Nights of Roshan by Billy London Page A

up the flat. Take his name off it, and she could recoup the money she’d lost investing in one of his terrible schemes. As nice as Roshan was to her, she was quite aware that he was buttering her up so he could buy the flat. Of course he didn’t want to share it with her, and she needed to find herself somewhere to live. Somewhere that wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice as the tower, because it was so far out of her financial range, even if she bargained with Roshan for a higher selling price. All the while Adil and his swimwear model child of a girlfriend would carry on living in the Islington town house Neiri had lovingly decorated from top to bottom.
    Dammit. She squeezed her eyes shut until they stopped stinging. The swim should have calmed her, and instead her allergies were up and so were her shoulders. She wrapped her hair in a towel and shoved her arms through the fluffy sleeves of her robe. Going back in the pool didn’t even register in her thinking. No thank you to any more cat hairs. Making an official complaint tickled in her brain, but she didn’t want to start any more wars. Although, she was more than tempted to wait down here and catch Roshan Ahsani throwing bags of black and white kittens into the pool and making them race each other, in some twisted animal Olympics. Cat hair. Was nothing sacred? To think, her ancestors used to worship those things…

Chapter Two
     
     
    Roshan focused on the bicep curls he was counting in his head, rather than on his mother’s voice. Three hundred on each arm was normally a walk in the park. His current weakness was biologically based, and he didn’t know if his body had sent out some sort of warning beacon, but everyone seemed overly interested in his breeding or lack thereof.
    “ Chele ,” his mother cooed over the telephone. “Please.”
    “No.”
    “It’s our turn.”
    “I said no. I am not having those furballs, those hawked-up, phlegm-coated, chewed-up pieces of hair in my building. It’s not our turn. It’s always our turn because they’re too lazy to arrange things themselves. Tell them to find somewhere else.”
    His mother rode over his refusal. “But I already promised.”
    Roshan placed the barbell on the floor and rested his hands on his narrow hips. He despised their scheming. It fundamentally ran against his natural instincts – their natural instincts – and yet, they wanted a meet. A gathering to do what? Celebrate surviving extinction one more year? They were dying out. No manner of meets or planned fertility parties with people he was related to by blood would resolve that. They needed a sed . A traditional festival; true to their pagan origins. And to be fair, they really needed to stop interbreeding. Having a party and disrupting his mental stability would not ease any concerns that tigers were being wiped out.
    “That’s not my problem.”
    She changed tactics. “Your Aunt Leilani’s daughter has had her braces removed.”
    Roshan picked up a towel and patted off the sweat from his chest. “So?”
    “Well it won’t hurt now if she pleasures you and something gets caught…”
    God help him . “Bye, mum.”
    He ended the call. A throbbing ache began behind his left eyeball. He liked his mother. Not just loved her. He actually liked her, too. But if she ever said anything like that again, he’d simply have to kill her.
    Swimming , his tiger commanded. Now. Now. Now. He tapped in the code to the security cameras to see where his lone building companion was located. Neiriouri Halabi seemed to be in his playpen again. As much as the old Roshan would have happily told her to do one, a new, enlightened Roshan had other ideas. He watched her tuck in the lapels of her robe, folding them higher about her neck.
    No one would ever call that woman sweet or pretty or cute. Faces like hers compelled artists and musicians to attempt to recreate the sensations she caused simply by existing. He was not a being given to worship, but that