Was there ever a more fucked up Raviyani?

Nazir sighed, kneading the throb in his temple, his other hand already undoing the buckle of the sword belt as he rushed toward the tent. How was it, that for who and what he was, he hadn't seen all that coming? Being tested on his first day leading the hunt could be expected, losing the firstborn son of a chief was not. As if that wasn't bad enough, now he was going to have to hack a limb off his sister's swornsword and possibly toss away all his plans for the boy or be considered a weak khumar. He didn't even want to think about what Djari would say to that. More importantly, what she would do to interfere.

The booming, first beat of a Raviyani drum sounded from where the main bonfire had been lit, snapping Nazir out of his thoughts for a moment. The celebration had already begun. He would have only a few hours to freshen up and get ready for the big events later that evening while music and dance ensued. For all the shits that had managed to happen during a single afternoon, he needed days, not hours, to straighten things out and rearrange his thoughts.

Brushing aside the bad feeling in his stomach, Nazir strode quickly inside his tent for a drink. He reached hurriedly for the goblet on the table, thankful for the one hurricane that had already been lit for his return and the wine that sat waiting on the table. At least one person had enough fucking sense to follow instructions.

A hand landed on his shoulder, yanking him back and threw him off balance. Catching himself just in time before crashing into a desk, he spun around to face the attacker. Through the dimly lit space, the intruder lunged forward and reached out a hand to grab his collar. Nazir stepped to the side, dropped low to the ground to slip a dagger free from his boot. Rising to his feet just as the intruder's arm passed over his head, he took the man by the throat, pushed forward and slammed him down against the desk. Arm raised high over the figure much larger than he was, blade already flipped into position, he plunged the dagger into the wood, landing it next to the intruder's ear, carving a small wound on the outer part of the earlobe.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't gut you right now," Nazir growled, grinding his teeth at the newly formed, searing heat of something closer to pain than anger rushing down his stomach.

The man underneath him stilled, tugged up the left corner of his mouth into a half-smile, his green eyes catching the light from the hurricane. "Oh I can name a few," said Baaku, his gaze traveled down from Nazir's heaving chest towards the gap between his thighs. "But the fact that you're hard as fuck right now should be sufficient, wouldn't you say?"

Nazir squeezed his eyes shut, registered the truth in Baaku's words for the first time and sighed heavily at yet another thing he couldn't control that day.

"We need to talk." He twisted the dagger in his hand, lengthening the cut that was already bleeding. Outside, the drums seemed to have picked up speed, and so did his pulse.

Baaku's half-smile stretched into a full grin as steel bit into his earlobe. The hard muscles of his chest rose and fell under Nazir in swift successions, as if in anticipation of what he knew would follow.

"Later," said the khumar of Kamara, mouth splitting a little apart, inviting, suggesting, reminding him what it had done and could still do given opportunity and permission.

Permission that didn't really need to be given, not when they were what they were and how their past, private encounters in that tent had turned out for the last two years. Even without those memories. Even with the bad feeling sitting in his stomach and the rage that still followed him around like hungry vultures hovering over a dying man, he was, Nazir admitted, his conscience drifting away like smoke in a persistent breeze, indeed hard as fuck from the confrontation at the hunting ground and the fight just now.

Oh well.

"Later." Nazir agreed with a heavy sigh, caving in to the growing pain down below and the promise of release. Release was what he urgently needed, and Ravi be damned, no one could ever offer it to him quite like this man he already had between his thighs.

***

One of these days, he was going to die fucking Nazir.

It wasn't the first time such a thought had entered Baaku's mind. There was always danger in what they did, for who they were to each other, and what they'd kept hidden from the eyes of the world. There was also danger here, coiling around them like a slippery, slithering serpent, its hardened, unforgiving length squeezing in and out as they tore and ripped from each other, feeding hungrily on the forbidden fruit they knew was going to kill them slowly and rot them from the inside out.

And yet he would always find himself coming back to this. To surrendering himself completely in the maddening scent of spice and wine in Nazir's hair, to discovering himself and losing it all over again in the void they created. He was there and not there, alive and then burned alive, pleasured and mercilessly tortured as they collided and wrestled, clawing at one another like two hungry beasts fighting over a fresh kill. In the battle of sweat and muffled screams, flesh against flesh stretched thin over corded muscles, their grip on reality loosened and tightened as they slid in and out of time and place, bringing him close and then closer to the edge, to a place where beginnings and endings collided and merged into one.

Even now, after all had been done, when all the shivering, shameless groans and dirty insults had faded, when hands and tangled limbs had finished making their mark on wrinkled sheets and torn garments, the taste of his own blood that lingered on Baaku's tongue — or just the mere scent of it — could still turn him on like an inexperienced boy seeing a naked girl for the first time. Nazir liked to bleed him before they fucked. He did that every time, without fail, in different places and many different ways. And to Baaku, the very sight of Nazir — his dangerous, scheming, blindingly beautiful Nazir — eyes bright and gleaming with satisfaction licking the blood off his fingers could finish him off faster than any experienced whore ever could.

The bleeding had become one of their rituals. A part of the process. A fee exacted in exchange for pleasure. He wondered sometimes if it had been the sight of blood or the drawing of it that Nazir wanted, or if he simply needed some justification for what they'd done to offer himself release.

Probably both, Baaku thought, rolling his shoulders back to loosen the muscles tightened from the ride earlier that afternoon and the vigorous exercise they'd just had. You either live with guilt, or you seek some kind of retribution for the wrongs you've done. He could understand it, or at least pretend to. To Baaku, there was no guilt in this, no regrets when it came to things one couldn't control. And truth be told, what had happened between him and Nazir the first time they'd met, or every time afterward when they were together, Ravi herself couldn't stop it if she came down from the sky and offered herself as the alternative.

Or perhaps it was just him, Baaku thought as he watched Nazir cross to the table and seated himself, already dressed and irritatingly composed compared to the state he was in. Brushing aside the thought that had been bothering him for some time, he pulled on his breeches and followed, taking a seat on the opposite side. Leaning back on one of the cushions embroidered in Samarran style, he realized they were new, as were many things in that tent. New, priceless items meant the Visarya was doing well. A good thing for Nazir, not so much for his father or his own khagan. Which brought him to the other, more pressing situation.

"So," he began, pouring himself a cup of wine, eyeing Nazir as he did. "Who's the pretty boy?"

Nazir hesitated, as expected. "Djari's swornsword."

Baaku grimaced. "The fuck did that happen?"

A small shrug. "Chance."

He snorted, shook his head at Nazir's usual effort to hold back information. Some things just never change. "Chance is what happens when you find a goddamn horse running loose in the desert, not your sister's swornsword." Lowering his cup, he stared openly at the khumar. "Who's the boy, Nazir?"

"You wouldn't know him."

He had an itch to roll his eyes and deliver some spiteful response to that. Didn't. The image of Nazir on the hunting ground looking pissed enough to disembowel him and save his entrails for breakfast was still too fresh to risk another episode. Being tight-lipped about things was just Nazir being Nazir. He'd gotten used to it. Sometimes he backed down, other times he didn't.

This time, however, he couldn't.

"Oh I know lots of things," he said. "Including the fact that a certain Shakshi slave has recently escaped Rasharwi and is being hunted down as we speak. A very high profile Shakshi slave."

A small pause, followed by a forced, ceremonial arch of that neat, elegant brow that usually appeared before he changed the subject. "You have spies in Rasharwi now?"

"I don't have to have spies in Rasharwi." That he did, but Nazir didn't need to know that, did he? "The reward for his head is fifty-thousand silas. Enough for every fucking man in the peninsula and his grandmother to be looking for him. Enough for both Sarasef and Saracen to be actively searching for him. Cut the crap, Nazir. Are you or are you not in possession of the Silver Sparrow of Azalea?"

Silence hung between them for a moment. Nazir placed down his drink and caught his eyes, promising retribution and something longer-lasting than physical pain if the answer to his next question turned out to be the wrong one. "Is that why you're here? To see my card, Baaku?"

It would come to this, of course. Two years of actively fucking and the closest he could get to gaining that trust was still the distance between Nazir's tent and his own on the other side of the Djamahari. "Yeah, I came here to spy for my father. See what you're up to. Hoping you'll spill some secrets I can use to fuck you over. That sort of thing." It came out with more spite than he'd intended, but that anger had to go somewhere.

As always, it didn't work on Nazir. The bastard was just sitting there, calm and composed, possibly bored. Throwing those words at a corpse two days dead might have gotten him more reaction. Baaku knew this, had felt the need to bitch about it anyway at least to make a point.

"Look," he said, leaning forward a little. "That boy is too well-known to be kept hidden and you know it. He'll lead them right here, to Djari, to you. Do you know what they pay for a pretty oracle's head these days? A hundred grand, easy. Do you want to know what they pay for a bharavi? Enough to feed an entire khagan for a year. What's the boy doing here, Nazir? What did you see?"

Nazir drew a breath, held it, and pulled back his shoulders. "I know my risks," he said crisply, chin raised like a prince addressing a toad. "Do you know yours having pulled what you had? Tell me," he paused, allowing a breath to pass before delivering the blow. "Why was the hunt early, Baaku?"

Baaku swallowed. He knew the timing of the hunt was going to come up sooner or later. Nazir was never going to let something like that go even after having demanded an arm and a leg from him. Their khagans had been in conflict for as long as they'd lived, but that day was the first time the two of them had confronted each other in person. It hadn't been his choice, of course, it hadn't. Nazir should have known this, and the fact that it needed an explanation raised his anger to a dangerous level. "I'm still under the command of my kha'a. You would have done the same."

Nazir's eyes blazed golden at that. "I would have advised a different course of action."

Assuming he hadn't, of course. Assuming, as would be typical of Nazir, that he would have no problem whatsoever to barge into the hunt to threaten and humiliate him in front of his men. "I'm a khumar, not a fucking oracle," he rasped, words pouring out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "I don't happen to have prophecies to make people shit their pants and bend to my wishes, in case you forget. Not everyone is as privileged as you are."

Nazir froze at that. His lips stretched into a thin line, pressed tight together as if to hold back a retort he'd never, ever let slip. Baaku watched the Adam's apple in that throat bob, felt the distance between them widened to the point where he could no longer reach, and realized how precisely his words had hit the mark.

Fuck.

Somewhere in his mind, an image of Nazir resurfaced, one of him sprawling naked on the bed, head rested over crossed arms, staring up at the ceiling.

"It's strange," he'd said, a foreign, delightful note to his tone that disappeared too swiftly, "that my visions never seems to come when you're around."

There was a reason why he'd been allowed to sneak in here and walk out alive for as many times as he had, why he was here at all despite Nazir's unwillingness to consider him an ally.

Nazir hated what he was. Hated it enough to cringe every time he was called an oracle, enough to actively seek an escape from it, to have even risked coming to him on nights when he shouldn't. Tired, hollow-eyed and face feverishly pale like he'd just been dragged through hell and back, those nights he'd simply crashed on Baaku's bed, slept like a baby and left by morning. There had been no explanations, of course, no spilling of secrets or his ferociously-guarded vulnerability, but one would have to be a fool to not see it or cared very little to not notice how much he craved a sense of normalcy in his life.

A sense of normalcy only he could give that had just been tossed out the window the moment he'd spoken those words.

You fucking idiot.

Baaku drew a breath and sighed, squeezing his eyes shut as he mentally kicked himself over that slip of his tongue he wasn't sure he could fix. "Look," he said apologetically. "It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to do this. Consider my last proposal. My father is ready to negotiate for Djari's dowry. He's already discussing it with the council. The offer will be made as soon as she turns sixteen. Give her to me, and we end this now. We can fight together, unite the other khagans to attack Sabha and the rest of the fortresses, take back what's ours." It could be done, if enough khagans were united, but it would have to start with two influential ones to work together to bring the others into submission, and it had to be done quickly.

"Muradi is mobilizing his force. My sources told me he's building two hundred ships to cross the sea to Makena. The cavalry is ready, with our own goddamn horses taken from the Vilarhiti. He's already training his men out there in the desert as we speak. They'll come prepared this time, by land and by sea to attack us and Makena and take whatever's left of this peninsula once and for all. We can't be sitting here fighting each other. Work with me here. We need to act and act now and you know it."

From across the table, Nazir leaned back on the cushion and swirled the content of his cup at leisure, as if he was simply listening to some background music that added flavor to the drink in hand. The burning amber of his eyes as he stared back at Baaku, however, told a different tale. He sipped his wine, took the time to savor it, placed the cup down neatly on the table and said, "And who leads us?"

A hammer of words, spoken as lightly as a woman's touch, coming down to smash open the gate where a monster resided. Baaku swallowed, curled his hands into fists under the table as a newly formed, dreadful creature settled in his gut, making him sick to the stomach.

"What happens when your father has my sister?" Nazir continued, tone light as a feather, sharp enough to sever a limb. "What do you think will happen then if you cannot influence him now? You don't think I know what's happening? Why he'd sent you to the hunt early? What did he want you to do, Baaku? Humiliate me? Force me to make poor decisions? Create as much trouble as you possibly can to weaken us from the inside out so he can ride in with an offer we can't refuse? Do it," he snapped at the first hint of Baaku opening his mouth to speak, "lie your way out of this and I will make sure you don't leave this tent alive. You were right, I am a fucking oracle, born with privilege and not afraid to use it to make people shit their pants. If you think your offer of small pleasures will turn me into an idiot you can coax into offering you my khagan on a silver plate, you'd better think again before I realize how little I need you or your cock around here."

***

'For everything everyone would suffer, you, as their messenger, will suffer it tenfolds,' his mother had said, her small, delicate fingers running gently through his hair as she did. 'Find your source of strength, my son, find as many as you can, keep them close and whatever you do, don't let go.'

Nazir sat on the bed, squeezing his eyes shut at those words and the painful truth that accompanied it. Keep them close, she'd said, as if it was a choice for him to make.

As if anything was ever a choice.

It certainly had never been his choice with Baaku, Nazir thought, wincing at the memory of their first meeting more than a decade ago. How certain he had been, staring at the green-eyed, brown-haired boy standing behind his father, that he would grow into the man in his visions.

There had been nothing he could do about it afterward, no way to stop the turn of events that had followed. The visions had kept on coming, more frequent and clearer as time went by, until there had been little left of their future he hadn't seen by the time they'd run into each other again two years ago.

Their future ... or the lack of it.

An image of Baaku just before he'd left the tent replayed itself in his mind. His own words still raw on his tongue.

... before I realize how little I need you...

"Have you ever, Nazir?" Baaku had responded after a long pause, face pale and etched deep with too many emotions to name, a strained, painful smile on his lips. "Needed me in your life? Even once?"

And he had seen it then, in the fading lights of those green eyes and the hopeless resignation of the nod that followed, how his refusal to answer such a question had been interpreted, and what deliberately timed, unspoken words could do to a man.

Baaku looked at him then, torn flesh and tattered pride in his eyes, his fists clenching tight around both their hearts. "I thought so."

It was for the best, Nazir thought, trying once more to swallow the lump in his throat that had been refusing to dissipate. Some prophecies demanded actions, some sacrifices, and others simply acceptance. This one with him and Baaku was going to take all three, and even then he wasn't even sure it would be enough. Still, he had to try. He might not be able to change the future with his visions, but it could be lessened, turned into something else, made bearable to those involved.

Lies, and more lies. He shook his head at his own folly. When has that ever worked out for you?

The sound of hurried footsteps pulled him from his thoughts. Someone called and asked for permission to enter. He gave the clearance, didn't like something in that voice.

The guard in grey came in, gave him a slight bow and adjusted himself. He swallowed, looked worriedly at his khumar, winced before he even uttered the words. "We can't find Djari."

***