That touched her, too.
“I’m going to need you to escort Feigran and Cass out,” Allie said, wiping her face and below one eye with the back of her hand. Sniffing, she smiled, still not removing herself from Chan’s arms. “…Sorry about the drama,” she said, exhaling. “Feigran just confirmed we have a mole. One that’s high up in our structure. I can’t fucking tell you how much I hated the thought that it might be you, Chan.”
Pain slid off the Bridge’s light as she spoke the words.
Chandre didn’t answer.
She could feel there was more going on with the other female. She knew it wasn’t only about Chandre herself. She knew Allie probably wanted to talk about whatever it was, if only because she seemed unwilling to disentangle herself from the embrace.
Chandre waited to see if she would say more.
Just as Chandre decided she would not speak, Allie did.
“Things aren’t… good.” She cleared her throat, shaking her head. “With Revik. Since that thing in Dubai.”
She fell silent. Then, as if realizing what she’d been about to say, she flushed.
Chandre fought her own discomfort at the information.
Allie shook her head, as if feeling that, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just… everything seems to keep getting harder.”
Feeling the vulnerability waft off the light of the other female, Chandre fought her light’s reaction to that openness. Unfortunately, it now reacted in more than one way. The intensity of that secondary reaction caught Chandre off guard. It also made her uncomfortably aware of how long it had been since she’d had a partner.
Chandre wanted to be there for the Bridge.
She wanted to be a good friend, to be there for her, but now she was thinking she should probably let go of her. Physically, that is.
Still, somehow, she did not.
When Allie looked up next, searching Chandre’s eyes more carefully, the vulnerability there caught Chandre’s breath. It also brought a coil of pain so intense she averted her eyes. She looked back only when the Bridge spoke to her again.
“I’m sorry,” Allie said.
Chandre didn’t think that time, either.
Which, in retrospect, had not been wise.
She just lowered her head… and kissed her.
She just kissed her.
She didn’t stop to question why… or why it might be a bad idea. No intention touched her mind at all, not for those few seconds. She hadn’t done it to seduce her.
Well, she did not think she had done it for that.
Chandre didn’t know why she’d done it.
Affection and comfort and friendship figured in there, as much as the possibly less-honest, baser motivations. Whatever it was, a hunger of sex or good intentions twisted into something with less integrity––whatever it was, it pulled at Chandre’s light so strongly she found her mouth on Allie’s before she knew what her body intended.
When the Bridge softened against her, perhaps caught off-guard as well, Chandre’s light slid abruptly out of her control.
The kiss altered as her light did.
She pressed the Bridge into the stone wall of the walkway, moving her away from the edge. She forgot why she’d been sent up there. She forgot what she’d been doing for the Thais with Jorag, Declan, Oli and Anale.
All of it slid out of her mind’s grasp entirely.
Her hands curled around different parts of the Bridge’s body, gripping her and exploring her in places she knew she shouldn’t, even then. Using her tongue and her light in the next kiss, she let her hand fight its way under the Elaerian’s combat vest. She gripped her ass in the other, massaging her with strong fingers, bringing a surprised sound to the Bridge’s throat.
Pain slid through Chandre’s light, along with a more distant disbelief.
She wanted to fuck her.
The thought came unbidden, intense.
Chandre had never been conscious of wanting the Bridge before.
In flickers, sure. Idle stares and pulses of pain when she’d been particularly hungry, or the Bridge had been more open with her light than usual… or she wore clothes that emphasized the changes in her body since she and Chandre first met.
Chandre had seen Barrier imprints and memories that affected her, too.
In particular, some of the memories the others carried of their time in New York featured the Bridge in a number of graphic sexual fantasies of one kind of another.
Chandre hadn’t been there in person for most of that.
Even so, the combination of the dramatic changes in the Bridge’s body, her dressing habits after she’d left Beijing, and the added structures in Allie’s light from working as a consort of the Lao Hu––it affected all of them in New York it seemed, at one time or another.
Chandre was no more immune to the differences there than the rest of them.
Several of the seers, Jorag especially, still seemed to use those imprints semi-frequently as masturbation fodder. Chan also glimpsed memories of what the Bridge looked like when they rescued her from the Forbidden City.
Chandre hadn’t been the only one to react to those things.
Just about every seer on their team had been hungry for her that day. They’d also been conscious of keeping those impulses far, far away from the Sword and his light.
But Chandre hadn’t taken those whispers of interest and hunger seriously.
Now, pain nearly blanked out her mind.
The Bridge was hungry, too, which made it worse.
A lot worse.
She was so hungry Chandre found that hunger making her aggressive.
She pressed the Bridge harder against the wall. Deepening the kiss, she found herself touching her again, more deliberately that time, a bare asking of permission in her hands and light. When the other didn’t fight her, Chandre gripped her long dark hair in her hand, clenching her fingers into a fist, forcing her still as she pressed the length of her body against hers. She let out a low gasp, what was nearly a groan when she felt the other’s pain worsen.
Her mind flickered with images again.
She’d heard rumors, murmurs of the Bridge’s relationship with the Sword––of how they both liked to be hurt during sex, maybe more than most seers. Chandre remembered walking into the tank that one day, when the Sword left his wife chained to the wall, naked but for a thin gold sheet. The sheet hadn’t helped.
It was worse than her being fully naked, really.
The memory brought another hard flush of pain.
That time, Chandre let out a low groan, slamming the Bridge brutally against the wall. She kissed her harder. Her hand slid around from her ass, easing between her legs––
Allie jumped violently.
The submission that had come over the Bridge’s light broke.
“No.” Allie gasped the word, writhing out from under Chandre’s hands. “No… stop. Stop it, Chan. Stop… stop…”
The word was enough to penetrate the fog of Chandre’s light.
It wasn’t enough to get her to let go, though.
It didn’t even get her to separate their bodies.
Allie did that, too.
Chandre stood there, gasping, her forehead pressed against the other seer’s until Allie pushed her gently back. She fought not to speak, not to ask her for it––not to beg her for it by then. Allie might have felt that, too, but Chandre couldn’t make herself care.
What she did care about was that the other ended it.
Allie fought her light free, then her body.
She slid out from where Chandre had her pinned to the wall, now not looking at Chan at all, her cheeks and neck flushed bright red.
“I’m sorry,” Allie said, her voice low, almost gruff.
Chandre didn’t answer.
The Bridge stood there for a second or two more, as if unsure what else to say. Chan found herself wondering how much time had passed, how long they’d been kissing before the Brid
ge forced her back.
She was still wondering…
When Allie turned away.
Chandre watched, wordless, as the Bridge walked swiftly across the top of the wall. The intermediary didn’t pause in her silent, mulei-trained steps.
She didn’t look back.
Chandre continued to stare in that direction after the Bridge disappeared through the opening that led to the landing of the tower stairs.
By then, she could no longer feel her, either.
It didn’t occur to her what she’d done until then.
It didn’t occur to her to be afraid until a few seconds after that.
8
RUNNING
“I CAN’T KEEP doing this,” Revik said.
He shook his head, avoiding the eyes of the seer standing across from him.
He looked up at a dense pocket of trees near them instead, watching their tops sway in a light breeze that tunneled through the opening in the building. A pond stood at the base of those trees, crossed by a small footbridge made of real wood.
Revik saw flashes of gold and orange-colored scales under the murky water, now overgrown with algae from neglect since the building was abandoned.
They were on the thirty-third floor of what had once been a high-end apartment complex overlooking Lumphini Park. The floor consisted almost entirely of the open-air garden patio, complete with a small lawn, several koi and goldfish ponds, scattered tiki torches and Christmas lights wrapped around the trunks and branches of twenty-foot trees.
The patio cut an odd, square hole through the middle of the building, hosting a view north and south for several miles in each direction. A bar stood on one end, beside a cluster of tables and chairs among the trees and patches of lawn. The bar was cleaned out now of course, with most of the glassware and all of the alcohol long gone.
It would have been a pleasant place to be, under different circumstances.
Revik could see smoke on the horizon, even from here.
“I can’t,” Revik repeated, tearing his eyes off the horizon. “I can’t do it to her. We can’t just…” Revik trailed, feeling his face warm. Shaking his head at nothing, he clicked under his breath. “I can’t do this to her, ‘Dor. Not now.”
He didn’t want to talk about this with the Adhipan seer.
He hated having to share any part of this with him, or with anyone really.
Balidor seemed to pick up on most of this, at least if Revik was having any luck in reading him at all. The fact that Revik’s own light and emotions appeared to be entirely transparent to the other seer didn’t exactly reassure him, especially now.
Balidor seemed to feel that, too.
“Do not trouble yourself, young brother,” the Adhipan leader said, clicking softly. “You are doing very well. Tarsi and I have built… well… our own back doors, in a sense, into your light. You cannot gauge your progress on these things with the two of us, brother.”
At Revik’s frown, Balidor held up a calming hand.
“We will never use them invasively, brother,” Balidor assured him. “They are for operational purposes only, when you would prefer a line to our people but cannot open your light.” Balidor paused, then made an apologetic wave with one hand. “…in lieu of being in contact with your wife, of course.”
Revik felt his face harden.
He fought to shake it off.
“What do you suggest?” Revik said. “With the other problem?”
Without meaning to, he adopted a near-defensive stance, arms folded over his chest, feet planted wide enough to be seen as aggressive.
Balidor felt his discomfort.
“Brother,” Balidor said, sighing and clicking. “What do you want from me right now? Are you really asking my permission to have sexual relations with your wife?”
“I’m asking what would be safe,” Revik growled. “I’m asking what you recommend, goddamn it. Are you refusing to help me with this?”
Balidor folded his own arms across his chest.
Revik felt another pulse of discomfort off the other seer. It occurred to him that some of that discomfort had to do with Balidor’s own history with Allie. Being reminded that this man had slept with his wife didn’t exactly improve Revik’s mood, though.
He forced himself to remain silent when he felt the other male thinking.
“Well.” Balidor made a vague gesture with one hand, again belying his discomfort. He cleared his throat. “…If you are concerned, and clearly you are, Tarsi and I could oversee it. Or perhaps not me, but Tarsi… Yumi, perhaps. Or…”
Balidor hesitated, then looked up, meeting Revik’s gaze.
“Or,” he continued more carefully. “You could combine it with the other wish you expressed with her. The one having to do with more global security concerns. Now might be an appropriate time to entertain something along those lines anyway. You could raise it with her. See what she says, yes?”
Balidor trailed, making another eloquent but vague gesture with his hand.
Revik stared at him, his mind blank.
For those few seconds, he had absolutely no idea what Balidor was talking about.
Seeming to sense Revik’s confusion, the Adhipan seer sent a flickering cluster of images at Revik’s light. The cluster came through fast but crystal clear; they solidified into memories as they swam behind Revik’s eyes.
As a result, emotion came with them.
The feelings came through sharp and weirdly immediate––strange only because so much had happened in the time since.
The hotel. New York.
A conversation at that restaurant, The Third Jewel, right after they got back from Argentina.
Everyone had been tired. Revik had been in so much pain he was having trouble controlling his light, much less keeping his hands off his wife. He’d just found out Allie was likely pregnant. The information made him half-crazy, even apart from the pain––but also maybe happier than he’d been in his life.
Scared. Fuck, he’d been scared.
Scared for all kinds of reasons.
His telekinesis had been broken. He couldn’t protect her. She was already going blind from the pregnancy and he had no real way to protect her.
He’d been worried about her. He’d wanted the others to protect her when he couldn’t. He’d tried to talk her into forming a stronger bond with their leadership team. He’d wanted her light more in theirs, and theirs in hers.
He’d wanted her to…
He felt his stomach clench.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes with two of his fingers. Switching from Prexci to English, he heard his German accent come out more strongly. “Jesus, ‘Dor. She might stab me for real if I bring that up now.”
Balidor gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Perhaps,” he said.
Keeping his expression neutral, Balidor made his words even more careful.
“…Or perhaps, given the circumstances, she might agree that it makes sense now, Illustrious Sword. Both to have her bound more tightly to the group to better protect her and Lily, and also to help you both with your…” Balidor gestured with the same hand, his voice betraying his discomfort. “…Other problem.”
Tightening his arms around his chest, Revik shook his head, but not really in a no.
Still staring off without really seeing anything, he shook his head again, clicking under his breath. The idea of asking Allie that right now was enough to give him a fucking ulcer. She was already pissed off that he hadn’t been alone with her much.
If he suggested they fuck in front of the senior leadership team––
“Someone else could broach the topic with her,” Balidor suggested.
At Revik’s incredulous look, the Adhipan leader had the grace to flush.
“I don’t mean me,” Balidor said. As if to emphasize the point, he shook his head, taking a step back. “I don’t need to be involved at all, brother. Not at all.”
But Revik gestured negati
ve in seer, feeling his jaw tighten.
“No,” he said. “If we do this, I want you there.” His voice turned gruff. “I don’t think she’ll care about that. Jon was the issue before.” Revik felt his jaw harden more, along with the muscles in his neck and shoulders. “She felt weird having Wreg there for the same reason. She was only concerned about you because of me.”
Still thinking, Revik felt his jaw clench, right before he shrugged.
“We definitely limit the group, though,” he said, blunt. “No way in hell is Kat to be involved. Or Ullysa. I’d rather if Jaden was moved out of the construct altogether… as far away as fucking possible, assuming she agrees. Human or not, it might affect him.”
Balidor nodded slowly. He didn’t comment, but Revik felt his light grow almost defensive.
He pushed that from his aleimi, too.
“If we’re going to do this, we can’t wait,” Revik said. “We’d need to do it soon. Within the next few days.”
Balidor nodded.
There was another silence.
Revik felt the question hovering there and exhaled.
“No,” he said, feeling a flush of angry embarrassment in his light. “No, I’ll talk to her. I don’t think it would go over any better if we tried to get Chan or Tarsi to do it. I’ll do it tonight. She already has Lily with Wreg and Jon.”
Feeling his light grow uncomfortable at the thought, he shook his head.
“I’ll do it tonight,” he repeated, firm.
He glanced at Balidor.
The older seer didn’t seem to be listening to him, though. His eyes were faraway, like he was in the Barrier, or perhaps listening to something on his headset.
Revik waited, at least until he saw the other seer pale.
“What?” Revik said. “What is it?”
Balidor shook his head, but didn’t speak. Instead, he indicated through hand signals that he was reacting to something happening elsewhere, which Revik had already figured out on his own. The Adhipan seer touched his ear at the end, indicating he was using the headset.
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