Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  “Please,” I said, my voice thick. “Please, Revik. Please. Just listen to me. This one time.”

  “I’m listening, Allie,” he said. “Put the gun down.”

  I shook my head, gripping it tighter. He wasn’t listening to me. I could feel it. I’d become a threat in his eyes, a dangerous animal.

  “He wants to shoot at you,” I said. “He knows I’ll do something. Fold something, or break something. Or light something on fire. I can’t control it. He must know that, too. It’s gotten worse, Revik.”

  “Allie!” Jon’s voice rose, pulling me to look at him. “Jesus, are you going to shoot Revik? He saved our lives!”

  “Who, Allie?” Cass said. Fear leaked into her voice. “Who wants us to do it? Do you mean Terian? Is Terian here?”

  “No.” Revik’s voice sharpened. He held out a hand towards Cass. “We’re all right, Cass.” He looked at me, and now he felt angry. “Put the gun down, Allie!”

  I heard all this, and it affected some part of me, but I didn’t take my eyes off his face.

  “Please, Revik.”

  “Please, what?” he said. “What do you want me to do?” He looked at Maygar, and the anger in his face worsened. “What do you want from me, Allie?”

  I shifted my weight, and felt my resolve falter. “Did you give me those numbers?” I said. “On the ship. I thought you were dead. But you gave them to me, didn’t you? You did it to keep them from Terian. That was you. It had to be you.”

  Revik’s eyes drew a blank.

  I saw Maygar turn, startled. He stared at Revik.

  “It’s important,” I said. “It’s really important, Revik.”

  “Allie, I don’t know what you’re talking about! I would tell you, I swear I would! But we have to go. Now!”

  “You helped design it,” I said. “The rotating hierarchy.”

  He blanched. Then his jaw hardened more. “Even if I did. I don’t remember.”

  “None of it came back with Terian?” I said. “That’s what he wanted from you, isn’t it? The succession order? So he could go after Galaith?”

  Jon and Cass’s expressions grew openly startled, just before their eyes swiveled almost in unison to Revik’s face. It was enough to confirm what I’d suspected.

  Then Jon’s voice rose, angry.

  “Did Terian help him remember? You mean when he was beating him unconscious every day? Is that what you’re asking, Al?”

  I turned, staring at Jon.

  I saw Revik look at Jon too, telling him to be silent with his eyes. I focused on the bruises on Revik’s neck, how his clothes hung on his long frame. I lowered the gun slowly, staring between them, then down at my hands, holding the gun.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. All the resolve and tension left my limbs. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “Maybe not shooting us would be a first step,” Jon snapped. “Jesus, Allie. Have you lost it completely?”

  “Jon,” Revik warned. “Stop.”

  I looked at Revik, startled. Then Maygar spoke up from where he leaned against the wall, out of sight of the high window.

  “Yeah, Jon,” he drawled. “Take it easy on little sis. We need to know what we’re up against. Rook-boy here used to be evil. Or did he forget to mention that, in all of your touching inter-species bonding?” He nodded towards me, his voice openly approving. “About time someone went to the source for answers. I always knew this fucker knew more than he was saying.”

  I felt Revik turn before I saw it, felt his anger flare into something closer to hatred as soon as it found a target. His voice nearly shook.

  “You’re right,” Revik said. “She’s not completely wrong. I do remember more now. Maygar, is it? Your mother, for instance. Does she still work for them?”

  Maygar’s expression turned hard as glass.

  “Watch your forked tongue, Rook.”

  “I remember you,” Revik said. “You were a little shit when they brought you in. A thief. Half-recruited yourself. Are you the reason my wife’s got a gun on me now? Didn't I stay dead long enough for you?”

  “As a matter of fact––”

  “Just stay the fuck away from her!”

  My eyes swiveled to Revik.

  I stared at his face in shock, saw his jaw clenched, his hands in fists by his sides so that the long muscles in his arms stood out. I felt my breath stop when I saw his expression. I’d only seen it on his face once before, and that was before I’d been born.

  Maygar burst into a laugh. “You must be joking!”

  “I’m not. Don’t push me, boy. I’ll rip your dirtblood heart out.”

  “Revik!” Jon said.

  “Boys!” Cass said, sharp. “We don’t have time for this! Military outside, remember? Revik, calm down—”

  “You broke vow,” Maygar said to him. “You have no rights, you worm-fucking retard. I can court her if I want!”

  “No. You can’t.” Revik clenched his hands. “You interfere with an attempt at reconciliation, and I’ll press charges. If I don’t kill you first.”

  I blanched, looking between them. Court me? I stared at Revik, unable to look away from the expression on his face.

  “Reconciliation?” Maygar snorted. “You brought your human whore here!”

  Revik’s face drained of blood. He looked at me.

  “Whore?” Cass broke in furiously. “Would that be me?” She turned on me. “Is that what the martyr crap at lunch was about? You really think I’d skank on your husband, Al? You’re my best friend! And for your information, he hasn’t been with anyone since you saw him! We were with him the whole time. He didn’t touch anyone for months, unless you count Terian and his—”

  “Shut up!” Revik was breathing harder, staring at her. “Shut up, Cass! Right now!”

  I looked between them, feeling sick. “I really don’t—”

  “No!” Maygar said, holding up a hand to me. “Do not accept anything from him, Bridge! You owe him nothing!”

  Revik and Maygar were looking at each other again. Neither dropped their gaze, nor relaxed their stances.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Revik’s face. Some of it was the anger there, but more than that, I could feel him fighting to control himself, to remain standing where he was. Suddenly, my mind seemed to click back on. Lowering the gun the rest of the way, I placed it on the table. Giving Maygar a disbelieving look, I closed the distance to Revik.

  I grabbed his arm, harder until he looked down.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Revik, look, he’s protecting me, but not the way you think.” I yanked on his arm again to get his eyes off Maygar. “Revik! Listen to me! There’s nothing going on with me and Maygar!”

  Revik turned. His eyes locked on mine.

  “Are you with anyone?” Pain wafted off him.

  I stared up at him, speechless.

  “Allie.” He gripped my arm, hard enough to hurt. “I would understand. I know I’m not acting like it, but I would. Tell me to back off, and—”

  “No.” I shook my head, still staring at him. “I’m not with anyone.”

  He didn’t move. Realizing I still had him in a death grip, I let go of his arm.

  After the barest instant, he released me, too.

  We just stood there, staring at one another. Then it occurred to me that I’d walked up to him. Before I could move away, though, he caught hold of my wrists. His fingers tightened, pulling me closer to where he stood.

  I watched his face contort, felt the emotion he was holding back. I felt it intensely enough that my breath caught. He seemed to be trying to speak.

  He looked so damned thin. I watched his jaw harden, his eyes brighten as he looked at me, holding out my hands slightly, like Jon had when he first saw me alive. He looked longest at my face, then down the rest of me. I felt his light on mine, cautiously at first. It grew stronger the longer we stood there.

  I tried to decide if I should say anything, when an intensity rose to his eyes. He
met my gaze again and I nearly flinched, but I didn’t look away.

  I’d seen that look on his face before, too, but never aimed at me.

  I let him guide me up against him, following his pull to wrap my arms around him once I stood close enough. He let go of my wrists once I had, curling an arm lengthwise across my back, gripping my shoulder in his hand and squeezing before he wrapped his fingers into my hair. I didn’t move as he pulled it out of the soft knot, caressing it away from my neck. He slid his other arm around my waist, pulling me tight against his body before he lowered his head, pressing his face against mine.

  I didn’t move, other than to relax against him.

  I forgot all of it in those few seconds—my mother, all those months of believing he and Cass and Jon were dead, even the military outside. He held me tighter, tight enough that I could barely breathe. My throat closed as he pulled me deeper into the curve of his body.

  Then he opened. His light nearly flattened me.

  I felt him hold his breath as he wound it deeper into mine. I felt him asking me, willing me to open, asking me again. I held him tighter, unable to see as his hands clenched on my back. His light slid deeper, pulling on me. I think I made some kind of sound.

  His mouth found mine.

  It shocked me. It was there before I could wrap my mind around any of it.

  The veil was gone. Warm skin met mine, real flesh. He kissed me, then breathed against my lips, kissing me again, opening his mouth, asking with his light for me to open mine. He pulled on me with an urgency I couldn’t think past, couldn’t comprehend. When my lips parted, his tongue shocked me, hot against mine. He explored my mouth, his light flashing with a near-violent possessiveness that shocked me again, blanking out my mind.

  Pain wound through me, so intensely I might have lost time.

  Pausing to take a breath, he let out a low groan, shocking my light again before he kissed me harder, his fingers clenching in my hair.

  Everything seemed to happen fast after that.

  When I next blinked, Revik was massaging my thigh with strong fingers, his other hand on my back under the stretchy T-shirt, holding me flush against him. The possessiveness coming off him had worsened. His light was open, telling me things that made me flinch and blush, but not pull away. I felt him react as my fingers explored his skin under the white dress shirt, even as my other hand clutched the back of his neck, holding him against me.

  He was hard. I couldn’t help but feel that, too.

  He lowered his head to kiss me again––

  When someone’s arms grabbed me from behind.

  He fought the hands around his shoulders and wrists as someone or several someones dragged him off me. A thick arm coiled around my waist from the other side, pulling me away from him. I glanced behind me, barely recognized Maygar.

  “What, are you going to fuck her right here?” he snarled. He was staring up at Revik, his eyes and voice furious. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to kill her?”

  I felt Revik react to Maygar’s hands on me.

  I saw pain on his face, confusion as he looked at me, almost like he didn’t know where he was. My own pain worsened as I stared back, and suddenly I couldn’t bear being held away from him. I bit my tongue until it bled, fighting the impulse to shove Maygar off me.

  “It’s okay,” I said, holding up a hand. “Revik. It’s okay.”

  Then my light, everything about me that was me, was ripped away from my body.

  47

  TAKEN

  “NO!” CASS DROPPED her gun, running for Allie as she collapsed in Maygar’s arms. Revik got there before she did. Maygar tried to shove him back, but the taller seer grabbed the front of Maygar’s shirt in his fist, and suddenly a gun was in his hand.

  He pressed it to Maygar’s face, his eyes cold.

  “Let go of her,” he growled. “I’ll do it. I promise you.”

  Maygar released her, removing his hands. His voice shook.

  “If she dies, so help me, I’ll skin you—”

  “Stop it!” Cass snapped. “Both of you!”

  “What happened?” Jon crouched over Revik, but it was Maygar who answered in a snarl.

  “Rook-boy couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He just fed her to them.”

  Cass watched Revik pull Allie into his lap. He stroked her long hair away from her face, caressing her cheek with his hand. His voice shocked her. It was quiet, but a near anguish trembled on the surface as he spoke.

  “Allie… gods. Can you hear me? Allie!”

  “Hit her!” Maygar snarled. “Do you think that’s going to do anything but make it worse? Hit her, or let me try!”

  But Revik’s hands had gone still.

  Maygar shoved Cass out of the way, grabbing Revik’s shoulders. When he turned the other seer around, looking him full in the face, he cursed, releasing him. Bending down, he slid his arms around Allie, pulling her roughly out of Revik’s lap. Cass watched in disbelief as Revik made no move to stop him. She was still staring at Revik’s unmoving form when a loud crack of flesh against flesh jerked her eyes back to Maygar.

  She watched in disbelief as he backhanded Allie again.

  A red mark flared on her friend’s cheek, but Allie’s eyes didn’t flutter as her neck rolled with the blow. Maygar wound up to hit her again when Jon held his own gun to Maygar’s head.

  “Do it again, and I’ll shoot you, you piece of shit.” Without turning, Jon aimed his next words at Cass. “What’s wrong with Revik?”

  “I don’t know.” She gripped his arm, kneeling beside him. His pupils remained pinpricks, his face a wax doll’s. “He’s just… gone.”

  Maygar pushed the barrel of Jon’s gun out of his face angrily, as if it were a pointed stick.

  “He’s gone after her,” he snapped.

  Jon looked at Cass, then back at Maygar. He lowered the gun.

  “Explain to me how that’s not a good thing,” Jon said.

  “Stupid worm! The construct is gone! They’re all around us. Everywhere, as we speak! Staying out of the Barrier was their only protection!” When Cass and Jon continued to stare at him blankly, Maygar raised his voice. “They’re going to die! She was already dead when he pulled her in. Now he’s gone to die with her!”

  Seeing the anger and frustration on the seer’s face, it occurred to Cass that maybe he wasn’t the bad guy in this, after all.

  A jet slammed by the windows, rattling the glass.

  The roar of its engines followed, deafening in the narrow corridor between buildings. Looking across the street, Cass saw the tiny figures of men in black kevlar climbing the building across from theirs, and a kind of despair reached her.

  There was no possible way they could get out of this, not anymore.

  NEAR TO EARTH, the faint lines of the physical can be seen from the Barrier, like a lit room through water. A swarm of beings hover over three ghosting human forms. The Rooks know a third seer exists there, too, but they cannot see him as long as he remains outside the Barrier.

  It doesn’t matter. The hovering shadows are little more than sentries, left behind as the real work screams above.

  I barely feel this. Then it is gone.

  I am the real work.

  I streak through a star-filled sky, running for my life. I try to make myself invisible but can’t, so I jerk and jump, reappear and am hit, slammed, run over, caught only to writhe free. All lines leading to my physical body appear as snarled and confused, broken and dead-ending; I can’t follow them back to Revik’s apartment. Prisons appear around me, mirages that look like fields full of flowers, warm lights, tropical beaches, even distant stars.

  They pull at me, tempt me with inviting vibrations, darting closer before I manage to twist away from their hard fire.

  I am not sure how I came to be here.

  I remember Revik. I remember us kissing, his hands pulling me tighter against his body, the feel of his light, of his mouth on mine.

  I remembe
r him asking me––

  But now everywhere I turn, silver eyes glow at me, chasing me through an endless-feeling night sky, leading me further and further from where I should be. They appear all around me as I try to get away. They are looking for a way in, even as I look for a way out. I try desperately to get ahead of them, looking for any door or passage or tornado-like tunnel that might lead me out of this place. I try to feel Vash… Revik… even Maygar and Chandre. The more I call to them, the more silver bodies converge around me.

  They are closing.

  All around me rustle glimpses of presence and chiseled light. Eyes and hands appear and disappear. They belong to more beings than I can count. Precise, lifeless, they slam into me, knocking me further off-balance. I flee, fighting to change the vibration of my light.

  I disappear. Reappear.

  In the bare space of respite I earn myself, I look for resonance with something beautiful, something not-them, but they have already found me. I feel more of them this time. More and more join the hunt, called to me by the Pyramid above.

  I am losing myself. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how to get out––

  ALLIE!

  Relief floods my light. He comes at me so quickly it shocks me. His light collides, then coils into mine, and briefly, we are alone.

  Allie!

  I feel him, all around me.

  Shield! Disappear!

  He hands me imprints, keys to lead me out through this winding tunnel or that one. I feel his desperation, his intention. I feel what he wants––

  No! I twine my light deeper into his. No! I’m not leaving you here!

  They don’t know your light! You haven’t spent enough time with them––

  They know yours!

  Allie, I have ways to evade them on my own. You need to listen—

  No! My anger flares. Don’t leave me like you left Elise!

  Laughter echoes around us.

  I hit a wall, one I did not see, and come to a painful stop. Before I can reverse, I lose him. He is pulled away from me so fast it is like mist evaporating from my fingers. Then I am inside a blank room with four walls.

  I can’t feel Revik. Even so, I hear him, for one last—