The Wolf, the Demon, and Their Omega

Chapter Twelve

KENJI

The yakuza compound breathes different after dark. Shadows pool in corners where blood has been spilled for three generations, and the air tastes like iron and incense. I find Mina on the eastern balcony, staring out at Hartford's lights like they might reveal answers.

"Hiding?"

"Thinking." She doesn't turn, but her shoulders relax at my voice. "Your grandmother knew my father. Taught him to control water when he was younger than me."

"Grandmother knows everyone who matters." I lean against the railing beside her, close enough that her cold meets my heat. "She collects people like some collect stamps."

"She called him sweet. Said he was terrible at mahjong."

"High praise from her. She usually just calls people adequate or dead."

That earns a laugh, small but real. The sound settles something in my chest that's been wound tight since lunch. Since my mother executed three men like she was pruning roses.

"Your siblings are inside."

"I know."

"You're avoiding them."

"Also know that."

Mina finally looks at me. In the low light, her eyes hold depths that make me think of underground lakes. Places where things grow strange in the dark.

"Why?"

The question hangs between us. I could lie, make excuses. But she bit me. Marked me. Made me hers in ways that demand truth.

"Hana thinks I'm wasting my potential. Hiro wants to be me but better. Yoshi..." I run hot hands through my hair. "Yoshi just wants his big brother back. The one who taught him origami and didn't have extra mouths trying to push through his palms."

"Show me."

"What?"

"The mouths. I want to see."

Dangerous request. My oni blood has been singing all day, wanting out, wanting to taste the life force that pours off her in waves. But she's looking at me steady and sure, my mate who turns into twenty-three feet of predator when the mood strikes.

I let go. Just enough.

The transformation ripples through me like fever. My palms split—not bloody, just opening where mouths shouldn't be. Teeth gleam in the low light, too sharp for any human purpose. My skin flushes darker, edging toward the deep red of true oni.

Mina doesn't flinch. If anything, she leans closer.

"Does it hurt?"

"Everything hurts lately." I flex my hands, watch the mouths move. "Good hurt though. Like breaking bones to set them right."

She takes my hand—the one with teeth—and studies it like art. Her fingers trace the edges where normal becomes monstrous. The mouth responds, wanting to taste her, to drink down that cold dragon energy that makes my fire sing.

"Beautiful."

"That's one word for it."

"I have others." She looks up at me through dark lashes. "Want to hear them?"

The air between us shifts, charges with something that has nothing to do with supernatural heritage and everything to do with want. We've been dancing around this for days. Pack bonds and public facades and too many eyes always watching. But here, now, in the dark between my family's compound walls—

"Mina."

"Your room. Where is it?"

"Third floor. Corner suite. But—"

"Show me."

Not a request. Command, from the omega everyone thinks should submit. I bare my teeth—all of them sharp now—and she smiles like she's won something.

We move through hallways that know my footsteps. Past guards who politely don't see the yakuza prince leading his fiancée toward privacy. The compound might be traditional, but some traditions bend when needed.

My suite sprawls across the corner—bedroom, study, private bath. Everything in shades of black and red, because teenage me thought that was peak aesthetic. Now it just looks like what it is: a boy's room waiting for a man to outgrow it.

"Nice—"

I press her against the closed door before she can finish. Months of want condensed into this moment, her mouth under mine, her hands tangling in my hair. She tastes like rain and danger and mine, mine, mine.

"Finally." She breathes it against my lips.

"We've kissed before."

"Not like this. Not without the others watching. Not when you're letting the oni show."

She's right. Every other touch has been pack-shared, bonds humming with collective want. This is just us. Fire and water. Demon and dragon. All the impossible things we're becoming.

I lift her easy—oni strength makes her weight nothing. Her legs wrap around my waist and suddenly we're pressed together in ways that make thinking difficult. Her cold soothes places I didn't know burned.

"Bed."

"Demanding."

"You have no idea."

I carry her across the room, grateful for once that yakuza princes get California kings. She lands among black silk sheets, dress riding up to show thighs that have haunted my dreams. But when I reach for her, she stops me with a hand on my chest.

"Wait."

Everything in me screams to ignore that word. The oni wants to consume, the dragon wants to claim, the eighteen-year-old wants to finally, finally touch her the way I've been imagining.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just—" She sits up, hair falling around her shoulders. "I want to see you. All of you. Whatever you're becoming."

"That's not safe."

"Neither am I."

Truth. This girl who shifts into an apex predator for fun isn't worried about some teeth and red skin. But I worry. The oni blood gets stronger every day, hungrier. What if I hurt her? What if—

"Kenji." She cups my face with cool hands. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Maybe you should be."

"Maybe. But I'm not. So show me."

I step back. Give her space to run if she needs to. Then I let go completely.

The change hits harder than before. Skin flushing deep red-black. Extra mouths opening along my arms now, not just palms. My teeth all sharp, made for tearing. And the hunger—f**k, the hunger roars through me like wildfire. Every cell screaming to consume the life force pouring off her.

"There you are." She doesn't run. Doesn't flinch. Just looks at me like I'm something worth seeing. "My demon."

"Yours." The word comes out rough, distorted by too many teeth.

She rises from the bed, moves to me slow and deliberate. Her hands map the changes—the extra mouths that want to taste her, the skin that burns hotter than human normal, the muscles coiled tighter with supernatural strength.

"Beautiful." She says it again, means it. I can taste the truth in the air between us.

"How are you not running?"

"Because you're mine." She goes up on her toes, kisses me careful around the sharp teeth. "And I take care of what's mine."

The kiss breaks something in me. Control or fear or the careful distance I've been maintaining. I lift her again, carry her back to bed with hands that shake. When I lay her down this time, she pulls me with her.

"Sure?"

"Three days until the wedding. I'm not waiting anymore."

Neither am I.

Her hands find the hem of my shirt, pull it over my head with intent that makes my breath catch. The air between us crackles—not metaphor, actual static from where demon fire meets dragon water. She traces the defined lines of my chest, fingers leaving cool trails that make my skin pebble despite the heat I radiate.

"You're burning up."

"Always do around you."

She pulls her dress over her head in one fluid motion, and I forget how to breathe. Smooth brown skin marked with faint scale patterns that only show in certain light. The snake lives just under the surface, waiting. My hands span her waist, thumbs brushing the soft skin of her stomach, and she shivers.

"Cold?"

"Never. Just... sensitive."

I explore that sensitivity with careful touches, mapping every place that makes her breath hitch. The curve where neck meets shoulder. The hollow of her throat where her pulse hammers. The inside of her wrists where veins show blue through brown. Each touch pulls little sounds from her that feed the oni hunger in ways that have nothing to do with consumption.

When I kiss her again, it's slower. Deeper. Taking time to learn the shape of her mouth, the way she tastes like storm rain and dark honey. Her tongue slides against mine and the extra mouths on my palms open involuntarily, wanting their own taste.

"The mouths—" I try to warn her when she traces one on my ribs.

"I know. I can feel what they want." She arches under me, all that snake flexibility on display. "It's okay. Take what you need."

Dangerous permission. But when the mouth touches her skin, it doesn't tear. Instead, it tastes—not blood, not flesh, but the energy underneath. Life force sweet as honey, cold as deep water. Just a sip, just enough to make my fire burn white-hot.

"Fuck." She gasps it, nails digging into my shoulders. "Do that again."

I do. Let the mouth on my palm press against her inner thigh, feel her whole body bow with the sensation. It's not pain—I can smell arousal sharp and sweet in the air, feel through our bond how it makes her nerve endings sing. The oni feeds carefully, just tastes of her essence that make my vision blur with pleasure.

"Is this—" I have to stop, breathe through the intensity. "This okay?"

"More than okay." She pulls me down, bites my lower lip hard enough to sting. "I can feel it through the bond. What it does to you. How it makes your fire burn."

She's right. Every taste of her life force makes my flames burn cleaner, hotter, with purpose instead of wild hunger. And through our connection, I feel her reaction—how the pull of essence makes her skin hypersensitive, makes every touch echo through her whole body.

We move together, finding rhythm that's part combat, part dance. She meets me match for match—when I grip too hard, she constricts right back, those hidden snake muscles making me see stars. When the oni hunger gets too sharp, her dragon cold soothes it down, her skin like silk-wrapped ice against my furnace heat.

"Mine." I growl it against the mark on her throat, feel her pulse jump under my lips.

"Yours." She agrees, then shows me exactly how snake flexibility translates to human form, bending in ways that make me forget my own name. "Always yours."

"Mine." I growl it against her throat where my mark already sits.

"Yours." She agrees, then flips us with snake speed so she's above. "And you're mine."

"Always."

The claiming that follows would terrify anyone else. But we're not anyone else. We're impossible things bound by blood and bite, and when we finally collapse together, sweaty and sated and slightly bloody from enthusiasm, it feels like coming home.

"So." She traces patterns on my chest where the red is fading back to brown. "That happened."

"Regrets?"

"Only that we waited so long."

I chuckle. "Only that we waited so long."

I pull her closer, feel her cold settle into my bones like belonging. The extra mouths have retreated, satisfied for now by tastes of dragon essence. The oni blood quiet, the dragon blood singing, and between my legs the evidence that eighteen-year-old recovery time is definitely a supernatural perk.

"Already?" She feels it too, shifts her hips just enough to make me groan. "Demon stamina indeed."

"You're one to talk. I can smell how ready you are for more."

"Oni senses?"

"Don't need supernatural senses for that." I slide my hand between us, find her still slick and sensitive. "Just need to pay attention."

She gasps when I touch her, hypersensitive from the essence feeding. Through our bond I feel it—how every nerve ending is alive, awake, wanting. The oni mouths might be hidden again but their effect lingers, making her body one raw nerve of need.

"My siblings are probably wondering where we went."

"Let them wonder." She presses a kiss to a particularly enthusiastic bite mark. "I'm not moving."

"Hana will come looking. She has no boundaries."

As if summoned, a knock sounds at the door.

"Kenji? If you're done defiling your fiancée, dinner's ready."

"Told you." I call back: "Five minutes."

"Make it three. Yoshi's threatening to eat your portion."

Footsteps retreat. Mina laughs against my chest.

"I like her already."

"You haven't met her properly yet."

"Then we should fix that." She sits up, glorious and naked and marked by my mouth—all my mouths. "After a shower. I'm not meeting your baby brother smelling like s*x and demon."

"Good plan."

But when she stands, I catch her hand. Pull her back for one more kiss that tastes like promises.

"No regrets?"

"None, I told you. You?"

I think about the oni blood getting stronger. The tests my family will put her through. The forces hunting her. The lies we're telling and the truths we're hiding.

"Not a single one."

We shower together—which takes longer than it should when she discovers the extra mouths are waterproof. By the time we emerge, dressed and mostly presentable, the sun has set completely.

"Ready to meet the Fukiyama chaos?"

"I survived you. How bad can they be?"

Famous last words. But I take her hand, feel the rightness of her fingers between mine, and lead her toward whatever waits below.

My family. My pack. My impossible future wife who makes the monster in me sing.

Let them all come. We're ready for anything.

Probably.