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  Not cats, she thought. Eels, very much alive and aggressive. They wound around each other, wavy and serpentine as if their bones had softened and stretched until they could bend and twist in a combat so supple it seemed more dance than fight and looked utterly inhuman.

  Like the other Kai in the arena, Brishen wore only the linen loincloth. He’d scraped his hair back and tied it at the nape. The style highlighted the sloped almond shape of his eyes and the high curve of his cheekbones. He was shiny with sweat and streaked with dirt. A handsome man still, despite the grime.

  The thought brought Ildiko up short. This wasn’t the first time she’d noted her husband’s appearance in such a way. She’d done so before three evenings past, and then she’d called him beautiful.

  They had shared a bed, though they had done nothing more than sleep. Ildiko had quickly grown used to Brishen’s presence beside her, the heat of his body beneath the covers. He was a peaceful sleeper—no thrashing or sighs, no snoring. She sometimes wondered if he or any of the Kai dreamed as humans did.

  After their return from High Salure and Serovek’s dinner, she’d fallen asleep as soon as Brishen ordered her under the covers. Unlike every evening prior, she’d awakened before him and discovered a man sublime in slumber.

  He stretched recumbent on one side, facing her, one arm tucked against his chest, the other extended toward her. A few locks of black hair partially obscured his features, but Ildiko could still see the sharp line of his jaw and equally sharp bridge of his nose. For a man who smiled and laughed so easily, his mouth had a distinct downturn, a gift of heritage from the cold-blooded mother he so despised.

  His deep-set eyes were closed, the thick lashes fluttering with the occasional twitch of his eyelids. A faint frown marred the stillness of his face for a moment, lowering the slant of his eyebrows. It faded as quickly as it appeared, and he sighed softly in his sleep. Ildiko reached out to smooth his brow. She pulled back, unwilling to disturb him and end her chance to openly admire him.

  He had rolled in the covers at some point. They bunched at his waist and twisted around one leg, leaving the other exposed to the cool night air that drafted in thin streams into the room through the window shutters’ narrow slats.

  Ildiko blinked, and a surge of heat climbed from her belly to her chest, making the breath catch in her throat.

  He was naked under the sheets. She’d seen him bare-chested before, but he usually came to bed partially dressed in loose breeches of parchment-thin linen. That long leg, bared to the evening air from ankle to flank revealed he’d chosen to forego such modesty.

  The Kai were a tall, graceful people, their willowy physiques deceptive. It was known among the human nations that the Kai were immensely strong, with bones like iron and just as heavy. The Beladine lord Serovek was a big man, powerfully built and looked like he could carry a draft horse on his shoulders. Brishen, by contrast, had seemed almost delicate, yet Ildiko suspected his weight equaled, if not surpassed Serovek’s, as did his strength.

  Resting beside her, he seemed to Ildiko a living statue, carved from dark granite into a form of supple elegance and power. He was beautiful, and the tremor change in her perception of him robbed her lungs of air.

  He opened both eyes suddenly, making her jump. Two shimmering gold coins stared at her unblinking. “Good evening, wife,” he said in a voice raspy with the remnants of sleep. A closed-lip smile curved his mouth upward and deepened the tiny lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes. “You’re staring. Do I have a fly on my nose?”

  Fighting down a blush at being caught gawking at her own husband, Ildiko lightly tapped the tip of his nose with one finger. “I was trying to find a way to kill it without punching you in the face. Lucky for you, it flew away.”

  He clasped her wrist and brought her palm to his mouth for a kiss. Generous with his affections, he’d done this many times before, but this time was different. This time the brush of his lips across the sensitive center of her palm sent hot shivers down her arms and back. Ildiko freed her hand from his grasp and sat up to fluff the pillows behind her. She avoided his gaze and smoothed the covers over her lap. “I’m sorry to have woken you.”

  She caught the faint narrowing of his gaze from the corner of her eye. She was acting oddly, and he knew it.

  He started to sit up and recline beside her but paused. A gravid silence hovered between them before Brishen cursed softly in bast-Kai. He yanked the covers over both legs and sat up. His fingers on her chin were light as he turned her head to face him.

  The firelight yellow of his eyes had paled, and the smile that greeted her when he awoke was gone. “Forgive me, Ildiko. It was too hot yesterday for bedclothes, and I usually sleep unclad. I meant to be up and dressed before you.” He dropped his hand and motioned for her to turn away. “This will only take me a moment.”

  He tried to rise, halting when Ildiko grabbed his arm. She’d heard it in his voice, threads of disappointment, embarrassment. He thought her disgusted by the sight of him naked beside her and barely covered by the bed covers. The opposite couldn’t be more true.

  That persistent blush did a slow crawl up her neck. This time Ildiko ignored it. “Don’t be foolish, Brishen. I should be the one embarrassed. You caught me eyeing you like prized horseflesh.” She chuckled as his eyes rounded. “Don’t look so shocked. I may be human, but I’m not blind. I’ve come to appreciate Kai beauty.” She raised her chin. “And I refuse to apologize for indulging in admiration of my own husband.”

  Brishen’s wide grin matched her own, even if his teeth far outmatched hers in intimidation. He tucked his pillows behind his back and recaptured her hand. Ildiko didn’t pull away this time. “And here I thought I’d married a shy, blushing maiden,” he teased.

  Ildiko sniffed and tugged aside the collar of her night rail to reveal her neck, now feverish to the touch and no doubt bright red. “You’re partially right. I’m blushing right now.” She released the collar and gave him an arch stare. “I am not, however, a maiden.”

  To a Gauri nobleman intent on siring heirs of his blood, confirmation of a new bride’s innocence was paramount. Ildiko’s cousins had been guarded like prisoners by an army of governesses and bodyguards as if their maidenheads were made of precious stones instead of flesh. Any man deemed unworthy as suitor material by the royal family risked life and limb by so much as casting an admiring glance toward one of the prisoners.

  Ildiko’s own virtue was far less prized and as such, her aunt didn’t act quite the zealot toward protecting it. Brishen had never inquired, and she hoped it was from lack of interest more than an assumption that she was yet uninitiated into the physical intimacies between men and women.

  Brishen wiggled his eyebrows at her and crossed his arms. “Ah, a tale of your past. You keep your secrets close, wife. Tell me this one. What lovers taught you the pleasures of the flesh?”

  She squeezed his fingers, relieved that her admission incited only curiosity. Maybe the Kai didn’t place the same value on such a silly notion as the Gauri did.

  “Lover,” she said. “Just one and I didn’t find it all that pleasurable.” Brishen lost his slight smile but remained silent. Ildiko shrugged. “It was nice but certainly not worth drinking lorus flower tea beforehand.” She shuddered at that memory.

  “Did he force you?” Brishen asked the question in a voice gone guttural. Tiny white sparks flashed in his eyes.

  Ildiko patted his arm and eased her hand out of his before he forgot he could crush her fingers with one squeeze. “Of course not. He was a pleasant lad, the youngest of a minor nobleman’s eight sons. Neither one of us knew what we were doing really. It was messy and awkward and not worth bothering with after the third time.”

  Brishen’s mouth contorted into strange shapes as he struggled to hold back his laughter. “Why didn’t you try someone else? An experienced lover would have taught you much. It’s called ‘pleasures of the flesh’ for a reason, Ildiko, and goes far beyond clumsy fumblings
under the covers.”

  She waved a nonchalant hand. “It still wouldn’t have been worth it in my opinion. Lorus flower tea prevents a man’s seed from catching in the womb, but it tastes so foul even the memory of it makes my stomach turn. Surely, there is nothing so pleasurable to make it worth drinking that swill.”

  Her comment made Brishen laugh outright, his fangs gleaming white in the room’s twilight. He reached for her braid and wrapped it loosely around his forearm. “Ah, my Ildiko, what a practical soul you have.”

  “I consider it an attribute, not a fault. More people could use a dose of practicality now and then.”

  He tugged on her braid. “I don’t disparage you. I find such a trait one of your charms.”

  The color of his eyes had deepened once more to the lamplight gold he’d shown her when he first woke. While Ildiko couldn’t track the movement of his eyes except for the slight jerk at the edges of his eye sockets, she had the sense his gaze touched long on her hair, her shoulders and neck, her bare arms.

  The fine tingle dancing along her skin transformed to a sizzle. Ildiko inhaled sharply as Brishen leaned close to nuzzle the sensitive spot at her temple with his nose. His breath tickled her ear. “One of many,” he whispered, and his words were a caress along her back.

  Brishen’s lips fluttered along the edge of her ear to her earlobe. Caught between the sensual beguilement of his light touch and the unconquerable fear that he might inadvertently snap off her earlobe with his teeth, Ildiko sat frozen, her breath riding through her mouth and nose in jagged exhalations.

  As if he sensed her wariness more than her desire, he pulled away slowly, shoulders rigid, face wiped clean of expression. He uncoiled her braid from his arm and smoothed it over her shoulder, his movements controlled and careful. He drew away from her in both body and spirit.

  Ildiko clutched his arm, unwilling to have him leave her side. “I enjoy your touch, Brishen.”

  The stiffness eased from his shoulders. He gave her a wry look and pressed his palm to the pale expanse of skin just below her collarbones. His hand rose and fell in quick time to her breathing. “I believe you, but this tells me you fear it as well.”

  She winced. “Your teeth are so...sharp.”

  “They are, but I’m not careless, wife. And if, for some unfathomable reason, I accidently bite you, you’re welcome to bite me back.”

  His attempt at humor worked, and Ildiko chuckled. “Brishen—” She offered him a toothy grin. “These wouldn’t do much damage.”

  He traced the line of her collarbones with the rough pads of his fingers, their dark claws a whisper of movement across her flesh. “You have obviously never been badly bitten by a horse.”

  Strange as the analogy was, she had no argument to rebut it. Instead she contented herself with lifting strands of his hair from his shoulder and letting it slide between her fingers. Brishen’s eyes drifted shut at the caress, and he shifted position so that he laid crossways on the bed, his head in her lap, his back to her.

  If they both didn’t have a hundred tasks to complete once they rose, she’d be content to stroke his silky hair for hours. A lock of hair snagged in her loose grip. “Sorry,” she said. “You’ve a few tangles back here.”

  “You can brush it for me when we get up.”

  Very clever, she thought. “I’ll brush your hair if you tell me about your first lover. Hopefully, the encounter was more memorable than mine.”

  She felt the tensing of his cheek on her leg when he smiled. He stayed quiet, and she pulled on one of his tangles. “I told you a past tale, Brishen. Your turn.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather hear about how my nurse caught me practicing how to write my name by pissing on my bedroom walls?”

  Ildiko rolled her eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. You just told me too much already.”

  Silent laughter shimmied down her leg. Brishen turned onto his other side to face her. His head pressed into her belly, warm and heavy. He took her hand and placed it back on his head. She took the hint and resumed carding his hair.

  “My first lover was thirteen years older than me and the most famous courtesan in all of Bast-Haradis. My father felt if anyone was to teach his sons the skills of the bedchamber, it should be someone well known for them.” Ildiko halted, and Brishen tapped the back of her hand to continue. “You asked,” he said.

  Ildiko wasn’t shocked by his revelation and in many ways understood Djedor’s logic. She twirled strands of Brishen’s hair around her finger, let it unspool and twirled it again. “I should have hired myself a courtesan,” she mused. Men, as well as women, sold their favors in Pricid’s flesh markets. Though how she might have sneaked one into the palace was another subject altogether.

  Brishen startled beneath her hand, and he sat up clumsily, half swaddled as he was in blankets and sheets. He gaped at Ildiko. “You are an odd creature,” he finally said.

  She wished for a lit candle so she might better see him in the slowly darkening room. “You’ll adjust,” she said in her sweetest voice and promptly swatted him with a stray pillow.

  He toppled to the side only to spring up, a matching pillow in his hands. “That is a declaration of war, Ildiko.”

  “Of course it is.” She took another swing at him with her pillow only to be interrupted by a pounding at the door.

  Instead of his servant’s voice as she expected, Brishen’s steward called from the other side. “Your Highness, the constable from Halmatus township has arrived and seeks an audience.”

  Brishen’s shoulders drooped, and he dropped his pillow with a sigh. “I’ve not wasted my hours here with you, wife, but I’ve matters to attend to, and no one waits at the leisure of a lowly prince who isn’t the heir apparent.”

  Ildiko shared his disappointment. She had a task list longer than her arm to take care of herself, but it didn’t lessen her regret at having to end these moments with Brishen. She knee-walked across the bed to him and slid her arms around his neck. “I owe you a hair-brushing,” she said.

  He enclosed her in a loose embrace. “You do. I’ll collect later. Count on it.” He kissed her forehead and lowered his arms. “Off with you. With any luck, we can share lunch.”

  She left him for her room, giving him a last glance and nod as he watched her leave from his spot in the middle of the rumpled bed. Her ear still tingled where he’d kissed her, and her back felt feverish at the memory of his touch.

  Anhuset’s quick tap on her shoulder brought Ildiko back to the present and the reality of horses, torchlight and Kai fighters trying to kill each other on a dusty training field.

  “Highness, do you want someone to summon him?” Anhuset nodded at Brishen still locked in martial embrace with his opponent.

  Ildiko flinched, barely able to watch. Someone was going to end up with a broken neck or broken something before this was done. “No,” she said. “Let’s leave. I don’t want to distract him, and I’ll see him soon enough at the house.” She turned her horse amidst the soldiers who accompanied them to the dye house. They followed her but stopped when she held up a hand. “Stay if you wish. We’re within the redoubt. I don’t need an escort.”

  She nudged her mount into a trot, Anhuset riding beside her. They weren’t far from the iron gates that opened to a manicured loggia and more orderly landscape. A flash of motion teased the corner of her eye. Ildiko turned in time to see Anhuset draw her sword, utter a swear word and resheathe the weapon.

  Brishen loped toward them, long legs flexing as he cut across their path. Ildiko had barely slowed her horse when he caught up, grasped her saddle pommel and landed behind her in a smooth, running mount.

  “That is the worst display of showing off I’ve ever seen,” Anhuset said in forbidding tones.

  “Of course it is.” Brishen wrapped an arm around Ildiko’s waist and pressed himself against her back. “I’m trying to impress my wife.”

  “I’m very impressed.” Ildiko flashed him a smile over her shoulder.

  Brishe
n’s hands wandered over the folds of her cloak. “Why are you damp? And you smell like salt. Did you fall into a dye vat?”

  “Dived in is more like it,” Anhuset volunteered in cheery tones.

  Ildiko narrowed her eyes. “You can leave now, sha-Anhuset. I’m sure Brishen can get me safely to the front door in the next fifteen steps by himself.”

  Anhuset’s unrepentant cackle echoed in the night air as she saluted and wheeled her horse back toward the outer redoubt.

  Ildiko guided her horse to a waiting groom. Brishen dismounted first, and Ildiko waved away his offer to help her down. She was perfectly capable of climbing off her own horse.

  Hoping to delay her confession and avoid showing off her new skin color to Brishen, she asked him about his wrestling bout. “Did you win?”

  “No. Nefiritsen is my best wrestler. He remains unbeaten in all matches so far. If any of us must face an enemy in unarmed combat, we want him beside us.”

  They entered the castle, passed through the great hall and climbed one of the two stairwells that flanked either side of the high-ceilinged chamber. Candlelight lit their way down the corridor. Ildiko didn’t stumble around in the dark as often these days, but she was glad for the candles and their anemic luminescence.

  She stopped in front of her door, turned to face Brishen, and adopted what she hoped was a nonchalant expression, especially when he was standing before her half naked. She tried not to let her avid gaze linger on him too long. “You’ll want a bath I’m sure. I’ll meet you later for a meal or some wine?”

  Brishen placed a hand over hers on the door latch. “You’ll not get rid of me that quickly, wife. My cousin said you dove into a dye vat. I’ll be on my way once you satisfy my curiosity.”

  Resolved to the inevitable, she motioned him inside. Sinhue was elsewhere, probably getting an earful from another servant or soldier about how Brishen’s homely wife tried to make herself more pleasing to the eye by dying herself pink. If horses traveled as fast as gossip, they’d blow their riders clear off their backs.

  Brishen laughed only a little when Ildiko removed her cloak, shrugged off her ruined tunic and revealed her arms, neck and shift dappled in varying shades of the summer rose.