An anticipatory gleam entered her eyes.
“We shall soon find out.”
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
“What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower,” Ere said when they took up the road again.
This time, Sorin and Ere rode together upon Tristan’s horse, and the young man took theirs. Rui was tucked in front of the warrior called Wolfe again upon his stallion. The way they rode together so seamlessly made them look as if they were one.
Ere leaned his head back upon Sorin’s shoulder and murmured, “Preferably with you. I miss you.”
Sorin tightened one arm around his Mate and pressed his lips against Ere’s temple.
He missed him too.
“How are you faring thus far? You never tell me anything. I wish we still had the ability to hear each other’s thoughts.”
“Good,” was all Sorin uttered.
It still surprised him sometimes how doting Ere was.
When Sorin first met him, he’d been too wrapped up in his own troubles to pay much attention to others. But Sorin soon realized that Ere had an immense capacity for love and affection. He’d been practically bursting with the need to love and be loved.
Sorin witnessed it when Ere was with his family, and especially with his son, Benjamin. And then, when Ere loved Sorin back, the universe didn’t seem large enough to contain it.
He always wanted Sorin close, and when he wasn’t, Sorin felt him ever present in his mind.
Ere sent thoughts through their telepathic link throughout the day. Sometimes, funny things to make Sorin smile. Often, lurid things to make him hard. In small, impactful ways, Ere demonstrated that Sorin was always on his mind, in his heart, and that he wanted Sorin endlessly.
Truth be known, Sorin was grateful to go on this quest.
Since they defeated the Hydra a year ago, he’d been somewhat rudderless. He and Ere lived mostly in the Yukon Territories, where the Tiger King continued to rebuild his enclave of animal spirits, and train them to defend themselves and to live peacefully amongst humans.
Ere’s parents lived in town, and Ere visited often. Sorin and he had their own nest in a cavern on top of the tallest mountain, but Ere needed his creature comforts.
Hot showers, coffee from the town’s most popular café and diner, modern technology to “surf the Net” and “stream his shows.” He kept his day job as a barista and waiter at the café, where he caught up on all the latest news and gossip with his best friend Mike. While Sorin helped the Tiger King train new recruits.
The days passed by quickly, and Sorin had never felt so content before in all of his existence.
At the same time, something was missing.
In the modern world, at their home, Ere was always busy with so many things to juggle. He worked at the café and earned enough to support his shopping habits.
But he was so capable and brilliant and full of ideas that he also had a lot of hobbies on the side. Including being an online professor at two universities that Sorin didn’t know, but understood that they were prestigious and important.
He created an online shop to sell the carvings and wares his father made. He helped their town attract more tourists and even new families to move there permanently with the “marketing programs” he put in place, working with the café owner, who also specialized in this discipline.
Sorin didn’t understand all of it, but it was already enough to make his head spin. For all the millennia that he’d existed, he was never truly alive except when Ere was with him. He never had to fit into the modern world.
He was struggling to find his own purpose.
This quest gave them a united goal. He was far more comfortable in these “Dark Ages” than back in the twenty-first century. Life was much simpler in this time. Being a warrior was an accepted way of life.
It was all Sorin knew how to do.
“I can hear you thinking,” Ere said, and wound his fingers through Sorin’s hand where it clasped him around the waist.
“I wish I knew what about.”