Psychic Storm: Ten Dangerously Sexy Tales of Psychic Witches, Vampires, Mediums, Empaths and Seers

by Deanna Chase

  All of them were armed. Unsurprisingly.

  Garensche gave him a wink, then looked back out the window. “We thought we might have to fight harder to bring you in,” he explained. “Balidor made it sound like you’d lost your marbles, brother...like you’d gone off the deep end, in defense of your lady love.”

  Grinning wider, the massive seer gestured with a hand in seer sign language, something to the effect of love sick, which was another way seers termed fixation.

  They didn’t mean love sick in the endearing way humans termed it, though.

  They meant the seer had lost their fucking mind, like Gar just said.

  “Not that I blame you,” Gar added, winking again. “She’s quite the hot, sexy little thing. I’d like to get some noises out of her with my cock, too…”

  Yumi grimaced, giving Gar a “really?” kind of look.

  Then she looked back at Revik.

  “How come it takes so much to drop you, brother?” she said, drawing Revik’s eyes back to her. “You might be heavy as a bag of bricks, but I am thinking it must be your bones that weigh so much. You’re still a skinny little fuck...do you think you’ll ever hit your full weight, brother?”

  Revik felt his jaw tighten, but didn’t answer.

  Clearly Yumi still enjoyed giving him shit about his age. He knew the words were meant to be teasing, possibly even affectionate, but he fought a swell of irritation.

  When the rest of the room chuckled, he knew they felt his anger anyway.

  He still didn’t give them the satisfaction of an answer.

  He covered his eyes instead, sitting up with an effort, propping his upper body up with his free hand.

  “I think he looks pretty good,” another voice said, by the door.

  Revik stiffened. His gaze swiveled then, even as Mara shut the door to the hotel room behind her. She had another seer with her, he realized...a female, one Revik also knew, but not from any of the others here. She looked Asian, but with that Eastern-European twist that many seers had, in terms of features––narrow face, high cheekbones, (also like many seers), ambiguous skin coloring and light brown eyes that glowed faintly with an inner light.

  Her dirty blond hair was done in an unusual style, for her at least, part braids and part down, but it still managed to suit her somehow. He happened to know the blond hair was real, too, not dyed, even though that particular hair coloring was extremely rare on seers.

  “Fuck,” he said, speaking more to Mara than to the blond. “What the hell is she doing here? Seriously? You flew her in from Moscow for this?”

  Realizing then that she must have been working for Balidor and the Council all along, Revik grimaced more, glaring up at the Russian seer with undisguised annoyance.

  “Jesus. I should have known.”

  Kat smiled at him, her coffee colored eyes shining at him faintly.

  “I think he looks very good too, sister,” she said, glancing at Mara with a smile. She looked back at Revik. “It was not hardship duty, brother…I assure you.”

  Revik scowled at them both.

  Kat looked him over as he did it, and he couldn’t help but notice she wore her usual short skirt and insanely high heels. Revik winced overtly when he felt a coil of pain whisper off of her light, pulling at his.

  “I think he looks very good,” Kat murmured, meeting his gaze with another of those small smiles. “And from my memory, he is not skinny at all…not where it matters, at least.”

  Mara glanced at her, and Revik felt a pulse of irritation off the Adhipan seer that time.

  When she looked back at Yumi, though, Mara was all business.

  “Do we do this here?” she said, matter-of-fact. “She said she’d do it. Hell, she’d probably pay us for the privilege, if her light’s reaction is any indication…”

  Revik tensed more. He looked at Mara warily, then at the blond, Russian seer.

  He didn’t speak, but Mara seemed to feel his reaction.

  “What’s wrong, Rook?” she mocked. “Does this one not suit you? You seemed to enjoy fucking her well enough back in the old country. I know you prefer brunettes, but this one seemed more suited to your predilections…and she’s already been cleared by security. The only one I found with Jem’s coloring was a bit too doe-eyed for you, I think...”

  Revik felt his jaw harden to granite.

  Ignoring Mara’s smirk, he looked up at Yumi, knowing she was in charge.

  “No,” he said only.

  Yumi sighed. That time, she gave Mara a hard look, sparing another glower for the Russian seer before aiming her dark eyes back at Revik. Her expression verged on sympathetic when she next spoke, but her words were firm, uncompromising.

  “Brother, this is not meant to embarrass you,” she said, clicking softly. “But you cannot pretend you are not suffering from a fixation on this charge of yours. We have been told to address this. We are under orders…as are you.”

  Revik shook his head. “No.”

  Before he could say more, Yumi raised a calming hand, sending warmth with her light.

  “Please,” she said, her voice holding more of that light. “Please take this as it is meant, and not as judgment or an insult of any kind. All of us have been here, at one time or another, brother Dehgoies…all of us have. None of us blames you for this. But Adhipan Balidor ordered us to help you deal with the problem, before the Council is forced to take you off protective detail with her. He also insisted that none of us be the ones to do it...I think he’s trying to avoid a repeat of the Jem situation...”

  Revik winced again, feeling his anger worsen.

  When he glanced over at the blond-haired seer by the door once more, Yumi spoke up again, her voice still patient, bordering on cautious now.

  “Is Mara right?” she said. “Would you prefer one that is darker, with different eyes...more of Jem’s coloring? We could try to find––”

  “Shut the fuck up about Dalejem...Gaos!” Revik snapped.

  There was a silence after he spoke.

  Feeling the pounding worsen in the tender part of the back of his skull, Revik shook his head, clicking under his breath. He forced his voice calmer.

  “No,” he said. “Tell brother Balidor thank you...but no.”

  “To this one?” Yumi said, still patient.

  “To any of it,” Revik said.

  Yumi sighed, puffing out her cheeks before expelling air.

  “The coloring remark was not a jab, either,” she muttered, shifting her weight to her other foot. “None of us have missed the fact that the Bridge herself has dark hair, and eyes that are––”

  “I said no,” Revik said, giving Yumi another hard stare. “Did brother Balidor really intend for you to rape me? Or are you simply hard of hearing?”

  “You would rather be pulled off duty?” Yumi said, her voice still patient.

  “No,” he growled.

  “Then you must do this.”

  “No...I’ll deal with it myself,” Revik said, glaring at her.

  Yumi shook her head though, clicking as she re-folded her arms.

  “No, Dehgoies,” she said. Her voice shifted, turning blunt, uncompromising. “Brother Balidor said you would say this, and his answer is unequivocal. You have already shown yourself incapable of ‘dealing with it’ yourself. You have disobeyed direct orders...including the ones about leaving London in the first place. You would have broken penance today, if we had not stopped you in that park...severely, too, if I am not mistaken, by killing that human...also directly against orders, including those from the Bridge’s own mother. Which means, in addition to the rest, you have openly defied and disrespected one of our beloved intermediaries.”

  Yumi’s voice grew even more blunt, her words clipped, precise.

  “You are not acting rationally, brother Revik,” she said. “Therefore, you cannot be trusted to deal with this situation on your own.”

  Revik let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.

  “I’m not act
ing rationally?” he said. He glared up at the tall seer, not hiding his anger. “Her own mother sanctions her abuse at the hand of humans due to some fucked-up vision she had, and I’m the one not acting rationally...?”

  “Brother...” Yumi warned softly.

  “What if we just pulled her now?” Revik said. He shook his head, once, then forced himself to meet the other’s gaze, to say it anyway. “Fuck. Why don’t we? Why are we leaving her in this shit? She’s not a child anymore. Let the Adhipan train her! Hell, let me train her. What is the possible purpose of keeping her here now? Hasn’t she learned enough about the sicknesses in human light?”

  Yumi rolled her eyes in exaggerated seer-fashion, clicking at him sharper.

  “Brother Dehgoies––”

  “Don’t give me that sanctimonious Bridge crap, either,” Revik growled, not caring anymore what they thought of him. “What about a fellow seer? A sister? You are fine with standing by while she is abused? How is that ‘respectful’ of your intermediary, sister Yumi? Or has your life been so charmed that you’ve never had to suffer the same yourself...?”

  “Brother!” Yumi snapped. “Remember yourself!”

  “I know exactly who I am,” Revik shot back.

  Biting back what he might have said, he forced his voice lower, clenching his fists on the quilted bedspread as he let his voice turn back into a mutter.

  “Do you?” he said quietly. “Do you know who you are…really? Or what you believe? Or do you simply follow brother Balidor and the Council’s orders mindlessly, sister? Listen to their bullshit claptrap about the ‘good of the gods and Ancestors’ and whatever the fuck else, all to rationalize the simple fact that they’ve decided to look the other way…to once more sit back passively while humans treat one of ours like a plaything?”

  Yumi shook her head, clicking again.

  “You cannot tell me this isn’t a pattern with them!” Revik growled. “Why the fuck do you think the Rooks recruit more and more of ours every day...while more and more leave the fold of the Seven? Do you think it is a coincidence this happens all too often with our young seers…once they glimpse the realities for our kind, outside the enclaves of the monasteries of Seertown? Perhaps this loyalty is ingrained in you…perhaps you remember those pre-First Contact years well enough to have some nostalgia to the old ways. But most of my generation does not have these fond memories, sister. For most my age, this lovely nostalgia of yours, it is fast waning, if it ever existed at all.”

  When Yumi didn’t respond, Revik glared around at the other Adhipan seers.

  None of them would meet his gaze.

  He felt a wall of silence close around their light, and fought with the defensiveness that rose in him at the implied judgment there. He knew he was probably three hundred years younger than the oldest of them. He knew what that meant to most seers.

  Remembering that only angered him more, however.

  He sharpened his voice.

  “Just how long do you suppose this attitude will be tolerated in those of us who are forced to witness the results, day after day?” he said. “Or is that the will of the fucking Ancestors, too? That we all end up whores...or mercenaries working for the Rooks, trying to kill off the humans for real?”

  Yumi’s eyes darkened when she glanced at him that time.

  Even so, she seemed to have regained her composure, somewhere in his words.

  “You can speak…when you want to, at least. Can’t you, brother Dehgoies?” she muttered.

  Looking away from Revik’s face when he didn’t answer, she stared out towards the window without seeming to see it. She shook her head again while he watched, then took a long stride closer to the bed, so that now she towered directly over him.

  Revik had a sudden desire to rise to his feet, too, where he knew he still had at least an inch on her in height.

  He didn’t, though.

  “Brother Revik,” she said. Her voice grew calm once more, patient, even as she settled her weight back on the heels of her boots. “I am sorry I cannot give you the answer you want. I am...truly. I am sympathetic to your frustrations, but I simply do not see the situation the way that you do. I do know who I am, brother, despite your skepticism...and part of that is having faith in those with greater vision than my own. Part of that is loyalty to those principles to which I’ve pledged my life...including those of noninterference, and, most especially, free will.”

  Revik began to speak.

  Yumi held up another hand. That time, she also gave him a sharp push with her light, effectively silencing him.

  “I have outlined two options,” she finished, once he’d closed his mouth. “You must tell me which of them you would prefer, brother Revik.”

  Revik fought with the anger seething through his light. He could feel the wall in hers, too, and knew what it meant. Moreover, he felt it on more than just the seer with the midnight blue tattoo on her face.

  Glancing at Garensche, Revik watched the big seer avoid his eyes.

  He felt sympathy there, but also utter immobility.

  He understood the cause. They were Adhipan. Expecting them to do anything against orders was like expecting a pig to begin speaking Mandarin and wear high-heeled shoes. The chain of command had been drilled into them not just for decades, but for centuries. Most had been recruited to the Adhipan as children, and had been raised inside the stone walls of the Pamir.

  Staring at the floor, Revik fought to think.

  He could feel their intentions with the Russian seer, Kat.

  They wanted him to open his light, to get him to express some of his emotional reaction to what had happened to Allie...to blunt some of his anger at Jaden and the other humans, if only by dulling the worst edges of his separation pain. He could have told them that lack of sex wasn’t the problem, but he doubted they’d listen to that, either.

  “We’re aware of that, brother,” Mara said. Her voice sounded a lot less impatient than Yumi’s. When Revik glanced over, she folded her arms, blowing her dark bangs off the planes of her face. “Yumi will work with your light, too. Try to get you to see this thing from somewhere other than your own personal wants.”

  Revik bristled all over again, angered at the implication that somehow this was selfish on his part, to want to see justice for––

  “Not selfish, brother,” Poresh spoke up, holding up a hand of his own. His voice was even more gentle than Mara’s. “Perhaps not seen from a high enough angle, but not selfish. Perhaps you are too close to this thing, yes?”

  Revik gave him a disbelieving look. “So distance is the answer, then? Just ‘feel less’...is that your advice, beloved brother?” Revik’s sarcasm wasn’t shielded at all by the end, but Poresh didn’t look angry, or even offended.

  If anything, he looked upset, although Revik couldn’t pinpoint the emotion he felt or saw behind it. Some part of his mind wanted to interpret that as guilt.

  Poresh cleared his throat.

  “Distance,” he said. “...Does not imply a lack of feeling, brother. It does provide added context, however.” The Adhipan seer lowered his hand back to his thigh, which was encased in armored pants, like those of Garensche. “The more fleeting sufferings in life can sometimes be borne, if we understand that they serve a higher purpose,” he added. “We are not trying to trick you, brother, or convince you not to feel. We want to help you reach more clarity with this difficult experience.”

  Revik heard the implication in that, too, although he doubted Poresh meant it consciously.

  They all saw him as young. A child.

  As much as they saw the Bridge that way, he suspected. They saw this as the grownups intervening and providing superior vision for the children.

  “Is there a problem with that?” Yumi said, her mild voice holding a warning. “Is that not our role here, brother?”

  Revik didn’t answer.

  Looking around at all of them: Yumi, Poresh, Garensche, Dalai, who had remained silent throughout all of this, Mara...t
he unwilling by the door, Kat,…Revik realized he could not win this fight. He knew the numbers weren’t meant as a direct threat, not per se, but they were definitely a message. Vash and whoever else had ordered them here to use whatever force necessary to either separate Revik from Allie, or force him to obey them in the areas they deemed important.

  Leaving that piece of shit alive appeared to be important.

  Exhaling, Revik felt another surge of fury course through his light.

  He didn’t verbalize it, but he felt a few of them flinch from behind the Barrier.

  All but Mara, really, and the unwilling standing behind her.

  Revik looked at that unwilling now and caught her staring at him, a near-predatory look in those light-filled eyes. She sent him a pulse of pain in those same few seconds, and Revik shook his head, once, even as he closed his light.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s fucking do this.”

  There was a denser silence.

  “Well?” Revik said, his voice a growl. “Do I undress myself, or is your employee going to do that for me, too?”

  From near the window, Garensche cleared his throat.

  Poresh exuded another pulse of discomfort.

  Revik still felt nothing at all from Dalai, nor from Yumi, although he suspected that was for different reasons. Mara felt annoyed, but Revik didn’t try and pull that apart, either.

  Mostly, he just blanked his mind, closing his light as much as he could.

  He was still just sitting there on the edge of the bed when the unwilling walked out from behind Mara. She approached Revik cautiously, even as he closed his light more, feeling his muscles tense involuntarily.

  Kat hadn’t quite reached him when Mara stepped forward.

  She held up a hand, frowning, looking around at all of them.

  “Wait. Stop. We must stop this.”

  The rest of the seers looked at her, including Revik, and the unwilling herself.

  Seeing all eyes on her, Mara frowned, lowering her hand and curling her fingers around her hip. She looked at Yumi, then stared harder at Dalai, who only frowned faintly from where she sat. When Mara spoke next, her voice was hard, stripped of emotion.