both

Leo looked between them for one more awful second, jaw clenched hard enough that Alice could see the muscle jumping near his ear.

Then he swore.

“Both of you,” he snapped.

Alice blinked. “Both?”

“Yeah, both. You’re both healers. You both have that mana sync thing. If one of you goes in and he starts losing it, the other one’s stuck out here being useless while I kick the door down and make everything worse.” Leo pointed at the goblin house with his sword, lightning still crawling over the blade in sharp, angry pops. “So both of you go in. Stabilize him. Keep your distance if he starts shifting. If he so much as twitches wrong, you scream.”

Jolie nodded quickly, face pale but determined. “Okay.”

Alice nodded too, though her stomach twisted so hard it almost hurt. “Right. Stabilize him.”

Leo looked at her, eyes narrowing. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you know something I don’t.”

Alice’s mouth went dry.

Jolie stepped in before Alice could ruin everything with her face. “She means healer stuff, Leo. Class stuff. You know. heal slut mechanics.”

Alice nodded again.

Fast.

Sure.

Because the thing they were about to do was definitely something that could be handled with speed, professionalism, and no emotional consequences whatsoever.

(Oh gods. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods. He has no idea. He thinks we’re going in there to hold hands and glow at him. Which, technically, maybe part of it? Maybe? But no. No, Alice. Don’t lie to yourself. You know what this is. You know what his condition is doing. You know what the class wants. You know exactly what kind of “stabilizing” works on a body burning itself alive from the inside out with lust.)

Her face burned.

Jolie caught her eye for half a second.

There was no giggle in Jolie now. No playful sparkle. No teasing smile. Just tense, serious understanding. Jolie knew too. Of course she knew. She had been a Mana Tether Healer longer than Alice. She understood the ugly little gap between what Leo thought he had ordered and what they were actually about to attempt.

Neither of them corrected him.

That felt like a betrayal.

Leo stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Listen to me. If he starts turning, you run. I don’t care if he says he’s fine. I don’t care if your class says you can help. I don’t care if Alice gets that stupid brave look and decides dying would be educational. You run. I’ll deal with him.”

Alice swallowed. “Leo ”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You think I’m being an asshole.”

“You are being an asshole.”

“Yeah, because assholes survive.” His eyes flicked to Jolie, then back to Alice. “Come back in one piece.”

The words hit harder than Alice expected. Not because they were soft. Leo didn’t really do soft unless he could disguise it as an order or an insult. But they were real. Beneath the anger, beneath the possessiveness, beneath the bruised pride that had been bleeding all over the dungeon since Ignition joined them, he was scared.

For them.

For Ignition too, maybe, though he would rather eat his own sword than admit that part.

Alice forced herself to nod. “We’ll come back.”

Jolie lifted a hand and gave him a shaky little thumbs up. “We’ve got this.”

Leo looked unconvinced by every word either of them had ever spoken. “You better.”

Then the goblin house shook.

Something heavy slammed into the inside wall. Heat pulsed through the stone, and the doorway glowed around the edges like a furnace mouth. Alice felt it lick across her face even from outside, dry and sharp and too alive. The old alchemical sweetness still hung in the air, clinging to the back of her throat. Honey, flowers, musk, and something hot enough to make her thoughts want to slide sideways.

Ignition’s voice came from within, broken and strained.

“Don’t… come in.”

Leo’s face twisted.

Alice moved before he could.

She grabbed Jolie’s hand, shoved the door open, and slipped inside.

The heat swallowed them immediately.

The goblin house was larger than it looked from the outside. It wasn’t really a house at all, Alice realized, but the front chamber of a deeper cave home carved into the wall of the abandoned village. The first room had been built for goblin bodies, low ceilinged and cluttered with overturned stools, woven sleeping mats, cracked clay dishes, and faded murals of mushrooms, clan symbols, and wide eared children chasing painted fireflies. But the back wall had split open into a natural passage, jagged and dark, and Ignition had gone through it.

The stone around the opening was scorched black.

Alice stared into the narrow cave beyond, heart hammering. “He went deeper.”

Jolie squeezed her hand. “Yeah.”

“Great. Perfect. Love that. We’re tracking a half transforming B rank fire werewolf through a goblin cave while Leo waits outside thinking we’re doing normal healer things.”

Jolie gave her a sideways look. “Normal for us is already pretty bad.”

“That is not comforting.”

“I know.”

Behind them, Leo shouted from outside, “You two alive?”

Alice flinched. “Yes!”

“Then hurry the fuck up!”

Jolie leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t sound guilty.”

“I always sound guilty.”

“You really do.”

“Not helping.”

They moved into the passage.

The cave system behind the house twisted downward almost immediately, the floor sloping at an angle steep enough that Alice had to brace one hand against the wall to keep from sliding. The stone was warm under her palm. Ignition’s heat had soaked into it as he passed. Black claw marks scored the walls in uneven bursts, sometimes high enough that Alice had to tilt her head back to see them, sometimes low where he must have caught himself before falling. Every few steps, patches of stone had bubbled and cooled into glassy lumps.

They followed the damage because there was no other choice.

Alice glanced back once.

The doorway was already out of sight.

(We have no idea how to get back.)

The thought should have terrified her more. It did terrify her, somewhere deep down, but the fear barely had room to breathe. Not with the heat between her thighs getting stronger.

Alice’s fingers tightened around Jolie’s.

“You okay?” Jolie whispered.

“No.”

“Good. Me neither.”

“At least we match.”

Jolie managed the tiniest smile.

They went deeper.

The cave narrowed, then opened, then narrowed again. Some parts had clearly been used by goblins once: little alcoves stuffed with moldy blankets, strings of beads hanging from roots, old storage jars broken open and abandoned. Other stretches belonged to the mountain, raw and wet, lit only by mana crystals and the red orange glow pulsing ahead like a heartbeat. The air grew thicker with every step. Alice’s armor clung to her skin. Sweat ran down the back of her neck. The Echo Charm at her throat warmed, answering Jolie’s, answering the pressure building in the tunnel, answering the ugly need beneath the healing logic.

Heal slut.

The class name felt heavier now.

Alice had chosen it in a dungeon because she was embarrassed and overwhelmed and Leo had looked at her like she could be useful, wanted, claimed.

A sound echoed ahead.

A rough, broken inhale.

Then another.

Jolie stopped.

Alice stopped with her.

The passage opened into a small natural chamber beyond a curtain of hanging roots. The roots were dry and blackened at the tips, curling inward from the heat. Red light pulsed through them, flickering across the stone like firelight through ribs.

Ignition was there.

Still human.

Barely.

He stood in the center of the chamber with one hand braced against the wall and the other clawed over his own chest, His dark skin shone with sweat, but beneath it ember lines burned in jagged patterns along his arms, throat, ribs, and jaw, glowing through him like cracks in cooling volcanic stone. He was huge, too broad for the space, shoulders hunched as if he was trying to make himself smaller and failing.

His hair had come loose from its tie. Thick dark strands fell around his face, the ends lit copper red by internal heat, some pieces lifting slightly in the hot current rising off him. His eyes were the worst part. Not fully wolf yet, not fully human either. The irises burned molten gold around a black center, bright and feverish, fixed on the floor like he was afraid looking at either of them would be enough to break something.

His teeth were clenched. Too sharp now. Longer than they should have been. His hands flexed against the stone, nails blackened and clawlike before shortening again as he forced the change back. Patches of dark, heat smoking fur flickered along his forearms and vanished. His spine bowed, muscles shifting under skin in short, aborted pulses, each one followed by a breath that sounded like it had been dragged through broken glass.

He was fighting it.

Every second, he was fighting it.

The chamber smelled like smoke, hot stone, sweat, and the lingering sweetness of the goblin potion burning through his system. The heat pouring off him made Alice’s eyes water. It pressed against her skin, slid under her armor, and made her cock pulse in answer.

Ignition’s head snapped up.

The moment he saw them, horror cut through the fever.

“No.” His voice was raw, deeper than normal, threaded with a growl that made Alice’s knees want to lock. “No, you shouldn’t be here.”

Jolie lifted both hands slowly, palms open. “Kairos.”

His eyes squeezed shut at the name. “Don’t.”

Alice stepped beside Jolie, staff held tight against her chest. “Leo sent us.”

“That was stupid.”

“Yeah,” Alice said before she could stop herself. “He does that.”

A strangled sound escaped Ignition. It might have been a laugh if it hadn’t hurt so much.

Then he doubled over, one hand slamming against the wall hard enough to crack it. Heat burst outward. Alice flinched as sparks rolled across the floor and died at her boots.

“Leave,” he gasped. “Please.”

Jolie took one careful step forward. “We can help.”

Ignition shook his head, violent and immediate. “Not safely.”

Alice’s face burned so hot she almost forgot the cavern heat. She knew what he meant. Jolie knew what he meant. Ignition knew what he meant.

Leo did not.

That secret stood behind them like a locked door.

Alice forced herself to breathe. “If we leave, you transform.”

“I might anyway.”

“Then we try before that happens.”

Jolie’s fingers trembled as she hooked them into the lace of her panties, her plump ass already swaying in slow, deliberate circles. The air was thick with the scent of sweat, and the musky, animalistic stench of rut.

Ignition.

Seven feet of towering, muscle bound black godhood, his skin glistening with a sheen of sweat, his veins bulging beneath the strain of holding back the beast inside him. The aphrodisiac doing its work his massive chest heaved with ragged breaths, his dark eyes burning with barely contained lust. His cock, already half hard, twitched against the confines of his pants, the outline obscene even through the fabric.

Twelve and a half inches. Three inches thick.

Alice’s mouth watered.

She should stop this. She should Leo was outside. But the thought of him made her realize. Leo was a cuck. He loved this. The guilt that had flickered in her chest a moment ago dissolved like sugar in rain, replaced by a hot, pulsing need.

Jolie didn’t even glance at her as she slowly, teasingly, peeled her panties down her thick thighs. The lace clung to her soaked pussy for a second before snapping free with a wet schlick. She stepped out of them, kicking the fabric aside, then turned to face Ignition her back to Alice, her ass jiggling with every step.

"Mmm, big guy," Jolie purred, her voice dripping with false innocence. She reached back and spread her pussy lips with both hands, the folds glistening, swollen, still dripping from her earlier orgasms. "You look like you could use something to take the edge off."

Ignition’s jaw clenched. A low, guttural growl rumbled in his chest. His fingers flexed at his sides, claws threatening to burst free. "Jolie please, stop, you’re playing with fire."

Jolie giggled, rolling her hips in a slow, hypnotic figure eight. "Oh, I know." She bit her lip, then moaned as she dragged a finger through her slit, collecting her juices before bringing it to her mouth and sucking it clean. "But you want it, don’t you? That big, thick cock of yours is begging to be inside me."

Alice’s breath hitched. Her own cock small compared to Ignition’s monster, but still stiff and aching twitched against her thigh. She reached down, stroking herself slowly, her free hand creeping up to tease her own slick pussy. The scent of him was intoxicating raw masculinity, sweat, and something feral, like burning embers and wet earth. It made her head spin, made her forget everything but the need to be filled, to be owned.

Ignition’s control snapped.

With a snarl, he lunged forward, his massive hands gripping Jolie’s hips hard enough to bruise. She gasped as he spun her around, bending her over, her huge tits pressing into the wet stone. Alice watched, mesmerized, as he yanked his pants down just enough to free his cock and fuck, it was even bigger up close.

The thing was a weapon. Veined, dark, the head already weeping pre cum, the musky steam rising from it like smoke. The scent hit Alice like a punch to the gut thick, heavy, the smell of a real man, nothing like Leo’s weak, boyish smell. Her pussy clenched, her cock throbbed, and she whimpered, her hand moving faster.

Jolie didn’t even have time to brace herself before Ignition lined up and slammed home.

"NGH ! FUUUUCK !"

The sound was obscene wet, ripping, the squelch of Jolie’s pussy being forced open around that monster. Her legs buckled, her nails digging into the stone as she was impaled to the hilt in one brutal stroke. Ignition didn’t stop. He couldn’t. The potion had him in its grip, his hips already pistoning, his balls slapping against her clit with every thrust.

"Ohhh gods !" Jolie wailed, her voice breaking. "It’s it’s too big ! It’s splitting me !"

Alice crawled forward on her hands and knees, unable to resist. She needed to be closer. Needed to taste him. The jealousy burning in her chest was a living thing, clawing at her ribs. That should be me. That should be my pussy being ruined.

She pressed her face against Ignition’s thigh, inhaling deeply. His scent was overpowering sweat, musk, the iron tang of pre cum. She moaned, her tongue flicking out to lap at the heavy, low hanging balls swinging beneath his cock. They were huge, thick with cum, already tightening as he fucked Jolie into the floor.

"Mmmf !" Alice groaned against his skin, her lips parting to take one of his balls into her mouth. She sucked gently, then harder, her cheeks hollowing as she worshipped him. The taste was addictive salty, male, nothing like Leo’s bland, forgettable flavor. This was power. This was dominance.

Ignition groaned, his thrusts stuttering for just a second as Alice’s mouth worked over his sac. "Fuck ! Little slut !"

Jolie sobbed beneath him, her pussy gushing around his cock, her thighs trembling. "I I can’t ! It’s too much ! I’m gonna ! I’m gonna !"

Jolie screamed as her orgasm hit, her pussy clamping down around him, her juices spraying out around his shaft. Alice whimpered, her own cock leaking pre cum onto the ground, her pussy soaking her fingers as she frantically rubbed herself.

Ignition didn’t slow down. If anything, he sped up, his hips a blur as he fucked Jolie through her climax, his cock pounding into her with wet, slapping impacts.

SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP

"Again," he demanded, his voice rough with lust. "Cum again."

Jolie was sobbing now, her body shaking, her pussy dripping, but she obeyed. Another orgasm wrenched from her, her back arching, her huge tits bouncing wildly as she came harder, her juices pouring down her thighs.

Alice couldn’t take it anymore.

She released Ignition’s balls with a wet pop, then scrambled around to his front, her eyes locked on his massive cock as it pistoned in and out of Jolie’s stretched pussy. The sight was hypnotic the way her lips clung to his shaft, the way her juices foamed around the base, the thickness of him disappearing inside her again and again.

"Please," Alice whined, her voice desperate. She grabbed her own cock, stroking it furiously. "Please, I need it ! Let me let me suck you !"

Ignition’s dark eyes flicked down to her.

Alice nodded frantically, her pussy aching, her cock throbbing. "Yes ! Please !"

With a growl, Ignition pulled out of Jolie her pussy gaping, cum and juices dripping from her abused hole and grabbed Alice by the hair, yanking her forward. She gasped as he forced her onto her knees, his cock looming in front of her face, the tip glistening with Jolie’s arousal.

Her lips parted, her tongue extending as she wrapped her hands around the base of his shaft gods, she could barely get her fingers to touch around the girth and guided him into her mouth.

The first inch alone made her gag.

She choked, her eyes watering as the massive head breached her throat, stretching her jaws obscenely. Drool poured from her lips, dripping down her chin, but she forced herself to take more, her throat convulsing around him.

"Mmmf !" She gagged again, her nose pressing against the thick root of his cock, her lips sealed around the base. She could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. The taste of him Jolie’s cum, his pre, the musky scent of his arousal it was heaven.

Ignition groaned, his grip on her hair tightening. His hips twitched, testing her limits.

Alice moaned around his cock, her own dick leaking pre cum onto the ground. She hollowed her cheeks, sucking hard, her tongue swirling around the underside of his shaft. She could feel his pulse throbbing against her lips, the heat of him burning her throat.

Behind her, Jolie whimpered, her fingers already diving back into her pussy, her other hand groping her own tits as she watched Alice get face fucked by the massive black cock.

"Fuck, that’s hot," Jolie panted, her voice slurred with lust. "Look at you, choking on that monster !"

Ignition’s growl vibrated through Alice’s skull.

Jolie moaned, her fingers squelching in her pussy. "Fuck, I love it ! Make her gag !"

Alice’s eyes rolled back as Ignition obeyed. His hips snapped forward, burying his cock down her throat, his balls slapping against her chin. She gurgled, her nose pressing into his pubes, her lungs burning but she loved it. She craved it.

"Mmm ! Mmmf !" She moaned around his shaft, her own cock twitching desperately.

Ignition pulled back slightly, letting her breathe for just a second before slamming back in.

Alice’s pussy clenched

Jolie’s laugh was breathless, she gasped, her fingers pounding into her cunt.

Ignition’s cock twitched in Alice’s mouth.

With a snarl, he pulled out completely, his cock glistening with Alice’s saliva. She gasped for air, strings of spit connecting her lips to his shaft, her eyes watering but before she could recover, he was gripping her, flipping her onto her back.

His massive body looming over her.

Alice spread her legs wide, her pussy aching, her cock throbbing. "Yes ! Please ! I need it !"

Ignition didn’t hesitate.

He lined up and slammed home.

Alice screamed.

It wasn’t just pain though there was plenty of that. It was the sheer, overwhelming fullness of him. Her pussy ripped open around his girth, her walls stretching to their absolute limit as he buried himself inside her in one brutal thrust.

"FUUUUUCK !" Her back arched, her nails digging into the dirt. "IT’S IT’S TOO BIG !"

Ignition growled, his hands pinning her wrists above her head. "Take it," he snarled, his hips grinding against hers, forcing her to feel every inch of him. "You wanted this. Now you get it."

Alice sobbed, her pussy burning, her cock leaking pre cum onto her stomach. She could feel him everywhere pressing against her cervix, filling her womb, his heat branding her from the inside.

"I I can’t !" She whimpered, her legs shaking. "It’s too much !"

He pulled back and slammed back in.

Alice shrieked, her vision whiting out for a second. "NGH ! FUCK !"

Behind them, Jolie was moaning, her fingers frantic in her pussy as she watched Alice get destroyed. "Oh gods ! Look at her take it ! Her little pussy can’t even handle you !"

SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP

Alice’s mind was breaking. The pain was intense but beneath it, pleasure was building, a monstrous orgasm coiling in her gut. Her pussy was gushing, her juices foaming around his shaft, her cock throbbing desperately.

"I I’m gonna !" She gasped, her body tensing. "I’m gonna cum !"

Her orgasm exploded through her, her pussy clamping down around his shaft, her cock erupting with thick ropes of cum that sprayed across her chest. Her back arched, her scream tearing through the night as pleasure and pain melted together into something indescribable.

"FUCK ! FUCK ! FUCK !"

Ignition groaned, his thrusts becoming erratic.

Alice barely had time to process the words before she felt his cock swell inside her.

Oh gods

He’s

"NO ! WAIT ! IT’S TOO BIG !"

But it was too late.

Alice screamed as his cock pulsed, the first flood of his cum erupting deep inside her.

"NGH ! IT’S IT’S FILLING ME !"

Ignition roared, his hips grinding against hers, his cum pumping into her in thick, scalding spurts. Alice could feel it her belly swelling, her womb filling, his seed branding her from the inside.

"Fuck !" Jolie whimpered, her own orgasm hitting her as she watched.

Alice was lost. Her mind was gone. All she could feel was him his cock, his cum, his dominance. She was his. She was owned.

And as Ignition continued to flood her, his cock pulsing inside her, his growls vibrating through her bones she knew one thing for certain.

Leo would never be enough.

Ignition’s control had shattered.

The aphrodisiac, the scent of two desperate sluts, the tightness of Alice’s cunt it was all too much. His body burned, his muscles twitching beneath his skin, his cock throbbing with the need to breed. The beast inside him howled, demanding release, demanding more.

And Jolie was right there.

Still dripping from his first fucking, her pussy gaping, her thighs slick with cum and arousal, she crawled toward him on her hands and knees, her huge tits swaying, her lips parted in a needy whimper.

"Fuck yes," she moaned, spreading her legs wider. "Give it to me, big boy."

Ignition didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed her, flipping her right on top of Alice’s sprawled, cum drenched body. Alice gasped as Jolie’s heavy ass pressed against her chest, her own cock still throbbing, her pussy still aching from the brutal stretching he’d given her.

But there was no time to recover.

No time to think.

Ignition was lost his mind drowned in the aphrodisiac’s haze, his body burning with the need to fuck, to breed, to ruin. His cock, still slick with Alice’s juices, twitched violently as he lined up with Jolie’s dripping cunt.

And then he slammed home.

"FUUUUUCK !" Jolie howled, her back arching, her huge tits bouncing wildly as Ignition impaled her in one brutal stroke. The sound was obscene wet, ripping, the squelch of her pussy being forced open around his monster cock.

Alice moaned beneath her, her tongue already flicking out, desperate to taste them.

She crawled forward, pressing her face between Jolie’s thighs, her lips parting as she watched Ignition’s massive cock piston in and out of her girlfriend’s stretched pussy. The scent was intoxicating Jolie’s sweet arousal, Ignition’s musky sweat, the iron tang of pre cum.

Alice licked.

Her tongue dragged up the length of Ignition’s shaft as he pulled back, savoring the salty taste of his cock sweat, the slick slide of Jolie’s juices. Then, as he slammed forward again, she latched onto Jolie’s clit, sucking the little nub between her lips.

"OH GODS !" Jolie screamed, her fingers tangling in Alice’s hair. "L Lick me ! Lick my pussy while he fucks me !"

Alice obeyed.

Her tongue swirled around Jolie’s clit, her lips sealing around the hood as she sucked, her fingers digging into the bimbo’s thick thighs. Every time Ignition pulled back, she chased his cock with her mouth, licking up the mess of juices dripping from Jolie’s abused hole.

"Mmmf !" She moaned against Jolie’s pussy, her own cock leaking pre cum onto the ground beneath her. "So good ! You taste so good !"

Ignition growled, his thrusts becoming wilder, harder. The slapping of flesh filled the air, the wet impacts of his hips against Jolie’s ass echoing through the clearing.

SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP

"You like that, slut?" Ignition snarled, his voice rough, feral. "You like watching your girlfriend eat your pussy while I fuck you?"

"YESSS !" Jolie wailed, her nails raking down Alice’s back. "Fuck, I love it ! Breed me !"

Alice’s stomach twisted with jealousy but her pussy clenched with lust. The thought of Jolie, knocked up by this monster her belly swollen with his seed it made her head spin.

And then

Ignition roared.

His body convulsed, his muscles bulging, his bones cracking as the werewolf inside him broke free.

"N NO !" Jolie screamed, her eyes wide with terror and lust as Ignition’s form twisted, his skin sprouting thick black fur, his jaws elongating into a muzzle, his claws bursting from his fingertips.

But the worst the most terrifying was his cock.

It swelled thickening, lengthening, the veins bulging as it transformed into something inhuman. The head becoming barbed, the shaft knotting even bigger than before.

And when he slammed back into Jolie

"AAAAAAH ! IT’S IT’S TEARING ME !"

Alice screamed in sympathy because gods, it looked like it was.

"Oh gods !" Alice whimpered, her own cock throbbing against her stomach. The scent was overwhelming sweat, musk, pussy, the iron tang of Ignition’s arousal.

Jolie’s pussy bulged obscenely around the new girth of his wolf cock, her lips stretched to their absolute limit. but she didn’t care she was moaning, her back arching.

"Mmmf !" Alice groaned, her hands gripping Jolie’s thighs, holding her open. She wanted this. She needed this. The sight of his monster cock pistoning in and out of Jolie’s stretched pussy, the sound of their bodies slapping together, the taste of them it was too much.

"Fuck ! Fuck !" Jolie sobbed, her nails digging into Alice’s shoulders. "It’s so big ! It’s tearing me !"

Ignition growled, his hips a blur as he hammered into her. His claws raked down her sides, marking her, claiming her. His cock swelled with every thrust, the ridges dragging against her walls, forcing her to take more, more

"MORE ! HARDER ! BREED ME !"

Ignition obeyed.

His hips became a blur, his massive cock pounding into her with brutal, animalistic force. The sound was sickening wet, meaty impacts, the squelch of her pussy being ruined, the slap of his balls against her clit.

SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP

"P PLEASE !" Jolie sobbed, her voice breaking. "I need it ! I need your knot ! Knock me up !"

Alice’s mind short circuited.

The words the image it was too much. She whimpered, her tongue flicking faster, licking at Ignition’s shaft as it pounded into Jolie, savoring the taste of his sweat, his pre, the musky scent of his arousal.

She could feel it the heat of him, the power nothing like Leo. Nothing like the weak, pathetic boy who thought he could satisfy them.

This was a real man.

A real beast.

And he was going to breed Jolie right in front of her.

Alice was drowning in it.

Her face was buried between Jolie’s thighs, her tongue licking frantically at the mess of cum and pussy juices. She could taste Ignition’s pre cum, thick and bitter, mixing with Jolie’s sweet arousal. Her own cock was rock hard, leaking pre cum onto the ground, her pussy aching to be filled again.

And then

Ignition’s knot began to swell.

"N NO !" Alice whimpered because she knew what that meant.

He was going to breed her.

Right in front of her.

"YESSS !" Jolie screamed, her body tensing. "DO IT ! KNOT ME ! FILL ME UP !"

Ignition roared, his hips stuttering as his cock pulsed, the knot bulging at the base

And then

At the last second

Ignition pulled out.

Jolie screamed not in pain, but in frustration as his massive cock ripped free from her pussy, her lips prolapsing around the girth, her juices spraying as her cunt gaped obscenely.

Alice barely had time to gasp

Before Ignition grabbed her.

His clawed hand fisted in her hair, yanking her forward

And shoved his knotted wolf cock down her throat.

Alice’s world ended.

The head alone stretched her jaws to their limit. The knot oh gods, the knot bulged against her lips, forcing them wide, dislocating her jaw with a wet pop.

She gagged choked her eyes watering

But Ignition didn’t care.

His hips slammed forward, burying his cock down her throat, his balls slapping against her chin. Alice’s nose pressed into his pubes, the musky scent of him filling her lungs.

"Mmmf ! Mmm !" She gurgled, her hands clawing at his thighs, her cock throbbing desperately against her stomach.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t

CUM.

Ignition roared, his cock pulsing

And then he was filling her.

The first spurt hit the back of her throat like a firehose thick, scalding, filling her stomach in seconds. Alice gagged, her eyes watering, her lungs burning

Thick, scalding ropes of cum erupted down her throat, flooding her, drowning her. Alice’s eyes rolled back, her body convulsing her own orgasm hitting her hard, her cock spurting cum across her chest as she choked on his load.

Ignition snarled, his claws digging into her scalp.

Alice obeyed.

She had no choice.

Her throat worked around him, forcing down his cum, her stomach swelling with it. Her vision darkened stars bursting at the edges

But he didn’t stop.

"MMM ! MMMF !"

His knot pulsed, locking in her throat, forcing her to take every drop. His cum poured down her esophagus, choking her, drowning her

"N NGH ! C CAN’T ! CAN’T BREATHE !"

But it didn’t matter.

Ignition kept cumming his hips jerking, his cock twitching, his seed filling her stomach until it sloshed

And then

Darkness.

Alice’s vision tunneled

Her body convulsed

And then

She passed out

Her last thought

I’m…

I’m gonna…

Drown…

In his cum.

Alice came to with a gasp, her chest heaving, her throat raw.

She was sprawled on her back, her body aching, her cock still half hard, cum dried on her skin. Her jaw ached dislocated, but already healing her throat sore from the brutality of Ignition’s knot.

Jolie was curled up beside her, whimpering, her pussy still dripping, her thighs trembling.

Awareness came back to Alice in ugly little pieces.

First, the stone beneath her cheek, warm instead of cold, like the cave itself had spent the last hour pressed too close to a furnace. Then the smell of smoke and sweat and burnt minerals. Then Jolie’s weight half draped against her side, blonde hair tangled across Alice’s shoulder, breathing slow and exhausted. Then the deep, steady rise and fall of Ignition’s chest somewhere nearby, so calm now it felt almost impossible to connect him to the feverish, breaking thing they had found in the chamber earlier. Alice kept her eyes shut for one more second, because opening them meant the world would become real.

A system chime saved her from pretending.

[Status Effect Cleared: Warm Smile Exposure]

[The alchemical aphrodisiac has fully metabolized.]

[Secondary effects may include shame, confusion, sore muscles, emotional nausea, and the sudden urge to make eye contact with nobody ever again.]

Alice’s eyes snapped open.

For one perfect, horrible second, all she did was stare at the glowing letters hanging in the air above her face. Then memory rushed in behind them, In flashes. Heat. Jolie’s hand gripping hers. Ignition’s voice begging them to leave. The tether flaring. The choice to stay. Impossible to explain to Leo without his face changing forever. Alice’s whole body went rigid, and then she curled in on herself so fast Jolie stirred beside her.

“Oh gods,” Alice whispered.

Jolie groaned softly and lifted her head, blinking through a mess of blonde hair. “Mmm… Alice?”

“Warm Smile wore off.”

Jolie froze.

That was enough. The same realization crawled across her face, sleepy confusion cracking open into horror, then guilt, then a bright flush that ran all the way down her throat. She sat up too quickly, winced, and pressed one hand against her face. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alice said. Her voice came out tiny. “Oh.”

Neither of them looked toward Ignition at first. Alice couldn’t. Looking at him meant confirming he was real, confirming the night was real, confirming that the man sleeping peacefully across the chamber was a line they had crossed. He lay on his side near the far wall, one arm tucked under his head, the other resting loose against the stone. The ember lines beneath his skin had dimmed to faint, dull red threads, only visible along his forearms and throat when his breathing deepened. His hair had fallen across his face in dark waves, the lit tips no longer lifting in angry heat. He looked tired. Peaceful. Almost harmless, which was an insane thing to think about someone who could punch a tunnel into a bonfire.

Alice hugged herself, face burning.

(We stabilized him. That’s what happened. We stopped the transformation. We kept everyone alive. That is true. That is technically true. That is the most useless true thing I have ever thought.)

Another chime cut through the chamber.

Alice flinched so hard her shoulder hit Jolie’s.

[New Trait Acquired: Mated]

Alice stopped breathing.

The letters unfolded slowly, pink gold at the edges, a shape blooming beneath them like a paw pressed into wet light.

[Mark Manifested: Primal Mate Sigil]

[Location: Womb]

[Bond Anchor: Kairos Andre Knight “Ignition”]

[Effect: Increased party synergy with Ignition. Enhanced shared experience gain while grouped. Improved mana flow compatibility. Minor instinctual awareness of bonded mate’s emotional and physical state.]

[Warning: Trait may cause inconvenient feelings. Side effects include possessiveness, longing, warmth in stupid places, and dramatic complications with existing relationships.]

Then Dice’s script curled beneath it, glittering and smug.

[DICE NOTE: Wow. Look at you, collecting paw prints like loyalty stamps. Yamaba got one, Jolie got one, and now you too! Three for three. Leo must be so proud. Or he would be, if anyone had the courage to explain the punchline.]

Alice’s hands flew to her stomach.

The mark was there.

She knew before she saw it. She felt it. A soft pulse under her skin, low on her abdomen, exactly where Yamaba’s had glowed when the cloak slipped, exactly where Alice had tried so hard not to stare. When she looked down, her throat closed. A pink paw print glimmered above her womb, delicate and bright, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Not ink. Not a wound. Not a scar. A claim written by the system in soft, humiliating light.

Jolie made a small sound beside her.

Alice looked.

Jolie had one too.

The same pink paw mark glowed against Jolie’s lower belly, brighter for a moment as she touched it with trembling fingers. For once, Jolie didn’t giggle. She stared down at herself with wide blue eyes and a smile that tried to form out of habit but collapsed under the weight of the situation.

“All three,” Alice whispered.

Jolie swallowed. “Yamaba. Me. You.”

Alice’s stomach twisted. “All three of Leo’s girls.”

The words sat between them like a body.

Alice knew Leo was into the idea. Leo had sent them in here because he trusted them to help. He had been scared. He had ordered them to come back in one piece, and they had obeyed in the worst possible way.

(He likes this. Maybe. In theory. In messages. In fantasies where he gets to be smug and in control and nobody lies to him first. This wasn’t that. This was us deciding for him. This was us walking into a cave and coming out with marks.)

Alice pressed both palms over the glowing sigil like she could smother it.

The mark pulsed anyway.

Jolie shifted closer, voice small. “Alice…”

“I know.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to say we shouldn’t panic.”

Jolie’s mouth opened, then closed. “Okay. You knew.”

“We should absolutely panic.” Alice dragged in a shaky breath. “Quietly. Later. Somewhere Leo is not standing outside with a sword.”

That got the tiniest laugh out of Jolie, brittle and short. It still helped.

Ignition stirred.

Both of them went silent instantly.

He didn’t wake. His brow furrowed once, and one ember line flared before fading again. Then he exhaled, deep and slow, and settled. Peaceful. The transformation pressure was gone. The fever was gone. Whatever they had done, however wrong and complicated and impossible it felt now, it had worked.

That made Alice feel worse.

If it had failed, guilt would have been simple. It hadn’t. Ignition was alive. Human. Safe. The dungeon hadn’t become another burning basin.

The price sat glowing on both their bodies.

Jolie found her clothes first. Alice copied her because thinking independently felt dangerous. They moved in silence, gathering scattered gear, fixing straps, wiping cum and soot from skin where they could. Alice couldn’t stop glancing at the mark before the fabric covered it. Even hidden, she felt it pulsing, a quiet second heartbeat under her clothes.

Jolie crouched near Ignition before they left, careful not to touch him. Her expression softened in a way that made Alice’s chest ache.

“He looks so tired,” Jolie whispered.

“He probably is.”

“We should wake him?”

“Not yet,” Alice said. “If he’s stable, let him sleep. We’ll tell Leo the transformation broke and he passed out.”

“That’s true.”

“Yeah.” Alice’s smile felt awful. “We are getting very good at weaponizing technical truth.”

Jolie flinched, but nodded.

They started back through the cave.

The walk felt longer than the way in. Alice tried to follow the scorch marks, but some passages looked different now that the red glow had faded. Jolie had to backtrack twice. Once, Alice put her hand against a wall for balance and felt Ignition through the bond, not thoughts, not words, just a sleeping warmth somewhere behind them. It was faint but unmistakable. She yanked her hand away like the stone had bitten her.

Jolie saw.

“Bond?”

Alice nodded miserably.

“Same.”

“Great.”

“Not great.”

“No. Very not great.”

By the time they found the goblin house again, Alice’s heart was pounding harder than it had during the warband fight. The front chamber was still wrecked. The little painted murals of goblin children chasing fireflies stared down at them with chipped, innocent faces. The doorway beyond glowed from outside the house.

Leo was pacing when they stepped out.

He spun toward them instantly. “Finally! What the hell took so long?”

Alice froze so completely Jolie almost walked into her back.

Leo looked them over, fast and sharp. His eyes checked for blood first. Then burns. Then torn armor. Then their faces. His own face changed after that, and Alice’s stomach dropped.

He looked embarrassed.

Not suspicious exactly. Not angry in the way he would be if he knew everything. His ears were faintly red, his jaw tight, eyes sliding away from theirs after half a second like he knew sending both of his healers into a cave with another man in a rut state was obviously weird even to someone as aggressively oblivious as Leo.

Alice couldn’t tell.

(Does he know? Does he know? No. No, if he knew, he’d be yelling. Unless he’s not yelling because he liked it. Unless he’s embarrassed because he knows exactly what happened. Unless oh gods, my brain is eating itself.)

Leo crossed his arms. “Well?”

Jolie recovered first. “He’s stable.”

Leo’s shoulders dropped half an inch before he caught himself and made it look like impatience. “Obviously. The cave didn’t explode.”

“He’s asleep,” Alice added quickly. “Human. Breathing normally. No transformation signs.”

Leo stared at her.

Alice tried to make her face normal.

This was a mistake. Her normal face was apparently murder bored noble brat, and forcing it only made her look guilty and constipated.

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you look like that?”

Alice made a small noise.

Jolie stepped on her foot.

Alice cleared her throat. “I’m tired.”

“You’re always tired.”

“It’s a healer thing.”

“It’s an Alice thing.”

“Both can be true.”

Leo kept staring for another second. Then he clicked his tongue and looked toward the broken doorway behind them. “He really out?”

“Yes,” Jolie said.

“Good.” Leo’s voice roughened, just slightly. “Good. Bastard saved me from that potion, so I’d rather not have to cut him down five minutes later.”

The guilt twisted deeper.

Alice hugged her staff against her chest. “We should end the run.”

Leo’s gaze snapped back. “What?”

“We got levels. We survived the warband. Ignition got hit with a high grade alchemical status effect and had to be stabilized. Our mana is messy. Jolie’s ice wall took a lot out of her. My reserves are…” Alice paused, because saying anything about her reserves now made her want to crawl into a hole and die. “Not great. And Ignition is asleep. Even if he wakes up fine, pushing deeper is stupid.”

Leo bristled automatically. “I decide when we’re done.”

“Then decide we’re done,” Alice said.

The words came out sharper than she intended.

Leo stared.

Jolie’s eyebrows lifted.

Alice swallowed, but didn’t take it back. “Please.”

Leo looked away first, scowling at a wall like it had personally betrayed him. “Tch. Fine. We’re done. This run was a mess anyway.”

Relief hit Alice so hard she almost swayed.

Jolie smiled weakly. “Good call, Leo.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m complimenting you.”

“Sounds fake.”

“It was a little fake.”

“Brat.”

Jolie giggled.

They waited until Ignition woke enough to walk.

He emerged from the deeper cave his hair a mess, his skin still faintly warm with fading ember lines. He didn’t look at Alice for more than a second. He didn’t look at Jolie for much longer. His gaze went to Leo, then the floor, then the broken doorframe.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Leo threw both hands up. “Of course you are. First words out of your mouth. Every damn time.”

Ignition’s jaw tightened. “The potion”

“Was thrown at me,” Leo cut in. “You shoved me out of the way. Got hit instead. Then you locked yourself in a cave instead of turning into a giant murder wolf in the middle of the party. Annoyingly heroic. Stupid, but heroic.”

Ignition blinked.

Alice stared at Leo.

Jolie did too.

Leo scowled at all of them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Alice said quickly.”

Ignition’s eyes flicked to Alice, and for one awful second she thought he knew. Maybe not details. Maybe not memories. Maybe just the bond, the mark, the quiet pulse connecting him to her beneath her gear. His expression shifted with something like grief, then shut down.

Alice looked away.

They left the goblin village without looting it. Nobody argued. Goblin loot was bad, blood was drawing things through the tunnels already, and the whole place felt cursed in a way that had nothing to do with system effects. Leo took point, more subdued than usual. Ignition took rear without being asked. Alice and Jolie walked in the middle, close enough that their shoulders brushed every few steps.

System messages started compiling halfway back to the gate path.

[Combat State Ended.]

[Delayed Rewards Processing…]

Alice held her breath.

[Experience Awarded: Fangspire Tunnel Crawlers]

[Experience Awarded: Goblin Warband]

[Party Contribution Recognized: Healing, Support, Survival Assistance]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Current Level: 8]

Alice stopped walking.

Jolie bumped into her. “Alice?”

Level eight.

For a second, despite everything, happiness sparked through the guilt. Real happiness. She wasn’t level five anymore. She wasn’t stuck. She had moved. Three levels in one run was huge for someone like her, even if most of that run had been terrifying, disgusting, morally disastrous.

(Three levels. Three. Gods, I actually did it. I’m not just sitting around waiting for my father to decide I’m embarrassing enough to manage.)

Then the thought of Quin cooled it.

Level eight was better. Level eight was not enough.

If she wanted distance from her father, real distance, the kind he couldn’t close with money, favors, guards, or that suffocating Inspira smile, she needed more. More levels. More skills. More proof that she wasn’t a lost little sparrow who needed to be carried back to the palace and put somewhere decorative. One successful run did not make her safe from Quin’s influence. It only bought time.

Alice exhaled.

Jolie leaned closer. “Good news?”

Alice forced a small smile. “Level eight.”

Jolie’s face lit up. “Alice!”

Leo glanced back, irritation already returning. “Level eight? See? Told you the plan wasn’t stupid.”

“You hated the plan,” Alice said.

“I hated parts of the plan.”

“You hated the entire plan.”

“I improved it by being involved.”

Ignition, from the back, said quietly, “You led well.”

Leo nearly tripped.

Alice watched his ears turn red.

“Shut up, Embers,” Leo snapped.

Ignition lowered his head. “Alright.”

Jolie laughed, softer this time, and for a few steps the party almost felt normal again. Almost.

Alice touched her stomach through her gear, just once.

The mark answered with a soft pulse.

Normal shattered quietly.

They walked toward the exit together, ending the dungeon run early, carrying more experience than they’d entered with and more secrets than Alice knew how to hold.

By the time they crossed back into Ikos, Leo’s mood had turned into something he didn’t know what to do with.

The dungeon was behind them. Fangspire’s red gate had spat them back out into the polluted slum district, all cracked pavement, rusted ward poles, and warning signs nobody bothered reading until something with tusks came screaming through the portal.

His eyes slid back without permission.

Alice and Jolie walked together behind him, They looked tired. More than tired. Alice had that blank murder princess face she wore when she was trying to hide literally every thought she had ever had, which meant she was either embarrassed, guilty, scared, or all three stacked on top of each other like a badly built tower. Jolie was quieter than usual, which was wrong enough to make Leo’s skin itch. She kept touching Alice’s arm, little brushes of fingers like she was checking that Alice was still there. Every so often, both of them glanced at Ignition, then away.

He knew he had sent both of them into that cave after Ignition while the bastard was burning alive from some goblin lust potion, and he knew the air had been thick enough with awkwardness when they came out that he could’ve cut it with his sword. His brain kept circling the thought like a wolf around a campfire. Maybe something happened. Maybe nothing happened.

The thought made his blood rush.

Then shame hit right after it, hot and ugly.

Leo clicked his tongue and shoved both feelings down.

Not now.

He was the leader. Leaders didn’t stand in the middle of a street getting hard over half imagined things they had no proof of while their party limped home from a dungeon. Leaders made calls. Leaders kept everyone moving. Leaders didn’t think about Jolie’s dangerous little smile or Alice’s ears going red or Ignition’s hands clenched carefully at his sides like the man was afraid touching anything would break it.

Still.

The idea hooked under his ribs and tugged.

He hated that it did.

He loved that it did.

The better districts of Ikos rose around them slowly as they left the Fangspire slums behind. The roads widened. The lamps got brighter. The air stopped tasting like rust and started tasting like cheap food stalls, Holo panels shimmered above storefronts, all looked like scams. A mag tram hummed overhead, its blue underlights sliding across the street and briefly painting Ignition’s broad shoulders in cold color.

The usual split point came up near a crossing where the road forked toward the apartment district on one side and the louder tavern streets on the other. Leo slowed before he meant to.

Alice looked up. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Leo snapped automatically.

Alice blinked. “Okay.”

“Don’t say okay like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re humoring me.”

“I am humoring you.”

Jolie made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh, and Leo felt better for half a second. There she was. His Jolie. Tired, messy, still too pale, but not gone.

Ignition stopped a few paces behind them. He had been quiet since leaving the dungeon, which was normal for him and somehow still annoying. His shirt was repaired enough to be decent but still scorched at the edges, and his hair had been tied back badly again, loose dark strands hanging near his face.

Leo turned on him.

“You.”

Ignition straightened slightly. “Me?”

“No, the signpost. Yes, you.” Leo folded his arms. “You got plans?”

Ignition looked genuinely caught off guard. “No.”

“Good. bar.”

Alice’s eyebrows lifted.

Jolie looked between them, interest sharpening.

Ignition blinked once. “A bar?”

“Yeah. You know, drinks, shouting, people pretending watching strangers beat each other up on screens counts as culture.” Leo jerked his chin toward the tavern street. “You’re temporarily in my party. That means I need to know if you’re only annoying in dungeons or if it’s a full time condition.”

Ignition looked down for a second, and Leo expected the usual apology. Instead, the big bastard gave a small, awkward nod. “Alright.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”

“You invited me.”

“Hostilely.”

“I noticed.”

“And you’re just agreeing?”

Ignition’s mouth twitched. “Would arguing make you feel better?”

“Yes.”

“Then no.”

Alice made a choking noise.

Leo whipped his head toward her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m admiring your social skills.”

“Don’t.”

Jolie stepped closer to Ignition before Leo could decide whether to glare at Alice longer. She looked bright again suddenly. Too bright. Leo knew that look. That was Jolie about to do something she had already decided was funny, dangerous, or both.

“Jolie,” he said.

She ignored him.

Ignition glanced down as she approached, confusion softening his face. “Jolie?”

She rose onto her tiptoes, caught the front of his ruined shirt lightly in both hands, and kissed him right on the mouth.

Ignition froze completely.

Leo froze harder.

The kiss wasn’t long. It wasn’t obscene. It was worse than obscene because it was simple. Jolie’s lips pressed to Ignition’s, soft and certain, while Ignition stood there like someone had hit him with a second potion. But Jolie wasn’t looking at Ignition. Not really. Her eyes were open, bright blue and wicked over the curve of his shoulder, fixed straight on Leo.

Then she smiled.

A dangerous little smirk.

A secret little wave of her fingers where Ignition couldn’t see.

Leo’s heart slammed into his ribs so hard it almost hurt.

Jealousy hit first, sharp enough to taste. His girl. His Jolie. Kissing another man in the street like she had every right. Envy came right after, hot and mean, because Ignition had done nothing to earn that look except stand there being huge and tragic and annoyingly decent. Then joy burst underneath both, stupid and bright and humiliating, because Jolie had known. Of course she had known. She had seen the ugly little fantasy in him before he ever learned to say it without choking. She had grown up with him in ashes and hunger and still somehow knew how to turn his shame into a game only she could win.

Amazing.

Infuriating.

Perfect.

Leo’s face went hot.

He barked because if he didn’t bark he might make a noise that would ruin his life.

“Oi! That’s enough!”

Jolie pulled back, smiling sweetly now as Ignition stared at her like his entire brain had gone somewhere else. “Thanks for helping us today, Kairos.”

Ignition’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Alice stared at Jolie with horror and admiration fighting openly across her face.

Leo pointed down the street, voice too loud. “You two. Home. Now. Check on Yamaba. Tell her we’re back and nobody died.”

Jolie clasped her hands behind her back. “Yes, boss.”

“Don’t ‘yes boss’ me with that face.”

“What face?”

“The face that says you’re proud of yourself.”

“I am.”

“I know! That’s the problem.”

Alice grabbed Jolie’s sleeve and started pulling her away before Leo could explode or combust or do whatever the hell his body was trying to do. “We’re going. Great plan. Wonderful. Sports bar bonding. Have fun. Don’t kill each other.”

Leo snapped, “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“You kind of do.”

“Rookie.”

“Leaving!”

Jolie waved at him again, smaller this time, still smiling like she had set a fuse and was waiting to hear the boom from several blocks away. Alice kept dragging her, red faced and stiff, though she glanced back once. Her eyes flicked from Leo to Ignition, then away so fast it was practically a confession of something. Leo caught it. Stored it. Pretended he didn’t.

Then the girls turned the corner toward home.

For a few seconds, Leo stood there with Ignition in the middle of the street while Ikos moved around them.

Ignition finally touched two fingers to his mouth, looking dazed. “I…”

“Don’t,” Leo said.

Ignition nodded slowly. “Alright.”

Leo dragged a hand through his hair, sparks popping against his fingers. His heart still hadn’t calmed down. His blood still felt too loud. His mind kept replaying it.

He wanted to be angry.

He was angry.

He was also grinning before he realized it.

He killed the grin immediately.

Leo jabbed a finger into his chest. “You say one weird thing about that and I’ll knock your teeth out.”

Ignition looked down at the finger, then back at Leo. “I will not say anything weird.”

Leo stared at him for one long second.

Then, despite himself, he laughed.

It came out short and rough and pissed off, but it was real. Ignition blinked, and for some reason that made Leo laugh harder. Not much. He wasn’t losing control in the middle of the street like some drunk idiot. But enough that the knot in his chest loosened a little. Enough that the shame had somewhere to go besides his throat.

“Come on, Embers,” Leo said, turning toward the tavern street. “Sports bar. You’re buying first round.”

Ignition fell into step beside him. “Because I caused the warband?”

“Because you caused the warband, took a potion for me, made my healers act weird, and got kissed by my girlfriend in front of me.”

Ignition’s ears darkened. “That last one was not my fault.”

“Did I ask?”

“No.”

“Then you’re buying.”

Ignition was quiet for a few steps. Then he said, “Alright.”

Leo glanced at him sideways. “You’re too easy.”

“I have been told that.”

“By who?”

Ignition did not answer.

Leo’s mood sharpened around the silence. Interesting. There was a story there. Probably a bad one. Everyone had bad stories. Leo had more than enough of his own and didn’t particularly want to start caring about Ignition’s.

Unfortunately, caring had already become a problem.

The bar Leo dragged Ignition into sat halfway down the tavern strip, wedged between a monster meat grill and a betting kiosk covered in flickering panels. The sign above the door showed a gold eyed cat skull biting a foaming mug, with the name Pride Break glowing underneath in lazy amber script. Inside, the place was louder than the street. Heat, beer, fried food, sweat, and old wood hit Leo all at once. The walls were lined with system panels showing different games, fight recaps, dungeon runs, and scoreboards. Most of the room was built around the biggest panel, a wall sized projection showing a Aqua Sphere match in progress: two teams fighting through a floating arena of contained water, passing a glowing ball between players while defenders slammed into each other hard enough to send shockwaves rippling through the sphere.

Leo liked it immediately.

The players were a mess of aquatic races and aquatic modifications, which made the whole thing fun to watch because no two bodies moved the same way. A sleek Miri girl with a bright blue tail shot through the water like an arrow, twisting around a broad shouldered sea elf with pale skin and long white hair streaming behind her like moonlight. A Kawagob goalie clung to the goal frame with webbed hands and feet, blue scales flashing as he hissed at anyone who got too close. There were scaleborn with armored fins, Chimerin with gills and eel tails, a human looking bastard with obvious water breathing implants glowing at his neck, and one massive shell backed player who looked too slow until he folded himself into a spinning block and knocked three opponents away from the scoring ring. The crowd inside the bar roared every time someone got hit. Good. Proper sport. None of that polite rich district nonsense where everyone clapped like their hands might break.

A Kheprathi woman behind the counter looked up as they entered. Short blonde hair, messy tomboy cut, bronze gold skin, feline ears lined with little black piercings, sleeves rolled over lean forearms marked with faint gold ink. She had the look of someone who had once worked too many restaurant shifts and survived by learning every secret shame customers could carry to a table. Now she owned the place, judging from the way everyone gave her room without thinking. She wore a black vest over a loose white shirt, collar open, tie half undone, and when her gold eyes landed on Leo and Ignition, her mouth curved like she already knew which one of them was trouble.

“Two?” she asked.

Leo jerked a thumb toward Ignition. “Unfortunately.”

Ignition lowered his head slightly.

The Kheprathi woman’s eyes flicked to him, then to Leo.

“Constantly,” Leo said.

“That must be exhausting.”

“It is.”

Ignition looked between them. “I can stop.”

“No, you can’t,” Leo and the owner said at the same time.

For some reason, that made the blonde Kheprathi laugh. She nodded toward a table close to the big panel, just off center from the loudest crowd but close enough to get a good view. “Sit there. First round?”

“Beer,” Leo said.

Ignition hesitated. “Same.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “You like beer?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve had alcohol. Not much beer.”

Leo stared at him, then looked back at the owner. “Two beers. Something strong enough to teach him a lesson.”

The owner’s smile sharpened. “That I can do.”

They took the table. Leo sat with his back to the wall on instinct, because he wasn’t a moron. Ignition took the opposite seat carefully, like he was worried the chair might file a complaint if he shifted wrong. The big panel washed blue light over his face whenever the Aqua Sphere game surged brighter. It made him look less like a furnace and more like a statue left under moonlit water. Still huge. Still too calm. Still annoying. Leo clicked his tongue and leaned back in his chair, arms folded, watching the match instead of the man across from him.

For a while, that was enough.

The Kheprathi owner brought the beers herself, set them down without spilling a drop, and gave Ignition one last measuring glance before walking away. The drink was dark amber, cold enough to sweat down the glass. Leo grabbed his and took a long pull. Good. Bitter, heavy, with some kind of spice that burned after the swallow. Ignition copied him, slower, then blinked at the glass.

“Well?” Leo asked.

Ignition considered it with irritating seriousness. “It tastes like old bread.”

Leo stared.

Then he laughed before he could stop himself.

It came out rough and sharp, but real. Ignition looked relieved, like making Leo laugh was somehow a win. That almost made Leo stop laughing out of spite. Almost. Instead, he pointed at the panel, where the Miri striker had just looped around the sea elf defender and launched the glowing ball tail first toward the goal.

“Watch this,” Leo said. “Kawagob’s gonna fake left.”

Ignition turned to the panel.

The Kawagob goalie did fake left. The Miri striker overcorrected, and the goalie snapped sideways at the last second, catching the ball between both webbed hands and his teeth. The bar erupted. Leo slapped the table.

“Ha! Told you.”

Ignition looked mildly impressed. “You follow this?”

“Yeah. Best thing to watch when you don’t want to think.”

“That sounds useful.”

“It is. Try it sometime.”

“I am trying.”

“Try harder.”

They drank. The match went on. For ten whole minutes, neither of them said anything important, and Leo was surprised by how much he needed that. Just beer, shouting, and aquatic idiots beating each other half senseless inside a floating ball of water. The Miri girl scored twice. The sea elf defender got angry and slammed someone into the lower barrier hard enough that the panel flashed a foul warning. A Chimerin with shark traits laughed through blood in the water. Leo cheered. Ignition watched with that quiet focus he gave everything.

That was the problem with the bastard. He didn’t make things easy to hate.

Leo took another drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The beer was stronger than he’d expected. Not enough to knock him on his ass, obviously, because he wasn’t some featherweight rookie who coughed at bitter foam, but enough that the edges of the room had started feeling warmer, easier, less full of hooks. The Aqua Sphere match kept roaring on the main panel, the Miri striker cutting through the floating arena in a blur of blue tail and flashing teeth while the Kawagob goalie screamed something at his defenders that made half the bar laugh. Leo should have been watching. He had been watching. But the silence across the table had turned into one of those silences that wanted payment.

“So,” Leo said, setting his glass down. “You got parents?”

Ignition’s eyes shifted from the game to him. Not offended. Not surprised, exactly. Just careful.

Leo rolled his eyes. “Don’t make it weird. I’m doing party bonding. Badly. Answer the question.”

“No,” Ignition said after a moment.

Leo waited.

Ignition looked down into his glass, thumb brushing once over the condensation. “I don’t remember them. I know their names because my aunt told me, but that’s all. No faces. No voices. Nothing solid.”

Leo’s fingers paused around his beer.

That was worse than expected. He’d been ready for dead parents. Everyone had dead parents if you dug deep enough in this stupid world. Dead parents had weight, but they had shape. No memories was different. Like a grave without a body.

“Who raised you?” Leo asked.

Ignition nodded. “My aunt Tara. She lived near Fangspire’s gate. Small apartment. Bad pipes. Worse ceiling. I used to hit my head on the same lamp every week.”

Leo snorted despite himself. “Seven foot idiot versus household furniture. Tragic rivalry.”

“She laughed every time.” The corner of Ignition’s mouth moved faintly. “Said it built character.”

“Sounds like she had sense.”

“She had too much sense and not enough caution.” Ignition’s voice softened in a way that didn’t fit the huge body sitting across from him. “She was sick for a long time. Mana cough. The kind that gets worse when you live too close to unstable portal bleed. We couldn’t afford proper treatment when I was low level. Cheap tonics helped, sometimes. Mostly they just made her tired in different ways.”

Leo knew mana cough. Everyone who’d grown up near a shitty portal district knew mana cough. Lungs that shimmered under healer scans. Breath that tasted like metal. People pretending they were fine because fine was cheaper than medicine. He thought about the Fangspire slums.

“You fixed it?” Leo asked.

“Mostly. Once I hit fifteen, the guild payouts changed. Better contracts. Better healing. I moved her farther from the gate.” He took a slow drink and grimaced less this time. “She still gets bad days, but she can breathe now.”

“Level fifteen,” Leo muttered. “That’s when coin starts becoming coin.”

“Yes.”

“Before that it’s just insult money with a shinier name.”

Ignition looked back at the Aqua Sphere game.

Leo narrowed his eyes, then decided the bastard could live because the beer was good and the Miri striker had just body checked a scaleborn twice her size into the barrier. The bar roared. Leo slapped the table hard enough to rattle both glasses.

“That’s how you do it!”

Ignition watched the replay. “She used the tail to shift momentum.”

“Yeah, and the ref’s blind if he calls that a foul.”

“It looked like a foul.”

“It looked like winning.”

“That is different.”

“Not in sports.”

Ignition seemed to consider that like Leo had just explained a law of physics. “I see.”

“You don’t, but you’re learning.”

The blonde Kheprathi owner passed by their table with a tray balanced on one hand, caught that last line, and gave Ignition a sympathetic look. “He always teach like this?”

“I don’t know,” Ignition said. “This is my first lesson.”

“Poor thing.”

Leo turned. “Oi.”

She grinned and kept walking. “Second round’s coming, storm boy.”

“Storm boy?”

“You prefer lightning brat?”

Ignition looked down very quickly.

Leo glared at him. “Laugh and I break the table with your head.”

“I was not laughing.”

Leo hated that the corner of his own mouth tried to move.

The second round arrived, darker than the first and smelling faintly of smoke and citrus. Leo took a drink before asking what it was, because asking showed weakness. It burned all the way down and made his shoulders loosen. Ignition drank slower, but he drank, and that was enough to make Leo feel like he’d won something.

“My turn, then,” Leo said.

Ignition looked at him. “Parents?”

“Dead,” Leo said, too fast, then clicked his tongue at himself. “Father I remember. Mother too. Enough. More than enough.”

Ignition didn’t speak.

Good.

Leo looked past him at the match. The Aqua Sphere blurred for a second, blue motion bleeding into old smoke. “After the town burned, it was just me and Jolie. We got dragged into an orphanage for a while. Hated it. She cried at night. I started fights. Got my ass kicked. Started more. Some places teach kids manners. That place taught us nobody was coming.”

Ignition’s expression darkened slightly.

“So we left,” Leo continued. “Ran. Bad idea. Great idea. Both. We lived wherever we could. Under stairs. In storage rooms. Empty buildings. Once inside a broken Vending machine because it still had a heat rune. Jolie thought that was funny. I thought it was stupid. She was right.”

“You were children.”

Leo shrugged. “Children with legs.”

“That does not make it better.”

“No, but it made us mobile.” Leo took another drink. “We scraped together money doing courier shit, bait jobs, rat clears, anything that didn’t require a license the guild could check too hard. Then I got my first level and started taking real risks. Jolie stayed with me.”

“She trusted you.”

“Yeah.” The word came out rougher than he wanted. “She always did. Even when she shouldn’t have.”

Ignition waited.

Leo should have stopped there. He knew he should have. The second beer was sitting too warmly in his stomach, and the third was already waiting near his elbow because the Kheprathi owner apparently believed trauma tables needed maintenance. He should have watched the game. Should have insulted the goalie. Should have asked Ignition something stupid.

Instead, his mouth kept going.

“She was different back then,” Leo said. “Still Jolie. Always Jolie. But the world didn’t see her right. Kept calling her things she hated. Acting like they knew better than her.” His jaw tightened. “I got cash for transition work. Potions first. Then proper healer reconstruction once I could pay someone who wasn’t a back alley butcher. Paperwork too. City ID updates. Clothes. Voice training. The works.”

The words hung there for one second too long.

Leo realized what he’d said.

His hand tightened around the glass.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Leo leaned forward suddenly, eyes hard. “Listen to me.”

“I am.”

“No, fucking listen better.” His voice dropped low enough that the table beside them probably couldn’t hear over the bar noise, but the threat in it was real anyway. “Jolie is a girl. Plain and simple. Always was. World was just too stupid to catch up. You ever question that, ever make her feel like she has to prove it, ever look at her like there’s an asterisk next to what she is, and I don’t care how strong you are. I will fucking kill you.”

Ignition held his gaze.

Then he nodded once.

“I wouldn’t question it.”

Leo stared.

Ignition’s voice stayed steady. “She is Jolie. I don’t need more explanation than that.”

The anger didn’t have anywhere to go.

It stood there in Leo’s chest, stupid and armed, waiting for a fight that Ignition refused to give it. Worse, the answer was good. Too good.

“You’re saying that because you’re nice,” Leo said.

“I’m saying it because it is true.”

Leo looked away first. “Tch. Yeah. Well. Good.”

Ignition glanced at the panel. “And for what it is worth, helping her when you had almost nothing says a great deal about you.”

Leo’s whole face went hot.

“Shut up.”

“I mean it.”

“Shut up harder.”

Ignition obeyed, which was probably the only reason Leo didn’t throw something.

On the main panel, the Aqua Sphere match ended in a spray of digital confetti and screaming fans. The Miri striker’s team won by two. Leo should have been smug about calling half the plays correctly, but before he could celebrate, the bar’s system rotated to the next big match. The water arena vanished, replaced by a brutal green field surrounded by reinforced mana walls. Orc football. Two lines of tusked players in heavy pads and spiked helmets slammed together at the whistle with enough force to send one man flipping sideways through the air.

The bar loved it.

Leo went still.

Ignition noticed immediately.

Leo looked away from the panel and grabbed his beer. “Great. Orcs in fucking helmets. Just what I wanted.”

The Kheprathi owner, halfway down the bar, lifted a brow but didn’t change the channel. It was a sports bar. You didn’t get to throw a tantrum every time the schedule showed something you hated.

Leo drank anyway.

The third beer became half a beer fast.

Ignition didn’t tell him to slow down. Smart. Instead, he turned slightly so his own body blocked part of Leo’s view of the panel without making a thing of it.

“You always this considerate?” Leo asked.

Ignition looked at him. “No.”

“Liar.”

“Not always.”

“Close enough.”

Ignition took another drink. “You don’t like orcs.”

Leo laughed once, short and mean. “Wow. B rank perception. Impressive.”

“You hate them.”

“Yeah.”

Ignition waited.

Leo stared at the table until the wood grain became ash roads and split beams. The noise of the bar turned into shouting. The slam of orc football pads became doors breaking. He could still hear the game, but memory had gotten its claws under it.

“They came through with the goblins,” Leo said. “Dungeon break. Not one or two. Not a raid party. A flood. My town wasn’t ready. Nobody was ready.”

Ignition’s glass rested untouched in his hands now.

“My father fought,” Leo said. “Garet. He had this talking sword. Ugly voice. Funniest bastard I ever heard.”

His mouth twitched.

Then it died.

“The town burned. They dragged people out. Cut some down. Took others. My mother…” Leo stopped.

His throat closed around the rest. He had said pieces before. Never the full thing. Not to Jolie, not because she didn’t know, but because she did. Some pain didn’t need witnesses twice.

Ignition’s eyes lowered, not away from him, just down.

Leo forced the words into something smaller and less naked. “They hurt her before she died. I heard enough. Saw enough. Dad told me to run. Take Jolie and run. I did.”

The orc football panel erupted as one player bulldozed through three defenders and dove into the scoring zone. The crowd cheered.

Leo stared at the table.

“I’ve been angry ever since,” he said.

It felt pathetic out loud.

Ignition sat with it for a while.

Then he said, “Anger keeps you moving.”

Leo looked up.

“For a time,” Ignition added.

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “That sounded like advice.”

“It was observation.”

“Same shit, nicer shoes.”

Ignition looked down at his beer. “I used rage badly.”

Leo scoffed. “Yeah, I got that from the whole werewolf thing.”

“Before that.”

The table went quiet.

Even the bar noise seemed to slide off the edges of the booth.

Ignition turned the glass slowly between both hands. “My first party was Ravens Howl. Not the version people know now. Before the name became a warning. Before I was Ignition. I was Kai. Knight class. Shield. No mana. Big enough to take hits and too slow to avoid half of them.”

Leo remembered pieces from the guild stories. Ravens Howl had been a name before it became just Ignition’s shadow. A white coated healer called Lucien. A goblin rogue, A dragon blooded girl. Rumors changed every time someone got drunk enough to tell them.

“There was Jack,” Ignition said. “Green skin. Loud mouth. Better knife hand than sense. Lucien led in practice even when he pretended not to. He was… very good. Too good, sometimes. Hard to stand beside someone who made danger look planned.”

Leo snorted softly. “Know the feeling.”

Ignition glanced at him once, then continued.

“And Rhea.”

The name changed him.

Not much. Ignition didn’t break open when he hurt. He folded inward. But Leo saw it anyway. The way his shoulders stilled. The way his thumb stopped moving on the glass. The way heat retreated under his skin instead of rising, like even his fire knew not to touch that memory.

“Girlfriend?” Leo asked, quieter than he meant to.

Ignition nodded.

“First?”

Another nod.

Leo leaned back. “She hot?”

Ignition looked at him.

Leo raised both hands. “What? I’m being respectful.”

For a second, Ignition’s mouth almost smiled.

Then it faded. “Red hair. Horns. red Scales along her tail and limbs. She yelled at me constantly. Called me idiot more than my name.”

Leo drank instead of asking.

“She was brave,” Ignition said. “Angry. Proud. Scared of being soft where anyone could see it. I didn’t understand half of what she meant when she spoke to me. Tara did. She told me women like that build walls because they care and hate being seen caring.”

“Your aunt sounds useful.”

“She was usually right.”

“You say was.”

Ignition’s eyes lifted. “She’s alive.”

“Then don’t say was like that.”

Ignition accepted that with a small nod.

“What happened to Rhea?” Leo asked.

Ignition’s grip tightened around the glass.

The room felt colder despite the beer, despite the packed bodies, despite the orc football panel flashing violent green and gold beside them.

“A dungeon run went bad,” Ignition said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the one I have.”

“Bullshit.”

Ignition didn’t respond.

Leo studied him. The silence wasn’t refusal exactly. It was barricade. The kind a man built after watching something through his own hands and deciding the details belonged in the grave. Leo knew that kind. He’d built half his personality out of it.

“Lucien?” Leo asked.

Ignition’s jaw shifted.

“Jack?”

Nothing.

“Rhea?”

Ignition closed his eyes.

Leo looked away first, because he wasn’t a complete bastard. Not all the time.

“They died,” Ignition said at last. “The original Ravens Howl. All of them.”

“How?”

Ignition’s voice came out flat. “Because I failed.”

Leo clicked his tongue. “That’s not a how. That’s a wound pretending to be a sentence.”

Ignition’s eyes opened.

For a second, Leo thought he might get angry. Good. Anger would have been easier than that dead calm. Instead Ignition only looked at him with something exhausted and old.

“I lost control,” he said. “There were monsters. Fire. Too much noise. Too much blood. I remember pieces. Rhea shouting. Lucien ordering me to hold. Jack laughing like he could make it less bad. Then nothing clear. When I came back, the dungeon was burning.”

Leo didn’t move.

Ignition stared through the table now, not at it. “Rhea was alive for part of it.”

Part of it.

The words were small.

They landed like stone.

Leo’s stomach tightened.

“I held her,” Ignition said. “She kept trying to insult me. Couldn’t get enough breath. She called me an idiot anyway.”

The bar roared at the game.

Neither of them looked.

“She would,” Ignition added, almost to himself.

Leo’s throat felt wrong. He took another drink because that was easier than speaking.

Ignition finally looked up. “That is why parties do not last around me.”

Leo set his glass down too hard. “No.”

Ignition blinked.

“No,” Leo repeated, sharper. “That’s why you decided they shouldn’t. Different thing.”

Ignition’s expression tightened.

Leo leaned forward. “You think I don’t fucking get it? You think I don’t know what it’s like to leave people in fucking fire and decide the rest of your life is punishment? You lost them. Fine. That’s real. That’s yours. But you don’t get to sit there and make it sound noble that you’ve been walking around alone waiting for the next dungeon to finish what the first one fucking started.”

Ignition’s eyes changed.

There. Anger. Finally.

“You don’t know what happened,” Ignition said.

“No shit. You won’t tell me.”

“Because telling you does not bring them back.”

“No. But hiding behind it doesn’t either.”

Heat shimmered faintly around Ignition’s shoulders. Just a flicker. The table between them warmed. Leo felt his own lightning answer under his skin.

The Kheprathi owner appeared at the edge of the table like she’d stepped out of the noise itself.

“Boys,” she said lightly.

Both of them looked at her.

Her smile stayed easy. Her eyes did not. “If you’re going to turn my booth into a boss arena, pay first.”

Leo stared at her.

Ignition stared too.

Then Leo burst out laughing.

It hit him wrong and right at once, rough enough to hurt. The heat around Ignition faded. He looked at the owner, then at Leo, then down at his glass, and for the first time that night his laugh came out too. Low. Brief. Rusted from disuse, but real.

The owner nodded once, satisfied. “Good. Much better. Trauma table survives round three.”

She walked away.

Leo wiped at his face, still half laughing, half angry, and took another drink because apparently he was making every bad decision tonight and doing it with commitment.

“Your Rhea,” he said after a moment. “She’d hate the brooding thing.”

Ignition looked at him, caught off guard.

Leo shrugged. “Girl like that? Calls you idiot, yells because she cares, brave enough to love a walking siege engine? Yeah. She’d kick your ass for turning grief into a personality.”

Ignition’s mouth tightened.

But he didn’t deny it.

“And your old party,” Leo continued, quieter. “Lucien. Jack. Whoever they were. If they were anything like Jolie, they didn’t fight beside you because they thought you were safe. They fought beside you because you were theirs.”

Ignition looked away.

Leo did too.

The orc football game kept smashing itself across the big panel, all roaring crowds, green field, and tusked bodies slamming into each other hard enough to shake the projected score markers. Leo still hated looking at it. He hated the tusks, hated the size, hated the way the crowd cheered when an orc linebacker drove some poor bastard into the mana wall like violence was a festival instead of a memory. But he kept watching anyway, because looking at Ignition after saying something that honest felt worse. The beer had softened the room too much. It had pulled too many words out of his mouth and left them sitting between him and the walking furnace like spilled guts on a table.

Ignition was quiet for a long time.

Not his usual quiet either. Leo had already started to understand the difference, which annoyed him. There was Ignition’s normal silence, the one that came from being too large and too careful and too used to making himself smaller for other people’s comfort. Then there was this. This was something else. A silence with weight in it. A silence that looked at Leo from the side and then looked away before Leo caught it.

Leo caught it anyway.

“What?” Leo snapped.

Ignition’s fingers tightened around his glass. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“It is nothing I can explain well.”

“That’s most things with you.”

Ignition almost smiled, but it died before it reached his mouth. He looked at Leo again, and there was something strange in his face now. Not grief. Not just grief. Something warmer and more dangerous, embarrassed enough that even Leo, half drunk and actively refusing introspection, could see it struggling under his skin. Ignition opened his mouth, closed it, then looked toward the game like the answer might be hiding somewhere between two orcs trying to break each other’s ribs.

Ignition took a drink. Too fast. He coughed once, swallowed it down, and kept his eyes on the panel. “You remind me of someone.”

Leo leaned back. “That better not be an insult.”

“It is not.”

Ignition’s mouth twitched faintly. “That would defeat the point.”

“You’re learning sarcasm too slowly.”

Ignition looked back at him then, and the weirdness got worse. His eyes were steady, but his ears had gone a shade darker. The heat around him shifted in a way Leo could feel across the table, not rage, not danger, just discomfort pressed against something he didn’t know what to do with.

“Rhea,” Ignition said at last.

Leo blinked.

That name again. The dead girlfriend. Red hair, horns, tail, scales, yelled at him constantly, called him an idiot more than his own name.

Leo clicked his tongue. “I remind you of your dead girlfriend?”

Ignition’s face tightened instantly. “Not like that.”

“Better hope not, Embers. I’m prettier.”

That should have killed whatever the hell was happening.

It didn’t.

Ignition looked at him for one second too long, and Leo realized with a strange, stomach twisting jolt that the bastard was actually thinking about it.

Ignition looked away first.

Leo stared.

Then Leo barked a laugh, because the alternative was asking a question he absolutely did not want answered. “Holy shit, you’re drunk.”

“I am not drunk.”

“You just looked like you were comparing me to a dragon girl who called you idiot while being in love with you.”

Ignition’s grip tightened. “She did not say she loved me.”

“Yeah, because she was your type. Girls like that don’t say it clean. They hit you with it and call you stupid for bleeding.”

Ignition went still again.

Leo wanted to bite his own tongue off. The beer was making him wise. That was disgusting.

Ignition looked down at his glass. “She would have hated you.”

“Obviously. I’m fucking great.”

“She would have fought you within five minutes.”

“Three.”

“She would have called you loud.”

“She’d be right.”

“She would have liked you,” Ignition said, softer.

Leo’s throat did something stupid.

He covered it by taking another drink. “Yeah, well, she had fucking taste.”

That should have ended it.

It didn’t.

Ignition tried to say something after that. Leo saw it happen three times. The big bastard’s shoulders shifted, his mouth opened a fraction, then his jaw locked and the words died before they got out. Every failed attempt made him look more uncomfortable. More embarrassed. More human. Human made him harder to hate. Human made him someone Leo could accidentally care about.

Worse, Ignition was blushing now.

Not bright. Not obvious like Alice, who turned red like the system had installed a warning panel under her skin. Ignition’s blush was darker, low across his cheekbones and ears, almost hidden by the bar’s shifting lights. But Leo saw it.

“What?” Leo demanded again.

Ignition stared at the table. “Nothing.”

“Stop having nothing so loudly.”

“I am trying.”

“Try fucking quieter.”

“I don’t know how.”

Leo groaned and dragged both hands through his hair. Sparks popped between his fingers. “Gods, you’re impossible.”

Ignition looked like that sentence made things worse.

For a moment, Leo wondered if Ignition liked being insulted.

Then his own brain took that thought, attached it to Jolie’s kiss in the street, Alice’s guilty face, Yamaba’s too quiet eyes, and whatever had happened in the cave, and shoved the whole mess somewhere hot and inconvenient.

Leo sat up sharply. “Bathroom.”

Ignition stood at the exact same time. “Bathroom.”

They both stopped.

Leo stared at him.

Ignition stared back.

For half a second, neither of them moved. Then Leo pointed at him.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were about to.”

“I only need to piss.”

“Yeah. Same. Shut up.”

They left the table together, which made it weirder purely because Leo was aware of it. The Kheprathi owner watched them pass with one eyebrow lifted, gold eyes too amused for Leo’s liking. He glared at her. She smiled into the glass she was polishing like she had already named their tab something insulting in the system.

The urinal was white porcelain and completely innocent.

Leo stared at it like it had personally offended him.

He wasn't looking sideways. He wasn't. He was a grown man, a party leader, a professional. He didn't do locker room comparisons like some insecure teenager. He had two beautiful women at home who loved him, who had chosen him, who made sounds for him that

Ignition shifted his weight.

The movement drew Leo's eye before he could stop it. Just a flicker. A half second glance. Totally normal. Completely acceptable. Men did that all the time, right? Peripheral awareness. Tactical assessment. Nothing weird about

Oh fuck.

Leo's brain short circuited.

The thing hanging between Ignition's massive thighs wasn't a cock. It was a statement. A declaration of biological warfare. A thick, heavy, veined monument to everything unfair about genetics and the cruel whims of whatever god handled dick distribution. Even soft and it was soft, just casually hanging there like it didn't give a shit about Leo's entire existence it had to be close to ten inches. Maybe more. The girth alone looked like Leo's wrist.

Leo looked down at his own dick.

Seven and a half inches when hard. He'd measured. Multiple times. Different rulers. Different lighting conditions. Seven and a half on a good day, closer to seven if he was being brutally honest with himself. Respectable. Above average. Nothing to be ashamed of.

He'd never felt smaller in his life.

That's not fair, his brain supplied helpfully. That's not fucking fair. Nobody needs that. That's excessive. That's a choking hazard.

Ignition finished and tucked himself away with the casual ease of a man who had never once in his life worried about measuring up. Because why would he? What was there to worry about when you were packing something that looked like it belonged in a museum with a warning label?

"You okay?"

Leo's head snapped up. Ignition was looking at him with those steady ice blue eyes, expression neutral, completely unbothered by the fact that he'd just ruined Leo's entire week with a bathroom break.

"Fine," Leo said. His voice came out too sharp. "I'm fine."

"You look tense."

"I said I'm fine."

Ignition raised one massive hand in surrender. "Alright. Just checking."

He moved to the sink. Leo stayed frozen at the urinal, dick still out, brain still spinning, unable to process what he'd just seen against what he thought he knew about the world. Men weren't supposed to be built like that. It wasn't realistic.

The girls, his traitorous mind whispered. Imagine what that would do to the girls.

Leo's face went hot.

He didn't want to imagine it. He absolutely did not want to imagine Jolie on her knees in front of that monster, her pretty mouth stretched wide, tears streaming down her face as she tried to take even half of it. He didn't want to imagine Alice bent over the kitchen counter, her composed mask finally cracking, screaming as that thick black cock split her open inch by impossible inch.

He imagined it anyway.

Fuck.

Leo's cock twitched in his hand. He was getting hard. He was getting hard in a men's room standing next to the man he was fantasizing about fucking his girlfriends, and he couldn't stop it, couldn't control it, couldn't do anything except stand there and feel his face burn while his dick filled out against his will.

The fantasies had always been there. Lurking in the back of his mind. Late night thoughts he jerked off to and then felt vaguely ashamed about in the morning. The idea of watching someone else take his girls apart, of seeing them lose control for another man, of being right there while it happened it had always made him harder than he wanted to admit.

But he'd never acted on it.

Never found anyone he trusted enough.

The men in his fantasies were faceless. Nameless. Variables in an equation that only existed in his head. Real men were assholes. Real men would hurt his girls, disrespect them, treat them like objects instead of the complicated, beautiful people Leo loved more than anything. Real men couldn't be trusted with something this vulnerable.

But Ignition...

Leo's eyes tracked to the man's broad back as he washed his hands. The way his shirt stretched across those impossible shoulders. The easy, unhurried movements of someone completely comfortable in his own skin.

Ignition was nice.

Genuinely, unfairly, inconveniently nice.

He'd be good to them, Leo thought, and the realization hit him like a brick to the chest. He'd be careful. He'd make sure they enjoyed it.

The image shifted in Leo's head. Not just Ignition fucking his girls anymore, but Ignition with them. Part of the household. Eating breakfast at their table. Walking around naked because of their house rule oh god, the house rule his massive cock swinging freely while Jolie tried to cook and Alice pretended to read.

Leo would have to see it every day.

That thick, heavy, perfect cock. Soft in the mornings. Hard when the girls got handsy. Disappearing into mouths and pussies and asses that belonged to him, that he'd claimed, that would stretch and reshape themselves around someone bigger and better.

His own dick would look pathetic in comparison.

And that's what you want, the voice in his head whispered. Isn't it? To lose. To come second. To watch them prefer something else and love you anyway.

Leo swallowed hard.

He was fully hard now. Painfully hard. Standing at a urinal in a sports bar bathroom with an erection he couldn't explain and thoughts he couldn't justify and a man ten feet away who had no idea he was being mentally invited to move in and fuck Leo's entire polycule.

I could ask him.

The thought was insane. Reckless. Completely unlike the careful, controlled leader Leo had spent years becoming.

I could just... ask.

His hand was still on his cock. He'd never actually put it away. And now, standing there hard and aching, he found himself wondering what it would feel like. Not just watching Ignition with the girls. But touching. Tasting.

That thick black cock looked good.

Leo had never thought of himself with a man. He liked femboys. He loved women. His entire sexual history was women. But something about Ignition the size, the color contrast, the sheer overwhelming presence of him made Leo's mouth water in a way he didn't know how to categorize.

I want to suck it, he realized, and the thought didn't even shock him the way it should have. I want to get on my knees and see if I can even fit it in my mouth. I want to feel it get hard against my tongue. I want

"Leo."

He jumped.

Ignition was standing by the door, watching him with an expression Leo couldn't read. His amber eyes dropped briefly just for a second to where Leo's hand was still wrapped around his very obvious hard on.

"You've been standing there for a while," Ignition said carefully.

Leo's face burned.

He should have been embarrassed. He should have been mortified. He should have shoved his dick in his pants and fled and never spoken of this again.

Instead, he heard himself say "How big is it hard?"

Silence.

Ignition's expression didn't change. Those ice blue eyes held Leo's gaze with unsettling steadiness, and for a long moment neither of them moved.

"Twelve and a half inches," Ignition finally said. His voice was low. Careful. "Three inches around."

Leo's cock jumped in his hand.

"Fuck," he breathed.

"Is this a conversation you want to have here?" Ignition asked. Still careful. Still neutral. "Or should we go back to the table and pretend this didn't happen?"