Lilith
The club was always full. Bodies pressed together in velvet booths, laughter spilling through silk drapes, music pulsing just soft enough to bury the sighs and gasps in the shadows. My patrons came for pleasure, but they stayed for permission — permission to forget the world at my feet, to surrender secrets, sweat, dreams they'd never confess by daylight.
Even now — well past midnight — the main lounge hummed like a living thing. My living thing. The air was heavy with clove smoke, warm skin, soft perfume layered over the raw, unfiltered heat of want. Gold filigree caught the flicker of the chandeliers in the vaulted ceiling, thin veins of soft light above the restless crush below.
On the dance floor, a witch draped in black silk curled herself around a fae whose silver tattoos pulsed in time with the music, shifting across his collarbones as she whispered something filthy against his ear. At the bar, a mortal boy arched his throat into my steward's mouth — young, trembling, pretending he hadn't paid for exactly this moment.
It never stopped — the hush, the hunger, the slow ripple of heat blooming beneath velvet shadows and candlelight. The building itself seemed to exhale it, walls warm with secrets that soaked into the drapes and floorboards until I could taste them in the air.
And I stood above it all — barefoot on cold marble behind the mezzanine rail, silk robe brushing my ankles, thin as breath and dark as spilled ink. One hand rested lightly on the glass railing. The other turned the stem of a crystal goblet between my fingers, the wine inside untouched but for the thin stain on my mouth. I liked the shape of the glass, the ritual of it — not the taste.
I watched them. All of them. Lovers, strangers, creatures who forgot their own names under my roof, just long enough for me to taste the slip of their shame, the flicker of desire they never spoke aloud. They gave it freely — they paid to give it freely — and I took only what I pleased.
There was no thrill in abundance. Not for me. Not anymore.
I had tasted the wildest cravings, the rawest mortal sweetness, the sharp edge of angelic hunger that thought it could seduce me instead of the other way around. Centuries of perfect arrangements — warm skin, open mouths, the soft tremble of Thank you, Mistress, your touch is everything, please feed again — and then they stumbled back into the night, drunk on the fantasy of being devoured by Lilith Voss.
They thought it meant something. They always did.
Tonight was no different. My last source had been an alpha wolf, all borrowed bravado and swollen pride, scent thick with the pack's stale dominance. He'd swaggered in like a king, stripped himself bare, laid his heat at my feet like a gift I'd begged for. He whispered about alliances and favors, the promise of pack ties if I kept him close. As if a wolf's snarling loyalty would ever bind me to anything but boredom.
He'd tasted like yesterday's warmth and the ghost of a bond that never rooted deep enough to bloom. Forgettable.
I'd fed gently, more out of politeness than hunger. He left with his swagger intact, pockets fat with hush money he'd swear he never wanted. He'd tell the next girl he'd pleased me — boast about how I moaned for him, how he left me wanting more. He'd lie about how much he took from me, when it was always the other way around.
None of them ever satisfied me. Not really.
Below, laughter lifted — low, electric, the kind that slid under skin and made necks tilt, lips part. The hum of want brushed over me like warm silk — the pulse of so many mouths that wanted to be opened, to be filled with secrets they'd never dare say in the sun. Lust, shame, regret, fantasy — all of it mine for the taking.
But I barely felt it. Too many open mouths, too many bodies that offered themselves up and begged to be emptied, used up, left hollow for just one night. I wanted something different. Something that hadn't crawled into my lap in far too long.
A quiet footstep broke the memory. One of my stewards — mortal, clean, eyes cast down with the proper mix of respect and fear — waited at my side. A silver tray rested in his gloved hands, the neat stack of tonight's hopefuls balanced just so.
"Your next selection, Mistress," he said, voice low enough not to touch the hush below.
I took the tray with a flick of my fingers, feeling the weight shift under my palm. The club's pulse pressed closer — the warm bodies below, the low thrum of secret want bleeding through the marble into my bare feet. All of it mine, if I wanted it.
I turned the cards over one by one. Expensive paper, slick digital slips, gold-foil crests. Names lined with pretension and promise, all reeking of illusions they thought would make them taste sweeter than they were.
A lion shifter boasting about some antique bloodline — dull.
A mortal girl promising that her prayers made her untouched warmth purer — tedious.
A vampire offering the novelty of cold skin and ancient guilt — pointless. There was no warmth in the dead.
I almost set the tray aside — another night, another bodies I'd half-care about for a breath, then forget. And then my thumb brushed a slip thin as old newsprint, creased at the edge where someone's nail had worried it smooth. No scent, no fancy seal. Just ink, cramped but careful: Kael. No surname. Twenty-four. Lynx shifter. Reason for offering: Family medical bills.
Honest. Simple. And a cat.
The word lingered on my tongue. Soft fur, claws tucked away until they weren't. A creature who might curl under my hand one moment and bare teeth the next. I felt a slow curl of something warm at the base of my spine — hunger I hadn't bothered to name in too many years.
How long had it been? Five years? Ten? Longer? A real cat, walking in of his own accord — not bought, not trapped, not forced to beg. Just... offered.
I almost laughed at how easy it was to decide.
"Yes," I said softly, to no one but the hush and the velvet and the hunger that never quite slept. I folded the slip in half, pressing the thin paper between two fingers like a promise.
I didn't bother to look at the steward when I spoke. "Prepare Suite Four."
He bowed his head, voice steady even though he'd seen the shift in my eyes. "And the applicant, Mistress?"
"Bring him clean," I murmured, letting my mouth curve. "No fuss. No illusions. I want him exactly as he is."
He vanished without another word — trained well enough to know when to disappear before I changed my mind.
I stayed at the railing a moment longer, the little slip of paper still warm in my palm. Below, the club still glittered and purred and begged, every body eager for my touch, every throat ready for my tongue. But none of them would taste right tonight.
Tonight I wanted soft fur and hidden claws. I wanted the sharp purr of something wild that thought it could curl around my wrist and not be caught.
Tonight I wanted Kael.