Night in the guildhall is an animal thing, thrumming and anxious under its fragile skin of order. The walls breathe. Somewhere, footsteps echo, servant, guard, maybe an ambitious little thief hoping to pick silver from the wrong pockets. I don’t care. I’m pressed against Master, every inch of him mapped in my mind, every heartbeat the only sound I trust, the only rhythm I let in. I sprawl over him, half on, half beside, pinning his arm beneath me just for the comfort of knowing he can’t leave without waking me first. My tail’s a noose around his waist, my knee wedged between his thighs, staking my claim a hundred different ways.

  But sleep, real sleep, won’t come. Not for me. Not for what I am, not with this brain wired wrong, this blood boiling and fizzing, every piece of me splintered and rebuilt from obsession and need. Even with him here, especially with him here, I’m restless. Always. The city outside could be on fire or frozen, and it wouldn’t matter. All that matters is him.

  Inside me paces, unblinking. My eyes are wide open in the dark, pupils huge, drinking in every scrap of detail. I want to hurt something just to see if it bleeds, just to feel alive, just to prove to the night that I’m still here and nothing has won. I remember the way the Guild Master looked at me, afraid, confused, trying to make sense of a thing he can’t name or buy. That’s power. That’s a kind of cruelty I savour, a secret I’ll keep. I want to sink my teeth into the city, let it taste the venom that lives in me, the way I’d rip the throat out of anyone who tried to put their hands on Master while he’s vulnerable, unguarded, asleep. Let them all try. I want them to. I want an excuse.

  Sly as ever, slides in next. I'm the laugh behind my teeth, the heat between my legs, the urge to wake Master just for the pleasure of his groggy protest. I want to play, to push, to test boundaries, roll him over, straddle him, lick a line up his throat just to watch him shiver and curse and maybe forget for a second how cold this world can be. I want him distracted, off balance, breathless with how much he wants me. The guild’s silver means nothing. Power means nothing. I want attention, fixation, the full brutal glare of his focus. I want to see his eyes, hungry, lost, only for me. I want to know I can make him lose control just by purring, by biting down a little harder, by dragging my claws up his side until he groans my name and forgets everything else.

  But it’s my chill that holds me longest. Underneath the lust and the violence, there’s a fear, a sharp, metallic edge that never dulls. What if someone does come? What if he slips away? What if the morning brings something I can’t kill or seduce or terrify? The thought curls around my heart like barbed wire. I squeeze tighter, pulling him closer, claws dimpling his skin through the tunic. He never wakes. He trusts me. That trust terrifies me and feeds me in the same breath. It’s a vulnerability I want to tear at and protect, all at once. If anyone hurt him, if anyone so much as thought about it, I’d gut them with a smile. I’d paint the bed red, wear their fear like perfume, laugh as the city recoiled. That’s the promise I make to him, silent and savage. No one gets him but me. No one.

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  I listen to his breathing. It hitches, settles, the little noise he makes when he’s sinking deep into sleep. I let myself memorise it, again and again, branding the sound into my bones. My hand slides over his chest, slow, possessive, not quite gentle. I trace scars, old bruises, places where the world has marked him before I ever could. I want to erase every one. I want to replace them with my own, teeth, claws, kisses, a map of proof that he’s been mine and no one else’s.

  I turn my face into his neck, scenting him, nosing through his hair, mouthing the skin where his pulse pounds. I mumble nonsense, threats, love, warnings, things he’d never let himself hear if he were awake: “You’re mine. Mine to keep, mine to break, mine to heal, mine to ruin. If they take you, I’ll take them all. I’ll burn it down. I’ll gut the city and string its lights from your collar.” My purr is manic, barely contained, not even close to soothing. I need him to know, even if only through dreams, even if only in the blood and heat that seeps into the sheets. I want to mark him in ways he can never scrub clean.

  There are moments, seconds stretched out like thread, where my mind spins, caught between the urge to laugh and the urge to sob. I feel his heart beat through the thin fabric, and for a flash, I’m afraid, terrified, because what if it stops? What if I wake and he’s cold, or gone, or claimed by someone else, someone I didn’t see coming, someone clever or ruthless or beautiful enough to slip past even me? I snarl at the dark, fury welling in my chest, and dig my claws in a little harder until I feel the protest in his sleeping muscles, until I know he’s real, that he’s still here.

  And then the mania fades, and I settle, only for a moment, into something that almost feels like peace. I knead his chest in slow, gentle circles, matching my breath to his. My tail untangles, just a bit, and I nuzzle under his chin, letting myself be small, letting myself need, letting myself be held even if he doesn’t know it.

  Tomorrow I’ll be wild again. Tomorrow I’ll hunt and threaten and claim him in front of every fool in this city. But tonight, in the dark, I am every broken piece of myself, cruel, playful, desperate, protective. I am all of it, fused together, raw and real and unashamed.

  He sleeps. I do not. Not really. I watch. I guard. I ache for him in ways words can’t hold. And in the hush of that animal night, with only his warmth to shield me, I swear again, every hour, every minute, every ragged breath, mine. Always. Mine.