Dragon: Bridge & Sword: The Final War (Bridge & Sword Series Book 9)

by JC Andrijeski

  But he didn’t leave the door open for long.

  He also took his sweet fucking time.

  My light didn’t calm down while he was gone, either.

  Instead the pain worsened as I lay there, face down on the bedspread, basically in a much more porned-out version of what they called “child’s pose” at the yoga gym where I used to go with Cass in San Francisco.

  For some reason, I couldn’t shut my brain up either, or the fact that it had occurred to me yet again that this might be some kind of hate-fuck thing for Dalejem.

  Or a twisted way of getting back at Revik, maybe. For marrying me, for not being willing to hear him out––for whatever irrational feelings seers acted on when it came to unrequited love.

  The thought pissed me off, yeah.

  It hurt me, too. I couldn’t explain that part as well, not even to myself.

  But yeah, it hurt.

  Flickers of Ditrini ran through my mind in all of that, which didn’t help.

  The memories brought more grief than anger for some reason, even though I’d thought I was well past that shit, too––at least with the big things that happened to me in Beijing. Dalejem had played with me in similar ways to how Ditrini used to play with me sometimes, especially in the beginning, when I hadn’t yet learned to hate his guts.

  That was back when his sureness was still kind of a turn-on instead of just another symptom of his raging narcissism.

  I lay there, fighting not to think about whether Revik might be fucking someone else right now, too. I had that shield wrapped so tightly around my light, for once I was relatively confident I wouldn’t feel it if he was.

  Somewhere in that, the grief my light had been toying around with worsened.

  It worsened a lot.

  I found myself lying there, fighting tears. I forced out threads of Revik and Lily that wanted to coil into my light. I fought to remind myself why I was doing this, telling myself it didn’t mean anything. I told myself that what Revik had done didn’t mean anything either.

  I remembered him throwing the glass, shouting at me about Chandre.

  I remembered him promising me––maybe for the thousandth time––that he’d never touch anyone else again.

  I remembered promising him the same. Vowing it.

  Vowing it in New York, in front of all of our friends.

  Laughing as he wore that ridiculous hat for the ceremony in that Central Park restaurant, even as I was turned on by the suit he wore below it. Standing up on that stage with him, where I felt nothing but happy. Where we could barely keep our hands off each other. Where I could feel Vash laughing, even though he was dead.

  Where I could feel my parents… my real parents, watching over us.

  Where Jon and Wreg lit the ends of that fiery cord. Where Tarsi smacked Revik for joking with her about the ceremony. Where Revik shook hands with my father’s brother.

  Tears ran down my face when the door opened from the corridor. I couldn’t move to wipe them away with my hands, not without him seeing, so I wiped my face on the bedspread instead, clenching my jaw when I felt him approach the bed.

  He had his light cloaked again.

  Even so, I felt tendrils of his aleimi slide over mine, as if examining some flavor he’d picked up in the room when he walked in. When he walked over to the side of the bed, he had his hands on his hips. He was naked but for a dark gray towel, his wet black hair hanging down around his shoulders.

  I looked up at him, almost defiantly that time.

  He studied my face, his own expressionless.

  Then, clicking softly, he walked back around behind me.

  The bed creaked as he crawled up on the mattress. I felt the rough fabric of the towel against the back of my legs. I felt his erection even more clearly, pressed against the V between my thighs. He held it there, his light coiling gently into mine.

  “Are you going to open for me?” he said, caressing my rear gently, rubbing my back. “Your light. Are you going to open your light for me, Allie?”

  Clenching my jaw, I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

  He didn’t let me off the hook.

  “No?” he said. “You need to say it, Alyson.”

  I cleared my throat, fighting anger. I knew he could probably feel the emotion in my light. I knew he was probably getting off on me losing control over myself like this. He might even be getting off on the grief.

  “No,” I said, my voice cold.

  He nodded. I felt that more than saw it, too.

  “Because of him?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, glaring up at him.

  He nodded, his expression unmoving. “All right,” he said, his voice as empty as his face. “Although you should know, loyalty is a turn-on for seers. Even loyalty to someone else.”

  I bit my lip, fighting fury.

  If he noticed, I didn’t feel any indication on his light.

  Still rubbing my back, he shifted backwards slightly, unwrapping the towel from around his waist. I tensed as he slid his body between my legs, using his knees to spread mine even more. He gripped my hips again in his hands––tightly that time, almost painfully. Sex-pain whispered off his light, coiling into mine as I felt him looking at me.

  “I don’t think two orgasms was enough,” he muttered.

  Before I could make a sarcastic crack, he leaned down towards me, kissing my back with his tongue and lips. He used a lot of his light that time and I gasped, losing my train of thought. When he started caressing my ribs and hips and the front of my body, I groaned, flattening against the bedspread in spite of myself, arching my back.

  Which is maybe what he’d wanted. Either way, he kissed me for awhile longer before he raised his body up, still holding my hips…

  …and slid into me up to the hilt.

  My heart stopped. Then it jack-knifed.

  I felt shock ripple his light.

  “Gods… you’re wet.” He let out a heavier groan. “You’re really fucking wet, Allie. I could come right now.”

  I fought to move against him, but he held me, firm in his hands.

  “Open your light,” he urged. “Please, lover.”

  “No,” I snapped.

  He pulled out slowly then arched into me equally slow, going so deep I let out a cry, pressing into the mattress. I fought to hold onto the shield when he did it again.

  Then he was fucking me harder, still slow but almost violently hard at the end, his light opening more with each thrust of his hips. I felt paralyzed there, lost in sensation and his light.

  Guilt swam over me as I thought of Revik… then frustration when Dalejem wouldn’t extend, or let me come… then more guilt for even wanting those things.

  Pain writhed in my light as I thought of Revik again, of the last time I’d let anyone else touch me like this.

  “Stop, goddamn it,” Dalejem growled. “Stay here with me.”

  He slapped my ass, hard that time, and I groaned, fighting him with my light as he pressed into me harder. He used his light more intently as I fought him, bleeding it out of the end of his cock as he rubbed up against the part of me that wanted him to extend.

  I cried out when he kept doing it, then I was sweating… then swearing, then fighting him for real, pulling back the telekinesis even as I fought to keep my light closed.

  “No. Relax,” he murmured. “Relax, love. Relax.”

  I fought to control myself, realizing only then that I’d been losing my grip on the shield. My light wouldn’t stop pulling on his, fighting to get him to lose control, to extend.

  He blew warmth over my aleimi, reassurance, but I fought that, too.

  “You want me,” he said, his voice gruff. “You want me. It’s why you get so angry at me, Alyson. You want me. It doesn’t make you disloyal.”

  Pain exploded over my light.

  He groaned, coming to a stop as his hands gripped me tighter, his fingers painful as he held himself back. He slowed his body, fucking me harder, using
more of his light. I felt him pulling on me, trying to get me to say it. Pain seethed off him in another hot coil.

  “You want me,” he murmured. “Admit it, Alyson. Tell me you want me.”

  The pain in my light worsened.

  I felt him deliberately slowing me down again, slowing his body, threading his light into mine and distracting me from where I wanted to come. My frustration worsened, growing desperate as I gripped the bedspread.

  I let out a pleading sound, but he only gripped me tighter, coming to a near stop.

  “Gaos. Tell me you want me,” he gasped. “Fucking tell me.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I burst out, fighting tears. “Why are you doing this?” I thought about my words, fighting another debilitating wave of pain. My voice grew bitter. “Hoping to feel him in my cunt, brother, since you can’t have him in your bed?”

  His fingers tightened painfully on my hips.

  For a long moment, he didn’t move.

  Then he extended––all the way inside me.

  I let out a low-pitched yell, nearly pleading.

  He groaned right after I did, letting his weight fall, gasping and sweating against my back and neck. He still wasn’t moving though, and I found myself fighting him again, fighting to get him to start, to do this thing for real. He wouldn’t, though. He just held me, his light a blank wall for what felt like an endless stretch of time.

  Anger pulsed out of him gradually as his hands tightened, holding me still.

  “You think that’s what this is?” he said.

  His voice was soft, holding pain on the surface.

  When I didn’t answer, he pressed his face against my neck, that pain coiling into me, colliding into mine, intensely enough that I whimpered. I felt his light react violently to the sound, right before he gasped against my neck.

  “You think I’m fucking Revik right now?” he murmured. “Is that it?”

  I fought to answer him, to even think. “Yes,” I said then, nodding into the mattress. Tears came to my eyes. “Yes.”

  He clicked at me, but I felt the pain in his light intensify. The next time he spoke his voice sounded thick, almost gruff.

  “You’re wrong,” he said only.

  He released my light once he’d said it, pulling his chest off my back. Gripping my hips in his hands, he slid into me with his cock and the sharper hirik with a precision that made me cry out. He did it again, harder, and I moaned, fighting him, and maybe myself by then, too. Then he was building me––slowly, inexorably, relentlessly.

  I lost control completely by the end, physically at least.

  I held onto my light.

  Some part of me held onto it stubbornly, angrily––irrationally, maybe.

  Whatever Revik did. Whatever he did and whoever he did it with, I wasn’t going to give my light away just because I knew he was. I wasn’t going to open myself to some other seer just because he did, or because he gave his body to whoever wanted him.

  I knew why he was doing that, too.

  Or I knew what he told himself about why he was doing it, at least. I couldn’t make myself care about his reasons though. Not anymore.

  I didn’t care.

  Not then, maybe not ever.

  I didn’t fucking care.

  39

  THREE MONTHS

  WE STILL CAN’T find him. You need to get out of there, baby––

  We’ve got people on it too.

  Silence falls between us, laden with more than I can express.

  We? I send.

  Alyson.

  His pain worsens. I fight to shake it off, my own light hardening.

  You’re not listening to me, I send, insistent. You need to get out of there. This isn’t going to work. Too much has changed.

  We stick to the plan for now. I’m close.

  I shake my head. You said it yourself. It’s not working. There’s only so much I can do on this end. Even if I do what you ask, it’s not going to matter if––

  There’s something here. Something they’re hiding from me.

  Revik, gods damn it––

  I know it’s hard, he breaks in. It’s hard for me, too. His pain worsens, growing unbearable. But we can’t stop now. We can’t, or it will all be for nothing. Fighting something back with an effort, he makes his voice flatter, more matter of fact. They still think I put you up to it, but it’s at least caused some doubt. You need to convince them, wife. They’ll never trust me, but I don’t think they’ll kill me now. Not if––

  No, I send. No, damn it! You’re not hearing me. We don’t have time for that now. I can’t stop him. I can’t even slow him down, Revik––

  You don’t have to. He pauses; the silence deepens. More light coils between us, faint tendrils of fire. Gaos… Allie. Are you all right?

  No. No I’m not all right. I want you home. I want you home, goddamn it. Pain slides through me and that time, I can’t control it at all. I want you home––

  I BLINKED, HANGING over the VR console.

  Rubbing my eyes, I fought to breathe, feeling my mind start to phase.

  I was hungry. And overtired.

  The time changes definitely didn’t help; the two seers we were tracking were now in totally different continents and time zones. We didn’t have enough high-ranked infiltrators to be able to assign people consistent slots, so we’d all had to deal with sleeping at odd hours, catching food where we could, taking turns in shifts.

  I’d probably gotten less sleep than a lot of the people here.

  The day before we’d been escorted politely but firmly out of the main compound at Langley, including those old training barracks. They’d given us a new building––also politely––and also very clearly outside of their constructs and even their secondary security wall.

  Now we had a base of sorts set up on the outskirts, in an old admin office building that used to house more of the spillover and contract workers hired by the CIA and SCARB.

  This part of the United States was pretty barren at the moment, but still, it was a relief they allowed us to remain inside the outer gates of the wider CIA-run compound, if only because I didn’t have to deal with coordinating and assigning heavy physical security in addition to all the Barrier security we needed.

  On the less-good side, Brooks had refused my last four requests for meetings.

  We also had no access to her via the Barrier, given the wall of seers she’d put between herself and us. Apparently her anger about what I’d done in Denver hadn’t lessened with time; if anything, it seemed to have gotten worse.

  I still thought I’d done the right thing.

  But yeah, I understood why she was pissed.

  Moreover, from what Talei had been able to find out, Brooks’ people had by now convinced her I’d more or less been responsible for everything that happened in Denver, including Dragon being operational in the first place.

  And yes, okay, while they weren’t entirely wrong about that, they weren’t entirely right, either.

  The blackout with Brooks made me nervous, given everything else. I knew they were tracking Dragon via their own seers by then. I also knew they were likely to seriously overreact if they got an opportunity to take him down, especially if nukes were still on the table.

  I was fighting to focus my eyes when warm fingers began massaging the back of my neck. Those fingers dug into my skin deliberately, in strong sensual pulls, bleeding light. Flinching, I glanced up, conscious of the heat behind the contact.

  I noticed only then that Jorag and Surli had left the room.

  Dalejem and I were alone.

  Even so, I shouldered his hand off me.

  “You shouldn’t do that here,” I muttered.

  He let out a low snort. “Why? Because they might figure out we’re fucking?” His voice held a thread of scorn. “Trust me, Alyson. They know. That big bastard with the blue eyes already got in my face about it. So did Chandre. And your ex-lover… the Chinese one.”

  I clicked
at him, shaking my head in irritation.

  Even so, I was surprised. Not about Chan or Jorag, really.

  But Surli got in his face? Really?

  Dalejem smiled, wrapping a muscular arm around my waist and tugging me coaxingly up against him. Before I could decide whether to push him off a second time, he leaned down, kissing my neck, using light on his lips and tongue as he coiled more of himself into my belly. The heat from the latter caught my breath.

  I felt my resistance slide in spite of myself, right before I melted back into his hard body.

  “That Surli was scarier, honestly,” he murmured, squeezing me tighter against his chest. His other hand slid under my shirt, caressing my bare stomach before sliding up to cup and massage my breast. I leaned against his chest as his fingers rubbed me slowly, tugging at me through the thin fabric. I felt him getting hard against the back of my thighs as his light coiled into mine, pulling on me achingly, making my skin flush.

  “I think he actually threatened my life,” he said, softer, his hand sliding between my legs. He rubbed me there through my clothes, pressing against me from behind. “…assuming I’m understanding Lao Hu euphemisms correctly. I may have to fight him later.”

  He paused, his fingers tightening in my hair. Pain rose sharply in his light.

  “Gaos,” he said. “Are you almost done in here? If not, I might need to go jerk off. All I can think about is last night.” His arms wrapped around me, stronger as his pain worsened. “I want to do that again,” he murmured against my neck. “That thing that made me come for about twenty fucking minutes when I finally got you there… gaos.”

  I winced against the images and pain he flickered at me, cutting my breath.

  Then I turned, pushing him back with a firm palm on his chest.

  “Jem.” Clenching my jaw, I stepped away from him, putting more distance between us. “Don’t touch me around them. I mean it. I’ve got enough shit to deal with right now.”

  He gave me a wry smile, holding up his hands in a peace gesture.