Pain writhed through him at the memory, slanting out his vision.
Gaos. She’d been making love to the son of a bitch. She hadn’t just been fucking him. She’d been making love to him… letting him make love to her.
She couldn’t be faking that, could she?
He’d felt the desire there, the intensity behind the sex––her wanting. She’d been half out of her mind with it, fighting it and him. There’d been aggression there, anger, fear. There’d been other, softer emotions, things that made her feel worse. She’d wanted him badly enough that it scared her, that she felt like shit about it.
How could she be faking that?
He’d tried to see more. He’d tried to see who he was, what they were doing. Some part of him needed to see it. Whatever he saw, he figured it could never be as bad as what his mind invented. Something like that probably should have made him feel guilty, dirty, invasive, but instead he only felt frustrated that he’d been thwarted. He felt betrayal that she’d locked him out, that she wouldn’t include him. It hurt his goddamned feelings.
She’d protected him. Not Revik––him. The other guy.
She’d fucking protected the bastard from Revik himself.
He’d asked her, point blank, who the guy was. She wouldn’t tell him. She’d forced him out of her light, that guilt seething off her like a bad smell.
His mind fought with the tastes he’d gotten, trying to feel past her shield.
He tried not to think about who it was, but his mind obsessed on that, too.
Balidor? Gaos. It wasn’t Balidor was it?
He’d almost gotten a flavor of Adhipan, something that felt familiar, known to him, but he couldn’t pin that down either. She’d said her bodyguard was off the table, that he wouldn’t work for some reason, so it had to be someone else.
He’d asked her to stay away from Balidor. She’d fucking promised him she would stay away from Balidor, that she wouldn’t sleep with the Adhipan leader again.
Would she have broken that vow to him, too?
He was losing her. He was fucking losing his wife. He could feel it.
Who the fuck was she with? Who could have made her light react like that?
Revik forced the memory out of the front of his mind even as he clenched his jaw harder, hard enough to hurt his teeth. He had to get out of here.
He had to get the fuck out of here.
Raven continued to follow him, that amusement lilting her words.
“Do you really want my help in finding a name, brother?” she said, smiling. “I could ask around. Find out who’s monitoring the channels there. Ask me, Revi’. Ask me to find out who’s fucking your wife.”
He clenched his jaw, not answering her.
“I’m sure we can negotiate… something.”
Feeling the pull of her light, he turned before he could stop himself. When he looked into her eyes, she smiled wider, right before her gaze slid down to his crotch.
He came to a dead stop.
Igniting the telekinesis, he slammed out at her, before he could pull it back.
He hit her, hard, right in the middle of her body. Watching her fly backwards, he barely took a breath before her back slammed into the hardwood wall decorated with small carvings, easily ten feet from where he stood.
For a long-feeling few seconds, she looked dazed, like she had no idea what happened. She leaned her weight against the wall, her normally perfect, long black bob a mess over her face, her hair covering one eye and stuck to her lips.
She stared at him. She stared at his face.
Understanding bled into those bright blue irises.
Her eyes widened in fear, her face paling to the color of chalk.
“Revi’!” She gasped, barely able to fight out words. Her fist pressed against her chest. Her voice grew openly afraid. “Revi’… gaos, don’t. Don’t kill me, Revi’!”
She fought to breathe, fear bleeding out of her light. Blood trickled down from her hairline, her face contorting in panic as she held up a hand.
“Revi’, Maygar. Maygar! Don’t kill the mother of your son! I love him. He loves me.” Tears brimmed her eyes. “Please, brother! Father of my son… please!”
Struggling against his own light, he stood there, fighting to breathe.
He couldn’t fucking breathe.
It felt like a long number of minutes went by.
More than he could count.
Then he turned on his heel, walking out of the room.
That time, he didn’t look back.
42
AN OPEN DOOR
HIS MIND BLANKED. Lost for however long he lay there after he rolled off her, after he rested on his back, watching the ceiling spin behind his eyes.
He was drunk. He knew he was drunk. He barely remembered how he’d gotten here, much less any of the preamble before he took off her clothes… before she undressed him.
He’d tried to open his light.
He’d tried––but that time, he hadn’t been able to do it.
He couldn’t fucking do it. It didn’t matter what he told himself. It didn’t matter how closely he knew he was being watched. He couldn’t make himself want to, no matter whose face he pictured behind his eyes. No matter what he told himself about why.
He could only lay there now, in so much pain he couldn’t see.
He didn’t think he’d had an orgasm either, but he might have. He couldn’t remember coming, but he supposed it didn’t matter, either way.
His vision blurred as he stared up at the ceiling.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt that longing to die he remembered from when he was a kid. He had to fight it back, like he had then. When that didn’t work, all he could do is ignore it, like he had then. Pain suffocated him as the thought grew real, as his chest clenched more, trying to crush him from the inside out.
He fought Lily out of his light. Allie––
He felt the unwilling near him again, but he didn’t look up. He couldn’t see, didn’t know where he was anymore. He just wanted her to go away.
He wanted all of them to go away.
“Revi’,” she said, her voice soft, coaxing. “Revi’, honey… come here.”
Like with an animal. Like someone would talk to an animal.
“Revi’.” She caressed his hands, his chest, his arms, feeding him light. “Revi’… calm down, brother. It’s all right. Calm, brother… calm.”
Her voice grew softer, more soothing. She moved closer to him, lying less than a foot away, feeding him warmer light. Her fingers touched his face.
“I’m sorry, brother,” she murmured. “I am sorry, Illustrious Sword. I should be helping you more with this. It is my fault.”
He let out a strangled laugh.
Jerking from her touch, he felt her flinch back.
He didn’t look at her.
He didn’t look at anything.
“Don’t you want to pretend I’m her, lover?” She spoke softly, rubbing his arm cautiously, massaging the muscle with her fingers. “We can do it like we did the other night. You can use her name, brother. I don’t mind. You can do it whenever you want. Really, truly, brother, I don’t mind. It’s beautiful, how much you love her…”
He shook his head, even as his chest tightened more.
She continued to massage his body with her hands, and Revik closed his eyes, fighting to relax, to pull himself out of that dark. To ignore it, at least.
As if she sensed him trying, her voice grew lighter, almost cheerful.
“Did you hear the rumors, brother?”
He closed his eyes, feeling his jaw harden. “No more rumors today, sister. Please.”
She smiled at him though, caressing his face and jaw.
“I just wondered which part of them were true,” she said, her voice a smile. “I know some are outrageous. All this talk about rooms filled with gold and expensive art. Labs filled with Elaerian hybrids, with enough food to last through to the end o
f the world.”
Revik blinked up at the ceiling, fighting confusion.
Replaying her words, he frowned. His mind cleared slightly.
“What?” he said finally. He turned his head. “What are you talking about, sister?”
“The underground compartment, brother,” she said, her voice still cheerful. Smiling, she rubbed his stomach with her hands, feeding him light. “They say it stretches farther than the City walls. That it is so deep, none knew it existed. The stories are wild. Some say there are horses down there. Seer children with pale white eyes who can manipulate objects with their light. Rooms and rooms of jewels and organic computers that can think and reproduce…”
It took a few seconds for her words to penetrate.
He opened his eyes, fighting his light back around his body.
He looked up at her, and saw her smiling at him.
The Chinese seer had light blue eyes, tinged with enough green they gave him a hard-on the first time he’d seen her. By then, he missed his wife so badly he was picking out unwillings almost exclusively according to how much they reminded him of her, either in their light or some element in their physical appearance.
This one was kind-hearted, too.
She was also more understanding than most about his desire to open to them, but only under certain conditions.
He didn’t want to think about how many of these consort seers might know Allie.
He didn’t want to do know if this one did, or if that was the true reason for her kindness towards him in relation to his wife. He’d told them not to tell him if they did know her. He’d told this one that––or he was reasonably sure he had.
But then, he didn’t sleep with any of them more than a few times.
He figured his wife would prefer that.
He fought to think back on what the unwilling had just said, if only to distract himself from his current train of thought, where his mind still wanted to go. His thoughts ran on a repeating loop lately, like his own form of self-torture, a masochistic itch he could never quite scratch. Drinking didn’t stop that loop, not unless he drank himself unconscious.
He fought to remember what caught his attention.
In playing back her words, his mind clicked on for real.
He sat up, rubbing his face with a hand as he propped his weight up with his other arm.
“What?” he said. He blinked at her, fighting to get his mind working again, to push past the effects of the alcohol, past the feelings he’d been drowning in since that morning.
“What did you say?” he said.
“The underground chamber.” She smiled faintly, a pulse of relief leaving her light that her distraction was working. “That’s where those other soldiers went, isn’t it? The ones you brought here with you?”
Revik’s jaw tightened.
He scanned her light, doing his best to keep the evidence of his scan off his face and expression. He couldn’t get much. Not because he was drunk, but because she didn’t seem to know much. He got images of her eavesdropping, hearing soldiers of Shadow’s talking while they visited the consort chambers.
He saw them talking, laughing, oblivious to the consorts below them, sucking their cocks, or their cunts in some cases.
Seers could be such fucking idiots when it came to sex.
“Where?” he said only.
“Under the City.” Her voice and eyes grew puzzled, even as she slid closer, massaging his shoulder with practiced hands. “You know about this, brother. Surely. You are the leader here. You sent them down there, did you not?”
Revik let out a half-humorous snort. “Right.”
Still fighting to get his brain moving, he rubbed his face, blinking against the low light.
He met her gaze. “Did you hear them talk about the entrance to this place, sister?” He asked it more to direct her light, so he could read her. He didn’t really expect an answer. “Where did they find the way into this underground chamber?”
She clicked softly, a lulling, purring sound.
“I do not know.” She sighed, pulling on him sensually with her aleimi, massaging his back. “I hear only whispers… rumors. But Voi Pai is very angry. The soldiers laugh about this. She did not know the extent of this underground chamber, although it seems she knew something was there. I heard them say Voi Pai refused to grant them access at first.”
She frowned, shrugging, before her voice grew apologetic.
“Of course, I knew some of this. Voi Pai told us our alliance was broken with your leader, Shadow, back when the human plague first came to Beijing. To her, the invasion here is illegal. She believes the Chinese humans feel the same.” The unwilling continued to stroke his back, her mouth pursed. “She was in that underground chamber, though… with your people. The soldiers say they brought her down there. They made her open several doors.”
Revik nodded, fighting to keep his reactions out of his light.
Unlike Shadow’s grunts, he knew better than to underestimate the infiltration skills of the consorts here. He knew most were trained in those arts even more extensively than they were in sex. He also knew they’d used those skills for centuries to protect the sovereignty of the Lao Hu.
Apparently a good number of Shadow’s people didn’t get that memo.
Then again, most of them weren’t married to an ex-consort of the Lao Hu.
Fighting that out of his light, Revik continued to study the light of the unwilling.
“Will you show me, sister?” he said, polite. “Will you show me where this entrance is rumored to be?”
She looked nervous now though, as she studied his light.
Feeling the nature of her concern, he opened more, letting her look at him. He felt his transparency relax her slightly, but the thread of those nerves remained, vibrating where he could almost see them. She didn’t speak as her eyes slid over his face.
“Are you the leader here?” she said.
Shaking his head, he clicked at her ruefully. “No… and yes. Only in some respects, sister.”
“What does that mean, Illustrious Sword?”
“It means I am not truly one of them. Because of that, they do not trust me.” He met her gaze, opening his light still more, so she could feel his truth. “They do not tell me everything. I was not aware of this chamber at all, sister.”
A silence fell between them.
“I have a daughter,” she said, a thread of fear in her voice.
Revik felt his jaw harden. Nodding, he withdrew his light. “I understand.”
The fear grew more prominent in her light. “I would not deny you anything, Illustrious Brother. But I am a prisoner here. So is my child.”
He looked up, meeting her gaze. “I have a daughter, too,” he told her, softer. “It makes me a slave too, sister. So believe me when I say I understand. I will not ask you any more on this.”
He saw relief touch her eyes, even as his words seemed to touch her. She caressed his face, then leaned closer, kissing his mouth.
He felt her fighting back and forth inside her light.
Her fingers touched his face a second time, stroking his skin.
“By the main horse paddock,” she said softly, kissing his mouth. “Near the southwest wall, brother. The outer one. That is the place they discussed.”
Wrapping his hand into her dark hair, he kissed her back, sending a pulse of gratitude.
“Thank you, sister,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
He kissed her again, using his tongue that time, feeling a corresponding ripple in her light as she opened, tugging achingly on his aleimi. Fighting back the image of Allie that wanted to rise, he kissed her a last time then released her, climbing up off the sleeping mat.
His mind felt strangely clear as he searched for his clothes, pulling articles on one by one as he found them.
He fought to keep his mind level, his reactions to a minimum.
Even so, separation pain coiled back up through his light, along with a pale fli
cker that could only be hope. Real hope––something he hadn’t let himself feel in months. It was strong enough, tangible enough, he could almost delude himself into believing he might actually pull this off.
He might actually be able to go home.
Finally, a fucking break.
Tugging on his last shoe, he bowed to her, murmuring his thanks as he backed out through the open door. Closing the sliding panel behind him, he shielded his light for real, clicking into infiltrator mode as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
Once he had his bearings, he began to walk, moving soundlessly across the wooden floors of the consort building until he reached an exit leading to the nearest stone courtyard.
Walking out into the night air, he heard fountains splashing water over rocks, the whisper of winged creatures, what might have been bats, the soft chirps of crickets.
Otherwise, it was totally silent.
It had to be three in the morning. Give or take a half-hour.
His mind felt entirely clear now, for the first time in days.
Whatever alcohol remained in his system seemed to have evaporated.
Taking a deep breath of the cold night air, he exhaled silently, then began to walk, keeping his light cloaked as he headed west and then south, aiming his feet for the main gate.
He knew exactly where those paddocks were.
Some part of him found it almost humorous that he had been looking so hard with his light for Rigor and Tan and the rest, and they’d been under his feet all this time.
It was the kind of irony Menlim would appreciate.
Revik darkened his cloak, receding from the Barrier with his conscious mind even as he bounced another portion of his aleimi back at the consort hall, causing it to feign sleep as Balidor had taught him.
He knew it wouldn’t work for long. It should buy him time, though.
The entrance to that underground chamber would definitely be guarded––especially if this turned out to be what he suspected. He would deal with that when he found it.
He didn’t have time to be cautious about this.
He didn’t have time for some elaborate plan, or even the normal precautions.
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