Page 22 of His Emotional Support Snack

But the feeding has warped into a desperate, intimate ritual.

When the sun sets and the estate goes quiet, she offers her wrist. I no longer slice the skin with a blade. I use my fangs, breaking the surface with agonizing care. The silver light flares, her pulse racing beneath my lips. The taste of her blood—starlight and ancient earth—sings through my veins, but the biological cure is secondary to the physical contact. I trace the pale scars on her ribs. I breathe the scent of rain radiating from her hair. I watch her eyes dilate, the defiance melting into a ragged, breathless surrender under the hypnotic weight of my magic.

I am addicted. A Khuzuth lord brought to his knees by a human laborer. If Zatori uncovers this weakness, he will not need poison to destroy me.

Kalan stumbles over a root, scraping his knee against the crushed pearl path. The boy’s face crinkles, a wail building in his small chest.

Esme is there in a split second. She drops to the grass, scooping the boy into her arms, pressing her face against his silver braids.

"Mama has you," she murmurs, the words carrying clearly through the glass. "You are safe, sweet boy. Mama is here."

I narrow my eyes, studying the scene.

Kalan buries his face in her neck. The boy’s magical signature—the faint, dormant spark of Tagnadaet magic inherited from my brother—flares briefly in distress.

I press my forehead against the cool glass.

The Deceiver grants his followers the ability to see the truth hidden beneath the surface of reality. Over the past eight weeks, my restored power has sharpened my senses to a razor’s edge. I watch the chaotic spark of the boy’s magic brush against the silver, Wildspont resonance humming in Esme’s veins.

The two signatures do not weave together. They do not share the intrinsic, biological resonance of mother and child.

The magic clashes. It is a subtle, dissonant frequency, invisible to the naked eye, but screaming loudly to a master of illusions.

A cold, creeping dread slithers down my spine, banishing the warmth in my chest.

I step away from the window, turning my back on the courtyard. The shadows in the antechamber warp and twist, reacting to the sudden, violent spike in my heart rate.

She claimed him in the alleyway. She fought a Serpent assassin barehanded to shield him. She offered her own throat to my blade to keep him breathing. The maternal devotion is absolute, a fierce, unyielding shield that humbles the most cutthroat warriors in Vhoig.

But the magic does not lie.

"Jarek."

The command is a low, dangerous hum. The Miou commander steps from the shadows of the corridor, his dark armor clinking softly. He bows, his eyes fixed on the floorboards.

"My lord."

"Assemble a covert team." I adjust the heavy rings on my fingers, masking the tremor returning to my hands. "I require the death registries and slave certificates from the Lowtown sectors spanning the last four years. Specifically, any documentation regarding human females who kept company with my late brother."

Jarek pauses, a slight hesitation betraying his confusion. "The records are heavily guarded by the local overseers, my lord. It will require discretion to avoid alerting Lord Zatori's spies."

"I do not care if you have to gut every overseer in the district." The static crackles across my knuckles, a lethal warning. "Bring me the certificates. Quietly."

"It will be done by tomorrow afternoon." Jarek bows again, retreating rapidly into the shadows.

I stand alone in the quiet corridor, staring at the locked iron doors of my study.

The foundation of my reality cracks. The entire dynamic of our existence—the fake relationship shielding the heir, the cage I built around her to protect my cure—is predicated on the claim that she is the biological mother. A Khuzuth lord protecting the mother of his bloodline is an eccentric indulgence. The court accepts it. Zatori tolerates it.

But a Khuzuth lord protecting a human aunt? A mere guardian with zero biological ties to the Tagnadaet house?

That is an abomination. It is a violation of caste law that invites immediate execution.

If she lied to me in the alleyway, the fragile truce holding Zatori at bay shatters. The justification for keeping her in my estate evaporates, leaving her exposed to the torture pits.

Worse, it means the feral, beautiful creature I am falling violently in love with does not trust me. It means the breathless surrenders in the dark, the shared blood, the desperate, trembling touches against the marble mantelpiece—all of it is a calculated performance to stay close to the boy.

A hollow, agonizing ache settles deep in my chest. The physical rot is cured, but the human is tearing me apart from the inside out.