It wasn't fair.

  “IT’S NOT FAAAAAAAAAIR!” Zac screamed, rolling off the bed and onto the cold stone floor. He thrashed and kicked, a whirlwind of impotent rage. “TORTURE! THIS IS TORTURE! I’M CALLING THE DEMONIC HR OFFICE!”

  He remembered his dream. He remembered it all with a horrifying, perfect clarity. He remembered Skarg chasing him through the snow. He remembered that he had lost his breath when being tackled. He remembered the glorious, magnificent moment he had shed his mortal coil of virginity and become a true, red-blooded, omega, bottom, monster cock depository.

  But now… he couldn’t remember the sensation.

  He remembered that he was shivering in his dream. He remembered bumping into a tree and that it made him clutch his shoulder. He remembered his eyes watering when Skarg had been stretching him. He could recall the events like a movie he had just watched. But he couldn’t remember how any of it felt. Not the heat of Skarg’s body, not the pressure of his entry, not the earth-shattering climax. It was a memory without the feeling, a story without the soul. It was like reading the description of a five-star meal instead of tasting it.

  “NOOOOO!” he wailed again, scrambling to the heavy wooden bureau. He grabbed the handles of the top drawer and yanked with all his might, intending to rip it out and smash it to pieces. Unfortunately, the demon-made furniture was built to withstand the casual tantrums of minor gods. The drawer didn’t budge. Zac just succeeded in stubbing his toe.

  He hopped around, cursing, before turning his fury on the bed. He grabbed the edge of the mattress, intending to flip it in a dramatic show of defiance. It was like trying to flip a granite slab. The thing barely moved, and he succeeded only in straining his back.

  And the worst part? The absolute, most humiliating cherry on top of this shit sundae? When he woke up, he was totally flaccid. Completely, utterly, tragically blue-balled. The dream had given him the climax, but his body had been cruelly left out of the equation.

  He spun around, looking for something, anything, to break. His eyes landed on the small, slit window overlooking the chasm. With a roar of pure frustration, he rushed at it and began pounding his fists against the smoked, unbreakable glass.

  “Let me out!” he yelled between impacts. “I’ll jump! I’ll do it! At least the fall might feel like something!”

  His fists just bounced off the glass with a dull thud, the pain radiating up his arms.

  A polite, dry cough echoed from behind him.

  “You are finally awake, Avatar. I trust you slept well?”

  Zac froze. He slowly turned, his fists still raised, his breathing ragged. Bune stood in the now-open doorway, both heads looking at him with a mixture of concern and mild amusement. The butler was holding a fresh, neatly folded set of black robes.

  Zac’s mind, stripped of reason and fueled by pure, unadulterated horniness, made a split-second decision. He saw Bune. He saw the only other living (or un-living) thing in the immediate vicinity.

  He released a primal, undulating war shout, a sound of pure, frustrated need, and dove at the butler.

  “GIVE ME PENIS!”

  Bune shrieked in fright, a synchronized, high-pitched sound from both heads. His butler-ly composure shattered. He reacted on instinct, tossing the neatly folded robes he was holding directly at the incoming human as if trying to catch a rabid bat in a blanket.

  The black fabric unfurled in mid-air, wrapping around Zac’s head and shoulders. Blinded and tangled, his forward momentum carried him out of the room. He tumbled into the hallway, his feet catching in the trailing cloth, and landed hard on his face with a muffled oof.

  Bune stood in the doorway, panting, his four hands braced against the frame. His two hearts were hammering against his ribs.

  “Did you have a nightmare, Avatar?” the Right Head asked, its voice trembling slightly. “They are quite common here. A side effect of the ambient psychic energies. Actually, it would be strange if you didn't have a nightmare.”

  Zac didn’t answer. He just lay on the hallway floor, a heap of black robes and existential despair. Slowly, painstakingly, he untangled himself and rolled onto his back, staring up at the cold, unforgiving stone ceiling.

  “Bune,” he said, his voice eerily calm.

  “Yes, Avatar?” the Left Head replied cautiously.

  “Can you possess people’s dreams?”

  Bune blinked. Both heads exchanged a confused look. “Of course,” the Right Head said, as if stating the obvious. “Even a low-born imp can manage something as simple as that. It is one of the foundational skills of our kind. Why do you ask?”

  Zac continued to stare at the ceiling, the pieces clicking together in his mind with a slow, horrifying certainty. The chase. The catch. The climax. The lack of feeling.

  “Why?” Zac asked, his voice hollow, as if all the joy and pain had been scooped out of the galaxy, leaving only a cold, sterile void. “Why would someone not remember how things feel in a dream?”

  Bune laughed, a dry, rasping sound. “A safety feature, little avatar,” the Left Head explained. “If you were, for example, eaten and slowly digested in a dream and you remembered the visceral, agonizing pain of it when you woke up, your mortal brain would likely short-circuit. You’d probably choke on your own vomit and die immediately.”

  The Right Head looked down at Zac, a slow, dawning horror on its face. “Did… did one of the others…?”

  Before Zac could answer, Bune lunged. The butler grabbed Zac, hauling him to his feet with surprising strength. He began smelling him all over, both heads moving with frantic, desperate energy.

  Zac wanted to be angry. He wanted to protest. But the sensation of dueling dragon snouts pressing into his neck, his hair, his shoulders, was such an unexpected and delightful treat that he could do little but giggle.

  “Oh, Bune!” he laughed, squirming slightly. “Let me shower first! I’m all messy!”

  Bune was not listening. He was locked in a fierce internal battle. Zac could feel the butler’s body tense, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he struggled to control himself, to prevent his third, more primal head from emerging. The scents were overwhelming. On one hand, there was the pure, untouched, intoxicating scent of virginity, the core of Zac’s being. But overlaid on top of it, clinging to his skin and his robes, was the rank, musky, post-coital scent of a body that had just been thoroughly railed by a ten-foot-tall murder-deer. It was a contradiction, a paradox, an affront to the collection.

  The Left Head’s eyes were closed in a state of near-ecstasy, its forked tongue flicking out to taste the air near Zac’s neck. “Still pure…” it whispered over and over again, a desperate mantra. “Still pristine… the seal is intact…”

  But the Right Head was all business. Its golden eyes locked onto Zac’s, stern and demanding. “Who was it?” it hissed, its snout inches from Zac’s face. “Who invaded your dream? Where did the bad demon touch you? Was it your amygdala? Your hippocampus? Your prefrontal cortex? Show me on this psychic diagram where he violated your subconscious!”

  Zac blinked, trying to process the question. “Uh… he touched my butt. With his dick. A lot.”

  “Ha!” Bune’s Left Head laughed, a sound of pure relief. He placed Zac down gently and patted the human’s head. “No one did any such thing. Your body is pure. Your virginity is intact.” Both heads smiled down at Zac, their expressions reassuring.

  Zac frowned back up at the dragon. That was not the correct response.

  “So it was a he,” the Right Head mused, scratching its chin with a claw. “Interesting. What else can you tell me about the perpetrator? We will need a full report for the Captain.”

  Zac decided to lean into it. He lowered his gaze, his voice becoming a quiet, trembling whisper. “He was so… so big and rough with me. He was really trying to scare me. He… he pinned me down in the snow.”

  “Oh, you poor thing!” the Left Head exclaimed, awkwardly pulling Zac into a hug. The dragon’s body was surprisingly warm, the scales smooth under his cheek.

  “It was so… awful,” Zac whimpered, burying his face in the dragon’s stomach.

  “I’ll destroy them!” the Right Head roared, a jet of violet flame shooting from its mouth and harmlessly scorching the stone ceiling. “They dare upset our pure Avatar!”

  Zac hugged the dragon butler tighter, rubbing his cheek against the fine fabric of his waistcoat. “I can’t remember how awesome it was to get my tight little butt totally gaped,” he sobbed.

  Bune went completely, utterly stiff. The comforting embrace turned into a rigid statue.

  Zac felt the shift and held on tighter, wrapping his arms around the dragon’s waist so the ancient demon-reptile could not escape.

  “He made me orgasm so hard without even touching myself!” Zac wailed into Bune’s stomach. “And I can’t remember what it felt like! This is worse than being digested! At least then I’d know what its like to choke on something!”

  Bune began trying to gently, then not-so-gently, push the wailing human off of himself. “Oh, that is… uh… Zachary, you must just be cranky when you wake up! Yes! That’s it!”

  The butler collected himself, straightening his posture even as Zac clung to him like a limpet. “The wolf is cranky when he wakes, too! This is not a problem! Perfectly normal!” He put on a strained, waxy smile. “How about we get you to the bathroom so you can get cleaned up? A nice hot shower will make you feel better.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Zac sniffed, looking up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. “Will you scrub my back for me?”

  Bune looked around the empty hallway, flustered. “Uh, I’m not sure that is within my duties as a-”

  Zac let go with one arm only to grab one of Bune’s four hands, pulling it insistently toward his own chest. “And my front,” he said, his voice dropping to a seductive whisper. “My front needs scrubbing, too. Thoroughly.”

  Bune’s cheeks flushed a deep, embarrassed violet. He quickly turned away from Zac, pulling his hand free. “No! You will need to scrub yourself, Avatar! It is… character building. Please, come this way.”

  His second head coughed. “The water pressure is quite strong,” it added, trying to sound helpful. “Your human skin is so soft. You might not want to scrub too vigorously.”

  Zac grinned, a triumphant, wicked expression. He followed the flustered dragon demon down the hall, his hormone-addled brain already hard at work. ‘He’d look so much better in a French maid’s outfit,’ he thought, a vivid image of the primal necromancer dragon, all four arms and two heads, stuffed into a stereotypical black-and-white uniform, looking mortified as he dusted with a feather duster. The image was so delightful that Zac walked directly into a wall.

  Bonk.

  “That is not the door, Avatar,” Bune said, holding open a door a few feet to Zac’s left. “You must be half-asleep still. Humans are so fragile.”

  Zac rubbed his face and corrected his trajectory, stepping through the doorway.

  The bathroom was a masterpiece of stark, masculine luxury. It was all black marble, polished silver fixtures, and steam. A massive, walk-in shower with multiple heads hissed softly, filling the air with a thick, warm fog. There were no decorative soaps or fluffy towels, only large, rough-looking grey cloths and bars of unscented black soap. It was Marchosias’s style through and through: functional, imposing, and unapologetically beautifully-austere.

  Through the steam, he heard a voice. A rugged, gravelly voice, humming and then singing, completely off-tune.

  Zac froze. He looked up at Bune, his eyes wide. He didn’t wait for permission. He scrambled into the bathroom, his mind racing. ‘Who is it? Who is showering right now? Oh my god, they might be all soapy and wet and need their back scrubbed… and their front! Their front definitely needs scrubbing!’

  “Avatar, get back here!” Bune shrieked from the doorway, realizing what was happening. “I haven’t even shown you where the shampoo is yet!”

  Zac skidded to a stop on the slick marble floor, the steam swirling around him. He listened. The rough, off-tune singing was deep, punctuated by strange, bird-like squawks.

  “Barracks bunny was lookin’ so funny, yeah,

  The little barracks bunny, she wanted to play with my gunny,

  And she said to paint her tummy with honey,

  So my soldier filled up that cun-”

  Zac stared. He had found the source of the song.

  Through a break in the steam, he saw him. Halphas. The eagle was standing under one of the massive shower heads, water sluicing off his broad, muscular chest and shoulders. He was lathering up, completely oblivious.

  And as he finished his dirty ode to soldierly stress relief, he turned. His golden eyes met Zac’s.

  For a moment, there was just stunned silence.

  Then Halphas let out a sound. It wasn’t a scream. It wasn’t a squawk. It was a high-pitched, panicked coo-COO-coo

  He howled in fright, his wings flaring out instinctively, and immediately tried to cover himself with his hands and wings, a frantic, undignified scramble of feathers and muscle.

  Zac just stared, his mouth hanging open. The image of the massive, hyper-masculine military jock cooing like a startled pigeon and panicking was so incongruous, so utterly bizarre, that his brain simply refused to process it.

  Halphas, meanwhile, was having a full-blown crisis. He slipped on the slick marble, his wings pinwheeling for balance, and went down hard with a loud splash and another panicked coo-coo-COO!

  “What are you doing here, Avatar?!” he squawked from the floor, trying to make himself as small as possible.

  There was a sudden puff of black smoke. A grey towel and a cloud of soft, grey downy feathers materialized in mid-air and fell directly onto Halphas. The towel was instantly soaked by the still-running shower, but it clung to the naked eagle, providing a semblance of modesty.

  “Why?!” Zac finally yelled, snapping out of his stupor. He took an indignant step forward. “You’re so hot! Don’t hide all that hard work! It’s like painting a beautiful picture just to put it in a vault! Let me see your glory! The world deserves to see it! I deserve to see it!”

  Just as Zac finished his passionate, art-history-themed rant, Bune finally locked on to his target. The butler lunged into the steam-filled room, tackling Zac around the waist and hauling him back out into the main bathroom area.

  “Don’t you dare try to defile him, you sky-rat!” the Right Head roared toward the flustered, towel-draped eagle.

  Bune then looked down at the dazed human in his grasp. The Left Head cooed, its voice full of concern. “Are you alright, Zachary? Was he the one? Did he touch your medulla oblongata?”

  “Oblongata?” Zac gasped, his hand flying to his forehead. “Oblon... gata get that eagle dick…”

  And with that, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted dramatically in Bune’s four waiting arms.

  Zac woke to a rhythmic, gentle slapping on his cheek and a low, worried growl. He was in the shower, fully clothed, with cool water spraying over him. He frowned, a wave of annoyance washing through his groggy mind. He didn't want to wake up. He was having a fantastic dream about being a damsel in distress captured by a very mean dragon. It was awesome.

  He cracked open an eye. Bune was kneeling over him, both heads looking down with expressions of frantic concern. The Right Head was the one doing the slapping, its clawed hand surprisingly gentle.

  The dragon man was genuinely nervous. He knew humans were fragile creatures, prone to dying from the simplest things, much like hamsters. A severe case of sperm retention, combined with the shock of seeing a naked superior, could very well be fatal.

  “Har…” Zac murmured, his voice a weak mumble.

  “There you go!” the Left Head said, relieved. “Wakey wakey, Avatar.”

  Zac’s eyes fluttered closed again.

  “Don’t go back to sleep!” the Right Head said, slapping him gently again. “Did you get a concussion? Are you okay?”

  Zac mumbled something again, his voice weak.

  “What did you say?” the Left Head asked, leaning closer. “Stay awake!” the Right Head wailed.

  “You can slap me harder,” Zac whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the hissing water. “And… we should probably make a safe word.”

  Bune stopped. Both heads stared down at the semi-conscious, soaking wet human. They let out a long, synchronized sigh of pure, unadulterated relief.

  “You are okay,” the Right Head said, its voice filled with exhaustion.

  “Don’t scare me like that, Avatar,” the Left Head added, gently helping Zac sit up. “My nerves cannot take much more of this.”

  Zac leaned against the cool marble wall of the shower, water dripping from his hair into his eyes. “So… ‘pineapple’?” he suggested weakly. They failed to agree on a safe word. Zac, exhausted, finally just took his shower.

  The infernal water pressure was an experience. It wasn't a gentle rain; it was a high-pressure jet wash, the kind used to strip paint from battleships. Zac had to brace himself against the marble wall to keep from being physically eroded. He appreciated the variety of soaps and shampoos Bune had provided, though. Lined up on a silver shelf were bottles of brimstone-infused body wash, charcoal and obsidian exfoliating scrubs, and, right in the middle, the bottle of Celestial Silk - Mane & Tail Rejuvenator that he had accidentally stolen.

  He picked it up, uncorked it, and inhaled the divine scent of vanilla and ego. He considered using it. It smelled incredible. But if Nock's mane was anything to go by, the volumizing effects were potent. Zac did not need the extra volume. It looked good on Nock, though. Everything looked good on the sexy lion man.

  By the time Zac stepped out of the shower, he was frustrated all over again. The shower used to be a place of reflection and imagination. He had read once that many great minds in history had their "eureka" moments while bathing, and Zac had always used that knowledge to hyper-charge his R-18 fantasies. But with water pressure equivalent to a fire hose, he had been too busy trying to stay upright to have any profound thoughts, sexual or otherwise. He just felt… very, very clean.

  He angrily toweled his hair, wrapping the rough grey cloth around his waist as he walked toward the sinks. “Bune! Do you have a toothbrush I can have? I forgot to pack one!”

  He rounded the corner to the bathroom proper and stopped.

  Halphas was there, leaning against a marble counter, fixing a camo-patterned baseball cap in the mirror. He was dressed in a pair of baggy camo cargo pants and a tight, white t-shirt that clung to every defined muscle of his chest and arms.

  Zac’s anger evaporated. He slowed his roll, leaning casually against the doorframe. “Hey, Halphas. You always up this early?”

  The eagle looked over, his golden eyes sweeping over Zac’s towel-clad form. All traces of his earlier panicked cooing were gone. The confident, cocky jock was back in full force, a smirk playing on his beak.

  “Early bird gets the worm, new guy,” he drawled.

  Zac pushed off the doorframe, a playful smile on his face. He walked over to the sink next to Halphas, leaning on the counter with his elbows. “Tee-hee-hee,” he giggled. “So what does the bird do with the worm once he gets it?”

  Halphas laughed, a sharp, bird-like bark. “You’re a riot, new guy.” He walked over, standing close enough for Zac to feel the heat radiating off him. He looked down at the towel-wearing human, his golden eyes filled with a predatory amusement. “And such a tease. If the Captain didn’t give the order himself, I’d have already had you cleaning up my loft.”

  “Oh, you’ve got a loft?” Zac asked, his voice full of feigned innocence. He leaned back against the counter, looking up at the eagle. “That’s pretty cool. Do you work out at home, too? Because I can make sure all your sweaty gym stuff is-”

  “Leave the Avatar alone, Halphas.”

  Bune entered the bathroom, carrying a heavy garment bag. “If I find out you molested the Avatar’s delta waves, I will be forced to pull rank and have you reprimanded.”

  “Ha!” Halphas squawked, turning to face the dragon. “We were all in his dream two nights ago, Bune. If you want to report me, I have witnesses placing you there, too.”

  “Last night, you dolt!” the dragon huffed. “When Zachary called for me this morning, he was delirious. Someone had tortured him in his sleep.”

  “What?” Halphas’s playful demeanor vanished. He looked suddenly serious. “We’re under lockdown. No one’s supposed to know he’s here.”

  “Someone might have suspected something was off,” Bune mused. “The Captain never misses a battle. His absence would have been noticed.”

  “We need to find out who it was,” Halphas said, his voice hard. “If they spread the word about a virgin Avatar-”

  “It was Skarg,” Zac said, interrupting them. He held his hands out, palms up. “And toothbrush. I think I have waffle breath. Do I have waffle breath?” He exhaled directly into Halphas’s face.

  The eagle recoiled, his beak wrinkling in disgust. “Ugh, yeah, you do.” With a flick of his wrist and a puff of black smoke and soft grey feathers, a brand-new toothbrush materialized in his hand. He thrust it at Zac. “Here. Go nuts.”

  “Always with the mess,” Bune huffed, before blowing a precise, targeted jet of violet fire at the leftover feathers that were now floating in the air, incinerating them instantly.

  Zac beamed at Halphas, taking the toothbrush. “Thank you, sir! Maybe you can summon me something else that goes into my mouth later.”

  Halphas let out a nervous laugh, watching the human skip off to the sink, completely unbothered. He turned back to Bune. “Kid’s a piece of work.”

  “Furfur,” Bune hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “That little bastard. I will chew his ball joints for this. I will grind his antlers into dust.”

  “Eh, you know how that herbivore is,” Halphas chuckled, his good mood returning. “He gets an idea in his head and just plows ahead. Seems like the Avatar is taking everything in stride, though.”

  Bune looked at the eagle, all four of his eyes wide and serious. “You did not see the Avatar this morning, Halphas. He was… frightening.”

  Halphas stared blankly at Bune for a solid three seconds. Then he erupted in full-bellied laughter, a loud, raucous series of squawks and barks that echoed off the marble walls. He bent over, clutching his stomach, tears forming in his golden eyes.

  Bune looked completely unimpressed, his two heads glaring at the hysterical eagle. “It is not a laughing matter,” the Left Head insisted. “He was feral. He lunged right at me, screaming about wanting my-”

  Whap.

  Halphas slapped Bune hard on the back, still laughing. “That little guy? Scary? Oh, you’re too much, Buney-boy! ‘Frightening!’ Hah!” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, his laughter subsiding into wheezing chuckles. “I gotta go log some flight hours. You kill me.” Still shaking his head, he sauntered out of the bathroom, leaving Bune fuming.

  “You sounded scared enough in the shower!” Bune hissed at the eagle’s retreating back.

  Zac wandered over, toothbrush in hand, a fresh, minty scent now radiating from him. “Ahh, all fresh. I could probably make out with someone for hours before my breath got bad again.” He stopped in front of Bune, looking up at the dragon with a hopeful, expectant expression.

  “Now is not the time for that,” the dragon man said, shaking both heads with a weary sigh. “It is time to get dressed, Avatar. Your official uniforms have arrived.”

  Bune held up the heavy garment bag he had been carrying. It was made of a thick, dark fabric, embroidered with a silver, snarling wolf’s head.

  Zac’s eyes lit up. “Ooh. Do I get a cool hat?”