Page 14 of Blessed

“He’s a little embarrassed, my love,” Arden informed his husband. “And perhaps not yet fully aware and awake. Be gentle.”

“Gentle?” Mil protested. “I’m the one who got his ass clawed by a wee, sparkly beast!”

“I’m sure I had a reason,” Mattin defended himself weakly, not even bothering to be offended about the rest of it.

“You were trying to choke yourself on my cock and I was trying to keep that from happening,” Mil answered bluntly, leaving Mattin to contemplate how he had been positioned for that to happen and then precisely what he had been doing to Mil. He sank down against Arden’s side before realizing it and trying to pull away.

Arden, who had kept a hold of Mattin’s hand, kissed it, stopping Mattin in place. “I think our worry for you outweighed our sense. For that, I am sorry. You are a true Blessed, Mattin Arlylian. You ask for what you can handle and we won’t forget again.”

“Ask.” Mil scoffed quietly to himself.

A demand to know what that meant was on Mattin’s tongue but he kept it inside. He stared at Arden, not Mil, since for once, Arden was marginally safer to study. Mattin still didn’t understand, but if this fever was like his others, he would remember more as he rested and ate. Although he didn’t usually allow himself to linger over his fevered actions unless he had done something particularly strenuous and he had to figure out how he’d injured or exhausted himself.

Arden seemed as if he was waiting for Mattin to pepper him with questions.

Mattin dropped his gaze to Arden’s other hand, then cleared his throat. “You’re reading?”

Arden gave Mattin’s knuckles another peck before turning to his reading with a sigh. “I am sorry for this too, dear heart, but as we didn’t exactly get to schedule this ahead of time, I still have some things that must be attended to.”

“You’re the king,” Mattin reminded him foolishly.

Arden merely nodded. “But you should eat, and bathe again if you like.”

“I bathed before?” Mattin wondered aloud and caught that twinkle in Mil’s eye again.

“Hebathed you. Washed your pretty hair for you too,” Mil revealed.

“My very great pleasure,” Arden assured Mattin, taking a drink of his own morning tea before looking over his reading once more, which was the list of alliance candidates Mattin had left on the table when he had first… when he had stumbled in here and then apparently crawled naked into their bed and demanded to be fucked. Which they had done, and then cleaned him so he wouldn’t return to himself in a sticky, itchy body. That was their soap he smelled on his skin instead of his mint or flowers, and yet he didn’t mind it. They had cared for him so well.

“I’ve never felt good before. After my fevers, I mean.” It escaped Mattin with the gentlest sigh. Then Mil was sitting next to him, holding up a pastry for Mattin to take, which he did. “Thank you,” he told Mil as well. “I wasn’t too demanding, was I? I didn’t really scratch you? Not deeply?”

“Want to see?” Mil offered with a proud grin. “You can always look later if you’d like another go. Some do in their waning days, but if you’re worn out, that’s all right. We can wait. And… we might be a little worn out too. Some of us are not as young as we used to be.”

“Slightly younger than me and never lets me forget it,” Arden complained mildly. “Eat, dear heart,” he ordered without looking up.

Mattin ate, stopping only once he was finished to stare at Arden. “‘Dear heart?’”

“You don’t care for it?” Arden looked up from the list, a line between his eyes. Perhaps Arden knew some of those nobles already and disagreed with Mattin’s choices.

Bright heat flared around Mattin’s heart at the idea.

“Seems late to object to the name now,” Mil observed, unaware of Mattin’s heart and its troubles. “After everything else that was said in our nest.”

Our nest. Mattin stared at Mil with wide eyes. “I called itournest? Oh no,” he worried with barely a pause, “what else did I say?” It couldn’t be worse than the scratching. It couldn’t possibly.

“Ah.” Arden put the list down again. “Things said in bed, especially in the heat of a lust-fever, might not reflect real desires out of bed. So if you didn’t mean it, we won’t hold it against you.”

“Fuck you, I’ll hold it against him,” Mil huffed, then deflated. “No, I won’t, Sass, I’m sorry.”

“What did I say?” Mattin demanded in his rasping voice, then choked when Arden answered.

“That you love us.”

Mattin put his head down and accepted the cup of tea Mil hurriedly pressed into his hands mostly because it gave him something to look at.

Arden was being deliberately reasonable. “If you don’t, then we should still discuss the matter. Or if, say, you only love Mil, we should discuss that too.”

“Why do you keep suggesting that?” Mil snapped at his husband over Mattin’s head. “If he’s going to fall for just one of us, we both know it’ll be you.”

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