20. Rajesh
RAJESH
“Again,” he ordered.
Leela slumped against the training floor, hands planted and back arched. Sweat dripped down her spine and darkened her white, billowed shirt.
Rajesh was also exhausted, but it was for her own good. Leela needed to harness the Viperess, or the Flame would control her, and Rajesh wasn’t dying by the hands of the woman he loved.
A depth of pity swelled within his mind. Found a way yet?
Sort of hard to do when I’m stuck inside you.
Rajesh wiped the sweat from his brow. He was getting impatient and needed the Scorpion to pinpoint the exact location of this tree. For now, he had to train Leela. Make her stronger. “Again.”
Leela snapped her daggered gaze to his, and he couldn’t help his lips from twitching. He had missed that look. The look that told him to fuck off and normally led to some quite interesting circumstances. With his legs wrapped around her—
“Stop that.” Leela stood, swaying.
Rajesh simply struck his godsblades into the ground and leaned on it with an arched brow. “Stop what?”
“Stop looking at me like you’re undressing me.”
Rajesh smirked. “I don’t need to undress you. I have seen you naked, damiji. Or have you forgotten?”
Despite the deep tone of her skin, there was a soft flush to her cheeks.
“I do! Of course, I do. But stop it. Stop looking at me!”
“Where else am I meant to look?” He gazed exaggeratedly at the weapons and around the training room. “Nothing else is as grand as that look on your face that tells me you want to punch me. And you know what that look does to me.”
“Punching you is a turn-on?”
“A lot of things are,” Rajesh joked.
Leela shook her head, her lips drawing into a fine line. “You’re meant to be helping train my brain, not fuck me.”
He shrugged. “What do you think I’m doing? I was able to pull you back from the brink of her taking over by highlighting our shared memories. I’m just trying to keep her away.” Rajesh held his hands up as if he were innocent.
Leela rolled her eyes. “Yes. I’m sure you are. You keep telling yourself that and you might believe your own lies.”
“You know I never lie.”
“No.” Leela straightened her shoulders, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. “You were just never good at it. You got me to do all the lying.”
“You were just too good.” Rajesh shrugged.
The memories of their past seemed like a thousand years ago.
A time turned on its head. He could still remember the first day he laid eyes on her in the play yard, when she pulled another girl who stole her toy to the ground, her tiny fist inches from the screaming girl’s face as her body pulsed with anger.
Now, looking at her standing there, he washed his gaze over her, soaking in all her fine curves and uneven muscles.
The way the white shirt bunched at her abdomen tucked into the black pants.
How her skin gleamed and glistened under the light, her dark hair aglow.
Her eyelashes outlined her amber eyes and her eyes sucked him into their unobtainable depths.
“Stop it!” she snapped, voice echoing.
“Fine, fine,” Rajesh said with a smirk. He swung the godsblades onto his shoulder and nodded. “Go again.”
“Refresh my memory of what I’m actually meant to be doing, because I feel like a constipated cow,” Leela said.
“You’re meant to be pulling her forward. Feel her. Feel the warmth along your spine, and when she’s just about to harness you, inch her further and further and then shut her down.”
Leela gave a frustrated sigh. “Fine.”
Rajesh watched as she concentrated, a tendon popping in her neck as she strained to pull the Viperess forward.
He bit his lip as he noticed how her hair spilled in dark waves over her shoulders and the soft edges of her cheekbones, the ones he used to caress.
His heart pulsed as he thought of his fingers against her smooth brown skin.
Oh, how his fingers could make her tremble and squirm.
She’s stubborn.
Leela or the Viperess?
Both. But I meant the Viperess. She’s not here to play. She never was. Always preparing to strike.
How else can I get her to come out?
You might need to play the pawn.
Rajesh tensed. As in…?
Seduce her. Make her come out and then have Leela shove her back in. It worked last time when she attacked.
I didn’t realize you had a death wish.
I don’t. But every time we’ve seen her, it’s when she hungers for her revenge.
Rajesh studied Leela. They had been at it for almost an hour, the sun rising over the dunes, and they were both covered in a thin layer of sweat.
It was expected out in the desert, and all he wanted was to wash himself clean.
He wasn’t in the mood to seduce her. He smelled, and there was still tension between them.
Paying her out or picking on her were different, and they had grown up bonding over that.
It was the one thing everyone had loved about them.
His chest tightened, and he turned to the skies. The Scorpion was right. If he wanted to get Leela to harness the Viperess, he needed to do the one thing she desperately wanted to bring the Viperess to the surface.
I swear, if you come out and hurt her—
I thought we agreed I won’t until we found the wish-fulfilling tree. Besides, there’s something the Viperess is hiding, and I intend to wait to know what it is.
Still. Rajesh didn’t trust the ancient Flame when his solution to his revenge stood right across from him.
He thought the Flame would stir more, letting its hunger surface and strike.
But the Scorpion merely sat back, as if waiting to pounce.
It was almost as if it pleased him to see the Viperess like this.
Why else wasn’t he attacking? Why else didn’t he come to save Rajesh?
No. These Flames were weaving their own divine lies, and Rajesh was simply here for the ride.
“Leela, stop, before you form a hernia,” Rajesh said.
Leela grumbled and muttered something that sounded oddly like ‘fuck off’ and turned to him. “Do you have a better suggestion?”
“I do actually,” Rajesh said. “Depends on if you want to or not.”
Leela frowned, the familiar bow of her eyebrows telling Rajesh she was trying to read his mind. Admittedly, most of the time, she got it right.
Rajesh smirked. He couldn’t hide the glimmer in his eye. The thought of kissing her was almost a little too pleasing. Flames, if he knew that the last time he was going to be with her was the last time, he would’ve held on a little longer.
Leela’s brow lengthened. “No.”
“I didn’t even say it.”
“You don’t need to. I am not kissing you. Not when we’ve both got vengeful Flames.” Leela scoffed. “Do you have a death wish?”
“I can leave if you need me to…?”
Rajesh and Leela snapped to Tanmay, who sat tapping his feet away on the bench. A sheepish look crossed Tanmay’s features as he stood. Rajesh had forgotten he’d asked his second mate to watch and make sure the Viperess didn’t come out, and if she did, to attack.
“No. You’re staying,” Rajesh said, waving at Tanmay to sit back down. He turned back to Leela. “Maybe I can teach you a thing or two too, May.”
“Don’t act like you’re doing this for him.” Leela shot him a pointed look. “You… You…”
“What?” Rajesh’s cheeks were getting tired from how hard he was trying to control his smile, but he couldn’t help it.
He had missed this. The teasing. The banter.
The way he made her squirm with a simple look.
There was almost a thrilling edge to being near her this time because he couldn’t touch her.
It made it all the more enticing.
Leela shook her head and headed for the door.
Rajesh caught her arm, stilling her.
Leela tugged, trying to pull herself out of his grip, but he only tightened his hold.
He leaned down and skimmed his lips along the length of her ear. Her body tensed against his. Blood rushed to his nether region, and he had to suppress his urges with her being this close.
“You need to do this. You know you can’t do it on your own,” Rajesh whispered.
Leela locked her gaze on his, and he held it.
A flicker of gold crossed her eyes, and he loosened his hold.
“What are you suggesting?” Leela said.
Her eyes flickered to his lips, and he forced back the lump forming in his throat. It was like he was thirteen all over again, wondering if it was okay to kiss her. Like they were young teenagers once more, navigating the early realms of their love.
“I suggest the Viperess wants the Scorpion. Why don’t we let her have some fun?”
“Use you as bait?” Leela gawked.
Rajesh gave her a look that meant ‘yes.’
Leela shook her head. “No. The thought of her taking over again is… is… No. I won’t let her!”
“You can’t draw her out on your own, and we need to get this under control.
Or she will take over, and you won’t have a way back,” Rajesh said firmly.
There was no point consoling Leela right now.
They were on a time limit, and he didn’t want to wake up one night with the Viperess staring down at him, knife in hand.
All he had to do was try to get her to come forward enough for Leela to calm her mind and suck her back in.
Leela eventually sighed. “Fine.”
Rajesh let her go and stepped back. “Tanmay, stand by. If she makes a move, you know what to do.”
Leela spun around to Tanmay. “What? What is he going to do?”
Rajesh shrugged. “I can’t tell you that, otherwise she will know. Won’t she?”
Leela paled. “Rajesh!”
“I can’t tell you,” Rajesh said. He backed away, hands held out while quirking a smile. “Now come on. You know you want this.”
Leela looked as pissed off as he had ever really seen her. Besides the time he forgot the anniversary of their kiss and she barely spoke to him all day. What was a young boy in love meant to do?
Rajesh dipped his chin, soaking her in as if he was already hers. In ways, she was. Although he feared knowing if she had been with anyone else. If her lips and—Flames forbid—her body had touched someone else.
“What?” Leela asked.
“Nothing.” Rajesh cleared his throat.
“You’re thinking. You have that silly thinking face on.”