Hart and Kyle checked Summers’s cues before finishing their drinks.

Honestly, Summers was grateful. He wanted them to enjoy themselves. Gods knew they needed it.

They were just about to flag down another round when an attractive older man with a wide grin and beer-reddened cheeks ambled over.

“You boys want to try some of my wife’s wormwood liquor?” he offered. “It’s the coven’s magical elixir. Comes out at every festival, and everyone deserves at least one sip.” He winked exaggeratedly. “Great for aligning the mind and body, and purging shame.”

Hart, Kyle and Ben looked towards Summers.

Summers eyed the thick, dark-green liquid with equal parts disgust and distrust, but shrugged anyway. He’d trusted the town enough so far.

The boys reached out without hesitation and accepted a quarter shot each.

Then, as one, they drank.

The moment it touched their tongues, all three gagged.

The man merely grinned.

“That’ll keep you nicely buzzed for the next three days. Looking forward to seeing you boys around!”

He wandered off, chuckling to himself.

Hart coughed, wincing.

Ben groaned. “Fuck, what was in that?”

Kyle laughed, wild and unhinged.

“No idea, but I feel fucking amazing.”

Hart released a dreamy sigh.

“Same. I really want to kiss all of you right now.”

Kyle blinked.

“I’ve never kissed a guy before.”

“Neither have I,” Hart admitted. Then he frowned. “Oh, wait. There was that boy in elementary school. We had to perform a play at my all-boys school, and I was so happy because I got to play the princess.”

His expression softened at the memory before dimming again.

“My dad was furious. He sent a formal complaint to the school after he and my mum argued in the kitchen for hours.”

Ben burst out laughing, then said with complete sincerity, “You would’ve made a really pretty princess.”

Hart lit up.

“You think so?”

Kyle and Ben nodded with drunken enthusiasm.

Hart’s eyes filled with tears.

“Fuck, you guys are the best men I’ve ever worked with. The last unit I was deployed with made fun of me for everything, even though I had the highest kill ratio. I saved their arses multiple times because of their incompetence.”

Ben booed loudly.

“Fuck those guys. Want Kyle to knife them in the balls?”

Hart waved one hand lazily.

“Nah. They’re all dead. POW prison riot.”

The others went still.

Hart continued as though recounting someone else’s story.

“I escaped, even after they spent two months beating, starving and torturing me to vent their frustration about being captured.”

Then he laughed, entirely without remorse.

“I called in a team to free them, but it turned out they’d already gotten themselves killed. And you know what? I don’t even feel bad.”

Summers’s hand tightened around his glass hard enough that he nearly shattered it.

If those men were not already dead, he would have made it his personal mission to correct that.

Kyle booed even louder.

“They totally deserved it for hurting our princess.”

Hart blushed, smiling through the tears.

Ben grinned.

“Yeah. No one fucks with our princess. Right, Summers?”

Summers’s expression was unreadable as he took a slow sip of his mocktail.

“No one will ever hurt our princess again.”

Hart sniffled and wrapped both arms around him.

“You’re the best team leader I’ve ever had.”

Ben joined him, throwing his arms around Summers from the other side.

“Yeah. Don’t ever leave us.”

Kyle slung an arm around Summers’s shoulders.

“I’ve already planned several ways to make your exes’ deaths look like socially catastrophic suicides. Just say the word.”

Summers released the sigh of a man who regretted every life choice that had led him to this moment.

“Get the fuck off me, you drunken fuckwits.”

“No,” Ben said, his eyes misty. “We love you too much.”

Summers rolled his eyes before finally finding a distraction.

“So, who’s giving the princess his kiss?”

Without hesitation, Kyle seized Hart by the hand.

“I’ll do it.”

Hart was swept into a dramatic dip and kissed with an open mouth and plenty of tongue.

When Kyle finally lifted him upright again, Hart’s face was crimson.

Ben clutched his chest.

“Fuck. That was beautiful.”

Hart panted, looking dazed.

“Damn. I think I really am a princess.”

Ben threw his arms around him.

“You’re our princess forever, beautiful.”

“Right, Summers?” Kyle called.

Summers allowed himself a tiny, smug smile.

Whatever the fuck had been in that wormwood liquor, he was beginning to approve.

“He sure is.”

Kyle nodded solemnly.

“No one is ever going to fuck with our princess again.”

Hart sniffled as his eyes filled once more.

“I love you guys.”

🥜🥜🥜

A dancefloor was forming, led by two ridiculously hot people grinding on each other like it was an audition for a very adult music video. The group stood entranced, then the Grand Marshal got pulled between them. One of them was grinding at his back, the other at his front, and between it all, the woman kissed his mouth while the man bit at his neck.

“Damn,” Ben muttered. “They are polycule goals. No wonder the Dawnbreakers practically worship the grand marshal.”

The other three nodded in agreement. Hart bounced excitedly. “I want to dance!”

Kyle held out his arms, beaming. “I'll take the princess for a spin. I was a ballroom champion in high school.”

Hart took his arm with a surprised, “Really?”

Kyle smirked. “Yep. Until the coach drowned himself in a toilet after it was revealed what he had been doing to my dance partner.”

Hart practically swooned. “You totally drowned him, didn’t you?”

“You can’t prove I did,” Kyle replied with a wink, leading Hart onto the dancefloor.

From the sidelines, Ben and Summers watched as Kyle guided Hart through a few elegant steps. Within minutes, the dancing devolved into messy, enthusiastic making out, grinding, groping, and very little shame.

“What the hell was in the liquor?” Ben asked, eyes wide. “I want in.”

He threw an arm around Summers. “Can I, like... choke on your dick?”

“No,” Summers cut in, one brow raised. “You’re drunk.”

Ben pouted and clung tighter. “No, I’m buzzed. Please? I just wanna learn how to not gag. That way you guys won’t leave me.”

Summers sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Why would we leave you for that?”

“Because everyone leaves,” Ben said quietly. “I’m too much.”

“You’re not too much.”

Ben’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

Summers just nodded.

Grinning now, Ben added, “Great. Now teach me how to deep throat”

Summers let out another long-suffering sigh, grabbed Ben by the back of the collar, and dragged him towards the woods.

They passed a Dawnbreaker doing up his pants, a blissed-out red-haired human woman clinging to his arm with a smug smile. He gave them both a knowing nod.

Summers turned sharply behind a tree.

“On your knees.”

Ben dropped instantly, looking up at him with flushed cheeks and bright, eager eyes.

Summers freed himself, already painfully hard, his piercings glinting in the low light.

“You really want all of this?”

Ben nodded quickly. “Yes. Piercings and all.”

Summers smirked.

“Then prove it.”

Ben leaned in, taking his time at first, slow, deliberate and teasing.

Summers groaned.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Why the hell had he resisted this for so long?

“Damn,” he rasped. “You really have been studying.”

Ben glanced up at him through his lashes.

Summers’s voice dropped lower.

“So eager to please me?”

Ben pulled back just long enough to answer, his voice needy.

“Yes.”

Summers threaded one hand through his hair.

“Relax. Breathe through your nose.”

He guided Ben deeper with a firm but careful rhythm. Ben gagged, eyes watering, but adjusted quickly, barely contained impatience mingling with his overwhelming eagerness to please.

“That’s it,” Summers whispered. “Good boy.”

His hips nudged forwards.

“You like choking on my pierced cock?”

Ben answered with a muffled hum that tore another groan from Summers.

He pulled all the way out, breathing hard.

“Fuck. You want more?”

“Yes,” Ben said, flushed and desperate. “Use me.”

Summers did not need to be told twice.

A feral grin spread across his face as every repressed fantasy he had spent months trying to bury surged violently to the surface.

He pushed back in with more urgency, thrusting in a steady rhythm as wet sounds echoed through the trees.

The sight of the brat on his knees, pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed and completely wrecked as he choked eagerly around him, was enough to destroy what remained of Summers’s control.

“Ready, brat?” he grunted.

Ben did not pull away.

Instead, he pressed closer and took him deeper.

Summers gasped.

“That’s it. Take it.”

He held Ben’s face flush against him as he came with a strained, guttural moan.

After several trembling aftershocks, he eased Ben back by the hair. His voice was rough but unmistakably fond.

“Such a good fucking boy.”

Ben grinned up at him, wide-eyed, dazed and clearly absurdly proud of himself.

There was a dull thunk against the tree beside them.

Summers and Ben turned to find Kyle pressing Hart enthusiastically against the trunk, kissing him with barely contained hunger. Kyle’s mouth moved to Hart’s neck before he murmured, “Let me service you, Princess.”

Then he dropped eagerly to his knees.

He looked up at Hart with such tender, reverent devotion that Hart flushed deeply. Summers did not even bother putting his cock away. He was too enraptured by the sight of Kyle opening Hart’s pants and immediately setting to work, pleasuring him with the focus of a devoted servant attending his princess.

Hart whimpered, both hands sliding into Kyle’s hair.

Then he glanced up and spotted Summers and Ben watching.

A smile bloomed across his face.

“You had the same idea?”

He giggled, but the sound quickly dissolved into another broken moan as Kyle’s mouth dragged him back into the pleasure.

Summers’s cock gave a valiant twitch at the sight.

Hart’s eyes locked with his.

“Kyle, I’m—uh—”

He never looked away. He simply surrendered, expression going beautifully slack as pleasure overtook him.

Fuck.

It was fucking gorgeous.

Kyle gently licked him clean before rising and asking with complete sincerity, “Did I satisfy you, Princess?”

Hart nodded dazedly.

“Uh-huh.”

Then he pulled Kyle into another deep kiss. When they finally parted, Hart reached towards Ben.

“I want to kiss you too.”

Ben, still flushed and thoroughly wrecked, stumbled towards him eagerly.

“You want to kiss me too, Princess?”

Hart caught him and pulled him closer.

“I want to taste all of you.”

Then they were kissing, and Summers had to stand there half-hard and painfully sober while Hart licked and kissed Summers’s taste from Ben’s mouth as though they were sharing dessert.

Kyle groaned softly.

“So beautiful.”

Then Ben turned on him.

“Let me deep-throat you,” he blurted. “Summers just made me come in my pants from choking on his dick. It was amazing.”

Hart laughed breathlessly.

“Really? Prove it.”

Kyle immediately dropped to his knees in front of Ben, exposing the evidence of Ben’s pride for all of them to see.

And Summers was definitely hard again when he saw the sticky mess he had left the brat in.

Summers grew even harder when Kyle began cleaning Ben with his tongue.

He couldn’t look away, until Hart was suddenly in his arms, flushed and open, gazing up at him with such unguarded affection that Summers’s chest tightened.

“Can I kiss you now?” Hart asked softly.

Summers groaned. Hart could have asked almost anything of him at that moment.

“Anything you want, Princess,” he murmured.

Hart’s breath caught.

“Why do I love it so much when you call me that?”

Summers pulled him closer and pressed their mouths together, tasting all three of his disasters on Hart’s lips. When they finally parted, he answered quietly, “Because you’re our Princess.”

Hart smiled through suddenly shining eyes, then dragged Summers down into another kiss as though he needed it to breathe.

And fuck, Summers’s heart ached.

If this was a dream, he didn't want to wake.

He was so completely gone for these fucking disasters.

They were eventually distracted by Ben’s enthusiastic skill as he swallowed Kyle down. Kyle gasped and groaned, rutting helplessly into Ben’s throat until he finally came undone.

Hart watched Ben pull back, flushed, wrecked and clearly delighted with himself.

“You really are gifted,” Hart said fondly. “We’re never giving you up. You belong to us.”

Ben looked up, suddenly breathless for an entirely different reason.

“Really?”

Hart nodded without hesitation.

“Of course. I love you far too much.”

Ben looked as though Hart had just remade his entire universe.

He surged forward and wrapped both arms around him.

“I love you too.”

Kyle joined the embrace immediately.

“I love you too, Princess.”

Hart laughed as he held them both.

“We’re going to be the most imperfectly perfect polycule.”

“We sure are,” Ben said brightly. Then he looked over at Summers with a grin. “Right, Ashley Summers Junior?”

Summers rolled his eyes.

“You assholes are all just drunk on wormwood and dopamine.”

The three boys turned matching grins on him as they sang in unison. 

“Love you too!”

Summers scowled harder.

But he didn’t look away.