Not really needing sleep, the three men were up long before Kevin and Nick were. AJ and Howie set out for town together to get a few articles of clothing so they had more than one outfit to wear while they were there. Left with free time, Brian decided to make breakfast. He knew Kevin, and knew what time he generally woke. Since it was rolling on seven am, Brian set about making a full breakfast: eggs, toast, sausage, and pancakes. The pancakes were added for Nick.
Even after AJ telling him about it, Brian still found himself surprised that the food smelled good, and he wanted some, in his mind, but there was no strong desire to eat as there once was. He felt slightly stupid for not having realized it sooner.
Just as he’d suspected, Kevin stumbled in just as the coffee finished brewing. Brian had just set the eggs and sausage in the oven on warm so that he could start the pancakes. His cousin walked right to the coffee pot, pouring himself a cup with a mumbled “thanks”.
It took another five minutes before Kevin had enough caffeine in his system to start to talk. He leaned against the counter and smiled at Brian. “In the mood to cook, cos?” he asked him.
Brian offered up a smile while he flipped the pancake. “You could say that. Bored, too. Howie and Alex went to go get some things from town. I figured I might as well be useful, as someone needed to stay here.”
A worried look had Kevin’s eyebrows furrowing together. He set his cup on the counter and turned to better look at Brian. “Is it really that big a concern that we can’t be alone?” he asked, his eyes darting up to where Nick was still sleeping and back down to Brian. No matter how much Brian wished he could reassure his cousin, he had to be honest with him. “Yes. He’ll stop at nothing, Kev. Nothing. I’ve been at his mercy before.” He paused, taking the finished pancake and adding it to the tray in the oven to keep it warm. “I would never want you to be.”
Kevin watched as Brian poured more batter onto the griddle. His coffee cup was long forgotten on the counter. “Was it that bad, what he did to you?” he finally whispered. The question didn’t surprise Brian. He had known it was coming. To his surprise, the thoughts didn’t hurt as much as they once had. They didn’t automatically bring on that terror.
While the pancakes sizzled, Brian turned his attention to his cousin, his family. On one hand, he wasn’t sure how Kevin would handle hearing the truth. On the other, he needed to understand the threat they were up against. He knew the large scale, the worldwide threat, but they had glossed over details of what their kidnapping had been like.
The silence dragged on. Brian flipped the pancakes, watching them as he ordered his thoughts together. Kevin didn’t press it. He had always been good at reading people and giving them the space they needed. But once the pancakes were done and in the oven to stay warm, Brian poured his own coffee, turned the griddle off, and gestured for Kevin to follow him onto the back porch.
It felt easier to breathe, stepping outside. Air whipped across his face, and sunshine peeked through the clouds to shine down on him. He took a deep breath. Until that moment he hadn’t realized how much it had affected him to be inside the house so much. He’d become accustomed to being outside. His mind, body, and magic craved it.
More relaxed now, he looked over at Kevin. “It’s a long answer for a short question, if you’re sure that you want to know the truth. Just keep in mind that what you hear may be hard for you to stomach. I won’t sugar coat it if at all possible.”
“I need to understand.” Kevin admitted softly. He stared down into his cup. “I may not want to hear it, but I think I need to. I need to know.” His eyes came back up, locking onto Brian.
At one time the thought of saying all to his cousin would have had Brian terrified. Now he knew that there were worse things in life. It didn’t diminish what he had been through, but it put it in a new perspective. With AJ’s help, as well as the help of his newfound family, Brian had also begun to heal.
“Roth chased us down when we left. We told you how he made the storm, and he took me. He tricked us all. He’d learned a weave that used spirit against a person’s center. Your center is the place where your soul sits. It’s the core of who you are. For people with my abilities, it’s also the center of all your magic. He makes a net of pure spirit and wraps it around there so that you are totally under his control. You can’t do anything.”
Brian took a drink from his coffee and looked out at the fields behind Kevin’s house. Back toward the stable where the horses were kept. Over the green pastures. It was a soothing image that gave him strength to continue.
“He could make your body move, or make you not able to move. More often he liked to immobilize all of me but my head. That way he could still talk to me and hear me scream. He also had control of our magic, and through that, our healing. We told you how quickly we heal. He could choose to hurt me and have it not heal, or heal slowly. He broke all my fingers in one hand, one by one, and refused to let them heal. Sometimes the healing hurts as much as the breaking. One by one he let them heal, enjoying it when I screamed.
“He really does believe that AJ knocked up his daughter and refused to marry her. Isadora was gang raped. AJ recused her and helped to try to heal her. When she found out she was pregnant, she tried to convince him to tell her father that it was his. He refused, and she ran away. AJ found her, and found out who her dad was. She used her magic to prevent them from helping and threw herself off a cliff.”
Brian heard Kevin’s gasp, but he didn’t let it stop his story. This was something that Kevin needed to hear. He pushed away his own feelings, his own heartache at what his love had lived through, and continued on.
“I went through physical and sexual assault when I was with him. He delighted in hurting me. Part of it was because he knows how important I am to Alex, and he would do anything to hurt Alex. Anything. But the other part of him, I could catch glimpses of it in his eyes. He enjoyed what he was doing. He enjoyed watching me bleed. He enjoyed forcing my body to do things to him, or respond to him, knowing how much it hurt me mentally.
“Then, when AJ came and sacrificed himself for me, nothing could have pleased Roth more. He forgot all about me in the effort to hurt him. Two for one, in his mind. The enjoyment of having someone under his control as well as having the person he hates more than anything else in the world.”
Now Brian turned toward Kevin and pinned him with his gaze. This was the most important part. He wanted to make sure that Kevin fully understood everything. “Because you’re tied to us, to AJ, if he ever got you he would hurt you. You wouldn’t die; he’s too talented to let you die on his hands. You’re much better use and enjoyment when you’re alive. He will rape you, and hurt you. He’ll break your bones, burn your body, mutilate you beyond what you think you can bear. All the while he’ll use his magic to keep you alive and awake. He wants nothing more than to watch you bleed and hear your screams.”
The pain of it all was almost too much. Brian could feel that small part of him that still held the darkness trying to rise up. He took a few steps away, moving straight into the sunlight. It eased his ache at the same time that it gave him energy. A voice slipped into his mind, worried and full of love. AJ. ‘Are you ok? What on earth has you feeling so sad, song of my heart? What brings this darkness out?’
Brian had to smile, even if only lightly. ‘Kev and I are talking, my love. I told him a little more detail about my time with Roth so he would understand how serious this threat against them is. He needed to hear it.’
A wordless pulse of love came over the bond, wrapping around Brian’s insides, pushing the darkness back. It was like the sun, warming him and easing him, only it was inside of him. He let it fill him, basking in its glow, its warmth.
Kevin’s hand was suddenly on his arm, warm and familiar. “I had no idea what kind of person he was when he visited Dad.” Kevin spoke softly, his words weighted down with grief and pain. “I doubt Dad did either. We never wanted you to be hurt, or to make you an easy target for him. At the time, we both thought it was right. I just wanted you to know that I’m more sorry than I can ever say.”
Surprise flittered through Brian. He turned to look at Kevin, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Kev, you were a kid. How on earth could you have been expected to know better? Yeah, before you say it, I know you feel bad for thinking that way as an adult. But you were a kid when you were told. You trusted adults. There’s no reason to be sorry, because there’s nothing to forgive. You were my family, looking out for me. I love you. It’s that simple.” Mentally, he added an aside to AJ, who he knew was listening in now. ‘That means you back off too, bucko. Don’t be getting your panties in a twist over all this. I’m not mad at him.’
It took everything Brian had to calmly hug his cousin and be a part of the emotional moment with AJ in the back of his mind snickering. He tried to hush him while, at the same time, smile at Kevin when they pulled back. The two went back to drinking their coffee, more at ease around one another. Kevin started to talk about something, about what they could do while they were there it sounded like, but Brian couldn’t focus.
‘My panties?’ AJ was teasing him. ‘Since when do I wear panties? Last I checked I have boxers on, and I hate every damn second of it. Give me some breeches any day of the week, not these boxers and jeans.’
‘It’s just a figure of speech, Alex! Holy cow. Will you quit distracting me with thoughts of you in those damn pants, please?’
‘Turning you on, Bri?’
Brian snorted lightly. He felt Kevin’s curious gaze and tried to wave it off, flushing slightly. “Tell me how the horse breeding is going.” He said, grasping at straws. Something, anything, to keep Kevin talking. Anything to stop him from noticing the heat that Brian felt in his face. Heat that he knew would have his eyes glowing lightly. Not that Kevin would understand, but Brian didn’t want to put that to the test. ‘Be quiet, Alex!’ he tried again.
‘Nuh uh, this is fun. Bet I can get you turned on till you’re hard without me even being there to touch you.’
The threat in that had Brian biting his cheek to keep from chuckling. He knew better than to argue with AJ when he was in these kinds of moods. Still making appropriate comments to Kevin, whatever the hell he was saying now, Brian let his amusement fill him on the inside. ‘You don’t want to start that game with me, Alyck Tuian. I will win.’
‘Oh! A challenge. Oh goody, this ought to be fun!’
A wave of pleasure hit Brian, almost catching him by surprise. He had to hold the gasp in that wanted to slide past his lips. Nothing must have shown on the outside because Kevin kept talking, moving on to a new horse he’d recently bought. Brian gritted his teeth and tried to turn the tables on AJ. He didn’t just send the feeling of pleasure, but he words to go with it. He knew how AJ loved dirty talk sometimes.
‘You know who’s going to win this, Alex. Do you remember last night? I have a very vivid memory. I remember you underneath me, your hair fanned out on the bed, your eyes glowing. The way you gasp and arch when I hit just that right spot. The way you taste…’
As Brian continued on, he realized that it was a double edged sword he was holding. He could tell how much he was turning AJ on, but it turned him on as well. He took a deep breath, barely paying attention as he followed Kevin back into the house. Nick was coming down the stairs, bleary eyed, and Kevin was serving him his coffee while Brian gathered dishes. That gave him the perfect cover to concentrate.
Even as he kept up the descriptive images Brian served breakfast. As his own pleasure grew, he took a deep breath and tried to seize it and turn it back around .To his surprise, it worked. He took everything he was feeling and channeled it back into the bond, feeding it back over to AJ right along with his words. He felt AJ’s desire grow and grow by leaps and bounds. He would have stopped, but AJ was still trying to win.
Just as Brian was reaching to grab the paper towels he felt AJ give up the fight. The pleasure was too much for him, and Brain felt his eyes go wide as a familiar feeling echoed across the bond. He stumbled, grabbing hold of the counter as his barriers dropped from shock and the feelings hit him full force. It took a second to control it. Brian paid no mind to the two who were now staring at him as he braced his hands on the counter.
‘I swear to the Gods above, Brian. I told you one time you were dangerous.’ AJ’s mind voice came back, carrying a breathless feel to it. ‘I’m just lucky I was near enough to escape into a bathroom. You made me come without touching me. Shit. I admit defeat, gladly. You win this one.’
‘Good, cause I totally won. But I’ll give you credit. Your orgasm hit me, too. It was all I could do to not join you right here in the kitchen, with Nick and Kevin looking on.’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that. Serves you right. Now I’m stuck cleaning myself up in a public restroom at a fucking Wal Mart. Jesus. I barely got my jeans out of the way in enough time. Howie probably thinks I’m possessed.’
‘Well at least you put your glamour on. No one will see your glowing eyes. Now, you going to listen to me and leave me alone so I can talk with my friends? Or you need another lesson.’
A mental growl heated Brian’s blood. He shivered as he straightened up. ‘Brian Thomas Littrell, I’ll show you a lesson you won’t forget. You know who’s boss in this. I’ll see to you when I get home.’
‘Tonight, lover.’ With that, Brian pulled back from their connection and centered himself in reality again. That allowed him to see that Kevin and Nick were both staring at him. To his surprise, he didn’t feel embarrassment. He felt his lips curve, and he flipped Nick a wink.
For a minute Nick stared at him. Then he threw his head back and laughed.