Lionheart

by Kate Roman

  Ash snorted. “You mean how long has he hated anyone who can’t trace their lineage on a shield? I never understood, you know, when I was older. I never understood how they met and fell in love. I mean, you’ve seen my father. But more than that…” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “I had a nanny when I was small, and I overheard her one day talking with Cook, about how Miss Elizabeth was crying again and was anyone ever safe when the master went down into the village. At the time I thought they were talking about my father’s collection of firearms, but as I grew older, I began to realize… When…when it happened,” Ash continued, “when my mother—when she was…”

  Roy squeezed Ash’s shoulder and just held on.

  “They said it was an accident. She and my father had gone out riding alone. That in itself was odd. I don’t remember them ever riding together except at the hunts. Mother was an excellent horsewoman. She used to take me with her, sit me in front of her, and we’d hold the reins together. She loved her horse, and we’d go for miles—or maybe it just seemed like it. I must’ve been five or six. But that day…” Ash took a deep breath. “They went out riding alone, and Father returned to the house near sundown, said there’d been an accident. He sent for the doctor from the village, and then the next thing I knew, everyone was telling me what a brave boy I was.”

  Roy winced.

  “But that evening, I crept down the back stairs, couldn’t sleep, and there was music coming from the study. I recognized the tune. I didn’t know the name of it then, but I knew it was the music Father listened to whenever he returned from a successful hunt. He only ever played it then. And of course, that night.

  “I went back upstairs, but I knew,” Ash said. “I knew what he’d done. All this time, I’ve just been wondering whether he knew I knew.”

  Roy could only too vividly picture the scene, and his heart ached at the vision. Whatever Gerald Haywood was, his brother was a thousand times worse.

  “He’s right,” Roy said, not bothering to hide his anger. “You’re not worthy of him. Not at all. God, when I think—”

  “Don’t,” Ash said quietly. “He’s not worth it. All that’s over now.” He breathed deeply, raising his face to the African night. “This changes nothing. I’m not going back. I’m staying. Here on the veldt with you.” He stopped, then looked at Roy with a smile. “Where I belong.”

  “Where we belong,” Roy said thickly, tightening his embrace. “Where we belong.”

  Regardless of whether Ash was a lion, Roy knew, feeling Ash’s warm tears against his neck, the sobs finally working their way free, that he’d defend Ash to the death. And if Sir Roland had his way, it was looking more and more likely that that was the only option.

  * * * *

  Roy led Ash into the hut, pausing only to light the storm lantern. It cast a warm yellow light, dim but sufficient. Roy hung it on the hook on the wall, then pulled Ash to him.

  Ash came willingly, groaning softly as Roy’s hands slid beneath his shirt. In moments, they were both naked, and Roy guided Ash to the narrow cot.

  Ash gasped in surprise as he sank into the straw mattress.

  “Soft compared to the rock,” Roy agreed, lying down beside him. The cot was small but sturdy. “I built it myself.” He nuzzled Ash’s neck. “Soon as we’re settled, I’ll build a bigger one.”

  Ash moved even closer, eyes gleaming in the lantern light. “This one’s perfect.”

  But it wasn’t really. Strong though it was, the lightweight construction caused the cot to echo the movement of its occupants, bucking and swaying beneath them like a boat adrift. Roy stilled, holding Ash close against his body.

  Ash moved against him needily. “Put the mattress on the floor.”

  Roy raised Ash’s chin gently and kissed him. “No need.” He shifted cautiously so that he lay on his back in the center of the bed. The movement left Ash lying half on top of him.

  “Now what?” Ash grinned, then gasped as Roy’s hands slid down his back, cupping his ass.

  Firm yet gentle, Roy moved his hands lower, between his lover’s thighs. Ash pressed back against him, moaning happily, and Roy guided Ash’s legs until the younger man was straddling him.

  Ash caught on in an instant, bracing his knees against the cot’s sides and raising his ass slightly. Just enough for Roy’s fingers to find his hole, stroking and teasing. Promising.

  Eyes on Roy, Ash raised his hand to his mouth and spit on his fingers. Roy’s eyes widened as the sight went straight to his cock, and moments later, he realized what Ash was going to do. Roy’s cock twitched heavily as Ash reached down, sliding a hand between his own legs.

  His spit-slick fingers entered his cleft, gently pushing Roy’s hands aside, and Roy groaned. Roy’s grip shifted to Ash’s cheeks, holding him open while Ash slicked his own hole, readying himself for penetration.

  Roy watched, breathless. Head thrown back, beautiful eyes half-closed, a light sheen of sweat on his skin, Ash was breathtaking. His hand was buried between his legs, and with every movement his swollen cock bobbed and bounced, leaking pale precum onto Roy’s skin.

  Ash straightened up, but this time he turned his attention to Roy’s cock. Roy shuddered as Ash’s wet fingers grasped his shaft, sliding over and around him with a touch that was already becoming expert. Roy moaned, dropping his head back and sliding his hands up to grip Ash’s hips.

  Suddenly Ash leaned down and kissed Roy, harder and hungrier than Roy had felt from him before. Roy’s eyes flew open. He found Ash staring back with pure feral lust in his eyes. Roy’s balls tightened, and he swallowed a groan.

  “I’m ready for you,” Ash growled softly. “Are you ready for me?”

  “Always.” Roy firmed his grip on Ash’s hips, raising him slightly. Ash’s hold on Roy’s shaft firmed, holding steady, and Roy braced his hips against the narrow bed, moaning as Ash eased downward until Roy could feel his crown pressing against the muscle of Ash’s entrance.

  Ash increased the pressure, gasping suddenly as his rim gave way to the intruder. Roy gripped hard, nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of Ash’s hole squeezing his tip. Ash held still a moment, then pushed down farther, and Roy groaned long and loud.

  “I want it, Roy. I want you.” Ash was breathless but imperious. He shifted his hands to Roy’s chest, softly raking Roy’s thick black body hair, and Roy arched underneath him. It seemed to be what Ash was waiting for. With a harsh cry, he drove down until his ass was flush with Roy’s hips.

  Roy yelled with him, the sensation amazing. Ash was so tight, so perfect, and to have him taking charge in this way was both liberating and exciting. Waves of pleasure rolled through Roy as Ash started to move in earnest, fucking himself on Roy’s cock, driving them both closer and closer to orgasm.

  Roy spread his thighs wider, bracing himself harder. The narrow cot jounced a little but held firm, and Ash increased the pace. He leaned forward, and the new angle nearly made Roy scream, it felt so good.

  Ash grunted, a low, animal sound from somewhere deep within him, and his passage clenched around Roy’s cock. Roy felt the tide rising, impossible to hold back. As Ash threw back his head and roared, Roy let go.

  * * * *

  In the hour before dawn, Ash was running. All around him, the veldt was awake as it only was in the time that was neither day nor night—alive with creatures of all sizes, from the tiniest of the grubs to the oldest of the elephants. The land hummed its song of life to Ash as he ran, the whisper of the wind in the grass telling stories of this ancient and magical place.

  Where Ash ran, beasts fell back to let him pass and nothing followed. Light-footed on the earth, he left no sign of his passing save when he paused at a spring, lowering his head to lap briefly at the cool sweet water. Deliberately, he pressed one foot into the mud of the bank.

  When he stepped back, the imprint was that of a giant cat’s paw.

  With a laugh that was something like a roar, Ash bounded away again. Here there were no whips and no purs
uit. No need to hunt as men did, with iron arms and shot. Here none would say him nay, save the one he sought.

  The sun was just cresting the mountaintops when Ash reached the knoll that overlooked the sprawling bungalow and too-grasping grounds of Thornside. Pacing back and forth, Ash sang the song of the veldt to himself, watching as the pinkish rays of dawn lit first the sky and then the mud-walled hut at the end of the compound.

  But it was not the hut that interested him the most. Dropping to his haunches, Ash waited until the soft new sunlight warmed the large building in the middle of the compound. Until the natives rose and went about their errands. And when at last the thornbush was rolled back from the gate, Ash stood and stretched.

  Regally, for here he knew he had nothing to fear, Ash walked to the gate of the compound and stared dispassionately at the space where a terrified boy had set off on a lion hunt so long ago now. He threw back his head and roared, then roared again: a challenge like no other.

  A gun barked in answer, and Ash shook his head angrily. His instinct was to fight. He roared his fury, and then, from just above him, came a harsh shriek.

  Ash fell back, slightly cowed, and the great black eagle screamed again. Ash looked once more at the villa then turned and, without a backward glance, loped away across the veldt. He did not need to look up to know that the Bateleur soared above him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It’s a menace, I tell you!” Gerald Haywood paced his trophy room, hands behind his back. “A man-eater with no respect—no fear, even!—for men, be they white or black. Three times now, it has violated this very compound!”

  “Steady on, old man.” The district officer, a slight, swarthy man who looked far too fragile to survive Africa, leaned forward in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Obviously we have a beast here that has to be stopped, but the best way to go about it is with a cool head on our shoulders. Now you and your brother here have seen this animal. Has anyone else?”

  Roy looked uneasily about the room. It was bad enough sharing the same air as a murderer, but the cold dead eyes of thirty or more beasts stared back at him from the walls, forcing his gaze to the floor. At his side came a negative murmur from the other man present, Thornside’s nearest neighbor, an expatriate Briton whose name Roy had already forgotten.

  A native had appeared at Roy’s compound an hour after breakfast, bidding Roy to an urgent meeting at Thornside that same afternoon. On arrival, Roy discovered that the Thornside compound had, that very morning, once again been threatened by the mysterious gold lion.

  Roy had woken alone, finding Ash just re-entering the compound with a tale of hearing a Bateleur and going out to check.

  As soon as Roy returned, he thought, the two of them were going to have to have a long talk. Until then, however, Roy vowed to do everything in his power to throw the Haywood brothers off the scent. “I’ve seen the lion,” he said, feeling Haywood’s eyes upon him. The man gave an approving nod, and the district officer perked up, looking interested.

  Gerald Haywood ignored Roy, puffing out his cheeks self-importantly. “It’s quite a young animal, in my estimation. And already a man-killer! There’s no time to be lost.”

  Roy held up his hand, stilling whatever the district officer had been about to say. “Sir, my deepest sympathies are with you, and I don’t mean to minimize your loss in any way.” He inclined his head toward Roland Haywood, who simply stared, mindlessly. Roy refused to look directly into his eyes. It was a force of effort to be in the same room with him without violence.

  “Well, Bennett, out with it,” Gerald Haywood snapped.

  “We’re calling this lion a man-eater,” Roy said, “but that’s an assumption. No one saw it take the boy, as I understand it?”

  “What’s this?” The district officer sat forward like a terrier. “I understood the boy to have been killed by a lion?”

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that,” Roy lied calmly. “The question, if there is one, is which lion. You were hunting, Haywood, and your nephew became separated from the party. Have I that right?”

  “Yes, yes,” said the baronet. “Stupid young cur missed his shot at a lion—scared the pride right off. We stopped for lunch, and when we went to start again, no sign of him. Went after the lions, I expect, trying to save face.”

  Roy looked at the man, his face a carefully impassive mask. There was no regret in Haywood’s tone, no sorrow, and certainly no guilt. Nothing but anger. Roy had never asked Ash exactly what had happened that day, but the whip marks on his flesh, combined with this story, made everything very clear.

  Asked to shoot a lion, Ash had misfired and alerted the pride. His punishment had been terrible, and Roy was certain that Ash had been lucky to escape it with his life. It was possible Gerald Haywood had administered the beating without Sir Roland’s knowledge, but Roy didn’t believe that. Sooner or later, Roland Haywood would be called to account.

  “I see what you mean.” The district officer was nodding carefully. “We have a man-eater out there somewhere, but as to whether it’s the same lion threatening the compound—”

  “Of course it’s the same lion!” Gerald said impatiently. “Why else would the thing have come here? It smelled the lad and followed his trail, looking for more!”

  “Steady on, old chap!” The district officer looked revolted.

  Roy cleared his throat. “Was the lion with the pride you were hunting?”

  “No,” Sir Roland said. “No, the male with that pride was a fine beast—huge, with a beautiful black mane. A top specimen I’d be proud to take as a trophy. But this animal is smaller, lighter colored and with a poor mane. A lion I’d pass by in the normal way of things.”

  Sighing, the young district officer got to his feet. “Gerald, I wish I could assist you, but I fear it’s clear I can’t. You’re clearly being plagued by a lion, but I’m afraid I can’t call it a man-eater. The boy—your nephew—was a tragic accident, but a man alone on the veldt cannot expect to be safe.” He shook his head sadly. “Sir Roland, my condolences upon your loss. I’ll show myself out.”

  “But”—Gerald Haywood rushed after him—“the hunters from the Cape.”

  The district officer turned and shook his head. “Sorry, old man,” he said with what sounded like genuine regret. “I can’t call them out for a bull and two dead guinea fowl. You’ll simply have to deal with this lion yourself. A poisoned goat carcass ought to do it, and I’m surprised you haven’t thought of it yourself. Good day.”

  * * * *

  Roy made his way home as the afternoon cooled, mulling over the events of the past twenty-four hours. Haywood had been furious at the district officer’s response, and had done his level best to bring Roy and the neighbor around to his view. But the neighbor hadn’t been bothered by the lion, and Roy thought he was inclined to dismiss Haywood’s complaints as overdramatic.

  Roy privately thought that overdramatic exploits were the least of his worries when it came to the lion. But he refused to be drawn in, declining to join Haywood’s proposed hunting party and taking his leave at the earliest possible moment, giving only a spurious promise to send word if he sighted the animal.

  He took the long way home, making the rounds of the two largest watering holes and looking for tracks. Zebra and wildebeest had been at the first in numbers, indicating few predators around, but near the second water he smelled the distinctive musk of big cats.

  Approaching quietly, he found a small pride—a huge black-maned adult male, three lionesses, one of whom had cubs, and a couple of adolescents not yet ready to leave and find, or form, prides of their own.

  The adults were drowsing before the evening’s hunt, and the cubs and youngsters were playing among themselves. Roy watched them for a moment, then moved on. Their tracks were clearly all over the nearby watering hole, crossed and crisscrossed with those of the duiker, the tiniest antelope of the veldt. Evidently the little animals were in the habit of waiting for the predators to leave, the
n partaking of the water each creature so desperately needed.

  Roy filled his canteen and moved on, conscious of the lowering sun. He was still an hour from the compound and dared not risk sunset catching him still upon the veldt. But he went without haste, watching his back trail and the grassland around him, and turning from the trail now and then to check likely den spots.

  But despite his careful search, he arrived back at the compound without seeing one single trace of the pale gold lion who roamed the veldt alone.

  It was all the confirmation he needed.

  Ash had brought the livestock into their pens, fed and watered them, and had a meal cooking over the fire when Roy came through the gate. He stopped for a moment just inside, staring around the compound, taking it in. The scene was pleasantly domestic: the contented munching of the animals and the crackling of the fire made perfect night music. Ash, clad only in a pair of shorts, knelt over the cooking pot, blond bangs falling forward into his eyes, his naked skin tawny in the firelight.

  Roy’s heart swelled. He’d arrived here fresh from a war that had robbed him of everything, convinced he was unworthy of love, a life, a home. He’d built the compound as protection, but somehow, he realized, it had become more than that. It was sanctuary, and now it held and housed the greatest treasure of all.

  Ash looked up. “Is everything all right, Roy?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t think you heard me.” Roy pulled the high gates closed behind him, tied them off with the strong plaited rope made of a native creeper, then came to the fire. Ash’s gaze stayed on him.

  Roy searched for words. “This, this place…it was never my home. I didn’t think I’d ever have a home again. I didn’t think I deserved one.”

  As Roy hesitated, Ash came off the ground in a single lithe, catlike movement. He gripped Roy’s shoulders, staring into his eyes for a long moment. Then he kissed Roy, deep and true. Roy’s body responded instantly, the tiredness from the trek wiped away in an instant.