War_Apocalypse

by JC Andrijeski

  His pain worsened, so much so that I clutched at his shirt under the vest.

  After another pause, I finished unfastening that, too, tugging it off his arms, right after I jerked the velcro strap of the shoulder holster he wore underneath, pulling that off with both hands before I set the gun down carefully.

  “Are you going to tell me about it?” I asked him, softer.

  “I wanted you.” He shook his head, closing his eyes longer than a blink. “I’d wanted you for months… years, maybe, by then.” When I pulled at the second holster he wore, the one around his waist, he let out a low sound. “When I told you no, you said you wanted to. I told you I wasn’t going to be able to stop if we kept going and you said you didn’t care.”

  His fingers tightened painfully in my hair as I started unhooking his belt.

  “Fuck, Allie.” His eyes closed as another coil of pain left his light. “You opened your light. I felt pain on you… I felt it in the bar, too, when you kissed me the first time, in front of Jaden. I came damned close to bringing you home with me then. I had to go outside to get away from you. I wanted to fuck you on the damned bar. I wanted to kick the shit out of him––”

  Feeling his anger at Jaden rising, I brought his mind gently back.

  “So why did you stop us?” I said, tugging on his light as I finished unhooking the belt under the holster. “Here, I mean. Why wouldn’t you have sex with me?”

  Glancing up now that I had him bare-chested, I found myself looking at him, studying the lean muscles of his body, watching those same muscles grow taut as he avoided looking at me. My fingers paused in undressing him long enough to trace the tattoo on his arm, a band of writing about us, even though he’d gotten it a half-century before I was born.

  My fingers followed the lines of bone and muscle leading down past his hips, caressing his lower belly, feeling him wince as I let my hand trail over his skin.

  “Revik?” When he didn’t look over, I prodded him gently with my light. “Why didn’t you ask me for sex?”

  He shook his head, his fingers stroking and combing through my hair.

  “We couldn’t,” he said, his voice gruff. “I couldn’t. I’d already been warned. They’d already told me to leave you alone… more than once. They’d threatened to take you away from me. And I didn’t know what it would do to you. I told you that. I told you most of it.”

  He made another low sound when I finished unfastening his pants.

  “I hadn’t done much to your light yet, Allie. We’d done tests, things to verify who and what you were, but I hadn’t awakened any of it. I was afraid I’d hurt you. I’d already affected your aleimi, just by kissing you. You asked me about the separation pain.”

  His worsened as he said it. When I glanced up, I saw him looking at my mouth.

  “I asked you about the pain?” I said. “What did you tell me?”

  “I asked if you’d ever felt it before… with anyone. With Jaden.” He gripped my hair tighter. “You said you hadn’t. Not with anyone. Not even that prick––”

  “But you didn’t ask me for sex?” I broke in gently, pulling his mind off Jaden, caressing his ribs. “You wanted to, right?”

  He exhaled a sound, a near laugh.

  “Yes. I wanted to. I jerked off about five times after I got you back to your hotel. I hired an unwilling… the one you’d befriended the day before.” Feeling me flinch, he pulled me closer. “She knew exactly why I came… I think she felt sorry for me. Then again, she wanted you too, so maybe she was getting off on it.”

  Jealousy expanded off his light. He must have felt me starting to withdraw, too, because his hands tightened on me.

  “Allie. You don’t understand… I was in love with you. I think I even knew it by then. I went to the unwilling after I felt you with him the next morning.” He frowned, his jaw hardening. “I swear on some level that son of a bitch knew. He knew and was marking his territory.”

  Shaking his head, he exhaled, as if forcing it out of his mind.

  “I couldn’t get away from it, I had too much of you in my light. I couldn’t not see it. Believe me, I didn’t want to see that… not then.” Pain spiraled off him, anger, more jealousy. “Honestly, I wanted to go back to that damned hotel, drag him off you… but I couldn’t. I fucked her with you in my light instead.”

  I nodded, but felt my throat tighten.

  “I get it,” I said.

  I did. Almost.

  I felt jealousy flare hotter in his light, mixed with a darker feeling, what might have been shame. He shook his head, his jaw clenching before he went on.

  “I even thought through the logistics of taking you early, against the Council’s orders.” His hands wrapped around my hips. “I would have been kidnapping you, whatever I told myself. They would have come after us. They would have come after me. The Rooks probably would have seen it, as soon as your light really flared. Then I’d be running from both sides… with a seer who didn’t know what she was. I would have put you in a lot of danger.”

  I got his pants the rest of the way off. Tracing the clan tattoo on his groin with my fingers, I slid closer to him when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

  “I wish I remembered,” I said finally, looking up at him.

  My hand slid over the tattoo again and he pressed his body against mine. I laid a hand on his chest, stopping him. Then I pushed him back so I could look at him longer.

  My hand caressed his chest when he obeyed, tracing muscles down to his ribs. His eyes were glowing brighter now. After another moment, I curled my hand around his erection and his hands tightened violently.

  “Gods… Alyson, don’t.”

  “How would you have explained this?” I watched his eyes close as his body tensed more. “Had you thought of that, yet?”

  “You knew I was seer.” His voice grew short between breaths. “I told you what I was.”

  “So you would have tried to go all the way with me?”

  “I would have asked.”

  “You would have asked?”

  “I would have tried,” he amended. “I would have used my light… I would have tried, Allie.”

  “You would have tried to make me want it, you mean?"

  “Yes.” His fingers wrapped deeper into my hair, pulling my mouth to his, but I stopped him again. He groaned. That time, the pain coming off him made me clutch at him.

  “You started this,” I reminded him. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No,” he said.

  His resistance faded abruptly. The surrender in his light made my pain worse. He tugged on my hand, a question in the pulse of light he sent. He wanted me to go with him to the couch. I let him pull me in that direction, feeling a pulse of heat leave his light when my fingers got close to that cluster of nerves under his lower ribs.

  He tugged my hand off his back.

  “Do you want me to hurt you?” His voice grew short, hard with pain. “Allie… don’t go too far right now. I mean it.”

  When I only continued to massage him, his muscles relaxed then tightened again.

  “You promised you’d show me,” he said, his voice more subdued. His eyes closed longer than a blink when I continued to touch him. “How did you find mine, anyway? I thought I didn’t have that.” He gave another low gasp when I got closer, his hands wrapping around my shoulders. “Gods, Alyson… tell me.”

  Feeling him pull on me for the answer, I blanked my mind, at least of details. When I glanced up, I felt his pain change, holding a denser strain of jealousy. That time, it was dark enough that I flinched. His eyes and voice grew cold.

  “Ditrini,” he said.

  I watched him, my light cautious. “Yes.” I continued to watch him, trying to soften the harder spots in his aleimi. “Revik. Calm down.”

  Pain curled off him.

  He nodded, his hands tightening on my shoulders and neck.

  His eyes remained hard as glass, even as I massaged his back. He returned my gaze, long enough
that I saw him fighting it. That anger continued to coil around his light, however, and I heard it in his voice when he finally spoke, his accent prominent.

  “Are you going to show me?” he said, gruff. “You said you would. Before.”

  Still gauging his face, I put my palm to his chest, pushing on him as I sent an impulse for him to sit. He lowered his weight to the couch, and I felt pain on him even as that anger wove into it, confusing what came off of his light.

  I climbed into his lap, sitting astride him.

  His eyes closed as I settled myself on his legs, and then I was caressing the tattoo on his arm, sliding my fingers down to the first one he’d shown me, the “H” symbol and barcode on his inner arm. When I slid light into my fingers, tugging at his––on his hands, in his chest, his throat, everywhere I could still feel him tensing under that harder anger––he let out a half-frustrated gasp, fighting me with his aleimi.

  I felt another flush of jealousy on him, a flash of Ditrini’s face from that boat in San Francisco. That time, I saw Revik kicking him, breaking his jaw, his neck.

  I waited until the images faded.

  Rubbing his chest, I sent him warmer, calming pulses of light. After a few more seconds, I felt him start to relax again, even as he pulled on my light.

  “Show me,” he said, his voice more contrite. “Please, wife. You promised.”

  I moved deeper into his lap, letting my hands slide down his back. That time, I focused on his left side, under the lowest of his ribs, a few inches from his spine.

  “It’s harder to find on us,” I told him, kissing his jaw. “That’s probably why no one found it on you.” I felt him tense as his head tilted back, resting on the back of the couch. “It’s pretty far from the surface of our skin, so you have to use your light, feel it out…”

  As I spoke, I found the spot, and he let out a cry, his arms clasping my back. Sliding light through my fingers, I pressed harder at the cluster of nerves there, and the cry turned into a drawn-out groan, from deeper down in his chest.

  I felt him on the verge of coming and clenched my light around his, stopping him, even as he let out a lower sound, pulling me hard against him.

  “You really are fucking killing me,” he said, closing his eyes. “Between the men who obsess on you and my own damned light…”

  Clenching his jaw, he forced himself silent.

  Then his hands were on me, on the same side of my body.

  His fingers moved deftly over muscle, skin and bone. I felt light in his hands as he read me, looking for what I’d done. When his fingers found the same spot on me, my back arched involuntarily, and I caught hold of his hand.

  “Wait,” I managed. “Wait… please. Neither of us will last if you do that.”

  “I don’t give a fuck, wife,” he murmured, kissing my throat.

  I felt a pleased flicker in his light, though.

  I gasped out a laugh when he clutched me tighter, but I was already in his light again, fighting to get him to retract, using all of my light to tug on his. When he understood what I wanted, he relaxed into the couch, still caressing my side.

  He pulled me down to kiss him, and by the time I got his body to pull back, both of us were sweating and he was groaning again, tugging on my hips to position me over him. When I angled down on him, his arm clenched on my back. Within seconds, I found myself tensing to avoid losing control, even as I pulled on him harder.

  “It’s different,” I managed. “…You feel different. Is it different for you?”

  His eyes closed. He caught hold of my hips as he changed the angle of his body, going deeper physically as he wrapped his light into mine. He twined some part of his aleimi into mine, that same part on both of us I always saw as two sinuous tails.

  Pain blanked my vision.

  When I could see again, we were moving together, and he groaned, right before his arm yanked on me, forcing him all the way inside. I realized he wanted to extend and stopped him, tightening my hold on his light.

  He let out a low growl of frustration, right before his fingers found that spot on my back, digging into the cluster of nerves. He flooded so much light into me, I let out a broken cry.

  I came involuntarily, and he groaned louder, extending into me as I felt another flood of that emotion, whatever I’d felt when we were riding up on the elevator. His eyes glowed brighter as he slowed, just long enough to dig his fingers into my side again.

  I came again, more violently that time.

  When I came back, he was watching me, pain in his expression. I pulled his hand off me before he could do it again, still struggling to breathe.

  “You’re abusing your new toy,” I informed him.

  He laughed, sweating as he leaned his face against the back of the couch.

  Somewhere in that, he’d pulled me down beside him. A memory hit him, of me lying on that couch before, of feeling pain on me as I opened my light. Holding me down with one hand, he dug his fingers back into my side, his eyes glowing brighter. He put more light into his cock, making me lose control again.

  That time, his pain slammed into me until I couldn't breathe.

  I wrapped a leg around him as he held me down. He massaged that cluster of nerves again and again, until my light turned to liquid, until I lost all sense of where I was.

  I felt him lose control completely, somewhere in that, but he still held me tightly, watching my face as he kept me in that lost, liquid space.

  When I came back, he was spasming over me, his eyes shockingly bright with light, his body moving involuntarily. I felt love on him, a flood of heat difficult to feel in its entirety. For a long couple of minutes, I could only lay there, trying to wrap my head around what I felt in his light. He kissed me through it, pulling on me for affection, for anything I would give him, until it grew so strong I found myself fighting tears.

  I felt another surge of pain on him, a near-disbelief that I was the one with him, that it was my body wrapped around his.

  When that turned into another erection, I let out a choked laugh.

  I laughed harder when I saw the images accompanying his thoughts.

  “Now you want a shower?” I smiled, brushing hair out of his face. “Now you decide I smell like vomit…?”

  “Only a little,” he said, smiling back.

  His light was still so soft I couldn’t stop touching him. I wrapped my leg further around his waist as he resettled against me. He propped his jaw on a palm, looking down at me.

  “Both of us smelling better is just a bonus,” he said. “Really, I just like fucking in the shower. I like how you look all covered in soap… and I love how turned on you get.”

  “I gathered that,” I said, caressing his side. “Are you going to tell me what that was, first?”

  “Which part?”

  I laughed, tugging on his hair. “You. The you part. Your eyes are still glowing. Your light is all over the place. You tried to coerce me into group sex down there, and you’ve never tried to coerce me into anything sexual before, not even when you were Syrimne.”

  I kissed his mouth, still pulling on him with my light.

  “You’re like… I don’t know. A searchlight right now. A really horny, ethically-challenged and emotionally-volatile searchlight.”

  Clicking softly, he kissed me again. “Your eyes are glowing, too.”

  “They weren’t glowing at breakfast.”

  He chuckled, rearranging his jaw on his hand. “Do you know how much that turns me on, when your eyes glow? It gave me a hard-on in that fucking diner, when Terian had a gun aimed at our heads.” He slid his fingers into my hair, caressing my face with his. “…Honestly, I'm not even sure why. It’s beautiful, but it’s more than that.”

  Diversions and avoiding my questions aside, I knew what he meant. I had a similar reaction when his eyes glowed. It was even more intense when I watched him use the telekinesis.

  I caressed his bicep, looking at the tattoo there as I shifted to my side.

>   “You do feel different,” I said. Letting him know I wasn’t giving him a free pass on the diversion thing, either, I made my voice chiding. “You’re going to have to tell me pretty soon, husband. Whatever it is.”

  He closed his eyes, resting his face against my shoulder.

  “I know.” Gasping a little when I started caressing him again, he let his body grow heavier. “Not all of this is new, you know… with me. Some of it started back when I was working for Salinse. I think my connection to the Dreng slowed it down some, but it didn’t stop it entirely. I remember worrying I was getting more irrational around you, not less. And I was thinking about sex pretty much all the time.”

  “And now?” I said, rubbing his chest.

  “It’s worse,” he admitted. “I have to watch it, Allie. I’ve been fighting a stronger reaction to Jaden than maybe I’ve been telling you.” Pausing, he added, “I don’t like him. I’m pretty sure you knew that. But truthfully, it’s more than that.”

  “How much more?” I said cautiously.

  He shrugged, his eyes flat.

  Watching him a few seconds more, I let the bewilderment grow audible in my voice. “Revik, I never figured you gave Jaden much thought at all. He just seems so… irrelevant. That whole part of my life feels like forever ago to me now.”

  “I tried to kill him once.”

  I froze, staring up at him.

  Revik’s expression remained blank, his jaw propped on his hand. “The Council stopped me.” He grunted, jaw tightening. “Well. Balidor stopped me. I was ‘counseled’ after that. They took steps to make sure I wouldn’t overstep with you again.”

  I watched his face, frowning. More than anything, I was confused. “Revik. Why would you try to kill him? What the hell happened, that you would––”

  “Allie.” He raised his head, his accent prominent. “You get jealous of prostitutes. What if you were around while Elise and I were married, watching us fuck every night?”