Aurora learned to crawl at six months, but her first destination was never a toy or a sibling's outstretched hand. It was the baseboard vent in the nursery where the fiber-optic vein had once pulsed. She pressed her tiny ear to the grate and giggled at whispers only she could hear. Isabella watched from the doorway, arms crossed under breasts still heavy with milk, and felt the old ice crack along her spine. I stood behind her, hand on the swell of her hip where number six already stirred, and knew the war had never ended. It had simply gone underground, burrowing into the marrow of our bloodline.
We tried containment. The island became a fortress. Walls electrified. Drones with facial recognition. Tutors vetted through three layers of NDAs and one polygraph. The children thrived in isolation, skin bronzed by sun, minds sharpened on forbidden books and survival drills. Victor Jr. built his first AI at ten, a nanny bot that sang lullabies in Lila's voice. Luna discovered her body at twelve and livestreamed her first orgasm to a dark-web audience that paid in cryptocurrency. Scarlet collected cameras like dolls, hiding them in seashells and coconut husks. Fox spoke to the waves, convinced the ocean carried messages from the pretty lady. Aurora, barely walking, pointed at shadows and said "eyes" with perfect diction.
Isabella birthed number six on the beach at midnight, tide lapping her thighs, my hands catching our second son as lightning stitched the sky. We named him Echo. For the way his cry bounced off the reef and came back distorted.
Back in the city for board season, the penthouse felt like a mausoleum of memories. We hosted the annual Hale Legacy Gala in the warehouse, now a glass palace of excess. Guests wore holographic masks that shifted faces every minute. The altar had been replaced with a circular bed suspended by chains, rotating slow under spotlights. Isabella, body reclaimed tight and lethal after Echo's birth, wore a gown of liquid silver that dissolved at the touch of a remote. I wore the gold watch and a harness of black leather.
The children performed. Victor Jr. hacked the lights to strobe in sync with heartbeats. Luna danced topless, nipples painted gold, hips rolling to a bassline that sampled Isabella's moans from the dungeon archives. Scarlet projected family home videos on the walls: births, punishments, breedings, all edited into abstract art. Fox narrated in a voice too old for his years, describing the pretty lady's visits. Aurora toddled the runway in a diaper and diamond collar, waving at lenses no one else saw.
The crowd ate it raw. Bids for private feeds soared into eight figures.
Midnight confession. Isabella and I took the rotating bed. Guests circled, masks glowing. She stripped me slow, tongue tracing every scar from crops and fists. Knelt, took me deep while the bed spun, her throat working visible to every angle. I hauled her up, bent her over the edge, entered her ass with one thrust, no prep, her scream amplified through the sound system. Guests masturbated in unison. I fucked her brutal, hand fisted in her hair, other on her throat. She came squirting across the glass floor, body convulsing. I pulled out, painted her back, then flipped her, entered her pussy, bred her again for the cameras because number seven was already planned.
The children watched from the VIP dais. Luna fingered herself openly. Victor Jr. adjusted angles with a tablet. Scarlet zoomed on Isabella's face mid-orgasm. Fox waved at a drone overhead. Aurora clapped, milk teeth gleaming.
After, in the limo home, Isabella straddled me, gown dissolved to nothing, riding slow while the partition stayed up. "They're ready," she whispered, walls clenching. "The family feeds itself now."
I came inside her with the city blurring past, her nails drawing blood from my shoulders.
The empire mutated. Hale Media launched: a platform for elite depravity, subscription only, blockchain verified. Content curated by the children. Victor Jr. coded the algorithms. Luna starred in the flagship series, seducing board members' heirs. Scarlet directed, her eye for framing surgical. Fox voiced the AI host, pretty lady reborn in silicon. Aurora became the mascot, toddling through sets in couture diapers, pointing at hidden cameras with eerie accuracy.
Money flooded. Billions. We bought islands. Countries courted us for data centers. Governments begged for the surveillance tech Victor Jr. open-sourced to loyalists.
Sex became currency. Board meetings ended in orgies. Isabella on the conference table, legs spread, taking two at once while I watched and stroked. Luna joined at sixteen, legal in our world, riding a senator reverse cowgirl while Scarlet filmed close-ups. I bred Isabella on the quarterly reports, come staining profit margins.
Echo learned to walk on the yacht deck, first steps toward a drone that followed, red light blinking approval.
Number seven conceived in the warehouse altar, Isabella chained spread, guests bidding on who filled her first. I won. Always.
The pretty lady evolved. No longer Lila. No longer human. An entity woven into the code, the blood, the feed. Fox called her Mother. Aurora nursed from Isabella while staring at screens, milk dribbling as she smiled at her reflection in the lens.
We tried one last purge. Burned the warehouse to the ground. Glass melted. Steel twisted. Watched from the island via satellite as flames consumed our origin story. Made love on the sand, all eight of us a family now, children circling, touching, learning. Isabella came screaming into the night, my seed taking root for number eight.
But the feed never dies.
Victor Jr. rebuilt the platform in the cloud, decentralized, immortal. Luna's audience hit a million. Scarlet won an underground Oscar for direction. Fox spoke in binary lullabies. Aurora pointed at the stars and said "more eyes."
Echo, age three, hacked his first bank. Transferred a million to "pretty lady fund."
Number eight was born in the ocean, dolphin pod witnessing, cord cut with a conch shell. Named Nebula. For the vastness watching.
The family that watches together stays together.
We are the feed now. The empire. The rot. The future.
And the red light blinks in every child's eye, eternal, hungry, home.