Heirot

Atul scowled. "Girls are hard!" he argued. "You have to worry about things like dating, and 'the talk', and play tea parties, dress up, and make-believe. Boys you just slap on the back, wish them luck, and send them on their way."

"Dating is out of the question," Vlad replied reflexively. "I will handle the make believe. Tea parties and those other things are obviously the monarch parent's responsibility," he reasoned.

Atul scowled. "I think Tenele should be in charge of tea parties. She has more practice at it... cause she's a girl."

"Its too late for tea," Tenele murmured, to disoriented from sleep to understand what they were discussing. She blinked her eyes open at them. "You're loud."

Atul laughed, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Sorry, very sorry. Please forgive."

Vlad smiled at Tenele and then Atul. He couldn't keep his hope back, not now that Atul had engaged him this far. But he couldn't make himself ask the question. It felt too direct. "I want this," he said to him quietly. "I want us to stay like this. It's unreasonable, and I don't care."

Atul nodded to Vlad, wide-eyed and understanding. "Okay," he agreed. "We can stay like this for as long as its possible."

"Of course we can," the beautiful woman between them mumbled, snuggling closer to her husband.

The King bit back a chuckle, settling down behind her. "Perhaps we should rest with her." Tenele nodded. She snuggled down between them, and drifted back to sleep. Atul's gaze watched her before lifting to Vlad. He wanted to tell Vlad that he would stay with them forever, but eventually his kingdom would want him to find a queen, and have heirs. Eventually his duty as a king would tear him from this odd lifestyle they'd formed.

At first he thought it had been born of protection and lust and now... He knew better. It was going to be a hard thing to break, this... addiction to them. He wasn't prepared to try just yet. And for the moment his advisers didn't complain, and the whispers about the palace weren't destructive or critical. It seemed for the most part that the world silently approved of their relationship.

And they were going to be fathers... His gut wrenched at the idea. It frightened him. He wanted it, and yet it terrified him. From his experience of fathers... They weren't the greatest for children, and he worried that he wouldn't be a good one. He thought, then maybe that was why it was good for the child to have two.

The vampire didn't miss the tremor of fear in Atul's thoughts, even if he couldn't be certain what caused it. Vlad cupped his hand around the back of Atul's neck, brushing a thumb across the man's cheek. The look he gave the king was calm and sure. "Goodnight, sexy," he said as he lowered back into the pillows. His thumb continued to trace the edge of the man's ear and the line of his jaw.

Atul chuckled at Vlad and let his eyes close. He settled in next Tenele, finally acknowledging the sympathetic exhaustion that was radiating from her. When morning broke the sun woke him to a beautiful blue sky. He got out of bed, trying to slip out as quietly as possible so not to wake Tenele or Vlad, and dawned a pair of very thin black black pants. He stepped off the porch in his bare feet, and through the sand until he reached where Stalk sat staring at the same stick Tenele had been trying to get him to fetch all yesterday.

"Morning," he told the hell hound as he looked out over the ocean. "So, are you prepared for the future little one? If there is one?" As if the hell hound could understand him, he thought with a laugh.

Stalker turned his head slightly toward the man. His fiery eyes didn't seem impressed. He knew to recognize Atul as his master's lover, and therefore not to be touched, but he did not display the same attentiveness and loyalty to the male as he did to Tenele.

Vlad slept far more deeply than usual, something that only happened when he was joined to Tenele. But the rising sunlight eventually managed to disturb him to a half-awake state. He burrowed his face against Tenele's hair, away from the light, and wrapped his arm around the warmth next to him. Then he gradually recognized that he was touching Tenele's back, not Atul's. His hand slid blindly across the fabric, and found only an empty space next to them.

He was gone. He was gone? Vlad jerked awake, his expression flooded with irrational alarm. He'd left. He shot upright and scanned the empty opposite side of the bed.

Atul sensed Vlad's alarm, and he thought maybe he sensed why he was so alarmed. I'm by the ocean. I'm near. Come join me if you want, just taking a stroll. He glanced back to the cabin, wondering if they should carry Tenele into the actual bedroom. He decided that she might like to bask in the warm sun.

The conversation passing through the link seemed to rouse Tenele, like someone had whispered it into her ear. Her eyes flickered lazily open, only to draw herself in a tighter ball. Her body was feeling it, and angrily protesting her adventurous actions. She wasn't about to admit it, too a sleep to realize that they already knew how she felt. But, she wasn't going to admit it out loud, remembering the teasing she got the last time.

Vlad blinked, tearing his eyes from the empty bed toward the sea. Relief and embarrassment curled in his stomach. In his half-awake state, had he really panicked over something so foolish? As if he would just wake up one morning to find the king gone from their lives. Vlad took a deep breath and held it in a silent sigh. The conversation last night had ended well, and yet his subconscious still rattled him this much. Opening his heart to people again after so many years apparently meant the return of other, less attractive emotions. Cross, he slid silently from the bed and into the cottage. There was a small bathroom with a copper tub inside. He went to the sink and frowned at his reflection before splashing cold water onto his face. Not sure why he was so angry with himself, he rubbed his face dry with a towel and skulked back out to the verandah.

Stalker's head pricked up, sensing his master's odd string of emotions. Anger tended to get the hound's attention quickly. He turned from Atul like a dull painting and loped gracefully across the sand back toward the cottage.

Atul stared at the cabin, torn between staying with his feet planted in the sand, or going back. He chose to go back, turning from the ocean and stepping across the soft white sand.

Tenele's half-asleep state seemed to be absorbing the two men's emotions. Everything she started to drift off her mind made of dreams, the oddest dreams and because of her half-asleep state they seemed very real. Eventually Stalker's heavy trotting across the wood floor shook her awake enough to finally open her eyes and take in the beautiful morning sky. The soft blanket lay draped across her legs, and she looked down the length of her body to Atul cutting across the beach. Then, her eyes focused on the dark bruise over her breast where Vlad had left his most inspired bite.

She tugged the sheet up to her chest and flopped back onto her side with a lazy groan. Why did something so good have to feel so bad in the morning?

Vlad blinked out of his rather uncharacteristic gloom as he registered the dull ache from Tenele's body. He turned away from the sands and returned to her side on the bed, sitting next to her. "Sore?" he asked with both amusement and empathy in his voice. For heaven's sake, if it weren't for his regenerative skills, he could only imagine what he would feel like the morning after Atul's particularly thorough lovemaking. The memory made his loins heat up and stir. Apparently his body had not learned any lessons.

"Shall I bring you something? Water? A stiff drink? Something to hit us with?" he smirked.

Tenele shook her head, tucking a pillow underneath it. Her green eyes watched him suspiciously, waiting for the inevitable snark.

"She might need food," Atul said as he stepped back onto the porch. He slipped his hands in his pockets and stepped up beside Vlad, smiling down at her. "I'm hungry myself. And you need to be more mindful of eating. You won't be skipping any meals anymore, do you understand?"

Tenele arched an eyebrow, a little bit perplexed about why he was so concerned whether she skipped meals or not. Tenele shrugged her shoulders and crawled until she could lay in Vlad's lap, hugging her arms around his waist possessively.

"Do you want me to make you breakfast?" Atul asked with a soft smile, placing a hand on her head. She nodded adorably.

Vlad ran a hand through her silver hair, his powerful muscles tempered into the soft movement. His wife could be wonderfully girlish when she was at peace, and seeing her relaxed state put him at ease as well. "Cook often?" he asked the half-nude man in front of him, raising an eyebrow. Not many royals cooked for themselves, and he'd never seen the man cook.

Atul chuckled. "You met my father. When I was little I'd hide from him in the kitchen, and I'd watch them. The head cook would show me how to make things," he told Vlad. "I don't think I'm great, but it is edible. Breakfast it is." He stepped off inside the house and into the very small kitchen area. They'd brought a bag of supplies, and he decided he'd work with that.

Tenele stroked her fingers up and down Vlad's sides as he ran his own through her hair. She sighed pleasantly against him. She sat up slowly, giving a slight wince as she straightened on her rear. She brushed her fingers over his face before pressing in for a kiss. "How are you this morning my husband?" she whispered the question, kissing along his jaw down to his neck. "You felt troubled earlier."