I hadn’t seen him like that since—
“See, love,” he said, softer, cajoling, his voice a caress. “See, it isn’t all bad. I can give you that now. I can give you what you need…” Pain coiled off him as he pressed his face to mine. “Gaos, Allie… come home with me. Gods. Let me take care of you. Please.”
I couldn’t speak.
I stared up at him, remembering without my willing it.
It had been our honeymoon, I guess. A seer honeymoon, if such a thing existed. The two of us had gone into a kind of sexual trance, which I only found out later was normal––a process of bonding between new mates that usually took weeks, sometimes longer. Despite how foggy I’d been through most of it, I remembered all of it afterwards, every minute between us, from the most embarrassing to the most heart-wrenchingly intimate.
So I knew exactly what he was referencing. I’d wanted something from him, for most of our time together there. At times, I’d wanted it so badly I got angry at him when he wouldn’t give it to me. I’d known it was irrational, even at the time.
It was also almost totally outside my control.
When I looked up next, he was smiling.
“No,” I said, feeling his thoughts. “No, Revik… it doesn’t change anything.”
Anger flashed in his eyes, but his arm tightened.
He kissed me again, deepening it when I returned it. His hands clenched on my skin as he started playing with my light again, until I moaned against his mouth. I was undressing him then, fumbling with catches on the white tuxedo shirt. His pain worsened once he realized what I was doing. I saw his eyes close, just before he started tugging at the straps of the dress. I looked down at his body as I slid the shirt and jacket off his shoulders, trying to take in the changes on him, how different his chest looked.
Then he was lifting me in his arms, moving the dress out of the way as he began unfastening the front of his pants. I started to help him but he wouldn’t wait for me.
Pushing my hands back, he ripped open the zipper and freed his cock, moving the lace underwear I wore aside enough to enter me.
He paused… just long enough to slide his fingers inside me, gasping against my neck when he felt me ready for him.
My mind tried to phase out again, to deny I was doing this.
He removed his hand. He gripped my hair, muscles tensing, still staring at my face.
Then he maneuvered his way into me, hard.
For a long moment, neither of us moved.
He let out a low sound, almost pleading.
In that moment, I felt him.
I felt Revik––what I still couldn’t help but think of as the real Revik––and it caught me so completely off guard I cried out, clasping his neck. I felt him again, stronger, and I choked. It took me longer to recognize it as a sob, locked so far in me I couldn’t get it out. I was so completely unprepared for feeling him there, especially with him inside me.
I couldn’t control myself when the presence lingered.
He arched into me, as deep as he could, and my fingers clenched in his hair.
He didn’t go away. He stayed with me… along with the boy, glimmers of all three. But I held onto the whispers of him, grasping for him in their collective light, chasing the thread like an addict, feeling my light open to his.
I heard him in his voice when he groaned.
“Allie… gods, Allie, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much…”
“Baby,” I felt tears in my eyes. “I love you…”
His pain nearly cut me in half.
That deep coil of light found me once more. My vision left me again.
When I came back, his light was still locked in mine, wrapped into me with a possessiveness I couldn’t see past. He arched into me again, his whole face changing as I gripped his shoulders, moving with him, using my weight, my legs and arms. That other part of his cock extended inside me, the alien, seer part I still hadn’t fully gotten used to… and I cried out again, winding my legs tighter around him.
It felt so fucking good, I couldn’t stand it.
He heard me and groaned, his light flooding into mine in a kind of disbelieving want.
I heard the boy in his voice as his hands tightened, pushing my back against the wall as he slammed into me harder.
The image shimmered, breaking apart, but I held onto that lingering thread of him as if my life depended on it. He held me up with one arm while he leaned his other hand on the wall beside my face, forcing my body nearly horizontal.
For a really long time after that, I didn’t think at all.
It wouldn’t occur to me until much, much later how much worse this would only make everything.
4
REALITY
I DIDN’T KNOW how much later it was.
I stared into the fire, trying to blank out my mind.
I lay sprawled on my back on the rug in front of the fireplace. The dress barely hung on me. Truthfully, it was pretty much a lost cause at that point, but I scarcely noticed. I was still trying to control my breathing from what we’d just been doing.
My mind was working again. Sort of.
Enough that I felt a cold pit forming, somewhere in naval region.
I felt him pull at me.
Succumbing to the pull, I turned my head.
He lay on his side, watching me. When I met his gaze, he grinned, motioning towards what remained of my dress.
“Sorry about that, love.” Leaning closer, he kissed me, using his tongue as his hand caressed the front of my body. His face was warm, the hair on his forehead damp with sweat. Pain slid off him, along with a heated warmth that made my eyes close.
“Gaos di'lalente,” he murmured, kissing my breast. “You wrapped the present so well, Allie. Ask Wreg. I fucking lost it when I saw you on the feeds. You’re lucky I didn’t drag you off those stairs, right there.”
He kissed me again, more lingeringly that time.
“I may need to hire you a seamstress,” he murmured, glancing up.
His restraint was coming back too, though. When I didn’t answer, I felt him withdraw enough to assess me. I felt him study my face, my light. I felt him trying to gauge where things were with us, where things were with me.
I didn’t let myself think about that for long, either.
I found myself looking at his body, feeling him do the same to me.
It was strange, how much the same he could look. Despite the added bulk, and the longer hair, all the scars were in the same place, the tattoos on his arms, the clan mark below his navel. His eyes were the same, although the look in them had altered. His cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the shape of his mouth… none of it was different.
It was like watching someone else ride around in the corpse of the man I’d loved.
I fought that out of my light, too.
Then something else struck me.
I hadn’t felt anyone else on him. No one new, anyway.
I’d felt D.C., of course. I’d felt it in graphic detail, unfortunately, enough to make me cry, which infuriated me afterwards, but seemed to touch him, even though he insisted it hadn’t meant anything, that it didn’t matter.
But I hadn’t felt anyone else.
No hookers. Not even any humans. I’d been pretty sure I would feel someone there, if not multiple someones. I’d more hoped it wouldn’t be anyone I recognized.
Gripping my hair, he let out a short laugh. I was startled to hear real hurt in it.
“You thought I’d be screwing around? Thanks a lot.”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” I asked him, blunt.
It came out before I’d thought about it clearly. Once it had, though, I turned my head, and found his face had hardened. His voice mirrored his expression.
“Because I’m married, Alyson,” he growled.
When I rolled my eyes a little at that, his anger grew more audible.
“Gods. You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
I didn’t bothe
r to state the obvious on that, either.
I felt him back off, as if thinking.
When he spoke next, his voice was cautious. “Allie,” he said. “How long are you going to punish me for that? You know why I did it. You know why.”
But I didn’t know why, not really.
And anyway, it was hardly the point.
When I didn’t answer, he kissed me again, pulling on me with his light. I felt possessiveness on him, a sharper frustration when I withdrew my light from his, refusing to go there with him. He held me closer, caressing my cheek with his fingers, trying to get me to soften, to let him back in. My breath grew short when his hands roamed lower, but he didn’t prolong things when I still wouldn’t open my light.
Seconds later, he gave up, pulling away.
I watched as he climbed to his feet.
Yanking the white tuxedo shirt up off the floor, he pulled it on over his shoulders, and I found myself staring at the scars there, swallowing as the shirt covered them.
I thought about his words, in spite of myself.
It would be just my luck that this would be the version of him that would be faithful to me.
“Alyson!” He turned, breathing harder, looking at me. “Stop this.”
“Stop what?”
“This!” He gestured towards me, his eyes and voice openly angry. “This… game you’re playing. It’s too late to be having second thoughts about us!”
“Second thoughts?” I said, numb.
“Come with me, Allie. Tonight. Please.”
I just looked at him.
“I’ll spoil you rotten,” he said, smiling. “In more ways than you can imagine.”
I shook my head, rolling to my back.
“You’re serious,” he said. “You’re fucking serious about this?”
It was my turn to give him an incredulous look.
“You know I can’t, Revik,” I said.
Frustration glimmered in his eyes. “Is it really because of what happened during the op in D.C.? If that’s why you’re not coming back, then—”
“That’s not why, Revik. You know that, too.”
For a moment he just stared down at me. Then his pale eyes grew cold, watching mine with a scrutiny on the surface.
“Are you fucking someone else?”
I made an irritated sound, sitting up. I looked again at the state of the dress, the broken straps, the tear down the front and up to my waist on one side. It occurred to me I had nothing to wear out of there.
When I glanced over, he was still staring at me, his eyes hard as glass.
“Alyson?” he said. “Are you going to answer me?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not going to answer you.”
I barely took a breath when he was crouched beside me once more, gripping my hair in one hand. “Allie,” he said softly. “Answer.”
“No.” I shoved his hand away. “It’s none of your goddamned business.”
“The hell it isn’t!” He sat back, staring at my eyes, his crystal irises harder. “Tell me, Alyson. Tell me the fucking truth.”
“The truth?” I stared at him. “Jesus, Revik. Okay, here’s the truth. I’m not the one who fucks around. You’ve pretty much lost your license to ask at this point.” Seeing his eyes cringe, carrying a whisper of guilt alongside that harder anger, I averted my gaze.
Shaking my head, I clicked at him, fighting to keep my expression still.
“Can’t believe you think you have the right to ask me that,” I muttered. “Unbelievable.” When he rose to his feet, I called after him, “You know, that wasn’t a very attractive trait of yours before… when you were just Revik.” I clenched my jaw, watching him zip up his pants. “I think I like it even less now.”
For a moment he just stood there.
He still hadn’t looked at me when he bent down, grabbing his jacket and tie off the floor. His voice grew cold as he straightened. “Just so we’re clear. I expect you to respect our marriage, Allie. Whatever you think I’ve done… or why.”
“Meaning what?”
He shrugged, re-tying the tie in front of the long wall mirror. A crack decorated one side of it, one I realized hadn’t been there when we’d started.
“Can I get some clothes, at least?” I said.
“Someone will be along soon, I imagine,” he said.
Once he said it, I found myself feeling what he meant.
I could feel activity in the construct, even up here. I’d been gone a lot longer than Balidor’s patience would have been able to stand. They were looking for me.
“Balidor,” Revik muttered by the mirror.
I looked over, but he didn’t return my gaze.
Scanning him lightly, I realized his aleimi was cloaked. I couldn’t feel him at all. He shouldered on the tuxedo jacket while I continued to study his light.
His eyes met mine, but that time, they were all business.
“If you’re really not coming, I have to go, love. Let’s not wait so long next time.” His eyes locked on mine, holding an added meaning. “I’ll wait, Allie. But not forever.”
I didn’t answer that, either.
I was still sitting there, my weight propped on my arms, when I heard the door close behind him.
It wasn’t until he was really gone that my throat closed.
I fought to breathe.
I sat there, still propped up on my arms, fighting to work my lungs. I was breathing too much. I clenched my stomach with one arm, as if to hold it inside, but it didn’t help. Trying to hold it in, to slow my breath, only seemed to wrench me in half.
It took me another moment to realize I was trying to cry and couldn’t.
5
BROTHER-IN-LAW
JON WATCHED BALIDOR and the others gear up.
Several added the heavier organic guns to their persons, throwing dark, knee-length coats over their shoulders to conceal them from human eyes. They’d already divided up the search grid coordinates; some had already left through the back door of the curtained stage area, looking for witnesses who might have seen Revik leave the hotel with her.
Jon felt a little sick when he saw Balidor packing sight-restraint collars, motioning for several of the other seers to do the same. He knew there was a pretty long chance in hell they’d ever get one on Revik, at least while he was breathing, but it disturbed him that Balidor would even go there.
He had a feeling his brother-in-law would kill every last one of them before he’d let someone put a collar on him again.
Jon missed most of the earlier excitement. He’d gone outside via one of the balconies to get some air, only coming back after Revik made his dramatic appearance.
He’d seen them dancing though, from a distance.
Truthfully, he’d almost laughed.
It was just too surreal, seeing Revik in a tux, newly shaved, wearing an expensive haircut and shoes, holding Allie in that dress that made her look like some kind of movie siren on the red carpet of an awards ceremony.
Jon had to admit, she looked pretty stunning in that dress.
She’d changed so much in the past two years, though. Truthfully, he sometimes had trouble remembering what she’d even looked like before. She was still gaining in height––some kind of weird seer-related growth spurt, where she got taller as she approached thirty––but it wasn’t just that. Her features had changed, too.
Her face appeared sharper, more feline. Her eyes appeared larger and lighter, both in color and in the sense of… something… lying behind them. They slanted more at the edges as her face altered, throwing her ethnicity into question with her darker skin from living in India.
Her mouth seemed fuller, too, her cheekbones higher.
She’d been pretty before, in San Francisco, but in a more or less unspectacular way.
He’d never thought of her as particularly exotic-looking, or unusual at all in the looks department really, apart from her eyes. Cass was always the head-turner of the two of them, at least in
objective terms.
Allie had a lot of men after her, though.
That had been true from as far back as he could remember, even more so than Cass. He, Cass, and Allie herself always joked it had more to do with her indefinable weirdo-magnet charm, versus her looks, per se.
Now, however, after all this time spent with seers, hours spent practicing mulei, the seer martial art, and the changes in her features, she was beginning to look a lot like the rest of them. Stunning, yet alien in some indefinable way. Feral, yet also strangely half-present––as if some part of her watched him from a great distance, even when they talked.
Seeing her and Revik together, he had to admit to an even stronger similarity there, with the two of them. He saw it more now than he ever had, which frightened him a little.
Revik had been looking at her as if noticing changes himself––at least until Balidor approached the two of them, holding his hand in a way that strongly suggested “gun.”
Jon watched Allie say something that got Balidor and his people to back off.
Then Revik led her through the scattered clusters of humans, purposefully weaving his way past the seers gathered less conspicuously to corner him.
This new Syrimne/Revik had panache––Jon would grant him that.
Showing up in a tux, pulling Allie into a dance in front of every major feed network and the entire protective detail of the Seven, then just walking off the floor with her without a backward glance––it was ballsy even for the Revik he’d known, who’d hardly been a coward.
Jon knew from listening to their back and forth on the network that Balidor and the others assumed he’d left the building with her.
Jon didn’t believe it, though.
He couldn’t have said why, exactly, but he trusted his gut in terms of Revik, even now.
Anyway, from the expression on Revik’s face as he looked at Allie in that dress, he hadn’t been in the mood to wait a few hours.
No, he had her somewhere here, in the hotel.
As soon as he thought it, Jon found himself positive it was true.
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