Page 49 of The Concubine King
Yorith didn’t accompany him to the temple anymore, and there was no fanfare whatsoever about it.Plates of food and canters of wine were put on the table and Ethyr was unceremoniously handed the bowl of petals.Klara still waited to make sure he ate them before she left.
He startled awake to a ruckus of jeering and shouts.The gods all had their attention on an activity taking place in the center of the room: Catocus hammering into Ainder from behind, who in turn seemed intent on slamming back just as hard.
Ethyr couldn’t help staring in perverse shock.The other gods were intermittently shouting instruction or suggestion, or cheering one of the two on while taunting the other.When he finally managed to rip his eyes from the scene, his gaze met Kiaro’s, leaning disinterestedly against the wall, and Ethyr whipped his head around to face literally anything else.
Ithna was the next to notice him.She beckoned him over eagerly, but he hesitated for a long moment before prying himself from the seat to sit by her, uncomfortably close to the fervid entertainment.
“They started arguing about who would last longer,” she explained.“I placed my bet on Catocus.”
“Ethyr!”Gallus exclaimed, throwing himself over Ithna and Gnaeus to reach him and ignoring their loud complaints.It took a second for Ethyr to realize that the arm tugging and puckered lips indicated a request for a kiss.He leaned over and planted one on Gallus’s mouth to appease him.Instead of sitting up again, Gallus chose to recline more languidly across the two laps, which was begrudgingly tolerated.
The announcement of his arrival had drawn Ainder’s attention, even occupied as he was.He winked at Ethyr, who snapped his eyes to his lap, but the sudden increase in vocal passion drew them back up.Ainder had lifted from the floor, forcing Catocus onto his heels, and rode him faster still, groaning loud cries of pleasure.The smug grin plastered on his face proved that it was all a show, and an easy one at that.Catocus, by contrast, had a hard look of concentration accompanied only by grunts of effort.
“Oh, come on, Cat!”Ithna shouted, the burst of noise right beside him startling Ethyr.“Get back on top!He’s making a tool out of you!”
A few more thrusts and Catocus gave a telling moan, his movements jerking to a stop.Ithna clicked her tongue with sighed disappointment and tossed her hands.
“Told you,” Gallus sang.“Control can’t beat skill.”
“Shut up,” Ithna said, but she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
Ainder pulled himself triumphantly off Catocus and turned around, giving the other god’s cheek a light smack.He scowled and swatted him away.
Ethyr realized when they were done that he hadn’t even thought to look away, all of it too appallingly mesmerizing not to watch.When the two stood, their clothes appeared from thin air back onto their bodies, which was mesmerizing in its own way.
“Who’s next?”Ainder asked.“Ethyr?”
Ethyr jolted, heat immediately racing across every inch of his skin.Ainder laughed loudly and plopped to the ground by the group, dragging Gallus from Ithna and Gnaeus’s laps to his own.
“Don’t tease him,” Langath chastised from down the line.“You’ll scare him.”
“Why not?”Ainder replied nonchalantly.“I bet he’s never truly tested himself before.Someone ought to do it.”
“Ainder!”Gnaeus tsked.“Look at him!He’s going to boil over if you keep this up.”She stroked Ethyr’s hair.“Don’t worry, we won’t let Ainder be so rough with you.”
“Who said I’d be rough?”
She rolled her eyes.Gallus entwined himself with Ainder and distracted him anyway.The others returned to various activities as though nothing had happened.Ethyr shuffled up to the table next to Gnaeus, but Varuut insisted she sit with him, so he moved, until Ithna complained that Varuut always kept him to herself, so at Ithna’s urging he sat between her and Gnaeus.He didn’t mind.The both of them only kissed him occasionally.When Gnaeus did, it was just a few kisses over his face, while Ithna kissed him softly and lovingly on the mouth.
The atmosphere settled.Varuut nursed Catocus’s bruised ego, Ithna and Gnaeus discussed what sounded like a human dispute they knew about, Langath drew quietly at the table, and Ainder and Gallus wrestled playfully.
Ethyr glanced over his shoulder.Kiaro was sitting cross-legged on a seat, flipping a glass game piece between the fingers of one hand.He met Ethyr’s gaze coolly and Ethyr quickly turned back around.
A lull in Ithna and Gnaeus’s conversation compelled the former to take up Ethyr’s face and smatter her lips over his cheeks and nose.
“Ithna?”he whispered.She pulled back to look at him, surprised.He realized it was the first time he had said one of their names out loud.Not that he’d said much of anything else either.
“What is it, sprout?”
He blushed.“Do you keep up with humans?Their lives?”She and Gnaeus certainly seemed the most grounded in human norms.
“I try to.Though sometimes I feel that I blink and a whole new set of them are in place.”
“But you can go into the mortal world, right?Show yourself to humans?”
“Yes… though unlike Varuut I prefer to take the shape of a mouse, and no human is the wiser.”
Ethyr might have known that from the stories, though all the gods took so many different forms it was hard to say what preference they might have had.
