Allie's War Season Three

by JC Andrijeski

  In any case, I was at peace with myself on the whole Lao Hu thing. Finally. So I wasn't about to let Balidor pull some holier-than-thou crap about it now, not when I was fairly sure that Revik, at least, had accepted my reasons for doing what I'd done. Revik promised he would try his damnedest to let it go, that he wouldn't hold it over my head, and I believed him.

  Even so, I knew he wouldn't really be able to keep that promise until we got past this part.

  He'd talked before about having some kind of ceremony...something to help us start over once we were ready to live like married people again. He hadn't brought it up since that time he first mentioned it on the plane from Beijing, but somehow I knew that wasn't wholly off the table, either. Again, though, I had trouble imagining us being able to do that in a real way until we got past these damned imprints in my light.

  I continued to stroke his hair as I thought all of this, not looking up at either Balidor or Wreg. It hit me again, how exhausted I was...how exhausted Revik must be, too, especially if he really had been refusing light, like Balidor said.

  When I glanced up next, I saw Balidor and Wreg both looking at me.

  The expressions they wore appeared pretty vastly different, however. Wreg's eyes held sympathy, if they could be said to hold one emotion above the rest...along with a lingering anger he seemed to aim only at Balidor when he glared at him periodically.

  Balidor, on the other hand, looked at me with something like resignation.

  Seeing the expression on his face, I nodded, mostly to myself.

  "Take the collar off," I said.

  I said it quieter that time, but there was very little in the way of a request in my words.

  Giving a last, irritated sigh, Balidor shrugged, seer-fashion.

  Walking over to me, he didn't bother to move Revik off my lap, or even to sit down. Moving Revik's hair aside from the relevant part of his neck, he flipped the thumbnail switch on the back of the collar expertly with his finger. When the latch opened, he bent over the retinal scanner, holding his face still as the red light swiped across both of his eyes. It was one of the newer collars, so I didn't hear the click, but I felt it when the mechanism disengaged.

  Without speaking, Balidor tossed a set of cylindrical keys to the bedspread beside where I sat. I watched as he turned on his heel, walking to the door and then past it, through the opening and into the outside corridor. He left without so much as a backwards glance, closing the door sharply behind him. When I looked at Wreg, he only shrugged, gesturing towards the door in irritation.

  "Ignore him, princess," Wreg grunted, then hesitated. "...Just be careful, na? Adhipan is an asshole, but he was not exaggerating, with what he said..." He made the seer gesture for 'crazy' by his head. "Nenz, he is not so okay right now...he was saying a lot of strange things."

  I nodded, not answering.

  "We'll be outside," Wreg added, turning for the door to leave. "Yell if you need us. Send up a flare, if you can't yell..."

  I felt my jaw harden at his words.

  Open construct. Of course.

  That meant every seer in this part of the Barrier shield they'd erected over our floors would be able to see and hear and feel pretty much everything that went on in this room.

  "Privacy is not a luxury you can afford right now, princess," Wreg said, his hand on the doorknob. He motioned vaguely to where Revik sprawled over one half of the bed. "We'll be discreet. Just try not to let him rip that thing open again..." His eyes held an additional reminder when he added, "Let us know when we can start channeling light to you, too, princess. He'll need it, no matter what you have planned..."

  Feeling my face warm, I nodded again, my voice neutral. "Thanks, Wreg."

  The giant seer hesitated again, looking at me with a vague worry in his eyes. Then, with another shrug of those massive shoulders, he opened the door, already closing it behind him before he was all the way to the other side.

  I didn't have much time to think about Wreg's reactions, either.

  I felt Revik around me once more. Like it always did with the removal of a collar, his light crept back subtly, so quietly I barely noticed at first. His aleimi slid back around his body and mine like a dimmer switch being turned up with painful slowness. I felt him reacting to feeling me there next to him, but my fingers were already on the back of his neck, pulling the collar off him entirely, easing it out of the holes it had created in his skin and flesh by the bones of his spine.

  I hated those marks. I also happened to know from personal experience that they took months to heal completely. If a seer had worn a collar for any amount of time, say, longer than a few months or maybe a year, they pretty much had those marks for the rest of their lives. Not quite scars, since something in the collars prevented true scar tissue from forming, as it would have interfered with re-collaring over time...but we were definitely marked.

  Mine still hadn't fully healed from my months with the Lao Hu.

  Every seer I knew had those marks on the back of their necks. I couldn't think of a single exception...other than Vash, and maybe Balidor. If either of them had ever been collared, it was so long ago that the marks had eventually grown impossible to discern.

  Picking up the keys Balidor left on the dark blue bedspread, I turned them over in my fingers, looking for the marks indicating which locks they fit. When I'd identified each, I turned over Revik's wrist, looking for the round lock to the matching key for the right cuff, which also happened to the be the one they'd locked to the headboard. Sliding the cylindrical key with the correct symbol into the opening, I turned it, feeling for the click.

  When it came off, Revik shifted in my lap, looking up at me. His voice was gruff.

  "Allie...don't."

  "Don't what?" I said, tugging at his hair. "Do you really want to sleep in these?"

  He didn't answer, but I saw the hesitation in his eyes.

  "Do you want them to stay on?" I said again. "I can put it back on, Revik."

  After another pause, he shook his head. "No."

  He didn't move as I massaged his shoulders, then his upper back. After initially tensing, he relaxed deeper into my lap when I didn't stop, closing his eyes as I caressed his hair back from his face, tracing the muscles of his arm with my other hand. It was so strange that he was just lying there, letting me touch him. For months, he'd hardly let me near him. Now he didn't move, other than to lean deeper against me, his fingers locked around my leg. I touched his face again, running my fingers over his jaw with one hand.

  "Did you really tell them to collar you?" I said, letting the same fingers slide down his neck to his collarbone.

  Revik's jaw hardened. I saw his eyes avoid mine, and realized he had been listening to the three of us talk about him. I also saw that other look still coloring his expression, especially in his pale-colored eyes, which held a distant, not-there cast as he stared down at my fingers on his wrist. I watched as he looked up, focusing on my face. I saw that predatory look return, long enough for it to pause my breath. I felt him thinking about what I'd said, wondering what I'd meant exactly, when I'd said I would ease things for him. His imagination toyed with my words, letting them heat his skin. Now that the collar was gone, he wanted me to think about it again. He wanted to see whatever Balidor had seen...

  Realizing how clearly I could hear him, I averted my eyes, my own skin warming.

  He wasn't shielding from me at all.

  That was unusual, in and of itself...especially lately. Twisting the cuff on his other wrist around towards me, I distracted myself by looking for the lock on that one, as well. After I shifted the key ring around in my fingers to find the key with the second symbol, I inserted it in the notch I found and twisted again. When the second cuff came off, I felt his light react, even as he moved deeper into my lap.

  I felt his thoughts again, cascading around me, impossible to avoid. He tried to decide if he should tell me to leave, if he could even make himself ask. Then I felt him looking at me, thinking a
bout my words to Balidor again. I felt him wanting to ask me about that, too. I felt him wondering how to word it, to get me to imagine it...

  I cleared my throat.

  "Revik," I said. "I know what I said to 'Dori...but I really don't want to take advantage of anything..."

  His shoulders tensed. As my words penetrated, his aleimi slid around me once more, coiling around mine in shifting sparks. He didn't speak. I felt pain in his light, worsening past what he'd let me feel since we'd been alone together in that enclosed bunk on the plane. It was enough to stutter my words, to blank my mind for a few seconds.

  "...but I think," I said, taking a breath after that pause, swallowing before I met his gaze. "I think you should let me help you with this." I paused, lost briefly in the dense look that rose to his eyes. "...Unless you think you can handle me holding for you right now," I added. I forced my gaze away, my voice neutral. "If you'll let me feed you light, long enough for you to get some sleep, then we can talk about the rest of it tomorrow..." I paused, struggling with my vocal chords again when his light coiled hotly into mine.

  "...If you want," I added awkwardly.

  He'd lowered his hand while I spoke, and now he was caressing my leg, his hand under the edge of the robe. I found myself unable to tear my mind off the soft patterns his fingers traced on my skin, even as I forced myself to look at his face again.

  "Revik," I said, sighing. "What happened? You were okay before...even in the cab. Was Balidor right? Is this because of the op...because you got too low on light?"

  He shook his head, frowning a little.

  It didn't feel like a 'no,' precisely.

  In fact, I found myself thinking he just didn't want to talk about it, at least not right then...or maybe not with me. His eyes were on my legs, on the robe where it tied around my waist. He was thinking about untying the knot, wondering what I had on under it, when my fingers tightened in his hair.

  "Revik," I said, my voice a little sharper. "Hey."

  He looked up. Seeing the distant look in his eyes, I realized I wasn't going to be able to talk to him about this, not really...not now, anyway. Turning over Balidor's words yet again, I found myself trying to think past the warmth of Revik's hand on my leg, the other arm that had slid lightly around my waist...almost cautiously. Or really, more surreptitiously than cautiously...more like a guy throwing an arm around their date's seat back in a dark movie theater. As I realized that much, something else occurred to me. I was feeling something in his light I'd never really felt before, not even when he was Syrimne...at least, not aimed at me.

  He was hunting me.

  I felt it through his light, in the intent behind the low hum of his thoughts. He was tugging me into him, pulling on me...gently right now, carefully, but I could feel what lay behind it, what came next, if he got past my initial defenses. He would keep pulling harder as I let him in, trying to gain control over more of my light. I could already feel pieces of that in the background, structures in his light testing limits in mine...trying to discern how hard he could push, when he could risk pushing harder...how far I would need to let him in before he could coax me into doing what he wanted.

  If anything, it reminded me of what he'd done at that cabin in the Himalayas, the first time we were about to make love. He'd been worried I might stop him, that I wouldn't let him finish. He'd tried to get my light to submit to his; he'd wanted me to lose control so I wouldn't say no. Of course, he hadn't articulated it then, either, not even to himself. He'd done it almost compulsively, and I could feel that in him now, too.

  "Husband," I said, tugging on his hair to get him to look up. "Are you listening to me?"

  "Can I go down on you?"

  It came out blunt, startling me.

  I felt my skin warm abruptly once I realized what he'd said, even as his fingers tightened on my waist, holding me closer against him. I felt him second-guessing his words, what he'd said...the way he'd said it. I felt a part of him recoil at the crudity of how he'd asked me, even as he listened for my answer. He didn't seem to know what to say next, or how to soften the request.

  "Please," he said finally. His hand traveled further up my leg, caressing the back of my knee, stroking my thigh. "Please... Allie... let me. I'll sleep after...take light. Whatever you want..."

  I slid my fingers deeper into his hair. Swallowing again, I forced myself to think past his words, the way he was looking at me.

  "I think if we do anything like that, I should do it for you," I said finally. I softened my voice when I saw his face tighten. "Revik. You need this more than I do..."

  His light reacted to that. Not well, either.

  I felt him take my words badly, felt it mix in with a deeper layer of emotionality that lived there, a see-saw of light I hadn't seen when I'd been staring into the distance in his eyes.

  "You don't need this?" he said, his voice hard.

  My fingers tightened on him again, tugging for him to look up. "Revik," I said, warning. "No. That's not what I said...or what I meant. And you're not going to go there. You're not...understand?"

  "I'm not," he said. It wasn't really a question.

  "No," I told him. "Please, okay? That's not you talking...it's the separation. You need to try and remember that..."

  I felt him try to make sense of my words, to discern the difference. But he couldn't stay with it, couldn't make himself care enough to puzzle it out.

  His pain flickered over my light, along with that denser confusion. It started off close to mild at first, but wound up in intensity so quickly I found myself clenching my fingers in his hair, holding his shoulder with my other hand.

  He groaned against my leg when my light reacted in his.

  Pain hit me, hard...catching me off guard.

  "Gods, Alyson," he said. His fingers were on the knot on my robe, tugging on it, one-handed. "What were you going to do to me? Tell me..."

  I caught his fingers in mine, stopping him.

  He let me ease him off my lap, too, but somehow his cooperation just felt like another means of pulling on me. I held his wrist when he turned, meeting his gaze again once he'd rolled most of the way to his side.

  I found myself scanning the organic bandage again, and the wound under it.

  The wound felt raw to my light, vulnerable... which if nothing else was a good reminder of why I couldn't let him pull me into this. I tried to ignore the fact that he was obviously hard through the dark pants he wore, as well as the fact that his other hand still rested heavily on my leg. When I let the handcuffs drop to the floor, still attached to the headboard by a chain, he followed them with his eyes, and I glimpsed him thinking about using those, too, only on me.

  "Revik," I said, my voice coming out softer. "...Baby. I'm going to have to take control of your light if you don't calm down." Hesitating at the pained look that rose to his eyes, I added, "Are you okay with that? Are you going to be angry with me later, if I end up having to do that?"

  Hesitating only a second, he shook his head.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Are you going to fuck me?" His voice was rough.

  I caressed his face again, swallowing. "Revik... calm down."

  He pulled on me with his light, closing his eyes longer than a blink. "Answer me. Please, Allie... answer me..."

  "I don't think we should," I said carefully, wincing at the pain that flared off his light. "Intercourse, Revik... I mean intercourse. I won't be able to control things if we do that..." At the pain verging on anger that flared off him again, I took his hand, gripping his fingers. I felt him try to suppress it, to keep the tangle of reactions out of his light, or at least away from where I could feel them. "Revik... listen to me. I want to. I want to more than anything. In fact, if you'd asked me any other time, I..."

  Rethinking saying that, at least right then, I hesitated, still watching his eyes.

  "But Balidor's right," I said, sliding my fingers into his hair. "We can't do it now. I won't be able to stop things in time to k
eep from hurting you, not if we go too far... and both of us would be out of commission for weeks..."

  "I don't care," he said, closing his eyes.

  "I know you don't," I said. "That's the problem... and I won't either, not if I let you talk me into this..."

  "Are you going to give me head?" he said, his eyes distant once more.

  I hesitated, still lost in his expression.

  I remembered before the op, when I'd been the one pulling on him, when he'd been the one sidestepping my light. It was difficult to connect the expression on his face to that man...or the one I'd been with a few hours after that, who'd snickered at my handiwork with the cameras, who'd used his light to drop guards and blow out the walls of the lower vault...or even the one who'd kissed me in the stairwell.

  Pain tried to take over my own light, to turn my thoughts irrational, too. We always seemed to come towards each other at cross-purposes... even when I told myself I wasn't. Balidor was right, I'd been trying to seduce him for weeks. I just hadn't been admitting it to myself. I'd hoped he would spend the night, a few of those planning nights in my room. I'd invited him there with that in the back of my mind, even as I pretended it wasn't. Maybe it was the real reason I was here, now, too. Maybe I really should leave.

  "What can I do, Revik?" I said finally. "You need to take light. It would be better if we did this some other way, if you could just –– "

  "Is that what 'Dori saw? You giving me head?"

  My face warmed. "Probably."

  He stared up at the ceiling, still clutching my hand. "Will you let me do it to you?"

  "Revik," I said, sighing a little. "You're killing me right now. You know that, right?"

  "Please, Allie."

  I shook my head. "I don't think it's a good idea."

  "Why?"