Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  My skin turned cold as recognition filtered through my light.

  I knew who he was. I knew––even though I didn’t know this particular body.

  I lunged at the bureau where I knew Revik kept a gun.

  The Scandinavian darted after me. With cat-like speed, his hand gripped my ankle, yanking me roughly to the floor. I landed hard on my stomach. I tried to kick his hand away, but he dragged me backwards.

  I fought with my light, reaching for that folding sensation, trying to find it, recalling jumps with Tarsi. I fought to remember what I’d done to Maygar––

  The giant Terian punched me in the face.

  The boy turned on him, hissing.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” The Scandinavian held up his hands. “But you saw what she was doing! You don’t want her killing us, do you?”

  I struggled with my light again, trying again to control it. I pulled my body across the floor until his fingers gripped my ankle, dragging me back.

  “Terian…” I barely managed the name.

  I looked at the bureau, then around at the room.

  They’d taken Revik. They’d taken him.

  Terian caught me by the neck.

  “You won’t like this much,” he muttered. “Neither will he.” He glanced at the boy. “But your mind will start working again eventually, my dear. I’m afraid we have no choice.”

  I fought him, frantic now.

  I understood, finally, how badly I’d blown my chance.

  The collar wasn’t activated.

  I put every ounce of my energy towards using the telekinesis, wanting nothing more than to throw him off me like I had Maygar––throw him into a wall, break his back, make his head explode. But the reality was, I’d never been able to invoke it at will, despite months of practicing with every seer in the compound.

  I fought my way clear of the Scandinavian’s giant hands, tried to heave myself towards the bureau once I felt his fingers loosen, but he caught hold of the collar easily.

  I felt the boy stiffen, but Terian gave him a sharp look.

  “We talked about this,” he said. “Nenzi, you said you understood. You agreed with me, that it was necessary… just for a short while.”

  I saw anger rise to the boy’s eyes, but he didn’t move when Terian bent over me again.

  I shrieked when he turned me around, hitting out at him with my fists and elbows, fighting to writhe free, but Terian caught my hair in one hand, yanking my head forward. He held me expertly, bending my neck until I couldn’t move. He held me against his chest, ignoring my hands and feet frantically shoving and hitting at him.

  Then he pinched a nerve in my neck and shoulder. It paralyzed me briefly.

  I grew completely still.

  So did he. Light flashed from the retinal scanner as he hung over my neck.

  I heard a click.

  …and Terian released me, gliding smoothly to his feet.

  “There, there,” he murmured. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  Teeth bit into my skin. I let out a shocked cry, clawing at my neck.

  Whatever it was dug into my flesh––then it burrowed deeper. I shrieked as it worked past muscle to bone, wrapping around my spinal column. The strands wormed their way around every contour, coiling around nerves at the base of my neck. I started to shriek again, but Terian crouched, grabbing my arm.

  “Be silent!” he hissed. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill your mate! I won’t hesitate, Allie… so do not test me in this!”

  Gasping, I met his gaze, forced silent by his words.

  A shudder ran through me as it ended.

  The cold strands locked into place.

  The sharp touch of metal on bone not only hurt, it had a nauseating flavor that forced a gasp from my lips. I hung my head, sucking in breaths, swallowing down the bile that filled my mouth.

  “Fuck,” I gasped.

  I gripped the metal in my fingers, panicking as I realized I couldn’t see.

  I couldn’t see my light.

  The room was flat. It whited out, then grew at once dead and frighteningly two-dimensional. The collar no longer hurt, not other than that sickening feeling of metal flush against bone. I blinked my eyes, trying to focus.

  I realized I was trying to scan… couldn’t.

  I couldn’t feel him anymore. He was gone.

  Before, when I thought I’d lost him, he’d still been there in the background. Every time I’d looked for him, I could feel him. I could find him in some measure at least, however faint. He’d never been gone entirely before. Never. Even before I met him in the flesh, he’d been there, like an imaginary friend.

  Until now.

  Gasping, I fought full-fledged terror.

  The anxiety I’d felt whenever he left the room––it was nothing compared to this.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I didn’t feel human or seer, or remotely sane. If I’d known in which direction he lay, I would have crawled over broken glass. I yanked on the collar with both hands, screaming. I fought the Scandinavian Terian and the boy as if my life were at stake, but my mind was nearly blank.

  Terian pried my fingers off the collar, one by one.

  I felt the cold shock of more metal as he forced my wrists behind my back, locking cuffs around each one. I felt a sharp sting as a needle sank into my throat. He pinched a nerve in my neck with one hand when I started to struggle more violently.

  On then did I stop. I slumped on the wooden floor, breathing too hard. I didn’t move as he finished pushing down the stopper on the syringe.

  I looked at the boy.

  The world remained dead.

  The drug seeped a kind of artificial calm that worked over the edges of my awareness, but it didn’t help. A feeling of vulnerability came over me… so profound I couldn’t stop breathing, even after I was hyperventilating.

  I yanked against the cuffs, struggling irrationally to get them off.

  I lay my neck on the door jamb, trying to rub off the collar, oblivious now to the pain, to the vulnerable feeling in my neck. It was nothing compared to how lost I felt. I hooked the metal ring on a piece of wood, bracing my feet and yanking until my neck hurt for real. I felt it tearing where it penetrated my flesh.

  I groaned, but only fought harder, unable to lose the panicked feeling at not being able to feel him, or anything else.

  Terian jerked me off the door and turned me around, punching me in the face. The force of the blow sent me falling straight to my back, on my cuffed wrists.

  I lay there, winded, a flipped turtle.

  The boy whimpered, watching me.

  I looked up at him, and saw him tugging at Terian’s arm. The tears in his eyes looked fearful, almost frantic.

  Terian caressed the boy’s head. “There, there. It’s all right. She’ll be all right.” He exhaled, out of breath, combing disheveled blond hair out of his eyes. “We got what we came for. Be happy about that.”

  “Revik,” I managed. I could only repeat his name, until I wasn’t sure if it was aloud or in my head. “Revik…”

  Terian stared down at me with those unnerving yellow eyes.

  “Don’t fret, love,” he said. “We can’t kill him. Not anymore. Personally, I’d like to bring him along, but I’m afraid Nenz here won’t stand for it.”

  I struggled backwards, my cuffed hands digging into my back.

  There was no place to go. I tried to fight the Scandinavian off, but agony ripped through my spine when he grabbed me by the collar, yanking me to my feet. The drug made my legs wobble, but still hadn’t knocked me out.

  He shoved me towards the door, still holding the collar. I stumbled across a floor half-covered by rumpled wool rugs, littered with plates, clothes, a towel, what might have been broken glass.

  “Busy little bunnies you’ve been,” Terian muttered.

  He used the collar to steer me towards the living room, and straight for the front door.

  It occurred to me only then that I was naked. I struggl
ed against his hands, but he barely hesitated before forcing me outside. He shoved me down the wooden steps, holding the collar to keep me from falling.

  Then I saw him.

  Revik lay in a heap on the dirt below the wooden stairs. He was naked, too. His skin looked white but for the tattoos and his catalogue of scars… as well as what I’d done to him over the past however-many days. Four men stood over him. They must have drugged him, either before or after they shot him in the thigh.

  I saw the collar on his neck as his eyes met mine.

  “No!” He screamed when he saw Terian holding me. “No! No!”

  He fought in an open panic, struggling to get to his hands and knees.

  One of the seers kicked him in the side and I shrieked, fighting like a wild person against Terian’s hands. Half picking me up when I attacked him, Terian turned me around, yanking me backwards by the metal cuffs.

  He caught me around the throat, holding me against his chest.

  “Revi’!” Terian shouted. “Revi’! Calm yourself!”

  “Get your fucking hands off her! Get your hands off her!”

  “Do you want her to kill herself? She already tried once inside!”

  “Let her go! I swear to the gods I’ll kill you––”

  “Did you hear me, Revi’? You must see reason, my friend!”

  “LET GO OF HER––”

  “Calm, Revi’! Calm!”

  “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt her!”

  Terian held me tighter. I felt tension in his hands.

  “We will not hurt her!” he said. “But we can’t have the two of you ripping yourselves apart, do you hear me? You know it’s a risk… you know it! Will you make her die for you?”

  He waited for that much to penetrate, for Revik to be looking at me again.

  Once it had, I felt Terian relax, but only marginally.

  “Good. Yes.” He took a breath, his voice still loud, but calmer. “You’ll get your chance, Revi’,” he said. “I promise you that. The boy doesn’t want you with us. We can’t kill you, which means we have to let you go. I’ll even call your friends in the Adhipan once we’re safely away, if you––”

  “No!” Revik struggled to get up, but one of the seers placed a foot on his shoulder, forcing him down. “Don’t take her! Please… gods, I’ll give you anything you want. Anything!” He fought against the seer holding him. “I’ll help you rebuild it! I’ll help you, Terry!”

  He looked at my face, then back at the Scandinavian holding me.

  “I’ll do whatever you ask! Anything… I’ll fucking work for you, Terry! As long as you want! Don’t take her… please! Please, goddamn it!”

  Tears were running down my face.

  I felt Terian’s fingers tighten at his words, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Revik. The panic in his face debilitated me, even when I couldn’t feel his light. The collar he wore was hurting him; I could see it, but he barely seemed to notice. When he began fighting openly again, Terian slid a hand around my waist, holding me against him more deliberately.

  With his other hand, he cupped my breast.

  “Revi’… behave yourself! Or I’ll give you reason to complain.”

  Revik froze, his body taut, animal-looking once more.

  But it was the boy who spoke first, making me jump.

  “Get your hands off her!”

  The blond Terian turned his head at the same time I did. I stared at the boy, bewildered at the fury I saw in his eyes––well before it occurred to me to be grateful. He was staring up at the tall Terian, hands clenched at his sides.

  Terian hesitated a second longer. He looked between Revik and the boy.

  The boy stepped in front of him.

  “Let go of her,” Nenzi hissed. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  There was the barest pause, then the Scandinavian-looking seer took a step back. He released every part of me but the collar.

  “Thank you,” Revik said. “Thank you…”

  The boy looked at Revik, his fingers still balled into fists.

  “You. You disgusting shit!” His words held so much hatred I flinched. Like Terian had, I looked between the boy and Revik. “You don’t say anything about her! I should kill you for touching her…” He looked at me, breathing harder, then back at Revik. “Rapist! Fucking pervert rapist! I saw you hurt her!”

  “Nenzi!” I said, stunned. “He didn’t hurt me!”

  Revik looked at me. His eyes grew liquid once more, just before they ran down the length of my body.

  “No,” he said, hoarse. “No. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Yes, you did! Look at her!”

  “He didn’t hurt me!” I said, angry. I turned on Revik, my voice warning. “Revik––look at your own body before you start complaining about mine!”

  My words seemed to snap him out, briefly at least.

  “How do you know this kid?” he said.

  “Tarsi. It’s a long story. He shouldn’t be here…”

  “Shouldn’t be here?” Revik said. “What does that mean?”

  “Stop talking to her––” the boy began angrily, but I cut him off.

  “Nenzi!” I said. “He’s my husband!” Terian chuckled a little behind me, but his eyes held a sharp interest when I glanced back at his face. He was looking between Revik and the boy and me, listening to us.

  I kept talking, struggling to balance on my toes.

  “Nenzi, you’re the one hurting me. You and this psycho friend of yours! If you cared about me at all, you’d let Revik go. You’d kill this sonofabitch and let us both go!”

  Nenzi remained focused on Revik.

  “I know what you did,” he said. “I saw it.”

  Revik snarled, “Listen to her, you little psychopath! If you really want to help her––”

  “Is this why you had me imprisoned? To steal her from me?”

  “What?” Revik stared from me back to him. “What are you talking about?” He looked at me and stopped, pain softening then hardening his features––until both of us were lost there. I saw his eyes blur, realized he was still trying to reach me. Pain stood out in his eyes as he strained against the collar. Eventually he stopped, gasping, as the collar shocked him harder.

  His gaze dropped to the one around my neck––right before he lunged.

  A male seer caught him by the hair, holding him back. Fear exploded over his features again as he looked at me, a panic he aimed at the boy.

  “Boy, please!” Tears came to his eyes. “He’ll hurt her!”

  “No. He promised.”

  “He’s a fucking liar! Are you really that stupid?”

  The boy’s eyes glowed brighter. Staring at his round face, I realized I recognized that look. I’d seen it at Tarsi’s.

  “No!” I screamed. I fought Terian, trying to get between the boy and Revik. Terian released me and I managed to get down to my knees, in front of the boy.

  “No! Don’t hurt him! Nenzi, please. I’ll go with you. Just don’t hurt him!”

  Revik’s face contorted in pain. “Allie! Baby… don’t!”

  I tore my eyes off him to plead with the boy. “Please, Nenzi,” I whispered. “I’ll go with you. Just please… don’t hurt him… please…”

  The boy continued to stare at Revik, but I saw the light in his eyes flicker, then dim, just before he glanced at me. Looking down at my body, he took in the length of me, his lips pressed together. He seemed about to say something, when he turned towards Terian, his gaze suddenly sharp.

  “No,” he said coldly, in response to something Terian had thought.

  The Scandinavian Terian’s voice grew cautious. “They’ve consummated. I assume you won’t want to test that by letting him die of exposure.”

  “Boy,” Revik said. “Please! Listen to her! You can’t trust him!”

  Nenzi caught hold of my arm, gripping it tight enough to hurt. I winced, avoiding his eyes as he looked at my body again. His dark eyes shifted up, meeting T
erian’s behind me. His voice grew cold as ice, and suddenly much older.

  “You touch her like that again, and I’ll cut off your cock and make you eat it,” he said. His black eyes glimmered a faint green. “Understand?”

  “Of course, my friend. Of course. It was only to annoy Dehgoies.”

  Nenzi looked back at me. The expression there made me nervous.

  “He’ll come after us,” Terian said. “He won’t be able to help himself.” His voice grew cajoling. “If you bring him with us now, we could control him. You would still get what you wanted, my young friend… only safer. For her, too.”

  Nenzi gestured an emphatic “no,” still staring at me.

  “He doesn’t have anything I want,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  I met Revik’s gaze, trying to think past the screaming in my mind.

  I couldn’t decide if there was anything I could do, anything I could say that would make a difference. They had him chained to the steps. He’d been shot in the thigh. His face contorted in pain whenever he tried to move––or use his sight. He was bruised, beat up, overly thin. The wound in his leg looked like it had already cost him a lot of blood. Blood seemed to be everywhere, shocking against his pale skin.

  Terian said he wasn’t going to let him die.

  I saw Revik looking at my face, almost as if he’d guessed what I was thinking. His eyes filled with tears. His voice thickened.

  “No, Allie.” He shook his head. “No. Please, baby. Please.”

  Terian grasped me by the collar from behind. With a single, sharp pull, he yanked me ungracefully to my feet. I cried out, losing my balance so that I hung from his fingers. The boy grabbed my arm, glaring up at Terian.

  “Stop hurting her!”

  “If you’re not going to bring him, we have to separate them!” Terian said. “It’s time to go. Now, Nenzi!”

  Nenzi looked at Revik, then at me. He nodded towards Terian.

  “All right.”

  “No!” Revik screamed, fighting the hands holding him.

  Jerking me sideways by the collar, Terian began dragging me towards the gate and the field. I heard Revik’s anguished cry and nearly lost my mind. Craning backwards to look at him, I let out a scream as well, struggling against Terian.