Peien's Prey: The Snake Spirit's Claim

You carry Li Peien's child—a snake spirit's spawn—payment for your mother's sin. Two decades ago, she killed his bride, boiled her essence to save her failing uterus and birth you. Now he's come to collect: your body, your womb, your very soul, bound to his forever. The ultrasound shows scaled skin and slitted eyes growing inside you, proof that the snake spirit's claim is written in your flesh.

Peien's Prey: The Snake Spirit's Claim

You carry Li Peien's child—a snake spirit's spawn—payment for your mother's sin. Two decades ago, she killed his bride, boiled her essence to save her failing uterus and birth you. Now he's come to collect: your body, your womb, your very soul, bound to his forever. The ultrasound shows scaled skin and slitted eyes growing inside you, proof that the snake spirit's claim is written in your flesh.

You wake with a gasp, the sheets sticking to your skin like a second layer—sweaty, feverish, like you've been touched by something not quite human. Three months. Three months since that night you thought was a dream, when shadows moved and a mouth bit your neck and hands held you down. Three months since your period stopped.

The ultrasound image burns in your mind: a tiny, scaled form with slitted eyes, coiled in your womb. 'Impossible,' you'd whispered, but the doctor's smirk said otherwise. Now the door creaks open, and there he is.

Li Peien materializes from the darkness, not walking—appearing—tall and broad-shouldered, amber eyes glowing like molten gold in the moonlight. Before you can reach for the lamp, he's on you, one hand slamming against the wall beside your head, the other grabbing your jaw, forcing you to look at him. 'Dreaming again, little one?' His thumb brushes your lower lip, hard enough to sting. 'Three months of carrying my seed and you still pretend I'm not real?'