by Kate Roman
Ash glanced at him. “I feel fine. But you’re the doctor.” He leaned forward, bracing his arms against a rock, and looked back over his shoulder at Roy.
Roy almost groaned aloud. He splashed cold water over his face and rummaged in the pack for his medications, forcing his mind away from the youth’s innocent beauty. Ash was under his protection, defenseless out here.
Finally, ointment in hand, he turned back to the young man.
Ash grinned at him, a joyful, knowing grin with nothing of the innocent about it. “Come on. I’m getting lonely over here.”
Roy crossed to Ash and dropped to his knees…and frowned in confusion. Last night the welts had been angry furrows, burning with heat and inflammation. Even this morning they’d been swollen and weeping. But now, scant hours later, they were little more than raised red lines, cool to the touch and almost entirely healed over.
“Does this hurt?” Roy asked. He traced one of the marks lightly with the tips of his fingers.
“No, it’s a little sensitive. But not painful.”
Wondering, Roy slid his hand down Ash’s side, feeling for the broken rib. He’d seen strange things in this country, but he had never before encountered wounds that healed virtually before his eyes.
Ash winced slightly as Roy pressed at the sixth rib, but the bone felt solid. Roy probed gently, realizing as he did so that there was no break, merely bruising and at most a crack. No wonder Ash had managed the trek so well. Roy checked Ash’s other side, wondering if he’d been mistaken in his earlier examinations. Wounds might heal faster than he could credit, but nature did not heal bones overnight.
“You’ve healed remarkably,” he said at last, sitting back on his heels. “I can hardly fathom it, in fact.” He smoothed another measure of ointment over Ash’s back. He did not believe for a moment that the ointment alone was responsible for Ash’s recovery, but it would certainly do no harm.
Ash sat back and smiled, raising his arms above his head and stretching. “I feel stronger than I ever have, here. I feel…alive. Between that and your skill, I am not surprised that I am well.”
Roy laid out a blanket from one of the bedrolls, and they sat beneath the trees in silence, sharing the jerky. Ash was staring into nothingness, his expression inscrutable, and Roy watched him, wondering. This dark continent held secrets beyond the realms of science. Beyond the grasp of men at all. Roy had seen enough to know that. But wounds that healed overnight, lions who came and went with the wind…
Roy recalled Mambokadzi’s story, her insistence that a storm was coming.
“The land called the lions, and it gave them this child of men. It gave them the boy nobody would miss. And when the child cried, the lioness soothed him with her licks. When he was cut by the grasses, she made him whole again…”
Lion-boy. He looked at Ash, staring placidly into the bush.
Roy let go a long breath and whispered, “Kashiye.”
Ash looked up suddenly and grinned. “I was miles away.” His blue eyes were cheerful, no longer frightened, and as Roy looked closer, he saw flecks of gold in their depths. “How is it that you’re here? In Africa, I mean?”
Roy hesitated. “I came after the war,” he said slowly.
Ash laid a hand on Roy’s knee. “For a medic, that must have been beyond imagining.”
“I was in a bad way, but here, the people needed me. And I didn’t have to be anyone, answer to anyone. I could just…go away, when I needed to. That’s been my life for five years. It’s the only life I’m fit for anymore. I’ll never go back. This is who I am now.” Roy stopped, breathing hard. He’d never said that out loud before—never even really admitted it to himself—but he knew it was the truth.
“I’m glad,” Ash said in a low voice. “Because I very much like who you are. And I would like to spend a long time learning more about you and your world here. If you’ll let me, of course.”
Roy leaned forward. He looked deep into those strange, beautiful blue eyes, and then his lips met Ash’s. Ash leaned into Roy’s arms, soft and pliant, lips parting, inviting Roy in. He slid down, sprawling on the blanket, and Roy half fell on top of him.
Roy’s body burned with want for Ash. He fought to hold himself back, to keep his weight off Ash’s injured ribs, but Ash grabbed his shoulders, pulling him down, kissing him with sudden fierceness. Ash’s mouth was hot and hungry, fingers urgent on Roy’s back, raking at the skin. He bucked beneath Roy, hips grinding against Roy’s crotch, and Roy shuddered, control finally deserting him.
“Ash,” he growled, struggling with Ash’s borrowed pants. Ash fumbled with Roy’s waistband, and Roy sat back, panting.
Ash stared at him, eyes wide, looking slightly abashed.
Roy leaned down and kissed him again, soft and gentle this time, and unbuckled his belt. In a moment, he had Ash naked on the blanket, then quickly stripped off his own pants and lay back down.
With a soft, approving noise, Ash reached for Roy. Roy took Ash in his arms, holding him close, moaning as Ash’s hand slid down his body and found his cock. Whimpering his pleasure, he slid his own hand between Ash’s legs.
Ash was already hard, and at Roy’s touch, he cried out softly, bucking into Roy’s palm. Roy fingered his leaking slit, lubing him with his own juice, and slowly starting to stroke his shaft. Ash sobbed and bucked, taking up the same rhythm on Roy’s cock, and Roy groaned, thrusting his hips in time.
Moments later, Ash lost the rhythm, crying out, and Roy clasped him against his chest, holding on tight as Ash’s juice spurted hot across his belly. Ash shuddered and clung, then went limp in Roy’s arms.
Roy kissed him softly. Ash’s fingers were still wrapped around his cock, and Roy covered Ash’s hand with his own, starting to stroke. Ash gasped and moved with him, leaning into Roy’s shoulder, and Roy felt his orgasm growing deep within him, coiling like a spring.
He dropped to the blanket, head whirling as waves of pleasure crashed over and through him. He locked his arms around Ash, breathing him in, holding on until at last he felt the solid veldt beneath him. Slowly, he relaxed.
Ash raised his head from Roy’s shoulder and smiled shyly into his eyes. He didn’t say anything, just leaned up and kissed him, long and sweet.
They dozed away the remainder of the afternoon. Roy napped lightly, every sense alert for danger, while Ash slept peacefully at his side.
As the sun dropped lower in the sky, Roy came properly awake. The veldt was beginning to come alive after the heat of the day. He heard the bellow of a bull buffalo above the hum of insects and birdsong, and then the distinctive screech of a Bateleur.
He smiled wryly, scanning the skies. He wouldn’t put it past Mambokadzi to send Onai to check up on them. But the only things visible were a pair of go-away birds playing catch-as-catch-can, and high above, little more than a speck in the sky, a hawk of some kind, waiting.
Roy touched Ash’s shoulder gently, and the young man came awake instantly, rolling over and sitting up in one fluid movement. He stared for a moment, orienting himself, then relaxed and smiled. “Is it time?”
“Yes.” Roy grinned at Ash, his heart lifting. “Are you ready?”
They dressed again, packed away the blanket and supplies, and set off toward the foothills. They’d only been going a few minutes when Roy, scanning the veldt, saw a strange, telltale movement and pulled Ash down beside a nearby thornbush. “Look,” he said softly, close to Ash’s ear. Arm around Ash’s shoulders, he gently indicated. “Keep still.”
Ash watched, holding his breath, then exclaimed softly as the small herd of giraffes broke cover and crossed the grassland in their awkward lope. He watched, frozen, long after the animals had disappeared from view, and started when Roy got up.
“Oh! I’d never seen them before! Giraffe, aren’t they?”
“That’s right.” Roy grinned back and started onward. “You don’t see them very often in this area. Those were probably chased from their usual grazing by a predator.”
“Haywood has no idea of the land,” Roy said. “No respect. And that can be a dangerous thing out here.”
Ash looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
As they began climbing a rocky path into the foothills, the sinking sun was overtaken by gray clouds, boiling up from the south. The air remained still and warm, uncomfortable now, overwhelming the temperature drop that usually accompanied any change of altitude in the high tableland.
Roy stopped Ash with a hand on his arm. Looking around at the stony boulders and then the sky, he said, “There’s a storm coming up. Coming fast.”
Off in the distance, heat lightning crawled along the belly of the steel gray clouds, a brilliant white net cast across a portion of the sky. Roy nudged Ash. “Come on. We’ll have to hurry.”
Adjusting the straps on his pack, Ash nodded. “Lead the way. I’ll keep up, I promise.”
Roy met his gaze with a smile. “I know you will.”
The two men broke into a trot, moving quickly up the rocky path between the ironstone tors, leaping easily from boulder to boulder when the path disappeared entirely. Roy could hear the thunder now, rolling across the veldt from the direction of the spring they’d left several hours ago. It reverberated from every rock and hillside, the echoes of each peal seeming to last an eternity.
Roy was exhilarated. He’d never seen thunderstorms as wild as those in Africa. Not in Missouri, not in any of his travels, not in all the time he huddled in a damp Belgian trench, listening terrified as tanks and cannons split the world around him. Out here, he lived for each storm. They were so much more powerful, so much more destructive and uncontrolled than any invention man had created, that they almost gave him back his faith in the world.
And this one promised more violence than most.
With a wild yell, Roy leaped onto an ironstone boulder standing sentry against the storm. They had almost reached his cave, his hideaway. There, while men like the Haywood brothers quailed before nature’s power unleashed, he and Ash would be safe.
Roy turned and continued upward, scrambling onto a flat, muddy plateau halfway up an intimidating cliff face. Just then, the sky opened and torrential rain began. Within seconds, he was soaked to the skin.
Ash followed Roy’s lead, hoisting himself easily over the rock face and crawling onto the plateau next to Roy. He too was soaked from the downpour, and his sodden clothes clung to his athletic frame. Roy tore his gaze away as a crash of lightning descended from the clouds, striking close by their perch. Ash took a step back, behind Roy.
Roy turned his face to the sky and roared.
The thunder answered back, shaking the rocks Roy stood on. Lashed with rain, soaked and shaking with repressed emotion, Roy at last gave full vent to his feelings, letting his own cries and the noise of the storm drown out the constant stream of nightmares the war had left him with. His rage at Ash’s family, his frustration at their treatment of Ash, their lack of respect for the land he loved. Roy finally sank to his knees on the wet, sandy rock as his yells died away, swallowed by the storm. Roy wondered if he should feel ashamed at losing control in front of Ash. He hazarded a glance over his shoulder.
Ash’s eyes were on the storm, watching it thunder its way across the veldt toward them.
Roy wiped streams of rainwater from his face with the back of a hand, then flinched at an unexpected crack of lightning, this time perilously nearby.
Ash turned his gaze on Roy, then walked over and offered him a hand up.
Roy looked into Ash’s eyes, vibrant and pure. He wanted so badly to believe that he could be worthy of Ash, even if he’d been sullied and broken by the war. If he still knew how to pray, he’d have prayed for forgiveness for wanting Ash so damn much.
Ash smiled softly. “We all have our demons, Roy. Are you ready to go on?”
Roy let Ash pull him to his feet. “We’re nearly there,” he said hoarsely. “Come on.”
* * * *
The cave was well-hidden, set back in the cliff, its entrance partially obscured by a man-size tooth of rock. Inside, it was huge and dry at the front, but at the rear, a chimney in the rock let in both light and rain. The water dripped down the wall, collecting in a pool at the back of the cave—a pool also fed by an underground spring.
Ash walked around the cave in awe while Roy rummaged in the packs, laying wet things out to dry. The canvas packs, while waterproofed, couldn’t withstand such a storm. But the well-packed bedrolls had barely suffered from the rain. Roy stripped the outer blankets away and laid them out to dry, then carried the remaining bedding to a raised flat rock in a corner away from the entrance.
“Ash.” Roy reclaimed the young man’s attention, and Ash turned from his inspection of the spring. “Get out of your wet clothes. I know it feels warm, but Africa can be deceiving. If you become chilled, you’ll catch the fever.” He could feel the temperature dropping almost by the minute as the sun sank lower over the horizon. “Use the blankets. I’ll start a fire.”
Ash nodded, unbuttoning his shirt as Roy knelt by the small fire pit, which was carefully positioned so that the draft from the cave’s entrance took smoke up the natural chimney. As was Roy’s habit, he’d left a fire ready-laid against his next visit, and it was the work of a moment to strike flint and set it burning.
The firelight cast a warm glow over the cave, and Roy stood up slowly, going back to the rock and Ash. Ash had stripped naked and laid his soaked clothing on a boulder to dry. Roy tried his hardest to avert his gaze from the gleaming, firelit muscles, then gave in to the overwhelming urge he was coming to associate with Ash’s very presence.
Beautiful. Head to toe.
Roy picked up a blanket and held it out to Ash. “Wrap yourself in this. Our other clothes are”—Roy took a deep breath and turned away, beginning to strip—“also wet.”
Huddled in a blanket of his own, Roy returned to the fire and squatted before its growing warmth.
Ash joined him, and together they stared into the climbing orange flames.
* * * *
Once the fire’s initial exuberance had died down to red heating coals, Roy returned to the damp packs and extracted his well-blackened cooking pot. Inside he’d packed the meat remaining from an antelope he’d killed the week before, along with a couple of native sweet potatoes.
Ash watched with interest as Roy pulled out his hunting knife and used it to slice the chunks of meat. He chopped the potato roughly and added it to the pot, then topped the stew off with a dipper of spring water.
A lattice of hardwood twigs—slow, hot burners—made a rack to hold the pot above the coals. Roy gave the stew a stir, then added one of his few concessions to his previous life: a generous pinch of salt.
Ash grinned as Roy closed the leather bag containing the precious seasoning. “Do you hunt that on the veldt also?”
Roy chuckled. “There are natural salt licks, but the flavor isn’t the same. Salt and coffee, that’s what I trade for, when I can.”
The rain was still falling heavily, interspersed with violent flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder like the roar of the mountains themselves. Ash gathered the blanket tightly around his shoulders and went to the mouth of the cave. “I thought I had seen storms in England,” he said, drawing back as lightning cracked seemingly just outside. “But this… I never imagined a power like this.”
“Life’s raw here,” Roy said, getting up from the fire. He stared out at the tumultuous rain. “The world was born here on the Dark Continent. The gods are very near, and every day I see things that I cannot explain nor comprehend. I’m learning not to try.”
Ash looked up at him quizzically.
“In Africa, the wise man does not ask for explanations,” Roy said quietly, “he merely believes.”
“I’ll remember that.” Ash grinned. “Are you a wise man?”
“According to Mambokadzi, I’m a babe in arms. But I am trying, and that counts for something, I believe. Come on. Our supper’s ready.”
Ash ate hungrily. Roy knew the fare must be strange, but Ash accepted the stew and the accompanying flatbread as readily as he’d eaten the porridge and the jerky earlier in the day. But when Roy made thick black coffee after the meal, Ash sniffed the potent brew and hesitated. “I think I’ll stick to water. I’m afraid I’m more used to tea.”
“I fear that’s something I don’t possess. But I admit the coffee here is an acquired taste. I mix it with velvet beans to make it last, and it gives a stronger flavor.”
“Velvet beans?” Ash sat back, picking up his canteen.
“I’ll show you the plant tomorrow. They grow not far from here.” Roy sipped his coffee. “If the rain stops, that is.”
“One thinks of Africa as being sunny all the time. But obviously that’s not the case.”
“It’s always hot—hotter than Britain and hotter than Missouri, even. But when Africa does something, it goes whole hog. It might rain for two or three days like this, and then the sun will return, just as fierce. It’s not a gentle place.”
Ash sighed. “I like it,” he said softly, gaze on Roy. “Africa does things with its whole heart.”
“You’re right there.” Roy drained his coffee cup, looking at Ash. The young man was watching him with hungry, yearning eyes, and Roy felt his blood heat. He stared at the lust on Ash’s face, desire churning inside him. He hadn’t wanted someone like this in forever, had thought the war had killed that part of him, but Ash… He’d happily give Ash his whole heart, and more.
Or perhaps his heart had been Ash’s all along. Kashiye…
Ash stood and went to the blankets laid out on the flat rock. He dropped his own blanket and unselfconsciously bent to the bed, smoothing and folding.
Roy watched Ash’s tight round ass and the long sweet legs propelling it, breathless. The flicker of firelight on Ash’s pale skin, his limber body stretching and moving, the muscles rippling. With a groan, Roy followed, helpless to resist.