Nischal [leopard spots 9] (20 page)

Nischal was afraid that whatever he’d been about to say would have torn Preston up inside. Preston opened his mouth to ask, but Paul turned a pleading look on his brother. Preston closed his mouth and Paul seemed to sag with relief.

“I just don’t know how I could ever forget a man with eyes like yours,” Paul finally said to Nischal. “They remind me of a snow leopard’s…” Paul shuddered and rubbed his biceps just as someone knocked on the door. “I’ll get that.”

Preston looked like he wanted to protest, but Nischal tugged him in for a hug.
“Let him go.”

“He’s running from the question I should ask—”

“He needs to tell his story in his own time, if he tells it at all,”
Nischal thought at Preston.
“Right now he’s giddy with his first taste of freedom in over a year. I know how he feels. Later, he will have to deal with what happened to him. But not right this moment.”

“You’re right. I won’t push. But if that fucking doctor douchebag wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him. That scar, the bruises, everything he did to Paul. I didn’t know it was possible to hate someone as much as I hate him, and he’s fucking dead!”
Preston’s mental snort was loud enough to make Nischal’s ears ring.
“I want Paul to come with us, wherever we go.”

“He’ll have to be told about me and Sabby, then,”
Nischal pointed out, his gut clenching. He would trust Paul if Preston did.

“I do trust him. He won’t do or say anything that could cause you and Sabby harm.”

“Okay.”
Nischal wasn’t going to argue. If he were in Preston’s position, he’d tell his brother, too.

They listened as Paul and Sabby approached. The two were chattering away like they’d been friends forever. Nischal shot an amused grin Preston’s way, and Preston beamed at him. It looked like Paul and Sabby would get along just fine.

“Help me make some coffee?”
Preston asked.

After they got the pot to brewing, they sat down to talk with Paul and Sabby, but they didn’t get many words in until Paul turned to Preston. “When are Mom and Dad coming?”

Preston checked the clock. “Two more hours, unless something else went wrong with their flight.”

“I don’t want to see them,” Paul said decisively. “Have you and them started talking since I was taken?”

“No.” Preston frowned. “No, but they’ve been worried—”

“Agent De la Garza told me it’s been you who kept after the police to investigate me going missing.” Paul leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “She said it was you who tracked down that fucker who beat me and raped me.” Paul’s cheeks burned red. “And no, I don’t want to talk about any of that. I’m over it.”

Nischal doubted that, very much, and he could tell Preston did too, but arguing wouldn’t do any good. There was a stubborn set to Paul’s expression that made that clear.

“She told me you almost died trying to get to Suraj and his girlfriend—and that sick bitch was in on it, too. I don’t ever want to think about what she did to me.” Paul shivered and looked away. “It’s done, anyway. And my point is, Mom and Dad did nothing, did they?”

“I don’t know what they did or didn’t do,” Preston admitted. “I didn’t contact them, the police and FBI did. I should have—”

“You should have nothing,” Paul snapped. “I don’t want to see them. I don’t want their two stupid patronising cards a year, either. I won’t talk to them. They’re dead to me, as dead to me as they thought I was to everyone.”

He pointed at Paul. “And don’t try lecturing me. I’ve heard enough lectures, enough orders and demands to last me a lifetime!”

Preston’s eyes were glimmering with tears, but he didn’t shed a one of them as he agreed. “I won’t. You don’t have to see them, but I hope you’ll want to stay with Nisch, Sabby and me.”

Paul suddenly looked lost. “I do. I need to be with you, Preston. If we’d been closer, if I hadn’t been so damned determined to make myself independent of you, to set myself apart all because of my own foolish pride—Well. Things would have been different, right?” He stood up and stretched, grunting when his back popped. He looked at Nischal. “So you have these amazing eyes, and black hair, and your brother has white hair and pretty green eyes. Neither of you have last names. You, Nischal, have managed to win my brother’s heart, which makes me want to like you, but every time I look at you, I get such a weird feeling of familiarity.”

Preston glanced at Nischal. Nischal shrugged. “Might as well tell him now.”

“Tell me what now?” Paul asked immediately.

“He’s trying to think of everything but what has happened to him, I’d wager,”
Nischal thought to his mate.
“If nothing else, Sabby and I can certainly give his brain something else to freak out over.”

“Okay. Well, then.”
Preston patted the couch. “Have a seat again. I want to tell you how I met Nischal and Sabin.”

Paul sat, but not on the couch. He plopped his ass right down on the coffee table in from of Preston and Nischal. “Spill.”

“It all started when I was looking for you,” Paul began. “The police weren’t putting any effort into your missing person’s case, and I was so frustrated that I decided I’d find out what had happened to you myself.”

Paul listened with a sort of rapt intent as his brother spoke. He cursed Suraj and Yangani when Preston told him about nearly dying at Suraj’s hands. When Preston mentioned the snow leopards escaping, Paul’s attention centred right on Nischal. It was eerie, as if somehow Paul knew the truth. Such a thing couldn’t be possible, yet Nischal couldn’t shake the idea that Paul had a knowing look in place when Preston took a deep breath then continued.

“Here’s the thing. You won’t believe me, but they can prove what I’m about to tell you, and I’m sure once you see it, you’ll understand the need for secrecy.” Preston nodded at Nischal.

“One or both of us?” Sabby asked.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Preston replied.

Sabby pulled off his shirt and Nischal did the same. Paul never looked away from Nischal’s face.

“It took me a day or two to wrap my mind around this, but there’s more to this world than we’ll ever know.” Preston nodded. “Nischal seemed familiar to me, too, then he showed me why that was. Why I could hear his thoughts, sometimes, and he could hear mine. Why I was so drawn to him I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t want to. He told me he was a snow leopard shifter, and he shifted to prove it.”

Paul gasped and leaned so far backwards he toppled over the other side of the coffee table. “I’m all right,” he groused when Preston reached for him. Paul got up on his own, but he didn’t resume his seat on the coffee table. In fact, he backed up until he was a fair distance away from Nischal and Sabin both. “Show me.”

“They need to ditch their clothes,” Preston warned. “Otherwise they tear them.”

Paul bobbed his head, but his eyes rounded as fear leaked from the pores of his skin. Nischal could easily smell it.

Nischal stripped mechanically, trying not to put his junk out there too much, but there were only so many ways he could stand around nude without giving a person a full display. He finally just dropped to his hands and knees. Sabby was only a half-second behind him.

Then Nischal let it come over him, his leopard awakening fully inside him. He arched into the pain, welcoming it. It wasn’t anything like the agony of his first shift a few days ago, but there was never a painless shift. There were, however, quick ones. He was done almost as soon as he had started. He looked up at Paul, who had a terrified expression on his face.

“Shifters,” he mumbled, stumbling backwards. “Should have known, should have—”

Nischal and Sabby shifted back instantly. Paul was on the verge of freaking out on them. “It’s okay,” Preston murmured in a soothing voice. “Paul, they won’t hurt you. They are still Nisch and Sabby. No matter what form they’re in, they’re still the good men I know.”

Paul pressed a hand to his chest, then one to his belly. “Gonna be sick,” he muttered before he made a mad dash for the bathroom.

Nischal and Sabby looked at each other then at Preston. “I’m sorry, Pres,” Nischal began. He’d leave Preston if that was what Pres wanted. It’d kill Nischal to do it, but Preston’s happiness was paramount to Nischal. “I can leave. Me and Sabby, I mean—”

“Don’t even think that,” Preston snapped. “You two aren’t going anywhere without me. I’m going to check on Paul.”

Chapter Eighteen

Preston knocked on the bathroom door. He didn’t know why exactly Paul had been so scared, but the thought that he’d seen other shifters before—and that they’d done very bad things to him—were the foremost suspicions in Preston’s mind.

“Paul, let me in.”

Preston heard retching and he tried the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. “I’m coming in. You didn’t lock it.”

“I wasn’t allowed,” Paul got out before more sick sounds cut off his words.

Preston wanted to scream. Paul hadn’t been allowed to lock the bathroom door? Ever?

Inside the bathroom, the sight of Paul on his knees, leaning over the toilet as he threw up, brought Preston to his knees as well. He got down on the floor beside his brother and held Paul’s hair out of the way. “It’s gonna be okay, Paul. It will. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Paul panted and pressed a shaking hand to his sweaty brow. “I know. I know you wouldn’t, Preston, but the things I’ve seen, that I’ve had to survive—I don’t want to talk about it, I want to forget it all. But you’ve fallen in love with something that scares the fucking life out of me.”

“Not some
thing
, some
one
. Nischal is a man, not a thing. So is Sabby, and they are both just as noble and kind as leopards as they are when they’re men.” He pushed Paul’s long hair behind his ears. “I don’t know what happened, and I know you don’t want to talk about it. I won’t push, but I am asking you to listen to me. Nisch and Sabby, they were caught, drugged, starved for years. Suraj used them to set traps for the men he kidnapped and sold. Suraj and Yangani, two humans, just humans, but look at how evil they were.

“Whereas Nisch and Sabby are loyal, loving men who happen to be a bit more. They can shift into snow leopards. They still retain the ability to think and reason like a human in their feline form. They don’t turn into wild beasts—”

“They can,” Paul said. “They can and if they do, they’re so much more dangerous than plain ol’ humans, and that’s saying something. I won’t tell you how I was hurt, but I will tell you I’ll carry scars from being a shifter’s slave for over a year.”

“Dr Solakav?”

“And some of his buddies,” Paul muttered. “They thought it was fun to own humans.”

“Oh shit,” Preston whispered. This was more than just human trafficking, he knew it with a certainty. This was about shifters owning humans, abusing them and abusing their power.

Preston didn’t want Paul to hate all shifters because of it. He needed Paul to like Nisch, and hopefully Sabby as well.

“Not all shifters are bad, just like not all humans are sociopaths,” Preston told his brother. “God, if all shifters were evil, we humans would all be at their mercy. Think about it. There are good people, and bad ones. Same goes for the shifters. Please, please don’t hate Nischal and Sabby just because they were born shifters.”

Paul was silent for so long that Preston thought he’d blown it. He was prepared to start begging when Paul turned his head enough to look at Preston. Paul licked his lips, then he closed his eyes. “Okay, because you’ve never lied to me, and you’ve never tried to hurt me. I’ll try to believe you, but I don’t know if I can.”

“Just give them a chance,” Preston begged softly. “I can’t live a full life without Nisch or you.”

“I’ll try,” Paul repeated. “That’s all I can give you, but it’s the truth.”

Preston remembered the paper Cliff had given Sabby with the address of other snow leopard shifters in Colorado. “Was he a snow leopard shifter? And his friends?”

Paul barely shook his head. “No. No, wolves, all of them. Brutal beasts.” Paul shivered, then he shivered again, and again until it seemed he was trying to break apart from the inside out.

Preston wrapped his brother in his arms and held him. “I would take it all from you if I could. Everything, without regret—”

“Don’t say that! Don’t say you’d do it without regret, because I regret every fucking minute of the day!” Paul shouted. “I regret being born, being gay, wanting to be different from you because I always thought I couldn’t live up to you so I might as well be the out and loud one. But most of all, most of all I regret going to see those snow leopards, and now…” Paul made a choked sound. “Now I’m going to have to see them if I want you in my life.”

Preston’s heart broke. He couldn’t give up Nisch, and he was afraid that was what Paul needed. But that bond that had been drawing them together was strong, stronger than Preston’s need for anyone else.

“They’re good men,” he said uselessly. “Amazing men. They didn’t do anything to hurt you, Paul. They wouldn’t.”

“I can’t help it,” Paul rasped as tears streamed down his cheeks. “It’s not them, I know that. It’s me. It’s me and it always will be. That’s not fair to you. I’ll… I’ll go back to Arkansas, or—”

“Please don’t,” Preston begged. “I only just got you back, and I can’t—don’t make me choose. Please don’t do that. Please, you’ve always had the kindest heart. Don’t let that asshole have taken it from you. Don’t let him have that part of you.”

Paul cried quietly, barely making a sound. He clung to Preston, and Preston relished being able to touch his brother again even as he hated the reason for it. Seeing Paul in so much pain was hell, but he didn’t know what to do other than hold him and murmur soothing words to him.

Eventually, Paul sniffled several times and his shaking ceased. He stilled, and Preston thought he’d fallen asleep. It startled Preston when Paul spoke.

“I… I need help,” Paul stuttered, something he hadn’t done since childhood. “I don’t want to let this control me. I don’t want to talk about it, but I need to learn to cope, and maybe, maybe I need to be alone for a little while—”