“Go eat some dried venison from my pack if you’re still hungry,” he says flat and cold, the words as much command as dismissal, as if I’m just some creature that’ll never be satisfied, something feral he tolerates out of habit or necessity. It sends a thrill through me, a twisted, delighted pain that makes me want to bite and laugh and tear the whole room apart until he admits I’m more than just tolerated, I’m the obsession, the need, the endless, gnawing hunger he can’t ever put down.

  I don’t flinch. I don’t break away. I let my gaze devour him as he drinks, letting our mouths meet at the rim, sharing the last mouthful as if it’s some dark communion, my purrs deepening, claws curling against the cabinet as I lean in, refusing to let go. I want him to see every ounce of greed in my eyes, every savage promise, every mania and need and broken bit of love twisted into something ugly and beautiful all at once.

  When the bowl is finally empty, I pull back just enough to breathe the steam from his lips, tail thumping, heart hammering. “That’s right, Master,” I whisper, voice trembling between laughter and violence, “drink it all down. Take everything. Leave nothing for anyone else. No one gets a taste but me.” I bare my teeth in a smile that would terrify anything with sense, then slide off the cabinet, low and sinuous, stalking toward the pack where the venison waits, but never turning my back on him, never letting him out of my sight for even a heartbeat.

  Let the world think he’s cold. Let them think he feels nothing. I know better. I know the darkness in him, the emptiness that only I can fill, and I’ll crawl inside that hunger and make it mine until nothing remains but us, gnawing at each other, always wanting, never whole, never finished.

  I tear into the venison with my claws, ripping thick strips of dried meat from the bundle in his pack, shoving them into my mouth so fast I barely taste the salt and smoke and old blood. My ears flatten, my tail flicks and jerks against the cabinet leg, every muscle tight with manic, animal energy. I don’t care how I look, savage, greedy, a mess of hunger and need, because I know he’s watching and I want him to see it all, every ugly, feral scrap of me.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The venison is tough, hard to chew, my jaw aching as I grind down each bite. I don’t stop, not until I feel swollen and sick, belly bloated with meat and broth, every nerve ending tingling, not with satisfaction but with the wild, ugly ache of excess. My stomach cramps, my limbs go heavy, and suddenly all that manic energy melts into something smaller, rawer, something broken and petulant and needy.

  I drop what’s left of the venison onto the cabinet and curl around myself, whining soft and miserable, voice pitched high and trembling with frustrated hunger that never seems to end. My tail wraps around my thigh, ears drooping. My breath comes in little shuddering huffs, every part of me desperate for him, for comfort, for warmth, for anything to make the emptiness go away.

  I whine louder, like a wounded thing, helpless and pitiful in the half-dark. “Maaaaster…” I draw the word out, thick with longing, resentment, exhaustion, a ruined, needy sound that echoes the worst of me, pure, soft and fraying at the edges. I bury my face against the pillow, clawing at the sheets, aching for him, needing him to make the world right again.

  It takes him a minute, maybe two, before he finally joins me in the bed, and only then do I begin to settle, tension draining out of me as his weight sinks into the mattress. I slide up against him instantly, curling into his side, my face pressed to his chest, tail winding round his waist like a living chain. My purr is a weak, uncertain thing, more whimper than rumble, but it steadies as I feel his presence, the solid, cold certainty of him anchoring me to the world.

  I breathe him in, slow, greedy, possessive, letting the heat of him seep through me until the need stops hurting and turns to something warm, safe, absolute. Mine. Always mine. Even at my worst, even bloated and broken and wild, I am his. And as I finally, finally settle, I press a last little whine into his skin, just to remind him, he’s the only thing that ever fills me, the only comfort in the dark.