Chapter 31 Mavi
Mavi
I wake up to Sai already awake beside me, lying on his side and watching me sleep with that photographer’s focus.
He’s cataloguing the way the morning light falls across my jaw, the shadow of my lashes, and the mating bite on my ear that’s still healing into a permanent scar.
Sai traces the bite with his fingertip and I swat his hand without opening my eyes.
“Stop composing shots and make me breakfast.” He kisses the bite mark and gets up.
The week unfolds in fragments that feel almost too good to be real.
Sai standing at the stove in the collar and boxers with the spatula in his hand, looking absurd and domestic at the same time.
Me sending him off to work each morning with the tie knotted at his throat, the cage secure between his legs, and a kiss that leaves him twenty minutes late because neither of us wants to pull away.
Our scents have merged permanently now so that anyone within five feet can smell the new thing we’ve become.
We’ve been having sex like we’re trying to fuse, every night, some mornings, and once on the kitchen counter after I got paint on his best shirt and he stood torn between outrage and arousal until I settled the debate by climbing into his lap.
The dynamic has settled fully into our daily life with the collar and the kneeling, but the week of genuine happiness has softened every edge.
I give commands with a laugh underneath them and Sai obeys with a smile that still surprises both of us.
This has been the best week of my life. Which is exactly why the cracks feel like being skinned alive.
It starts with the letter. The rent increase isn’t a modest adjustment but a number designed to force someone out and it takes effect immediately with no negotiation.
I read it at the kitchen table while Sai was in the shower before folding it into a small square and slipping it into a drawer because Sai didn’t need that right now.
Sai is happy. For the first time in his life, the man is genuinely and consistently happy and I won’t be the thing that takes that away from him.
Then the notification from Velvet arrives.
A terms of service review flags my account with something vague about content standards and community guidelines that means nothing and everything at once.
Someone with money contacted the platform.
Someone with connections leaned on corporate.
I stare at the notification and feel the ground shift beneath my feet.
Then a handful of my paintings are sent back.
Boxes arrive at my door while Sai is at a shoot and two small galleries, the very ones whose interest I earned through years of talent and persistence and grinding, returned every canvas.
There’s no call, no explanation, only cardboard and packing tape and the unmistakable message that someone is erasing me.
Someone is picking up every piece of the life I built and putting it in a box and sending it back while I stand in the wreckage trying to figure out how to keep the ground under my feet.
I don’t tell Sai. Not yet. He’s been hovering since we mated, watching me with those dark worried eyes and checking in more frequently and staying closer because the bond transmits unease like a low frequency hum.
I deflect every time. “I’m fine, pet. Just tired.
” Sai accepts it because I’ve never lied to him before and he doesn’t know what my lies look like yet.
Today, though, I just need one thing to go right. One thing.
Climbing out of my car, I head into the modeling studio, ready to put on a show I have no feeling for.
I need this, not just the money, though the money matters more than ever with the rent increase breathing down my neck, but the normalcy.
The feeling of being wanted for my face, my body, my presence.
That’s always been the constant. I show up, I look the way they want, and people want me. That’s the deal.
My makeup’s done and I’ve put on the outfit they requested, trying to be the easier one of their models.
By now, I know the rules, though the venue feels off the second I walk in.
Only one person stands there, awkward and shuffling papers at a folding table.
He looks up and says, “Oh, didn’t you get the text?
We canceled. We don’t need you anymore.”
He says it casually, like it’s just a schedule change. Like I didn’t rearrange my whole day around this. Like my income, my career, the thing I use to pay rent on an apartment whose rent just doubled, doesn’t matter at all.
I force a smile onto my face, trying not to breakdown right there. “Must have missed it. No worries.” I walk out before the smile cracks. A shudder runs down my spine as I pull out my phone, finger hovering over Sai’s number.
I’ve never needed him before but it feels like everything is breaking and the one person in the world I want to lean on, I told myself I shouldn’t. Because it’s always been him leaning on me. That’s our dynamic and fuck, I don’t want to break it.
My phone rings anyway, Sai’s name crossing the screen.
“Yeah?”
“Doll, Mavi, where are you? I can feel you. Who hurt you? I’m coming. What’s the address?”
His genuine concern pulls a small sob from me as I rattle off the address, staying on the phone as the sound of screeching wheels meets my ear. He keeps muttering a mixture of my name and ‘doll’ over and over again, the spell broken when Dorian pops out of the building.
“You look tired, Mavi. Everything okay? Heard things aren’t going so well with the cam stuff.” He pauses and the knife slides in. “Must be nice having a Hollis to fall back on, though.”
My free hand clenches at my sides. I could destroy him with a sentence.
I have the tongue for it and the ammunition.
But the words don’t come because underneath the fury sits something I don’t recognize in myself.
Exhaustion. I’m tired. I’m nauseous. My body feels wrong and my career is dissolving and a man I used to fuck is standing in front of me smiling about it.
“Go away, Dorian.”
“No, see, you’ve been playing this high and mighty shit for years. But now? No one fucking wants you. I heard the producer moved the location a few streets over and someone had to pick straws in order to stay and tell you.”
That hurts but I refuse to show Dorian I’m breaking down.
I step back, keeping the phone clutched to my ear, Sai’s mantra playing over and over until I can breathe again.
A car swerves into the parking lot, Sai marching toward me.
I expect him to do something to Dorian but he ignores my ex completely, grabs my hand and guides me to the car. “Let’s go home.”
I have never been more grateful for an Alpha in my entire life.
The drive home is quiet, my gaze firmly fixed out the window so Sai can’t see the tears in my eyes. Not that he doesn’t already know something’s wrong with me. By the time we get into the apartment, I’m fumbling with my equipment, desperately trying to focus on everything except what doesn’t work.
Sai watches me in horror as I move on autopilot, nearly tearing the lace of my orange set before I get it on. I need to be on camera. I need the audience and the feeling of being wanted and watched and desired. I need the control that performing gives me.
But I can’t focus. The chat moves and the subscribers are there and I’m performing but the performance feels hollow. My timing is off. My voice doesn’t have the drop. I’m going through the motions of being the Omega in control and underneath it I’m falling apart.
I pause the stream just as Sai steps up against my back, his lips pressed to the top of my head, his hands settling on my shoulders. Slowly, his lips make their way to my bite. “Use me.”
I turn and look at him. “Everyone will know who you are. If your body is on screen—”
“Then keep my face out of it. Angle the cameras. But use me, Mavi. Let me give you something. You need me, don’t you, Doll? Like I need you. Take me. Use me. Let me be your peace.”
I look at my Alpha. At the collar on his throat, the tie loosened from the day, those dark eyes watching me. He’s offering himself as content and anchor at the same time. He’s giving me back the control the day has been stealing.
I position him on the bed with his face away from the camera. His broad back, his shoulders, his hands, all visible. The cage shows when I angle it right. The mystery Alpha my regular subscribers have whispered about for weeks is here, anonymous and real.
I turn the stream back on.
The energy shifts instantly. The chat explodes. The mystery Alpha is there. My hands move over Sai’s body as I unlock the cage on camera. Then I take what I need. I ride him with the camera capturing every roll of my hips and every grip of his hands on my waist.
I find my register again, the one that always commands the room and pulls every eye to the screen.
My voice drops low and filthy as the dirty talk flows out of me like it is the most natural thing in the world.
"Look at you, Alpha. So fucking perfect under me. You feel how deep I am taking you? How wet I am for this cock? Yeah, that’s it. Let them see how good you are for me."
The words come easy, the same cadence I have used for years to make the chat light up and the tips pour in.
But underneath the performance I’m falling apart.
Tears slip down my face in quiet streaks that the camera might catch or might not, that the makeup hides well.
I keep riding him, hips rolling in that slow, deliberate grind that makes every subscriber lean closer, but my chest is tight and my throat burns and the tears keep coming anyway.
The subscribers see a dominant Omega taking his Alpha apart. They see the way my body moves over him, the way my hands grip his shoulders, the way my voice stays steady and filthy while I tell him exactly how good he feels inside me.