straddling the beast

Soft fabric swallows Kaël whole, wrapping around him like a lover’s arms—gentle, comforting, and deceptively safe. The plush blankets feel sinfully luxurious against skin that has long forgotten what softness feels like. They’re warm, almost too warm, like the guilt that sometimes claws at his chest late at night, when no one is watching. The room is dim, the silence heavy, and for a fleeting moment, he might have believed himself free, had it not been for the sharp, skin-biting collar clasped around his throat.

A beautiful contrast, really—the way comfort and captivity now lie beside each other like old friends.

The sweatpants clinging loosely to his narrow hips are clearly not his, the soft grey fabric a little too long, the waistband cinched but still threatening to slip. They smell like someone else. Not unpleasant—more like faint cologne, fabric softener, and something darker. Something masculine. The shirt he wears is even worse—baggy, worn, and reeking of familiarity he doesn't want. Aaron’s shirt. Stolen by Euan. Stolen again by Kaël.

He’s wrapped in them now. In pieces of them. And that fact alone sits sour on his tongue, even as his stomach lies quiet and content.

Beside him, the box is empty. Grease stains the cardboard in transparent splotches, betraying the violence of his hunger. He hadn't eaten like that in years. Teeth tearing flesh from bone, grease smearing over his chin, hands shaking with desperation but refusing to stop until nothing remained. A massacre of chicken, silence, and dignity. He doesn't regret it.

He lifts his head slowly, every movement precise and calculated as if someone might leap from the shadows and accuse him of betrayal for enjoying something so simple. The room is unfamiliar, though comfortable in a way that feels designed to confuse him. Warm-colored walls. An open window revealing slivers of stars. Quiet. Too quiet.

This isn't a prison cell. But it's still a cage.

He scans the room with the calm gaze of someone who has counted escape routes more times than sheep. The windows are too small to be useful, and even if he did slip out—what then? Break his ankles on the second-floor landing and crawl? No. That’s their game. He knows it. The illusion of freedom is always part of the trap. The room is tidy. Personal. A large wooden bed dominates the center, heavy and firm, the kind that doesn’t creak unless someone makes it. A calendar hangs loosely on the closet, a few days not yet crossed out, either forgotten or ignored.

Photos line the walls—landscapes, beaches, distant quiet places. The frames are cheap, impersonal, but the photos are not. He studies them a moment longer, sees the fine focus, the clever light angles. Someone took care with them. Someone tried. His guess? Arran. Too neat, too controlled. If this room had belonged to Euan, there would’ve been chaos woven into the bedsheets.

Kaël lowers himself onto the floor with the grace of someone used to silence, dipping his head to peer under the bed. His fingers brush something flat and glossy—he slides it out slowly, cautiously, like a relic, or a secret, and lifts it into the dim lamplight.

A Playgirl magazine.

How utterly poetic.

A breath leaves him—dry, bitter, amused. “Lovely,” he whispers. But he doesn’t open it. Not at first. Not out of shame, but caution. It’s not the kind of thing you leave out by accident. And if someone like Arran—or worse, Euan—left it under their bed, then perhaps it wasn’t for reading. It was for baiting. Kaël turns it over. Then again. Just as he’s about to slide it back, something catches his eye—edges of pages inside that don’t belong. Photos. Loose. Tucked away like secrets in a diary.

Curiosity cracks through his paranoia.

He opens the book.

Brown-haired women stare back at him from glossy pages, all posed in sultry, exaggerated angles. Some playful. Some seductive. Some disturbing. But none of them surprise him. Not until he reaches the added photos—slipped between pages like bookmarks, or traps.

A flash of collar. Chains. Men this time—some fully nude, some not. All staring directly into the camera with unashamed intensity. Kaël’s stomach knots. Not from revulsion, but from the raw weight of context slamming into him like a wave. This isn’t just porn. This is information.

“Guess you have a type…” he mutters to no one. He flips a page—and freezes.

Because he's no longer alone.

The door clicks shut behind him and he turns his head just enough to meet the icy eyes of Arran standing like a shadow against the frame. Arms crossed. Lips pressed tight. Not angry. Just… disappointed.

“You haven’t even been here a full night and already you're looking through porn,” Arran says with all the reproach of a schoolmaster catching a delinquent student. He sighs as if the whole world has let him down.

Kaël raises a brow slowly. “You’re the one who keeps it under the bed,” he says, voice flat.

His gaze doesn’t waver. He dares to look back at the magazine. “Besides, why the hell are there naked men in collars and chains here too? What kind of ‘reading material’ is this supposed to be?”

Arran strides across the room, doesn’t speak until he’s within reach, then snatches the magazine out of Kaël’s hand and throws it toward the desk. It lands with a flat slap that echoes too loudly in the stillness.

Kaël doesn’t flinch. He lets the silence stretch.

“Is that why your brother gave me a collar?” he asks eventually, tilting his head like a question mark, eyes narrowing with taunting amusement. “Because you two like to play pretend with your guests?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Arran snaps—too quickly, too sharply. Defensive. Kaël watches the reaction, files it away for later.

Arran scoffs and grabs the empty food box beside Kaël. His voice drops with condescension. “A bath, a clean shirt, a nap, and suddenly the little mutt thinks he has teeth.”

Kaël gives him a slow smile. One without warmth. “And all it took was a collar to make you drop the act. That’s sad. If you think about it.”

Their eyes meet. Something electric surges through the air between them, tense and heavy, and Kaël sees it first. The flicker in Arran’s gaze. The shift from disdain to… something else.

A hand hooks into Kaël’s collar.

He’s pulled closer—too close. Their faces nearly touching, their breath sharing the same narrow space. Arran’s voice dips to a whisper, all venom and silk.

“Does it really only take one collar for you to feel at home?”

Kaël’s smile deepens. It’s wicked. Dangerous. He moves fast—grabs Arran by the wrist and tugs him down onto the bed. With fluid grace, he swings a leg over and straddles him, thighs pressing against Arran’s hips, his weight feather-light but his presence heavy.

Arran looks surprised, not threatened. Curious. Intrigued.

Good.

Kaël leans down, nose almost brushing against his, voice a soft, deadly purr. “Not the collar,” he murmurs. “But your little stash of interests? That got me curious. Is that why you didn’t leave me to die? You brought me here for this?”

Arran chuckles—low and dark. His hands find Kaël’s hips without permission, fingers resting with just enough pressure to remind Kaël of where he is. “You’re hardly my type,” he says, voice thick, gaze sharp. “But I’m more than happy to play this game with you.”

Kaël doesn’t move. Doesn’t smile.

He watches Arran the way a wolf watches another in its territory—not to bite, but to see who will bite first.

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