Merrick was doing Max a favor.

He had been tasked this day, along with Cora because she had medical training, to set up a small stall in a middle-to-lower slum and to heal people in exchange for pints of freshly drawn blood.

Both had assumed it would be easy. Merrick was wrong. Neither had truly taken into account how utterly inhumane humans could be. Or how gross they were.

The slums of the city always struck him as crusty. Everything had a bit of a dirty patina to it. Nothing looked clean, and even the anemic sunlight that made it through the levels of desperate humans stacked atop other desperate humans and all of their cohabited depravities seemed a bit gross. The air was heavy with the smells of unwashed bodies, cooking oil, cigarette smoke, old blood, and car exhaust. After the demesne's lush greenness and almost alive and vibrant magic, being out here was fucking disgusting.

His skin was crawling.

Their medical tent was a white fabric one with one open space enclosed by fabric, sturdy tentpoles, and clean inoffensive rugs laid down, covering the cracked pavement in the empty parking lot they had chosen, which was next to a boarded-up and shut-down liquor store. Out of the dirty sunlight and in the enclosed room, a small metal table to the side of the chair meant for patients held medical equipment: tourniquets, gauze, phlebotomy needles, and empty vials. A trunk to the other side held curative for diseases, healing potions for ailments too tough for a healing cantrip, and mana potions for them if they ran low after serving several dozen patients. The large sign outside said, "Almost Free Magical Healing: Inquire Within."

They were ignored by most for the first hour. Cora had pulled a book out of her bag and was lounging in the patient chair, reading a treatise on the curative properties of low-dose poisons. Merrick was pacing inside. He could hear the locals getting closer and closer, and some smelled of ill intent. All smelled of sickness and filth.

In the second hour, the riff-raff appeared to demand they either tear their tent down or pay taxes to to local "mayor." Merrick flashed a fang and growly sent them on their way. Cora tried to argue with the human parasites, "Why can't we heal the sick? Why would you try to stop us?" And was rudely ignored.

In the third, they finally started to see a change. After the first brave patient was sent back out, hale, hearty, unharmed, and a pint of blood and a lingering cough lighter, the slum folk decided they were the real deal and started lining up to take advantage before the Mayor's goons arrived to get a cut of whatever profit they thought Merrick and Cora were making.

By the fifth hour, Cora had imbibed the first of her mana potions and was well on her way to needing a second one. Merrick had chased off first the goons that wanted to rob them, and then the goons who tried to rob the people standing in line for healing. Merrick was grateful for his and the kids' circumstances after seeing so many people, suffering and well on their way to death from ailments that could be fixed with just a tiny cantrip or a sip of a potion. Their stasis-runed trunk was full of blood-filled vials and they were packing up to leave when there was a throat cleared outside.

"You working for the leeches, son?" Said an old man's voice. Merrick looked over, not stopping his work of breaking down the tent, and saw a middle-aged man's face that was younger than the voice he had sounded.

"Nope." He continued packing up. Cora had nodded and gone ahead to go back home, escorted by the elf king who had arrived minutes before they called it quits. She left him to carry the storage item hidden in his backpack that hid the large trunk filled with blood and all the potions they hadn't used.

The old man didn't get the hint. "You working for a witch, then? Why do you need blood?"

"Don't see how that's any of your business, old man. I was just leaving anyway. Have a good day." Merrick picked up the folded fabric and loaded it into his carrying case.

The old man changed his tone, sounding like a salesman now. "Nah, you have me all wrong, son. I procure goods for one of our local leeches. I just got a new shipment of indentures, and my usual buyer isn't interested. Said they was too used up. Bought 'em from one of the brothels that the mayor shut down for back taxes. Since she wasn't interested, I was gonna sell 'em to the shifter's fightin' pit, but it seems like whoever you're workin' for is in need of a constant supply of blood. Seems like we can both get what we want and go about our day."

Merrick grimaced and didn't like where this was going. "You're trying to sell me people?"

"That was the idea." The man leaned toward Merrick, and Merrick smelled the guy's dank body odor and old alcohol. "I got a few big men and women good for manual labor, a few younger ones that'd be good for housework. A few shapely young things good for a tumble or two. An old geezer who says he used to be a librarian and knows how to do books." He added, "None of 'em would make it through the doors of the cage before whatever young champion they shove in there with them will rip their throats out. Instead of them getting torn apart for a bloodthirsty crowd and wastin' their good blood on the fightin' sands, maybe it'd be better if you just took 'em with you and fed 'em to whoever you're working for. After paying me a finder's fee, that is."

Merrick grimaced and his jaw clenched. He internally groaned.

Max is gonna kill me, but I can't let this asshole kill a whole group of people. Wouldn't be right. He sighed. "Show 'em to me, then."

***

After tying all of his stuff to a pack on his back and carrying it down a few miles of the slum's filthy streets, ever lower into the filth of the deeper slums, (and almost getting robbed several times until they saw the old man he was walking with and fucked off in the other direction) Merrick followed the old man back to a dim and dirty shack with a bolted door and boarded-up windows. The roof was sagging and it looked like all of the mold inside was load-bearing. The porch was years past one stiff wind away from collapse, but the slums didn't get cleansing winds, so it was still standing. Like a monument to suffering and degeneracy.

Untying a looping chain that locked it all up, the man smiled and said, "Here we are," after freeing the chain and opening the door, holding his arm out in a grand presenting motion. Like he was proud of what was inside.

The inside of the shack fucking reeked. Piss, shit, body odor, tears, terror, old blood, new blood, and pain hit him in the face the second the door was cracked. It didn't get any better when it was fully open, either. Merrick choked a little but powered through, breathing through his mouth. Gagged a bit, because instead of just smelling it, now he tasted it, too.

He stepped into the main room and saw, once his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting, metal cages floor to ceiling with crying and broken faces inside. There were maybe a little more than a dozen. While the man was correct that there were a few big men and women who looked like cage fighters, most of the people in cages were kids. All were wearing thinner versions of the slave collar his old Pack of assholes wanted to put on Thom, but an old man in a center cage was wearing a thicker one.

They all had vampire bites all over their bodies.

"Don't mind the stench of 'em. It washes off. Now. About how much you'll pay." Merrick heard the man's hand go into his pocket, and then he heard the cocking of a handgun, and a few footsteps scuttling across the porch steps in both the front and the back. He turned around and saw the old man holding a gun out, with a smirking smile on his face. "Mayor says you're free game since you didn't want to pay taxes. So I'll be taking everything in your bag including the fancy potions everyone was talking about, and I'm gonna need you to get in that big cage over in the corner and shut it behind yourself. Our master will be delighted when we bring you to her."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Three other men, all looking as if they hadn't eaten in weeks or bathed in years, walked into the room. They were supposed to look scary, Merrick assumed, but they hadn't ever seen Hugo. Hugo was scary. Max was terrifying. These guys were about as threatening to him as one of the elf kids. No, the kids were kinda spooky too when they were hunting and got in the zone. These guys were scary like Sylvan, the mouse lady.

He blinked in surprise. "Oh, shit. You're trying to steal me?!" Merrick was shocked for a moment but then started laughing. He slapped his thigh. "Oh, you just made this easy! Now, if I don't eat you, she'll be mad. And I was worried about having to hunt you down to kill you later in secret, like some hero, because you were trafficking slaves. Now I don't have to." He chuckled like a weight had been lifted from him. "Oh, this is great. Maybe she's right and being morally gray has its merits." He pulled the pack off his back, and the old man squinted his eyes as if just noticing that Merrick wasn't at all scared of the pointed gun or the extra men. "It's only morally gray if I eat you after you threaten me, right? Or am I still in hero territory?" Merrick quirked a brow, asking the room. "I'll ask Miles later. He'd know." He gazed around at all the faces looking sadly or blankly at him and raised his voice, "Everyone in the cages, close your eyes. It's about to get a little gross and bloody in here. I'll tell you when you can look and I'll get you out." Merrick removed his shirt and his hands went to the buckle of his pants.

"He's a shifter! Heavy rounds!" The old man yelled. Merrick heard more than one shotgun cock.

"Shoot me with heavy rounds, and I'll eat your head and heart last. I'll start with your fingers and toes. Just a warning. That shit stings." Merrick grinned. "Now, that was morally gray. Right?"

***

Max is gonna kill me.

Twenty. There were twenty people who were wearing slave collars. Twenty people followed Merrick for hours: up through the slum streets, through ever-bettering neighborhoods, through the streets of their commercial district, back to the store, through the side door that wasn't the anchor. Then they were all tucked in the upstairs three-bedroom apartment just outside of the mound. He gave them food and permission to use the shower. Told them that they were safe. Twenty people that he had to explain to Max about how they were his rescues --not slaves-- and how they couldn't leave until they found a way to take the collars off.

Apparently, if you ate a slave's previous owners, ownership was transferred to the one who did the eating. No one told him that. So now, Merrick was the ashamed owner of twenty fucking slaves, half of whom were children, all of them previously snacked on by vampires and then victimized by fucked up humans, and he had to somehow set them all free.

Max is gonna kill me.

He dropped everything on the floor of the apartment that wasn't the storage item, which he fished out of his bag and tied to his belt. He tromped down the stairs and to the anchor. Tromped through the anchor and found Miles in the shop, using his little spider legs to hold a pencil and writing on a long piece of paper. "Hey. I need to talk to Max. Have you seen her?"

Miles lowered his pencil. "She took Green into the lower demesne. What's wrong?"

"I accidentally became a slave owner to a bunch of humans. Can you keep an eye on them? Some are kids and others look a little rough. I did my best to heal them, but I gotta talk to Max."

"Oh. Well, she's in the basement. I can keep an eye on them. I'll get Emma to help."

Merrick nodded defeatedly. "Okay." Before leaving completely, he turned back to ask, "Hey, later when we both have time, can you define what constitutes being 'morally gray'? I think I'm fuzzy on the exact details."

"Sure." Miles's little golden body nodded and he gathered up his plans to look at the visitors.

Merrick tromped back up the stairs and into a mirror image of the apartment he had left all the slaves in. Sulked into the closet where the anchor to the vampire dungeon was.

After taking the anchor, he stripped from his clothes and put them and the storage item in a folded bag he usually kept in his pocket just for this occasion. He shifted into his big wolf form, picked up his bag in his mouth, and sniffed for Max's direction. He ran toward her and Green.

He wasn't expecting to find what he did when he came across them from upwind, ten minutes later.

In the clearing of the forest in front of the vampire's tower, scary dark mage Max had Green topless and pinned spread-eagle a few feet in the air, just like a butterfly would be pinned in a collector's display. Green had large, red moth wings sprouting from his back that were rapidly fluttering in the air as if they were trying to move his body closer to her. His arms and legs were tied with ropes made of her blood and then tethered to two tall stone pillars. Green's head was thrown back in ecstasy as she trailed bloody kisses up and down his torso leaving small suck bruises, and her hands were leaving small and light, shallow bloody scratches in their wake. She followed them with her lips, sucking and kissing the red drops away. Green's pants were obscenely tented and every time she minutely broke his skin, he'd let out a toe-curling moan.

The overwhelming smell of arousal and a mix of three different people's blood slammed into Merrick's brain. He stopped and stared. The bag fell out of his mouth.

Holy shit. I might die.

The vampire was kneeling on the ground. He was leashed with one cuff tied to a tree root about fifteen feet away from Max and Green. He was spitting like a cat and speaking angrily. His fingers were curled into his palms, blood dripping onto the forest floor. "You're my bride. You should be bleeding me and for me, not him!" he hissed.

A dominant aura slammed into the clearing. Merrick held in his whimper and tucked his tail. "Only good boys get pinned and get given bloody kisses, princess." Max cooed without looking away from her work and continued kissing Green's chest. She worked her way to his neck and spoke through kisses, "You tried to carry me away instead of taking a walk with us in the forest like I wanted you to. I thought it would be good for you to get out of your tower and Green wanted to catch up with you. We were going to have a talk, like reasonable adults, and maybe have a picnic. So, no. You have to watch Green get all the kisses. No kisses for you." She pulled down Green's head roughly by his hair and kissed him, bloody lips touching his, erotically and deeply. Like she was trying to suck his soul from his mouth. Both men moaned. Merrick was too shocked to make any noise.

After a few seconds, two of them noticed Merrick was there at the same time. The vampire, probably, because Merrick added his own overwhelming arousal smell to the heady bouquet already happening. Green had cracked an eye at the moment Merrick had cleared the tree line but didn't say anything, and just let Merrick stand there like a horny idiot with his mouth hanging open. Max noticed when Merrick started breathing hard during the dominance-fueled kiss.

"Puppy. I.. uh." Her pale white cheeks pinked and her hands left Green's hair. She cast a healing spell at him, healing the small cuts, swollen lips, and suck bruises. "Wow. Embarrassing. Did you need something? Uh, how long were you watching? Jeez, why didn't you say something?" She stopped the blood rope spell that was holding Green in the air. He landed with a soft 'whoomph,' and laid on the ground, belly down, pulling himself back together.

The vampire yelled. "He's my bride, too. Make him come over here and kiss me like that."

Merrick, realizing he was still frozen in wolf form, shook his head and shifted back into his man shape. "What?" He opened the bag he had dropped to get his clothes out.

"You're my bride. The alien gave you to me. Come kiss me and pet me like she did to the fairy." The tied-down vampire demanded.

"You're his bride, princess. If anything, I gave you to him. Stop making it sound weird." Max stormed close to the vampire and pointed a finger in his face. "Definitely no bloody kisses, now."

He pulled on his pants. Wow, okay. Right. Right. Okay. "Okay. Well. This is hot and all, and I'll have to revisit the whole 'I have a vampire bride' thing in a minute, and damn, you are all overwhelmingly sexy, even the hissing vampire, which is something I've learned about myself just now, that and the blood thing, which if you asked me ten minutes ago, I'd say I wasn't into it, but well... here we are, all with tented britches, except you Max, haha.. well, but... oh, right. But I kinda have a big problem that I need your help with, Max."

"Feed me, now." The vampire, still kneeling, demanded. He sulked. Merrick felt kinda bad because this whole clearing smelled like highly erotic blood and sex. He didn't eat either of those things and even he was feeling peckish. It must have been hell for the leech.

"I just fed you, dude," Max said. She threw her hands in the air.

Merrick reached into his bag and pulled out the storage item. He pulled the trunk out and opened it in front of the vampire. "I got you blood, a lot of blood, all sealed in stasis vials so they should keep for months. So shh for a minute." He looked back at Max. "I rescued twenty slaves from a slaver in the slums and need you to help me get their collars off so I can send them home. They're in the outer apartments for now. I might, maybe... I'm their owner until it's fixed. I don't like it." He said, and added, "I ate original the slavers, though. You don't have to worry about them."

"You got me blood from a hundred different humans?" The vampire asked from his kneeling position on the ground, looking into the opened trunk like it was full of jewels. His eyes were a little bugged out and also starry. His face went slack and his cheeks pinked.

"You ate the slavers?" Max frowned and looked at Merrick, worried.

He nodded his head with feeling and answered both of them. "Yes."

"You both know I'm not really a princess, right?" The vampire looked up at Max and Merrick, shock on his face.

"Are you alright?" Max reached over and touched his arm.

Merrick smiled a small half-smile slash grimace at Max. He shrugged and said, "I don't know."