Rakshasa Book I, Part #2: Aurora (2 page)

“More specifically,” I said, “about me being an Altaica. And you being a Rewa. What does that mean?”

He hesitated slightly and I could sense his reluctance. I leaned forward, kissing him again, urging him to speak.

“It’s… it’s complicated. Do you remember when I told you that there were factions of Rakshasa? And those factions didn’t get along?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“The Rewa and the Altaica compete. They compete for territory, for pride and for status. Those of both clans take this very seriously, some more than others. Their struggle has been going for some time, the pendulum of success swinging back and forth between the two, but always seeming to return to balance.”

I turned away from him, eagerly wiggling back against his body, pressing my back against his chest. “No more questions,” I said, but Ishan instead shook his head.

“Not tonight. You’ve been asleep for some time and your body is still weak from your injuries. I don’t want to exert your mind.”

I snuggled my back against his chest, frowning. “I feel fine.”

Ishan’s hands snaked around my waist, hugging me back to him. “Of course you do. This place exists in our minds, so you don’t feel the pain of the real world. Your body seems healthy so your mind makes you
feel
healthy.”

Urgh. I treasured these dream moments and, despite what Ishan told me, I felt on top of the world when I was here. I felt confident and comfortable and although I’d dreamed every night since meeting him, I still felt as though we didn’t spend anywhere near enough time together.

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of what my body can and can’t do, mmm?”

I felt him kiss at my neck, felt his lips touch my skin. The gentle, subtle touch sent shivers up my spine although the hilltop was sunny and warm. I reached behind him, touching his hips.

“Well,” Ishan said, “You make a compelling argument.” I felt his lips kiss down over my shoulder, little pecks that barely touched my skin. I closed my eyes, basking in the sensation.

I leaned back against him but felt him move backward, easing me to the ground. I went with the motion, my hands grasping hold of his shoulders, pulling him over on top of me. I stroked my fingers over his broad, strong shoulders, slipping under his arms, wandering down his sides, and Ishan leaned down and kissed my forehead. It probably was true that getting it on in this place was not the wisest thing I’d ever done, especially with how badly my arm had been bleeding after the Champawat Tiger had slashed it up, but I didn’t care. This was my safe place and whatever storms were raging out in the real world, no matter what pain and stress and panic there was there, this was a place of safety and comfort. This was a place where, unlike the real world, I set the pace and tempo of my life.

Ishan kissed down between my eyes, down over my nose, then to my lips. When they met I kissed him eagerly, firmly, pulling his bare chest against mine with my hands. I opened my mouth slightly, letting my tongue brush over his lips. I savoured the taste of him, his warm mouth, his pleasant scent filling my nose.

I wiggled further into the thick grass, feeling the wind pick up as his kissing became more urgent, more needy. I felt his fingers roaming over my body, touching, stroking me affectionately. My hands gripped his sides, stroking over his dark skin, watching as the patterns began to emerge on his skin. The white and brown tiger stripes, like a tattoo growing over his entire body, began its slow transition into existence. I curled my legs around his middle, pulling him close against me, feeling his warm body against mine.

He entered me and my grip on his shoulder tightened. I inhaled, closing my eyes and tilting back my head, basking in the wonderful sensations and the natural beauty of this place.

The wind whipped the grass around me as we made love, his body sliding against mine, fluid and even, and I gave him a firm squeeze with my thighs, tracing my heel up and down his lower back. Ishan kissed at my neck, his hands holding me close, and I wiggled down till my face was almost against him. He continued to work his hips, pushing himself in and out of me, his body thumping against mine.

I closed my eyes, just for a moment, drinking in the feelings. I dragged my fingernails up Ishan’s back, gently scratching against his skin, breathing in the beautiful scent of the hill through my nose.

“Harder,” I urged him, rolling my hips needfully below him, and he obliged; his body thumped against me, his warm skin bumping against mine. Ishan panted softly, breathing through his nose, gripping me with his hands. I slid my hands around his shoulders, giving them both a firm squeeze, then cupped his cheeks. I brought his lips to mine and kissed him; it was as though electric current passed between us as they met and I tilted my head slightly, kissing at him with eager need.

The hill around us exploded into life. The wind swirled around us and the sky above me became brighter, more vibrant, as the sun’s glow bathed the entire area in a soft, fuzzy radiance. The clouds evaporated, leaving only the most brilliant sapphire-blue sky.

My body felt electrified. Ishan’s movements became erratic, but faster, and I gripped him tighter. “Don’t stop,” I implored, kissing over his face, my thumb tracing over his cheek. I bounced back against each of his motions, panting softly, and I felt the end begin. I closed my eyes, expecting the natural surroundings of the dream world to continue their dramatic surge, but things became too dark.

I opened my eyes. The world was beginning to darken. Above me, the moon was crossing over the sun. It happened every time, and only I could see it. All our dreams ended this way.

“Ishan… the eclipse. It’s coming…!”

And so was I. And he, too, I could sense it. Waves of pleasure washed over me, and as the world grew dark I roared into the gloom, denying the end of the dream, celebrating our shared pleasure.

The light faded, and the gunshot woke me from my sleep.

*****

Where the dream world was a peaceful and serene moment on top of a brilliantly lit hilltop, the real world was an uncomfortably cold bed and a faint, lingering pain in my left arm. I forced my eyes open.

I was in a dimly lit section of a cave. Faintly glowing electric lanterns hung from the ceiling, hanging from hooks driven into the stone. The bed I was sleeping on was sitting straight onto the stone ground, something that struck me as intensely odd. I was covered in a thin blanket which did little to keep out the southern cold.

Sitting, I swooned slightly, feeling lightheaded. The world seemed slow and dull, like I’d been drugged. I held my arm up in front of my face, struggling to see in the gloom. It was as it was; dark skin, unmarked. Not a scratch upon it.

“Feeling better?” came a voice. It was clearly a woman’s, but deeper than it should have been, throaty and purring. It rolled like a stone coming down a mountain. Further down the cave, towards the gloom, I could see a pair of bright green eyes and the outline of a face.

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, “To be honest I feel pretty rotten. Am I supposed to feel so nauseous?”

“You lost a lot of blood,” the stranger said, “and we had to give you something to make you sleep. Because of what we are, it takes powerful drugs to force us to slumber, and powerful drugs have equally powerful side effects.”

I frowned, blinking away the fuzziness from my eyes. “I thought I was fairly asleep already. I remember fainting in my apartment—”

“People move in their sleep,” she interrupted, “and so do Rakshasa. But when a person moves, it’s just a person. A Rakshasa has claws and teeth and is much stronger. They can be dangerous, even as fledglings. We had to make sure you were still while we moved you. If you woke up, in pain and disorientated, your instincts could have taken over. You could have attacked us, or ran. If we lost track of you the humans may have found you, and that’s a situation we want to avoid if we can.”

It made sense, but that didn’t help the feeling that I was going to throw up. I peered into the gloom, trying to see the face of the person I was talking to. “Who are you?”

“My name is
Asena.
Don’t be alarmed.”

Stepping from the shadows into the light, a lithe but muscular woman covered in orange tiger stripes revealed herself, wearing a tank-top and a pair of loose, baggy pants. A long tail snaked behind her, almost touching the ground. She moved with exceptional agility, putting one foot before the other, her movements graceful and fluid. It seemed odd to see her at rest, as though a creature so adept at moving would be unnatural when still.

“I’m not alarmed, I’ve seen other Rakshasa before,” I said, doing my best to smile despite the churning of my belly.

Asena nodded, her tone mysterious and vaguely annoyed. “Yes, so we gathered.”

I regarded her, curious now. She had the same orange colour I had, the mark of the
Altaica. I with my kind, other Rakshasa like me.

“I… Ishan told me about the Rewa. And how they and the Altaica don’t play nice together.”

“Did he now.” Her tone dropped slightly at the mere mention of the other clan. “Perhaps you could tell me how you met ‘Ishan’, and what you know about the Altaica?”

I shuffled on the bed, tugging the bedsheets up a little higher. “He told me that the Altaica have orange strips, and that the Rewa have white.” An important fact came to my mind. “I have orange.”

“We know.”

I was in my human form, now, as I was when I’d passed out. How she knew that escaped me. “The Champawat Tiger has orange stripes, is he one of our clan?”

She paused, regarding what I’d said. “How did you know he was a Rakshasa?”

“He tried to kill me.”

I thought she was going to press the point but to my infinite relief, Asena shook her head. “The one you know as the Champawat Tiger is Altaica by blood, but he has long since surrendered any link to our clan. He works, and hunts, alone.”

Hunting. The word conjured bloody images in my mind. What did the Rakshasa here eat? Did they hunt the local animals? I imagined Ishan leaping upon his prey with hungry eyes, tearing their throat out, opening its veins and letting the warm, red blood spill out. Australia didn’t have deer or anything that large predators could eat. Kangaroos, maybe, or wallabies, but nothing larger than that.

Nothing except people.

I remembered how I’d awoken on the hill last night, the day of my first transformation, covered in blood. I’d washed myself off in the creek, but never for a moment had I even considered the
source
of the blood. It wasn’t mine, since I was uninjured and there was too much of it for it to have come from a minor wound I hadn’t noticed. So where had it come from? Had I killed someone?

Perhaps catching my reaction Asena smiled comfortingly, her striped face lighting up. “Oh, you’re so precious. Just look at you.” She inhaled, shaking her head, seeming to drop the tough-girl act. “What? What is it?”

It felt utterly insane to be asking this question, but I had to know. “What do we… eat?”

Asena stared at me, a wide smile on her face. “Food. N
ormal human food. Chips, salad, steak. Instant noodles.”

I breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Okay. You had me going for a bit.”

I expected a smile, a chuckle maybe, but Asena’s expression slowly faded. “We eat what we ate as humans, but know this. There is one thing we have in common with our former species, that despite existing for thousands of years, we’re still—to a varied extent—bound to our instincts, some of us more than others. Those instincts are to hunt live prey. Although we live like civilised people, sometimes our instincts get the better of us, sometimes they take over. Usually an animal satisfies us, but sometimes… sometimes they don’t.”

That was worrying. Waking up on the hill, seeing all that blood, played over in my mind once again. It had been a cold night, people generally didn’t go out on their own, but…

“We try to avoid killing even animals, though. Doing so leaves behind carcasses, marked by our claws, and we risk being spotted during our hunts.”

Nodding, I pulled the blanket up a little more, feeling a draft chill my shoulders. “Makes sense.” I looked around the dark cave, hesitating slightly. I didn’t know how much to trust this new Rakshasa, but my instincts told me that she was friendly enough, and she knew Ishan. “I… think I killed something. Last night. I woke up covered in blood. It was my first transformation, and I didn’t know—”

Asena’s smile widened and she stepped over to the bed, sitting down right by my feet. “You did. A roo buck. Your first kill—I saw it myself. You’re quite the huntress, you know. It’s quite common for one’s first transformation to be bloody, but you were exceptional.”

A kangaroo. Far less serious than I had imagined. Nobody would miss a single roo.

“A don’t remember a thing about it. You were watching me?”

Asena reached over and patted my shin. “We all were, from a safe distance, of course. The Rewa too. We all take a very active interest in fledglings, since the Champawat Tiger started preying on them. They’re important to the species because fledglings are how we—” she made little finger quotes. “—reproduce.”

That piqued my interest. “I… we’re sterile?”

She laughed. “No, no. I have a young kid, myself, and I had him after my bloodline manifested. It’s just he’s, well,
human… a
t least as far as we can tell so far. He’s not old enough for us to know if he’ll manifest properly, so he stays with my cousins. They know about us.”