Obviously the correct choice is all of them

Winston looked over them again.

Xanthibarqa still occupied the ground she had claimed. Penthascara had turned half a step into something perilously close to formal precedence. Aurascyra had admitted what she wanted and, having done so, seemed determined to make embarrassment itself surrender before she did. Helisparga had asked for less loudly than any of them and no less plainly.

There was no obvious first among them, which should have made the decision harder, but instead made something else harder to ignore: they would not have been standing here like this yesterday.

The thought came cold enough to strip the humour from the scene. Whatever remained of the women he had first met, whatever stubbornness, pride, judgment, or temper still belonged entirely to them, this wanting had not begun there. He had put it there. He had taken loyalty enforced by law and pushed it further until devotion had become personal, intimate, hungry enough that four Amazons were now arguing over which of them ought to bear his child first.

For a moment, he could see the whole thing too clearly: Xanthibarqa would not have stepped forward, Penthascara would not have invented rules for precedence, Aurascyra would not have forced herself to say I want it, and Helisparga would not have made herself impossible to overlook, not for him. His stomach tightened.

Then Penthascara shifted beside Xanthibarqa, still unwilling to surrender the half-step she had claimed, and the thought changed shape.

Whatever he had done to bring them here, they were here now. Choosing one would not undo it. It would not restore anything. It would only tell the other three that the desire he had required of them mattered less because he had decided someone else should be rewarded first.

That felt cruel too, conveniently cruel perhaps, and the possibility bothered him enough that he almost stopped there. Almost.

He had already made them his consorts. He had already made affection part of what obedience meant. Pretending restraint at this point would not make him restrained. It would only let him choose which consequence of his own command he preferred to acknowledge.

The answer settled into place with an ease he did not entirely trust. Winston looked at the four women waiting on him and said, “All of you.”

For once, nobody interrupted. He swallowed, then continued before he could reconsider whether the certainty in his voice was deserved.

“That is the only answer I can see that does not turn this into another contest I created for you.” His gaze moved across them. “I am not choosing one of you to have a child while the others stand aside and pretend they do not want the same thing. I made you my consorts. I made the law that put you here.”

The admission sat less comfortably once spoken aloud, but he finished it anyway. “So if this is something we are doing, then it belongs to all of you. Not one first because she stepped forward, or because she keeps the household, or advises me, or happens to ask more quietly.”

A faint, uneasy smile touched his mouth. “I appear to have created enough problems without inventing a new one called precedence.”

The answer met four different silences. Xanthibarqa eased without quite surrendering the ground she had claimed, as though a door she had expected to force had opened of its own accord. Penthascara kept her arms folded, but some of the rigidity went out of them. Helisparga simply listened, while Aurascyra watched Winston with the wary patience of someone waiting for the condition that usually followed a generous sentence.

There was one, though not quite the one she seemed to expect. “All of you does not mean all at once. If I have to decide who begins, then it makes more sense for that to be Aurascyra or Helisparga.” The surprise showed differently between them, Aurascyra drawing breath as though an objection had arrived before she knew what it was, Helisparga becoming very still.

Winston continued before either could interrupt. “You were given the private parts of my life. Counsel, company, the hours when the rest of the island is supposed to remain outside the flap. If children are going to become part of this household, then it makes sense for that part of our lives to begin there too. I would rather not turn it into another item on Penthascara’s roster or something Xanthibarqa has to guard between changes of watch.”

That earned the faintest tightening from Penthascara, although whether at the joke or the exclusion Winston could not tell. He looked between her and Xanthibarqa before the objection could become formal enough to require answering.

“Neither of you is being refused,” he said. “The problem is that I already need you where you are.”

He turned first toward Xanthibarqa. “If you are carrying my child, someone else has to be able to stand between me and whatever thinks killing me is worth attempting.”

Then he looked to Penthascara. “The same applies to you. I am not discovering halfway through a pregnancy that nobody knows who is allowed through my door or which petitions matter. I refuse to wake one morning and find six offended priestesses waiting beside my breakfast because you were no longer there to keep the household in order.”

The protest Penthascara had been preparing never quite arrived. Her chin remained high, but practicality had begun doing battle with pride, and practicality was apparently winning.

Winston recognized the distinction before she had to say it aloud. “It is a delay, not a refusal. Train someone who can hold your place without the household coming apart around her, and then the choice becomes yours again. Both of yours.”

He let the words settle before continuing. “You were asked to give me children among other things, I am not going to punish you for being competent enough that I cannot immediately spare you from the jobs you were just.”

That settled Penthascara more effectively than reassurance would have. Xanthibarqa was harder to read. She had not moved back, but the certainty with which she had first stepped forward had gone quieter, contained now rather than diminished.

Winston found himself remembering that first movement, the single measured pace while everyone else was still deciding whether wanting aloud was something they could bear to do.

“And you,” he said, letting his attention settle on her, “are not going to be made last because you happened to be useful.”

The gold in her eyes sharpened.

“You moved first. Before anyone had settled the rules, before anyone knew how embarrassing this was going to become, you simply decided you wanted it and stepped forward.” A trace of amusement entered his voice, though he did not let it turn the point into a joke.

“I am not forgetting that because I need you on your feet and armed for a little longer," winston explained. "Train someone I can trust to stand where you stand, and when that is done, you will not find yourself at the back of a line because you obeyed me when I told you to wait.”

Something in Xanthibarqa’s stance settled at last. Not softness, exactly. The woman seemed constitutionally incapable of receiving praise without trying to turn it into an assignment.

But the pride that had driven her forward now had somewhere to rest, and for once she did not immediately argue with what she had been given.

A quiet laugh came from beside Winston. Hippolyta walked over to him, bent slightly, and gave him a quick, pleased kiss before turning toward the four Amazons.

“There,” she said, pleasure warming the words without diminishing their smugness. “He does think after all.”

Winston doubted that, as he gazed at his crotch. Most f the blood had been going there instead of his brains when he had been using this power of his.