A Cowboy in Ravenna

by Jan Irving

  He focused on Calhoun and Sabin, saw them looking at each other. Talking, they were still talking, but Chace couldn’t hear them anymore. They were drowned out by the huge drum of a heartbeat. It got louder and louder, so Chace wanted to cover his ears, but if he did that he’d have to take his hand off Trin’s empty eye socket.

  Sweat prickled his face as he slipped down what felt like a giant water slide, gaining momentum so that his body leapt off the slide into free fall. As he tumbled, all around him were points of light. Colours. To keep himself whole, he named them. Burnt sienna, yellow ochre… Pigments used by prehistoric humans to paint caves. He wanted to go to France and see them and maybe he could convince Trin—

  Trin.

  Chace shivered.

  “Reach his heart,” he heard Calhoun say. “You have to reach his heart.”

  The first time they’d shared a connection, Chace had seen Trin as a wasteland of dead grass, enclosed by high walls. Nothing could grow there. There was only the wind, as endless as life without the piece that was missing.

  My son.

  Trin’s voice. Chace heard him, surged towards him and felt Trin, felt the burning brand of the wound that had never closed.

  Trin was sitting in a cave with a tiny fire. He was naked and he had a rag wrapped around his eye. All around him were tools, some recognisable, some esoteric, that Chace guessed he used as a healer.

  Chace knelt beside him.

  “I can’t heal myself,” he told Chace. “I can’t see Sage. I felt him tonight but I can’t find him.”

  “I can help you.” He opened Trin’s travelling bag, which was inexplicably in this Other Place, and found the familiar pencils and drawing pad Trin always carried as a backup for Chace. Trin had done that for as long as he’d known how much Chace loved to sketch.

  Chace’s throat tightened. He couldn’t lose Trin. But drawing was all he had to offer, as if his talent had the power to heal.

  His fingers took over and he drew without glancing at the paper, which was some trick, even for him. And he did it with his left hand. His right hand he put over the makeshift bandage covering Trin’s eye. “Let’s look for Sage,” he said. “I believe you when you say you sensed him tonight.”

  “Been sure…so many times,” Trin whispered.

  “Take a look.” Chace handed the finished likeness to Trin. “See your son, see Sage.”

  “Holy shit!” Trin crushed the paper in his fist. “I didn’t see. How could I not see?” Trin touched Chace in wonder and blue light sparked between them. Their connection was suddenly visible, arching like silent lightning.

  They weren’t in the cave anymore, but standing on the grass, the long waving grass moving like hair on the earth—pale yellow and endless.

  Trin took Chace’s hand.

  A sparrow dived low, hunting for airborne insects. The single bird couldn’t make this arid place a garden, but it was the first sign of life Chace had seen in Trin’s private world.

  “You’re a healer as much as I am, Chace,” Trin said. He leaned his forehead against Chace’s. “I’ve never cared what happens to me.”

  “But I do,” Chace said. “So you’re goddamn going to care.”

  “Ouch!” Chace stared up at Calhoun, seeing his worried face washed by firelight. “Why’d you slap me?”

  “You were out of it, sunshine, visiting lala land. You’d finished what I sent you to do. I needed you back or I’d have to cook you breakfast and I never hang around for breakfast.”

  “Trin!” Chace rolled over and spotted his lover curled up in the foetal position next to the dying fire. The moon had sunk and the stars had moved. How the hell long had they been here? His body felt stiff and sore, his arms and legs not his own, but sticks attached to his body.

  “You were in the healing place most of the night,” Calhoun said, as if he read the question in Chace’s eyes. He nodded towards Sabin, who was pouring steaming liquid from a carafe into a cup.

  “Is that coffee?” Please let it be coffee. He didn’t crave the stuff the way Trin did, but he felt tired, like old cloth that had given way and torn at the seam.

  “Yep.” Sabin looked tired too. “Trin’s okay. I checked on him every fifteen minutes while you two were, uh, out of it.” Sabin didn’t look any more comfortable with the idea of a ‘healing place’ than Chace was.

  Chace took a sip of the coffee and grimaced at how strong it was. Apparently decaf didn’t exist in Italy. “Thanks,” he told Sabin. “Where’s Marcello?”

  “Gone,” Calhoun said, but he didn’t explain.

  Sabin wrapped his arms around himself.

  Okay, obviously more had happened tonight than the strange healing dream he’d experienced but it could wait until after he checked on Trin.

  He leaned over Trin to stroke the hair off his face, taking in the heavy whisker growth and—

  “His eye!”

  Calhoun was nodding, an emotion flickering in his expression. Awe? Couldn’t be, Chace thought.

  “You reached him. Somehow you healed him. You’re as gifted as Trin.”

  Gifted? Nah, unless it was with pen and paper. But though Trin looked exhausted, he wasn’t even bruised.

  Tears stung Chace’s eyes. He closed them, sponging Trin, needing to be grounded in the contact of flesh against flesh. “Thank God you’re okay,” he whispered.

  “Is that coffee for me?” Trin asked, sounding grumpy, the way he always did when he had to get out of his bedroll early in the morning when they went camping in the forest.

  “Yeah, there’s coffee,” Chace said, sitting up to hand it to him. “Black as sin, the way you love it.”

  Trin turned on his side to look at Chace. “You…all right?” Both eyes looked at him, the familiar shape, the steady grey, but something was different. Trin’s sadness had eased. Chace thought of the sparrow that had appeared in the healing place. Hope. Trin had let hope into his world.

  “Yeah, sure, dandy.”

  Trin’s lips quirked. “Uh huh.” He gulped his coffee, eyes slitted with pleasure. He wasn’t in pain anymore and he was obviously savouring the moment.

  Chace reached out to touch Trin’s eyebrow and temple where the eye had been destroyed, all too willing to savour along with Trin. Whole again.

  “Well, I gotta get going,” Sabin said. He looked deliberately into Chace’s eyes. “This time I’m letting you know.”

  Trin snapped his head up in Sabin’s direction. “Christ, don’t go.”

  Sabin frowned, looking a little freaked out by Trin’s intensity. “I have stuff.”

  Chace took Trin’s arm, squeezing in warning. Trin panted, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he watched Sabin walk away.

  “We’ll see him again.” Chace soothed Trin, cuddling. “He’s not lost anymore.”

  “Sage isn’t lost,” Trin said. “He’s broken.”

  Chapter Eleven

  His son was broken. His beautiful, bright, curious, laughing son.

  The only time Sage laughed now was with derision.

  “I didn’t even like Sabin. He tried to steal my wallet,” Trin said. “I felt sorry for him because he’s abused, because he’s a whor—”

  He cut off before he could finish the word. He couldn’t… Sage, his little boy.

  He felt like a truck had hit him head on and now he was lying in the dirt, bleeding out. “How could I not know who Sabin was?”

  “I didn’t recognise him at first either,” Chace said, not letting go of Trin for a second, his lean, strong arms holding tight, his scent all around Trin. His mate, his beautiful mate.

  Chace was going to try to fix this too. Why wouldn’t he give up? He should have run when he’d seen the creature. Trin had been so sure Chace would run.

  Instead he’d cared for Trin, healed him.

  “He doesn’t know who I am. His memories… When I healed him back in our room, I felt a block. How could I touch him and not know he was mine?”

  “He doesn’t look like
a little boy anymore, and it doesn’t seem a given to me that just because he’s your son you’d somehow immediately know, years later,” Chace said. “But I guess my artistic muse caught a few similarities. The shape of his jaw, and he has your mouth.”

  Trin covered his eyes.

  “Trin, we’ve found him. We can’t change his past but we can help him now.”

  “He won’t let me get close to him. If he knew I was his father—”

  “So don’t tell him,” Calhoun said, interrupting unexpectedly. “Be his friend now. Maybe one day, if he’s ever ready…”

  Trin swallowed. Not tell him? “I want my child. I want him in my arms.”

  “If Sage was an abused horse, what would you do?” Chace asked, rubbing gentle circles over Trin’s back.

  “I’d…” Trin inhaled deeply, centring himself. “I’d put him somewhere safe and leave him alone. I might show up sometimes to give him a carrot or something but I wouldn’t push. It might take months before I’d approach him.”

  Chace nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “But he’s not safe.”

  “Yeah, he is,” Calhoun said. “I made him safe, Trin.”

  “What do you mean?” Trin demanded. “He’s mated to that bastard Marcello—”

  “I’ll take care of Marcello.” Calhoun’s voice was a cold promise. “And it happens that Sabin has a new nipple ring, so he won’t be able to run out on me and disappear.”

  Trin blinked. “You put a tracker on him?”

  Calhoun nodded.

  “I’m not following,” Chace said.

  “Calhoun somehow persuaded Sabin to wear a nipple ring with a tracker embedded in it. He’ll know where Sabin is as long as he wears it.”

  “Our little thief couldn’t resist the drop of turquoise on the ring.”

  “Turquoise is the stone of protection.” He hadn’t dreamt Calhoun would know that. That Sage now wore turquoise comforted him.

  “So you got him to wear it because it looked…pretty?” Chace asked.

  “We played a hand of cards. I cheated and he lost,” Calhoun said. “Now I have to go. I got two kids waiting with Sabin in the car.”

  “You found the kids!” Chace said. “Thank God!”

  Calhoun shook his head. “Thank your boyfriend. The monster act scattered the guards so I was able to secure the kids. Marcello slipped away but I…persuaded Aberto to take me to them.” He gave one of his twisted smiles. His knuckles were reddened.

  Persuaded. Yeah, Trin could imagine. “I want Marcello. You hear me? He hurt Sage.”

  “I think you mean Sabin,” Calhoun said, ignoring Trin warning him off Marcello. “It’s who he is now, Trin. Nothing you can do to change it.”

  “Yeah. Sabin.” Trin looked around for his clothing, but only spotted a few shreds. Damn. “We’ll come with you as soon as I can find something to wear. The kids will be safe in our hotel until their families can come for them.”

  “Yeah, about that…” Calhoun gave Trin a pointed look. “I think you’ll have to factor in a delay in your plans.”

  Trin touched his belly, frowning at the sensation sliding up his spine like a feather in a lover’s hand. He’d been feeling it since he’d first woken up but figured it was a residue of the healing. He looked at Chace. “Oh shit,” he said.

  “I’ll come back,” Calhoun said. “Shifter nature being shifter nature I think you’re going to need some alone time with Chace right now.”

  “Huh?” Chace asked, as if tired of being a hundred paces behind everyone else.

  “No,” Trin choked out. “Take him with you.”

  Calhoun gave him a what-the-fuck look. Trin’s toes curled as another wave of heat slid up his spine.

  “What’s going on?” Chace asked.

  “You gave me blood, healed me,” Trin said, teeth chattering. “The burning has started.”

  “The burning?”

  “You have to complete the cycle,” Calhoun said, damn his interfering ass. “Trin’s your mate but you haven’t had, uh, intercourse yet, have you?”

  Chace blushed.

  “We’re not going to…now.” Trin’s belly was on fire. It was like the worst kind of withdrawal times a gazillion. Chace. He needed Chace’s skin under his mouth, he needed that silky blond hair in his hands and Chace looking at him as Trin filled him, took him, ran his teeth over the mark. “Not like this. Chace has been through enough.”

  “What, you really think you can give him roses and dew drops now, shifter?” Calhoun’s brows rose. “You need to do him, hard and fast. You need to do it over and over again until he’s covered in your sweat and your come and neither of you can fucking move.”

  “Trin.” Chace’s touch cooled Trin’s feverish body.

  Of course Chace couldn’t fucking stay away any more than Trin could keep his hands to himself ever since they’d come to fucking Italy. Maybe it was the air here, all that ancient romance.

  “Don’t. I’ll take you in the dirt. I can’t be gentle.” Claws sprouted as he spoke. If he’d been wearing clothes, he’d have torn out of them like the Incredible Hulk.

  “I’m not afraid to be with you, fluffy pillows or dirt.”

  “That’s just perfect,” Trin said, pissed off. Chace had come to Italy to unload his virginity. Now he’d lose it to a beast.

  Too late. He looked into Chace’s eyes, saw his flushed skin. He was aroused. For some fucked-up reason, seeing Trin like this lit Chace up. Lucky Chace.

  Calhoun kicked the bag they’d brought with them. “Trin, don’t forget the—”

  “Fuck off,” Trin told Calhoun.

  He yanked Chace to the ground. He wasn’t gentle but Chace didn’t look afraid. Reaching for Trin, Chace opened his mouth, accepting the hard, needy penetration of Trin’s tongue.

  “I could fucking eat you,” Trin growled. He shoved Chace’s legs open and took his sac in one clawed hand. Trin needed Chace’s potency. It was such a turn on—the taste, the seed in his mouth when he milked Chace.

  “I want you to have it, all of it,” Chace moaned, as if he could read Trin’s mind. He writhed, pushing himself deeper into Trin’s keeping. Right now he was all lovely submissive, just what Trin needed to take the edge off.

  “Feed it to me.” Trin rolled onto his back. Calhoun was long gone or he’d be getting quite a show, but Trin was glad for Chace’s sake.

  Chace had a little smirk which Trin read with trepidation. Chace was so impulsive…

  Chace swung to his feet.

  And Trin caged his ankle. “You go nowhere.”

  “I just want to get something.” Chace’s voice was soft, soothing Trin’s beast.

  The beast found it hard to let go. Sweat dripped from his hair. But he made himself do it.

  Chace dragged the bag closer and then pulled out the heavy chains, a spreader bar, a gag…he couldn’t help but stroke the spreader bar, thinking of all the time he’d pictured wearing one. For Trin. Only for Trin.

  Trin said, “I don’t want to scare you.”

  Chace rolled his eyes. “Yeah, my woody is all about being terrified.”

  “Brat.”

  “Your brat.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Straight? Is that really a word that comes to mind when you and I are about to—”

  Trin laughed.

  “Okay, you mistook me. We’ll get the chains on you tonight.” Chace’s voice was husky. “But right now, these are for me.”

  Trin lost his breath. Chace trusted him to be helpless, to let Trin completely dominate him the way his beast craved?

  “Are you going to help me?”

  Need pulsed, hot and ready, taking all his control, the control he’d learnt as a healer. But he didn’t give in to it. Chace held out one of his wrists and Trin used the chains to tie a rough knot. Grasping them, he led Chace to a tree. “Like where you watched Cass and Tom, hmmm?”

  Chace was breathing hard. “God, yeah, I’ll never forget how they looked
.”

  “I’m going to take you like Tom took Cass. Are you ready for that?”

  Chace’s answer was the kiss he pressed against Trin’s hand, laving the palm with his tongue. “I love you. I want you to have me, my body and my come.”

  Holy shit! He’d never known kissing a hand could be such an erotic thing. Chace kissing him like that…the act caught at his throat.

  “I…” He wanted to give Chace the words. He deserved them, but Trin was so out of practice, like one of those abandoned homesteads in the hills, going to seed.

  He used the tip of a claw to cut through Chace’s T-shirt, mouthing the small pointed nipples revealed.

  Chace shuddered. “Trin, you have no fucking idea what it does to me, to feel those sharp teeth and know you can hurt me but you won’t.”

  Trin stripped off Chace’s remaining clothing, tugging him close, skin to skin, hot satin rubbing.

  His enormous erection nudged Chace. “Take my cock and work it.”

  Chace had to use both hands, the chains rattling around. His face was absorbed, like he was pulling off a difficult magician’s trick as he stroked Trin up and down, the massive mushroom head, dark plum, swollen and seeping fluid, caressing the veins and huge arching stem.

  Trin’s head fell back and he thrust into Chace’s grip. “Yeah, do me. We’re going to live out a fantasy.”

  Chace blinked. “This isn’t a fantasy?”

  Trin looked at his cock in Chace’s hand. His boy was servicing him. Oh, yeah. His prick had a life of its own, prodding Chace, demanding attention, demanding Chace’s hand, just his hand—long-fingered, stained with ink, bitten nails. Jesus, Chace’s hand was a beautiful thing, sacred.

  “Stop.” God, he was already on the verge of coming.

  When Chace didn’t immediately obey, Trin dragged Chace over and smacked his ass. Trin stared at his handprint going red on the pale, quivering flesh.

  Chace rubbed himself against Trin, leaving a damp smear on his thigh.

  “Do what you’re told,” Trin said thickly.