“Holy fuck,” Jax muttered again.
Next to Revik, Dalejem’s light had gone entirely still.
Revik followed his wife’s body with his eyes as she danced, leaning against a pole that suddenly appeared from the middle of the stage.
“Sit down, brother,” Terian said. “You can see very well from here... I promise you!”
An edge crept into his voice that time.
Enough of one, that Revik turned, staring at the amber-eyed seer.
“Don’t get any ambitious ideas, Revi’,” Terian added, smiling that time below the glass-eyed stare. Smiling wider, he inclined his head, again indicating for Revik to sit beside him. “You must know she required... persuasion... to perform this little show for you. I have a few backup security measures in place, as well. That collar she’s wearing, for one.”
Pausing on that, likely to make sure Revik parsed his meaning, Terian made another graceful gesture with his hands, that one more apologetic. “...I may have a flair for the dramatic, but I did not intend to die here today, brother Syrimne.”
Revik looked back at the stage, feeling his light spark around him a second time, almost more intensely than he could pull back. He watched Allie’s leg hook around that pole, right before she slid into a graceful arc around it. He couldn’t help but react, even apart from the realization that every male in the room was staring at her. Pain slid inexorably through his light, enough that the seers standing next to him, Dalejem in particular, stepped back.
Jax actually sucked in a breath, as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus.
“Holy fuck,” he muttered again, quieter that time.
“Shut up,” Chinja snapped at him.
Her voice sounded unsteady, like she was in shock.
“Revi’, my friend,” Terian said, his voice lower. “Sit. Please. I know this seems like a threat... but it’s meant to be incentive, too. There are things we need to discuss.” He smiled when Revik looked over, but that harder look never left his amber eyes. “I won’t hurt her. Don’t give me any reason to, brother, and I promise you I won’t. I simply needed to make sure you would talk to me. You understand, I hope?”
Revik was staring at the stage again, though.
He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t seem to want to make himself look away, despite the conflict that crackled and sparked through his light, making it difficult to think.
His mind wanted to shift back to the last time they’d been alone, but he forced that out of his light as well, knowing he was already hard enough that they had to have noticed, no matter how dark it was in here.
He was still standing there when Terian clicked his fingers at two larger seers who had just joined them at the top of the chrome stairs. Both muscular, suit-wearing seers began to herd Revik and his small group towards the couch with thick hands, as if intending to bodily force them to sit down with the five Terians.
One of them actually did lay a heavy hand on Revik’s shoulder once he stood next to the couch, placing enough pressure there that Revik found himself acquiescing. He allowed himself to be guided, if only to give himself time to think, and within seconds, he found himself sitting facing the stage, between Terian on his left and Dalejem on his right.
Sinking his weight deeper onto the suede couch, Revik stared at where his wife leapt up and coiled her leg around the pole a second time, making another graceful circuit with her back arched and head tilted back, earning her another round of calls from the nearest... and likely drunkest... in the audience clustered by the stage.
Sickness coiled through his light and gut as he watched her, even as he felt his body reacting a lot more urgently in other, more specific ways. Even so, a dense flush of anger twisted through him, what wanted to turn into hatred... or at the very least, to violence.
“I’m going to kill you,” Revik said to Terian, his voice low.
Terian clicked at him, a gentle rebuke. “Come now, brother. A little gratitude would not be amiss. After all, she’s never treated you to a show like this before, has she?” His grin widened when Revik looked over with a clenched jaw. “Ah! Well, maybe she has. But you must admit, it’s damned sexy to see her doing it for an audience... and with such abandon...”
“Terry...” Revik said, his voice close to incoherent.
“She has done this before, though,” Terian mused, cutting him off as he leaned back in the couch, his eyes also on the stage. “Peformed, I mean. She lied to me at first, but I got her to admit it later, when I explained to her what I needed her to do. I find that so interesting, Revi’. Where, do you suppose? She was not specific about that end of things with me... I even asked her, and she acted very coy, your wife, when I pressed for details. A little spare college money, I wonder, back in the day? Or was this something she picked up after she met you, and learned more of your predelictions, my friend....?”
“Beijing,” the blue-eyed seer confirmed, from Revik’s other side.
Revik turned, staring at that version of Terian.
“Ditrini had her perform for us a few times,” the seer said, taking a sip of what looked like a vodka tonic. “...once he found out she could move.”
Revik felt that heat in his chest worsen. He fought it back, still trying to keep the worst of his reactions out of the construct.
He didn’t know why he bothered at this point.
Terian being here meant that Shadow was here, too... in some form.
Revik’s eyes returned to the stage, pretty much on their own.
He watched Allie slide around the pole again, and that time, he almost thought he saw her eyes on him as she pulled herself up it with her hands and thighs. Something about her looking his way, the contacts and the prosthetics that changed her face, along with the hair color that wasn’t really hers, worsened the pain almost to unbearable, making that heat in his chest flare.
At the same time, it gave him his focus back, too.
A near-calm fell over his mind.
“Revi’?” Terian said, looking over at him. “This was a present, brother. I am told your birthday was recent, and I had nothing to give you.” At Revik’s cold look, Terian burst out in a more genuine laugh. “Please, brother. Don’t be offended. I could not resist giving you a present of this. And anyway, I needed you to not... overreact... when you saw me.”
Revik let out a grunt. “You thought this would be the thing to keep me calm, Terry?”
“Calm?” Terian grinned. “No, brother. Not calm. But perhaps... motivated. To not do anything overly rash in regards to my person.”
Revik didn’t look over. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself, Terry,” he said. “You’ve got to know you’re going to lose every single fucking body you have in this room... so I sincerely hope it’s worth it for you, this little show of yours.”
Terian chuckled again. Sliding closer to where Revik sat, he slung his arm over the back of the couch, almost in an affectionate gesture. Ignoring the arm behind him, Revik leaned forward, placing his own arms on his thighs as he watched his wife.
“I didn’t touch her,” Terian assured him.
Revik gave him a cold look.
Terian held up his hands in mock innocence. “You doubt me?” he said. “I am hurt. Now that wouldn’t be brotherly of me, would it? Especially given the difficulties you two kids seem to be having...”
Revik clenched his jaw again, fighting not to rise.
“What do you want?” Revik said. “You called us here. Baited us with our own goddamned marital bond, and managed to whore out my wife. What do you want, Terry?”
Terian smiled, glancing around at the others now sitting amongst the different versions of him. When Revik followed his gaze, he saw Jax staring in some bewilderment at the Revik lookalike. Dalejem appeared to be studying the seer with the orange-colored eyes, but Revik felt the pain in his light again, even as Dalejem seemed to be fighting to hide it.
“That one wants to fuck you, Revi’,” Terian observed, also looking at Dalejem.
“Gods, he’s hungry for you, brother. He’s so hungry it’s turning me on. Were you aware?”
“Yes,” Revik said, blunt.
He turned, staring back at the amber-eyed seer, even as he felt his impatience slide into a harder anger. “What the fuck do you want? Are you going to tell me?”
“I need your help, Revi’.”
Revik stared at him.
Then he let out a disbelieving laugh.
“What?” he said.
Terian held up a hand. “I am serious. I need your help. I am quite desperate for it, in fact. Thus the theatrics. I apologize for that, I really do... but I knew of no other way to bring you here. I knew my buying up the List seers and humans might not be enough. Not after what happened to you last year. I needed more, Revi’. I needed real leverage.”
Revik shook his head, clicking in open disbelief.
“So you went after my marriage?”
“It is only temporary, what I did! And I did not go anywhere near the structures that your darling Alyson built in you. The ones that keep you and your precious daughter alive.”
Revik grimaced at the mention of Lily, but not only because of that. Terian knew what Allie had done, disconnecting them from the light of the Dreng. Thinking about that, he clicked under his breath, shaking his head.
“You must know I came here to kill you,” he said.
“I know, brother, I know.” Terian held up his hand in another peace gesture. “It is why I took her right away. Don’t you see? I had no choice.”
“The trader was yours, too?” Revik’s eyes shifted, narrowing on where Efrail had once stood. He realized for the first time that the sheik trader was no longer there. “All of that was a set-up? On the docks?”
“Yes.” Terian’s eyes looked borderline puzzled, as if he didn’t understand why Revik felt the need to keep asking questions. “Of course. Well... sort of. He didn’t know. I pushed him to go find you at that pier. Through the construct.”
Revik continued to stare at him, fighting disbelief.
Eventually, he could only expel another humorless laugh, shaking his head.
“Gods, Terry.” He combed his fingers through the dyed-blond hair. “If you and your leash-holder want me dead so badly, there has got to be an easier way. There just has to be. Is the apocalypse proving to be overly dull, now that you’ve annihilated most of the world...?”
“I do not want you dead, brother,” Terian said at once. He leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “I never wanted that, Revi’. Never.”
When Revik looked over, the amber eyes were deadly serious, as well as Terian’s voice.
“I do not want you dead, my brother,” Terian repeated. “Gods, Revi’... I want you to save me. I am begging for your help. I want you to take me from this place. You and your wife. I knew you would never come here just for me... but I want you to take me with you. Please, brother. I am asking you for this... I am begging you, as I said.”
Revik stared at him, fighting to suppress another laugh... but more than that, fighting to suppress the puzzlement that coiled through his light at the other’s words.
Disbelief, too, but yeah, puzzlement.
The disbelief curled off and sideways into confusion, a confusion that deepened the longer Revik looked at Terian’s face. It took him a few seconds longer to understand the source of that confusion. Then it hit him.
He was confused because he believed him.
He actually believed what Terian was saying to him right now. His logical mind told him he was nuts for believing him, that he was being played, but nothing in Revik’s light believed that, even when he tried to convince himself otherwise.
Terian looked afraid.
More than that, he looked desperate.
Something in what Revik could see in Terian’s dark yellow eyes, and feel in the erratic, darting flickers of his aleimi, managed to almost entirely disarm him. More than that, it affected him, bringing an unwelcome swell of pity. Revik didn’t lose leave of his senses entirely, of course, but yeah, he was knocked off balance for those few seconds––enough to make him wonder if the construct was fucking with him a hell of a lot more than he’d realized.
Sensing movement from someone other than Allie herself, Revik’s eyes shifted back towards the stage. The pain in his light worsened abruptly when he saw her down on all fours, her back arched. He felt that aggression ratchet higher in his light as seers got up from their seats to approach her as she crawled across the black surface.
He felt pain on more than a few of them.
He felt them wanting her, and fought to clear the irrational fury that coursed through his light, erasing those few minutes of compassion he’d felt for Terian.
Of course they would want her.
Of course they would feel the pain on her, too.
They would feel it from the half-bond. They would feel her light react to Revik being here, to the connection that would inevitably spark. The very fact of him being so physically close had to be making it worse. She was on a damned stage, wearing next to nothing, exuding heated light... looking like she did, even with the contacts and the prosthetics and whatever else.
It wasn’t their fault. They thought it was part of the show. They thought they were supposed to react that way.
It was Terian’s fault, however.
“What did you tell her?” he said, before he knew he meant to speak. “To get her up there?”
Terian smiled, leaning deeper into the couch.
Revik glared at him. “What the fuck did you tell her, Terry?”
The other seer grunted, throwing up a hand. “What do you think I told her, Revi’?”
He made another graceful wave, clicking impatiently.
“...I told her the same thing I told you. That I would kill you. That I would have a sniper shoot you in the head as you walked into my club, as you undoubtedly would, sooner or later, looking for her. You are both so very predictable on that count, you know. It is the only way to motivate either of you to do anything. Or had you really not noticed that?”
Terian winked at him, arranging his back in the couch.
“I told her to give it her all, too,” he added, giving him a broader wink. “That part was for you, brother. I thought you might as well get your rocks off, since I had no choice but to use these heavy-handed appeals to sway you.” Terian glanced at the stage. A tangible coil of pain left his light, tightening his expression. “I think she believed me, Revi’. Don’t you? You would surely know more than me. But her performance seems quite, well... authentic. Does it not? In fact, I’m quite certain I would be reconsidering my offer to you right now, if it wasn’t so deadly, deadly serious to me, Revi’––”
His words cut off.
Mostly because Revik had his hand around the other seer’s throat.
He’d done it almost before he knew he intended to. Slamming the auburn head against the back of the couch, Revik squeezed hard enough that the other seer gasped, his fingers wrapping around where Revik’s held him.
Revik lowered his voice to a near-growl.
“Call off the fucking goons. Or this body is gone. You know I can do it. One hard snap. They won’t be fast enough, Terry.”
He watched as Terian motioned his hired security back, stopping them in mid-motion as they’d been about to yank Revik off him. Revik waited until they’d backed off a sufficient amount, then he turned back to stare down at Terian’s face.
“What the fuck do you want, Terry?” he said.
“I just told you!” he gasped. “I want you to save me, Revi’.” He fought to smile, even as he gasped for breath, and Revik’s fingers abruptly tightened. Terian let out a pained cry. “I want you to take me out of here,” he said, still gripping Revik’s hand. “I want you to do it now, before he finds us. I want you to bring Feigran... before he kills me for good.”
Revik stared at him, his mouth twisting into a hard frown. “Feigran’s here?”
“Yes.”<
br />
Revik’s frown deepened. “Why the fuck would Shadow want to kill you, Terry?”
Tears filled the amber eyes, startling Revik enough that he let go, releasing him before he knew he meant to. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Terian cry. Feigran, yes...but not Terian. Not once, in the over seventy years he’d known him. Even as he thought it, Revik found himself thinking Allie had been right.
Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t really Terian. It might not be Feigran either, but it definitely wasn’t Terian.
“He’s going to kill me, Revi’...” the seer said, clasping hold of Revik’s arms.
Revik looked down at where those long fingers held him, feeling that sense of unreality worsen.
“He’s going to kill me, so that he can get to her.”
Revik frowned, clicking. “That doesn’t make any sense. Shadow wanted you and Cass alive. So he could separate me from... from my wife.” He couldn’t quite make himself say her name, not with her on the stage below them. His voice turned harsh. “Why the fuck would he kill you now? Why, Terry?”
“Because he knows what she did.” Terian’s amber eyes grew more desperate as he continued to clutch Revik’s shirt. Revik tried to push off his hands, but the seer only clung to him harder. “He knows what your wife did to you, Revi’...and to the child.”
Revik felt his jaw harden.
Shaking his head, he clicked louder.
“Why the fuck would you tell him that, Terry?” He gritted his teeth. “If you wanted our help, why would you tell Menlim––”
“I don’t have to tell him! He knows! He knows everything! You know that!”
Feeling more in those words than the obvious, Revik shook his head.
“Yes, you do!” Terian said, gripping him tighter. “Don’t lie to me, Revi’. He already knew. He knew before I did...”
“So?” Revik said finally. “That doesn’t tell me anything about why he would want you dead. You asked Allie to come here before she did any of that.”
“But I saw it,” Terian said, his voice imploring. “I saw it... don’t you see? I saw what she would do. And I saw what he would do to me. And then it happened and I knew it wasn’t just pretty pictures, like before. I knew it wasn’t far away... it was close. So very, very close. Like the falling stars and the cunt with the green eyes and you coming here. I knew it was now, Revi’. I knew I needed you to come save me now... not in far away...”
Allie's War Season Four Page 127