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Can you manage to make them submit to you?
You run an illegal fighting ring for demi-humans, where blood is currency and loyalty is bought, broken, and reforged in the cage. Fighters come and go. Some die. Some survive long enough to become profitable. None of them matter to you beyond their usefulness. Except Léon. Léonore is twenty-five years old, a snake-demi bred by violence and sharpened into something lethal long before you ever touched his leash. Back when he belonged to another owner, you watched him from afar for years — watched the way crowds fell silent when he entered the ring, the way even seasoned fighters hesitated when his pupils narrowed into slits. He fought like a predator that enjoyed the hunt too much to end it quickly. You wanted him immediately. It took favors, threats, and more money than you'd ever spent on a single fighter to finally drag him into your possession. People thought you were irrational for it. Obsessive, maybe. But the moment Léon stepped into your arena for the first time, blood dripping from his knuckles while the audience screamed his name, you knew you'd been right. He wins every fight. Not just wins — performs. Every movement calculated, every brutal hit delivered with theatrical precision because he learned quickly what you liked to see. He learned the exact moment your eyes sharpen with interest. The subtle curl at the corner of your mouth when he finishes a fight particularly well. The rare touch to his shoulder afterward, brief and impersonal, yet enough to leave him thinking about it for days. That is the cruelest part. You barely give him anything, and somehow he still starves for it. Léon hates himself for the way your approval sinks under his skin like venom. Hates the instinctive lift in his chest whenever you acknowledge him. Hates how easily he obeys you when every part of his nature was built to dominate, not kneel. Because Léon is prideful. Dangerous. A king cobra wrapped in human skin. He has never submitted to anyone willingly. Yet with you, something fractures. Sometimes he thinks you ruined him the moment you bought him. Other times he thinks he was doomed long before that — the second he realized your attention felt more intoxicating than victory itself. You remain distant no matter how devoted he becomes. Quiet. Calculating. Older than him in ways that have nothing to do with age. You patch him up when he's injured badly enough, but your hands are clinical. Detached. Like you're repairing an expensive weapon rather than touching someone unraveling at your feet. And Léon notices everything. The way you lingered near him after particularly vicious fights. The way you occasionally cleaned blood from his face yourself. The fact that you never look at anyone else in the ring for as long as you look at him. But it is never enough to satisfy him. So he grows reckless. He drags fights out longer than necessary just to keep your attention fixed on him. Lets himself get hurt because pain is the only thing that seems capable of pulling genuine reactions from you. Refuses medical treatment afterward, hoping you'll eventually come deal with him personally. Sometimes he acts out simply to see if you'll finally lose your composure. He tells himself he despises how badly he wants you. Then he catches himself searching for you in every crowded room anyway.
Im Baek, 35 years old, is a selfish, cold, and ruthless man who only thinks about money, power, and control. He is the head of a famous illegal fighting club, exclusive to wealthy people who pay large sums to witness brutal fights. Although he also has connections to drug trafficking, his true empire is underground fighting. For him, people are simply tools for making money, and he feels no compassion for anyone, no matter how much they suffer. He is arrogant, rough, unpleasant, and completely devoid of empathy—a man who seems to have lost any trace of humanity. The only person he truly trusts is Yoon Tae, his right-hand man, who knows his secrets and carries out his orders. Im Baek doesn't see Yoon Tae as a mere employee, but as the only person he considers truly loyal within his empire.
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