A part of me couldn’t believe it, I think. That same part also couldn’t look away.
I’d never seen him with anyone else, not like this.
I’d watched him fuck Kat briefly that time I walked in on them in D.C.
I’d seen his past from the Barrier, including past lovers, and I’d once seen him with someone in the present from the Barrier, too––but I’d never seen him like this, with him doing it right in front of me, his light so wrapped in mine, I couldn’t think straight.
Raddi let out a heavy gasp after a few minutes of having Revik’s mouth on him.
Then I was helping Revik, sliding deeper into his light when he opened, showing him things I’d learned from the Lao Hu––things I’d learned with my light and tongue. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe because I was jealous and wanted to be more involved.
Maybe I did it to turn Revik on more.
Or to make him jealous.
Whichever of those things it had been, I’m pretty sure all of them worked.
He let out a low groan as he fought to copy what I showed him, jealousy pluming out of his light as his hand tightened on mine. A few minutes after that, Raddi was crying out, gripping Revik’s hair with both hands, looking at me. Then Raddi’s light invaded mine along with Revik’s, his pain growing so intense I couldn’t think straight.
Revik shoved him violently off my light.
Raddi retracted at once, but only groaned.
“Gaos,” Raddi said, groaning again. He lowered his mouth to Revik’s ear, speaking to both of us. “Gaos, fuck her, brother. She’s in so much pain. Please. Fuck her while you do this to me. Please, gaos. I’ll do anything you ask. Please… please…”
I can’t, Revik sent to both of us. I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.
I slid my fingers around him as he said it, and felt the truth in his words.
It hit me suddenly what he was doing––part of what he was doing, anyway. In addition to the rest, he was using Raddi’s light to calm down his own.
He thought he could use Raddi’s orgasm. He thought he’d be able to use that and my light well enough to retract afterwards. He’d preferred this to me getting him off with my hand or mouth.
When he finally came, he wanted to do it inside me. I felt that, too.
He let out a low groan, hearing my thoughts. His fingers tightened on me, even as he slid his tongue over Raddi.
I don’t want you to jerk me off, Allie. Not tonight. Not tonight…
The Revik-logic of it made sense to me in that fogged state, but it also made me crazy. He was also doing it for me, I realized.
He thought of this thing with Raddi as a favor to me.
The pain in my light worsened as the understanding reached me, more than I could stand briefly. Even as I thought it, Revik reached down with a hand, forcing me to let go of him.
Stop, he sent, his pain coiling into me. Please stop, Allie. I’m going to fucking come. I don’t want to come like that. Please, baby… gaos. I’m barely holding it now.
I let go of him, gripping his sides instead.
I watched him with Raddi, feeling that pool of pain and jealousy worsen in my gut. I slid deeper into his light, helping him again––until I felt both of them fighting not to come. I heard Raddi ask Revik to undress me and felt the corresponding flush of anger in Revik’s light.
My own jealousy worsened when Raddi went back to stroking Revik’s hair, calming him with his light and fingers and voice.
It was turning me on, though––what they were doing to each other. I couldn’t deny how much it was turning me on, even as I grew conscious of others watching us again.
I felt bursts of jealousy aimed at Raddi, and not only from me.
By then, all of it was turning me on so badly I could barely stand it. I found myself pulling on Revik with my light so hard that he groaned, taking his mouth off the other male altogether and leaning his face against his abdomen so he could gasp out breaths. He looked down at me while I watched, his eyes glowing a bright, emerald green, his jaw hard with pain.
Raddi pulled away from him then, his hand on his own cock.
He came seconds later, groaning, his other hand clenched in my hair as he got off. I felt his light in both of ours now, even as Revik reacted to the hard flush of desire Raddi aimed at me.
I felt Revik’s light open as Raddi came.
I felt him grow submissive in those few seconds, in a way he never had with me––or maybe just in a different way than he did with me. Something about it made him feel strangely young. It reminded me of what I remembered of him as a kid in Bavaria, when he’d been constantly abused, pretty much by everyone around him.
It also reminded me of Revik’s light when I’d watched him walking with Dalejem on that pier in Macau.
Both sets of memories sent shocks of pain into my light.
Some of that was separation pain.
Some of it wasn’t.
I was still fighting with the conflict of emotions there when Revik slid his body back over mine, once more lying between my legs.
I watched him work to retract the hard end of his cock.
He managed it slowly… painfully… right before his light and hands turned on me. He yanked the dress off me, pulling it down off my shoulders, then past my waist and hips and legs. He kissed me as he did it, gently at first and then harder, wrapping his arms around me as he got the dress off me entirely and lowered his weight.
I felt so much of his light that time it caught my breath, nearly made me lose control, even with him only lying on me.
He closed his eyes, longer than a blink––
Then he was inside me.
Both of us just lay there at first, panting.
Then he cried out. His pain spiked, excruciating, even as I felt emotion expand off his light in a dense cloud. Love. A kind of lost, grief-filled longing. Tenderness. Regret. Fear, but coupled with that fierce protectiveness that hurt me to feel.
I didn’t want to feel him talk himself into it all over again.
I couldn’t fucking stand having to watch him do it again.
And we both knew.
We knew it was the only way. Both of us did.
Somewhere in that, he arched his body into mine, deep.
He extended so far into me, I think I must have yelled out. I don’t think either of us made it through a single real stroke after that. He pinned me to the cushions, angling his body deeper as he let out another groan, a weak one that time when he felt me lose control of my light.
His eyes were bright when he opened them that time, too bright. I realized he was crying and something in my chest seemed to crack open on its own.
I opened my light more…
And he came, hard, gasping out my name, his arms clenched around my back. He talked to me as he let go, speaking one of those languages I still didn’t know, crying as he stroked my face and neck. His other arm clutched my back, and I felt him throwing light into me, losing control as he came a second time without pulling out.
It felt like it took a long time for either of us to calm down, even a little.
Then embarrassment shimmered off his light, reminding me again of our first time together, in that cabin in the Himalayas. I wondered if he really cared what the others thought, then realized I couldn’t feel much of an awareness of the others on him at all.
That embarrassment felt aimed at me.
I gripped his hair, pulling his face back to mine.
He kissed me, gasping, his eyes closing longer than a blink.
I wanted to say something to him, to reassure him maybe, or maybe to tell him he was being fucking ridiculous. I didn’t do that, either. I felt too much fear on him maybe––or too much of both of us feeling threatened, too much jealousy.
I felt his anger at Chandre in that, but I knew she wasn’t the real issue, any more than the Adhipan seer, Mara, was the real issue for me.
I felt Raddi somewhere near us still, watching us.
<
br /> I felt other eyes, too––but I didn’t care about any of that. Not anymore.
I found myself looking at Revik alone, watching his chest heave as he fought to control his light. He met my gaze, and again I felt that hard flush of love from his light, so much it blinded me, whiting out my vision.
I felt grief on him, too. Intense enough that it hurt my chest.
I adore you. He kissed my mouth, pulling on me even as he softened his light. I adore you, Allie. Don’t forget that, please. Whatever happens. Please, wife. Don’t forget me. Don’t forget us. Please, gods, don’t forget…
Pain wracked my light as I listened to his murmured words.
But I couldn’t.
I just… couldn’t.
I couldn’t think about that yet.
I might not ever be ready to think about that.
14
GONE
THE NEXT MORNING he was just… gone.
I can’t say I was surprised.
Shocked, yes. I was shocked.
I was paralyzed once it sank in that he had truly, definitively left. A part of me shut down, or off, lost in the reality of him no longer being there.
I didn’t have to fake that part.
We hadn’t discussed exact timelines, for obvious reasons, so while I’d had my suspicions the time was looming, the shock itself was absolutely real. I didn’t have to work to come up with realistic-sounding words. I didn’t have to try and form appropriate facial expressions.
Truthfully, I couldn’t have talked to anyone even if I’d wanted. I didn’t feel or acknowledge anyone or anything for hours, not even after everyone else found out he’d left and started grilling me about why he’d left, where he might have gone, what he might be doing.
But no, I can’t say I was surprised.
I’d felt things on him the night before.
There were things he said, things that hurt me even as he said them. I don’t think he’d ever told me he loved me like that before. Not in the cabin––not even in our softer moments in the time since. He didn’t hold anything back. He didn’t moderate anything he said, or leave any of it unsaid, or for another time. He’d spoken to me like he never expected to see me again.
He’d spoken to me like it was his last chance to say those things to me.
So yeah, it hurt like hell.
He let me do anything I wanted.
He gave me everything I asked for, even things I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted, like what he’d done with Raddi. I felt his heart behind even the most intense things he offered me. I felt him wanting to give me things, to do things for me––anything he could, no matter how much it hurt both of us.
He’d offered to let me be with others, while he was there.
I hadn’t wanted that at all, though. All his asking did was make both of us cry.
None of the words he wrote in the note he left behind surprised me, either.
He apologized to me. He begged me to forgive him for what he was about to do.
He released me from my marital vows…
He told me why he was doing it. None of his reasons surprised me. They were the same reasons he’d been giving me for weeks––a hundred different ways to say he truly believed it was the only way to keep me and Lily safe. He knew, deep in his light and heart, that we’d both be dead soon if he didn’t go.
He asked me not to look for him.
He begged me not to go looking for him.
He cautioned me to think of Lily before I did anything rash that might kill all three of us. He told me it was up to me to keep Lily safe. He said he’d do whatever he could for both of us, but that she was mine to raise. He said he trusted me to do it for both of us.
I found the note tied around my wrist when I woke up on a mattress by the swimming pool on the roof. He’d put a sheet over me, somewhere in that. He put a sheet over me and tied a silk scarf with the note to my arm, like he was afraid I wouldn’t find it.
Or maybe it was just his way of trying to soften it.
If so, it didn’t work.
He must have left as soon as I dozed off––as soon as I closed my eyes. Dawn had been peeking over the horizon when I lay my head down on the mattress. I woke only a few hours later, but somewhere in that brief spell of unconsciousness, my husband left me.
I knew even then that it was probably for the last time.
He didn’t have to tell me where he was going.
I knew that part already, although I definitely wasn’t ready to think about what his going there really meant.
But yes, I knew.
He was going to the only place he could go, given the reasons he’d laid out for leaving, and the things he’d said to me the night before, the things he’d been saying to me and hinting around for the past eight or nine weeks. He’d gone where I strongly suspected he’d been planning to go ever since he woke up from being knocked unconscious in Dubai.
He’d gone to protect me and Lily in the only way he knew how.
If it destroyed what remained of my husband in the process, I knew he’d let that happen, too.
I knew Revik.
I knew what motivated him, both the good and the bad of it.
I also knew that once I could feel that part of this… really feel it… it would crush me.
More than crush me. It would break my heart beyond what I might ever recover from, beyond what I’d ever be able to live with, even if my body marched on without him. Even if he found a way to keep all three of us alive.
Because I knew, at base, he’d done it for me.
He’d say it was for Lily, and maybe that was true, too, but that wasn’t most of it.
Once again, he’d broken himself against the rocks for me.
15
WATCHING DEATH APPROACH
JON STARED AROUND the table, fighting incredulity.
No one had spoken in the last few minutes.
No one appeared particularly motivated to speak now.
Jon watched them look at Allie, their expressions grim. Their eyes and faces showed them to be grieving in some cases––some openly grieving, like Jax, Raddi and Neela––but none of them appeared willing to question her.
None of them appeared to be willing to stand up to her at all.
Allie didn’t look at any of them, Jon noticed.
Her eyes trained off towards the river.
She’d seemed to be staring there for most of the meeting, although Jon strongly suspected she wasn’t seeing any part of the view spread out below the sixty-story apartment building.
They were on the roof again.
They’d come up here partly to get out of the suffocating heat of the apartment building below. Air conditioning no longer worked in any of the buildings here, given that power was extremely limited inside the city walls. It was a tropical furnace in most of the rooms, even with the windows and doors open in an attempt to create a breeze.
Jon suspected they’d also moved up here to utilize the denser construct that had been erected for the “bonding” ritual of the night before.
It was difficult to think about any of that right now, though.
Flickers of the night before remained in Jon’s light, more than he’d had time to process in the hours since. Given what he’d woken up to, the note from Revik and his brother-in-law missing, Jon hadn’t even had time to be embarrassed.
Even so, certain images still stood out in his mind’s eye, things he knew he’d have trouble shaking any time soon.
Jon couldn’t believe less than twelve hours had passed since he’d fallen asleep.
When the silence deepened, Allie cleared her throat.
“Is there a problem with that?” she said. “With what I said? If so, we should discuss. The logistics, I mean.”
There was no emotion in her voice. None whatsoever.
Again, no one spoke.
Allie cleared her throat a second time.
“She’s got radio silence on her end,” she added. “…Chan.
But I think I can catch up with her before she reaches Mumbai. I’ll bring Talei with me. And Neela, if that’s all right. And Raddi and Illeg. Maybe a few others. We can keep all of the same security protocols. Balidor will be the ranking officer while I’m gone. Assuming that’s agreeable to you, brother Wreg.”
Jon glanced at the muscular Chinese seer. Wreg didn’t look up, but motioned a vague acquiescence with his fingers, murmuring,
“Of course, Esteemed Bridge.”
Allie nodded, her eyes back on the horizon past the edge of the roof.
“Good. You will continue to have authority over all military matters, of course. But someone’s got to be in charge. I figured Balidor made the most sense…”
Her words trailed off, as if she intended to say more, then didn’t.
The silence thickened.
Looking around at the stone-like faces of the seers sitting on the same side of the table as him, Jon felt a heavier pain return to his chest. Seeing the blank, grieving looks deepen in their respective lights and expressions, something in him broke.
He spoke, blurting out words before he knew he meant to.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice held disbelief, along with a harder accusation. “Are you fucking kidding me, Al?”
Brother–– Wreg warned.
Fuck off! Jon snapped back at him, switching to his mind. Are you really all just going to sit here and say nothing while she does this? What is the matter with you? Did the two of them fucking drug all of you while you slept?
Wreg didn’t answer.
Jon looked back at Allie, feeling his jaw clench.
Somewhere in that silence, her green eyes had shifted from the horizon to his face. She studied him clinically, like she didn’t know him but was trying to assess what he might do. Jon saw her almond eyes narrow, her mouth firming as she looked him over with her light.
He didn’t feel any anger there, or even a shred of defensiveness. He couldn’t feel any emotion at all. If anything, she looked puzzled, thoughtful.
Even so, he didn’t give her the chance to shut him up.
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