs that feel like they might give out.

You don’t answer.

You can’t.

Because the truth is clawing at your throat—you don’t know if there’s even a home left for the two of you to go back to.

The ride back to Skyheaven is silent, the kind of silence that presses against your eardrums like high-altitude pressure. Caleb drives the car himself, hands steady on the controls, eyes fixed on the viewport as buildings streak past. You sit in the front seat and stare at his profile—the sharp line of his nose, the tense set of his mouth, the faint new scar that pulls at the corner of his eyebrow. He doesn’t look at you once.

By the time you dock at his private residence, the tension between you has thickened into something almost solid.

He keys in the access code without a word and steps inside. You follow, the door sliding shut behind you with a soft, irrevocable click.

The lights come up low, warm amber instead of the harsh white of the fleet. It’s the first thing that feels like him— the faint scent of cedar and engine oil, the old flight jacket slung over the back of a chair, the holo-photo of you both as kids still pinned to the fridge. Home. His home. The closest thing either of you has left to one.

You can’t hold it in anymore.

The second the door seals, you surge forward, fingers closing around his forearm. You yank hard, spinning him toward you with more strength than you knew you had. He stumbles half a step, eyes widening in genuine shock as he faces you.

You’re both breathing hard already.

Your voice cracks the moment it leaves your throat. “You’ve become a person I don’t understand.” The words tremble, raw. “That’s not what I want. I want to understand you, Caleb. I want—” Your grip tightens on his sleeve. “You just keep going away from me. Look at me. Tell me what’s happening. Tell me why you feel like someone else. What happened to my Caleb?”

His gaze drops to your mouth for a fraction of a second, something dark and hungry flickering there, before it snaps back to your eyes. His jaw locks so tight you can see the muscle jump.

He pulls his arm free with deliberate slowness, then lets out a soft, bitter scoff, shaking his head. “Your Caleb, huh?” The childhood nickname falls from his lips like it tastes wrong now. “Pipsqueak… you wouldn’t understand even if I told you.” His voice dips, rough and pleading. “I just need you to trust me. Please, baby—”

The endearment hits you like a blade between the ribs. Baby. He hasn’t called you that in years. Not since before the explosion. Not since he came back wrong.

Something inside you shatters.

“No.” You shove him, both palms slamming into his chest. The force catches him off-guard; he stumbles back and drops onto the low couch with a startled yelp, the cushions exhaling beneath him.

Before he can recover, you’re on him, climbing over his lap, fists twisting hard into the collar of his uniform. You yank him forward until your faces are inches apart, teeth bared, eyes burning.

“Trust you?” Your voice is shaking with fury and something dangerously close to tears. “How the fuck am I supposed to trust you when you hide everything from me?” The words tear out of you, louder, sharper. “How am I supposed to understand you when all you ever feed me are lies? You disappeared, Caleb. You came back like nothing happened. Do you have any idea how much I suffered?”

Your chest heaves; hot tears sting at the corners of your eyes, but you refuse to let them fall.

“I thought you were dead. Six feet under. Gone. Do you know what that did to me? How I mourned you every single day? How I couldn’t breathe without feeling like part of me was buried with you?” Your grip on his collar tightens until your knuckles go white. “How much you’ve fucking hurt me?”

The last word breaks.

You’re panting, trembling, straddling his thighs with your knees digging into the couch on either side of him. Your faces are so close you can feel the warmth of his breath against your lips, see the storm raging in his gray eyes.

For a long moment he just stares at you, chest rising and falling fast beneath your fists. Something raw and fractured moves behind his gaze, guilt, pain, longing, anger, all of it tangled together.

His hands come up slowly, not to push you away, but to settle on your hips, fingers curling into the fabric of your uniform like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold on.

You’re both shaking now.

The air between you crackles, thick with everything you’ve never said, everything he’s never let you see.

And still, he doesn’t speak.

The silence stretches, heavy and electric, until his fingers dig harder into your hips, bruisingly tight. Then, without warning, he yanks you forward, slamming your body flush against his. The sudden impact forces the air from your lungs in a sharp gasp, your chest crushed to his, feeling the frantic thud of his heart mirroring your own.

“Enough,” he rasps, voice gravel-rough, eyes locked on yours with that cold, commanding colonel stare that makes your knees weak even now. Your lips are inches apart, breaths mingling hot and unsteady.

“I heard you.” The words come out clipped, angry. “Do you think I want to live like this? Do you think I had any other fucking options?”

His voice drops to a dangerous whisper, lips brushing your chin, cold and deliberate, nothing like the soft, teasing kisses you remember from before everything went to hell.

“Sera… you think I don’t know how much you hate this uniform?”

A shaky breath escapes you, half-sob, half-moan. You bite down on your lower lip to stifle it, but the sound slips out anyway, needy and broken. “Then why, Caleb—”

He snaps.

In one fluid, furious motion he lifts you, flipping your positions so fast the room spins. Your back hits the couch cushions hard, the breath knocked out of you again as he comes down over you, knees locking on either side of your thighs, caging you completely beneath his weight.

“Because of you.”

The words are a dark chuckle against your throat as his mouth descends, lips dragging hot and possessive down the column of your neck, over your collarbone, lower. “All you do is take, take, and fucking take. You just can’t stop.”

His hands are everywhere, rough, desperate, sliding up under the hem of your shirt to palm your breasts through the fabric. Then his thumbs find your nipples, pressing hard, rolling them with deliberate cruelty. The friction of your uniform against sensitive, peaked flesh makes you cry out, a sharp yelp of pain laced with raw pleasure.

“Ahhh—Caleb, fuck—”

He doesn’t answer with words. Instead he growls low in his throat and rips your shirt open, buttons pinging off across the room like gunfire. Cool air hits your fevered skin a split second before his mouth does, hot and wet, kissing, sucking, biting a path down your sternum.

His large hands grope your bare breasts roughly, kneading the soft flesh until you’re arching into his touch, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the overwhelming intensity.

“Always running headfirst into danger,” he mutters against your skin, voice muffled as he drags his tongue over one stiff nipple before catching it between his teeth. “Making me worry sick… What will you take from me when I finally have nothing left to give you, hmm?”

He bites down, sharp enough to make you scream, back bowing off the couch as pleasure-pain shoots straight to your core.

“Caleb—what are you—ahhh… mmhhh!!!”

He releases the abused peak with a wet pop, looking up at you through dark lashes, cheeks flushed deep red down his neck, eyes blown wide with lust and something feral. A smirk curls his swollen lips.

“Don’t worry, pipsqueak,” he purrs, voice low and seductive, dripping with dark promise as he pinches both nipples again, rolling them slowly, mercilessly. “Caleb’s going to make you listen.”

His hips grind down deliberately, letting you feel exactly how hard he is through the layers of uniform, thick and heavy against your thigh. One hand slides down your stomach, popping the button of your pants with practiced ease, fingers dipping beneath the waistband to tease the edge of your underwear.

You’re already soaked, trembling, every nerve alight.

He leans in until his forehead rests against yours, breath ragged, voice a husky whisper against your lips.

“You want your Caleb back?” His teeth nip your bottom lip, tugging. “Then take this. Take all of me. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you have the truth afterward.”

His fingers slip lower, pressing firmly over your clit through damp fabric, and you cry out his name, hips bucking helplessly into his hand.

He smiles, dark and dangerous.

“Good girl. Now scream for me.”

His fingers hook into the waistband of your pants and drag them down your hips in one rough yank, taking your underwear with them. Cool air hits your soaked core, making you gasp, but he doesn’t give you time to feel exposed. He shoves your thighs wider apart with his knees, settling heavier between them, the coarse fabric of his uniform trousers scraping against your inner thighs.

Caleb doesn’t undress. Not even a button. The black uniform jacket stays zipped, collar high, insignia glinting under the low lights like a reminder of exactly who’s in control now. Only his belt clinks open, the zipper of his trousers rasping down. He fists his cock out—thick, flushed, already leaking at the tip—and gives himself one slow, deliberate stroke, eyes locked on your spread cunt like he’s starving.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice low and mocking. “All that fire, all that mouth, and you’re dripping down your thighs the second I touch you.”

You whimper, hips twitching up, seeking friction, but he presses one palm flat to your stomach, pinning you to the couch. His other hand slides between your legs, two gloved fingers dragging through your slick folds without entering, just spreading you open for his gaze.

“Still think you can demand answers from me, pipsqueak?” He circles your clit once, feather-light, then pulls away when you try to chase it. “Still think you get to take whatever you want?”

He pumps his cock again, slow and filthy, thumb swiping over the head to spread the bead of precome. The wet sound of it makes you clench around nothing.

“Caleb—please—”

“Please what?” His fingers return, one thick digit pressing inside you to the first knuckle, then stopping. “Please stop? Or please give you more?” He twists his wrist just enough to make you feel the stretch, then stills again. “Use your words, baby. Colonel don’t take orders from brats.”

You sob, head thrashing against the cushion. “More—please, I need—”

He slides in to the second knuckle, slow as torture, curling just slightly to graze that spot that makes your vision spark. Then out again. In a little deeper. Out. Over and over, never giving you the full length, never the rhythm you’re desperate for.

All the while his other hand works his cock in lazy strokes, base to tip, twisting at the head. His breathing is getting rougher, but his face stays cold, controlled—mean.

“Beg properly,” he says, adding a second finger and scissoring them wide, stretching you open while still refusing to thrust. “Tell me who this pussy belongs to. Tell me you’re done throwing tantrums and running into restricted zones like you don’t have a colonel ready to spank your ass raw for it.”

His thumb finally—finally—presses over your clit, rubbing tight, relentless circles that make your thighs shake against his uniform sleeves.

“Say it, Sera.” His voice is pure gravel now, hips rocking into his own fist as he watches you fall apart on just his fingers. “Say you’re mine, and maybe I’ll let you come before I fuck you stupid in this uniform you hate so much.”

You’re babbling now, pleas and broken moans spilling out, hips grinding helplessly against his hand as he teases you right to the edge and holds you there, merciless.

He leans down, lips brushing the shell of your ear, jacket creaking as he cages you completely.

“That’s it. Keep begging. I’ve had enough of your bullshit, baby. Tonight you’re going to learn exactly who you belong to.”

When you don't answer Caleb’s patience snaps like a frayed cable.

One second you’re writhing under his teasing fingers, begging in broken sobs; the next, he’s hauling you up off the couch like you weigh nothing. A strong arm bands around your waist, the other hooking under your thighs, and he slings you over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry—ass up, head dangling down his back, your ripped shirt flapping open and pants still tangled around your knees.

You squeak in protest, fists thumping weakly against his lower back. “Caleb—put me down—!”

He doesn’t answer. Just strides down the short hallway to his bedroom, uniform jacket creaking with every step, boots thudding heavy on the floor. One hard smack lands on your bare ass, the crack echoing, sting blooming hot across your skin.

“Quiet,” he growls. “You’ve talked enough tonight.”

He kicks the bedroom door open wider and tosses you onto the bed like you’re a sack of supplies—mattress bouncing under your weight, breath whooshing out of you as you land on your stomach. Before you can scramble up, he’s on you, hands rough and merciless. He yanks your ruined pants the rest of the way off, tossing them aside, then flips you onto your back and shoves your thighs apart.

The uniform stays on him—jacket zipped, collar high, belt hanging open, cock jutting thick and angry from his fly. He looks every inch the cold, untouchable colonel, and the sight of him still dressed while you’re naked and trembling underneath him makes heat pool low in your belly.

He climbs over you, knees forcing your legs wider, one hand fisting the base of his cock as he drags the blunt head through your soaked folds. No condom, no warning—just raw, slick skin on skin.

“You want your Caleb back?” he mutters, voice dark, eyes locked on where he’s teasing your entrance. “Then take him. Take every fucking inch until you remember who you belong to.”

He thrusts in with one brutal stroke, burying himself to the hilt.

You scream, back arching off the bed, walls stretching around the sudden, overwhelming fullness. He doesn’t pause—immediately pulls out and slams back in, deeper, harder, the headboard knocking against the wall with a sharp thud.

“Fuck—too much—Caleb—!”

He snarls, grabbing your hips and yanking you down the bed to meet every punishing thrust. The frame creaks ominously beneath you, metal joints groaning as he sets a ruthless pace, hips snapping forward like he’s trying to split you in half.

“You’ve been a goddamn brat for months,” he grits out between thrusts, one hand leaving your hip to crack down on your ass again—harder this time, the sting making you clench around him. “Sneaking around my fleet, stealing my files, throwing tantrums when I’m trying to keep you safe—”

Another smack, the sound wet and sharp, your skin blooming red under his palm.

“—running into danger like I won’t lose my fucking mind if something happens to you—”

The bedframe slams the wall again, harder; something cracks in the headboard, but he doesn’t slow. He flips you over suddenly, manhandling you onto your stomach, hauling your hips up until you’re on your knees, face pressed into the sheets.

He drives back in from behind, deeper in this angle, one hand fisting your hair to arch your back. The other reaches around to rub rough circles over your clit.

You catch a glimpse in the mirror across the room—your flushed, tear-streaked face, mouth open in a silent scream, his broad shoulders looming behind you in that hated uniform, jacket straining across his back as he fucks you raw.

He sees it too. His eyes meet yours in the reflection, dark and possessive.

“Look at yourself,” he orders, voice ragged, hips snapping forward hard enough to jolt your whole body. “Look how pretty you are when you finally shut up and take my cock like a good girl.”

He punctuates the words with another stinging slap to your ass, watching the flesh jiggle in the mirror, watching your eyes roll back as he hits that spot inside you over and over.

“This is what you needed, isn’t it?” He leans down, chest pressing to your back, teeth grazing your shoulder. “Needed your colonel to fuck the attitude right out of you. Needed to remember who this tight little pussy belongs to.”

The bed is definitely breaking now—wood splintering, screws popping—but he doesn’t care. He just fucks you harder, deeper, raw and relentless, claiming every inch of you like he’s branding his name into your skin.

You can’t do anything but take it, sobbing his name into the sheets, body shaking with every brutal thrust, completely at the mercy of the man who’s finally had enough.

He drives into you like a man possessed, each thrust harder than the last, the bedframe protesting louder with every slam—wood splintering, metal groaning, screws popping loose. You’re lost in it, nails raking down his uniform jacket, legs wrapped high around his waist, taking everything he gives you and begging for more with broken cries of his name.

“Look at me,” he snarls again, fisting your hair to force your gaze back to the mirror. Your reflection is wrecked—lips swollen, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy with tears and pleasure—while he looms behind you in full uniform, ruthless and beautiful, hips snapping forward with punishing force. “Look how fucking perfect you are when you’re full of me.”

Another sharp smack on your ass, the crack ringing out as your skin burns hot and red. You clench around him involuntarily, and he groans, pace faltering for half a second before he redoubles, pounding into you so hard your knees skid across the sheets.

“Mine,” he growls against your neck, teeth sinking into your shoulder. “This cunt is mine. You’re mine. Stop fighting me—”

The headboard gives one final, ominous crack.

Then everything collapses.

The frame buckles beneath you with a deafening snap, mattress dropping suddenly as the supports give way. You both pitch forward in a tangle of limbs and sheets. Caleb twists at the last second, hauling you against his chest and taking the full impact on his back as you crash to the floor amid broken wood and twisted metal.

The air is knocked out of him in a sharp grunt, but his arms stay locked around you, cradling you protectively even as he hits the ground hard.

For a moment there’s only the sound of your combined harsh breathing and the creak of settling wreckage.

You’re sprawled on top of him, cheek pressed to the warm fabric of his jacket, legs still tangled with his. Your brown hair is a wild mess, strands sticking to his forehead and spilling across his face, some draped over your fingers where they rest against his collar.

He exhales a long, shaky sigh, one hand coming up to rub slow circles on your bare back. “Fuck,” he mutters, voice rough. “Guess I owe maintenance a new bed.”

You don’t laugh. You don’t say anything.

The sobs come sudden and unstoppable, hot tears spilling over as everything—the anger, the fear, the months of grief, the overwhelming intensity—crashes over you all at once.

Caleb freezes beneath you.

His hand moves instantly from your back to your face, cupping your cheeks, thumbs brushing away tears as panic floods his expression. “Pipsqueak… hey, hey—baby, I’m sorry.” His voice cracks, all the cold colonel authority gone, replaced by raw fear. “Did I hurt you? Oh god, no—no, no, no—talk to me, Sera, please—”

You weakly punch his shoulder, more a pat than anything, tears streaming faster. “Shut up…” It comes out a low, shaky sob, barely audible.

He winces like you struck him for real. Immediately he shifts, sliding out of you carefully, gently, murmuring soft apologies as he gathers you up in his arms. You’re limp, trembling, and he cradles you like something precious, carrying you out of the ruined bedroom and into the guest suite down the hall.

He sets you on the edge of the bed, grabs a warm cloth from the adjoining bathroom, and kneels in front of you, wiping you clean with careful, reverent strokes—between your thighs, over the red marks on your ass, down your legs. His touch is so tender it almost hurts worse than the roughness did.

You still won’t look at him, turning your face away, arms wrapped around yourself.

Caleb clears his throat, voice small. “Hey… pipsqueak—”

“Quiet.”

He flinches. “Sorry.” A heavy sigh, then the soft sound of him standing. He lingers for a moment, like he wants to say more, but finally turns and pads out of the room, pulling the door almost shut behind him to give you space.

The moment he’s gone, the air feels colder.

You curl onto your side, thighs pressing together as heat floods your face—burning, mortified, thrilled. Your whole body still hums with aftershocks, skin tingling where his hands were rough, where his teeth marked you.

You can’t believe how much you liked it.

How desperately you want it again.

A slow, wicked smile curves your lips in the dark.

You whisper to the empty room, sweet and possessive, fingers tracing the faint ache between your legs.

“You’re mine, Caleb. Always will be.”

You help him thread his big coconut through the collar after a good giggle and set him back down so he can resume his running.

"Luke, Kieran!" you bellow, before Sylus can even get a huff of air out to call out to you a third time. If he weren't a perfectly well-mannered gentleman, he'd have stomped his foot on the ground and harrumphed like Lucian when refused his sweeties.

"Coming!" they yell back from upstairs, followed by a ruckus of pounding feet and the thundering of moving furniture. Odd, but not nearly as important as you blatantly walking past him in favor of fixing the camera on its stand in the middle of the living room. In the viewfinder, it frames the dark leather couch before the lit fireplace, and a charismatic Christmas tree to the side.

When you are done and have deemed the antique useless at your hands, giving it all up for Luke to tinker with later, you walk away.

Smoothing the fabric of your clothes over your thighs, once more you fail to acknowledge Sylus by the threshold of the space, and look over yourself in the mirror hanging on the wall. Only for the reflective surface to gloss over with opaque darkness from what you can assume only has a single source.

A step back is all it takes for you to hit your back against his awaiting chest. He is looming over you like a rolling storm when you look up. His hand, a snake that crawls up your waist, dances over your neck, and carefully cups your jaw in place to keep your eyes on him.

"What must I do to get you to pay attention to me?" he purrs, thumb caressing the notch below your ear, back and forth. Finally getting a good look at your features— your glowing eyes, your rouged cheeks, your darkened lips. He can't help but tongue his canines at the sight.

And when you grin, his heart stops beating altogether. "Have you been here the whole time?"

He smirks. Hums at your audacity to tease and leans down close enough to feel your breath hitch on his lips. Because no matter how you try to play it off, he is the venom that paralyses your senses. "You're doing that thing again."

Your brows knit together. The distance. The lingering. The scent of him, strong. You breathe,"What thing?"

"Playing with your food." He takes no time to swoop down and kiss you, stealing breath from your lungs and imbuing you with his own desire. You struggle to reach up to him at the strange angle, but enjoy the sweetness of his lips nonetheless.

You pull back, giggling. Shy suddenly, as you turn towards him and hide your burning face in his matching dark red sweater.

He laughs when you slap his chest, catching your fingers and dragging them over his bottom lip.

Lost in your bubble, you almost miss the voice.

"Papa kissy," Lucian points out, suddenly spawning by your feet. Looking up at you two with round eyes that blink curiously. "Papa, why?"

Sylus smiles at him, encasing you in his embrace, your shoulders supporting the weight of his arms as he leans down to answer. "I think mama looks very pretty today."

Lucian asks, "So kissy?"

"Yes."

"Oh," he nods. "Okay."

Then turns around to waddle away.

Sylus shakes his head fondly at the odd, seemingly non-fruitful encounter and turns back to you, who shares the same funny look on your face, wondering what just happened.

His arms wind around your shoulders anyway as he buries his nose in the scent of your perfume. He takes a deep breath, releasing a deep growl. Tickling the space under your ear and making you flinch away with a startled yelp. “Hey!”

That echoes, and breaks a seal you did not even know was there.

Sylus feels the change in the air before he even hears—

"Papa, no bite!" Lucian shrieks, running back to his feet.

Sylus scoffs in disbelief, mixed with a huff of laughter, as tiny claws meet the fabric of his slacks. "A— Lucian, I'm not!"

"No bite!" now Kyros circles your legs and pushes you away by the knees. "No bite, no bite!"

"I'm not!" he insists, chortling at the battalion of small children fighting him for your honor. His cries of being wrongly accused are lost to deaf ears and louder screams of injustice.

"Here!" pants Luke in that moment, coming into the room, pulling on the collar of his shirt. Having rushed in from the front door rather than from his bedroom, not that anyone really noticed. Readying himself to tell the story about not having lost the polo you gave him specifically for today and having had to run out to buy a new one— which he didn’t, obviously.

But at the chaos before him in the living room, he pauses. "What are we doing?"

Kieran walks in behind him just in time to hear Lucian yell, "Papa bite mama!"

"Eugh." Kieran gags. Luke grimaces, "Gross."

"Have'ta protect mama." Kyros tells them from his seat on your lap. He'd successfully pushed you onto the couch and curled up to you as if he were hoarding treasure. "Help, pease?"

The twins give each other a look, read your amused expression and with a shrug, jump in on the action. Aiding Lucian in his efforts to apprehend the beast. Praying Sylus doesn't put them in air jail for this later.

"Sorry about this, boss man!" says Kieran, catching Lucian by the armpits and tripping Sylus by the heels.

Luke follows up by catching him in a chair and tying his wrists with a red ribbon meant for presents. "We're just following orders. You were being a meanie."

"I didn't bite!" he exclaims, struggling. Or at least, pretending to. The ribbon really wasn't that strong. But Lucian watched him with unabashed excitement at the victory that he couldn't act any other way.

From behind them, you shout. "Yes, he did!"

"Aha!" Lucian exclaims, scrambling out of his brother's hold to climb onto Sylus's lap. "Papa, time out."

At this distance, despite it all, Sylus can't help but swipe a little kiss on an angry, puffed-up cheek. So used to the action, Lucian merely looks past it. Sylus chuckles, "Why?"

"Because—cause, you kissy is okay," Lucian's brows draw together as he tries to suture his big thoughts into a sentence that makes sense. "But bitey is no okay. Is bad and—and ouchie."

"Poor mama," Kyros laments, embracing you and petting your hair as you fake sob into his shoulder. Sylus rolls his eyes at your dramatics, still in disbelief of the betrayal.

"Poor mama," the twins sing together in their tone-deaf glory to really drive the point through. Sylus feels a headache coming along, but his cheeks hurt first from smiling. Unexpectedly having fun with the whole ordeal.

"I'm sorry," he tells Lucian slowly, to let him know he means it.

But his son is not as forgiving as his wife.

"Time out. No pee-ture." Lucian says firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. Looking a lot like you when you scold them. "Just sit and tink."

"Oh, angel, come on." Sylus tries not to snort and make things worse when Lucian scrambles down his legs and almost loses his footing at the bottom. "I want to be in the picture. I'm family."

"Family no bite family!" declares Lucian, walking back over to the couch and leaving Sylus just by the corner to sulk. Sylus keeps a comment about having been bitten many other times by both his little twins behind pursed lips as he lets his son have the win.

And so there you sit, before the camera, on the couch between your four boys in burgundy polos and your bird in a bow-tie. The children sit ramrod straight, looking into the camera with round cheeks and a determination to keep very still.

Sylus takes the moment to take his own photo in his mind. Watching you round together and hold the babies close. Gaze softening as Luke and Kieran make faces to get the littles to break. Your gentle smile at the camera, turning to him, telling him that your mind isn't as far away from where his is currently.

Sylus watches as you whisper something to Lucian. Then, soon Lucian is coming back over to him and climbing back on his legs. "Yes?"

"Papa..." Lucian says through pouty lips. Unable to look up at Sylus, he focuses his efforts on twiddling with a loose thread on Sylus's shirt. "It not family pee-ture if no papa."

"Oh?" Sylus melts, tilting his head to catch Lucian's eye. "Shall I come join you then?"

"Yes." Lucian murmurs. "Please..."

"Alright," in as little effort as it takes, Sylus breaks free from his ribbon bond and cradles his son close to his heart. Kissing the crown of his head, he whispers. "Good job protecting mama."

"Yeah." Lucian whispers back, snuggling himself closer in the embrace. Pride surges through his body at the praise. He doesn't like arguments after all.

"Papa!" Kyros cheers when he joins you all on the couch. All eyes are on him as he slots himself in the space behind you to stand over your family, while carrying Lucian in his arms. The camera clicks.

"Me carry!" says Kyros, climbing over you to reach Sylus too. Now both toddlers are in his arms and the big twins scoot closer to you. The camera clicks with a flash.

It triggers Mephisto's wings to spread and a feather catches the corner of Kieran's eye. He yowls in pain and Luke bursts out laughing. Your mouth is poised to scold him. The camera clicks.

You switch places. You stand beside Sylus, Mephisto on his shoulder. Each twin carries a little twin. You all smile— the camera doesn't click.

Luke groans—it's his camera after all— and stands to fix it.

"Okay, so this isn't as quick and easy as I thought it would be," you admit quietly to Sylus, leaning your head on his shoulder while on standby.

"Yeah? Which part of this process gave you that impression?" Sylus whispers back, a sly grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "When you chose to ignore me or when you betrayed me?"

You roll your eyes, choosing to ignore his woes. "Maybe next time we hire a professional."

"Or you don't lie to our kids and say I bit you."

"Sylus!"

He laughs, drawing you closer to his warmth by your hips and leaning down. "I think it's fun, sweetie. I'm glad we did this."

"Yeah?" Your worried smile brightens just that little bit when he presses a reassuring kiss to your forehead. In the background, Luke curses, and his siblings gasp at the bad word. Lucian begins to scold him.

"Yes," he affirms. Then in your ear, "Only if you'd have told the truth—"

"Oh, Sylus!" You grit and dig your teeth into his collarbone.

"Ready!" Luke shouts, launching himself into the sofa.

The camera clicks, capturing chaos in one frame.

"Ouch." Sylus deadpans, flat and knowing—out loud. Loud enough for the children to hear and turn to you both in your red-handed state. With your frustrated fangs digging into the knit of their father's neck, eyes wide and startled like a rabid rodent. Only your eyes more to the side—to see them gaping at you.

Kyros is the first to speak. Disbelief in his gasp as he points to you like a cryptid revealed. "Mama bite."

You unlatch. "No—"

"MAMA BITE!" the big twins, once again, join together in a dissonant duet. Summoning Lucian to raise his fat, mitteny fist of justice.

"Angel—"

"Time out!"

—

"This one looks good," says Sylus, handing you the printed photo of you and Luke tied to the chair as punishment for your crimes.

"Ha-ha," you glare, knocking your temple onto his. You twist yourself into a more comfortable position on his lap. His grip around your waist tightens, and his chin hooks onto your shoulder—closeness his closure.

Sifting through more photos the faulty camera had taken, you struggle to find a decent picture where you were all in the frame, looking at the camera and smiling like a good, respectable family. Frustration bubbles just beneath the surface.

Meanwhile, Sylus seems to be having the time of his life.

"I'm keeping this," Sylus says again, sliding the photo of you biting him to the side of his desk.

"Oh, I got one," the picture you find is one of the first ones. With everyone smiling up at Sylus and Lucian when they reconciled. Sylus takes it to inspect it.

You hold a happy Kyros in your lap as you grin up at him. Luke and Kieran have also turned a quarter way around to see, fond looks on their faces that mimic an almost smile. And Lucian looks at him, bright eyes and an open mouth mid-utterance. And himself— grinning proudly at his glowing ball of sunshine.

Softly, he says to himself. "Hm, I like this too."

And now, you see Sylus as well.

Still, reduced to a being felled by what he created. Gazing into a chasm of desires he cannot fathom seeing, let alone possessing in this lifetime.

Here, gazing upon his family. You see him as he is, as who he truly loves to be.