Slay, though…
“The one who taught me killed a living creature with her hands and her teeth,” Ashar murmured, pricking his fingertip with a jeweled pin and offering several drops of his own blood ina shallow bowl. “I couldn’t bear it. Nehal accepted my invitation regardless. I hope he’ll come when I call, but then, heisa cat-spirit.”
Chin propped on crossed arms and tail twitching, Kamil sneezed on a laugh that wasn’t entirely contemptuous, but wasn’t all that far off. “Blood spilled is blood spilled. If you’re fool enough to offer your own, what will he care? So long as you have good hands for petting and don’t take his meat from him…”
“I don’t eat meat, I’d never take his from him,” Ashar said.
“You’re fine,ya rafiq. More than that, you’re harmless.”
“May I borrow that?” Rahat asked, looking at the pin.
Ashar froze for a moment, thinking frantic things about royal blood spilled by his hand. “What poor host am I, to let you bleed in injury under my roof?”
Kamil huffed and offered a handful of claws, and Rahat touched a fingertip to the sharpest point, then let a few drops spill into the bowl.
The God-Emperor’s blood, spilled with mine, Ashar thought, staring at the bowl, a little staggered.
Kamil thwacked him solidly with his tail and Ashar startled despite himself, collecting his wits enough to reach for the dried herbs before Rahat could ask any inconvenient questions about his astonishment.
“Oh, we can’t forget—catnip too, of course!” Ashar took a pinch and rubbed it between his palms to set free the pungent lemon-mint scent. Kamil’s whiskers flicked forward sharply and his pupils flared wide, though he pretended indifference. Ashar sprinkled a bit at each of the octant-points, especiallyindulge, before laying a dried stem beside Nehal’s favorite soft blanket at the inscription fornap.
With the offerings laid, Ashar floated a candle to each of the points, honey-fragrant beeswax blended with wood spices forthe luxury of it. He murmured into Rahat’s ear, “Light them, if you would? Warmth and dancing light and enticing twists of smoke to be patted at; you see the appeal.”
Rahat spoke a word of power and all eight candles burst into flame at once, leaping high before settling in as the wax began to soften and scent the air.
“Now we wait?”
“Now we wait, and indulge, and sing,” Ashar said. He sprawled across Rahat’s lap and reached up to stroke fingers through his hair, grooming and cosseting.
“Sing,” Kamil said, ears flattened sideways. “Catfolk are not known for the sweetness of our voices,ya rafiq.”
“The purrs are charming,” Ashar said. “And the songs you sing have much more to do with passion. As you noted, passionisa language that I have some fluency in.”
Kamil’s ears went flat back, utterly nonplussed, and Rahat grinned at the chance to turn the teasing-tables for once. “Ah, Kamil, sing us the songs of your brethren, in the love-language you share with the master of the House of Jasmines!”
Kamil’s tail slicked tighter around his ankles, and a spiky ridge of fur ruffled from the nape of his neck all the way down his spine.
Ashar gathered his nerve and smoothed a gentle hand down Kamil’s back despite the startled sidelong glare it earned him. Kamil’s pelt was the same tawny gold as the wild lynxes in the desert, and just as thick and dense, but Ashar was delighted to discover it was much softer than it looked… not that Kamil would ever have admitted such a thing, of course. He likely would have admitted to the battle-scars Ashar felt under his fur, but not that his fur was as plush as velvet, or that he enjoyed being petted and groomed.
After a moment, when Kamil didn’t take his hand off at the wrist for his presumption, Ashar scratched behind the tomcat’slynx-pointed ears with the same touch he’d used to soothe Nehal that morning.
Kamil rumbled deep in his throat, but held very still, and his muscles unknotted almost despite himself as the scent of the catnip drifted through the air and Ashar stroked his pelt and made purring sounds as well as a human could.
One ear swiveling forward, Kamil grumbled, “I thought you said we had to sing passion.”
“I said we shared the language,” Ashar clarified lightly. “We can sing of anything. But if you’d like a song of your kinfolk…” He rolled the purring into a smoky, smoldering wail, with an alley cat’s brash confidence in the hand that scratched under Kamil’s chin.
Kamil’s claws dug into the floor as he gave a full-body shiver, purring an octave below Ashar.
Rahat put both hands over his mouth to stifle his giggles, but his eyes crinkled at the edges.
“Fine, he’s a skilled whorrrrrrrre,” Kamil grumbled, still with the purr thick under his voice.
“You admit that I chose my companion well!” Rahat said, bright with glee. He reached over to scratch behind Kamil’s ears, and the fierce bodyguard melted into a puddle of deeply purring bliss, sprawled between them both and shoving his head vigorously into his master’s palm, lethal claws kneading into the pillow like a kitten.
“Not fairrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…”
“You’re allowed to enjoy yourself,” Ashar said, finding the sweet spot between his shoulder blades. “You’re allowed off duty at times.”
