Holier Than Thou

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad leaned back into the pillows with her, pulling his gaze from the door. "Others have called me self-absorbed, but for once, I suspect that I actually am. Tenele... I don't want to let him have a wife," he said. "Such a selfish way to thank such a loyal friend, but the feeling stands all the same." The vampire rolled his face into the pillow in exasperation. "I resent her. I hate her. I haven't even met her yet. Just like some jealous harlot," he moaned softly into the pillow.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele sat up above her husband and brushed fingers through his hair, her brow knotting with concern. "It is expected of him, as a King, to have a wife who will bare his children... His heirs. But, I do know that royalty rarely ever marries for love. Its convenience at most. I do not know the marriage laws of Harjaria... I do know that people know of our relationship. I see the way they look at us. It is not a judgemental look, or disdain, or hatred. It is kinship, and acceptance. Perhaps... the wife he takes, if it is not for love, will accept our relationship as it is?"

She ran her fingers down his neck and brushed along his shoulder. "I want him to marry for love, if he must. If he must have a wife, and someone other than us, then I want him to be happy. It would break my heart if he had to leave us for someone who did not show him the same affection and care that we do. Mine is not so much jealousy as it is fear for his happiness."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad winced at the thought, both of Atul marrying into a loveless bond and of his heart drawing away from them. "She is too fat. She is too thin. She is unworthy of him," he muttered disdainfully into the fabric. He gathered his thoughts into something that was at least slightly less petty and lifted his angled face from the pillow. "I told him I wanted him to be a father to the child," he mused, turning onto his back. "I wonder if he wants that obligation. I didn't ask him clearly."

It should be so easy. He was right there, yards away from them in the bathroom. They were lying welcome in his bed. Why not ask these things? Vlad had to wonder if he was just too afraid to learn the answers.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele brushed her fingertips across his face. "Shall we ask him, then?" she whispered to him. She stretched her body against his. "If we ask him now it might catch him off guard. Maybe its best not to interrupt his shower, though he has been in there for a while..." The thought of the king standing slick and naked under a cascade of steaming water made Tenele's pulse jump. She immediately redirected her thoughts. She reached behind Vlad and lifted one of the manacles up that had been latched around his wrist, admiring it. She wanted to ask what it was like to be with him like that... "If he said yes," she whispered. "If we did ask him... to be ours... would that change things for us?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad fought back the string of counterarguments that Atul wouldn't accept such a thing, and tried to imagine the scenario seriously. "My feelings for you could never change. I think of you foremost. I expect a commitment to Atul would feel much like the current situation...minus the jealous resentment I feel toward some poor unsuspecting creature he has yet to even meet. Sharing you is unthinkable, but for some reason not with him. I suspect he finds you as precious and awe-inspiring as I do. Sharing you with him feels like another way of showing you my own affection. If that even makes sense. I think I could not love if not for his love for you. It's all interwoven so deeply that I can't say if I love him, or I love that he loves you, or I love that you love him. After all, I have no interest in his gender. I have never felt such things under a man's touch or desired a man's companionship and attention so fiercely."

His hands went to the manacles Tenele had been exploring. "I let him tie me up," he informed her, sounding confused. "I let him, and while i made a show of it for my pride's sake, it didn't anger me. I felt safe despite the bonds. That's insane. For me, that is simply insane. No one but you or him could do such a thing and survive, let alone give me reason to enjoy it."

We probably couldn't be together all the time. Unless we moved here permanently, there would probably be periods spent apart from him." His eyes flickered possessively to Tenele. "You being apart from me is out of the question," he said pointedly. "I suppose it would also mean...the child might become a monarch one day. If Atul is not to be allowed a wife, then you are the mother of his heir."

He snarled under his breath. "Listen to this nonsense! 'Allowed' a wife. Of course he will need a wife. Who marries people who can't be with them all the time? Who shares custody of a single heir with two other parents?"

[Emora Deen]

Tenele frowned at her husband, drawing her arms around him and pulling him close. "It is a strange case, this is true..." she whispered, running fingers through the hair at the back of his head. "I don't know what the best course of action is. Who knows where we will be in the future? We could be stuck here permanently. Sinead wasn't pleased with us when we left. She hated what he'd done, and didn't trust Knight or want him to exist. Who knows what she'll say when we tell her about our child. It might be the last straw of her acceptance of us. Though, she would never part with you. You are too useful to her. Perhaps she'll banish me, and order you back to her." Tenele baulked mentally her imaginations cruelty. Sinead would never do such a thing.

"You trust Atul," she mused to him. "That's why you let him chain you. You care for him. I care for him. So, let us do right by him. Let us speak to him. So we cannot ask him to be ours alone, but we can have him for the time we are allowed. As you told me not to ruin this miracle with my thoughts, let us not ruin this bond we have with fears of a future that might not come. Let us tell him how we feel, and take it a day at a time?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad nodded slowly, dashing apart futile thoughts of living committed as three, as they were now, without obligation or politics. "Yes. We can discuss it," he said gently. He was grateful for his wife's calmer nature at moments like this. Shifting into her embrace, he drew his arms around her sides and listened closely to her heartrate, half expecting to hear a faint companion pulse pacing alongside it. No, of course it was too early for that. He reminded himself to ask the doctor more questions about that. The thought of sleeping with her, while their baby's pulse thrummed softly between them, was too joyful to resist. A slow smile grew across his face, his anxieties drowned in the dream of the family they would build together.

[Emora Deen]

The door to the bathroom opened and Atul stepped out, rubbing his black hair with a towel, and one tied low and loose around his waist. He seemed to be in a calmer more relaxed mood than when he'd left for it. He came around the side of the bed, where space was open next to Tenele, and he sat down slowly. He watched them snuggle with a half-smile, reaching out to stroke fingers through her hair.

"You two look very comfortable," he spoke very softly. He bent down and pressed a kiss into her soft hair.

[Soran Nightblade]

"We are. You should try us," Vlad advised the king, looping an arm around his toweled waist and lassoing him down into bed with them. The vampire's strong arm braced possessively across his lover's still-damp chest. He tilted his head upward to see past Tenele and blew a cool breath along the back of Atul's neck.

[Emora Deen]

Atul chuckled at Vlad, settling himself in next to Tenele. He burrowed his face against her soft silver hair. "I can't stay like this," he murmured into her warmth with his fingers trailed gently over Vlad's arm. "I've got important things to attend too, disputes to settle, papers to sign..."

Tenele smiled. "Ah, the life of a King," she mused.

"Yes," Atul replied quietly. They lay in silence for a long while before Atul spoke again. "I don't really want to be king. Not lately. Lately, I think I would be much happier living in that cabin on the shore with the two of you... and watching the boy grow."

"Girl," Tenele reminded him.

"Ah, yes... girl." Atul chuckled. "But, yes, that's what I really want... The world doesn't always work out how we want it too, though. I am happy all the same, even if I dream of different days."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad fell silent. He felt a chilled twist in his stomach that froze the words he wanted to say in his throat. The only thing he seemed to keep control of was his arm, which didn't oblige the king's request to leave. It stayed solidly around Atul's body, like a lifevest. Stay with us. Forget this kingdom. Screw being king. Screw tradition. Screw it all, and stay! His eyes gleamed with something close to despair as he met the king's eyes, but that was all he was capable of doing. The words lodged in his throat.

No, he'd promised Tenele not to ruin this. He didn't want to end what they had sooner than necessary by intimidating the man.

[Emora Deen]

Atul saw the look in Vlad's eyes. His jaw tightened, his lips moved, but the words failed him. His gaze drifted to Tenele as she turned her gaze on him. He admired those vibrant green eyes, the smooth shape of her face. He pressed his forehead to hers.

Tenele took his hand and guided it to her abdomen, pressing it palm flat there. "Do you know where you stand with us?" she asked him softly.

"I know where I want to stand with you," he admitted. "If I could..."

"You are her father too," Tenele told him softly. "We love you. We care for you. We want you in our life, like this..."

"Its not so simple," Atul breathed, pain etched in his voice. "In my kingdom this relationship is not uncommon. We have men with multiple wives, fewer women with multiple husbands... but it isn't uncommon. I can take a wife, or two, or three, and it will never be what I want. I want..." He choked on his words. "If I were to ever join with the two of you, it would always have to be a secret. It would always have to be just between us... and it would mean hiding it from the wife I'll need to take some day. We could spend months, or years apart. Don't think I haven't considered it. I don't know if I can play that game, if I'm strong enough. Oh, how I want to gamble it, to try, to do that... I want it more than anything... But, I'm afraid." His gaze lifted to Vlad, frowning. "I can have you as my lovers and no one would ever beg to question it... Do you understand? Could you tolerate the game we'd have to play? Secrecy, lies."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad swallowed. He turned his head, and thought hard. "No," he murmured. "I don't care who I lie to, but you will. It will suck at your soul. Why must it be secret? Why can we not marry you ourselves?" he demanded without even thinking before it came out.

[Emora Deen]

Atul swallowed, blinking at Vlad and then at Tenele. "Politically speaking, I'm not sure your Queen would allow such a thing," he admitted. "My kingdom would embrace you with open arms. They love you. They owe you so much. My kingdom could not hope for a better Queen than Tenele..."

"Queen?" Tenele muttered. She hadn't thought of that, of being queen. If she were queen, what did that make her husband?

"But, there will also be people who would oppose it. Your lives would be even more at risk than they already are. But, in all honesty I don't know what the complications would be politically. I doubt very seriously Sinead will give you up, Vlad. And would you want to be married to me? Your life of easy travelling, adventuring, would be harder. You would lose what freedom you have. Do you want that life?"

[Soran Nightblade]

The vampire's chest tightened. "No," he confessed. "Sinead is progressive by some standards, but such an arrangement would go beyond even her tolerance. Tenele she might consider allowing to retire if she requested it, but I am certain she has further plans for me. And your kingdom requires your leadership." The words tasted bitter in his mouth, true as they were.

"We can not have the life that we wish for together," he whispered.

"But the child will need more than just an adventuring psychopath for a father. And if there is any of my blood in her, she will need more than the stuffy life of the palace. She will need excitement and wildness and exploring, and she will also need safety and stability when I cannot provide it. She needs to know both of her fathers. She needs to be in all of our lives. That much, at least, can be arranged."