Roots and Oxygen

Chapter 67 - Whited Sepulchre

Sage went to bed that night thinking about what Taro had said, what Oxley had said, and how disgusted and angry his parents had been. He woke at the first light of dawn, tossing and turning. He eventually rose to brush his teeth and ended up back in bed until Taro changed into his human form and slipped under the duvet beside him.

"Are you going down for breakfast?" Taro asked against his ear while coiling arms around Sage's silk pyjamas.

"I'm not sure, it's going to be really awkward." Sage's heart fluttered when Taro squeezed the warmth into him with a tight hug.

"Avoiding them will get even more awkward. This is your home too." Taro gently kissed his jaw.

Sage turned around and stretched against him. "You're right." As soon as Taro could reach, he kissed his lips. At first, their affection was slow and gentle, until their legs twisted together, and Taro pulled Sage on top of him. Their hands soon tangled in each other's hair. Passion fuelled kisses heated the air around them as they buried themselves under the duvet.

Sage felt hands running up and down his back as the kisses deepened into gentle pleasured moans. They rolled in the bed and Taro's hand shot up the front of Sage's silk shirt. His hands were warm and eagerly welcomed.

They kissed more and rolled again and fell off the bed tangled in the duvet. Sage landed on top of Taro with a hefty thud, clunking their foreheads together. "Ow," they whined in unison, and laughed on the floor until their stomachs hurt. Sage unravelled them and squinted at the clock on the wall. "We can still make breakfast if we get ready now," he said, grinning.

On the walk to the dining room, they passed cleaners and guards and servants and even the Queens own secretary, Finley Wainhouse, who double glanced in their direction with his black beady eyes. He quickly lowered his head and scurried by, mumbling, "Your Royal Highness."

"I should visit Osier and make sure he knows I'm actually not working here anymore," Taro said with a chuckle, walking so closely to Sage that their shoulders fought against each other.

"We'll visit him together after breakfast." Sage slowed when they reached the dining room. One glance at Taro's fierce expression told Sage that he was trying to look anything other than afraid. Having breakfast with the Queen probably wasn't on his to-do list.

"If your mother doesn't devour us," Taro muttered before the guards bowed extra lowly and opened the grand double doors.

Sage swallowed thickly and tried to hold his parents' gazes for as long as possible. Don't be intimidated. His mother, dressed in a burnt orange blouse and a burnt orange silk hair wrap. She stared back without blinking. Her dark eyes followed him to his seat, and then settled on Taro. They shaped with anger and bore into him until Sage started to feel annoyed too.

His father had been mid-conversation with Oxley when they entered. Only silence followed. His parents both stared at Taro, trying to make him uncomfortable. Sage was served tea and toast. He gripped his cup as the awkward silence continued, feeling more and more frustrated that his parents were acting so childish.

But Taro was tough, and his polite smile was more of a smirk, and that made his father's neck turn red.

"What are you two doing today?" Oxley asked as if nothing was out of the ordinary in their perfect world of royalty and riches.

When Sage faced him by the head of the table, he could only think of Patrick. "I don't know," he said honestly, and then turned to his mother. "Why don't you like the green?" He had expected to act normal, to see if there was a chance that his parents would have calmed down after a night's sleep. But returning to normal wasn't an option. Taro Vinea sat next to him as a boyfriend, and his parents hated him.