Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

47. Scorched by the Sun

It wasn't a question of if; it was a question of when. No matter how far we marched, how brutal the campaign or how meager the surroundings, cats materialized out of thin air to swirl around my husband's ankles. Divines only knew how they sensed that Ondrey couldn't live without one of their kind curled in his lap or stalking him from a corner. The local cat was a large, cadaverously thin beast.

"He must have wandered in from the village to check out the camp." Ondrey said blissfully, rubbing the cat's vibrating throat. "I chased him away, but he came back bearing gifts."

"Aha," I said, glancing at the twisted body of a dead lizard I had nearly stepped on by the flap of the tent. "Charming. Isn't the cats's purpose to catch rodents inside the dwelling, then murder them outside?"

I got a look imbued with mistrust from Killer. Ondrey got a love bite, urging him to step in and deal with the impudent human intruder. What Ondrey did was murmur peaceably.

"True, true, my heart. See, Killer is half-way there."

I sighed, stripping the cloak and the chain mail, and the padding, and the boots, and the vest, and the tunic. "Why didn't he eat the unfortunate critter? I can count his ribs."

"It's how they naturally are here, I think." Ondrey absently patted the triangular head, producing an agreeable meow. His eyes fixed on my emerging skin, my ribs, my breasts. "People are tall and skinny, and so are their cats. Must be the heat that makes them this dry."

The heat made Ondrey discard his shirt as well. The familiar and dear sight of his wide chest and mighty shoulders turning into even mightier arms evaporated the last vestiges of wine from my throat.

"Shoo," I commanded the cat and lowered myself on the blankets. Killer or not, he couldn't stop me from hugging my husband.

Ondrey nuzzled my neck. "There is a villa nearby we can hire to station the officers. I rode out to take a look. It has a cascade pool and a balcony overlooking it. Will be no problem to secure it—it's on a crag, the only road going up, fence, gates... a perfect stronghold if we have soldiers to spare."

I nodded, surrendering myself to the pleasure of listening to his breath, his heartbeat. My fingers traced a path through the fair hair on his chest. I twirled it in a glistening ring—he was sweating. We both were... the pool sounded heavenly. "Good idea, sweetheart. We'll need a safe place. The fighting promises to be cruel and bloody. Lots of hiding holes and proud people who hate us."

"What did the Queen say?"

I told him.

My heart palpitated again when the agent came up, an extraordinary pleasant ailment. "Oh, Ondrey! I might be this close to finally finding Parneres. Imagine that!"

Ondrey's wide brows creased. "I'll be fine to let someone else shoulder the junior husband duties, but Kozima turns sour every time we take to the field. If you plunk Parneres on his doorstep upon return, he's bound to go to pieces. And when he goes to pieces, Ismar, I want to be elsewhere."

I found his protesting mouth with mine and drew him into a kiss. They also tasted like local wine.

"If I decide to marry again, it will be with his formal blessing," I whispered into his lips. "Everything done by the Tenets. You're to be my only sinful secret husband."

Ondrey chuckled, and I had to lean back to catch the merry twinkle in his eyes. It made them almost blue, almost cloudless. In the Knowable World, he alone didn't think that the Divines appointed Kozima as my eternal lover. Everyone else prophesied that Kozima's soul would stubbornly emerge from the River Vash to find my reincarnation if I were to be reborn a thousand times. By some magic or curse, Kozima held a strange power to convince people of that without a single word. Foreigners and strangers took one look at him by my elbow—and their expressions told me it had afflicted them. They became believers. I was envied and I was castigated for marrying Ondrey.

And I loved Ondrey for many reasons. Among them--his immunity to Kozima's spell and for his discretion about the world being wrong. He took the scorn calmly. I loved him for his gorgeous brows too... bear's physique... the military talent he applied without resentment that his advance in the ranks was blocked by his sex... and the decisive way he made love.

He moaned his approval as I moved over him and caught his hips between mine. "Then again," he said, "it'll be the junior husband's job to put Kozima back together. They were friends with Parneres, weren't they?"

"They met each other." I rolled my shoulders, arched my back until my hair swung down, tickling my toes and his knees. So wonderful to be free of the suffocating armor. "Hold the horses, though. It might not be Parneres. Or he could be married to a powerful woman already."

Ondrey laughed, his body rolling between my thighs. "Married and sent to spy on the Scorpia Cult? The rumor has it that only mad Ismar puts her husband in terrible danger by dragging the poor sweet man into battles with her."

I kicked off my trousers, making sure they landed on the cat and buried him for a spell.

"I hear it's because her sweet man has a war fetish. They say he turns wildly passionate when there's a good fight ahead."

"That Ismar, she is clever... she knows her men..." His voice caught when his body spoke about being ready for me to take him in.

"Do you think it's Parneres?" I whispered, but he was too far into his pursuit of Indara's gift to answer. Or he pretended to be. But was it Parneres?