“You’re better with people, my love, and a hero, and rather handsome, which you know.”
“And you’re fucking Arden Canamorra and it’s a trial every day of my life to not burst with love for you, so quit acting like our Sass couldn’t feel the same.”
Mattin raised his head. “‘Our Sass?’”
The sitting room was silent. Then Arden leaned over and put his lips to Mattin’s forehead in a soft kiss. “Yes, if you’ll agree, dear heart.”
Mattin twisted around to see Mil on his other side peering at him almost anxiously.
“There’s already such love between you,” Mattin said first, then twisted back around to look at Arden. “You have that list! And an alliance that needs to be made!”
Arden gave Mattin a strange look, a cross between puzzled and amused. “I agreed to consider a political alliance with a suitable beat-of-four of your choosing—” Mattin made a small noise as that wasnotwhat Arden had agreed to “—because I thought it was wise, and because the country needs peace, and because Mil and I already had our eye on a suitable beat-of-four.”
“A pretty thing, despite what he thinks,” Mil chimed in. “Bit more used to books than people, or I suspect he’d know that by now. Snippy at times, but in a way that stirs the blood. Smarter than he’s got any right to be. And a hungry little Blessed who mewls and begs and demands so sweetly I won’t even mind the scars.”
“Yet not on this list.” Arden looked sad, and it was a trick, it had to be, but Mattin protested anyway.
“Those won’t scar,” he said of Arden’s scratches since he hadn’t seen Mil’s. “And I’m not on that list because… because…” there was no other way to say it, “you’re both heroes, and handsome, and wonderful. I didn’t think you’d want…. Arden, I’ve never even been courted.”
“Hmm,” Mil interrupted. “You might want to rethink that, Sass. Maybe tomorrow, when your head will be clearer.”
“Admittedly, we are older and our methods might be out of fashion. Perhaps I am too much of a Canamorra and act through gestures instead of words.” Arden nearly sighed it, as though Mattin wasn’t remembering a copy of a copy of a copy of a Canamorra consort at their wedding and the tales of a Canamorra conquering an entire country for them. “Or too subtle,” Arden continued, “although if you ask Cael, she will argue we were anything but subtle and I suspect she’s right.” He hummed, pleased with himself. “Perhaps we should apologize for that, and for possibly scaring off whoever else might have chased after you, but… I don’t feel like apologizing for anything today. And if we did scare anyone, it was an accident.”
Arden was a tricky liar who didn’t do anything accidentally. Mattin didn’t call him on it.
“Oh no.” Mattin couldn’t seem to stop saying it. He started to gesture and Mil had to take the cup from him before he spilled his tea. “That was courting? I thought that was you two being kind about my lonely fevers.”
“Mattin,” Mil used Mattin’s actual name for once, drawing Mattin’s attention to him, “courting is about pleasing the other person and giving them things they want or need.”
“And spending time with them,” Arden added. “Whoever certain nobles thought to have me marry when they suggested an alliance with a beat-of-four, everyone else in the palace knew the most likely candidate was you. Mattin of the Arlylian,” Arden pronounced each beat intentionally slow, “you made a charming sight in our nest.”
“Be happy to see you return to it when you’re in your right mind and freely decide to,” Mil continued. “Which could be now or whenever you like. It’s your choice, you see. We’ve made ours.”
“Mychoice?” Mattin echoed. He had never dared to imagine any of this and now they were telling him it was up to him? That he could have them in all the ways he hadn’t allowed himself to want?
“Tea?” Mil prompted nervously after several moments of Mattin staring blankly at the fire and struggling to breathe normally. “Something to eat? You don’t have to decide now. We can try to convince you some more.”
Mattin gave up and hid his face against Arden. The towel in his hair impeded him somewhat, so he impatiently tugged it free and tossed it aside. Arden turned to meet him, using one hand to stroke the top of Mattin’s spine beneath the curtain of wet hair, soothing all the little stinging places where bruises might show later.
Mattin heard Mil put down the cup of tea, then shift on the seat, so he reached behind him without looking—it was easier without looking—and awkwardly clasped Mil’s hand before he pulled it to his chest.
Arden whispered above him, “Flustered, I think.” Mil grumbled in reply but let Mattin keep his hand.
“I wasn’t too out of control?” Mattin asked, just to be sure.
Mil’s breath was warm in more stinging places. “You were perfect.”
Flattery. Mattin sighed for it anyway, then raised his head to look at Arden from very close. “I didn’t like making that list. I burned the first one.”
“We can burn the second too,” Arden suggested without hesitation.
Mattin nodded, then dropped his head back to Arden’s shoulder. “I can feel… or rather, Ican’tfeel, where you were. That is to say, I am empty again.” He was so hot. His face, his chest, everywhere. “I think I would like another go,” he said next, dizzy for making even an implied demand. “If you don’t mind.”
“‘Mind,’ he says,” Mil remarked with barely a pause, and tugged his hand free of Mattin’s to settle it in Mattin’s lap above the blanket. When he realized Mattin was already aroused, he flicked the blanket to the side, then put his hand firmly over Mattin’s cock and said, “Ah, Sass,” as if breathlessly pleased by how Mattin squirmed against him.
Arden stared down at Mattin’s lap and Mattin wanted to squirm for that too, although he was almost afraid to look for himself now that he was nearly feverless. Mil’s hand dwarfed his cock, for one. And as for the rest, Mattin imagined his thighs were pink, if not a furious red, and shining with salve. His blood was pounding. Slick welled up inside of him then trickled out, making him shift to get one knee up on the seat so he could get his legs apart. Mil pushed up closer behind him, looming over Mattin in a way that left Mattin shivering with his back against Mil’s chest.
Arden watched it all, letting the paper with Mattin’s list flutter to the floor somewhere out of sight.
