by Cassia Leo
“...Perhaps you don’t realize,” he said, colder. “I’d rather if I wasn’t clear. I won’t try very hard to convince you. In fact, this is likely to be the only time I try at all...” His voice lowered, but that colder note, if anything, grew more prominent. “I’d rather that you stayed...you must know that, too.”
His throat moved in a thin swallow, even as that pain on him briefly worsened, right before his eyes flickered down to her feet in the Vietnamese-style clogs.
“You’re not all that safe with me now, sister, if you want the truth...”
Kali gestured her understanding, but forced herself to hold her ground, and his gaze when he looked back up at her face. Something in her expression seemed to reach him that time...enough that she saw actual shame cross his countenance, passing over his eyes and face so quickly that she questioned whether she’d seen it at all.
She knew she had seen it, though. She could feel that, too.
“Brother...” she began carefully.
She trailed, seeing the pain worsen in his expression.
He raised a hand to his face, maybe to hide it from her altogether.
“Gods,” he said. “What are you doing to me?”
The question didn’t seem to require a response.
Kali watched him carefully, still trying to decide whether she should attempt to reach him again, or if it would only confuse him more. He’d just more or less threatened to rape her, but the fact that he’d taken the time to threaten her first told Kali he didn’t really want to do it. The conflict on him gave her hope, apart from the immediacy of her situation...more so when she remembered the scenes she and Uye had witnessed of his more recent past.
Even so, she took his warning seriously.
She could leave now, like he was telling her to do. Leave and hope her words would have the effect she intended, given enough time.
The thought made her nervous, though, given what it risked.
Considering what was at stake, could she really afford to leave him in this state? Confused and aggressive and cut off, with no one but other Rooks and his masters to talk to?
He would retreat into drugs, she suspected, like he was now. He would retreat into drugs and prostitutes and whatever else the Rooks did to deal with their being cut off.
It felt cruel to her, too, to leave him like this...no matter who or what he was. She didn’t want to abandon him with this thing, not if there was any way to help him through it.
He must have felt some of her intention that time, too, because the conflict in his eyes worsened. He took another drag of the hiri, glancing back at the Majestic, his jaw hard as his eyes scanned the dusty street before he looked back towards her. Kali watched as a lone man on a bicycle rode by, the chain squeaking as he stepped down hard on each pedal, propelling himself down the sidewalk rimming the edge of the riverside park. The human stared at the two of them, Dehgoies Revik in his half-put together Western clothes, which made him look more American than anything else, and Kali in her jade green, traditional, Vietnamese dress.
“Brother,” she said finally. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything more you want from me before I go?”
He gave a low laugh, seemingly in spite of himself.
“Do you really want me to answer that question?” he said.
Kali quirked an eyebrow at him, hearing the attempt at humor in his voice.
“No,” she sighed, clicking softly and smiling back. “I guess not.” Impulsively, she took a step towards him then, laying a hand on his bare arm below the rolled up sleeves, the same arm attached to the hand that held the smoldering hiri. She tightened her fingers on his skin, before she really thought about whether that was wise, either.
“Revik,” she said seriously. “...I mean what I am saying. I understand that you are confused...I truly do. I can see that your light is not helping you with this, and that you have been alone for far too long to recognize the distinction. I really do understand, brother, and I am not belittling your feelings, I promise you...but you need to hear me on this one point. This is not about me. I swear it is not. I can feel it all over your light...”
He met her gaze, but didn’t move out from under her hand.
He looked down at her instead, and she felt that pain on him worsen.
“You’ve got to know your words mean jack-all to me right now,” he said, his voice harder again, despite the strain she heard underneath. “I’m barely hearing them, sister. All I can think about is dragging you back to my room and ripping that goddamned dress off you...” His voice trailed off, even as he swallowed, closing his eyes longer than a blink. Shaking his head, he raised his hand again, rubbing his eyes with the fingers attached to the arm she wasn’t touching. “I’m sorry. I really am...to you and your mate. Gods. I don’t know what’s wrong with me...”
“Brother, I understand...”
“No,” he snapped, glaring at her. “You really don’t. Or you would have left by now.”
Kali didn’t take her hand off him, or move away. She forced herself to stand there, even under the assault of his light, knowing it was enough that Uye might feel it by now, too.
“Brother Revik,” she said, softer. “Please. Please, try to hear me on this...”
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, once. He met her gaze. “I can’t hear you right now, do you understand? Take your fucking hand off me, sister. Now. Or I’ll do what I said...I mean it.”
She removed her fingers cautiously from his arm that time, stepping back.
She saw relief on his face, but not only relief.
She waited until his breathing had slowed once more, until that harder look had left his face, and the desperate edges of that wanting had waned somewhat in his light.
Then she took another breath.
“You must leave the Org,” she told him simply. “You must, brother Revik. Perhaps you even know this. Perhaps this is why your friends are reacting to you the way they are...perhaps they can feel your knowing of this, at a deeper level than your conscious mind...”
He didn’t answer her.
“Brother, please––”
“Where would I even go?” he said, still not looking at her.
Kali swallowed, feeling his grief like a tangible force, strong enough that tears stung her eyes, forcing her to clasp her hands in front of her to keep from touching him.
“You know where to go, Revik,” she said in a whisper.
Kali saw his jaw harden as he glared at her from where he stood.
Before she could think of what else to say to him, he turned away from her entirely. Without giving her another look, he crushed the hiri he’d been smoking under the toe of his combat boot, then began walking back to the road.
He didn’t so much as glance back in her direction.
Kali watched him go, only exhaling her held breath when he was a dozen yards away.
Still, watching him walk away, for the first time, she was really afraid.
***
SIX
Kali fought to understand her own reactions, thoughts and feelings as she walked back to the Caravelle. The fear continued to linger, overshadowing the rest.
She felt Uye in that span of time, too, perhaps because of the dip and jerk in her own emotions, or perhaps because he could feel her more clearly now, outside the immediate cloud of Dehgoies’ light and that of the Rooks themselves.
Uye had been worried, although she felt him trying to hide it.
After she told him what had transpired, he wanted her to come home, too.
At that point, Kali couldn’t exactly blame him for desiring her to be out of range of Dehgoies’ volatile emotions, but she couldn’t decide if she wholly agreed with him yet, either.
She stopped briefly at a French bakery, maybe to buy herself time to think before she had to decide whether to pack her bags and check out of the hotel that morning. She lingered at the counter long enough to purchase two beignets from the old Vietnamese woman who worke
d the counter. She got to see the same woman fry the pastries, too, exchanging pleasantries back and forth with her as they each struggled to understand their differently accented versions of English.
Kali waited while she made a fresh batch of the fried sweets, lingering at the counter to share a cup of espresso with her between the pastry chef’s baking ministrations. The espresso tasted good in the cool air of the morning, thick with dark, fine grounds and strong enough to make Kali wince at each sip until she got used to it.
She chatted with the Vietnamese baker about the weather, about the difference in the city with so few American troops, about the probable outcome for the war...about the impending demonstration that day.
For some reason, the woman thought Kali came from Europe to be here, and therefore that her leanings were more sympathetic to communism than the Americans...and perhaps more critical of the invading barbaric hordes. That fact alone perhaps aided in the woman’s friendliness, or at least her willingness to be more open than usual about her own political leanings.
Kali herself found herself reluctant to leave, even after she had been handed a greasy paper bag warm with the fresh beignets...perhaps because she’d enjoyed the brief distraction too long to want it to end. Even so, her stomach cramped with hunger by the time she headed upstairs to her room, with the sun at roughly the eight o’clock position in the sky and after her long walk and the conversation with Dehgoies.
She had decided to leave.
Uye was right; it was too risky to stay, given Dehgoies’ mental state.
She would have to find some other way, maybe in another year or two. He would be in a different country by then, perhaps somewhere that would better lend itself to him hearing her. Perhaps somewhere that he’d be less likely to be quite so high on drugs, too.
She could bring Uye next time. Maybe Uye would have more sympathy for Dehghoies, now that he’d glimpsed pieces of the young Rook’s light through hers...and now that he knew Dehgoies could be reached, even if the message got twisted and mangled slightly on its way through.
Kali had to hope they still had time.
Time for her to try again.
Perhaps she could find some way to leave him a message here, even, in Saigon. Perhaps she could ask her new friend, the baker, to leave a note for Dehgoies at The Majestic, telling him how to contact her, in the event he needed more convincing.
Or at least, someone to talk to about his confusion...someone who wasn’t a Rook.
She almost wished that Uye had come with her this time, too, in spite of everything.
Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly if a male had been the one to approach Dehgoies in the first instance, after all. Clearly, he externalized elements of his own vulnerabilities onto women. It made him both more open to them and less...more likely to inflame his aggression, yet more likely to take their words, their actions and his interactions with them personally, too, thus allowing them under that infiltrator’s shield. At the very least, Dehgoies would have been less prone to sexualizing the connection shared by Uye and the Bridge.
Then again, he might also have been more prone to killing Uye in his confusion...just not as passionately as he’d threatened her.
Kali couldn’t help thinking that, to someone like Dehgoies, killing the messenger might well seem like the simplest way to end his confusion...on a certain level, at least.
Sighing a bit, Kali clicked to herself, realizing she was grateful to be leaving.
She smiled faintly as she let the decision become real in her mind. She thought of this time of year in the Santa Cruz mountains. It wouldn’t be fully cold yet, as winter remained a month or so away still, just as it did here. The leaves would have turned by now. It would still be warm most days though, and beautiful. Not hot like here, nor anywhere near as humid. Clear blue skies would greet her instead, at least when it didn’t rain. There would be very little fog as the summer ebbed, and even the occasional thunder storm, depending on the year. She imagined her first night back in the cabin she shared with Uye, the wood fire and his cooking and what he would want to do afterwards...even as she fumbled with the key in the door to her room.
She had just managed to squeak the skeleton key sideways in the rusted lock and open the water-sweated door, when she felt a flicker of a foreign light in the room beyond.
Unfortunately, she felt it too late.
*
Revik’s head pounded, enough to make him sweat.
Well, sweat more, anyway.
It felt like a mallet slammed the back of his skull every few seconds, leaving a denser ache as soon as that sharper pain lessened. He’d been sweating too much for the past few hours, even for the Southeast Asian sun, even though he’d been walking around in the morning heat of the city for over two hours, without really knowing where he was going, or why. He’d been sick since he left that green-eyed seer by the river, and not only because the drugs were wearing off and he’d used up the small paper packet he’d brought with him from the hotel.
Given that he’d left Raven and Terian in the suite at around three a.m., after not sleeping at all, he was having trouble focusing, too. He still found it strange that he’d left when he did, and that he’d happened to be standing by the church across the street from the Caravelle Hotel when the green-eyed seer walked out its front doors in the middle of the night. He’d followed her for hours before he’d thought about why, all the while worrying that Raven would come looking for him, or even Terian himself. But they never had.
He found himself wondering if she’d left the city yet.
A not-insignificant part of him hoped she hadn’t. That same part of him yearned to look for her with his light, to see for himself whether she had heeded his warning or not. If she had gone, then the issue was closed. He wouldn’t have to think about her again.
If she hadn’t, however...
His tongue thickened, even as that ache in the back of his skull worsened. He felt his cock harden as he continued to think about seeing her here again, maybe beside that pool at the Grand. Maybe wearing a bikini, like that human had been...or maybe just in another of those damned silk dresses that showed every curve and line of her body, and with that embroidered fabric that matched her eyes. He’d already halfway made up his mind to fuck her, if he came across her again. He’d never raped a fellow seer in his life. He’d never raped anyone violently before...but he wouldn’t be able to push her, like he could a human. He’d even avoided doing that with humans, truthfully, although he’d been guilty of it, sure, especially out here.
On the other hand, he’d warned her...more than once.
He could almost convince himself that if she stayed accessible to him now, it wasn’t much different than consent.
The thought made his headache worse, though, and brought a coil of unwelcome shame, mixing a darker nausea with the separation pain he’d been feeling for coming on a week now. No amount of fucking Raven or Terian’s playthings seemed to help.
If anything, it only made it worse, by pointing out the lack.
He still hadn’t gotten her damned name.
He was like a sex-starved adolescent with her, forgetting all of the relevant questions as soon as he tasted even the barest edges of her light. It had gotten worse in the intervening days since they’d first spoken. Even now, all he could think about was that green dress she’d worn, the light in her clear eyes as she’d studied his face. He’d felt her heart, pieces of her aleimi that he couldn’t remember feeling on anyone...not even the young recruits while he taught them how to shield their light. They were young and this seer wasn’t.
She just had...more. More in her light, more in structure, more in presence.
There was just more to her, plain and simple.
She had things in her light he couldn’t even understand, even as they turned him on to the point of complete distraction, making him want to offer her money to lie with him, or maybe just beg her or her mate for one night in her light. He knew the biggest
resistance he had to forcing her at this point was that he might not get what he wanted, not if he tried to take it. She could probably keep him out of her light, even if she couldn’t keep him out of her body. She might close to him, and he wanted her to open...completely open...especially while he had his cock in her.
He wanted to look in her eyes, and know she felt him, too.
He knew how delusional the wish was.
He knew it, but he couldn’t seem to shake the want from his mind, especially when he could still taste her in his light. She’d touched him. He’d openly threatened to rape her and she’d touched him, standing so close to him he’d had to fight with himself to keep from touching her back.
He wondered if she had any idea how close he’d come to acting on that threat.
The thing was, he knew she’d meant what she said about having a mate. He knew she hadn’t been teasing him about being bonded, either. The green-eyed seer hadn’t been teasing him at all, even when he tried to convince himself that she was, that she was toying with him, trying to get him to lose control, trying to seduce him. She hadn’t done that...he knew she hadn’t. He’d watched her light carefully enough, he should know. Rather than screwing with him, she’d been cautious with him, instead. She’d even tried to convince him that his reactions were normal.
Misguided, she’d seemed to think, but normal.
He didn’t care. He couldn’t make himself want to care. The mate would probably come after him, if he touched her, but he couldn’t make himself care about that, either.
Fighting back and forth about whether he should walk back to the Caravelle, see if she was still registered there, he forced himself to walk past the plaza near the Caravelle instead, and then past the scorched front of the Grand to the river. He made his way purposefully to The Majestic, wondering if Terian had gotten back from securing the new recruits on board the ship.