I woke alone on the couch, my ears searching the room, but I knew where Raw was — I could sense his heart beat. He was downstairs in the cafe area eating breakfast. Two floors below me, and I could feel him.
Laying on the couch, letting him wash over me, a compelling drive to be closer, to know his deeper thoughts enraptured my curiosity. Despite my reservations against breaching privacy, I let my essence approach, but without forcing. I simply allowed myself to submerge into the thoughts he allowed me to be a part of and flowed away from where I felt resistance.
His mental state was far more ridged than I suspected it would be. Clarity, had the ruling cards. Many details were hidden in the fibrous networks of his consciousness, but even so, details and colors, were there, and patterns formed with little effort. It wasn’t exactly like walking through the hardware store with allies and labels on everything, but if you took that idea out to an abstract artist it would be something close to the experience.
The complexity of his thoughts and the details of the subjects were attractive and alluring. Each thread drew me down an opened vista — but then the depth became too much, and I felt a sudden panic — as if I could become lost or drown. For long moments it felt as though the real and the mental were all the same. Pulling myself back out from him, I had to desperately claw for the edge because the surface was too much. Once free I fell to my knees panting in short rifle-shot gasps.
There are rivers that flow with the appearance of passive currents. Not a ripple on them. They drift at peace, and without worry. People love to find these Zen spots, and meditate by them. They believe they are serene. But the lack of ripples should be the first of two warning signs — and ignoring them costs hundreds of lives a year.
The second sign is to get down, and look across the smooth water at eye level. If you see the surface is bowed down, concaved, you stay out of that water. Sometimes you get lucky, and spot vortexes forming on the surface, but not always. Dark waters. That’s water with a current so strong it tears apart rock, and stone. It rips roots from the bottom. It thrashes all but the strongest fish, and largest crocodile. Those are waters so troubled, they could kill you. All you would be is another short turmoil, and then a silent spot until something came in to fill the void. That’s what Raw’s thoughts felt like- dark water.
The only way you would be accurate in calling Raw the dumb brother was if you meant the original definition, of dumb — meaning, doesn’t talk. In this case, he doesn’t talk much. After only a glimpse of what troubles his mind, and the crushing strength he has — keeping those currents from crushing him — I sat in awe until I felt him come into the room, and sit on the couch beside me. I leaned in, putting my cheek against his knee.
“How can you stand that?” I asked, still drenched in the worries, and terror of the world.
“How could I not?” he asked, leaning back into the couch. “Can you just look away, pretend it isn’t out there, crashing?”
I wanted to say yes, and then prove myself right by never, ever looking at that vision again. I wanted to tell him he had a plastic heart, because that’s the only way he could stand to witness so much horror for so long. I wanted to stand beside him, and help take that weight, that purgatory, knowing I had the ability. Knowing I’d seen it before.
Before — of course — left me in a puddle of abject sobs, curled up on the sidewalk — the vision used against me as both enlightenment and punishment, but — like they say — what doesn’t kill me, had better start running.
I made my way to Raw, slid under his arm, and snuggled against his chest. This was the only way to understand and to know Raw. There was too much to him, and I wondered about all of the other gods of war of our ages. Mars, Kokou, Anahit, Mixcoatl, Kara Mate, Andarata, Badb, Neit, Yue Fei, Wen Qiong, Woden, Anhur, all the way back to Inanna. Portrayed as brutes, and villains. Blood lusted creatures no more than vampires of humanity. How much have we used them for the cause of our sins, when they struggled so hard, and so long just to get us to stop?
I didn’t know, but suspected the answer would not be flattering.
So often we want things to blame, things to take the weight, the burden from us, which is backwards so much of the time. If something else is responsible, we have no power — no ability to change. But if we are responsible, if we caused the distress, then — we may not know how or what to do — but at least we have a shot at changing, improving — even solving.
I snuggled, and tried to connect with him deeper but felt him stopping me. Looking up, I asked him, “Why?”
“Are you certain you want to see this? It doesn’t get any better, and it’s not necessary,” he said.
“How do you know what is necessary? Are you that kind of dragon too?” I asked him.
Stopping his answer with a kiss turned out to be easy, as willing as he was to feel my touch. His resolve faltered and felt to me as though he could no longer hold on to his reservations now; all of his broad and powerful defenses were down, and he was open to any attack I might choose to make. I nibbled on his earlobe and pulled his hand to my breasts.
In moments I was caught up in his lust, and he powered over me like a typhoon. My clothing became rags as did his, but it was a barely noticed transition. There was no drama or wildness to the rending actions. They were just in the way, and then — they weren’t. Whether this transition happened by force or fire made little difference to either of us.
His thrusts were deeper than any before and it came to my mind that his would likely become painful, being the kind of dragon he was, but they never did. He took me with force and with patience, his cock gliding in and out in a rhythm that my pussy understood.
To say that I was wet would have been the understatement of the century. My juices dripped from me, like water drips from the sky, moistening my thighs as Raw pumped in and out, in and out. I held on for dear life, gripping every and anything in sight. My fingers found his back and I didn’t refrain from scratching my pleasure into him. Marking him. Owning him.
“I never pegged you for much of a screamer, Misty,” Raw grunted.
My vocal cords worked. They worked just fine. But as Raw touched a finger to my clit, they refused to let actual words pass. I moaned and I screamed and my body rocked out of control.
The first orgasm crashed into me, a tsunami of pleasure that I rode right to the end. Or, to what I thought was the end. Raw was still hard. His cock stood at attention, needing more and with my center being as sensitive as it was and my mouth practically drooling from the sight of him, I covered his cock with my mouth. My lips were stretched to the very limit and I knew, without a doubt, there was no way I’d fit the length of him. But that didn’t kill the need to please him, to lick every last drop of my juices from his cock. To suck him until he moaned just as loudly as I did. Until he shot hot spurts down the back of my throat.
With one hand on his cock and the other cupping his balls, I gave him everything. I sucked until I was breathless. I stroked until I was weak. And as Raw tensed, his orgasm creeping up on him, I locked my eyes with his, wanting to see the passion in them.
“Cum for me, Raw,” I spoke, but with his cock down my throat, the words didn’t sound like words at all.
Reaching down, Raw, knotted my hair in his fists, spun me round and parted my lips with his cock once again. I didn’t know I was ready. I didn’t know I was as wet as I was but the ease with which he slid into me answered all my questions. He stretched me new with each thrust, pushing me to yet another limit. The climax that followed was heady and bright, both for me and for him.
Sated in many ways we went into the shower, and I reveled in the beauty of him. Then he brought in the mattress from his room, and we laid out on the floor together to sleep.
The room was chaos when I woke but it also gave me a feeling of home and relaxation, which felt a bit strange but I didn’t question the emotions. On the road, feelings of home were precious, and if they came your way, you just took them.
Morning turned into lunch, and we ate in the lobby restaurant. Stacks of street tacos, and the giggling waitresses watching him scarf them down. I had to say this for the man, he was fun. Now that I understood his quiet, and its cause, and the amount that he had on his mind in the background, his dull appearance was easy to love, and to nurture.
After lunch we went back out to the construction site where he admitted that this was the site of his new home. He felt this area was going to be on the edge of some amazing changes soon, and his efforts would be needed if the changes were to come to fruition.
“Would you need to be the center for that to happen?” I asked him.
He thought about that a long time. “As the center I could manage the changes with more effect, but we never lose total control of our areas. The center certainly holds the lion’s share of power, but the rest of us keep balance well.” He played with a fig in his hand, and then looked up to the sun. “But do I need to be the center? I don’t know.”
I leaned against the lumber stack, and watched him for a long time while he thought on this topic.
After a quarter hour he popped the fig into his mouth. “I’ve been the center, one of the first in fact. Inanna loved war and sex. But frequently we found the tools too bold, the outcomes too short. War and Might attract challenge, and there doesn’t appear to be a way from avoiding the glittering horn that hangs in the sky for all to see. It’s like a sign that says, ‘I took this — try to take it from me!’’ The message or meaning gets lost in the challenge.”
Crossing my arms, I thought through what he was trying to say. “Are you suggesting that you don’t wish to be the center? That you don’t want me to choose you?”
It was a hard question to ask. I felt like I had nothing to offer him if this was the case, that I lacked the very thing he needed. That I was not enough.
His eyes told me that my fears were valid.
Past his broad shoulders I saw the rising plumb of a dust cloud signature, one only created by the approach of large cars on lonely sandy roads in Mexico. I had no doubt that this was my ride, coming to take me to yet another dragon prince.
Quinn, I suspected. My Spanish pirate. Well, at least he would be fun.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I tossed Raw’s ring to him. He plucked it out of the air as if it were a falling star, and then removed the diamond. With his finger and thumb he straightened out the circlet, and then tossed the polished iron nail back to me.
“For protection until I can arrive,” he said.
In Raw’s eyes, I saw that despite everything, he wanted me. And that was hard. It was hard because, what kind of man doesn’t fight for the one he wants? What kind of man is selfless enough to let his love go and say he did it for the greater good? Sure, the others let me go. I left, sometimes without wanting to. But they knew that, in letting me go, I might come back. Raw didn’t want me to choose him.
“What about the guns?” I asked playfully, eyeing what was once my ring.
“The suit, you won’t have any trouble with that through security checks. I’m sure Quinn can acquire new guns for you. He’s good at that sort of thing,” my giant answered.
I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to leave any of them, but somehow Raw felt the hardest on me, because he didn’t want me to come back. He was a god of war who didn’t want to be right. Too strong to diminish, too terrible to continue, trapped inside his own purgatory.
I turned and my feet struggled to take me away from him, but I forced them to move regardless. I was almost out the door when I felt the trembling of the floor beneath me. In less than a second, Raw was behind me, his hands spinning me around.
“You’re more than we ever expected,” he said, “it’s shocking to all of us. Even more so, to me.” His voice sounded like it was hanging by a thread and it didn’t take a genius to tell that Raw was stepping out of a comfort zone he’d formed thousands of years ago. “I want you to choose me, Misty,” he said. “And that is wrong. It’s wrong because here,” he touched his temple, “I know, or at least, I believe strongly that the other men are more in need of the power you will bestow upon them. But here,” he took my hand in his and pressed it flush against his heart so that I could feel the quickening of its beats, “I want you. My heart wants you. All of you. Still, you don’t get to choose me. I don’t get to ask you to choose me. I don’t get to want you to choose me because having the heart decide things that the brain should is an error.”
“Why are you telling me this, Raw?” My throat was tight, making speaking almost impossible.
“Because,” he said, “you deserve to know.”
I kissed him then, slowly and passionately, connecting our souls even more than they were connected before. When I pulled back, knowing fair and well that it really was time for me to leave, a single tear formed in the corner of my eye, almost identical to the tear that formed in his.