Cathari revealed
“Your house is so nice, Tali,” Taghrid commented with a smile as she cast an appraising look around the living room. “So many pretty things.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, lowering her eyes demurely. “I can’t take credit for the décor though; it’s mostly wedding gifts.”
“But you arranged it all,” Taghrid pointed out. “And I remember you telling me when you ordered the furniture. Is this velvet? I love the color. It goes beautifully with the wood,” she added running her fingers over the glossy carved contours of the art nouveau inspired fainting couch Taline had specially ordered.
Ezio hadn’t even blinked at the price when she sheepishly showed him the furniture maker’s estimate. The only thing that matters is that you like it, Mogliettina. She still couldn’t believe he’d let her buy it all.
“Are these your parents?” Taghrid asked, studying one of the pictures on the mantel. “That dress! All that needle lace must have cost a fortune!”
“My mother was a lacemaker, in a shop, before her marriage,” she replied, taking the framed photograph from Taghrid’s hands and placing it back on the mantle. “I think her fellow shop girls helped her. Most of the lace on the dress is machine made, but her veil was entirely hand worked needle lace.”
“That’s amazing. Did she teach you to make lace like that?”
Taline shook her head slowly, unable to look away from the picture of her parents. They looked so happy.
“She never had the chance; she died of childbed fever shortly after I was born, and my stepmother, when my father eventually remarried, wasn’t very skillful with a needle. I doubt she would have taught me even if she had been; she didn’t like me much.”
“And you even have an evil stepmother,” Taghrid laughed. “Like the girl from that grim German fairy-story.”
“What fairy-story?” She tore her eyes from her parents’ wedding picture to cast a confused and expectant look at her friend.
“I don’t remember it all very well – those Germans tell such convoluted, nonsensical tales – but there was an evil stepmother who sent her stepdaughter into the woods on an errand and then sent a huntsman in after her to kill her and bring back her liver to prove the girl was dead,” Taghrid replied with a smile. “The huntsman didn’t kill the girl, of course, and somehow she ended up asleep in a glass coffin until a handsome prince kissed her awake. You could be the girl from the story, you know. You’ve had enough wild adventures,” she added with a laugh and a friendly, teasing look.
“Hardly.” Taline returned her friend’s smile. It felt tight and brittle, but Taghrid didn’t seem to notice. “We should start cooking soon.”
“You’re right,” Taghrid agreed with a swift glance towards the basket of groceries they’d bought in the souk. “That fish is fresh enough, but it still might turn if we just leave it to sit at room temperature much longer.”
“And you’re sure Ezio will like it?” Taline asked hesitantly. She had wanted to try preparing a game bird, but Taghrid had insisted on fish – lent will be starting soon, and isn’t your husband Catholic? She wasn’t sure what lent had to do with what Taghrid taught her to cook that evening; besides, she hadn’t gotten the impression that Ezio was very devout, anyway.
“He likes Persian sturgeon, doesn’t he?”
“He doesn’t seem to dislike fish,” she admitted carefully. In all honesty, she had no idea how Ezio felt about fish, but she had noticed that they’d never had it when he ordered private meals for them; he usually ordered duck.
“He’ll like it because you made it,” Taghrid insisted.
She wasn’t so sure; he hadn’t liked the coffee she’d made that morning, although he had tried to avoid saying so.
Taghrid noticed her hesitation and smiled reassuringly. “Why don’t you light the oven while I set out the ingredients?”
She blushed and studied her hands. “I don’t know how.” She glanced up at Taghrid after a painfully long stretch of silence and found her friend staring at her and blinking slowly in consternation.
“You don’t know how to light your oven?”
“No,” she admitted sheepishly.
“But you made coffee for your husband this morning?”
“Yes… but I don’t think he liked it-”
“How did you boil the water?”
“What?” She moistened her lips nervously.
“How did you boil water to make coffee if you don’t know how to light your stove?” Taghrid asked slowly, carefully. “Did you use magic?”
She tipped her chin in the barest nod. Don’t let the others know what you can do, it’s not safe, Altaïr had warned her. But Taghrid’s not one of the others, we’re friends; she’s different. Isn’t she?
“You don’t have a blade … or a wand … what are you, Taline?”
She took a deep breath. We’re friends.
“I am a child of the Maker; a daughter of the Dark Mother.” The breath of silence that followed her words felt like an eternity. “Magic doesn’t require a tool, if you really know how to use it,” she continued softly as she picked up a lemon, cradled it gently in the palm of her hand, and tapped into the energy coursing through the fortress, letting it run through her like a conduit. It felt good, better than she had expected; the energy of Alamūt was purer and stronger than any magic she had ever channeled before. It would be terrifyingly easy to open herself to it too much, to let it consume her.
“I’m no danger to any of you; I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to make a life for myself.” She concentrated her magic on the seeds within the fruit, felt them swell and burst with life. She heard Taghrid’s breath catch as delicate green shoots burst through the skin of the lemon, racing upwards to unfurl anemic green leaves.
“Cathari,” Taghrid breathed, one hand pressed to her abdomen, instinctively protective of her unborn child. “Does Ezio know?”
“Does Andreu know you’re a squib?” she countered then bit her lip when Taghrid’s forehead puckered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. He knows – of course he knows – he’s known all along, before he even asked me to marry him.”
“That makes sense,” Taghrid said slowly with a thoughtful frown. “Who else knows?”
She shrugged and watched the lemon shoots continue to grow. “You. Ezio’s cousins and sister. Al Mualim. Presumably the other Masters.” She shrugged again. “His mother and uncle know he married me, at least, but I have no idea what else he’s told them. Or what Mari’s told them,” she added with a consternated sigh.
“How many of those people were ones you told?” Taghrid asked, bending over to pick up the basket of groceries.
“Just you.” She set the lemon in the sink and briefly turned on the water to moisten the feathery roots the shoots had sprouted.
“You didn’t tell Ezio?” Taghrid heaved the basket onto the counter and rubbed her lower back. “I get so easily winded lately; it’s like the baby wants me to be lazy.”
“Ezio found out,” she replied as she began unpacking the groceries.
“That sounds like the makings of a story-”
“I don’t like talking about it,” she quickly interrupted her friend. “I’m sorry.” She knew Taghrid was harmless, but she had a habit of digging for explanations that was decidedly unsettling. You’re just being paranoid, she chastised herself. Some habits were harder to shake than others.
“Then we won’t talk about it,” Taghrid replied as she unwrapped the fish. “Easy as that.”
“Easy as that?” she repeated dubiously.
“I’ll just make up a story in my head. One where the pet goat you claimed you’ve never had makes an appearance and gives you away,” Taghrid smiled. “I really should start writing these down. I could become a modern day Šahrāzād with you as my muse.” She selected a paring knife from the knife block on the counter and scraped the blade over the pad of her thumb to test the sharpness.
Taline washed the large fig leaves and herbs they’d gotten in the souk as she watched Taghrid light the gas oven from the corner of her eye.
“I should learn how to do that, if I’m going to cook regularly,” she commented when her friend joined her at the counter.
“You should,” Taghrid agreed. “But I’ve never had a new stove and I wanted to know how it would feel to light a pilot light for the first time.”
“Did it measure up to your expectations?”
“Not really, but maybe that’s because it’s not mine. I imagine it will feel differently to light my own brand-new stove for the first time,” Taghrid mused and Taline felt a hot flash of embarrassed guilt at her unearned good fortune.
Taghrid should be the one with the new stove and entirely modern kitchen; she’s a real homemaker, whereas I’m just a sham. She felt like a fraud standing there in the kitchen, surrounded by culinary tools she didn’t know how to use and food she had no idea how to prepare. She watched Taghrid slice a lime into perfect thin rounds.
“You do the other one, Tali,” she said, handing her the knife and a lime. “Careful and slow; that knife is wonderfully sharp.”
She cut a few slices off of the lime. They were thick and uneven. She gripped the knife’s handle tighter – espresso-black dark wood, polished satin smooth – and carefully continued slicing the lime into rounds. Taghrid glanced up from patting dry the herbs Taline had washed and smiled encouragingly.
“Try to cut those a little thinner, but otherwise they look really good so far.”
“No, they don’t.” She set the knife down and morosely studied her handiwork. “You’re just saying that to be kind.” The smell of the raw fish was beginning to churn her stomach and her mouth watered ominously.
“Have you ever cut a lime before?” Taghrid asked, getting a large bowl down from the shelf.
“No,” she admitted as she accepted the bowl Taghrid handed to her. “What’s this for?”
“You. You look like you’re about to get sick.”
“I’m not-” Her stomach inopportunely chose that moment to heave and she was forced to make use of the bowl.
“Sit,” Taghrid ordered, taking the bowl from her and pointing to one of the seats in the breakfast nook. Her legs felt rubbery as she obeyed. “I’ll make us a pot of ginger tea.”
“I’m sick to death of ginger tea,” she grumbled. “I’ve drunk almost nothing but ginger tea for the last month.”
“How far along are you?” Taghrid asked, rummaging through the cabinet in search of the tea. “A few months?”
“About twelve weeks, according to the hekim,” she replied, getting up and filling the glass pitcher she and Ezio used to boil water. She set the filled pitcher on the counter and laid a hand against the side, focusing her magic and willing the water to boil.
Taghrid hummed thoughtfully as she measured loose ginger tea into the small metal infusion basket. “You’ve got another week or so before the nausea clears up then – based on my recent experience, and what every older woman I meet on the street tells me.”
“Wonderful.” She poured the boiling water into the teapot then picked up a slice of lime and inhaled the citrus scent deeply, trying to will her stomach to settle. “Ezio thinks I’m too thin. He’s constantly trying to feed me, and it feels like such a waste of money because I know I’m just going to throw it all back up.” She sighed and rubbed her temple. “He was talking about ordering strawberries for me this morning, and-”
“Strawberries!” Taghrid exclaimed with an incredulous laugh. “At this time of year? It’s still too early; they’ll cost a fortune.”
“I know,” she moaned. “It’s so wasteful. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Any chance you could just slip them to me?” Taghrid joked. “I’d happily shoulder your burden of eating fresh strawberries.”
“I wish I could just give them to you; you’d get far more enjoyment from them than I will. I can’t enjoy eating anything anymore without worrying about how unpleasant it’ll be when I throw it back up.” She carefully got teacups and saucers down from the cabinet.
“Can’t you keep anything down?” Taghrid’s brow furrowed with concern as she poured her a cup of tea.
“Ginger tea.” She smiled wryly. “Usually oatmeal. The elf will make it for me in the middle of the night, after Ezio’s gone to bed, so I’m allowed to eat it plain. But I have to eat fast; he wakes up when I’m not beside him, and then he wants-” She caught herself and took a large gulp of too hot tea.
After the cruel gossip she’d endured after Ezio brought her within the walls of Alamūt, she avoided any mention of how painful intercourse still was for her, and had not confided in anyone, aside from her doctor, about the voraciousness of her husband’s sexual appetite – which only seemed to be intensified by her pregnancy. Ezio loved that she was pregnant. He was always touching and kissing her abdomen and trying to force her to eat. Can I get you anything at all, piccola mamma? You’re so thin; I worry about you. Then he would want them to have sex. He always wanted to have sex, especially if he’d been drinking – which was most nights – and he became rough with her after a few drinks.
Taghrid watched her for a moment, smile stretched tight with sympathy. “You remind me how very lucky I really am, and that I shouldn’t envy you anything.” She reached over and squeezed her shoulder affectionately.
Her breath caught when Taghrid’s kindly gesture pressed against her freshest bruise. Ezio had been writhing with a nightmare when he grasped her shoulder in a crushing grip. Her cry of pain had woken him, and he’d been beside himself with remorse and a darker something that raised the hair on the back of her neck in warning; it had taken well over an hour to soothe him back to sleep. Taghrid noticed her reaction and looked uncomfortable. Sometimes, she wished Taghrid would just ask her instead of assuming the worst. You have to know he doesn’t beat me, she longed to say, but it would sound like a lie if she just blurted it out unprompted and she had no idea how to get Taghrid to ask her directly.
“I’ll get the fish ready, Tali,” Taghrid said softly. “You should sit and rest. I’ll talk you through everything I’m doing, that way you can learn something without setting off your nausea.”
“Thank you,” she breathed with relief.
The smell of raw fish made her stomach churn as she watched Taghrid bone, skin, and season. She inched close enough to lend a finger – and sometimes a whole hand – as Taghrid folded the fish filets, together with the fresh herbs and lime wheels, into the fig leaves and secured each packet with a length of twine before quickly retreating again to open the kitchen window.
“-place the packets knot-side down in the baking dish,” Taghrid lectured, matching actions to her words – “-then add the cooking liquid, and bake for 20 or so minutes. Do you think you’ll be able to handle that on your own, Tali?” she asked anxiously. “I’ve got to get home; my mother-in-law is making dinner for us tonight and I don’t want to leave her unattended in my kitchen for too long.”
“Of course,” she replied, projecting far more confidence than she actually felt. “You’ve told me how it is when Andreu’s mother visits; please don’t let me keep you.”
She walked Taghrid to the door while expressing her gratitude for the cooking lesson and then wished her an affectionate good night. She glanced at the clock and calculated that she had time for a quick bath before she needed to put dinner in the oven. It felt wonderful to soak and scrub in the large enameled tub; she would have lingered longer but she was rapidly running short on time to get dinner ready before Ezio got home. She kept the kitchen door tightly closed and the window thrown wide open while the fish was baking to keep the kitchen aired out. The elf burned some dried sage to purify the air after the fish and tender roasted asparagus spears came out of the oven.
The dining room table was set with glittering cut crystal glasses, polished silver and her parents’ fine china, which Ezio had brought back with him from Armenia; the linen was a soft snowy white. After twenty minutes of waiting, she blew out the candles and took the meal she’d helped prepare back to the kitchen to keep it warm in the oven while she waited on her husband. After another ten minutes had passed she lit a fire in the living room grate and got out her students’ latest tests to grade and then started entering their scores into her gradebook. An hour later, when she had almost finished imputing the last of the test scores, Ezio came through the door, carton of strawberries in hand.
“Ciao dolcezza! I brought the strawberries I promised you this morning,” he greeted her brightly as he strode over to kiss her, seemingly oblivious to the time.
“It’s late, Varpet; where were you?” she asked slowly. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach at the stale scent of lavender water that clung faintly to his clothes; Ingeborg had worn that scent when she and a handful of Ezio’s other German students came to their house for one of the training dinners all Masters were expected to host from time to time.
“At dinner,” he replied, quirking his brows in confusion. “Why didn’t you come down to the dining hall, Mogliettina? Did you decide to eat with your friend? I wish you’d have let me know. I looked an utter fool waiting on you, especially since you never came.”
He forgot, she realized with a sinking feeling in her chest. All that work for nothing. The roasted asparagus would keep, but she was definitely going to throw out the fish. It probably wasn’t very good, anyway. She had no idea what she was going to tell Taghrid when she inevitably asked how dinner had gone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her throat felt tight and her vision was going hot and blurry. She took the carton of strawberries from him. “I’ll put these away.”
“Taline? Mogliettina, what’s wrong?” he asked, trailing after her. He stopped short at the kitchen door. “What’s that smell? Oh mio dio…” He was staring at the baking dish of fig leaf wrapped fish the elf had, presumably, taken back out of the oven when he’d come through the front door. “You cooked.”
She started crying at the horrified expression on his face. “Does it really smell that bad?”
“What? No! It smells fine! Great, it smells great!”
Even through her tears she could tell he was wrong-footed and backpedaling. She pushed past him and went to the dining room to put the china away. He followed her.
“Oh, Mogliettina,” he sighed at the sight of the fully set table. “All this work. You should have told me you were planning this.”
I did.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out as she stacked the plates and silverware in preparation to put everything away. I should leave it for the elf. She piled the utensils back on the table, but decided to put the china away herself; she’d be devastated when the delicate porcelain was damaged and it didn’t feel right to place that burden on anyone else.
“Leave the plates,” Ezio murmured, silently moving behind her.
She felt his hands stroking her shoulders first, and then his lips brushed the side of her neck. She exhaled shakily as he slid the pins from her hair, letting them drop with soft metallic plinks on the hardwood floor, and nuzzled against the hinge of her jaw. He nudged his fingers through the uncoiling tresses of her hair to scrape the blunt tips of his nails against her scalp as he brushed open-mouthed kisses against the side of her face and neck.
“Have you eaten, Mogliettina?” he asked huskily, breath hot and moist against her suddenly hypersensitive skin. “Shall we sit down to the dinner you made?”
“You’ve already eaten,” she protested, and then bit her lip to keep from moaning. She could feel her nipples hardening against the slightly too tight-fitting fabric of her brassiere as Ezio worked his other hand up her thighs, beneath her skirt.
“Not much.” He rubbed his cheek against hers. “I spent most of dinner waiting for you-”
“And with Ingeborg,” she blurted out before she thought better of it.
He sighed. “She sat next to me, Mogliettina. It’s just an infatuation; she’ll get over it. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’m sure it means something to her.” She didn’t know why she was pushing; she didn’t want to provoke his temper. Ezio nudged against her, wordlessly encouraging her to widen her stance; she pressed her thighs more tightly together, mildly embarrassed by the swiftness of her body’s response to him.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” he insisted, fingers tracing careful circles down the front of her panties. “I’ve had students with crushes before. There was one, in Roma – povero ragazzo malato d’amore – that was downright embarrassing until he got over it. I only want want’s mine. I only want you. Open for me, like a good Mogliettina…”
“I’m hungry, Varpet,” she protested. “Please.”
“Then we’ll have to feed you. Do you want to eat in here or the kitchen?” He withdrew his hand from beneath her skirt to caress her abdomen.
She turned in his arms to face him, arms sliding around his waist as she pressed her cheek to his chest. “The kitchen would be easier.”
“Kitchen it is then.” He lifted her like she weighed nothing.
“Put me down, please. I can walk,” she protested as Ezio maneuvered them through the doorway.
“But I like having you in my arms, Mogliettina,” he countered with a smile. “There’s something so satisfying about carrying your woman.”
Her ankle struck the doorframe with a hard crack that sent undulating waves of pain up her leg. She closed her eyes and swallowed swiftly to keep from crying out. Ezio quickened his pace into the kitchen, maneuvering the kitchen doorway with far more care than he had used previously, and deposited her on the edge of the built-in bench of the breakfast nook.
“Oh Mogliettina, I’m so sorry,” he murmured as he squatted on his haunches and carefully removed her shoes and stockings. She inhaled sharply when his fingers brushed against where her injured ankle was most tender. His expression darkened and he pivoted to drag over the step stool she kept in the kitchen for when she needed to reach something on a higher shelf. “Put your foot up on this while I prepare a cold compress.”
“Varpet, it’s fine. Please don’t-”
“No arguing or I’ll carry you over to the infirmary right now,” he replied sharply as he rummaged through various drawers, seemingly chosen at random. “I should anyway. It might be broken and we shouldn’t wait until morning to find out.”
“It doesn’t feel bro-”
“How would you know?” he demanded savagely. “Have you had many broken bones before? Dio cazzo dannazione! Where are the towels?”
She nervously moistened her lips before pointing to the drawer he hadn’t looked in yet. “There. Please don’t be angry with me, Varpet.”
“I’m not.” He yanked a towel out of the drawer, stalked over to the sink, and soaked it under the tap.
“You sound-”
“I’m not,” he snapped, scrubbing a hand across his face. He sighed and cast a freezing charm on the wet towel before folding it over. “Is it swelling, Mogliettina?”
She leaned slightly forward for a better look at her ankle. “Only a little,” she admitted softly.
“That’s something,” he murmured as he crossed the space between them and applied the cold compress. “It would be a lot more swollen by now if it was broken.”
“You have a lot of experience with broken bones?” she asked hesitantly.
“I am a Master,” he replied simply as he rose. His face was strangely blank as he studied her. “Is there just the fish and asparagus for dinner?”
“Y-yes.” She watched him through the fans of her lashes with a growing feeling of disquiet. “Should I have made something else as well?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily. I probably eat too much chelo anyway.”
Her heart sank. She didn’t know how to make chelo, although it was obviously something she should prioritize learning; everyone she had meet in Ezio’s family seemed exceedingly fond of any form of rice.
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be, piccola mamma, sometimes it’s good to have a lighter meal for a change,” he interrupted her as he retrieved two glass plates from the shelf and set them on the counter. She nervously gnawed on the edge of her bottom lip as she watched him serve them both fish and roasted asparagus. He didn’t ask her how much she could, or wanted, to eat. He cut the strings securing both pieces of fish with his blade and threw them away but didn’t unwrap the fig leaves.
“You made such a fancy dinner for just us two,” he commented as he set the plates down on the table and took the seat across from her. “Is it for some special occasion I don’t know about, Mogliettina?”
“No,” she said softly, picking at the brittle edge of a fig leaf. “I just wanted to make something nice for you. I know you liked the things Cristina cooked-”
“How do you know that?” he asked sharply, suddenly defensive and prickly – as always – at any reference to Cristina.
She dropped her eyes and cursed her thoughtless comment. Her cheeks heated with an embarrassed flush as the silence thickened between them.
“I told you to stay out of my memories, cazzo cagna Catari,” he finally snarled as he shifted his attention to the meal in front of him, peeling away the crumbling fig leaves and prodding at the fish inside with the tines of his fork. “The fish is dry,” he added, tone hard as he delivered the petty jab.
She didn’t need to understand the words he’d used to know that she’d been called something hurtful, that he’d taken what she was and transformed it into a slur. It stung. She blinked, but not fast enough to stop the tears from falling.
“Stop crying and eat,” he commanded. “I won’t let you starve my child.”
He isn’t only your child, she thought with a sudden flash of anger. I am growing him inside me, making his body from my own. He is more my child than he will ever be yours, and he will be Cathari, just like his mother.
“Our child,” she corrected with steely softness, hands clenched in her lap as she stared at her plate. “And the fish wasn’t dry two hours ago when you should have been home, with me, instead of going to the dining hall and allowing some infatuated student to rub herself against you like a cat in heat.”
“Taline-”
Her stomach roiled at the smell of fish and her mouth watered ominously. She clawed the cold compress off her ankle and shoved away from the table towards the door. Hopefully she made it to the toilet before she vomited.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, launching himself after her. He snaked a hard arm around her waist and hauled her back, towards the table. “Sit down and eat, like I fucking told you, so help me-”
The extra pressure on her diaphragm was too much. She dropped her weight and doubled over as she retched bitter bile and ginger tea onto the pristine tiles of their kitchen floor. He didn’t hesitate, quickly smoothing her hair back from her face and securing it at the base of her skull with the tie from his own hair.
“Oh, Mogliettina,” he sighed, summoning the discarded cold compress to wipe the traces of vomit from her lips when she had finished before hauling her bodily into his lap. “Is there something else that would be easier for you to keep down? Eggs? Toast?”
“Oatmeal,” she managed to rasp. Her throat felt raw from throwing up so much.
“Just oatmeal?” he asked as he gathered her in his arms and rose to his feet. He struck his heel sharply against the floor twice to summon the elf.
“Clean this up,” he commanded when the elf almost instantaneously appeared. “And bring a bowl of oatmeal, with a side of butter, for my wife. We’ll be in our bedchambers,” he added as he carried her out of the kitchen.
“I’m sorry-”
“If it’s for throwing up, don’t be,” he interrupted her, kicking the bedroom door closed behind them. He dumped her on the bed and loomed over her with an imposing frown. “If you’re apologizing for invading my mind and riffling through painful, private, memories – you should be sorry. You have absolutely no right to betray my trust like that.”
She avoided his eyes as she got up and limped to the bathroom. He followed her. She continued to avoid looking directly at him and remained silent as she collected the implements to brush her teeth. He watched her for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then turned his attention to drawing a bath. Her stomach tightened with uneasy anticipation and the acerbic tooth powder Ezio seemed to like so much felt chalky as it foamed between her teeth. The sound of her rinsing and spitting was absorbed by the thundering rush of water filling their bathtub.
“Do you want me to wash you, Varpet?” she offered hesitantly.
“You’re bathing with me,” he coolly informed her as he dumped a scoop of bath salts into the water. “I like the intimacy.”
“I bathed just before I finished preparing dinner,” she said softly and watched his shoulders slump slightly. She hobbled over and began tugging at his clothing. He made no move to turn and face her. “Ezio?”
He pushed her hands away. “Go eat your oatmeal, Mogliettina,” he mumbled, toeing off his boots. He was wearing a pair of the socks she had knit for him while he had been away in Armenia. Her throat tightened.
“It will still be there after our bath.”
“I thought you had already bathed.” The muscles in his back rippled as he removed his shirt. She wanted to feel his muscles moving beneath her fingers as her hands slid over his skin. She quickly looked away as embarrassment heated her cheeks; she’d never had thoughts like that about anyone before she’d met Ezio. Must be his influence.
“I can bathe again,” she nibbled her bottom lip, hesitating a moment before she reached a decision and started to remove what remained of her clothing. Ezio shucked off his socks and turned to watch her as he slithered out of his trousers. She couldn’t help noticing that he wasn’t wearing underwear.
“Where are your small clothes Varpet?” she asked, surprising herself with her own daring.
He paused in the act of stepping into the tub to regard her thoughtfully for a moment. “At some point today I took them off and couldn’t be bothered to put them back on,” he teased.
“Were you with Ingeborg when you decided to take them off?” she demanded sullenly.
He sighed.
She stepped out of her skirt and winced as her weight shifted to her injured ankle. Ezio’s arm was immediately around her waist, supporting her.
“Lean into me, I’ve got you,” he murmured. He supported most of her weight while she peeled off the rest of her clothing and then lifted her into the bath. Gooseflesh erupted across her skin as she sank into the fragrant hot water with a contented sigh. He joined her, sliding his body into the water behind her like a hot knife through butter.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled as he twisted her hair up off her shoulders and secured it with the carved bone hairpin she’d left lying on the rim of the tub.
“It’s just a silly, one sided infatuation,” he reminded her soothingly. “Students will develop crushes on me-” he smiled mischievously and chucked her under the chin “-and on you. How many of your students are hopelessly in love with you?”
“My students are children,” she pointed out, listlessly tipping a handful of warm water over her chest.
“I’m sure a fair number of them would not appreciate being dismissed as such,” he chuckled and pressed a kiss against her shoulder.
“Barely more than children nonetheless.” She leaned back against him with a contented sigh, enjoying the warmth of the water and comfortingly solid bulk of his chest against her back. “Besides, they all know I’m carrying your child.”
“Did you announce it?” He’d taken her hand in his and was toying with her fingers, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the ring he’d had made for her.
“Of course not.” She lightly scratched her nails up his thigh; he hummed appreciatively. “They may be underage, but they’re still Assassins; they notice things, and then they gossip amongst themselves.”
“Gossip about what, I wonder,” he hummed.
“You, mainly, I should think.” She shrugged. “The students I teach Turkish are still trying to wrap their minds around a Master marrying a girl they think was just a squib cabaret dancer.” She felt his body tense beneath her.
“And the ones you teach math?” he inquired, tone light and teasing, but she heard the effort behind the façade.
“At the risk of overgeneralizing, the boys are flummoxed that someone as smart as me wants to be married to a fidā'ī brute like you,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “At least the ones who haven’t cynically decided that I married you to become a rich young widow.”
“And the girls?”
She brought his hand to her mouth and brushed her lips across the backs of his fingers. “I think they’re mostly delighted that I’m living proof their crushes on fidā'ī aren’t doomed to be nothing more than youthful fantasies.”
“Because if you can marry a Master than they can too?” he asked sardonically. He shifted his hips slightly and adjusted her weight on his lap. She tried not to notice the way he was hardening against her.
“Just so.”
He sighed and clumsily sluiced warm bathwater over them; she’d noticed his magic was far less controlled without the use of his blades. Lack of practice, she decided. Not lack of ability. She was fairly certain that, if he so chose, Ezio was more than capable of wielding powerful primal magic.
“If that’s all they see, they’re not very good Assassins,” he murmured, hands wandering. Her nipples were tingling from his caresses and her thighs drifted apart, inviting him to continue.
“They’re children,” she repeated, settling back against his chest to allow him better access to her body; so much depended on keeping him satisfied, and she was learning to enjoy some of the ways he touched her. “And hormonal teenagers, obsessed – mostly – with sex.”
He hummed in response and latched on to the side of her throat, nips turning into open-mouthed kisses which devolved into just sucking, until her skin was tender from the darkening love bite he was leaving. She stifled a discomforted sigh and stroked his cheek. He’s so possessive. She sighed again and slid her fingers over his scalp, through his thick hair, to grip the back of his head. He growled low in his throat and abandoned his love bites to slurp voracious kisses over every part of her his mouth could reach.
“Will you let me have your figa? I need it, Mogliettina, right now.” His hands became rough, demanding, as he groped her. “Please?”
She wanted to say no, but then she remembered Ingeborg’s catty smiles and sly innuendos and forced herself to smile over her shoulder at him.
“Of course, im hovatak,” she cooed.
Her smile felt tight and brittle, ready to shatter any moment. He sheathed himself inside her with a groan. She braced her hands against the rim on either side of the tub and focused on studying the brass tap with its carved horn handles, the thirteen petaled flower on the metal cover over the drain, and the way the light played over the copper tiles on the bathroom floor. Ezio repeatedly thrusted himself inside her, his iron grip on her hips convulsively tightening when he came. She exhaled slowly, painfully aware that he’d just given her her newest bruises.
“Santo Dio, you feel so good,” he rasped, rubbing his cheek against her back, between her shoulder blades. “No other woman has ever felt so good, Mogliettina.”
She turned to cuddle into him, sliding her arms around his neck and brushing her lips against his collarbones, the base of his throat. Ezio was usually in an indulgent mood after orgasms, willing to agree to everything she asked, so far, and something needed to be done about his infatuated student.
“I want you to send her away. Send her somewhere else to train; far, far away from us.”
“Send who away, Mogliettina?” he drawled, gaze heavy lidded and hands lazily roving over her body.
“Ingeborg.” She watched him through her lashes. “I want her gone.”
“Taline-” he sighed.
“I want her gone,” she repeated forcefully. “She wants you and she rubs my face in it by flirting and trying to seduce you right in front of me – like I’m not even there, like I don’t matter, like the fact that I’m carrying your child means nothing, Ezio-”
“You’re overreacting, Taline,” he soothed. “Don’t upset yourself over nothing, it might hurt the baby.”
“I don’t care! I want you to make an example of her. I want you to chastise her for disrespecting me. And then I want you to send her far, far away,” she insisted, pushing against his chest for emphasis.
“Students develop crushes on their mentors, that’s always going to happen. I can’t send away every student who forms a crush on me,” he gently reasoned. “She doesn’t matter. Don’t make a nothing into a something by drawing more attention to it than it deserves.”
“If you won’t deal with her, I will,” she stated softly. “And then everyone will know what I can do.”
That got his attention.
“Taline-”
“I mean it-” she opened herself to the energy coursing through the fortress, unfamiliar and intoxicatingly powerful, and let it fill her eyes and bleed through her voice “-if you won’t make an example of her, I will. I will make such an example that-”
“Hush,” he commanded softly, crushing her lips with his in a domineering kiss. She could taste more than arousal in his kiss; his magic felt like boiling water beneath his skin, roiling with primal urges to possess and protect. She opened her mouth at his urging and responded to his aggressive kisses with a studied hesitance designed to further inflame him.
“I’ll ask Selim to take her, until a permanent transfer can be sorted out,” he promised breathlessly against her lips.
She bit back her victorious smile.
“A permanent transfer away from Alamūt – and not to Italy,” she pressed, tracing his marriage scar with careful fingers as she syphoned more of her magic into him, fueling his need to possess and protect her. She knew the immediate effects of what she was doing were, more likely than not, going to be physically unpleasant for her – Ezio’s raging libido really didn’t need any encouragement – but she hoped the long term effects of what she was currently feeding would more than counterbalance the imminent discomfort she would have to endure.
“Yeah, Mogliettina,” he rasped, mouth moving with voracious hunger across her skin. “I’ll make sure she’s far, far away. Would South America please you, piccola mamma? One of Altaïr’s recent students has been elevated to Master in Argentina. I’m sure he’d be willing to put in a word or two to help.”
“Argentina sounds perfect, Varpet,” she hummed as he nibbled and sucked along her shoulder. “Let’s go to bed. We’re getting all wrinkly from soaking too long in this water.”
“Yeah, okay. That sounds good. I like taking you to bed, Mogliettina.”
He helped her out of the bath, dried them both with a thick towel, warmed over the radiator, and strapped his blades back on before carrying her to bed; she tried to protest, but he insisted. The elf had left the oatmeal Ezio had ordered for her on a tray beside their bed.
“Will you feed me?” she coaxed; it would keep his hands occupied with something other than groping her.
“Yeah,” he rasped, voice thickened and gravelly with desire. He stared at her mouth as he fed her every bite, his pupils so dilated that his eyes looked almost black. She also noticed the flush heating his chest and throat, hot flags of color splashed high across his cheeks, as she convulsively swallowed every bite he fed her. She was tension tight with anticipation and her body ached with it by the time the dish was empty.
“Feel better?” he asked, tone surprisingly gentle as he rested a hand on the swell of her belly. “Do you think you’ll be able to keep that down, Mogliettina?”
She tipped her chin in a shallow nod. “I think so, yes.” Her heart lodged in her throat at the beauty of his smile.
“Good. We both need you to be healthy and strong.” He slid his other arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss against her temple. “I can’t take you to my mother and uncle looking half starved, they’ll never let me have you back. I don’t think you want to be held captive in Italy, force-fed like a goose being fattened for foie gras, until our baby is born, do you?”
She shook her head and clung to him. That sounds like hell.
“You wouldn’t let that happen to me,” she murmured, watching him through the fans of her lashes. A wave of bile billowed up her throat when she noticed the way he twitched and hardened as she clung to him. She swallowed shakily and made herself focus on the sweetness of his smile and the gentle caress of his hand over her belly. His kisses were thick hot honey in her mouth, hands soft and gentle as he tightened the tension coiling inside her, and she was suddenly frightened when she realized what he was guiding her body towards.
“Ezio – it might hurt the baby,” she gasped, tearing her mouth from his.
“Giving you a thrill isn’t going to hurt the baby, Taline,” he replied soothingly, but she could hear the frustration and irritation buried in his voice. “Asad said the baby feels what you feel, so let me make you both feel good, okay? Let me take good care of you, just relax and let it happen-”
Relax and let it happen, that man had said.
Everything went blurry and confused as she shoved him away with all her strength. Stale cigarette smoke and acrid cologne burning in her lungs. The sound of flesh and bone colliding with hard wood. Hard hands holding her down, forcing her open. Ezio’s garbled exclamation of pain and shock. Shame and pain and guilt and fear. She squeezed her eyes closed and pressed the knuckles of her trembling fist against her lips.
“Jesus Christ! Che cazzo,” Ezio swore. She opened her eyes as he pushed himself up off the floor where he’d fallen after being flung across the room into their dresser and watched him wince as he gingerly felt the back of his head. He swore again at the sight of his blood on his fingers. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried not to cry.
“What the hell was that for, Taline?” he demanded. The mattress shifted beneath his weight a moment before she felt his hands on her shoulders and she steeled herself not to flinch at from his touch. His grip softened with palpable uncertainty as the silence stretched unbearably.
“He, that man, he used to say…” she choked out, tears spilling and scalding her cheeks despite how tightly she squeezed her eyes closed.
“What did that man used to say to you, Mogliettina?” he finally asked gently. “What’s wrong?”
“He said, relax and let it happen,” she whispered. “Every time, every time he-”
“He’s dead,” he reminded her, brushing the tears from her cheeks with the calloused pads of his thumbs. “I killed him and brought you his heart in a box, remember? He’s dead and he’ll never be able to hurt you again. You’re mine now, yeah?”
“Yes, Varpet,” she replied obediently, recoiling in surprise when his lips brushed hers.
“Mine,” he repeated, drawing her body close against his. “No one is ever going to touch you like that again. No one is ever going to hurt you like that again – as long as there’s a spark of life in my body, I’ll protect you, I promise. I promise. Okay?”
She nodded and hid her face against his chest. The thrum of his heartbeat against her cheek was almost hypnotic and the caress of his hands over her body strangely soothing as he pressed her against himself. They lay together like that for some time before Ezio huffed with discomfort and shifted his body in preparation to leave their bed.
“Ezio, no. Stay with me, Varpet,” she pleaded as she clung to him. “Please, please don’t go.”
“I’ll be right back, Mogliettina,” he reassured her, trying to detach her grasping hands. “I just need to take care of something and then I’ll be right back, I promise.”
“Take care of me,” she insisted. “Where are you going?”
He sighed. “To deal with this-” he gestured towards his turgid erection “-before it becomes any more uncomfortable.”
“Deal with it how? With who?”
“By choking one out myself – alone – in the bathroom,” he snapped. “Jesus, Taline! You don’t seriously think I’d go out, at this time of night, for a cheap thrill and then come right back to our bed? What kind of a man do you think I am?” He scowled at her. “If I go anywhere tonight, it would be to the infirmary to get this head wound checked out.”
She bit her lip and guiltily eyed the drying smear of blood on their bedlinens. “Let me take care of those for you,” she offered, cringing with embarrassment when he gently, but firmly, pushed her away.
“I think you’ve done enough tonight,” he replied dryly.
There was an edge to his tone that scraped across her already raw nerves like sandpaper. His rejection hurt her terribly. She also felt desperately lonely, vulnerable, frightened, and, confusingly, aroused. It was too much. She started crying.
“Taline,” he sighed. “Stop that. Please don’t cry, mogliettina.”
“Don’t go. Stay with me,” she begged. “I want to be a good wife, please. Please, Ezio-”
“You are a good wife, a very good wife-” he soothed.
“So let me take care of you,” she insisted, taking him in hand. He groaned low in his throat as she stroked, and she sidled closer to him. “I’ll take really good care of you, if you’ll let me.”
He brushed his thumb across her mouth, teasing her lips apart. “Will you?” he asked languidly, lashes heavy over hungry eyes. Her heart caught in her throat. She didn’t resist when he nudged her back, beneath him, let him take her again even though she was sore and aching. He held her afterwards, gentle kisses and soothing strokes, clever fingers teasing an orgasm out of her unwilling body. His blades glinted in the lamplight. She splayed a hand protectively across her belly.
Dark Mother keep us safe.