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

by JC Andrijeski

  I grimaced again. I tried not to remember the look of adoration in the kid’s eyes when he’d first seen me.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

  “But I’m not, little bird.”

  “Stop fucking calling me that!”

  At his delighted grin, I bit my lip. My mother had called me bird, little bird, Allie-bird. The same mother Terian bled to death over what had to have been an extremely long couple of hours. I knew why he was doing it, but it made me want to kill him with my bare hands, each and every time he said it.

  He trailed fingers over my neck. I jerked from his touch.

  “He was incredibly jealous, you know,” he added, softer. “I can’t say I blame him. I’ve wanted to kill Revi’ more than once myself.”

  I swallowed, keeping silent with an effort.

  “He’ll calm down, I think,” Terian mused. “Yes. A blow job a night from his best girl should put things right as rain in his little world.”

  I made an involuntary face. “Jesus. You’re really sick.”

  He’d chuckled again.

  Lying on the floor of a different cage now, I remembered thinking at the time that there was something Terian wasn’t telling me.

  Ignoring the boy’s fingers in my hair, I scanned his words again, trying to decide if he’d given me any kind of hint about Nenzi’s true identity. I still had no idea if he was the same Nenzi who eventually turned into Syrimne.

  Even if he was that being… in some, inexplicable way… it didn’t explain how he thought he knew me, much less how he’d avoided aging in eighty-odd years.

  I tried not to think about the interview with that reporter, or the fact that it had gone out live on all the major feed channels.

  Two days earlier, I’d had my sentience status legally revoked by the World Court. I was owned now, by the United States government. There would be more hearings of course, more red tape. The other human governments were pitching fits, especially China. But there was no one left in the seer world to fight it––not legally, anyway. The Council of Seven no longer existed. Terian let me watch feeds covering the bombing in Seertown by persons unknown, and the surprise attack on the American military who came to “help.”

  It was American media, so I couldn’t be sure how much of it was true. For all I knew, Americans themselves did the bombing.

  The images of Seertown appeared to be irrefutable, though.

  The official seer government was finished. Seertown was now part of the militarized zone, and basically deserted.

  I knew that should be at the top of my list of concerns––and it was, to a degree. Where Vash was, whether my friends were okay, what Balidor had done with the Adhipan, who might have been killed in the fight––all of those questions kept me up at night, too.

  Yet somehow, what kept rising to the forefront of my mind was Revik seeing me on the feeds sitting in the Oval Office, bruised, wearing a low-cut dress, make-up and a collar, Terian’s arm wrapped around my shoulders.

  I knew Terian had his own reasons for wanting to provoke Revik. It didn’t help, knowing that, or that Revik would see through it.

  I jerked my head, and the collar clunked against my neck.

  It hurt. But it got my mind back to the present. It reminded me where I was. It also reminded me that I was blind. Revik wasn’t gone. I just couldn’t feel him. And if Nenzi and Terian were any indication, he couldn’t feel me, either.

  Which was likely the point of this collar, to keep Revik from tracking me.

  At the thought, a physical pain started in my chest.

  His hands were on me then, like they had been the night before.

  I tried to writhe from his fingers, but there was no where to go.

  “Nenzi, no. Stop it!”

  His hands caressed my back down to my rear, then the top of my legs. I felt his fingers tense as I moved as far back as the cuffs allowed. He caressed my inner thighs, then his hand slid higher…

  “No!” I said, craning my neck. “Stop it! I don’t want you to. Please stop!”

  After a pause, he removed his hands, looking down at my face.

  His eyes glowed a faint, pale green.

  “Please,” he said softly. He touched my cheek. “Please, Allie.”

  “No!” I made a sharp negative gesture with my fingers. “No!”

  His eyes closed, longer than a blink. He caught my hair, holding it tightly in his small fingers. He caressed my back with his other hand, and I saw him look at my body even as I avoided looking at his.

  I was aware now that he wasn’t wearing any clothes… a fact I’d purposefully avoided when I looked at him earlier. I felt the smallness of his hands, saw the whiteness of his skin in my peripheral vision, the thin chest and spider-like arms.

  He looked so young.

  I recoiled under his stare.

  “Please,” I said. “Please, leave me alone.”

  “What can I do?” Frustration grew audible in his voice. He sounded older to me, like he did sometimes. Less the frightened boy and more like… someone else. He caressed my face. He tried to touch my breast, but I pulled away from that, too.

  “You want it,” he said softly. “I can feel it. You want me to touch you.” Desire thickened his voice. “What do you want?”

  Tears came to my eyes, which only made me angrier. “Please, let me go!”

  “Go?” His voice held surprise. “Go where?”

  I bit my lip. If I mentioned Revik it would only infuriate him.

  I blurted, “Anywhere I’m not a prisoner! Anywhere but here, with him.”

  He touched my fingers again, his own soft. “Is it because you’re tied?” he said. “Should I untie you?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding. “Yes. Untie me.”

  His eyes studied mine. He looked older again, wary, and faintly aggressive. There was something else there, too. Something I almost recognized.

  “I could do it anyway,” he said. “I could fuck you. You can’t stop me.”

  I flinched at his words. My jaw hardened.

  “Yes,” I said. “You could. But I won’t like it, Nenzi. It’ll make me feel sick. I’ll find you disgusting.” I paused, letting that sink in. I saw from his eyes that it had. “And I’ll never like you again, Nenzi. Never. I’ll feel sick every time you touch me. I’ll want to throw up.”

  Seeing his frown deepen, I bit my lip.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” I blurted. “We can be friends. Just take off the collar. Untie me, and take off the collar. We can…” I choked a little on the words. “…make love. Then we can leave here. We can go together.”

  Light pulsed in his irises.

  Briefly, it put me back there, with Revik. I found myself remembering his face, what he’d looked like in the dark.

  I saw desire in this boy’s eyes, too. He might have been thinking about taking me up on my offer. I couldn’t tell though, not really, and I wasn’t letting myself think about it too clearly, not yet. Without access to my light, I could only try to connect the dots by what he said, by his body language, the look in his eyes.

  It was frustrating, staring at that pale, serious face, trying to decide whether I should say more, or just keep silent.

  Eventually, he released my hair, slumping to the floor beside me.

  He lay there on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  His hand settled on his crotch. I didn’t look down, not exactly thrilled with the prospect of watching him pleasure himself, either… but he didn’t. He looked at me instead, his face only a foot from mine, the shocking green light in his eyes beginning to fade, tendrils swimming liquidly in tiny veins in his irises.

  Shifting to his side, he propped his jaw on his hand, still studying my face, then looking down at the rest of me. He reached up and began stroking my hair.

  His face seemed less tense.

  “I’ll wait,” he said. “I don’t want you making bargains. Not for him.”

  I didn’t have to ask
who he meant. He was talking about Revik.

  “You’ll love me again,” he said, softer. “You will.”

  Watching the faint green glow continue to pulse behind his dark irises, I let him stroke my hair. I have no idea what I could have said.

  38

  NENZI

  IT WAS DAYLIGHT.

  I was sitting up when I opened my eyes––not cuffed naked on my stomach to an organic metal floor. There was no dark, ice-cold, six-by-eight cell with a seer kid groping my bare skin. There were no organic binders.

  But where I was, it wasn’t real.

  I sat by a waterfall, in a high-domed, virtual room.

  Two nondescript porters watched over the doors. They ignored me while I stuck a foot in the water, watching it run over my VR skin. Birds flitted by, perching briefly on the thin branches of small trees before leaving again with a flick of their wings.

  My eyes drifted up to meet a giant sun dome.

  Through the glass, I could see red rock cliffs, and beyond that, a deep blue, cloudless sky. The room’s proportions were massive; they strained the mind. The naked rock face made up one whole wall, jutting unevenly into the room in a steep slope that curved inward towards a metal ceiling. Several waterfalls ran down rocks in decorative streams, adorned with desert flowers, twisted pines, and what looked like sage, cactus.

  I could smell the flowers, even without my sight. I could feel the water, cool on my bare feet.

  I wore a silk dress, slit on either side up to my thighs. It was pale green, presumably to match my eyes. My hair was wound up on top of my head with flowers poking through artistic curls. A jeweled necklace replaced the one I’d worn in reality for months––a clunky silver chain that held Revik’s mother’s ring. I touched it with my fingers, eyes closed, trying to feel the other one through the mirage.

  I only felt the smooth, cut sides of glass-like stones, along with the sharper edges of the decorative silver settings.

  Briefly, I saw Revik in my mind’s eye, his eyes narrow as he stared at the ring. He’d told me the first finger, the one where he wore my father’s ring, meant he was owned. It was a way seers signaled to one another they were married in the human world.

  I took my hand off my neck, opening my eyes.

  I watched Nenzi wander closer to the rock face a dozen yards from where I sat. His eyes shifted up, taking in the shape of a hawk as it winged by on the other side of the glass dome. I was still watching him, my foot dipped in the waterfall, when the Scandinavian Terian sat down beside me.

  I didn’t look over.

  Yet, when I saw him place something on the floor by his feet, I glanced at it. Some kind of glass wand, it was ornately carved, almost like antique crystal. Staring at it, I hesitated, considering asking him about it.

  I didn’t when I saw him watching my face.

  He smiled at me, his eyes briefly flashing a dim kind of desire. I found myself wondering if it was for sex, or something else.

  His eyes followed mine back to the boy.

  “I thought at first he needed a mother,” he said conversationally, watching Nenzi over by the rocks. “Someone to pat his head, tell him everything was going to be all right.” He smiled faintly, raising an eyebrow at me. “He knew you by name. It was just so intriguing. I wanted to bring you two kids together just to see what would happen.”

  I hid my surprise that he was volunteering information, nodding without expression as I glanced at the boy.

  “He knew who I was,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I believe I just said that, yes.”

  “Is he… real?” I looked at Terian. “Is he who I think he is? Or some kind of copy, or clone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I watched Nenzi hold out a hand, whistle softly to a songbird with a crimson head. It landed delicately on his finger, flapping its wings a little to balance on its new perch. I wondered if the boy knew the bird wasn’t real. He smiled at it, making soft noises in reply as the bird sang and chirped at him.

  “It’s like a dream, seeing him here.” Realizing I’d spoken aloud, I felt my jaw harden. “How is it he’s so young?”

  “Physically, he’s probably…” Terian made a mental calculation, tilting his head as he looked at the boy. “…Twenty? Twenty-one?” He smiled at me. “Are you ageist? I assure you, young seers are quite virile. Of course, he may suffer from the same stamina issues you seem to be cursed with in your mates.”

  My jaw tightened more. Just when I thought I might get some actual answers from him, I remembered who he was.

  I chose to pretend I hadn’t heard the last.

  “That’s not what I meant.” I looked at him. “Terian, is he a clone?”

  Terian shrugged. He glanced at me. Looking down over my body in the green dress, his eyes turned momentarily hard.

  “You can’t refuse him forever, Alyson,” he murmured. The amber eyes flickered sideways to mine, then settled back on the boy. “Pull a stunt like that again… offering him sex to free you… to hurt me… and I’ll lock you in a Barrier construct and let a platoon of Wellington’s soldiers have their way with you for a month.”

  His mouth tightened in a faint smile. “I’ll give them props and everything.”

  When I glanced up, Terian’s eyes remained utterly still.

  Taking in the expression there, I felt my chest tighten.

  I remembered this man tortured Revik, Jon and Cass for something like six months straight, beating Revik nearly to death. Jon told me Terian would try to have conversations with Revik while he did it. Not to get information, or even to feign interrogating him. No, he’d talk to him about the weather, reminisce about the old days, tell jokes.

  I had a particularly brutal image burned into my brain of him cutting off Jon’s fingers while asking Revik what had happened to drive a wedge between them as friends.

  Jon didn’t tell me that. Neither did Revik.

  I got that accidentally one day while Jon stared at his mutilated hand.

  I also saw him raping Cass in one of her angry moments, and one of Jon’s sad ones. I caught glimpses of things related to Revik, too, but for some reason, Cass and Jon were even more protective about him than they were of themselves.

  Maybe because I was married to him, or maybe because he’d asked them not to think about those things around me––or maybe for other reasons I didn’t want to contemplate too closely––I rarely picked up on much about Revik’s specific experiences with Terian.

  I looked again at the boy.

  Unlike Revik, I meant nothing to Terian. I was purely an asset.

  Like that prostitute the other Nenzi had as a kid, my only real protection was the boy. I let my eyes follow him as he gazed up the red rock face. The first bird had flown off, but he was watching the others, his eyes holding a fevered concentration.

  “He’d never stand for it,” Terian murmured. “But it is quite tempting.”

  When I looked up, the shark-like smile appeared again. A deathly seriousness lived in those amber-colored eyes.

  “Torturing you,” he clarified. “That was what you were worrying your pretty head about just now… wasn’t it? Please tell me my knack for reading anguished facial expressions hasn’t gone entirely.”

  I didn’t answer. His eyes once more drifted down my body.

  “You’ve grown up, little bird,” he said. “I see why our wonder boy is smitten… and why Revi’ couldn’t control himself once he finally got his cock in you.” He paused, probably for effect. “You’re quite a lovely specimen, even banged up as you are. Not that you weren’t before, mind you. But your beauty has, shall we say… matured.”

  I snorted; I couldn’t help it.

  “Gee,” I said. “Thanks, Terry.”

  He smiled, and that time it touched his eyes. “Do you know you’re even beginning to sound like him? Your mate?”

  “Which mate is that?” I said dryly, glancing at the boy.

  “The other one.” Patting me on
the knee, he crossed his ankles, folding his arms as he joined me in watching the boy climb on the red rocks. “I made him a promise, you know. Regarding you. I haven’t forgotten.”

  I didn’t want to know what that meant.

  “You know,” Terian added. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’m simply dying of curiosity…”

  “That’s good news,” I muttered.

  He chuckled, but his eyes remained serious. “The telekinesis,” he said. “What you did to Elan’s boy, Maygar. What you demonstrated last year, on the bridge in Seattle. In that diner in San Francisco. However do you do it?”

  Looking at him, I folded my arms, re-crossing my legs.

  Now it made sense.

  He told me about the boy because he wanted me to tell him something. I should have known. Inadvertently, it convinced me of something else; he really couldn’t read me through the collar.

  “Why do I always get the funny version of you?” I said.

  The amber eyes swiveled in my direction.

  “I’m quite serious,” he said, and sounded it. “It normally takes at least a decade of intense training for a manipulator to manifest the level of telekinetic ability you have done with absolutely none. I’ve studied your aleimic structures, and I see no evidence of training of any kind. I looked for markers that Revi’ may have tried to structure your aleimi prior to awakening you––he did not. I saw nothing between the two of you, in fact, but the structure you created from taking him as a mate. There is no evidence he has trained you at all.”

  “He trained me a little,” I said, shrugging. “On the ship.”

  Terian waved this off, dismissive.

  “Training, despite your rather charming view of it being a sort of weekend seminar affair, perhaps with pie charts and snacks at break-time, is a rather intensive ordeal. By training, I mean continuous work to activate your aleimic structures. You have done little to none of that, even for regular sight skills… much less what I am talking about. You are a complete virgin in this.”