The ceremony continued, and Lucien Thorne stood in the dirt of the arena floor and pretended to be alive.
Candidates shuffled past him on their way to the altar. Blessings were announced. The crowd cheered or murmured or politely applauded depending on the god's prestige, and the rhythm of the ceremony carried on as though nothing extraordinary had happened. As though the highest mana potential of the generation had not just been branded the Cuckold Knight in front of sixty thousand witnesses who were still, even now, glancing down at him from the stands and nudging each other with grins that made his stomach turn.
"That is him," a girl two rows ahead whispered to her friend. "The one who got the Cuckold blessing."
"Him? He is actually handsome. What a waste."
"Maybe the gods thought it was funny. Imagine having that face and that blessing."
They giggled. Lucien stared straight ahead and felt his molars grind.
Marcus stood to his left, massive and radiant with the lingering aura of the God of Domination. The deep red mana that had poured into him at the altar still clung to his skin like heat from a furnace, and candidates who walked past gave him a respectful berth. Some nodded. A few bowed. One boy who had received the God of Shields glanced at Marcus with open worship and then at Lucien with barely concealed amusement, as if the comparison between them was a punchline that told itself.
"Stop clenching your jaw like that," Marcus said, his deep voice pitched low enough that only Lucien and Seraphina could hear. "You will crack a tooth."
"I am fine."
"You are not fine. You look like someone pissed in your morning tea and then made you drink it in front of an audience." Marcus paused. "Which, I suppose, is not entirely inaccurate."
"Helpful. Thank you, Marcus."
"I am your best friend. Honesty is part of the arrangement." Marcus placed a hand on Lucien's shoulder, and the weight of it was heavier than it used to be. Not physically. Something about the way Marcus carried himself had shifted since the altar. He took up more space now. Stood with his feet wider. Spoke with a resonance in his chest that made people listen without being asked. The God of Domination had not just given him power. It had given him gravity.
"It could be worse," Marcus offered.
"Name one way it could be worse."
"You could have gotten the God of Celibacy."
Seraphina laughed softly against Lucien's right side, her body still pressed to his, and the sound was warm and traitorous.
"Do not encourage him," Lucien said.
"He has a point," Seraphina murmured. "At least your blessing involves sex."
"It involves watching someone else have sex with my woman. That is not exactly the same thing, Sera."
"It is adjacent." She traced a finger along his forearm, the touch feather-light and deliberate. "Some men would kill for an excuse to watch."
Something hot and tangled lurched in Lucien's chest. He shoved it down violently and said nothing.
"Seraphina Kael."
The announcer's voice cut through the ambient noise of the ceremony, and the name rolled across the colosseum like a bell struck in an empty cathedral. Seraphina's finger paused on Lucien's arm. Her golden eyes lifted to the altar at the center of the arena, and something shifted behind them. Not nervousness. Anticipation. The kind of anticipation that a predator feels when the cage door finally opens.
She pulled away from Lucien, and the absence of her warmth hit him like stepping out of a heated room into winter. She did not look back. She walked to the altar the way she walked everywhere, hips rolling with each step, silver-white hair swaying against the dark bronze of her shoulders, her body commanding attention with the passive inevitability of a natural disaster. The crowd noise dimmed. Heads turned. Even the candidates who had been whispering about Lucien's blessing fell silent because Seraphina Kael demanded silence simply by moving through space.
"Gods above," someone in the stands muttered, loud enough for the mana crystals to catch. "Look at the body on her."
"That is the Cuckold Knight's girlfriend."
"Not for long."
Laughter rippled through the galleries. Lucien's hands curled into fists at his sides.
Seraphina placed her palm on the altar.
The light did not descend or rise. It erupted. Deep violet and molten gold, swirling upward from the stone like a geyser of liquid silk, and it did not envelop Seraphina the way blessings normally did. It caressed her. The light traced the curve of her neck, slid across her collarbone, wrapped around her heavy breasts like the hands of an invisible lover, and trailed down her waist and over her wide hips with an intimacy that made half the colosseum shift in their seats. Seraphina's lips parted. Her back arched slightly, her chest pushing forward against the candidate's tunic as the divine energy sank into her skin, and the sound she made was quiet but the mana crystals carried it to every corner of the arena.
It was a moan. Soft, breathless, utterly unashamed. Sixty thousand people heard the Goddess of Succubi enter Seraphina Kael, and the sound she made was the sound of a woman being pleased.
A wave of heat rolled outward from the altar. Not temperature. Desire. Raw, undiluted sexual energy that hit every person in the colosseum like a fist wrapped in velvet. Men gripped the arms of their seats. Women pressed their thighs together. Candidates on the arena floor swayed on their feet as the pulse washed over them, and for one breathless moment the Grand Colosseum of Astenvale was united by a singular, overwhelming, involuntary arousal.
Then it pulled back. The light sank into Seraphina's skin and vanished, and the announcer's voice rang out with a crack in it that had not been there for any previous blessing.
"Seraphina Kael. Blessed by the Goddess of Succubi."
The crowd did not cheer. The crowd exhaled. Sixty thousand people releasing a breath they had not realized they were holding, and the sound was low and hungry and reverent in a way that had nothing to do with respect and everything to do with want. Men stared at Seraphina with open, unfiltered lust. Women stared at her with contempt that could not quite conceal fascination. The Goddess of Succubi was taboo, her blessed branded as whores and temptresses, but nobody in the colosseum was thinking about social stigma right now. They were thinking about the sound she made when the light entered her, and they would be thinking about it for a very long time.
Then the connections began. Whispered calculations spreading through the crowd like fire through dry grass.
"The Cuckold Knight's woman just got the Succubus blessing."
"The gods are having a laugh today."
"She will need a real man to cultivate with. Someone with actual size."
"Think the Cuckold Knight is big enough to satisfy a Succubus?"
"Not a chance. Look at him and look at her. That woman needs at least ten inches to feel anything."
"She will be bouncing on someone else by the end of the week."
"End of the week? Give it tonight."
The laughter that followed was different from before. Sharper. Crueler. Sexual in a way that the earlier mockery had not been, because now the crowd was not just laughing at Lucien's blessing. They were imagining Seraphina underneath other men, and they were telling him about it to his face. The jokes painted pictures. Seraphina on her knees. Seraphina bent over. Seraphina screaming another man's name while Lucien watched from a corner. The crowd workshopped his humiliation in real time, and each new joke got a bigger laugh than the last.
Lucien stood in the center of it and felt his face burn so hot he thought his skin might actually catch fire. His arrogance screamed at him to say something, to shout back, to remind these people that his mana potential was higher than every single one of their pathetic blessed combined. But his tongue was lead in his mouth and his throat had closed and his eyes were burning again and he could not, he absolutely could not, let a single tear fall. Not here. Not now.
Marcus leaned toward him. "Breathe, brother."
Lucien breathed.
Seraphina walked back from the altar, and she was glowing. Not metaphorically. A faint violet luminescence clung to her dark skin, tracing the curves of her body like candlelight trapped beneath silk. Her golden eyes were brighter than before, almost incandescent, and her silver-white hair seemed to move on its own, drifting around her shoulders as though caught in a breeze that existed only for her. The candidate's tunic that had been tight before was now obscene. The Succubus blessing had not changed her body, not yet, but it had amplified everything about her until looking at her felt like staring at the sun through a keyhole. You could not get enough and you could not look away.
She reached them, and Marcus spoke first.
"Well." His voice was rougher than before, and he was not trying to hide it. His brown eyes moved down Seraphina's body with the slow deliberation of a man who had just been given divine permission to take what he wanted, and the path his gaze traced was not subtle. Her breasts. Her waist. Her hips. Back up to her face. "The Goddess of Succubi. I have to say, Sera, the gods have excellent taste."
"Naturally," Seraphina said, and her voice had changed too. Deeper. Smokier. Like honey poured over something dangerous. "They gave me exactly what I wanted."
"And what is that?"
She smiled, and every man within twenty feet felt it in his groin. "Power. The kind that men hand over willingly."
Marcus laughed, low and appreciative. "The God of Domination and the Goddess of Succubi in the same generation. Standing right next to each other." He glanced at Lucien, and the glance was not unkind but it was not equal either. "You have to admit, Lucien, our blessings are a natural match. Domination and submission, conquest and surrender. The gods practically designed us as a pair."
The word "us" hung in the air. Not Marcus and Lucien. Marcus and Seraphina.
Lucien felt his spine stiffen. "She is my girlfriend, Marcus."
"I know that." Marcus raised his hands in mock surrender, that easy grin spreading across his handsome face. "I am just saying, from a purely theological standpoint, the God of Domination and the Goddess of Succubi have a well-documented synergy. Read any of the old texts. They are considered complementary divine forces."
"Complementary," Seraphina repeated, tasting the word. Her golden eyes slid to Marcus and lingered there for a moment that lasted one heartbeat too long. "That is an interesting way to put it."
"What would you call it?"
"Compatible," she said, and the word dripped.
Lucien's stomach clenched. "Can we stop discussing divine compatibility and focus on the fact that we still need to register at the guild?"
"He is changing the subject," Marcus said to Seraphina with theatrical disappointment.
"He does that when he is uncomfortable," Seraphina agreed, and she leaned into Lucien and pressed those impossible breasts against his arm. The violet glow on her skin was warm where it touched him, and the contact sent a pulse through his body that he could not categorize as either comfort or torment. "Do not worry, Lucien. No matter what the gods gave me, I am still yours."
She paused.
"Mostly."
Marcus barked out a laugh that echoed across the arena floor. Lucien opened his mouth for a retort but nothing came out that was sharp enough, so he closed it and let the moment pass and tried not to think about what "mostly" meant.
The streets of Astenvale were worse than the colosseum.
In the colosseum, the crowd had been a distant mass. Anonymous faces blurred by distance and number, their cruelty diluted by sheer scale. On the streets, the cruelty was retail. Up close. Personal. People stopped and stared. People pointed. People whispered behind cupped hands and then made eye contact with Lucien to make sure he knew they were whispering about him.
And everyone wanted a piece of Marcus and Seraphina.
A group of newly blessed candidates intercepted them two blocks from the colosseum. Three young men with fresh blessings and stars in their eyes, all of them focused on Marcus with the intensity of puppies meeting a large dog.
"God of Domination, right? That was incredible, the whole colosseum shook."
"My father says the last Domination-blessed became a general by twenty-five."
"Can you feel the power already? What does it feel like?"
Marcus fielded their adoration with practiced grace, answering questions, accepting handshakes, making each boy feel seen without giving any of them too much. He was good at this. He had always been charismatic, but the blessing had refined it into something sharper. He did not just draw attention now. He commanded it.
One of the boys noticed Seraphina and his face went slack. His eyes dropped to her chest and stayed there for a full three seconds before his brain caught up with his gaze. "You are the Succubus-blessed," he said, and his voice cracked on the word Succubus. "I felt the pulse at the ceremony. Everyone felt it. That was... you are..."
"Thank you," Seraphina said sweetly, and the boy looked like he might faint.
None of them acknowledged Lucien. He stood two feet away, arms crossed, jaw tight, and not one of the three boys so much as glanced at him. He might as well have been a lamppost.
They moved on. A block later, an established knight in silver-trimmed armor stopped Marcus in the middle of the street. He was older, mid-thirties, with the scarred hands of a veteran and the insignia of a Steel-rank party pinned to his chest.
"Marcus Ironfell. Word travels fast." The knight extended his hand. "Ser Aldren Voss, Steel rank, Crimson Lance party. We could use someone with your blessing on our roster."
"I appreciate the offer, Ser Aldren, but I am registering with my party today."
Ser Aldren's eyes moved to Seraphina, and his expression shifted in a way that made Lucien's skin crawl. Not lecherous, exactly. Appraising. The way a man looked at a weapon he wanted to acquire. "The Succubus-blessed. Yes, the two of you together would be formidable. Domination and Succubus in the same party is a rare combination. The mana synergy alone..."
"We are a party of three," Lucien said.
Ser Aldren looked at him for the first time. There was a beat of silence while the knight processed who he was looking at, followed by a flicker of recognition, followed by an expression of carefully maintained neutrality that was somehow more insulting than open laughter.
"Of course," Ser Aldren said. "Best of luck to you all."
He shook Marcus's hand again, nodded to Seraphina with something between respect and hunger, and walked away without looking at Lucien a second time.
"He did not even try to recruit me," Lucien said flatly.
"What would he recruit you for?" Marcus asked, and his tone was light, teasing, the way it always was when he jabbed at Lucien. But the jab landed differently now. Before the blessings, Lucien would have fired back with something cutting and the exchange would have ended in mutual laughter. Now the words just sat there, and Marcus's easy grin said he knew it.
"Maybe he could sit in the corner of the barracks and watch while the rest of the party trains," Seraphina offered, and her golden eyes sparkled with mischief.
"You are both hilarious," Lucien said. "Truly. Unmatched comedic talents."
"I am just saying," Marcus continued, falling into step beside Seraphina with a casualness that put him on her left while Lucien walked on her right, the three of them abreast on the wide avenue but the geometry subtly shifted so that Marcus and Seraphina occupied the center and Lucien flanked the edge. "The God of Domination cultivates through sexual conquest. The Goddess of Succubi cultivates through sexual acts. We could literally train together, Sera. Think about it. Every session makes us both stronger."
"You are suggesting we fuck for power," Seraphina said, and she said it the way other people discussed the weather.
"I am suggesting that the gods clearly intended for our blessings to complement each other. The theological evidence is overwhelming." Marcus spread his massive arms wide, all innocence. "I am simply following divine will."
"Divine will," Seraphina repeated, amused. "Is that what you are calling your cock now?"
Marcus laughed so hard that passersby turned to look. Even Lucien felt the corner of his mouth twitch before the implications of the joke crashed into him and killed the smile dead.
"She is my girlfriend," Lucien said again, and he hated how small the words sounded. Defensive. Like a child clutching a toy he knew was about to be taken.
"Nobody is saying otherwise, brother." Marcus clapped him on the back with a hand that could have palmed Lucien's entire head. "I am just making observations about blessing compatibility. Theological discourse. Nothing personal."
"It sounds personal."
"That is because you are insecure." Marcus said it with a grin, framing it as a joke, but the word "insecure" landed in Lucien's chest like an arrow and stayed there. Because he was insecure. He had been insecure since the moment the announcer spoke his blessing, and every laugh and every joke and every sidelong glance at Seraphina's body had driven that insecurity deeper until it sat in his ribcage like a stone.
"I am not insecure."
"Then stop clenching your fists."
Lucien unclenched his fists.
Seraphina hooked her arm through Lucien's and pulled him closer, and the contact was warm and possessive and should have been reassuring. But her other hand reached out and squeezed Marcus's forearm as she laughed at something he said, and the gesture was casual and friendly and meant nothing, except that her fingers lingered for a moment longer than necessary on the thick muscle of his arm, and Marcus's brown eyes dropped to her hand and then lifted to Lucien's face with an expression that was no longer even pretending to be theological.
They passed a tavern where a group of off-duty knights sat drinking at outdoor tables. One of them spotted the trio and elbowed his companions.
"Is that the Cuckold Knight?"
"And the Succubus-blessed. The gods have a fucked-up sense of humor."
"Oi, Cuckold Knight! Better keep your woman close! Or better yet, don't!"
Lucien kept walking. His face burned.
"That one actually had decent timing," Marcus observed.
"Shut up, Marcus."
"I am complimenting his craft."
More people approached as they neared the guild district. A woman in merchant's clothes stopped Seraphina to tell her that the Succubi blessed were welcome at her establishment, and the way she said "establishment" made it clear she was not talking about a bakery. A young knight with the God of Beasts blessing tried to strike up a conversation with Seraphina about "interspecies mana synergy" and could not keep his eyes above her neckline. An older woman spat on the ground as Seraphina passed and called her a divine whore, and Seraphina blew her a kiss without breaking stride.
Through all of it, Marcus stayed close to Seraphina. Close enough that their shoulders brushed when they walked. Close enough that his massive frame created a wall of muscle between her and the worst of the crowd. Close enough that anyone watching from a distance would have assumed they were together and Lucien was the third wheel.
Which, Lucien thought bitterly, was exactly what it looked like.
"You know," Marcus said as they turned onto the guild avenue, "I have been thinking about party dynamics. A Domination-blessed needs partners who can keep up with his... intensity. The God of Domination does not do anything gently." He looked at Seraphina with an openness that would have been charming if it were not directed at his best friend's girlfriend. "And the Goddess of Succubi does not do anything halfway. We could push each other to incredible heights, Sera. The mana amplification alone would be unlike anything this kingdom has seen."
"And where does Lucien fit in this arrangement?" Seraphina asked, and there was a lilt in her voice that could have been protective or could have been something else entirely.
Marcus paused, and the pause was a performance. A beat of theatrical consideration, as if the question had not occurred to him. "Lucien is the foundation. Every party needs a foundation." He turned to Lucien with that grin, that fucking grin, warm and friendly and patronizing all at once. "Besides, the God of Cuckolds probably has some kind of support ability, right? Something that benefits the party when... certain conditions are met."
"Certain conditions," Lucien echoed.
"You know. When your blessing activates. When you do the thing that cuckolds do." Marcus waved a hand vaguely. "Maybe you get a mana boost when Sera and I train together. It would make sense. Theological synergy."
"You keep using the word theological like it makes this less about you wanting to fuck my girlfriend."
The words came out sharper than Lucien intended, and for a moment the street went quiet around them. Marcus's grin flickered. Seraphina's golden eyes widened slightly. Then Marcus laughed, deep and rich, and the tension dissolved into something that looked like humor but tasted like a warning.
"There he is," Marcus said, pointing at Lucien with one massive finger. "There is the Lucien Thorne I know. Sharp tongue and all." He shook his head, still chuckling. "Relax, brother. I am playing. You know I would never do anything without your blessing."
He let the last word hang in the air, and the double meaning was so precise that it could have been an accident. It was not an accident.
Seraphina was watching Lucien's face with an intensity that made him feel like she was reading his thoughts. Her golden eyes moved across his features the way someone reads a page, cataloging every micro-expression, every twitch of muscle, every flicker of emotion that crossed his face. Whatever she found there, it made her lips curve into a smile that was equal parts affection and something older and hungrier.
The Adventurer's Guild of Astenvale occupied an entire city block. The building was ancient stone reinforced with mana-forged iron, its walls lined with quest boards and its halls filled with the ambient noise of knights arguing, drinking, boasting, and planning their next expedition into the unknown. It smelled like leather and sweat and the particular ozone scent of concentrated mana.
They registered at the front desk. The clerk was a middle-aged woman with reading glasses and the particular efficiency of someone who had processed ten thousand aspiring knights and had stopped being impressed approximately nine thousand ago.
"Names and blessings."
"Marcus Ironfell. God of Domination."
The clerk's pen paused. She looked up, evaluated Marcus with professional interest, and made a small mark next to his name that Lucien assumed meant something complimentary. "Welcome to the guild, Ser Ironfell."
"Seraphina Kael. Goddess of Succubi."
Another pause. The clerk's expression did not change but her pen moved differently. A different mark. The evaluation was longer this time, less professional, more complicated. "Welcome, Sera Kael."
"Lucien Thorne." He kept his voice flat and steady. "God of Cuckolds."
The clerk's pen stopped.
She looked up at him. Her expression was perfectly neutral. Aggressively neutral. The kind of neutral that required conscious effort to maintain, and the effort was visible in the slight tension around her eyes and the careful steadiness of her mouth. She held his gaze for two full seconds.
"Welcome to the guild, Ser Thorne."
She wrote his name and blessing without any additional mark. The absence was louder than laughter.
"Party name?" the clerk asked, moving on with the aggressive professionalism of a woman who had decided this was someone else's problem.
Marcus opened his mouth.
"Do not," Lucien said.
"I was just going to suggest Domination Squad."
"No."
"Cuckold's Champions?"
"I will kill you, Marcus."
"The Theological Synergists?"
Seraphina leaned on the counter, and the motion pressed her breasts together in a way that made the clerk's eyes flick downward involuntarily. "How about we leave the party name for later?"
The clerk agreed with visible relief. She stamped their registration, assigned them Copper rank, and handed them three guild tags on leather cords. Marcus's was inscribed with the sigil of the God of Domination, a clenched fist wreathed in crimson flame. Seraphina's bore the mark of the Goddess of Succubi, a pair of lips parted around a drop of violet light. Lucien's tag bore a symbol he did not recognize, a circle with two horns curving inward, simple and unadorned and vaguely bovine.
He stared at it for a long time.
"It is not that bad," Marcus offered, glancing at the tag. "It could be a bull."
"It is not a bull, Marcus. It is horns. As in cuckold's horns."
"Ah." Marcus had the decency to wince. "Right."
They stepped away from the counter into the main hall. The guild buzzed around them, knights moving between quest boards and briefing tables, and Lucien was acutely aware that several people had already noticed their tags and were whispering.
Marcus spotted someone across the hall and raised a hand. "Give me a moment. I see Aldren, the Steel-rank from earlier. I want to ask him about the dungeon rotation schedule." He clapped Lucien on the shoulder, let his eyes move across Seraphina one more time with a slowness that no longer pretended to be accidental, and walked away.
For the first time since the ceremony, Lucien and Seraphina were alone.
The noise of the guild faded to a murmur. Seraphina turned to face him, and the playful, teasing, sexually charged energy she had been radiating all afternoon dropped away like a mask removed. Her golden eyes were serious. Her violet glow had dimmed to something intimate, a soft luminescence that made her look less like a divine weapon and more like the girl he had fallen in love with three years ago in a training yard when she had beaten him in a sparring match and then kissed him before he could get up.
"Lucien."
"What."
"Look at me."
He looked at her. It was easier than it should have been, considering the day he had just survived.
"I know what you are thinking," she said quietly. "You are thinking that the gods cursed you. That Marcus got the dominant blessing and you got the joke. That I am going to leave you for someone who can..." She paused, and for the first time all day something vulnerable crossed her face. "Someone who can satisfy me the way you think you cannot."
His jaw tightened. She was reading him like an open book, and every word was landing exactly where it hurt.
"I am not leaving you," she said. "Not for Marcus. Not for anyone. I need you to hear that."
"Then why did you spend the entire walk here flirting with him?"
The question came out raw and wounded and nothing like the arrogant Lucien Thorne who had walked to the altar four hours ago expecting the world to bow. Seraphina studied his face, and what she found there softened her expression in a way that made his chest ache.
"Because I think our blessings are not separate things, Lucien. I think they are one thing." She stepped closer, close enough that her breath was warm on his neck and her breasts pressed against his chest and her voice became something only he could hear. "The Goddess of Succubi told me things when the light entered me. She showed me things. About my blessing, about what I need to do to grow stronger, about the kind of mana that feeds me."
"What did she show you?"
Seraphina's hand found his and placed it on her hip, where the curve of her body was warmest. Her golden eyes held his without blinking.
"She showed me that the God of Cuckolds and the Goddess of Succubi have not blessed mortals in the same generation for over a thousand years. The last time they did, those two mortals became the most powerful beings on the continent." Her fingers tightened on his. "This is not a curse, Lucien. This is a design. Your blessing and my blessing feed each other. When I take other men, you grow stronger. When you watch me take other men, I grow stronger. When we do this together, the mana amplification is exponential."
The words hit him like a wall of cold water. His mind tried to process them and failed, tried again and produced only the image of Seraphina underneath Marcus, her dark skin against his dark skin, her moans filling a room while Lucien watched from a chair in the corner, and the image was horrifying and arousing in equal measure and he could not separate the two reactions no matter how hard he tried.
"You are asking me to share you," he said, and his voice was barely above a whisper.
Seraphina leaned up and pressed her lips to the corner of his jaw. The kiss was soft and electric and it traveled through his entire body like a current.
"I am asking you to become the most powerful knight this kingdom has ever seen," she whispered against his skin. "And I am telling you that the path to get there runs directly through the thing you have been hiding from yourself your entire life."
She pulled back and looked at him, and her golden eyes were blazing with something that was simultaneously love and lust and absolute certainty.
"Trust me, Lucien. The gods gave us exactly what we needed."
Marcus's heavy footsteps approached from behind them. The moment broke like glass. Seraphina stepped back, and the playful, teasing mask slid back into place so smoothly that Lucien almost doubted the last sixty seconds had happened.
"Good news," Marcus announced, slinging an arm around both their shoulders, his right hand landing on the back of Seraphina's neck with a possessiveness that the God of Domination made look natural. "Aldren says there is a Copper-rank dungeon opening up tomorrow morning. First come, first served. If we get there early, we can take our first quest as an official party."
He squeezed both their shoulders. His hand on Seraphina's neck shifted, his thumb tracing a small circle against her skin, and she did not pull away.
"What do you say, Cuckold Knight?" Marcus grinned down at Lucien with warmth and challenge and something darker swimming behind his eyes. "Ready to see what your blessing can do?"
Lucien looked at Marcus's hand on Seraphina's neck. He looked at Seraphina's face, still flushed from the words she had whispered thirty seconds ago. He looked at the guild tag in his palm, the curved horns of the God of Cuckolds pressed into cheap metal.
"I am ready," he said.
He was not ready. He was not even close to ready. But Lucien Thorne had never let that stop him before, and the God of Cuckolds hummed in his veins like laughter he could not yet hear.