Until tomorrow at least.
As I thought it, I made a dismissive gesture with one hand.
“Chan knows, right?” I said, my voice neutral. “Chan knows she’ll be walking into that? Her and her team? That the time window is short?”
Yumi gave me a cautious look, still overly focused on my clothes, I could tell.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “She’s the one that confirmed the intel we received. She’ll be leaving in less than an hour. Did you not intend to be there to discuss this with her before she goes?”
“No.” I shook my head, glancing at Wreg in spite of myself. “Revik’s handling that. With Chandre’s team, I mean. So make sure he’s updated.”
Yumi’s eyebrow arched, but she didn’t speak.
Wreg didn’t say anything, either.
I nodded again, fighting to think, then shunting it aside.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, what do you need from me? We can meet on this tomorrow, come up with some contingencies in case Chan’s people can’t get in. We’ll need more infiltrators on their construct, obviously. Is there any other immediate need? Are they likely to pull the trigger on this in the next 72 hours?”
Yumi frowned, but shook her head once, decisive.
“Very unlikely, sir,” she said. “In fact, we have reason to believe it’s more in the lines of a political gambit versus a serious threat. A way for Shadow to get China to capitulate to their demands…versus an actual, planned attack.”
I glanced at Wreg, who nodded, once.
“Your husband thinks he wants the City,” he said, blunt. “Adhipan and I agree.”
“Good,” I said, exhaling. “I mean…good on the probably not nuking China thing. Would more people on Chan’s team help? Now, I mean?”
Yumi made another negative gesture, that time with one hand.
“No, sir,” she said, clicking a little and huffing her breath. “No. I do not think so. Keeping sister Chandre’s team small makes sense. There are too many seers monitoring the American President’s construct at this point…we have to assume at least a percentage of those are Shadow’s. Particularly if it’s true that one of his network people remains close to Brooks. We can assist them from here.” She paused. “The Sword did mention he was assigning the relocation of the mobile tank to one of the Adhipan teams, however.”
I nodded to that, too. “Good. That’s good.”
The silence deepened.
Again, I fought to think.
“Okay,” I said, clearing my throat. “Good. So no nuclear attacks tonight then. That’s great.”
When no one said anything or even smiled, I nodded again.
Then I turned, heading for the low wooden doorway, intending to leave the small conference room. It had once been a private dining area in an exclusive and relatively high-end bar and restaurant for the residents of the building, but we’d been repurposing a lot on the fly since we got here. Building anything even quasi-permanent simply wasn’t practical.
Wreg cleared his throat before I could get all the way out the door.
When I turned, he flicked his fingers towards me, not quite meeting my gaze.
“You are going to dinner now, Esteemed Bridge?” he said, his voice overly polite.
I felt my neck and face flush.
“Yeah,” I said, wary. “So?”
“You are…wearing that?” he said. The politeness remained, but humor touched his words that time.
I really wasn’t amused.
“What do you want to know, Wreg?” I said. “Or is there something you want to tell me?”
He glanced up. That time, his eyes looked almost guilty. He tried to shrug it off, but I saw him avoiding my stare again as he did.
“No, Esteemed Bridge…absolutely nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing at all. You look very lovely, my sister. Very lovely indeed. The Sword will be most pleased.”
I grunted, but felt my jaw harden anyway.
Maybe Wreg did mean it as a compliment.
Or maybe he was more pissed off at me than I’d realized…about the Chan thing, or because he felt cut out of the planning sessions of the last few days. I definitely felt like I’d been walking around with a scarlet letter pinned to my chest since that thing on the wall, and not only with Wreg. A lot of people had been looking at me that way, even my own brother.
Jon had kept his mouth shut so far, but I suspected that wouldn’t last.
Clenching my hands into fists at my sides, I decided it didn’t matter. Not now.
It really didn’t matter. I knew it didn’t.
Even so, I found myself wondering if the clothes had been a mistake.
I walked up the last few steps to the roof warily.
I don’t know what I expected, in terms of people’s reactions to me. I still felt defensive from Wreg’s comments and the murmurings I’d been hearing all week…and now a little self-conscious about the clothes I’d worn for my husband.
I didn’t think the clothes were that over the top, but the dress was pretty short, I guess. And yeah, okay, the heels were pretty high.
Usually he liked that kind of thing, though. Revik, I mean.
I guess it wasn’t that weird that I’d be nervous.
They’d decided to do this on the roof, so I chose to avoid the elevators and walk up the last few floors on my own. I entered the deck area on my own, too, since no one else seemed inclined to use the stairs.
Still, it wasn’t easy to wander even the outskirts of the group without people noticing my entrance, even with my light shielded. I knew I couldn’t hide for long, but I didn’t want to deal with all of them noticing me in the same handful of minutes, either.
Truthfully, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this nervous about anything.
There were multiple reasons for that, but I’d be lying if I said the big ones weren’t pretty personal, even with all of the operational stuff going on.
I found myself thinking I might have to drink heavily to get through this…but a part of me balked at that idea too, given how long it had been since I’d had any real contact with Revik. I also wondered how much I would need to shield, even now.
Alcohol might not be such a great idea for that reason, too.
So yeah, I didn’t get a drink.
Avoiding the bar made it easier to keep to myself.
I told myself I wasn’t avoiding everyone per se. I just preferred to get the lay of the land before more than a handful noticed I’d joined them. So I didn’t avoid people. I just walked elsewhere…and I didn’t stare at anyone, since I knew that would draw attention to me, too. I checked out the upper deck instead.
I also aimed my eyes at the view of sunset-streaked clouds hovering over the city. Looking away from the crimson and gold sky a few seconds later, I paused to take in the pool and the subtle flames of the tiki torches and the white upholstered couches and expensive-looking lounge-chairs. Someone must have cleaned this stuff up, or yanked it out of storage, because none of the other furniture I’d seen here looked anywhere near so pristine.
I avoided looking at the wider mattresses someone had brought up here.
I barely glanced at the buffet that had been set up, presumably to normalize this, to make it into some kind of twisted dinner party.
I’d been told it was normal to eat first.
Another of those seer custom things, apparently.
It might have been funny, under different circumstances. Somehow it wasn’t funny though, and the thought of making small talk or even talking about military ops or whatever over dinner just made that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach worse.
Still trying to avoid being recognized, I walked down the stairs to the sunken area by the pool, careful to place my steps in the high-heeled shoes.
I did all of that with my light pretty tightly wound around my body.
Even with my attempts to move unseen, I felt faces turn and more than one set of eyes on me curiously. All of them checked o
ut my clothes, a few of them staring openly at my legs and chest. Most were people I knew, of course. I also felt stares and curiosity from foreign lights touching my body, meaning from people I didn’t know. I knew they weren’t real strangers. Everyone here had been vetted carefully by Balidor, Tarsi, Yumi and Revik.
And yeah, they clearly recognized me.
The closest of those stood in a cluster by the bar, holding drinks.
I suspected most of them were Adhipan from their light signatures, which meant they’d probably come in with the new group Balidor told us about.
One female in particular with an odd mix of blue and purple in her irises stared at me openly, not looking away even after I’d turned. The broad-shouldered, muscular seer who stood with her reminded me of Wreg in build, although he wasn’t as tall. He had less intense eyes, too. The expression in this male seer’s eyes appeared almost gentle in fact, despite the sharpness of his infiltrator-trained light and his sheer physical size.
As I looked over the two of them, names popped into my head.
Dalai…and Nulek. It had to be.
From their lights, they looked like a couple, too.
Balidor told me they would be joining us for this, although he hadn’t specified why.
Their open curiosity towards me unnerved me a little. Not the part where they were curious per se…that was pretty normal, given who I was. It unnerved me more because the interest felt borderline personal. Enough that it made me wonder if they knew Revik.
I fought that question out of my light, too.
The last thing I needed was to start tripping about how many of these people had already seen my husband naked. It wasn’t going to make any of this easier…at all.
I didn’t know if Revik would even be here yet.
I’d come up a few minutes late, but I suspected he’d be even more late than me, given his track record in recent weeks.
I ended up being wrong about that, though.
I didn’t notice him at first, probably because he was doing pretty much the same thing with his light that I was, but when I looked away from the smoky rose and blood-red haze of the Bangkok sunset and the distant view of the river, I felt eyes on me and turned.
He stood on the level up from me, holding a drink.
I saw others around him, but when he looked away, avoiding meeting my returning stare, I noticed that he appeared to be standing with those others more as cover. At the very least, he didn’t seem to be actively participating in whatever it was they were talking and laughing about. He took a long drink from the glass he held as I watched.
I noticed only then that he was flushed. I couldn’t tell if it was a blush from me catching him staring or if he was already drunk.
Knowing him, he might have decided to drink heavily for this.
Not that I blamed him. Hell, maybe I should join him.
As I watched him nod here and there, smiling where appropriate as the group conversation wound on, it struck me that he’d always been a lot smarter about hiding in crowds than me. He knew he’d only be more likely to be noticed if he tried to slink off on his own, so he hid by surrounding himself with other people. Smart.
I’d definitely have to file that one away for future reference.
I watched him for a few minutes more. I saw him make a few more polite nods to things the others said. I saw him smile more, too…but mostly I saw him drink.
One thing was for sure, I’d definitely overdressed.
He wore military work pants, black and form-fitting with clean lines…but yeah, work pants. Over that he wore a white shirt. It was a button down, not a T-shirt, but also firmly in the casual camp, especially since he hadn’t bothered to tuck it in and he’d rolled up the sleeves. Revik tended to dress on the formal side compared to humans I’d known in the United States, so yeah, for him, these clothes definitely fell in the comfortable-casual camp.
Letting my eyes drift down to my own choice in clothes, I felt my face warm.
I glanced around at the other seers as surreptitiously as I could, but what I saw didn’t reassure me. The vast majority of the seers I saw, male and female, wore infiltrator-wear. Others wore even more casual work clothes, or stuff they might have worn into the mulei ring or out running in the park. I saw only one other dress and it was floor-length and worn by Sita, one of the ex-Rebels. Her dress was Indian in cut and looked to be made of cotton. It also concealed significantly more than it showed. Definitely not sexy funtimes wear.
More like lounging around the house wear.
Not quite a muumuu, but close.
Fuck.
Grimacing, I realized I needed a drink after all, shielding be damned. Maybe a lot more than one. That, or I needed to go change. Or maybe both.
I’d gone back to facing the sunset while I thought all of that.
Now, mulling the clothes thing again and realizing I’d violated another of those seer “cultural norm” things without realizing it, it occurred to me I really should go change. It would be embarrassing either way, yeah, but changing would be less so.
When in Rome, and all that.
If I did it now, quietly, a lot of them might not even notice.
When I got back, I would copy what Revik had done. Get a drink. Blend into one of the clusters where I knew most of the seers. Be passively social. Ignore the fact that I’d changed my clothes and hope like hell they would all do the same.
At the same time, yeah, I was kind of pissed.
Why hadn’t Wreg told me? Why hadn’t Yumi? Why didn’t anyone tell me anything around here unless I explicitly asked the question?
I was already bracing myself to climb the stairs back up to the higher platform by the bar so that I could make my way back into the building, when I turned, gritting my teeth…
And basically ran right into Revik.
He’d approached me and stood directly behind me, moving so quietly I hadn’t felt or heard him. Or maybe I’d just been too lost in my clothing faux pas to pay attention.
Either way, I hadn’t known he was there at all.
I nearly knocked his drink into him as a result. He managed to pull his hand away, surfing the amber liquid to safety. He used his free hand to catch hold of my arm in the same motion, which is good because I probably would have lost my balance entirely if he hadn’t, and maybe crashed into him for real.
When I glanced up, feeling my face warm, his eyes locked on mine.
“Are you okay?” he said. He didn’t let go of my arm.
I let him hold me until I regained my balance. Then I stepped back a little, forcing him to let go. Exhaling, I nodded.
“Yeah.” I let out a humorless snort. “Yeah. I’m good.”
When I glanced up that time, he was staring at my body in the short black dress and sheer stockings. His eyes lingered on the high-heeled black shoes.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” he said, his voice holding no inflection that time.
I felt my face go from warm to hot.
Biting my lip, and the retort that wanted to come out, I shook my head.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ll change, all right?” I started to move past him, not looking at him at all that time. “…Forget it. I’ll change.”
He caught hold of my arm again, though.
When I looked up that time, his eyes looked puzzled, but also embarrassed. “That’s not…Allie.” He struggled for words. “I didn’t mean that, Allie. I just…”
He trailed. His eyes slid down me again as he did and I fought to extricate my arm.
“I’ll change, Revik,” I said, closing my light. “It was a mistake. Forget it.”
He shook his head, still not letting me go. He gripped me tighter when I tried to writhe away, fighting my attempts to flee. That time when he spoke he sounded frustrated.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Allie, please. Stop taking this the way you are. Please! Please stay…just for a few seconds!”
I forced myself to stop struggli
ng, to just stand there.
Still gripping my arm, he glanced around the deck, at the seers on the different levels of the roof. I felt his embarrassment worsen, but I didn’t follow his gaze. I didn’t want to know how many of them might be staring at us now, truthfully, or what I might feel on their lights as they watched the two of us. For some reason emotion nearly overwhelmed me in those few seconds. I felt like an asshole, sure, for overreacting, for overdressing in the first place then acting like a jerk when Revik barely asked me about why I’d done it.
I knew seers didn’t ask appearance questions for the same reasons humans did. He hadn’t asked me to chew me out, or even to tease me; it had been an honest question. I’d obviously violated some unwritten seer rule about these kinds of gatherings and he was trying to figure out why no one had told me.
I kind of wondered why no one had told me, too.
Regardless of any of that, though, I knew none of those things were what was bothering me. I knew the clothes were nothing, just one more thing I’d fucked up in regards to seer culture. I knew Revik probably didn’t give a shit about my clothes, either, but I couldn’t seem to open my light enough to reassure either of us.
“Allie.” His voice dropped to a murmur. Hesitating a bare breath, he pulled me closer to where he stood. He put down the drink on a low table without letting go of me, then wrapped his arms around me, lowering his mouth to my neck and ear.
“Allie…listen to me,” he murmured. “I’m fucking jealous. I’m jealous…”
I felt something in my chest clench.
He kissed my neck, wrapping his light and arms tighter around me.
“I’m jealous,” he repeated, softer. “Every seer in here…gaos, Allie. They’re all staring at you. I’m picking up thoughts on some of them. Some of those thoughts are pretty damned explicit. I’m having trouble…” He fought for words. “…Dealing with it. I’m having trouble dealing with it, Allie. That’s all.”
I let out a humorless sound, but didn’t look up.
I wiped my eyes a few seconds later. I hadn’t noticed when my vision blurred, but now I was embarrassed from that, too.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 14