Chapter 1106: Cat Wants Pats

Chapter 1106 – Cat Wants Pats

Runa glared immediately. "Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You thought about it."

Lux smirked. Well, he had a system that told him about something like this. He knew she lied. Or maybe in denial of what her want.

Aela hid another smile behind the tea.

Lullaby, still half-asleep on Lux’s lap, opened one eye toward Runa. "Cat wants pats."

Runa nearly hissed. Nearly.

She caught herself at the last second because hissing in Lux’s shirt while drinking milk would destroy any remaining dignity. "I do not."

Lullaby’s eye closed again. "Lies."

Lux coughed once, suspiciously close to laughter.

Runa pointed at him. "If you laugh, I will curse your coffee."

Lux went still. His amusement died instantly. "Too far."

Aela nodded gravely. "That was cruel."

Lullaby murmured, "War crime."

Runa blinked. Then, despite herself, smiled.

Very slightly.

Lux saw it.

He did not comment.

That was kind.

Also irritating.

He shifted Lullaby more securely against him, then pushed a plate gently across the table toward Runa.

"Eat."

Runa looked at the plate.

Eggs. Bread. fruit. Something sweet with honey glaze.

Her stomach answered before her pride did.

Lux’s gaze softened. "Revenge needs energy. And energy comes from food."

Runa frowned. "Do not speak like a mentor."

"I speak like someone who skipped dinner and now regrets it."

Lullaby patted his chest lazily. "Bad Lux."

"I was occupied."

"Still bad."

He accepted this judgment with surprising dignity and ate another piece of bread.

Runa slowly picked up her fork.

The rest of breakfast was, somehow, normal.

Well.

Normal was a fragile word inside Lux Vaelthorn’s mansion, and Runa was not generous enough to use it without a curse mark attached.

Food came. More food came. Then food arrived in such quantity that Runa began to suspect the kitchen was connected to another dimension where livestock willingly marched into pans out of respect for logistics.

Lux ate like a man who had discovered mortality through skipped dinner.

That, oddly, reassured her.

He was not elegant when hungry. Not fully. He kept the bones of refinement, the posture, the controlled hands, the way he never reached too quickly, never chewed messily, never acted like appetite owned him, but beneath that, there was something almost mortal. A faint impatience in his fingers when another plate arrived. The deep satisfaction in his shoulders when coffee touched his tongue. The silent worship he offered to protein like it had saved his soul.

Runa watched him from beneath her lashes and hated that she noticed those little things.

Lux noticed too.

The man’s eyes missed nothing, which was deeply inconvenient for anyone trying to observe him in a tactical, non-cat-instinct manner. Every time Runa glanced, Lux did not smirk. That was the worst part.

Instead, he simply let the moment pass with that faint warmth at the corner of his mouth, like he knew exactly what she was doing and had decided not to embarrass her.

Mercy from a demon.

Lullaby stayed on his lap for nearly ten minutes, asleep against his chest while he patted her head with one hand and ate with the other. Runa tried not to stare at that hand. Failed. Tried again. Failed with improved technique. His fingers moved lazily through Lullaby’s hair, patient, habitual, gentle in a way that looked almost obscene because it had nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with belonging. Lullaby’s entire body trusted him.

Runa told herself she did not envy that.

Her tail curled around the chair leg like a liar.

Aela said nothing, because apparently ancient elves did not need words to judge people. Her quiet glance toward Runa’s tail was enough to commit violence.

Then the mansion began waking up.

One by one.

Not like concubines emerging from a demon king’s chamber for scandalous morning confessions, which was frankly what Runa expected. No, they arrived like household members who had done this enough times to know breakfast was sacred, dignity was optional, and Lux’s shirts were communal emergency fabric.

Naomi came first. Wrapped in a loose robe, hair still damp from a quick shower, eyes soft but clear.

She only smiled faintly and took the seat beside him, brushing her fingers once along the back of his shoulder as she passed. Just a small touch that said she was there, that he was there, that whatever chaos had happened upstairs had not changed the quiet foundation between them.

Lux felt that touch more than he showed.

Runa saw it.

A tiny inhale. A nearly invisible easing of his jaw.

Then Sira arrived, looking unfairly awake for a woman whose hair was only half-pinned and whose robe had clearly been tied with confidence rather than accuracy. She walked into the dining room like a queen entering a council chamber after personally approving last night’s scandal. Lux’s internal response was immediate and highly unprofessional.

Trouble.

Sira always carried trouble like perfume.

He loved it.

He did not say that, obviously. A man had to preserve some assets.

Gula came after her. Her hair was messy, her clothes were thrown together, and her smile was bright enough to threaten the entire breakfast table. She looked at the food first, Lux second, and then somehow made both expressions equally affectionate. She sat down and immediately began eating like breakfast was an emotional reunion.

Runa stared.

Gula looked fine.

More than fine.

This deeply challenged Runa’s assumptions about incubus aftermath biology.

Then Yue arrived.

Mira came with Rava, both looking bright-eyed in that dangerous morning-after way where exhaustion had been converted into gossip energy.

Fiera arrived last among the louder ones, wrapped in Lux’s missing night robe again, white tails swaying behind her like banners of theft.

Lux looked at the robe.

He said nothing.

The silence said plenty.

Fiera’s smile widened.

Ely arrived quietly, almost shy compared to the others, but the way she touched Aela’s shoulder in greeting carried a familiar softness.

The table filled.

Plates shifted. Cups clinked. Maids moved in and out with terrifying coordination. The morning sun climbed higher, spilling gold over the polished dining room, catching in hair, glass, fruit, silverware, and the dark marks still fading along Lux’s skin. Every woman looked like evidence of a sinful night. Messy collars. Loose hair. Oversized shirts. Borrowed robes. Warm eyes. Lazy smiles.

The air should have become vulgar. Runa expected it to. Truly, she braced herself for it.

An incubus household morning, she assumed, would be filthy.

Not necessarily in a bad way, but she expected teasing. Dirty talk. Shameless recounting of what happened upstairs. Maybe comparisons.

There were jokes, yes. There were glances. There was enough subtext to drown a priest.

But then the conversation turned.

Naturally.

Like the real heart of the household had never been the bed.

It was the war table.

Kaelmor.

The name passed through breakfast like a knife wrapped in silk.

Lux did not command the conversation. He shaped it. That was different.

Runa sat mostly silent.

At first, because she did not trust them.

Then because she was listening and she realized she had underestimated them so badly it was almost embarrassing.

This chaos group was cool.

Insanely cool.

They were messy, informal, half-dressed, still glowing from a night of scandal, eating breakfast like survivors of a luxurious catastrophe and yet they discussed dismantling a king’s power structure with the focused brutality of assassins planning the collapse of a fortress.

Lux sat at the center of it all, but not above them.

That was what struck Runa hardest.

He did not treat them like decorations. Not trophies. Not obedient lovers arranged around him so his ego could breathe. He listened. Really listened. Sometimes he smiled, sometimes he teased, but every time one of them spoke seriously, his attention sharpened completely. He absorbed every angle. Land. Bloodline. Political optics. Ancient trauma. Household safety.

Then the shadow came.

It slipped through the window without opening it, thin as smoke, black as burnt silk.

The shadow messenger moved across the air like a small wingless thing and landed on Gula’s open palm.

Gula stopped eating.

The shadow sank into her skin, leaving a faint dark ripple across her fingers. Her expression changed slowly. The bright hunger faded into something focused and serious.

Gula lifted her gaze. "Cyrinne found it, Lux."

The table went silent.

Lux’s eyes narrowed.

Gula’s voice lowered. "She asked if you want to go with her."

A beat.

The shadow in her palm pulsed once, like a small black heart.

"To the legendary demon."

Runa felt the air change.

Lux leaned back slowly.

His coffee had gone cold.

The legendary demon.

Another old secret.

Another blade pointed at Kaelmor’s throne.

Lux smiled faintly. "Well," he said, voice low and warm enough to make the room tighten, "breakfast just became business. Tell her, I will be there."