“What’s that?” Kirill pointed to a glowing orb that appeared on the dressing table. As he spoke, a second one appeared, and then a third.
“What’s what?” Ra pulled his head out of the pillow, his hair falling down his face, his eyes bleary. He barely glanced at the orbs before burying his head in the pillow again. “Message orbs. That’ll be Seth. Or Osiris. Or… someone else who wants to get in touch with me. My phone probably needs charging.” He slid his hand across Kirill’s waist. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Kirill stroked over Ra’s arm, watching with growing alarm as a further three orbs appeared. His concern grew when they started dinging. “Are you sure you don’t need to get one of them? Only, we’ll be running out of room on the dresser soon.”
“That will be fucking Seth, then.” Ra pushed himself up, taking care not to disturb Arvyn who was snoring quietly on the other side of him. “I swear, that guy is more stubborn than a freaking pissed off camel.” The dinging was getting louder and Ra slashed his hand through the air. The noise stopped but as soon as it did, another dozen orbs arrived, all one after the other. And then they started dinging. The new orbs that was, not the older ones.
“If you don’t want to answer them, I don’t know, can you send them back? A sort of return to sender?” Kirill was getting better both with Ra’s status and his powers, although he was the first to admit there was still a lot he didn’t understand. And while he fully respected Ra’s right to ignore anyone he pleased, Kirill’s responsible side – the one that’d cared for coven members for centuries – was getting edgy with each unanswered ding.
An edginess Ra picked up on through their bond. “You’re the type who has to answer every phone call, aren’t you?” Ra’s face was gorgeous anytime, but when he smiled it truly was like the sun had come up.
“The noise is going to wake Arvyn,” Kirill pointed out. “I’m surprised it hasn’t already.”
“You’re very good at wearing out our wolf.” Ra nestled his head on Kirill’s shoulder and waggled his finger. One orb floated over to him, while the rest disappeared. Running his hand over the orb, the surface of it turned black. “You’d better have a good reason for ignoring me, Seth.”
“Why the hell can’t I see anything?” The gruff voice was loud. “Are you in a damn cave somewhere? Did you need me to get you out?”
“For the twenty-three millionth time in just this millennium, I am perfectly capable of looking after myself,” Ra snapped. “The orb is blacked out because I don’t need your perving eyes on my naked mates. Now, what the hell did you want?”
“Mate? Mates? MATES. As in plural?” Kirill hissed as Seth’s voice got increasingly angry. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in with this Fate’s bullshit about true mates. Gods, tell me it’s not true. Tell me you’re just having a bit of fun on earth with some hapless mortals. True mates bullshit…” He trailed off in a mutter.
“Did you want me to lie to you?” Ra’s wink in Kirill’s direction wasn’t helpful. Ra had mentioned Seth several times in the three days they’d been together, but he never said anything about how disrespectful the lesser ranked god was. “Two mates, males, absolutely gorgeous the pair of them, and men with good hearts as well. Now what did you want? As you know I had an exceptionally long dry spell, and my men are certainly helping me catch up with what I’ve missed.”
A groan sounded from the orb. “I did not need to know that.” Seth sounded pained. “If you’re buying into this whole bullshit about mates, please tell me, you at least spoke to the Fates and made sure no pregnancy was going to arise from these liaisons? The last thing our pantheon needs is demigods. We’ve been this long without them, tell me that’s still going to stay the same.”
Kirill frowned as concerns flooded their bond. “Er…” Ra glanced at Kirill and then at Arvyn, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“In other words, you didn’t.” A loud bang sounded through the orb. “For fuck’s sake, at least tell me you only topped. A pregnant Father of Everything would make us a joke among every pantheon.”
“Pregnant?” Kirill mouthed at Ra, who just shook his head.
“Look Seth, I’m busy. If there’s nothing else…”
“Osiris wants to know how long you’re going to keep those two vampires in the Underworld,” Seth broke in quickly. “He’s not set up for prisoners and he has no idea what the hell you plan to do with them. Apparently, the smaller guy of the two is running around trying to make deals with guards and even Osiris himself, making bullshit promises he can’t keep. Ris wants them gone. They’re upsetting his order of things, and to quote him, in general they’re dirtying up the place.”
“Yeah, well, they’re not doing me any favors either.” Ra’s sigh was long and loud. “Tell Osiris I’ll have them shifted in the next two hours and under no circumstances is he to make any deals or anything else with them. Just… give me a bit more time…”
“Two hours,” Seth snarled. “Then I’m coming, and I’ll bring those two vamps with me.”
“See you in two hours, then.” Ra flicked the orb out of his hand, and it disappeared. “So,” he said, trailing his hand up Kirill’s bicep. “We’ve got two hours before we have to deal with shit. Any ideas…”
“You can start by telling me what Seth meant talking about pregnancy?” Kirill folded his arms across his chest. “You told him you had two male mates.”
“Yes, well,” Ra said slowly. “There is this teeny tiny anomaly, that I might have forgotten to mention, but only because I’d forgotten about it myself. But really, we should probably wait until Arvyn is awake, and you need to decide…”
“I am awake. That dinging noise was enough to wake the dead.” Arvyn rolled over, brushing his hair away from his face. “What’s all this about males getting pregnant. Am I going to be a daddy? Is our precious godly mate going to start showing a baby bump soon? Lord knows, your butt’s had plenty of spunk to work with, babe, if something like that’s remotely possible. What happens in a case like that? Do you develop lady bits, or what?”
“No. No lady bits.” Ra seemed to shrink in on himself. “Look. Seriously. Seth’s going to be here soon…”
“You told him two hours,” Kirill reminded him.
“Yes, well, Seth never listens to me. He stopped doing that about the time he and Osiris had their fight, which is not something we need to discuss at this point in time.” Ra’s face was quite pale. “Look, you have to decide what you’re doing about Yakov and that other vamp I sent to Osiris. We need a plan because I don’t want them here longer than absolutely necessary, and you heard what Seth said. Yakov was trying to make deals with the God of the Dead. He’s not going to be held by the vampire council very long if we send him and that other one there. And I’m sure your council would be upset if we turned them over to Anubis and the Soul Eater because they sure aren’t passing the feather test. I don’t think either one of them could pass a lead bar test.”