Dark Warrior: Gay Romance

by Lily Harlem

  “Yes. Of course.” Leo tried to keep the abruptness out of his tone, but it was hard when all he really wanted was to tell the world to keep its nose out of their business then go to the next room and be with the man who’d stolen his dreams for the future.

  “You look a little, well…pale.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m always pale,” Leo said, trying to make light of it. “It’s in my genes.”

  “Mmm, you weren’t until you saw Malik.”

  “Well, I just crashed into him, rushing to get these to you.” He pointed at the antibiotics. “Gave me a bit of a shock.”

  She paused for a moment then, “Did you have a good time, out in the bush?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “What did you see?”

  Leo shrugged and fiddled with the end of his stethoscope, twisting it this way and that so it clicked. “Zebra, lion, giraffe, snakes, lizards, a herd of wildebeest and a few meerkats. They were funny.” He forced a laugh and hoped she bought it. “It was good to see some of your beautiful country but I am glad to be back here, where it’s relatively safe from carnivores.”

  She frowned a little. “And Malik taught you many things?”

  Leo shrugged again. “Yeah, he’s a good bloke to have around when you’re out there. Nothing bothers him.”

  Sister Afua nodded. “He is good to have around. Yes. I would agree with you there.”

  Leo picked up the notes. He needed to document the likely diagnosis and treatment of the eye patients. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there were undercurrents to Sister Afua’s words. Did she suspect something? Had she guessed that he was gay? Did she suspect that Malik was gay? Maybe she’d put two and two together and come up with the truth?

  Leo shook his head and frowned. No, how could she? He and Malik were playing it cool. They had to. They had no choice for the remainder of Leo’s time in Cagaha Buurta.

  Leo went on to treat a toddler with a fever and a man with an infected boil on his thumb. He saw a pregnant mother in her third trimester who was scared that her baby had died in the womb. He reassured her by letting her listen to the fast little heart beat with his stethoscope and ordered her to eat well and not work in the fields between now and giving birth.

  Several times he saw Malik going about his duties out of the corner of his eye. Leo went to great lengths not to watch him or follow his whereabouts through the small hospital. But it was hard when all he wanted to do was go to him, or if not go to him, stare out of the window at the approaching dusk and think about their wonderful time together.

  No, he couldn’t do that—his cock sprung to attention every time he thought of their wild fucking, of having his fingers inside Malik and his dick being deep in Malik’s throat. Damn, he’d never sixty-nined with such intensity. He’d happily have a repeat performance at the first possible opportunity.

  As the darkness stole the light, a familiar voice traveled up the steps.

  “Dinner for the workers.”

  It was Malik’s sister, Burta, and she held a steaming black pot that contained something smelling of lemon and fish and also a little buttery.

  “That looks good,” Salim said, suddenly appearing from the small hospital linen cupboard.

  “I agree.” Leo licked his lips then noticed a growl in his stomach.

  “It is for you all. Some of the hunt that Malik and Leo came back with this morning.” She smiled at Leo and blinked rapidly. “They performed very well.”

  “It was mainly Malik. I was more of a hindrance.” Leo shrugged. “But I’m happy to sample the end result.” He thought of the real performing. Yes, that had indeed been amazing.

  Several plastic chairs were brought out to the front of the hospital, their legs a little wobbly on the uneven earth. The cicadas had started up their endless nighttime song and in the distance, a hyena howled.

  “Malik,” Burta called when she spotted him through the window. “Come and eat.”

  He raised one hand and nodded.

  “Here you are, Doctor Leo,” Burta said, handing him the first bowlful out of the pot.

  “Thank you.” Leo took the meal and the offered wooden spoon. “This is very kind of you.”

  “I am a good cook, Doctor Leo. You should know that.”

  “I already do.”

  “She make good wife for you.” Salim nudged Leo with his elbow.

  “Salim,” Sister Afua snapped.

  “I am sorry.” Salim gave a playful shrug. “I like to be cupid.”

  “Well, not with our doctor you don’t,” Sister Afua said, taking a bowl of food and sitting next to Leo.

  “Someone has to get married soon. What about us, Sister Afua?” Salim said, pointing to his chest. “I will make you a good husband—fix everything, clean everything, bring you good meat to cook with.”

  “Salim, I have told you a thousand times, I am too busy to have a husband.” Sister Afua sighed dramatically.

  “Well, I will ask until you have told me one million times and then maybe you will have me.” He grinned good-naturedly and wrapped his hands around his bowl of food. “Thank you, Burta.” He sat on the ground, cross-legged, leaving two chairs free.

  Malik appeared and Leo made an effort to keep his spoon moving from bowl to mouth. He had to act nonchalant. Just because the man who’d fucked him with all the energy of an earthquake was walking toward him, it didn’t mean he could react.

  Still, he couldn’t resist a quick glance, just a steal of a look.

  “Thank you, Burta. You have done the hunt proud,” Malik said to his sister.

  “I am glad you think so.” She turned to Leo. “What do you think, Doctor Leo?”

  “It’s delicious.” Leo was just about to put another scoop of stew into his mouth when he saw a white flash in the distance.

  Car headlights.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Is someone using your Jeep, Salim?” Leo asked.

  “No,” Salim said, slurping on his meal. “Why?”

  “It’s just there’s a car heading our way.” Leo pointed out to the plain. “Over there.”

  “Oh no.” Burta stood, clattering her bowl to the floor and losing the contents. “Not again.”

  Malik jumped up.

  So did Leo and Salim.

  “Go and hide,” Malik said, grabbing Burta’s arm and turning her to face him. “And don’t come out until I get you.”

  “Yes, brother.” She lifted her skirt and ran barefooted across the square.

  A dog ran over to the spilt food and began to lap it up.

  “What is it?” Leo was unnerved by the sudden shift in mood and the anxiety written all over Malik’s face. He glanced out to the plain again. The car was moving rapidly toward the village, bumping and jostling on the uneven track.

  “Namrin,” Salim said, placing his hands on his hips. “Coming to steal from us.”

  Leo suddenly felt an arm around his waist. It was Malik, dragging him toward the hospital.

  “We’ve got to hide you,” he said, his voice sharp and stern in Leo’s ear. “Now.”

  “Hide me?” Leo went with him—he had no choice, Malik was propelling him indoors.

  “Quickly,” Malik ordered. “Be quick.”

  “The gun, Malik,” Leo said as he was pushed into the ward area and remembered Malik’s warnings of kidnap and ransom. “What about that?”

  “Gun?” Salim was at his side. “What gun?”

  “I have one, for protection,” Leo whispered.

  “Where?” Salim asked.

  Leo looked at Malik.

  “Yes.” Malik frowned. “Salim should get the gun. He is a very good shot. Better than you, I think.”

  “Everyone is a better shot than me.”

  The honk of a horn created gasps and squeals from the patients. They clearly knew what was coming.

  “Shh,” Malik said, pressing his finger to his lips and sweeping his gaze over the patients. “No one say a word. No one say th
at we have a white doctor here.”

  There were a few nods and lots of scared expressions.

  “Is it Namrin?” asked an elderly woman from the corner of the room.

  “Yes. And I am going to hide Doctor Leo under your bed. Can you keep the secret?” Malik rested his hand on her shoulder.

  “Yes. Yes.” She nodded and clasped her dark, withered hands beneath her chin. “Doctor Leo saved me. I will save him.”

  Leo thought that was a bit of an exaggeration as she’d only presented with infected cellulitis and dehydration but he wasn’t going to argue, not when Malik was pulling him to the floor.

  “Roll underneath,” Malik ordered. “And stay quiet and still.”

  Leo did as instructed. Once lodged against the wall, hidden from view, Malik flipped the sheet down.

  “Malik,” Leo whispered.

  The sheet was lifted again and Malik’s face appeared.

  “I hate hiding. I would rather stand my ground and fight, with you.”

  “No, it is too dangerous and foolhardy.”

  “But—”

  Malik seemed to know what fears were running through Leo’s head, because he gave a small smile and said, “I will be all right.”

  Leo stared into his eyes, the whites even more stunning in the shadows beneath the bed and his skin even blacker. “Please be careful.”

  Malik was suddenly gone and Leo was left staring at the sheet again.

  The car horn and the wild, revving engine grew louder. Suddenly the ward was plunged into darkness.

  Leo’s heart pounded, and his breaths came in short pants. It took every ounce of willpower to lay hidden, like a child or a woman. He wanted to get up and protect the village and those in it—not to mention stand by the man he loved.

  The ward door suddenly bashed open and slammed against the wall.

  Leo jumped and anger wound its way down his spine. A few muffled whimpers rang around the room then the lights flicked on again. “Where is it?” A man’s deep, heavily accented voice.

  “We have nothing, Namrin,” Sister Afua said. “We are a poor village and this is a poor hospital. We have nothing to give you.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It is true.” Leo kept very still. He could see through a crack beneath the sheet, and as thudding footsteps approached, two big black boots came into his line of sight. They could only belong to Namrin.

  The boots came to a stop right by the bed Leo was hiding under. He bit his lip and willed himself still. Far from feeling terrified, he felt indignant, angry, furious that this man thought he could walk onto his ward and scare his patients and demand their meager supply of drugs.

  But Malik had asked him to hide. He would do this for Malik.

  “You have drugs. You lie, woman.”

  Leo heard the old woman on the bed above him whimper.

  “I can see that she has drugs, in here.”

  “No, that is just water, salt water in a drip. No drugs.”

  “Liar!”

  “No, I’m not lying. Please, don’t hurt her.” Sister Afua’s feet appeared next to Namrin’s.

  Leo clenched his fists.

  “Leave us alone,” the old woman said. “We have nothing for you.”

  “Huh.” Namrin huffed. “That is what you think.” His boots disappeared from Leo’s view and he heard him stomp away. The ward plunged into darkness again a moment before the door slammed and everything went quiet.

  Leo swallowed. Was that really it? No. They wouldn’t all be so scared of Namrin if he could be so easily appeased.

  The clatter of metal and the smash of glass told Leo that Namrin had broken into the clinical room and was ransacking it.

  Bastard.

  If only he had the gun. He’d go and shoot him now. He had barely anything to treat these people with and it was being wrecked. It seemed that was enough to turn Leo from a pacifist into a killer.

  “Oh, no,” Sister Afua said on a sob. “Not again. We have nothing that he wants. No heroin, no drugs he can sell.”

  Leo moved to the edge of the bed and lifted the sheet. He peered into the shadows.

  The noises from the clinical room stopped and he heard shouts from outside in the square. Quickly, he slipped from beneath the bed and stood.

  “Doctor Leo.” Sister Afua clasped her hands beneath her chin. “You should hide.”

  “What has he taken?” Leo’s temper boiled.

  “Not much.” Sister Afua went to the window. “He’s seems to have only a few boxes—antibiotics, I think. Though he won’t know what they are.”

  “He’s got a bloody nerve coming here like this.”

  Sister Afua nodded. “Yes. He takes what he wants.”

  Leo moved next to her and, from behind a ragged curtain, he too looked out into the square.

  The Jeep sat in the middle, its headlights shining against the well. Two men sat in it, both with red and black bandanas around their heads. A cigarette hung from the driver’s mouth.

  Namrin paced the square. He grabbed a passing goat and flung it toward the Jeep. The animal bleated and stumbled and the man on the backseat jumped out, upended the goat then tied its feet together with a length of rope. The beast was unceremoniously thrown into the back of the vehicle.

  “I will take what I want,” Namrin shouted, banging his chest. He strutted to the Jeep and plucked a rifle from the passenger seat. He swung it around the empty square. “What’s yours is mine, you cowards who hide.” He threw back his head and laughed.

  Leo curled his fingers over the windowsill. “And,” Namrin said, “tonight I also want a woman.”

  “No, no, no.”

  Screaming came from the opposite side of the well. Leo squinted into the darkness and his heart crashed against the wall of his chest when he saw who was making the blood- curdling noise.

  Burta.

  Another of Namrin’s men, wearing the same bandana, yanked a squealing and writhing Burta across the square. He had his arms around her waist and was half-carrying, half- dragging her.

  “Yes. Good.” Namrin strode to meet Burta. “You will do very nice, whore.”

  “Get off me.” Burta spat on the ground by his feet.

  Namrin laughed and cupped his hand over her breast. “You won’t be saying that later. Then you will be begging for me.”

  “Let her go.” Malik walked across the square to Namrin. He stood tall, shoulders down and his strides confident.

  Leo pressed his hand over his mouth. He swallowed down a mouthful of bile.

  No, please no.

  “What the…?” Namrin swung around and pointed his rifle at Malik.

  Leo thought he was going to vomit. One touch of that trigger and it could all be over. His future would be over.

  “I said, let the woman go,” Malik repeated firmly and taking another six strides before stopping.

  Leo could just make out his expression in the shadows. His jaw was set and his chin tilted. He looked like he wasn’t facing a gun—in fact, he looked the same way he had when removing the snake from Leo’s shoulder—determined, unruffled and hard as they come.

  “And why the fuck would I do what you say, village boy?” Namrin asked, waving the end of the rifle menacingly.

  “No, Malik. No,” Burta cried.

  “She is my sister,” Malik said. “I am not afraid to die for her.” He placed his hands on his hips. “Let. Her. Go.”

  “Ha, well, it is good you not afraid, because you will die for her.” Namrin stepped up close. The end of the gun pressed into Malik’s chest, right in the center, over his heart. “And it won’t do her any good. I will still give her my dick every night until I am bored of her and then she will die also.”

  Leo pushed back from the windowsill. He couldn’t stand by and watch this. He had to do something.

  He’d made it three steps when Sister Afua grabbed his arm. “No.” She shook her head.

  “I have to.” Leo tried to shake her off. “I can’t
just do nothing. I have to try.”

  “No,” she said again, squeezing his arm tighter. “If you go out there, Doctor Leo, Malik will do something really stupid.”

  “Bloody hell, what could be more stupid that walking up to a lunatic with a gun and saying he’s prepared to die?” Leo was struggling to form words. Panic skittered through his nerves. Malik couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.

  He went to walk away again.

  Still Sister Afua held him “If you go out there, Malik will not think straight.”

  “He isn’t thinking straight now.”

  She moved up close to him, so close her chest touched his. “He is a brave man,” she whispered by Leo’s ear. “A good man and a brilliant warrior. But he is also in love, and love changes everything.”

  “Love?” Leo gasped.

  “Yes, he’s in love, and you, Doctor Leo, must stay in here, where he knows you are safe.”

  The sound of gunshot rattled around the ward.

  Several patients screamed. Leo startled. A blinding flash of white-hot panic seared through his brain and his legs went weak. He stared at Sister Afua, who had the same horrified expression then he raced to the window.

  Malik was still standing.

  Leo thought he would pass out with relief. He rid the image of his lover on the floor and bleeding out from his chest.

  “What the fuck?” Namrin shouted, swinging his rifle around the square. “Who...?”

  Burta wriggled against her captive who was looking around with wild eyes.

  She took advantage of the distraction and bit his arm. He screamed and released her.

  “What was it? Who did he shoot?” Leo asked Sister Afua, who was huddled next to him.

  Before she could answer, another shot rang out. It hit the floor, next to Namrin, and dirt sprayed onto his boots and up his leg.

  “Fuck!” Namrin shouted, staggering toward the Jeep.

  “We are not afraid of you,” Malik shouted as Burta dashed behind him and he wrapped a protective arm around her. “We have guns, too, Namrin. We are not afraid of you.”

  Yet another bullet fired. This time it came from a different part of the square. It hit the back of the Jeep, puncturing a hole in the bodywork.

  “Bastards.” Namrin swung his rifle in the direction the shot had come from.