Chapter 364: Feeding Time IV
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She stopped on purpose. She stopped before she crossed the line where control turned into a blackout of appetite.
She tore her mouth free with a wet click. Blood coated her lips. A thin line ran down her chin. Her throat worked once, swallowing the last taste.
The woman stumbled backward, one hand pressed to her neck, her eyes were wide open, not with arrogance anymore.
With fear.
It was not only fear of dying.
It was fear of realizing that the monsters she sold to were not the only monsters in the world, and that one had just looked like a beautiful girl until its teeth entered her.
Lily’s breathing was rough. Her pulse was fast. Her hunger had eased, but it hovered, alert, like a knife that had tasted air and now wanted skin.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. The blood smear looked too real on her skin. She hated it. She also felt stronger.
That contradiction made her stomach twist.
The woman tried to speak. A wet, shaking voice came out of her. "You... you—"
Lily stepped forward and hit the woman’s knee sideways. With a Crack. The woman dropped with a choked cry.
Lily did not kill her. Not yet. Not because she deserved mercy. Because Lily wanted her awake long enough to understand her crime.
Lily crouched, her eyes were steady, her voice was quiet.
"You wrote chains," Lily said. "You sold fear."
The woman’s eyes darted, searching for leverage, for a name, for a bargaining chip.
"You don’t understand," she rasped. "This is only business..."
Lily’s gaze hardened.
"No," Lily said. "This is you."
The woman tried to crawl away from her. But Lily’s boot pressed her shoulder down. It was not crushing. But holding her in place.
Then Lily looked over her shoulder.
Vera and Vela were already moving through the room with clean violence, not chaotic slaughter. One guard went down with a shattered wrist. Another with a throat strike that stole air. A handler trying to run was snapped back by a blood thread and slammed into a wall.
But the twins kept glancing toward Lily. Not because they doubted her.
Because this was her first time feeding on a human, and they could read the aftershock on her face.
Vera stepped close enough that Lily could hear her without anyone else hearing.
"Breathe," Vera said.
Vela’s voice followed, it was low and firm.
"Do not let the taste convince you it was good," Vela said. "Let the choice be what was good."
That line hit Lily’s chest like a hand closing around her ribs.
Choice. It was not taste. It was not relief. But Choice.
Lily inhaled slowly. Then exhaled. Her hands steadied. Then she nodded once, not looking away from the woman under her boot.
"I chose," Lily whispered.
Vera’s eyes softened a fraction.
"Yes," Vera said. "You did."
Vela crouched beside Lily, her presence was close, not invading, supporting.
"You stopped," Vela added. "That is the hardest part for the first time."
Lily’s throat tightened again, but this time it was not hunger. But it was an emotion she did not want to admit out loud.
Because somewhere inside her, a part of her had been terrified that the twins would judge her as soft, or foolish, or unworthy.
Instead they were here. They were steady. Watching her. Holding the edge with her so she did not fall off it.
The woman under Lily’s boot made a small choking sound.
Lily looked down again and spoke with cold clarity.
"You will live," Lily said. "So you can tell others what happens when you sell girls like paper."
The woman’s eyes widened.
Lily lifted her foot.
"Crawl," Lily said.
The woman did not crawl with dignity. She crawled with terror. Good for her.
Around them, the den collapsed.
Two handlers died. One buyer died. Three guards were broken in many body parts.
One ledger keeper tried to crawl toward the back room before Sekhmet’s boot pinned his spine.
Vela was already opening cages. Vera cut chain lines with efficient motions. Bat Bat dropped keys into waiting hands and at one point landed on a cage roof to declare, "You may all panic less. We are on your side."
That somehow comforted one of the younger women and terrified one of the men.
Sekhmet found the records room.
Lily smelled it first and pointed him there without words.
Inside they found documents, route tags, false contracts, names, debt ledgers, transport schedules, and evidence enough to tie half the lower filth market to more respectable buyers if handled correctly.
Useful information.
Very useful.
The women and children came out first, just as Lily ordered. Those strong enough to walk were moved fast through the side line. Those too weak were carried. Vera handled the children gently in the way all truly dangerous women eventually learned to handle the helpless. Vela found the hidden bruised older woman running the inside chain counts under threat and cut her ropes too.
No one screamed for long. No one resisted well enough to matter after the first minute.
By the end, the hall smelled of opened doors, freed fear, fresh blood, and overturned ownership.
Lily stood in the center of it with one small line of the contract woman’s blood at the corner of her mouth.
Not filthy. Not wrong. Chosen target.
Sekhmet saw it and knew at once that tonight had done what needed doing.
She had fed from prey she judged worthy. She had not lost herself.
When the place was finally silent enough to hear the soft crying of freed children and the breath of the living over the dead, the rescued were sent through one of Raka’s quiet channels. Mira would want the records at once. Elena would want the women counted, fed, checked, and either sheltered or moved according to what danger still followed them.
Bat Bat looked at the blood, the chains, the broken desk, and the caged rooms now opening into air, and for once her face lost some of its play.
"They really do this," she said.
No one answered immediately.
Because yes.
They did.
That was why such places had to die.
Outside again, on the roofline above the ruined illegal contract hall, the night wind moved over them all.
Lily stood with Vera on one side and Vela on the other, not by arrangement now, but because they had drifted there naturally.
The bond between them had changed in the hunt. Not completed. Not sealed forever. But it was stronger. It was clearer. A real thing.
Bat Bat landed near them and looked at the three women with obvious curiosity.
"So," she said, "if this is the first wife and those are the elder blood wives, then what do I call this formation?"
Vera answered first. "Danger."
Vela added, "And too much talking."
Bat Bat looked very pleased by both answers.
Lily turned her head and looked from one twin to the other. "You watched me," Lily said.
Vera met her eyes. "We guarded you."
Vela’s voice was quieter, it was more honest than Lily expected.
"We did not want your first human to turn you into something you hate," Vela said.
Lily’s breath hitched.
She looked out over Slik’s dark rooflines, over the lanes where people sold and bought and hid and survived, over the city she had entered first as the city lord’s daughter and now stood over as something else entirely.
Not just a wife. Not just a girl. Not just a bloodline creature.
Part of a unit. Part of a house. Part of him.
Bat Bat fluffed herself up and said, "I still think I should be considered your fourth."
Lily looked at her.
Bat Bat lifted her chin. "I contributed."
Vera said, "You dropped the keys."
Vela said, "And commentary."
Bat Bat looked offended. "Do not reduce tactical speech to commentary."
Lily, before she could stop herself, actually laughed. A real one. With her husband’s harem members.
Light in the dark above a dead contract hall.
And that was how the second day of preparation ended, Lily’s first human feeding done on a woman who deserved her mouth, and the bond between Lily, Vera, and Vela grew stronger under moonlight and blood feeding.
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