Cass shifted in her chair. “What do you mean?” she said. “They’ll have to talk for part of the time, right? Go for walks...play backgammon...”
He made a line in the air with a finger, a seer’s ‘no.’
“That is unlikely,” he said. “...Not for a few weeks, at least. Given the amount of time they waited, it could be longer.” He gave her another faint smile. “They will talk, yes...but not in the way you mean.”
“A few weeks?” she said. “Seriously?”
He shrugged, stirring his tea. He laid his spoon on the rickety table.
When his eyes met hers next, they were serious again, almost somber.
“And you, Cassandra?” he said. “How are you doing...with all that has happened to you?”
Interest returned to his gray eyes, and it was more than polite.
She hesitated at the look there, then shrugged, letting her eyes return to the rain sheeting down over the valley.
“I don’t sleep well,” she said.
He clicked sympathetically, a near purr. When she glanced at him a second time, she caught him staring at her. The stare didn’t make her nervous though, or seem to require anything from her in answer.
After another moment, she felt herself starting to relax. Copying his pose, she stretched out her legs, crossing her ankles.
He took another sip of tea before his eyes flickered back to the valley.
They sank into a companionable silence. The sky had begun to darken, the clouds to turn scarlet and paler shades of pink.
Together, they watched the sun set over the mountains.
18
LOST
In the distance, windows shatter in an old and rusted warehouse. I see a boy with black hair laughing, screaming into the sky...
I LIFTED MY head, squinting to see through the pitch dark of the room.
I could still hear the sound of breaking glass.
We’d made it to the bed somehow...I didn’t know how or when. Revik lay wrapped around me, my legs curled around and between his. He held me tightly, rearranging his long form, and...
...I hear voices, as if from far away.
The clearing lay in darkness but for a few lights swinging in a half-ring, obscuring shadowy forms. The sun has already disappeared. I don’t remember it leaving and the rain hasn’t stopped, but it has grown colder. I try to move...
...and let out a short gasp.
My whole body hurt, seemingly from my scalp down to my feet, but my light wound into his as soon as he responded to my body’s jerk. The pulling started again, somewhere in the area of my navel.
Images rose from before we’d passed out on the bed. My fingers coiling his wrist...I’d lain below him, on my stomach, both of our bodies slick with sweat and he’d been reading me, fighting not to lose it as I got close. I looked back, and for a moment, we were somewhere else, and the trees closed in around us.
Open, his eyes glowed a brilliant, emerald green in the dark...
It had taken him longer than me to really let go.
He was a lot stronger than me, for one thing. He’d been afraid he’d hurt me, he said. What he didn’t say was, he’d still been afraid I wouldn’t react well to him, if he really let himself go. He’d worked as a pro; he worried I’d think he was perverted, that I’d be unfamiliar with the inherent kinks in seer sex...his sexuality in particular, which he seemed to think might be weirder than most, for reasons I couldn’t quite discern from his fleeting thoughts, but had something to do with others’ reactions to him.
The virgin thing turned him on. It touched him, too, more than he seemed to feel comfortable admitting to me, at least at first...something about seers leaving imprints during sex, and him only feeling me there.
It also made him nervous.
When I finally got him there, it didn’t result in kink, per se.
I saw it in his eyes...it slid away from him, tumbling faster until his whole face changed, growing younger than I’d ever seen it, almost unrecognizable just before he rolled me to my back. His pain wrapped into me, thick and almost desperate...he felt lost inside it, an aloneness that bordered on self-hate, a wanting that felt old, yet somehow still specific to me. He made love to me like he was trying to break something in himself, his arms wrapped around me so that I could barely move, his eyes on my face, going so deep I cried out at each thrust.
His fear paralyzed me. Fear that I would leave him...that someone would take me, that we would be separated again, that he would drive me off. It grew nearly violent by the time he came, until he bit my shoulder, fighting his way deeper inside me, asking me over and over with his light if I loved him.
We’d been in front of the fireplace. He’d wanted to do it again almost before we were finished. That time, he used his light to hold me on the edge for hours. By the end, both of us were crying, and I was begging him. He got me to make promises, to admit to things I’d never told anyone, to open my light and heart until I could barely tell us apart...to tell him about everyone I’d ever loved before him. When I was half out of my head, at the point where I’d do anything he asked, he brought me to climax after climax before he came himself.
His body wracked with something that might have been a sob, that seemed to break him in half toward the end...and I couldn’t hold everything he sent, everything he wanted of me. Guilt wrapped into the pain he sent, guilt around what he’d done...and around a kind of mind-numbing possessiveness he couldn’t seem to control.
He said a lot. During, and after.
One thing he told me explained a few things.
Apparently, Maygar went to Cairo to tell Revik that we’d fallen in love. He’d claimed I wanted a divorce...even tried to pay Revik off to bring severance proceedings against me. When Revik refused to do anything until he heard it directly from me, Maygar taunted him about our supposed sex life, giving out enough detail to be pretty convincing.
Eventually, Revik lost his cool.
He’d believed Maygar, though. He’d gone back to Seertown believing that, until I told him I loved him and seemed confused about his references to my screwing other men. He’d still more than half-believed we’d had sex...pretty much up until the instant he was fully inside me.
He’d been ashamed of that, but it more bewildered me.
When I asked him why in god’s name Maygar would do any of that, Revik looked at me like I was the crazy one.
“He’s in love with you, Alyson! Gaos...don’t tell me you didn’t know? Half the fucking compound knew...even before that stunt he pulled. Or do you think he wanted you as a wife just to hurt me? That he’d risk his life just for that?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, either.
He wasn’t the only one who acted less than rational. I found myself crying at one point, even apart from what he’d done. I hit him, too, right in the face...so angry about Kat and the woman on the ship that I didn’t actually feel sane. He held me down when I swung at him again...then he cried, too, when I told him I’d never forgiven him. I traced scars on his skin, letting myself really see them, and see how many he’d collected while he was young...really young, long before he’d been a soldier or infiltrator. White with age, they stretched and changed shape as his back and shoulders broadened.
He’d been small as a kid, he said, even for a seer.
Under me, he made a sound, coiling an arm around my shoulders. He pulled me against him, kissing my neck, and I bit my lip to keep my mind focused.
I need the bathroom, I told him.
It took him another second of thought to let me go.
I separated us with an effort, then climbed to my feet, stumbled to the bathroom door. I walked like I was drunk; it felt like something inside me had been smashed and was slowly knitting back together into a different shape.
Closing the door, I sat on the toilet.
After wincing my way through that experience, I pulled the flush chain and stood. I found myself staring at the bamboo-enclosed shower, fighting to th
ink as I did, knowing only that I wanted something. After another moment of concentration, I figured out how to run the water. I had just put my hand into the stream when I heard a creak and turned.
He stood there, eyes unfocused, dark hair sticking up around his head. He glanced around the small space, as if not quite sure what he wanted.
I found myself looking at him. I’d never seen him naked in full light.
“Are you okay?” I said.
Thinking, he nodded. He saw me looking at him then and moved closer, sliding his arms around me where I stood. For a moment we just stood there, and I felt him prodding me to keep looking while he kissed my shoulder.
I glanced up after a moment, almost shyly.
“Is that another tattoo?” I said.
Clan mark. He kissed my mouth, tugging my hand to the blue and black series of curved lines. I watched his cock harden as I stroked them.
“Do you have any others?” I said.
Thinking, he turned around, pointing to his shoulder.
Sword and Sun. A fairly elaborate one. He wore Syrimne’s mark.
“When did you get that?” I said, touching it. “It looks old.”
I don’t know. Before. Sometime before the memory wipe.
Like the arm band?
Yes. He tugged my fingers back to the clan mark. I let him pull me closer. I was still caressing the tattoo on his groin when he kissed me again. For a long moment, we stood there, kissing. He brought me to the floor.
...until he raised his head, looking back over his shoulder.
I heard running water, loud in my ears, and blinked around at where we lay, confused by the murkiness of the room. I was astride him, immersed in clouds of steam. He looked up at me, gesturing towards the shower, using seer sign language, probably out of habit since I still only knew about half of the words.
Even so, I understood. Sliding up and off him, I gasped, standing shakily. I took his hand when he reached up, leaning backwards to help him to his feet. I brought him with me into the bamboo stall.
The water was cold by then. Neither of us cared.
Once inside, we left each other alone...until he shampooed my hair, which led to my back, then the rest of me. When I started to return the favor, we ended up against the back wall, and he supported me with his arms while we made love again. He started slow...we both did...but like every other time since that time in front of the fire, something kicked in, and by the end I was holding onto him and the wall, asking him for...
...I closed my eyes, falling backwards into a sprawl on the bed.
My hair was still wet from the shower. The sheets were cool on my back and legs. Intensely comfortable, I felt myself starting to drift off...
Then he left the room.
I sat up, alarmed. Anxiety made it difficult to think, about its cause or even where I was...where I’d been for what felt like an odd blank stretch in the dark, a timelessness that confused me only when I tried to pin it down.
I had just made up my mind to get up and look for him when he reappeared in the doorway. His arms and hands held a pitcher of water, a bowl of something, and what looked like a glass with utensils stuck inside. He set the pitcher on a night table near the headboard and dumped the rest of it on the bed, crawling in next to me. I kissed him, and he returned my affection as though weeks had separated us, instead of minutes.
A few more passed before I remembered that he’d left at all.
At my thought, he raised his head, glancing at the part of the bed he’d covered in kitchenware.
We have to eat, he sent. We have to, Allie.
I was kissing his chest as he eased my leg from around him. Rolling to his back, he grabbed the bowl and the glass, setting the former between us. He scooped up the utensils that had spilled out on the bed and put one in my hand, then jerked the wooden cover off the bowl, handing the bowl to me. The room was still dark, but I could see white, curling things inside the container that looked like noodles. I wondered why I could see so well in the dark.
“Practice,” he said. Combat, Allie.
He motioned between us, a half-finished thought, but I got the idea.
I could see better in the dark because he could see better in the dark. I didn’t think on that for very long though, distracted by the smell coming from the bowl. My stomach gurgled.
“Where did you get this?” I said.
I tried to imagine him in the kitchen with a candle, cooking, but even with my confused sequencing, I didn’t think he could have been gone that long. Leaning towards me, he stabbed a spear-like fork into whatever filled the bowl, withdrawing the utensil impaled on something soft and white. Wanting in part to encourage me to eat, he put it in his mouth and started chewing, motioning for me to do the same.
“Tradition,” he said, as I stabbed my own spear into the bowl more cautiously. “Seers get sick...forget to eat. A lot of food, Allie.”
His words were accented, half-jumbled. He kissed me between them, but again, my mind filled in the gaps. Other seers had stocked the house with food, knowing we’d be too weird to be able to feed ourselves.
Somehow that struck me as funny and I laughed.
He smiled, raising an eyebrow.
I pushed at his chest. “No wonder they made you a spy! Here I was intimidated, thinking you could cook, too.”
He smiled again, kissing my fingers. Can you cook?
“No.” Laughing a little, I shook my head. “...Not well, anyway. We’ll have to send our kids to culinary school...”
Pain darted through my light...so quickly and intensely, it startled me. Realizing it was his, I studied his face in some curiosity, but he slid his fingers into mine, kissing my palm.
Children? I sent tentatively.
His pain worsened. He met my gaze and we kissed again, longer...and that distracted us both for awhile. When I started touching him again, he pushed my hand away gently.
Eat. Please, Allie...please...
Taking a breath, I put the whatever-it-was in my mouth and chewed, preparing myself for the worst. Seer food still had a tendency to taste like dirt wrapped in moss to me, but after a few chews, I relaxed...and then my hunger kicked in for real.
I started filling my next forkful before I’d finished swallowing the first. Revik leaned over me, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher. He took a long drink while I ate, then handed it to me. He watched me drink it, and I felt another sliver of pain from him before he took back the glass, filling it again.
That one he motioned for me to drink on my own.
When I finished off the second glass, he pointed my attention back towards the bowl.
I took another mouthful of food, and for an instant, it almost distracted me from watching him eat without any clothes on. Even cold, the noodle-things tasted mindblowingly good...better than anything I’d eaten in a long time, like really good macaroni and cheese, only with some kind of meat, and a few spices I didn’t know. As I took another mouthful with barely a pause between bites, I realized I was ravenous.
“Better?” he said, after he’d swallowed again.
“This tastes like human food,” I said.
“It’s seer food.” He kissed me lingeringly. “You’re going to take on my palate some too...maybe you’ll like it more.” He kissed me again. “...I’ve craved that disgusting human coffee since Seattle...”
“Seattle’s a coffee town,” I said, smiling. “Can’t blame me.”
“No, it’s your fault,” he assured me. He watched me eat, and I felt his pain sharpen. “Gods, you’re turning me on again...I think it’s getting worse, Allie...”
“It is getting worse,” I agreed, swallowing my mouthful.
“We have to remember to eat,” he said. “We have to, Allie.”
But I couldn’t get my mind off the noodles. “I can’t believe how hungry I am. I could eat this whole thing...”
He grunted in a flat kind of humor, leaning over me to stab another forkful of noodles.
&n
bsp; “Allie, it’s been at least three days...we were both getting weak.”
I halted my own fork halfway to my mouth. “Three days? But last night...”
He shook his head, his eyes shining faintly in the dark. “At least two nights ago...maybe more.” He glanced towards the covered window. “It’s dark again. I think we got up right after sunset this time...”
“This time,” I said, only now it wasn’t a question.
I fought to piece together the last few however-long-it-had-beens, and realized I did remember waking up. The first time by the fireplace...then at least one other time on a tile floor somewhere, covered in a quilt. The same or a similar quilt half-covered me now.
He was still eating, his free hand caressing my fingers that lay between us. He offered me his fork and I ate the noodles off the end. Feeling another whisper of pain from him, I leaned closer, kissing his mouth. He pushed me back gently with his hand, jabbing his finger towards the bowl.
“Eat,” he said. “I’m not starving my wife to death.”
I laughed, taking the glass from his hand after he refilled it again.
We each drank about half, then I had a few more forkfuls of the noodles before I realized I was full...like, really full, probably because he was right, and we hadn’t eaten in a few days. He handed me another full glass of water, indicating with a gesture for me to drink it.
“We need to keep the windows open,” he said, worried.
He didn’t finish the thought...but again, I followed where he was going.
He meant the drapes. He wanted to see the sun come up and go down, so we’d have a reminder to eat. I felt the worry on him intensify as he looked at me, and forced myself to take a few more bites of food. Finishing my water, I left the empty glass on the bed and climbed over where he lay, massaging his back while he ate more. He was still a lot thinner than when I’d met him.
I remembered the thing about drapes then and craned my neck, looking for a cord, when it occurred to me that we might freeze if—
“No.” He swallowed what was in his mouth. “...There’s glass, Allie.”
Allie's War Season One Page 76