Dragon, 120

“It seems like he had an aneurysm,” said Georgina, after she’d come into the room. They’d all been sitting waiting for the doctor to talk to her. She’d clearly been crying, and she sat down on a couch. Gavin got up and went to go sit beside her, hugging her. “There was nothing anyone could have done.”

“That’s when a blood vessel gathers a lot of blood and breaks open,” Boey said quietly, for Greg’s benefit. Owen would have done it, but he didn’t know what an aneurysm was. “It’s pretty rare, but it is something that can happen to a healthy person.”

“He didn’t seem sick at all,” Gabrielle said. She was in a chair, but she’d pulled it closer to the couch Franz was on and was holding his hand.

“He wouldn’t have,” said Gloria. She was sitting by herself, rubbing her arms, looking distant. “He would have felt fine until maybe a few seconds before it happened.”

Grey Rain tugged Owen’s sleeve. Did it hurt a lot?

Noble, 47

“They’re perfectly safe as far as my master can tell,” said Cliff, looking at the necklaces Franz had mailed them.

“As far as he can tell?” Javier prompted, as Geoffrey took his. They were in a small room in an inn—not the Spongecake—that Giacomo and Dahlia had wanted them to teleport from to avoid a security risk to the castle.

“Well, it seems like Ronaldo didn’t make them on his own. They have magecraft in them. It’s a bit hard to find a mage to verify on short notice, but Master Gaston says we can trust Ronaldo.” Cliff shrugged. “Wizards can’t do teleportation magic, so he would have needed someone’s help.”

“I don’t like that we don’t know for sure,” Javier said, arm around Geoffrey. He didn’t like a lot of things about this, including that it was happening.

Dragon, 103

Owen was bent over, hands flat on the floor, looking out into the long hall of Stag Keep as Sir Edwin fucked him from the main chair that he refused to let anyone call a throne. It was a bit uncomfortable, but the view was good and Edwin had wanted to fuck Owen on his throne, so Owen had put his ass where it was needed.

All around the hall and in the rest of the keep, people were fucking in various shapes and sizes. Edwin’s second knighthood ritual had gotten off to a great start and was going strong a little while later. Owen had a feeling they’d be up all night.

“We definitely have to do this more often,” Edwin panted, slapping into Owen’s ass hard, his breathing loud even over all the noise in the hall. “You look good like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Owen agreed, feeling Edwin’s cock inside him, how hard it was. It was a good feeling, a good thing to focus on. He tried to relax his back so he didn’t pull anything, letting Edwin take care of him and watching Gavin and Ray fuck on one of the couches that had been brought down into the hall.

Slavery, 82

Greg had never thought he’d be so okay sitting in a room with so many people, let alone a room with so many people where most of them were in their smallclothes and he himself didn’t have any pants on.

But Gavin had asked him and Darby if they’d like to come and be measured for clothes to wear to Prince Franz’s wedding. Gavin had offered to let Greg do his own measurements in private and report them to the tailor, but Greg had come along. It was something they were all doing together. As a family. Greg had left his undershirt on because of his back, but nobody had said anything or minded. Maybe they wouldn’t have minded his scars. But Greg worried.

Greg worried, because he’d been feeling so good lately, and so strong. And so real. And he was worried that if everyone saw his scars, if Darby and Gavin and Owen saw his scars, they’d remember that he was a slave, that he was someone to hurt, not a real person to care about.