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The creak of leather upholstery drew Henry’s attention. His driver, Manuel, was looking at him through the rear-view mirror. Manuel scratched the back of his head, glancing briefly outside the window. “Are you sure about this, padre?” said Manuel. “I don’t like how this place looks. I can drive you back to the church, no problem.”

“Thank you, Manuel,” said Henry, as they pulled up to the front building. The sidewalk was desolate. A plastic bag scraped across the pavement, caught in the wind. “I appreciate your concern, but this is something I must do. God wills it.”

Henry slid his fingers down the seatbelt and unbuckled it. He smoothed down the front of his cassock with one hand as he reached for his briefcase with the other. He stepped out of the car, briefly shivering in the cold.

Taking a breath to center himself, Henry walked over to the driver’s side of the car. He stooped down to the window as Manuel lowered it. “Are you really sure you can’t put this off, padre? Or do this somewhere else?” said Manuel. “Just say the word and I’ll drive you back, no charge.”

Henry laughed. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Enrique,” he said. He held out a hand. Manuel shook it, grip firm. “It was nice meeting you. You don’t have to wait for me. I’ll send you a message when I need a ride back to the parish. Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you kept this between us, Mr. Enrique.”

Manuel stared at the hundred-dollar bill that Henry had left in his hand. He looked up at the priest. “No, padre, I can’t accept this,” he said. “It’s too much!”

“Mr. Enrique,” said Henry, saying the words deliberately, “I would very much appreciate your discretion.”

Manuel gulped. He glanced at the bill and then back at Henry one more time before pocketing the money. “O-of course, padre,” he stammered. “Do you have any idea how long you’ll be? I might, uh, take a few fares after this.”

Henry shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know for sure. I’ll message you when I’m done. And don’t worry. I know you need to make a living. I won’t mind waiting.” He patted the chassis of the car twice before taking a step back from the curb and gave Manuel a little wave as the cab drove away.

Once Manuel drove out of sight, Henry turned to face the building. He remembered what had been, once. A house of debauchery and sin in one of the city’s most active districts. A nightclub that not only encouraged fornication out of wedlock, but a kind most contemptible in the eyes of the Lord. Now here it stood, empty and condemned, as was proper.

The corners of Henry’s lips twitched into a little smile, knowing that he’d had a hand in shutting not just this awful establishment down, but the entire district of degeneracy that had once surrounded it. He liked to think that he had saved at least a few souls from damnation for his part. Today, Henry hoped, he’d be able to save yet another soul, just as he’d been saved fifteen years ago, when he’d been young, misguided, and lost.

Henry entered the building. The poorly-maintained hinges creaked as he pushed the wooden door open. It wasn’t his first time inside, but it never failed to amaze him how much the place had changed. He still remembered where the dance floor was, and how much time he’d used to spend there. He shook his head. What a distasteful memory.

Quickly, and with purpose, Henry crossed the floor to the back of the building. He entered the stairwell and climbed up to the now-empty offices at the top. From the landing, he went to the right-hand corridor and knocked on the third door on the left.

The door swung open. “You’re late,” said a voice. It belonged to a uniformed police officer about Henry’s age, with blond hair framing a handsome, youthful face, and vivid blue eyes. “We’ve been doing this every month for the last three years and you’re still late.”

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Crack.

Chains jangled and Isaac flinched. A quiet sob echoed in the spacious room, and leather rasped against bare concrete as the whip dragged on the floor behind Isaac. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the snap of the whip, much less the sound of it hitting bare skin, but Gabriel had insisted he learn.

In all honesty, Isaac never once imagined he would be in a place like this. It wasn’t his first time here, but it was still strange how the rich burgundy walls and the variety of equipment hung up on their racks, called out to him. The coarseness of the bare concrete floor under his feet felt right, too, somehow. Even the way that the leather straps, of the harness he wore across his chest, dug in felt proper.

The tail of the whip trailed behind Isaac as he walked around the St. Andrew’s cross in the middle of the room. Kevin was strung up against it with heavy chains fastened to the thick stainless steel manacles locked around his wrists and ankles. His back was exposed to the air and already had four thin welts marking where the whip had struck.

A cold knot settled into the pit of Isaac’s stomach as he came around to look Kevin in the face. Streaks of tears stained his mate’s cheeks, but Kevin’s jaw was set, and his eyes burned with determination. The instinct to protect was difficult to quell, but Isaac did so, anyway. He resisted the urge to ask if Kevin needed a break—as they’d barely even just begun.

Clenching his hands around the handle of the whip, Isaac walked around to the side of the cross. He took a moment to examine the landscape of Kevin’s back, to choose a good spot to hit that wasn’t too close to the previous lashes.

Two weeks had passed since Isaac and Gabriel rescued Kevin. Isaac didn’t often think about her anymore, but there was still a part of him that wanted to run down the bitch that stole Kevin and tear out her throat. Isaac shook his head. Thinking those thoughts were what had landed him in this predicament in the first place.

Isaac had been stupid enough to tell Gabriel about the anger he felt, about the bloodlust thrumming through his veins, the day after he got Kevin back. That was the first time he ever set foot in the dungeon, only he hadn’t been the punisher, then.

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The golden rays of early morning’s light streamed through the blinds drawn over the windows. The plastic slats cast long shadows across the alarm clock on the nightstand, which read 7:30 AM, while the streaks of light illuminated the sparse motes of dust drifting lazily through the air.

With a quiet sigh, Isaac cracked open an eye and smiled. The events of the auspicious day that had changed everything were still fresh in his mind. He never would have thought that weeks of agony and misery starting when his boyfriend “saw the light” and turned straight could culminate in something so beautiful, so pleasurable, and so empowering.

Isaac still felt a pang of hurt in his chest thinking about Kevin. He imagined he would continue to feel that way for a while. Hearing his boyfriend call him a faggot and mean every syllable, watching him walk away into the arms of a woman, had left a wound that would take a while to heal.

Taking a deep breath, Isaac stretched his arms over his head and yawned. The air was thick with the musk of men, the scent of sweat, and the distinct, intoxicating aroma of sex. Between his legs, his cock throbbed with insistent need at the memory of Gabriel holding him, taking him from behind.

Isaac shivered. He ran his fingers over his pecs. The thick slabs of firm muscle had truly matured over the last three weeks. As a bit of a twig his whole life, Isaac had basically given up on the idea of putting on much muscle, if any at all.

Now, three weeks after he was introduced to a world that he’d always thought was nothing but myth and folklore, Isaac had not just grown broader, he’d grown taller, too. He didn’t really understand it, but the magic had somehow turned him into the best physical version of himself.

Isaac felt amazing, though to tell the truth, he felt a not-inconsiderable amount of guilt for feeling that way. Now that he understood the situation a little better thanks to Gabriel, he felt as if his happiness were somehow a betrayal of Kevin.

Isaac knew it was stupid for him to think that just because Kevin, the real Kevin, was suffering, he had to suffer too. And yet, he couldn’t help but feel that way sometimes. Being around Gabriel helped him forget about the strange, complicated way that the human heart felt things, but at his core, he was still just a guy, whatever the magic had done to him.

Fortunately, most of the time, Isaac was more than happy to just bask in the wonderful sensation of being a werewolf. While he wasn’t sure how true the impression he got was, Gabriel had somewhat implied that the full transformation would come about faster if he just let himself enjoy it. Whatever the case, that was just the kind of excuse that Isaac could use to justify the way he felt to himself.

Because Isaac felt satisfied in a way that he had never been before. He felt happy. He felt secure. He felt full. And not in the least because there was a thick cock lodged in his hole, and a pair of furry muscular arms wrapped around his waist.

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“I just don’t know where else to turn to…”

The earnest words of the prayer, spoken in words slurred with drink, were like a whisper in the breeze that wound through the halls of the temple to the Étrad Sídhthe. The attendants laboriously polishing the gilded statues of men in all types of ecstasy looked about as if perturbed by the sound. “Is that what I think it is?” said one, hanging from the ceiling in a sling of ropes whilst absentmindedly rubbing a statue’s gleaming bicep with a cloth and his crotch.

“None of this makes any sense! I just want him back…”

“I think it is,” said another of the attendants, cleaning the toes of a golden Adonis with his tongue. He turned his eyes to the vaulted ceiling, to the glimmering silks crossing from one side of the hall to the other, suspended from the tops of the marble columns that paraded down the length of the corridor.

“I’ll pay any price! I’ll give you anything you want! I just want him back…”

Gaining in strength and bolstered by the benediction of the temple’s attendants, the prayer thundered down the central aisle of the main chamber. The words were steeped in the kind of desperation known only to the most sincere of loves. Disciples of the Étrad Sídhthe in their leathers and sheer cloths looked up from their coupling. Even the Cáel Sídhe took notice.

Perched upon a dais where an altar should have been were two tall thrones. Atop one, Cáel draped his slight, effete body over one of the armrests. In that position, the bright pink veils he wore, that left very little to the imagination to begin with, revealed even more of his lithe form.

With the twitch of an eyebrow, the Cáel looked across to the man seated on the other throne. His eyes glowed with the light of divination as he sought the source of the prayer’s pain. When he found it, he gave the Brogda Sídhe a meaningful look and said, “Well…that’s not good. I’m tempted, but do we even want to touch this right now?”

“It’s definitely not good,” said Brogda. His deep, sensual baritone voice sent a shiver down the spine of every man in the room whose heart held even the slightest dreg of submissiveness. He leaned forward, his brows furrowed with thought.

The dignified purple toga edged in gold stretched across Brogda’s broad chest and bulging muscles as he considered the situation, and the prayer. “But I don’t think that we want to touch it. Not directly, at least. He’s declared war, but you know what it took last time. We need time to get ready.”

“But we are going to do something, right?” said Cáel, emphasizing his words with exaggerated gestures with his right hand. He would have used both hands, but his left was busy stroking the massive cock of the disciple perched on the other armrest of his throne. “This isn’t something we can just let go.”

Brogda leaned back with a small, wicked smirk. “Correct. Which means that we’ll have to use someone who is, on the surface at least, not directly affiliated with us.” He rested his palms on the ends of the armrests of his throne. The disciple that had been worshipping his feet doubled his efforts as Brogda’s mighty cock stirred to life. The front of Brogda’s toga tented upward, parting around the rock-hard pillar that was his erection.

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