by Deja Black
“Is sleeping. This is,” Cole paused. “Sunil.”
“Oh, Sunil. Yes, yes. We have questions. Many questions. Can you answer?” Cole looked at the time and back to the phone in his hand.
“Yes. Go ahead.” Hours later, Cole wondered how Raksha did it each and every day. There were questions ranging from school enrollment to housing to caring for an elderly loved one to settling yet another spat between siblings. Long into the morning Cole spoke with all the persons who kept changing as the phone was handed off again and again. And when he’d hung up, the phone would ring eagerly once more. Finally the calls ended, and Cole lay next to Raksha, thankfully drifting off to sleep himself.
When Cole woke the next morning, the bed was empty beside him. Looking around, he noticed a note on the pillow. He shook his head when he read that Raksha had received a call concerning a little one and needed to leave immediately. He’d be back as soon as he was able.
Sighing, Cole rose only to remember that today was his scheduled Sunday brunch with his mother. He sped through his shower when he picked up his watch and saw that it was after ten. He’d have to hurry if he wanted to make it to the Oak Table in time to pull out Vanessa Brightside’s chair.
Chapter Fifteen
“You look different, Cole.” His mother watched him, her blue eyes piercing. “Happy.”
Cole flushed. Coughing, he looked around. His mother had chosen well. But she always did. The low lighting in the restaurant added to the atmosphere. It gave the illusion of privacy those who chose the establishment desired. The food was always five star, the chef actually in residence periodically.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No, not bad, but definitely different. What’s happened?” His mother smiled at him warmly, and Cole was again grateful for the bridge they were able to cross.
He thought over how much to say. The one thing Cole enjoyed with his mother was their honesty and love, the two of them holding on to each other when the world fell apart over his father’s transgressions. He’d needed her and she him, and when a car accident killed Ansu, he thought they’d never recover.
“A friend of mine. We’re, um, reconnecting.” He supposed he could call Raksha a friend, but he was much more than that. He needed him, and he was beginning to think that Raksha needed him, too.
“Cole, I’ve never known you to stutter. Who is this friend?”
“His name is Raksha.” The fork his mother held clattered to the plate, and she breathed in sharply.
“Raksha? Here?”
Cole was taken aback. His mother was always composed, a rod of strength and calm. This was so unlike her. What did she know? “Mom?”
“Don’t look at me like that. Ansu—” His mother’s gaze danced around looking at the other diners, then returned to Cole—“told me things. When we adopted you from the temple, she convinced me that you had ties, responsibilities to the people there. I was so ecstatic to have you, so grateful to be a mother that when she told me of Raksha, I just went along with it. I had your father finesse paperwork and call in favors so that she could come with you, and not only her.”
“You paved the way for others?” The people that Raksha was struggling to care for crossed Cole’s mind.
“Through the years.”
She was going to be vague now, when years ago she knew this, knew what he’d been going through? Could have helped him?
“All this time. What about the doctors, the nightmares, and the times I had to stay in the hospital? Why didn’t you tell me I wasn’t crazy?” Cole’s voice rose an octave, enough to make those seated turn around and see the man whisper-screaming at his mother. When the server eased over to ask if anything was wrong, Cole shook his head.
“Sweetheart,” Vanessa touched his hand gently. “Your father didn’t believe me. I tried. I did. I’m so sorry.”
“All this time, and no one said anything.” Cole was furious, but more than anything, he was hurt. “Nothing. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We thought it would be best. I’m so sorry, Cole. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she pleaded.
“I trusted you.” Cole’s chest burned from the betrayal. So many years and medicine, a cocktail for the crazy kind who had dreams of monsters and a man who talked to him while he slept. And here, years later, to find out his mother knew the truth all along. She knew.
“Decisions had to be made, important ones, just as you have to make today.”
Cole looked up and saw his mother’s tears. She reached out to grasp his fingers.
Cole thought back to Raksha’s request for him to return to Nepal, to a place where he saw images of blood, his blood.
“Decisions that would take me to another world.” A world where he no longer belonged.
“You don’t have to go, Cole. You and Raksha could stay here.”
“He doesn’t want to.” Cole said. He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.
“Ansu said that something like this might happen, but she also said that changes could be made. Have you asked him to stay, Cole?”
No, Cole hadn’t. Even if he’d known Raksha a lifetime ago, he’d only met him this lifetime a few days ago.
Did he have the right ask him for anything? He looked at the woman he’d known as his mother all his life, the person he felt would never lie to him but who had been doing so since he was a child.
He didn’t know anything anymore.
Chapter Sixteen
Thursday arrived with Cole working hard. He’d texted the guys to say he’d be missing dinner, and he was on his fourth cup of coffee when Phillip popped in. Wearing a dark blue Brooks Brother’s suit with pinstripes, the black haired man cut a striking picture as he entered.
“Cole, I don’t know how he made it this far, but there’s a man out here that says he needs to see you.”
Phillip was flustered, and that was unusual in itself. He was an excellent assistant, unflappable and Cole was grateful to have him. Phillip had a way about him that eased the client before Cole met with them, or could calm the savage beasts that were his aggressive employees. With coffee in hand, he encouraged a tired Cole and shooed him home when enough was enough.
Cole respected him.
And right now, Phillip was worried. Cole set aside what he’d been working on, taking in Phillip’s wide brown eyes, the way he held his hand to his chest.
“A man?”
“Yes. He looks like one of those Hare Krishna people, all robes and calm faces, except he’s covered in muscles. Beads. I don’t know, but he needs to see you, and goodness, there’s something about him that makes me need him to see you, too. So, can you, Cole?” Phillip looked back, the bracelet Cole had given him for his birthday glinting as he waved a nervous hand about.
Cole stood and went to him, captured his hand. It was shaking. That kind of thing never happened.
“Send him in and go take a break, okay? It’s nearly three. I have this.”
Phillip’s eyes shot up, Cole able to see the flecks of gold in their depths. “I can’t just leave you.”
“You’re not. I have something I need.” He rattled off a few items knowing that would help Phillip snap back to himself. Listening, Phillip nodded and turned around.
“Got it. It should take me an hour or two. I’ll let Amanda know to check in with you while I’m gone.” Almost to the door, he turned back. “He’s out there waiting. I could—”
“No. I have it.” Following Phillip out, ensuring that he went straight to the elevator, he turned to face his guest.
The air rushed out of his lungs, and Cole nearly fell back.
Power ran over him like the eye of a storm, thrumming through his blood stream as the man rose, the brown robes he wore shifting as waves of energy crashed against his psyche again and again.
“You are needed, Sunil.” Dark eyes took him in, measuring him. The man was tall, broad and as muscular as Phillip had said.
“Cole,” he argued weakly.
“You are Sunil, whom time named before we existed. You will be Sunil always, no matter what you are called here.” Brown hands reached out to him, grasped him tightly and pulled him against him. “See your world as we knew you.” A hand touched his cheek, slid up to his temple and the world he knew now disappeared.
He was back in Nepal. He recognized it by the sounds, the scents, the colors all brilliantly blending together. Animals and people, happiness. He was happy here. He looked around, saw people on bikes, some horses. Dust flew as a van traveled by. There was a flash and he was there, again, at the waterfall.
“No,” he struggled. He didn’t want to see this. Couldn’t. “Please don’t make me go back.”
“You will see.” Sunil had the baby tiger in his hand, broken and bleeding, and was rushing to their home. This time, though, he could understand the words, words that froze his blood as he felt the pain from the first cut.
You cannot have him. I need him. He is my life.
You will die.
Take me. Trade my soul for his.
You would sacrifice yourself?
I would be nothing without him.
“These people, these murderers, they knew you, knew you kept the heart of our guardian. You gave your life for his.”
He remembered the fear on Raksha’s face, his screams for him to run, but Sunil hadn’t.
“Their reign has passed, and yet your fear of them still holds you prisoner.”
Cole wasn’t a prisoner. He had a job, took care of his mother.
“You are the guardian of a yeti, a creature of nature, but there is nothing living around you. Do you not feel the emptiness? You have nothing to care for, no animals, not even a plant. Doesn’t your soul ache?”
He wasn’t empty. Cole just didn’t need those things, didn’t need to watch something or someone else die. He didn’t want the responsibility.
He didn’t want the loss.
Cole’s vision dimmed, and he was in his office again, the man standing before him daring him to look away.
“While you work yourself to the bone in this office, your yeti exhausts himself handling the concerns of a selfish people. Neither of you have what you need. Each other.”
Cole hadn’t heard from Raksha in a few days. He’d missed him, wanted to see him, but he couldn’t make himself vulnerable. He was still angry with his mother, angry with anyone who could have made life easier for him as a child.
“The time has come for both of you to remove your walls, to let each other in. Both of you are unhappy, and the people Raksha loves suffer because of this.”
“He wants me to go to Nepal, to live there.”
“Nepal is here.” A hard finger pressed against his chest. “It is your job to show him this, that he can have the reality instead of the dream.”
The air changed when the man left, Cole staring at the elevator doors as they closed behind him.
Not realizing he held the phone in his hand, he called the last number Raksha had used to contact him.
“Cole,” a tired voice answered, a voice Cole knew and loved and wanted to hear next to him, sheltered in his arms.
“Come home.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cole drove home in record speed, sending a text to Phillip to tell him he was done for the day. He liked working at Mercer, the ability to work from home if he needed. Right now, he needed to be home. Pulling off of Broad Run road, he eased into his driveway a short time later.
Raksha sat on the stairs, his large body against a column, his hair disheveled, clothes wrinkled. He looked up when Cole parked and stepped from his car.
“Cole.”
“Sunil.” Raksha’s eyes opened at that then darkened with suspicion. “You are wearing Kamal’s scent.”
“Kamal?”
“The head priest here in Columbia.” Raksha didn’t stand, just watched as Sunil walked toward him. “What did he want?”
“To tell me to pull my head out of my ass.”
Raksha looked at Cole and away.
“Don’t do that, Raksha. Don’t shut me out.”
“I’ve been thinking that this is too much for me, this life here filled with its rules and secrets. I have children who can’t get in school, others who are having a hard time finding work.”
Cole stepped closer, knelt at Raksha’s feet. “I want to help you with that.”
When Cole touched him, Raksha’s breath caught, but he pulled his hand back and away. “There are too many questions to answer, and I don’t know how what paths to take.”
Cole thought of Phillip, Phillip who knew the answers before Cole knew the questions.
“I have people and the resources to make that easier.” Cole reached over, took Raksha’s chin in his hand and brought those glorious blue eyes to his.
“My beast aches here. I have no place to set him free.”
Cole lifted and kissed Raksha, slipping his tongue in between his lips and tasting the bright sky and clean crisp air of a place where they were joyful once. “I can show you places, take you there.”
Raksha’s quiet sighs were wonderful to Cole, little gasps as Cole sucked on his tongue, making Cole eager for more of his touch, for his hands to be wrapped around Cole’s body drawing him close, to feel his power overwhelm him, take him, shelter him.
“I need you, Sunil.” Raksha’s groan was heavy with his desire for Cole. “I have always needed you, but I began to doubt, to worry that maybe I was too late, that I couldn’t recapture what we had. My responsibilities are too great.”
Cole stood and reached out a hand. “Raksha, I don’t need what we had. I need what we have. Come with me. Let me show you how much I need you, too. Then, we need to talk. About your responsibilities. About us. About everything.”
Raksha looked at Cole for a long time, his eyes searching Cole’s. When Cole’s mouth slowly turned up, Raksha smiled tentatively. “We will talk.”
Raksha’s hand was warm in his own, the heat pressed against his skin removing the chill in the air.
Chapter Eighteen
Raksha’s skin was smooth all over, but there were places, ripples and swirls in the flesh that paused Cole’s fingers as he took his fill.
His lover had suffered, had been broken and torn, but he’d survived to return to him.
“Don’t cry, Sunil.”
He hadn’t realized his cheeks were wet, that tears had fallen. “So many places. I had no idea.”
“With you, the pain is a fleeting memory. The now I have with you will last forever.” Raksha reached up, placed his hand behind Cole’s head and brought his lips to his. Oh, the man kissed him so well, so completely, it was mind blowing.
When Raksha released him, Cole gulped in air. “The way you kiss me, I don’t know how I’ve survived without your lips against mine.”
“That is no longer a worry for you.” Raksha’s confidence was back, as if the sun had risen again, its rays brilliant and awe inspiring. He spread his legs, and Cole needed. “Will you take me, Cole?”
Cole looked at his man, his mate, at the way he held himself wide, the fine, dark hairs around his opening, his long legs, and his wide feet. Then he looked at the muscular pecs, the nipples hard and eager for his mouth on them.
“I will take you, Raksha. Again, and again.”
Raksha moaned when Cole’s teeth clamped around his nipple, Cole alternating tugging and sucking then sharp bites.
“Oh, Sunil. I can’t. The way you... Sunil.”
The power he had over Raksha made him drunk, the way the man writhed beneath him, lifting for more of him, more of his mouth, more of everything, the constant throaty panting spurring Cole on.
Cole moved to take his lips again, drinking in Raksha’s cries then traveling to his neck where he sank his canines in until he felt the blood rushing through Raksha’s veins.
“Argh.” Raksha’s whimpers were glorious, but Cole wanted so much more. He wanted all of him.
“You sound so good to me when
you do that. It’s like music. But it’s your screams I want to hear. I’m going to make you fucking scream, Raksha.” Raksha’s eyes widened, then Cole knelt between those massive thighs and opened his ass cheeks, exposing his furled hole. Thrusting his face into the man’s warmth, he sank his tongue inside.
Raksha shouted his name loud, the vibrations of it crashing against the ceiling as Cole sucked and bit his ass, plunging his tongue in again and again.
His name chanted was empowering, made him want to do all sorts of things to Raksha as those powerful hands gripped his head pushing him deeper.
“So good. You are so good to me, my love. Deeper. More.” Raksha moaned, and Cole reached up, grasping Raksha’s thick dick in his hand and running his thumb up the center and over the top. Raksha shook, and his hands were gone. Cole glanced up to see him watching him, disbelief in his eyes. “Sunil. This. You.”
His mate’s inability to make complete sentences meant they were on to something.
Taking a thumb, he pressed it beside his tongue and eased it inside, stretching Raksha’s hole, preparing him. Raksha’s breathing paused and then sped as Cole slid more fingers into Raksha’s spit-soaked opening. Raksha gasped and his legs opened wider to make room for Cole while he lifted his ass to receive more of Cole’s touch.
“More, Sunil. Not enough. Never enough.” Cole knew Raksha needed him to take over, to show him it was okay to let go, and Cole could give him that, give him everything. He reached down to his own dick, stroking it, anticipating the way Raksha’s ass would welcome him, envelope him.
He rose over Raksha, placed his hands beneath his ass and pulled him forward.
“I love you, Raksha.”
He pressed his cock against the slickened hole and smiled as Raksha’s blue eyes fluttered open taking him in.
“There you are, beautiful. Watch me take you, own you.”
Raksha’s mouth opened, his words a whispered prayer as Cole pushed inside, the head of his dick finding its way home.