Page 8 of Blessed

Now Mattin could not look anywhere else. “Oh.”

“And you don’t have anyone you’ll let care for you,” Mil grumbled. “And you never remember to prepare in the days leading up to it.”

“Too used to ignoring his body’s needs,” Arden agreed. “A bad habit among librarians, I hear.”

Mattin briefly and spitefully wondered if Arden had been an outguard fond of tupping library assistants but didn’t ask.

“It’s fine,” he said instead. “I’m fine, despite that.”

Mil scoffed rudely. “You don’t see yourself after, Sass. You needed caring for. Still do, and something better than what can be offered from a distance. No partners in sight for you yet? Not a one has caught your eye?”

Mattin had no idea how the subject had gotten to his fever-partners, or lack thereof, but faced Mil just to glare at him and ignored the conciliatory, “Now, Sass,” Mil tried to offer.

“Maybe you don’t want any kind of partner, in or out of a fever?” Arden said, or asked, Mattin wasn’t sure. They were both staring at him now.

Mattin’s stomach gurgled again. How it could do that with him already stuffed full, he had no idea.

“I keep telling you I am plain and small and not interesting,” he huffed, although he wasn’t sure he’d ever told them anything like that. He accepted the second dinner roll from Arden with another huff, then tore it to pieces over his plate. “It wasn’t… the palace wasn’t safe for a long time. All the years of fighting…. People were terrified, and nobody was…. It’s not like it is now, or was before. So I’m not very experienced with any sort of…that.” He only had to explain this to them because they were both too confident and handsome to understand his predicament. “Not casually and definitely not for several days of me… being how the Blessed are in their fevers.”

“We didn’t mean to embarrass you, Sass.”

Mattin gave Mil a huff too. He didn’t see what else anyone would bebutembarrassed to have their lust-fevers the subject of conversation between the king and his husband.

Well,aroused, but Mattin was not going to think of that here if he could help it. He had already spent the last few days imagining other things between the king and his husband. Like himself. And it was not a thought to make it stop throbbing between his legs or to keep him from wanting to put hand over his cock underneath a robe that now did not seem heavy enough.

“So…” Arden was being delicate, which was somehow touching and alarming together, “it’s more that you don’tknow, and not that you don’twant?”

Mattin darted a look up, saw the two of them exchanging a glance, then dropped his gaze again. “To be… likethatin front of someone.” He knew what he was like, even if the fever days were a blur. Sweating and moaning and crying out until his throat was raw. Waking to bruises and a sore body and all sorts of damage to whatever had happened to be in his way. Mattin during a fever was, unfortunately, rather wild. “I’d probably startle them. Or repulse them.”

Mil made a noise, a stifled growl that carried into his words. “I highly doubt that.”

“I think whoever you choose would be deeply honored, Mattin Arlylian, and delighted to be chosen.”

Mattin’s gaze came up.

Arden was so serious. “If you ever need help, if you ever want it, you’re welcome to ask us.”

The strangled sound Mattin made might have been a growl too. A pathetic sort of a growl that led to Mil pushing his own wine toward him as though Mattin had something stuck in his throat.

Arden had not looked away. “Or just one of us if that makes you more comfortable. I won’t be offended when you choose Mil.”

Mattin swung around to stare at Mil.

“Well, now,” Mil said, blinking several times before looking at his husband with his eyebrows raised.

“I’m not saying he would,” Arden explained, gentle with the both of them, “but Mattin—Keeper Arlylian, is proper, and I’m the king, aren’t I?”

Mattin turned back to him. “You’d be needed elsewhere,” he admitted softly.

Arden gave him a crooked grin. “Exceptions would be made for the Blessed, everyone knows that. No one is going to spit in the face of a fae gift, no matter how much they dislike or hate the king, or require something from him.”

“But I wouldn’t…” Mattin started, then fell silent because he had no idea what he meant to say. He would have been angry if they offered out of pity, but they had just called him a friend and he knew that was true because they allowed him to see them like this, private and half-undressed, enjoying their meals in peace. “I’m sure you would be very good partners,” he declared at last, with manners enough that Mil should have teased him. Mattin decided to study the torn pieces of roll on his plate. “But I’m not much of a Blessed.” A real Blessed wouldn’t care about more than being pleased during their fever. Mattin suspected that getting that from them and then losing it when the fever had ended would hurt worse than a fever spent alone.

For one moment, Arden’s hand covered his on the table. “The offer wasn’t meant to upset you.”

“I know.” Mattindidknow it. “But….”

“Just think on it,” Mil added, gruff. “Know that it’s available to you, rather than suffering. Or, if you only want more things to aid with your fevers, let us know, and we’ll get you what you need.”

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