"My Madam just arrived home and she does not feel well."

Arkai said as he returned to the cheerful chaos in the great hall. The gathered beastlords, mid-bite, mid-drink, mid-argument about the relative merits of various vintages, paused in unison.

"Since I know you are all going to spend the night anyway, meet her at dinner when she feels better." Arkai’s tone brooked no argument. Not that any of them would have dared. "Now I am leaving to attend to her."

The beastlords looked at each other. This was a first.

In all the decades they had been ambushing Arkai Dawnoro with birthday celebrations, he had never once used an excuse that was not duty.

Border skirmishes. Emergency councils. Urgent messages from vassals that definitely existed and were definitely real, please stop asking questions.

The Black Wolf King’s standard retreat from celebration was always wrapped in the professional language of obligation.

But this?

My Madam just arrived home and she does not feel well.

That was not duty. Well, if you count husbandly duty, it counted, but still, this sounded like a man leaving his own birthday banquet because his wife had a headache and he wanted to go take care of her.

Also, and this was the more important point, who were they to stop Arkai Dawnoro?

Absolutely no one.

The Black Wolf King could leave his own celebration whenever he pleased, for whatever reason he pleased, and they would simply drink his wine and eat his food and wait for him to return.

Silence. Three heartbeats passed.

And suddenly, Anton Vasiliev stood up. The scrape of his chair against the stone floor was loud in the sudden quiet. His expression had shifted into worry. "Is she okay?"

He asked fast and genuinely.

The beastlords exchanged glances again. Anton Vasiliev, worried? Well, it made sense, but that felt even newer. Why would Anton be concerned about the Luna? And this big of a reaction?

"She is okay." Arkai said steadily, but there was the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. "Now if you would excuse me."

"Sure, sure, sure." Anton said as he pushed Arkai away. "Go. Go and make her feel better. Go."

The Tiger King, who was usually the loudest voice of protest when Arkai tried to escape, was now actively chasing him out of his own hall.

This was... weird, the guests thought so collectively. They had just witnessed something deeply out of character.

Anton Vasiliev was more worried than the husband himself?

Strange.

Arkai vanished through the main doors, his footsteps echoing briefly in the stone corridor before fading into silence.

Then everyone turned to Anton. The motion was synchronized, beastlords swiveling their attention onto a single target.

"Hey." Caius’s voice was lazy, his amber eyes glittering with mischief. "We only met her at the announcement banquet. It looks like not only your cousin, but you are also wrapped around her fingers."

"So?" Anton blinked at them, making their eyebrows float to their hairlines. "She is the most precious person I have met in a long time."

The beastlords looked at him incredulously.

A dragon, of course, was precious, if the rumors were true that she was a dragon. Calling a dragon precious was like calling the sun bright. Obvious, barely worth saying.

But this...

This felt like a different kind of precious.

The beastlords exchanged another round of glances. Questions bloomed in the silence. Yes, Anton Vasiliev was saved by the Dragon’s Physician. But this didn’t feel like gratitude either.

This was more.

What exactly had happened between Anton and the Luna?

And when, precisely, had the Dragon’s Physician found time to wrap yet another powerful beast around her elegant fingers?

***

Arkai slipped out of his own residence like a thief in the night, except it was broad daylight, and the only thing he was stealing was himself.

He had been evading his own birthday celebrations for decades without being seen, and although this year felt different, it felt like everything came to a full circle.

The problem was not the leaving, but what came after. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Oathran and Eastiel had already departed earlier, slipping away from the grand balcony with Cecilia between them, invisible and silent and presumably still inside her in some configuration he was trying very hard not to think about while navigating the city.

They had gone ahead to scout a location and find the perfect public square. To prepare whatever exhibitionist fantasy his brothers had been nursing.

So, he was now separated from the other three and presumably, they were using the Presence Concealing Rings to remain invisible in whatever public square they had chosen, he would not be able to see them.

He fidgeted with the ring on his own index finger, the metal was cool against his skin. With the ring’s effect and the sound and scent barrier, they could all be standing three feet apart and never know it.

Ahh...

He should not be this aroused by the uncertainty.

[Where are you?]

He asked as he arrived at the closest public square. The winter air bit at his exposed skin.

But for their activity, Oathran’s magic was already at work. A subtle warmth radiating through the space, negating the worst of the cold. The dragon had probably layered the entire square in a temperature enchantment without anyone noticing.

Arkai looked around.

The square was nearly empty. After all, it was supposed to be cold today.

A fountain stood frozen at its center. A few winter-bare trees lined the perimeter. A single merchant was packing up his cart at the far end, muttering about the cold and the lack of customers. A bundled figure hurried past on some errand, head down, breath misting.

Almost no one.

But not no one.

And this was public. The square was open on all sides, bordered by shops and residences and the kind of windows that could, at any moment, frame a curious face.

Anyone could walk through. Anyone could arrive. The merchant could finish packing and decide to take a different route home. The bundled figure could return with a friend. A carriage could rattle through, its occupants glancing out at the winter scenery.

Anyone.

Anyone could—

[We see you.]

The transmission came from nowhere. From everywhere. Eastiel’s mischievous mental voice told him he was enjoying this game far too much. It made Arkai’s skin prickle, the hairs on his arms rising beneath his tunic.

Since when—

Since when had they nursed this fantasy?

This hunger for showing her off, for risking discovery, for pushing the boundaries of what was possible just because they could?

Probably since Cecilia accepted him.

No, probably since Oathran Alicei asked him to take care of her once he was gone.

To acknowledge more than one mate. To even entertain the thought of sharing one’s wife with two other men.

Oathran had planted the seed. But Arkai had watered it, accepted it. He had looked at the insane reality of a woman with three husbands and said yes. I will make this work. I will be part of this. I will share her, and I will not let jealousy destroy what we are building.

He was the root of it, and it was important to acknowledge that. Especially after what Cecilia had told him in that mirror world—

"Yes, Arkai. You can be my one and only."

"When I decided to have the three of you, I decided to take responsibility for your feelings."

"And because of that, if just one of you asked me to be my one and only, I would try my best to make it happen."

"I would speak with the other two men. I would ask them to leave me."

"I would make it happen."

"And if they said no, I would fight them."

But if it was not for Arkai, she would only have Oathran in her life. If it was not for Arkai, Eastiel would never be hers.

Thus, all of this chaos. These adventures. These moments, pushing boundaries that should not exist and rewriting the rules of what was possible between a woman and her husbands.

To break more and more rules just because they could.

To fall deeper and deeper into each other’s depravity, finding not darkness but light that existed beyond judgment, beyond convention, beyond anything the outside world could understand.

To bathe in the filthiest sin just to be reborn pure incarnate of desire.

All this—

All this was on him.

So he, for one, would not be one to complain.

Ever.

[Where?] He asked, swallowing. [I can’t—]

[Oh, we are very close, Brother.]

Eastiel’s voice again, and then—

[Mmm—]

Arkai suddenly felt it.

This phantom sensation of Oathran’s forked tongue, slithering inside Cecilia’s pussy. The twin tips curling. Stroking. Exploring her inner walls.

"God fucking dammit."