by Deanna Chase
“They came to see me beaten,” Revik said. He met the other’s gaze, unflinching, despite how close they were to one another. “...Whether I like it or not is immaterial to them. And you know it.”
Torek shrugged. “I don’t know anything of the kind, actually. And truthfully, I highly doubt that’s the case.”
“Who do you work for? Really?” Revik said, his voice edging back into angry. “Or do you still want me to believe this is just about sex?”
Torek smiled, clicking at him softly as he shook his head. His light exuded an open amusement, right before he massaged Revik deliberately again, putting enough light in his fingers that Revik’s eyes closed once more.
“Gods.” He let out a low gasp, unable to stop himself. “I don’t have time for this…”
Torek smiled again, leaning his weight deeper into Revik’s.
“Are you always this paranoid, brother?” he said, that lightness back in his tone. “Or did you somehow think my own sex-pain tonight was really just for show? Or that I couldn’t have gotten someone else to beat you bloody with whips and canes, for that matter, and spent my free time in other pursuits this evening...?”
“I don’t believe you,” Revik cut in, still fighting to control his light, and his breath.
“I mean you no harm,” Torek said, undaunted by the anger in Revik’s light. “Are my motives beyond that really so important to you? I will allow a reading to reassure you my intentions are wholly benign…that I will not harm you, nor will I allow you to be harmed in any way that does not meet with your explicit approval, brother.”
Revik felt another pulse of confusion leave his light.
He could feel the part of himself that was turned on by the other seer’s insistence, by the near-aggressiveness of his light, even beyond the hand still pressing Revik’s back into the door. Even so, Torek had made no actual demands, nor exuded so much as a pulse of real threat. Something about the combination––the unambiguous wanting and the utter lack of judgment––reminded Revik a little too much of Dalejem suddenly.
For some reason, that brought his mind back around to the Bridge, however.
Allie.
His pain abruptly worsened, and he felt the change affect the other male’s light.
“Gods, brother,” Torek murmured, pressing his face briefly against his. “This crush of yours…it is maddening. Is that where you are going now? To fuck this female? If so, I might want to see it. I might insist on seeing it, in fact...I might beat you and starve you when you return, until you show me exactly what it is you did to her…”
When Revik didn’t answer, Torek massaged him harder, leaning his knee and leg deliberately against Revik’s inner thigh.
“Is that where you’re going, little brother?” he murmured. “To hunt her? Tell me the truth.”
Revik shook his head, but didn’t speak.
Still, something in the seer’s question troubled him.
He honestly wasn’t sure if he could trust himself to answer that question truthfully, which mixed badly with what he’d already seen that night...what might be happening to her, even now. He couldn’t stand the thought of examining it, given that she might be raped, by either Jaden or Mickey or both of them at some point in the next twenty-four hours.
He doubted he would ever want to know the truth of that.
Not until you get there, at least, some slightly more cynical or slightly less dishonest part of his mind whispered. Not until you can do something about Jaden and that other fucker, first...put both of them in the ground, maybe, before you try and talk to her...
But he wasn’t ready to think about that yet, either.
Stalling, he clicked out of the present moment with Torek entirely.
He returned to the split in his light.
He checked in first with the travel agent to confirm the booking...then with Eddard, just long enough to know that the human was already packing his clothes. Revik’s manservant had contacted the driver, too, and Revik could feel that once Eddard finished packing, Revik’s clothes and other belongings would be sent, along with a taxi, to pick Revik up here.
It wouldn’t be right away, though. He had thirty minutes. At least.
“I must travel,” Revik said, still stalling. “I am leaving the country. Tonight.”
Torek nodded, his light and those gold eyes showing zero surprise that Revik was repeating himself. “When you return, then,” he said politely. “Assuming my terms are agreeable to you? We can wait on the details until that time.”
When Revik didn’t speak, the other seer pressed into him again, nearly hurting him that time. It brought an involuntary flare of sex pain off Revik’s light.
“Are the terms agreeable to you, brother?” Torek’s voice held a faint threat for the first time. “I will not consider letting you leave until we are in agreement. About something. If not this, then I am waiting to hear a counteroffer from you. Something of equal value to me.”
Feeling another coil of separation pain leave his light, Revik tried to decide if Torek’s terms were. Agreeable to him, that is.
He still didn’t believe him.
He wondered if the seer really was working for someone. The Rooks. Terry. Fuck, for all he knew, it could be the Adhipan or someone on the Council. Someone who wanted him gone, pulled off duty from the Bridge. Or someone who wanted dirt on him for some other reason. Blackmail. Buying favors on their way up the hierarchy of the Rooks.
On the other hand, did it matter?
The Seven wouldn’t let him be hurt, not seriously, not if they could help it…and the elaborateness of this game made Revik wonder if his death or capture could be the true motive anyway. No, if Torek did work for someone, most likely they were after information. Revik was pretty good at keeping information from people, even under duress.
Especially under duress…even when sex was involved.
He could hold out for a week, no problem. If Torek thought he could break him that fast, whoever he worked for didn’t know him very well. Which definitely ruled out Terry.
And Vash, for that matter.
He couldn’t stop toying with the why of it, though. If Torek wasn’t working for anyone, his motives baffled Revik even more. Was it really so much of a novelty, to fuck an ex-Rook? Even one as notorious and relatively high up as he had been? Or was it more that so many of these seers wanted to see him submissive, after he’d been feared so many years? Maybe someone wanted reassurance that he didn’t still work for Galaith and the other Rook seers.
Torek didn’t strike Revik as overly political, but that wouldn’t be a particularly difficult thing to hide.
More to the point, Torek owned a sex club, for chrissake. Pretty much pure seer fetish, several dozen working seers, another dozen working humans. He didn’t need Revik to suck his cock. He didn’t need Revik as some kind of fuck toy, either, whatever he claimed about his light. Torek had plenty of other seers who could gladly do those things for him, and better than Revik himself could. Hell, he wasn’t even old enough to be that good with his light. Seers Revik’s age could only sell to humans. Other seers wouldn’t pay to fuck them.
They might pay to beat on him, given who he was, but that was about it.
Was that what this was about? Beating him?
The only thing that made sense was the novelty. The novelty of getting an ex-murderer off, to see him stripped of his power, now that he no longer had the Rooks’ Pyramid to protect him. Maybe Torek really did get off on hurting him, more than Revik had realized. Maybe he’d lost people to the Rooks over the years. Maybe this was personal.
Revik couldn’t really feel that on Torek’s light either, though.
Truthfully, he didn’t get it.
Torek started massaging him again, harder as the silence deepened between them. After a few more seconds, Revik closed his eyes, letting out another low gasp.
He made up his mind, speaking in the same instant.
“Fine,” he said, his voice catchi
ng a little on the word. “When I return.”
“Say it, brother.”
“The terms are agreeable to me. We’ll work out details when I return.”
“And when will that be?”
“A week. Two at most.”
Torek’s hand stilled. The seer smiled. That smile widened briefly into a grin as he continued to study Revik’s face. Then, all at once, before Revik could think of what else to say, Torek released him, stepping back.
Still smiling, the gold-eyed seer gestured politely towards the door in a smooth wave.
“You may go,” he said. “The debt and its payment is in good standing between us, friend.”
Revik nodded, once, to acknowledge his words.
Even so, he felt a flicker of unease when he discerned the pulse of satisfaction coiling around Torek’s light. He couldn’t put a precise meaning to that unease, but it didn’t dissipate in the seconds that followed. Briefly, he studied the pleased expression in those gold eyes, but he couldn’t read much there, either, beyond the pure sincerity of the emotion.
Revik didn’t have time to second-guess any of it right then.
“I suggest the back door,” Torek said, motioning towards the headset still wrapped around Revik’s head. “…A precaution only. There might be some waiting for you up front, friend.”
Revik nodded to that, too.
Then, clicking softly, he looked away.
Unwinding Torek’s headset from around his ear and neck, he handed the semi-organic machine back to the other male. Giving a short bow, he caught hold of the door handle and twisted, jerking the wood panel free of the frame.
That time, Torek didn’t try to stop him.
7
ALLEY
Revik took the back door, like Torek suggested.
He got his shirt, first, for his headset as much as anything.
On his way through the maze of corridors making up the back-end of Torek’s club, he’d gone back to toying with the shield the Council held around his light, trying to find a way through, even as he contacted Eddard to tell him where to have the driver pick him up.
He fought with the shield compulsively, using a split part of his mind. He used the rest to think through the logistics of what he intended to do after he got to San Francisco.
He had time.
In terms of being gone from London, he wouldn’t be missed.
Not for a good long while, anyway. They’d pushed his teaching position to the next term. Ironically, they’d done it due to the higher-than-expected level of interest shown in his appointment to the faculty as a full-time instructor. None of the humans knew anything about his connections to the Rooks, and apparently they could forgive he’d been a Nazi.
As a result, he’d been doing a few guest lectures here and there, mostly as a favor to the Academy and to drum up enrollment numbers even more…but he didn’t have to maintain his own students yet, or even turn in his syllabus until after the winter break.
So he wouldn’t be missed.
If need be, he could put off any additional requests for guest appearances until December. He should easily be able to accommodate both an extended trip to the States and his agreement with Torek, when he returned. With a few weeks to spare, perhaps.
He was still turning over how he wanted to spin his absence to the Academy when a ping hit the outer edges of his awareness. It happened right as he pushed open the last door leading to the alley behind Torek’s club, a heavy metal thing that creaked loudly as he swung it forward. He got out from behind it just in time to feel the ping and turn.
He caught sight of the fist heading towards him right before it would have got him in the face.
Sliding sideways and back, he managed to get out of the way. He had his hands up before the door banged shut behind him. His light reconfigured and he moved, faster that time, right when someone grabbed him from behind.
There were a lot of them, he realized.
At least four.
He didn’t think.
Slamming his elbow and most of his weight backwards, he got the seer behind him in the face with the former, right as the other had been about to complete a throat hold. Using his back and weight to throw the same seer off-balance, Revik didn’t pause, but lurched forward in the next half-instant, using the other’s body as resistance as he kicked out at the male seer in front of him. He got him solidly, first in the sternum, then connecting sideways in the knee and bending the joint with a near-audible pop, right before he swung his arm down in an arc and got him on the temple on the way down.
“Mother-fuck!” the seer snarled.
Revik turned, backfisting another seer in the face.
He didn’t stop but also kicked forward, throwing the same seer into the brick wall and a dented rubbish bin painted a dark green. Panting into the few seconds that bought him, he used his eyes and what he could access of his light to scan the rest of the alley once he realized they were all shielded. Fucking Council.
His own light being snared nearly got him killed.
Beat to bloody hell, anyway.
He could see them all now, though.
Five of them, including the three he’d already gotten in hits on.
They stood around him in a near circle, watching him warily, as if trying to decide their next move, since bringing him down hadn’t been as easy as their drunk minds had assumed. Revik’s eyes adjusted in those few seconds before he moved again, and then it was to position himself between the one whose knee he’d just knocked out of joint and the opening at the other end of the alley.
Weakest player in the middle. He’d learned that young, too.
Anyway, he didn’t want these fuckers cornering him.
Now that he had space to think, he recognized whispers of a few of those lights.
One was the blue-eyed seer from the sex show, the big one, with the Nazi scar on his face. Even without those eyes, Revik remembered the particulars of that scar, a broken, diagonal line across his otherwise handsome features, as well as the sheer size of him, topping out at close to seven feet. He was at least a half-inch taller than Revik himself and probably sixty pounds heavier. Revik recalculated, looking him up and down. Seventy, maybe.
Fucker had been standing right under the stage.
Revik felt him a few times before the sex started, too, especially while Torek had been beating him. The guy had been getting off on it a little too much. He’d watched Revik fuck that female seer with a mixture of disgust and pain in his light.
Putting it all together in his mind in those same few nano-seconds, Revik found himself remembering that Torek told him to go out the back door.
Had he set him up?
He didn’t have time to think about that right now, either.
“Do I know you, brothers?” he said. “Because you’re in my way.”
He kept pieces of his light focused on each of them, even as he calculated the distance to the opening in the alley. He’d have to get by two of them to get there, including that blue-eyed fucker, who Revik assumed could probably fight, just from the way he stood there.
Hell, even from the way he hung back, letting the others try their luck with him first.
He didn’t like his odds much, in any case. Not yet, anyway.
“Can I help you?” he tried again.
The blue eyed one let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, Rook,” he said. “You can help us, brother. You can rot in the dregs of the gods-fucking underworld…along with the rest of those murderers you call your friends…”
Revik shook his head, clicking softly. He didn’t take his eyes or light off any of them. “Afraid I don’t have time for that right now. Could we perhaps do it another day? My social calendar is a bit full at the moment, unfortunately…”
The one whose knee he’d knocked out of joint cursed at him in Prexci. The one he’d kicked into the wall just glowered. Revik knew he was pushing his luck, needling them like this, but truthfully, he was pissed off. Moreover, a pa
rt of him was more than happy to take some portion of that out on these assholes.
Especially if Torek was behind this.
“He wants to fight,” the blue-eyed one observed, staring at him. “Look at him.”
“Maybe we should oblige him,” another said, to his left.
Revik looked at the second one, noticing him specifically for the first time. He was shorter than the blue-eyed one, more wiry, but Revik suddenly got the distinct impression that he’d be the one he’d need to look out for, if this got serious. His light brown eyes assessed Revik’s every move, like a snake getting ready to strike.
Or maybe like a fighter recognizing its own kind.
Watching him, Revik realized he liked what he felt off the male’s light. These were his brothers, goddamn it…in his own mind, at least…even if they didn’t see it that way.
“What fucking beef do you have with me?” he snapped, letting real anger reach his voice. “If it’s because I was a Rook, then trust me, brothers, I am fully aware of the debt I owe…nor will I be allowed to forget it any time soon. If you want to blame me for every single fucking hardship visited upon our race––”
“Maybe just for the gassing of my whole fucking family, you piece of shit!” the blue-eyed one snapped. “Maybe just that!”
“That was humans!” Revik snarled. “Not me!”
Four of the five laughed at his words.
There was no humor in their laughter, but Revik found his anger worsening. He glanced at the shorter seer, the fighter with the light brown eyes.
He, alone, had not laughed. He stared at Revik as if trying to read his light and his mind through the two shields that stood between them.
“I can beat you all down,” Revik said. He stripped the emotion from his voice, letting them feel the truth of his words behind it. “Don’t make me do it. Please, brothers…I am asking that you walk away. If you do not, someone will be hurt badly…even dead. I do not want another dead body of one of my kind to darken my light…but I must leave this alley. Soon. Within the next fifteen minutes. I cannot compromise on that point.”