“Nik?” I said. “Do you need me to say it some other way?”
His face smoothed, even as I watched.
Before I could make sense of the expression forming there, he caught hold of me around the waist and leg, pushing me back down to the couch. I let out a yelp of surprise but it was more than half a laugh that time, even before he lay down on top of me. Once he had me there, and held my wrists in both of his hands, he stared at my face again, his expression serious, but also carrying a heat I recognized.
“No,” he said. “That was enough.”
Smiling up at him, I laughed again.
“If Gantry kisses you again,” he informed me next. “I’m going to punch him.”
I laughed louder that time. “Your funeral, man.”
Nik smiled back, but that heat never lessened in his eyes. Looking up at him, I realized he wasn’t responding because he didn’t have to. I also realized that in any real fight between him and Gantry, it would probably be Gantry who’d end up in the hospital.
Somehow, the thought shocked me a little.
I guess I’d bought into the whole indestructible marine thing more than I’d realized.
More than that, it hit me suddenly, why Gantry was so angry about me being with Nik. Gantry knew Nik was stronger than him, too. He’d known that all along...or for a good long while, anyway, maybe not long after he found out what Nik was.
Gantry was afraid of him.
Before I got much further in that train of thought, Nik lowered his head.
He kissed me, so gently it disarmed me, even as I felt a flood of affection towards me through the lock link we shared. I kissed him back, doing it almost before I could wrap my head around what we were doing, where it would probably go this time, despite all of the stops and starts of the last however-many times we’d started this and gotten interrupted, freaked out, or whatever else seemed to always come between us.
A few minutes after that, the last of my misgivings were pretty much wiped out of my mind.
Maybe I really am a bit dumb when it comes to Nik.
I didn’t really think so, though.
I knew Nik was dangerous. I even knew he might be a threat to national security in some sense, just like Gantry said. But I didn’t really believe it. I also didn’t believe he was dangerous to me. In fact, I was ninety-nine percent sure he was the opposite.
Whatever Gantry feared of Nik’s strength or his intelligence or his shape-shifting, I knew Nik. I knew he’d never hurt me. I knew he’d never hurt anyone, of his race or mine, unless he had a damned good reason.
At that point, that was enough.
Hell, life is dangerous.
I first learned that when I was a kid, when Jake and me were constantly being left on our own by our drunk mother. I learned it in foster homes, from bullies at school, from guys who followed me home in New York...and lately, from my job.
Evers wasn’t the first psycho I’d met, memorable though he was.
I didn’t need any more lessons that sometimes people can be bad.
And okay, maybe Gantry wasn’t used to people being stronger than he was, but I was. I’d dealt with that my whole life, too, in one fashion or another, despite the fact that I’m pretty good with a gun, and not a half-bad fighter.
So yeah, I knew what Nik could do. But I also knew it didn’t matter.
In my world, there’s always someone stronger.
What matters isn’t what people can do...it’s what they actually do.
And really, at the end of the day, all that ever protects you is love.
For a sample of another series by JC Andrijeski, try the ALLIE’S WAR series, including prequel novel, BIRTH: ALLIE’S WAR EARLY YEARS
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THE GATE SHIFTER SERIES is an unusual shifter romance centering on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth. Part urban fantasy, part detective series, part paranormal romance, part science fiction adventure, the Gate Shifter series explores crime solving, interstellar warfare and alien romance with the least likely candidates imaginable.
THE ALLIE’S WAR SERIES is a dark, unique and gritty urban fantasy romance involving a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled unpredictable twists.
THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES is a dystopian new adult romance about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she must learn to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, their modern day version of the coliseum where she must fight just to survive.
More Books by JC Andrijeski
“Seeking Truth Through Made-Up Worlds”
Bonus Pages!
See below for an excerpt from BIRTH: ALLIE’S WAR EARLY YEARS
or visit jcandrijeski.com for a list of vendors and links
1
UNDERGROUND
“That’s not something we hear in here often, brother...”
Revik looked up sharply. Almost before he knew he’d done it, his body tensed into a near-fighting stance. He hadn’t heard the other male walk in. He hadn’t heard the door.
“...The music, that is,” the other seer clarified.
The seer smiled at him, holding up a hand in a peace gesture when Revik’s stance didn’t immediately relax.
Waiting until he’d at least stepped back, eliminating the most aggressive aspect of his posture, the other male changed the direction of his gesture at once, without a single hint of accusation, or even a real question. Revik followed the monk’s movements with his hand. Then he followed the other male’s eyes back over his own shoulder, towards the small music player and its somewhat crackly speakers.
It blared a poor recording of one of his old albums. Sitting on a bookshelf, the player emitted music from inside the cabinet built into the stone wall of Revik’s small, cell-like room.
Somewhere in those few ticks of silence, Revik understood the monk’s remark.
His eyes shifted back towards the older seer. Like most of the permanent residents here, the male wore a loose-fitting, sand-colored robe, and a guileless smile.
“What is it, brother?” the monk asked curiously, his light blue eyes holding a flicker of interest. “The music you are playing...it is human, is it not?”
Revik fought to stifle a snort.
Gods. He’d been lost in his own kind of bubble over the past few years, but never in his life had he encountered beings as out of touch with the wider world than the traditional seers who lived here, in the enclave of the Parmir.
He’d already been warned to curb his sarcasm, though, especially with the senior monks.
Another element of “negativity” in his overall make-up, Revik supposed.
“It is, brother,” he said. “...Human.”
“And what is it called?” the seer asked, his eyes and voice still openly curious. “It has a name, does it not? This type of music? Would I know it?”
Fighting the pounding in his head, that denser feeling of claustrophobia that tugged at Revik’s chest whenever he was in the stone room for too long, he kept his blank, infiltrator’s mask in place, making an inviting gesture with one hand for the seer to enter the ro
om.
“They call it rock and roll,” he said, his voice deadpan. “...Humans, that is.”
The seer grinned like a kid, clasping his hands in front of the robe.
“Rock and roll? That is a curious name, is it not?” He looked back at the music player, as if examining the nature of the beings making the sounds through every tinny note. “That is the type of music though, yes?” the monk persisted, his dark eyes still holding that curiosity. “What is this exact group called?”
“Band,” Revik corrected thoughtlessly.
“Band, brother?”
“They call them bands. Not really groups. Not anymore.”
A flush of impatience hit Revik’s light as the monk nodded with interest. He struggled with a denser annoyance at being disturbed, and seemingly for no reason at all, other than for a curious monk to stare at his cassette player. Rubbing his forehead, Revik tried to shove it back, avoiding the eyes of the other male, but his resentment didn’t dissipate.
It’s not like he got a lot of time alone. They were on him pretty much all day, every day, when he wasn’t asleep. Why the fuck wouldn’t they just leave him be, the few minutes he had to himself? Even as he thought them, Revik struggled with his own thoughts.
He knew why the seer had likely come.
Revik had been indulging in more than a little “negativity” for the last hour or so, including around one of the worst bouts of separation pain he’d had to suffer in quite awhile. He’d already been warned against trying to seduce any of the monks living in the enclave, male or female, so he’d taken to hiding in his room when he got like this.
They should have taken the fucking hint and left him alone.
Even knowing that compassion likely led the other male to come find him, Revik couldn’t seem to make his anger lessen.
When the old monk stepped deeper into the room, Revik saw a flash of image behind his eyes. Dark, swift. It was gone as soon as it was there, but disconcerting enough to make him flinch, and leave a harsh taste in his mouth.
It also caused him to take another step back from the other male.
Somewhere in that image, he’d jabbed a flip knife in the male seer’s eye.
Something about the light there, maybe.
Something about the monk staring at him, too. Something about the fucking innocence there, the (...sheep-like, his mind muttered) openness of his light, the compassion devoid of any cynicism or guile whatsoever...
Something about the fact that they wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone.
“Brother?” the seer said.
His voice held patience that time, along with a denser light. The warmth of that same light wove into Revik’s as he stood there, (insidious, his mind accused, unwanted, unasked)...holding him, providing him with a measure of stability, grounding in a less angry space.
Reluctantly, Revik let the other male coax him out of the worst edges of his anger.
A few seconds later, he exhaled sharply.
Then he shook his head, clicking under his breath, rubbing his temples with the same hand. He wouldn’t look at the old monk at all that time.
“The Stones,” he muttered tonelessly. “They’re called The Rolling Stones, brother.”
The other seer sent a warm pulse of light to Revik’s chest.
Humor lived there, but also a denser understanding, one so complete, Revik had to fight not to yell at him. The compassion there threatened to pull more words out of him briefly, too, even as his own reactions sickened him, bringing a surge of self-hate strong enough that he had to fight not to yell at the other male again.
Patience, brother Revik, the male sent softly. You are too hard on yourself.
And if I stab one of you in the throat, my good brother? Revik sent back bitterly. Will you think the same charitable thoughts of me then, I wonder?
You will not.
You cannot know that, Revik retorted. I’ve done it before. Many times.
Not here.
What difference does that make, brother? Do you think me so religious that I wouldn’t kill a man of the cloth? Because believe me, I would. I’ve done that before, too...
The truth was, though, Revik hadn’t.
Not that he could remember, anyway.
Something in hearing the lie in his own words caused him to relax, if only a little.
The old monk’s blue eyes sharpened, even as a faint smile touched his lips. In point of fact, brother, you are doing far better now, to express these thoughts where we can see them. It is progress, although it may not feel like it...
Revik let out a short laugh, nearly choked on it.
He clicked at the other male sharply, but the monk only smiled.
While thoughts are powerful with seers, it is true, the monk added, that humor still in his light, even as he bowed politely. ...Thoughts are still not actions, brother. Not even in a seer of your training and stature. Thoughts carry karmic repercussions of their own, it is true...but do not make them equivalent in your mind. Just because you think something, or have an impulse, you should not treat that impulse as something you have done already...
And if I want to do it? Revik sent, still not looking up. What then?
The old monk clicked at him that time, though, if softly.
Do not worry what you may or may not do based on passing impulses alone. He made an eloquent calming gesture, using his light. As I say, we fear you far less now than we did before, brother...when you would not express any feeling in front of us at all. When you refused to talk to us about anything going on inside your light...
Revik shook his head, but did not attempt to answer.
The monk’s smile teased higher on his lips. Anyway, brother, I somehow doubt that it is violence that truly motivates you at the moment. At least not violence of the sort you seem to imagine. I think if I was more your type in other respects, the impulse might have struck you somewhat differently...
At that, Revik gave another short laugh.
That one was almost real.
He still didn’t look directly at the other male, though.
When the silence stretched, he conceded the monk’s point with a gesture of his own, then backed deeper into the room when the monk walked towards him. Rather than maintaining the distance between them, Revik doubled it, one of his arms folded tightly over his own chest. He felt the gesture as protective, but he couldn’t quite tell at that point if he was protecting himself from the other seer, or the reverse.
You are too hard on yourself, brother, the monk repeated gently. Do not beat yourself up for feeling. The karmic repercussions of our thoughts are quite heavy enough.
Revik nodded.
Truthfully, though, he wasn’t really listening.
He only listened to about half of their words, even now.
He fought to push away the part of him that was tired of this, that wanted to sink into a different kind of depression, one based in a heavier futility.
The silence between them stretched.
“Are you ready, brother?” the seer asked aloud.
Revik nodded, but made no effort to move.
It is time, the other seer said to him, his voice gentler still.
Without waiting that time, the monk turned smoothly on his bare heel and left out the only door into Revik’s room. That painted wooden door opened out to a rough-hewn corridor, which itself grew into the larger maze of passageways that crossed and splinted up and down countless floors inside the rock fortress that made up this part of the old city.
The monastery was the oldest such enclave in the Pamir, Revik knew, and not even simply the oldest of those still in existence. It had been constructed as part of the original plans for the old city, to be housed directly opposite of where the famed Adhipan had trained since the group’s inception.
Revik found it sort of ironic that, as a boy, he’d fantasized about living here, but on the opposite side of that dyad protecting the city’s light.
Even so, he knew it was a
privilege to be here, to be allowed inside these rock walls.
It still felt like a prison.
Watching the old monk leave his chambers, Revik felt a whisper of defeat go through his light again, almost in spite of himself...and in spite of the fact that he knew the other male probably felt that, too. He never would have thought a bunch of kneeler monks would wear him down to a nub, to a pale ghost of what he had been.
It turned out the patience of the Ancestors could outlast even his own.
Walking over to the bookshelf, Revik leaned down to switch off the small cassette player, right as “Paint it Black” started playing.
He couldn’t help but find that fitting, too.
END SAMPLE
For the rest of BIRTH: ALLIE’S WAR EARLY YEARS, visit the author's blog at jcandrijeski.com for a list of vendors and links
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I write contemporary and urban fantasy, dystopian, paranormal romance and science fiction. Current works include the gritty, epic and apocalyptic series, Allie’s War, which follows Allie Taylor and her antihero partner, Revik, in their attempts to save the world from a dark, psychic force bent on controlling Earth. I also have a new adult dystopian series, Alien Apocalypse about Jet Tetsuo, survivor and slave under alien conquerors, and the Gate Shifter series, about a shape-shifting alien and a tough-girl PI.
I also write crime fiction, children’s and some literary under a few different names, although my first love will always be of the supernatural, especially when it involves kick-ass superpowers and people fighting for the light and against their own inner demons.
I’m hesitant to name a final resting place at this point, but I travel pretty extensively and have lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia, and from coast to coast in the continental United States.
Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two Page 30