Zac clawed his way out of the bathroom like the sole survivor of a horror movie, except the killer wasn't a guy in a mask, but a sentient, high-voltage espresso bean.

  “Oooooo,” he moaned, dragging his leopard-print clad body across the threshold. “I’m dieinggggg.”

  His arms gave out, and he let his face plant directly into the plush, antique runner he had threatened only minutes before. It was surprisingly comfortable. Soft, cool, and smelling faintly of lavender and old dust. He nuzzled it, a tear leaking from his eye.

  ‘I’m so glad I didn’t poop on you,’ he thought deliriously. ‘You’re a good rug. You don’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.’

  His stomach gurgled, a sound like a drowning trombone. Even lying face down on the floor in the middle of a hallway in Hell, all he could think about was the cramps. They came in waves, rolling through his intestines with the force of a tidal wave hitting a cardboard shack.

  ‘This is what happens when Bune denies me my caffeine for two days,’ he reasoned, squeezing his eyes shut as a fresh spike of pain hit him. ‘I just… I just topped off the old tank a bit too high. Or maybe I filled a unleaded tank with diesel. Demonic diesel.’

  He lay there for what felt like an eternity. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. After half an hour of gastrointestinal distress, Zac had entered a meditative state of pure agony. He was floating in a void of cramps, trying to geometrically calculate exactly how one would douche a second arrow of pain from their lower gut, when a sound shattered his concentration.

  “AVATAR!”

  It was a bark of surprise and genuine fear.

  Zac didn’t even have time to lift his head. Strong, armored hands grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him into the air with frantic speed. He dangled there, limp and miserable, looking into the panicked amber eyes of the Wolf Captain.

  “Oh, hayyyyy,” Zac managed to wheeze, his voice trembling. “Come here often?”

  “What is wrong?!” Marchosias demanded. He began to shake the leopard-print human, his claws digging into the fleece. “Speak to me! You are pale! You are sweating! Did… did one of the others…?”

  “Uhgggg,” Zac winced as his head flopped back and forth like a ragdoll. “Stop shaking… please… feels like someone jammed a hot poker into my guts…”

  Marchosias froze. His fur stood straight up, puffing out his uniform until he looked twice his size. His pupils dilated into black saucers, and the temperature in the hallway dropped ten degrees.

  “A hot poker,” he repeated, his voice suddenly cold, hard, and terrifyingly quiet. “In your guts. Someone defiled you.”

  Zac’s head finally lolled to a stop. He looked at the wolf with half-lidded, pain-filled eyes. “If only.”

  Marchosias blinked. He leaned in, his nose twitching as he took a deep sniff of the Avatar. He expected the scent of sex, of lust, of another demon’s mark. Instead, he got a whiff of burnt coffee beans, sweat, and… something much more biological.

  His nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “Sorry,” Zac managed, clutching his stomach. “Just dropped a bomb in there.”

  Marchosias stared at him for a long, baffled second. Then, realization dawned. He rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful, letting out an exasperated, steam-engine huff from his nostrils.

  “Who brought drugs into my house?” he growled.

  Zac opened his mouth to defend his coffee consumption, but another cramp hit him, and he just groaned.

  “Fucking demon scum,” Marchosias muttered, tucking Zac under his arm like a unruly surfboard. “Giving a fragile human body demonic party favors. They have no discipline.”

  He began to march down the hallway, his boots thudding heavily against the stone. Zac bobbed along under the wolf’s arm, staring at the floor passing by. Even in his incapacitated state, being manhandled by the object of his most lust-filled fantasies was doing things to him.

  “Marrchhhhh,” Zac moaned, the vibration of the wolf’s stride rattling his teeth. “I need you to take care of meeee. Not go off and give the others in-school suspensions.”

  Marchosias looked furious. His jaw was set, his eyes burning with the fire of a commander whose orders had been flouted. “Suspension? I am going to make them chew their own fucking hands off.”

  “Nooooo,” Zac groaned, trying to wiggle his arm free to grab at the Captain’s coat. “If they don’t have hands, how will they pin me down?”

  Marchosias slowed to a halt. He looked down at the sweaty, leopard-print bundle under his arm.

  Zac smiled up at him weakly, a delirious, pain-killer-needed grin on his face.

  Marchosias’s eyebrow twitched. “They could just nail your hands to the headboard.”

  “Do you think stigmata is sexy?” Zac questioned, his eyes widening with a sudden, feverish thought. “I’m not big into body mods, but if you wanted me to have another hole to-”

  “AVATAR!” Marchosias yelled, his voice cracking. He quickly covered his mouth with a cough, looking scandalized. “Bad! That is… sacrilegious! And gross!”

  He glared down at Zac, trying to regain his authority. “Just tell me who gave it to you. Tell me who is going to be learning how to live without thumbs.”

  "You'll have to torture me!" Zac wailed, throwing his head back dramatically. "It's a deathstyle choice!"

  Marchosias set his rugged jaw, his eyes flashing. "WHO GAVE YOU DRUGS?"

  The voice wasn't the gravelly growl Zac was used to. It was the Command Voice, sweet, melodic, and terrifyingly absolute. It slid into Zac's ears like liquid gold, bypassing his conscious mind and wrapping around his will.

  Zac squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, fighting the overwhelming compulsion to spill his guts (figuratively, though literally was also a distinct possibility given his current state).

  "It was..." Zac choked out, sweat beading on his forehead. "It was... a sexy demon."

  "WHO?" Marchosias's voice washed over him again, a tidal wave of authority.

  "The one," Zac gasped, his eyes watering from the effort of resistance, "whose dick I want to see."

  "MORE SPECIFIC!" Marchosias growled, the beautiful resonance cracking just slightly with annoyance.

  "He..." Zac stammered, "is the one with muscles bigger than mine... and I think he wants to bang."

  Marchosias let out a frustrated howl that echoed down the corridor. "THAT DOESN'T HELP ME! STOP MESSING AROUND!"

  Zac shuddered. Even with his guts cramping like he had swallowed a live lobster, he couldn't help but find March's rage incredibly hot.

  "You'll have to bend me over and force it out of me," Zac tried to sound defiant, though it came out more breathless than he intended. "Tie me up... choke me... spank me... kiss me on the mouth... whatever you do to me, I'm not gonna rat on Halphas!"

  Zac slammed his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide above his fingers. Oops.

  Marchosias’s eyes narrowed into slits of amber fury. "That flying rat," he growled, the vibration resonating through Zac's chest.

  "Uh, I mean-" Zac sputtered, squirming in the Captain's iron grip. "Ha ha! I got you! You see? Torture never works! I just said the name of the guy who obviously didn't do it, and you totally believed me! Classic reverse psychology!"

  "Do you think I was born yesterday, Avatar?" Marchosias growled as he began to stalk down the hall with renewed, murderous purpose.

  "Of course not," Zac said, batting his eyelashes. "I'm into daddies. Born yesterday is way too young."

  "THAT'S NOT WHAT I-" Marchosias stopped himself, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep, centering breath that rattled his armor. "If they break the rules and I do not admonish them, how will they understand that I will annihilate them for this insubordination?"

  Zac pouted, crossing his arms over his churning stomach. "Rules are made to be broken."

  "And that is why there are so many demons," Marchosias said softly. His voice had lost its commanding edge, replaced by something hollow and uncomfortable.

  Zac looked up, surprised by the sudden shift in tone. "Oh, demons are rule breakers?."

  "Yes," Marchosias grumbled, his gaze fixed on the middle distance.

  "So if there was, like, a really important rule... a demon would be extra sure that it was broken?" Zac pressed, sensing an opening.

  "Probably."

  "Like a rule that was passed down from a higher power? Maybe to do, or not to do, something to someone?"

  Marchosias’s pace slowed. His grip on Zac loosened slightly, his amber eyes clouding over as if he were seeing something far away… something bright and glorious that he had lost a long time ago.

  "Like the 'no fucking the virgin' rule!" Zac shouted triumphantly. "You can't get mad at them for how they were made! Demons break rules! It's in all of your natures!"

  "NOT IN MINE!"

  Marchosias snapped, dropping Zac abruptly. The human hit the floor with a grunt. The wolf loomed over him, a towering monolith of rage and self-loathing.

  "All of these demons are disgusting, used tampons clogging the sewers of reality, and I will not be associated with them!"

  "Whaaaaa?" Zac questioned, staring up at the furious wolfman. 'I haven't been yelled at like this since that time in high school history,' he thought dizzily. 'Welp, at least I know why I'm getting a boner this time.'

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "They have no self-control!" Marchosias cut him off, his voice rising. "They have no fucking idea how to control their urges, and it's sickening!" He leaned down, his scarred muzzle inches from Zac’s face, his breath hot and angry. "Just because you are a virgin means nothing to me. Your body, your scent... they are just more tests. Tests that will prove that I am worthy."

  Zac’s brain tried to process the sheer gymnastics of the Captain’s statement. Worthy of fucking me? That’s some circular logic. Like, ‘I must prove I am good enough to not eat the cookie by staring at the cookie until the cookie goes bad’? Zac’s smile lasted for all of three seconds.

  "I will not fuck you now, and I will not fuck you when this farce of a punishment is finally over," the wolf growled, straightening up and adjusting his cuffs with sharp, angry jerks. "Just because Ose tossed a virgin soul to us does not mean you are truly pure. You are in Hell, which means you are just as reprehensible as the rest of those animals. You’re broken and broken things are never the same even when they are fixed. It is my mission to make sure that you-"

  Sob.

  It was a wet, choked sound. A sound of genuine heartbreak that echoed softly in the stone corridor.

  Marchosias froze mid-rant. The haze of righteous fury that had clouded his amber eyes evaporated instantly, replaced by a look of sheer, ice-cold panic. He whipped his head around, scanning the shadows.

  Zac, craning his neck from his position on the floor, saw it too. Just at the edge of the intersecting hallway, a long, midnight-blue tail whipped around the corner and vanished. It was moving fast, the speed of a creature trying desperately to hide its tears.

  "Bune?" Marchosias whispered, the color draining from his face. He looked down at Zac, then back at the empty hallway, his ears flattening against his skull.

  "BUNE!"

  Marchosias scrambled, his boots skidding on the stone as he launched himself down the corridor. "WAIT! I DIDN'T MEAN THAT! I WAS TRYING TO TEACH THE AVATAR A LESSON! BUNE!"

  Zac watched the Captain disappear around the corner, listening to the heavy footsteps fade into the distance.

  "I have no idea what that was about," Zac wheezed, clutching his churning stomach, "but..."

  He lay back on the plush hallway rug, staring up at the flickering torches. The pain in his gut was still sharp, a rhythmic reminder of his hubris, but his mind, ever the coping mechanism, began to drift. The sounds of the castle faded, replaced by the imaginary hiss of tires on wet pavement.

  It was raining, Zac thought, his eyes fluttering shut. Pouring rain in the city. Bune, wearing a trench coat over his butler uniform, was trying to board a Greyhound bus, clutching a single suitcase with all four hands.

  Marchosias would appear out of the mist, running alongside the moving bus, his wet fur plastered to his chest. "STOP! STOP THE BUS!" he would howl.

  The bus would screech to a halt. March would rip the accordion doors open with his bare hands, ignoring the driver's protests. "It will only take a minute!" he’d snarl, before his eyes desperately scanned the rows of seats.

  And there he was. Bune, sitting in the very back near the toilet, trying to make himself look small, both heads turned toward the window.

  March would storm down the aisle, dripping water on the linoleum. He would reach the back and fall to his knees, ignoring the gum on the floor. "Bune!" he would yell, his voice raw. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! You aren't disgusting! You complete me!"

  Bune would refuse to look at him. "You have already pushed me away, Marchosias," the Left Head would whisper tragically. "Go back to your war."

  "I push everyone away!" March would howl, grabbing Bune's hands. "Because I am afraid! But without you... I wouldn't be as hot! My outfits wouldn't be creased! My armor wouldn't shine! I need you to polish me, Bune! I need you!"

  Slowly, Bune would turn. Tears would be streaming down both snouts. "You... you mean it?"

  "Yes!" March would cry.

  And then they would kiss. It would be a messy, complicated kiss involving three heads, but it would be beautiful. The entire bus… nuns, business people, rebellious teens… would stand up and begin to clap.

  Zac smiled beatifically, rolling onto his side and curling into a ball around his pain.

  The passengers were a bit less enthusiastic when March and Bune began ripping each other's clothes off right there in the aisle, but hey... love is messy.

  Zac's fantasy fizzled as he tried to figure out the logistics. Who would top? Damn, why are they both such hunks? Sorry Bune, but Marchosias has those 'I'm a dom top' eyes that could melt steel beams. A shame though... three claspers and all...

  Zac finally got up. He couldn't just lay in the middle of the hallway and fantasize while nursing his wrecked gut; he needed to go and see if March and Bune were having messy make-up sex. That was critical reconnaissance.

  He shuffled down the hallway toward the intersection where Bune had vanished, his leopard-print onesie muffling his steps on the stone. He peeked around the corner and saw Marchosias standing in an open doorway. The Captain looked... repentant. It was an odd look for the macho military wolf, almost vulnerable.

  Zac sneaked closer, straining his ears.

  "Absolutely not," the wolf demon said, his voice low and intense. "We know we will never be the same. We will always carry the weight of what has fallen upon us."

  "Leave me," Bune's shaking voice came from inside the room. "How could I have thought you were any different than the others?"

  "Because I am not a lunatic!" Marchosias pleaded, stepping halfway into the room. "You cannot give up. I will not allow it."

  "Allow it?" Bune’s voice rose in volume, trembling with rage. "Allow it?! And why should I care what a demon says? Demons break the rules!"

  "No," March barked. "The rules are in place for a reason. You know this."

  "What I know is demons have no self-control!" Bune’s middle head roared, the sound echoing violently. "Why torture myself if it is meaningless?!"

  "It's not meaningless!" March yelled into the room. "Just look at your progress! Don't give in to your base desires. There is more to existence than gold!"

  A draconic roar, three distinct tones harmonizing into a chord of pure fury, erupted from the open doorway. "I AM NOT YOU! I AM NOT WORTHY!"

  A cone of violet fire erupted from the room, engulfing Marchosias. Zac shielded his eyes and felt the heat wash over him from halfway down the hallway, singeing the fleece on his onesie.

  Bune burst from the doorway, tackling the now-ablaze Captain. The dragon was fully transformed, three heads snarling, scales bristling. Two of the heads bit down hard onto the wolf's shoulders, teeth sinking deep into the uniform.

  Zac quickly pressed himself into one of the closed doorways. Oh fuck, lovers' quarrel. I've heard domestic disputes are the most dangerous to walk in on. He watched voyeuristically as the demon daddies grappled. Don't eat him, Bune! No one should die a virgin! Especially not him!

  Much to Zac's surprise, Marchosias was not moved by the dragon's body slam. He stood like a statue amidst the flames.

  "YOU ARE A SEWER TAMPON!" Bune's Middle Head roared, recycling the Captain's earlier insult.

  Zac’s eyes went wide. A bright white light suddenly filled the hallway. Pure, blinding radiance that felt like staring into the heart of a star. Zac felt like he’d been flash-banged, spots dancing in his vision. But through the glare, he saw it.

  A pair of pure, shining silver wings slowly grew from Marchosias's back near his shoulders. Not feathery, but made of light and sharp, geometric angles, floating behind him like glowing neon blubs.

  Bune roared again, and the Middle Head blasted March point-blank in the face with another torrent of purple fire. "YOU LIAR! YOU MADE ME BELIEVE!"

  Marchosias grabbed the necks of the heads biting his shoulder, ignoring the onslaught of fire washing over his face.

  Zac started to step out from the doorway he was hiding in. No, Wolf Daddy! he mentally pleaded. Don't kill the Dragon Daddy!

  However, what happened next stopped Zac in his tracks. Marchosias didn't strike. He didn't tear. Instead, he slowly engulfed himself and the raging dragon with the silver wings. It was like a big, luminous hug, the blinding light of the wings wrapping around them both, creating a cocoon of brilliance.

  Zac had to brace himself against the wall. Was March hugging Bune? Holy shit, I knew it. My ship is the canon ship. I am the prophet of gay demon love.

  The dragon's roars of anger and rage were quickly cut off. Bune's Middle Head began to growl, low and confused. "Stop that... enough... you... you... STOP IT!"

  Marchosias stepped closer to the dragon within the circle of wings. Bune's Left and Right heads released the wolfman's shoulders and pulled back from the radiant light, squinting.

  Bune looked flustered, his scales shifting color. "Stop that! You're... you're going to stain your clothes! The soot!"

  Marchosias grabbed Bune's shoulders and pulled him closer, pressing his forehead against the central neck. "You are more important than some fucking clothes."

  Bune's Middle Head shrank back into his body with a wet squelch.

  "Stop it, you mutt!" the Right Head huffed, though its voice wavered. "Your fur..."

  "You lie," the Left Head whispered. "You don't care."

  Marchosias's wings flashed again, illuminating the hallway as if the sun had been focused into the keep with a million magnifying glasses. When he spoke, it was with the beautiful, commanding Command Voice. "IF I DIDN'T CARE, THEN WHY AM I HERE?"

  Bune's faces twisted in emotion. Grief, longing, and shame warring for dominance. "Stop it!" he yelled. "Extinguish those wings right now! You'll burn yourself out!"

  "NO," March barked, his voice filled with a deep, resonant pain that matched the light. "This is nothing. I know you're fighting much worse."

  What was Zac hearing? Despite reading over five thousand erotic fanfictions online, he was confused. This wasn't as sexy as he thought it would be. It was… really... earnest.

  Bune shook his heads, his body trembling in Marchosias's grip. "You are a bastard! A lying bastard!" The dragon theatrically wailed, gently pounding on March's chest with his clenched fists, much like a toddler who is too tired trying to reject being carried to bed.

  "Those words I said," March said softly, "they were not for you."

  Zac strained to listen, leaning out just a little further from his hiding spot.

  "I was upset," March continued, his voice thick with regret. "I had thought the Avatar was defiled. When I had found him with you nowhere to be seen... I was rash." March struggled, trying to find the right words before finally saying, "I know how much the Avatar's presence has been helping you these past few days. I cannot let the others kill him."

  Kill me? Zac thought, affronted. No one's tried to kill me but YOU, March. I'm literally dying of thirst over here. Why can't I slurp you up?

  Bune's heads looked down at March's feet, unable to meet the wolf's gaze. "I am sorry, too. He was not in the room I left him in. I was trying to find him when I overheard your... words."

  "Look at me," March said. "In the eyes."

  Bune slowly lifted his heads.

  "We suffer so that we might overcome," March said, his voice finally beginning to return to its normal cement-mixer rumble. "If there was no struggle, it would only mean the goal was not worthy."

  Bune sniffed, a small puff of smoke escaping each nostril. He nodded his heads slowly, repeating the mantra back to March in a whisper. "We suffer so that we might overcome."

  The blinding light in the hallway finally started to subside. March's ethereal silver wings flickered and then began to fade out of existence, dissolving into motes of light that drifted away like dust in a sunbeam.

  March stood in front of the dragon butler, both of them looking disheveled from the brief quarrel. March's uniform was singed and rumpled, and Bune's scales were still shifting colors slightly.

  "Now," Marchosias said, smoothing down the front of his coat with a rough hand. "We should probably go find the Avatar before he drinks any more coffee."

  "NO!" Zac suddenly shouted, emerging from the doorway like a leopard-print avenging angel. "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU KISS!"

  The hallway went dead silent. Marchosias and Bune slowly turned to look at the human, who was now marching straight at them, his fists clenched and his face twisted in fanfic-fueled fury.

  "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU HAVE NASTY, PASSIONATE MAKE-UP SEX!" Zac screamed, gesturing wildly between them.

  Bune and Marchosias looked at each other, a flash of shared panic in their eyes, before quickly separating themselves as if they were repelling magnets.

  "Avatar!" Bune sputtered, his Left Head looking scandalized. "How did you escape your room?"

  "You look like you're feeling better," Marchosias growled, his voice a low rumble as he crossed his arms, trying to regain his composure. "Good. No excuses for your lessons."

  Zac stopped dead in his tracks. "Lessons? Lessons? Wait... again? Really? I thought I learned everything I needed to know about monotheism and all of its many gods."

  Marchosias let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing his temples. "Bune, did you not give him a dictionary to help follow along with the lecture?"

  "I did not," Bune said, frantically trying to pin the tatters of his newly ripped shirt together. "But that is a wonderful suggestion."

  "Good," March added, looking down at Zac with a stern eye. "And he has already used the bathroom, so he shouldn't need a restroom break until lunch."

  "Hey, wait a sec!" Zac tried to say, waving his hands. This was quickly turning from fun voyeurism to educational enlistment. "I never agreed to-"

  "Perfect," Bune said, shaking off his earlier emotional vulnerability like water off a duck's back. He marched over to Zac, his demeanor shifting back to that of the efficient, slightly harried butler. "I will be sure he does not leave my sight." He rubbed his face with two hands, his expression resolute.

  "But... but... but..." Zac’s mind was reeling. The hot demons just had some real, profound emotional breakthrough shit, and now they weren't even gonna kiss or anything? It didn't make any sense. Where was the payoff? Where was the smut?

  "I will be back at lunch," Marchosias growled, finally turning in the opposite direction. His boots crunched on the stone. "I need to have a word with a certain gutter bird about unauthorized beverage distribution."

  Bune gently but firmly took Zac’s arm, leading him away from the scene of the almost-crime. Zac looked back over his shoulder, desperate for another fleeting glimpse of the increasingly caring, increasingly emotionally mature, increasingly hot wolf man.

  He saw Marchosias's back as the Captain walked away. The fabric of his uniform coat had been burned away in two large patches near his shoulder blades, revealing grey fur that looked singed and patchy where the angelic wings had manifested.

  It was tragic. It was badass. It was so hot Zac nearly tripped. The wolf's wings were a personal debuff he used to console his dragon friend.

  "Time for fun with books," Bune chirped, dragging Zac toward the library.