“You’ve been had,” she snapped. “Will you just get it through your fucking head! This whole thing was a set-up. Just fucking admit it to yourself! Swallow your damned male pride and just admit you got duped!”
When Revik’s jaw hardened, she raised her voice.
“So you got taken? So what?” She threw up her hands angrily. “So the great Dehgoies Revik isn’t infallible after all, boo-fucking-hoo. Shit happens, Dags. Fuck her a few times to get it out of your system, and so you can see her for what she really is… then let it go. Chalk it up to a goddamned life lesson!”
He stared at her incredulously.
As her words sank in, a hotter fury grew in his chest, making it hard to think.
“Dehgoies,” she said. “It happens to the best of us, okay? Even you, with all of your so-called worldly cynicism, can get scammed. Welcome to the damned club.”
Revik felt his jaw tighten more.
He opened his mouth to speak, then didn’t.
“This is just about your pride!” Raven snapped. “You thought you were doing the hunting, and you got hunted, Dags. Just admit it, and stop being such a fucking baby. Or do you still believe that wide-eyed, innocent, kneeler crap she’s been using to pull on you?”
Revik felt his anger flare abruptly, faster than he could stop it.
“She has a mate, Raven,” he snapped. “Considering he could very well die when we kill her, we could at least do him the courtesy of not violating her, first––”
“A little late for that,” Raven said coldly.
Hearing her words, he stared at her.
That sickness in his gut reared back up, closing his throat when the indifferent look solidified in her eyes. He looked at Terian, but the male seer only shifted his gaze away, bringing the glass of beer he held to his well-formed lips.
“And, by the way… bullshit, she has a mate!” Raven added scornfully. “What, she told you that, too? You really are an easy fucking mark, Dags. Maybe I’m wrong with what I said. Maybe you should be embarrassed of yourself––”
“I have eyes,” Dehgoies snapped. He motioned vaguely over his own head, glaring at her. “Or did you really not see the telltale? In all of your infinite fucking wisdom, Ray?”
Raven threw up her hands. “What makes you think that wasn’t part of her scam, you idiot? What makes you think that telltale was even real?”
Stepping between them, Terian motioned sharply for Raven to be silent.
A more conflicted concern touched his eyes as he looked back at Revik.
“Leave him alone, Ray,” he murmured, without taking his eyes off the other male. “He was right about one thing. You are jealous. It’s making you act like a complete asshole.”
“Fuck you, Terry––” she snapped.
“I’d rather not,” the other seer said, giving her a harder smile over his shoulder. He looked back at Revik, that intent scrutiny back in his eyes. “Revi’, are you all right? We can help you, you know. With any part of it. You must know he’s right. This isn’t your fault.”
“I’m not raping her,” Revik snapped.
Raven clicked at him sharply from behind Terian’s back.
Terian held up a hand, not looking at her. “No one said you had to, my friend. Certainly not me.”
Revik frowned at the floor, but didn’t meet that amber gaze.
After another pause, he shook his head, once.
“Fine,” he said, blunt. “Let’s do this.” He glared at Raven, his voice cold. “By the way. You and me? We’re finished, darling.”
“What?” She stared at him, her turquoise eyes holding a disbelieving fury.
“You heard Galaith. I’m leaving. Tonight. Without you.”
“What makes you think I would––”
“––If you try climbing into my bed again,” he added, cutting her off. “You might want to come ready to fight, Elan. Otherwise, I might just break something of yours. Take that as your one and only warning.”
At her disbelieving glare, his voice grew colder.
“You’ll have to find some other sucker to ride to the top of the Pyramid, Ray. Because you’re wrong. Sometimes I really do know when I’m being played.”
She let out a fury-laden laugh. “You just tried to get me pregnant, you unbelievable dugra-te di aros piece of shit––”
“Consider that a goodbye gift,” he growled. “You were the one who wanted that anyway… not me.”
At the outraged look she gave him, he clicked at her, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t worry,” he added coldly. “You and I both know nothing I did that night will stick. Guess you’ll have to find yourself another sperm donor, too, Elan.”
“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”
Reaching over to the table, she scooped up a beer bottle in one hand, throwing it at him with all of her strength. It shattered loudly against the wall when he ducked, beer and cigarette butts streaming down the plaster.
“And you’re a shitty, lousy, little-boy lay!” she snapped. “Gaos, what a fucking child you are! So what if I wanted you because of Galaith? It’s not like you didn’t know! I’ve had seers who were five hundred years old! Why the fuck would I screw a toddler like you, if there was nothing in it for me? Why would any of your sisters?”
Revik didn’t answer.
Without looking at her again, he aimed his feet for the bedroom door.
He walked around the table covered by two bags of drugs and a broken mirror to get there, then reached for the door handle in a few more strides, jerking it open without preamble.
He stepped into the darkened interior of the ripped-up suite bedroom, not pausing to turn on the light as he swung the wooden panel inward, and gazed around.
He just wanted this done.
Fourteen
Sacrifice
IT TOOK a few seconds for his eyes to adjust.
He saw her then, and in the same set of seconds, he felt her light.
It hadn’t occurred to him until then that he had been shielding from her.
Staring down at where she knelt on the carpeted floor, he felt his heart start to thud sharply against the bones of his chest. It happened without warning, without logic, almost before he could make sense of what he was looking at.
They’d collared her.
That might have been why he didn’t feel her right away, too.
She knelt there, hands and arms tied behind her back, her ankles bound with rope, a dirty rag tied over her mouth and pinning her long, dark, curled hair to the sides of her face. Her green eyes widened as she stared up at him.
She was completely fucking naked.
Her breasts moved under heaving breaths as he felt the first pulses of her fear.
He was hard in about two seconds.
He was barely able to look at her once he was.
Separation pain slid through his light in a sharp wave, cutting his breath, making his skin hot before his mind could catch up. He forced himself to look at her again, to meet her gaze, but at the look there, he flinched again, stepping back, even as he tried to force his brain to work, to remember why he was there.
He was still standing there, unmoving, when Terian and Raven entered the room behind him.
He wanted to order them out.
He wanted to order both of them to leave the fucking room.
He couldn’t seem to work his mouth and tongue, though.
“Gaos,” Raven muttered angrily. “Look at him. He’s about to have a goddamned coronary.” Turning to Terian with an angry toss of her head, she folded her arms, grunting. “Fifty U.S. says he fucks her in the next five minutes.”
“No,” Terian said, still watching Revik’s face warily. “No, I won’t take that bet, my friend.”
Raven snorted, folding her arms.
Fury plumed off her living light as she stared at the woman on the floor.
“I wouldn’t, either,” she muttered.
Revik swallowed.
; He took a step towards the female with the green eyes, and away from the other two seers. He took another then, and another… until he stood directly over her.
Hesitating another second, he abruptly and smoothly bent his legs, so that he squatted roughly eye to eye with her. He winced slightly as he did it, conscious again of the pain that tugged at his light, at the erection that strained his pants.
Studying her face, seeing the terror in her eyes, he cleared his throat.
“Who sent you here?” he said.
She shook her head.
He felt her wanting him in her mind, wanting him to let her speak to him that way. She couldn’t do it from her side, not while wearing the collar.
He stared at the gag in her mouth, the collar around her neck… then back down at her body. He found himself looking at specifics that time, including the bruises on her arms, the cuts and bruises her stomach and chest, blood drying from a cut on her thigh and at the edges of her mouth. Staring down at her breasts, he let his gaze trail below them, to the flat planes and muscles of her stomach which jerked and clenched at each breath.
He felt his throat contract in a swallow.
The pain worsened, sharply, right before he averted his gaze.
He couldn’t escape her light, though. He couldn’t.
He found himself drowning in it, even when he tried to keep his distance, to remind himself why he was there, what he had to do. He fought to shield, to keep her away from him altogether, but some part of himself kept letting her back in, tugging her into him, pulling her closer. She was so close to his light now, he felt her fear as a tangible force.
But the fear wasn’t really for herself.
He felt her fear for her unborn child.
He felt her fear for her mate.
Uye, he thought at her impulsively. His name is Uye?
Yes, she sent, her thoughts trembling with pain. Yes, please. We are bonded. We are life bonded with one another. Please, if you kill me, he will die. Do not hurt him, my brother. Please, please, do not hurt my mate––
But he shut her out, unable to hear that, either.
He saw her wince from the collar as she tried to reach him, but Revik blocked that too, staring down at her knees, seeing the bruises on them where she knelt on a rug on the hardwood floor.
He didn’t want to ask her if they’d hurt her.
He could see that they had.
Feeling that harder pain pulse in spaces behind his eyes, he closed them.
Dehgoies.
Revik felt Galaith there, a warmth in his heart, reassurance.
Dehgoies, my friend. It is all right. You do not have to hate her to do this.
How can I not? Revik asked him, soft.
She is probably a pawn. That makes her a victim of these machinations, too. But you cannot allow them to use her against you again. You cannot allow them to use her against our cause. You must see her as a weapon, my friend, a tool. A weapon does not need to be wielded by its own will to do immense damage to others…
Revik shook his head, fighting what he felt in his own light, fighting what he felt on Galaith, on the woman with the green eyes, on Raven and Terian behind him.
His pain worsened, even as the familiarity deepened.
He found himself remembering what the green-eyed female had said, about how it wasn’t really her he was reacting to at all. How it was something else… someone else.
Her daughter.
Her unborn daughter.
If he did this, he would never meet that person.
He would never know her in this lifetime.
The pain in his head spiked higher, making him nauseous, closing his eyes. He opened them a second later and found himself staring at the woman, fighting to see the face that wanted to emerge from the delicate planes of hers.
Yes, she thought at him urgently, when he again entered her mind. Yes. You see her. You know her, Revik. You know her, don’t you? You know her…
He wanted to shake his head.
He wanted to, but he found himself nodding instead.
You know her, she sent, relieved.
Tears ran down her face, clouding those green eyes, dampening the rag that cut into the sides of her lips.
Oh, brother… please hear me on this. She loves you so much. I have felt this on her, again and again. She loves you. She loves you desperately. Do not turn your back on her…
Revik didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
Even so, when he felt Galaith that time, hovering over his light, he found himself pushing the other male away. In the same set of seconds, he reached inside the faded military jacket he wore, fingering and then grasping the smooth handle of the gun that hung there, snug inside a leather shoulder holster.
A Sig Saur 220, he’d had it for years, since the end of the last war.
The handle was worn smooth by his own fingers.
He pulled it out, his mind utterly blank now.
The woman in front of him saw it, and her eyes widened again. He felt her fear, even her acceptance, right before he climbed slowly back to his feet.
He still wasn’t thinking anything when he stepped back, firing four shots, with barely a space between them.
It was only after he’d finished, when he stood blinking over Terian and Raven, both of whom lay on the hardwood floor, clutching wounds in their legs and shoulders, that he realized what he’d done.
Terian only gasped, looking up at him, a shocked expression on his face.
“Revi’…” he said, fighting to breathe. “Revi’… brother…”
Raven was less confused.
“You unbelievable piece of shit!” she screeched, gripping her thigh, where blood already pooled around her fingers. “You shot me! You cocksucker! You fucking shot me!”
Revik didn’t think.
Using his light, he cut her quickly from the network, something he could do since she technically fell under him within the hierarchy.
After scarcely a pause, he did the same to Terian.
Once Raven and Terian were both free of the Pyramid, Revik knocked them out.
Swiftly, and with a cold efficiency that seemed somehow outside him.
He did it all without speaking.
When he was done, they both lay on the floor, bleeding.
Even unconscious, he felt their pain at the disconnection, and a harder, more intense reaction from Galaith somewhere in the background. Forcing up a wall between himself and the rest of the Org’s network, Revik realized he didn’t have much time.
Galaith had other operatives in Vietnam.
He had a lot of them.
Revik kept the gun out while he initially stood over them, checking them carefully with his light before he got too close.
Then he re-holstered the Sig, kneeling beside Terian first. After checking the bullet wound in the other male’s shoulder, he felt over the one on his thigh, frowning to himself, though he was reasonably sure he’d missed any major arteries.
After a bare pause, he decided not to take any chances.
Leaning down, he unbuckled the other seer’s belt, lifting him up to tug the strap of leather from around his waist. Once he got it free, Revik hooked the belt around Terian’s upper thigh, and cinched it as tight as he could, using it as a makeshift tourniquet to cut off the flow of blood to the bullet hole the Sig’s 9mm rounds had left.
He looked at Terian’s face, which had tightened in pain, paling to the color of chalk.
“I’m sorry, old friend,” he told him, kissing his cheek.
Rising to his feet, he walked to Raven, repeating the exercise, using his own belt that time. Making sure he’d tightened it enough to keep her from bleeding out on the floor, he moved away from her moments later.
That time, he didn’t speak at all.
Approaching the woman with the green eyes, he reached into his back pocket long enough to pull out a square knife encased in a hard, enamel cover. Flipping it open, he knelt behind the woman’s
back, and began sawing through her the rope that held her wrists together.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he told her roughly.
That time, he didn’t look at her body at all.
Strangely, that time, he didn’t even want to.
Fifteen
What Is Your Name?
“PUT ON CLOTHES,” he growled, motioning towards the wardrobe on the other side of the room. “Take Raven’s, she’ll have something in there.”
When Kali opened the wooden doors staring around, he nudged her again.
“The duffle. On the floor.”
Kali knelt down. Once she was rooting through clothes, Revik looked away, shoving another gun in the back of his belt as he walked out of the room.
He didn’t spend much time looking around.
Instead he raided their weapons stores, taking as many magazines as he could find that matched the Sig, and taking Raven’s Colt when he saw it hanging in a holster on the back of a chair. Shoving the extra gun into a pocket of his jacket, he swiped a packet of hiri off the table and his lighter and shoved those in smaller pockets on the same coat.
He could have brought a bag.
He didn’t want anything that might slow him down.
His eyes scanned over the alcohol-stained carpets, seeing the drugs on mirrors on the table, discarded clothes. His eyes settled briefly on a red bikini top and he frowned, right before his eyes shifted away.
No one had come to the room yet.
They’d be here soon.
“Hurry up!” he growled.
He stalked over to his bedroom as he said it, pushing open the door.
Finding the safe in the bottom of the wardrobe where they’d left it, he twisted the numbered lock, going through the combination by memory. When he heard the click, he opened the door. He didn’t hesitate, but emptied out the contents, most of which was in American dollars. He left the organic, but also took a small pouch of diamonds.
Terry would be pissed, but not much he could do about that either.
Shoving the diamonds into a pants pocket, he tucked the stack of bills into an inside pocket of his jacket.
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