Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Untitled Part 126

"Roses?" Ormiss asked, ignoring Ethat.

"Are any of my twilight garden roses?" I asked again.

"Let's see what your magic told you," Ethat said with atypical viciousness.

"None of these are roses," Ormiss gestured to the garden. "It's not the right time of year to plant them. But yes, my love, your twilight garden has roses."

"Which flowers were they?"

He cupped my hands in his. "The pale lavenders and blues rimmed with red-brushed petals."

"Those were roses?" I asked. "But the ones I ate in the market were red."

"Common roses are red. Twilight roses have been bred under the sea for... a long time now. You will not find blues and lavenders here in the sunlight." He kissed my hands. The sunlight shone off his bronze skin and dark hair and the wickedness in his dark eyes.

Ethat huffed and crawled back to his feet.

I hooked one arm around Ormiss' neck. He held me tenderly, simply smiling in the quiet, gentle way he didn't let very many see. "Of course you have roses. I knew you would want them. And I have roses planned for this, but it's not time to plant them. We will probably miss the fall window, you may have to wait, my love."

Apparently, I'd been waiting a few hundred years. "I am patient."

"Mostly."

Itek came through the back gate, bags over his arms. He noted Ormiss and I, then Ethat, then Ormiss and I, then Ethat, then the sticky mess Ethat had made of himself, and then the general sweaty nudity. He walked over to Ormiss and me, and traced his lips along the line of my scarred shoulder before kissing my neck gently, and heading into the house. "I hope that garden won't die without you here to look after it."

Ormiss glared at Itek's retreating back. Ethat picked up his discarded coat and headed after Itek, trailing pollen and fireflies after him.

"It's fine it if it does," I told Ormiss.

Ormiss scoffed. "It will be fine. I only regret I won't be able to get your fall roses in."

"You know I won't hold it against you."

"I wish you would. You're barely demanding in bed." He caressed my lips with his thumb. "And that's the most demanding you ever are."

"I don't know how to be demanding." How could one be demanding in bed, anyway? What did that even mean?

"You manage it for Ethat."

"That's just a game." Ethat liked what he liked, and somehow I knew the rules of the game. It wasn't my game or preference, but Ethat enjoyed it, and I loved playing it just to make him happy. And it was very fun when we got past his little game and he showed his real self...

Ormiss caressed my hair. "You're the Lady-Consort of the Hippocamp. Be a trifle demanding."

"I only want you," I said honestly. "...and Korr, and Asund, and Ethat, and Itek. Isn't that demanding enough? Asking you to share me?"

"Maybe I should bristle at sharing you, and I love our quiet time together, but this feels right too. It would feel too quiet if it was just you and I all the time."

"It does feel that way, doesn't it," I said softly. Although I worried constantly that I wasn't loving any of them enough, and someone was getting left out. Especially Itek, but Itek seemed happy enough. Maybe because he was part raptor, part cat, and neither were especially needy?

I worried all the same. Especially when they squabbled.

"You think I cannot let you have your other toys and grant your other wishes?" Ormiss asked, drawing himself up with all his regal dignity, but a smile in his dark garnet-and-obsidian eyes.