Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (15 page)

Tightening his arms around his chest, Revik shook his head, but not really in a no.

Still staring off without really seeing anything, he shook his head again, clicking softly. The idea of asking Allie that right now was enough to give him a fucking ulcer.
 
She was pissed off that he hadn’t been alone with her much as it was.

If he suggested they fuck in front of the senior leadership team…

“Someone else could broach the topic with her,” Balidor suggested.

At Revik’s incredulous look, the Adhipan leader had the grace to flush.

“I don’t mean me,” Balidor said. As if to emphasize the point, he shook his head, taking a step back. “I don’t need to be involved at all, brother…not at all.”

But Revik gestured negative in seer, feeling his jaw tighten.

“No,” he said. “No, if we do this, I want you there.” His voice turned gruff. “I don’t think she’ll care about that. Jon was the issue before.” Revik felt his jaw harden more, along with the muscles in his neck and shoulders. “She felt weird having Wreg there for the same reason. She was only concerned about you because of me.”

Still thinking, Revik felt his jaw clench, right before he shrugged.

“…We definitely limit the group, though,” he said, blunt. “No way in hell is Kat to be involved. Or Ullysa. I’d rather if Jaden was moved out of the construct altogether…as far away as fucking possible, assuming she agrees. Human or not, it might affect him.”

Balidor nodded slowly. He didn’t comment, but Revik felt his light grow almost defensive.

He pushed that from his aleimi, too.

“If we’re going to do this, we can’t wait,” Revik said. “We’d need to do it soon. Within the next few days.”

Balidor nodded, exuding agreement.

There was another silence.

Revik felt the question hovering there and exhaled.

“No,” he said, feeling a flush of angry embarrassment in his light. “No, I’ll talk to her. I don’t think it would go over any better if you tried to get Chan or Tarsi to do it. I’ll do it tonight…she already has Lily with Wreg and Jon.” Feeling his light grow more uncomfortable at the thought, he shook his head, clicking softly. “I’ll do it tonight,” he repeated.

He glanced at Balidor.

The older seer didn’t seem to be listening to him, though. His eyes were faraway, like he was in the Barrier, or perhaps listening to something on his headset.

Revik waited, polite…at least until he saw the other seer pale.

“What?” Revik said. “What’s wrong?”

Balidor shook his head, but didn’t speak. Instead, he indicated through hand signals that he was reacting to something happening elsewhere, which Revik had already figured out on his own. The Adhipan seer touched his ear at the end, indicating he was using the headset.

Revik didn’t hesitate that time, but thought-activated his own.

He instantly got a warning pulse.

Not a breach warning, or anything that should have made ‘Dori react the way he had. It was just one of the pre-programmed things Revik left with the security team monitoring operations. Meaning, one of the things he’d told them to ping him on as more of a head’s up.

A breath later, Revik got the specifics.

Brother, your wife left the perimeter around the apartment complex…unescorted.

Revik scowled.

He recognized Deklan’s voice in the recording. He pinged him without thought, glancing at the time stamp, which told him it had only been a few minutes. While he waited for Deklan to pick up, Revik clicked over to the live feed, pausing only to scowl at Balidor. Something in the other’s eyes made him wonder if they were reacting to the same thing, even now.

“Brother?” Revik said when Deklan answered. “Where is she? And why the fuck did you let her leave without an escort?”

Deklan stammered a little. “Illustrious Sword. I sent Balidor the feed…”

“So send it to me,” Revik said.

Feeling resistance on the other seer, Revik felt his irritation turn to anger.

“Brother? Is there a problem with your comm?”

“No.” Deklan’s voice held nerves still. “No, sir…sending it through now.”

Revik frowned. He stood there, hands on his hips.

He glanced at Balidor before the feed kicked in and saw an almost impenetrable look on the other seer’s face. It hit him in the same few seconds that Balidor didn’t want him to see whatever this was, either. What the fuck was she doing?

Fighting Mythers on the ground? Bare handed?

Just then, the feed reconfigured in front of him, changing his visuals to a VR representation of what was being picked up by at least one set of feed cameras on the wall. The view expanded as soon as he shifted his focus. It wiped out the physical contours of the upper floor patio and the glimpse of pre-sunset sky Revik had been staring at through the open wall.

As per usual with these kind of perceptual shifts, Revik had to reorient himself initially, unsure what he was seeing. He focused on a long stretch of gray and beige land, what looked like smoke from small fires dotting a long plain with few trees and only the burnt-out husks of larger buildings. He was looking past the wall, he realized…meaning the wall protecting the enclave portion of Bangkok.

Given the heavier plumes of black smoke he could see and the patter-shot of automatic gunfire he could hear echoing below, the image capture had to be located on the wall itself, directly above the breach hole from the bomb blast.

Revik cursed under his breath. Had Allie really gone down to the front lines? By herself? Anger overrode his fear even as he found himself wondering if this had something to do with what she and Feigran had been talking about earlier…

…then his eyes refocused.

He found himself staring at a nearer part of the virtual image. By the wall.

It was darker there, so his eyes glossed by it in the beginning, seeking light first. Now that he looked there, he could not look away.

His wife…Allie.

He watched, lost somewhere between disbelief and shock as she kissed Chandre. The East Indian seer had her pinned to the shadowed part of the wall.

She had her hands on her…

Jesus fucking christ…

He didn’t know if he spoke the words aloud or not.

He felt Balidor’s hand on his arm and jerked it away, stepping back…without disengaging from the virtual view. He watched Chandre grip his wife’s ass, could practically feel her light invading Allie’s. He saw pain in the face of the East Indian seer, what bordered on a loss of control. She slammed Allie against the wall even as he thought it, kissing her harder.

Revik could only watch, lost there.

Allie was kissing her back.

He didn’t see the loss of control on his wife that he saw on Chandre, more conflict and confusion mixed with pain, but he couldn’t look at her face for long.

He watched Chandre’s instead. He followed the seer’s hands as they massaged different parts of Allie’s body. One hand slid between Allie’s legs…

And his wife jumped.

Her green eyes opened. Revik saw her lips move, too. The speaker didn’t pick up the words; whatever she’d said to Chandre was lost in the wind battering the top of the wall and gunfire and shouting below. Whatever it was, Chandre didn’t let go of her, even then.

She leaned her head against Allie’s until Allie untangled herself.

Revik stared at his wife’s face as she stood there.

She was flushed now, her face holding more of that conflict, what might have been remorse, or embarrassment maybe. He didn’t want to think about what any of those things might mean.

He didn’t want to think about whether he’d crossed his wife’s mind yet at all.

He saw her say something.

From her lips, it looked like, “I’m sorry.”

Revik felt his jaw harden as his wife walked away.

Alyson left Chandre without looking back, disappearing from view of the feed camera. Revik couldn’t see her face as she left. She’d been staring down, jaw hard, walking with purpose as she aimed her way past that section of wall.

Revik found himself watching Chandre as she stood there.

He didn’t see regret on the hunter’s face. Instead he saw frustration, anger, what might have been conflict…pain. A lot of fucking pain. She looked confused maybe, but not exactly like she wasn’t sure what had just happened. She looked hungry.

She looked fucking hungry for his wife.

Pain rippled Revik’s light, a near-blinding shard hitting him somewhere in the middle of the chest. He ripped the headset off his ear.

The virtual view of the wall vanished.

He didn’t know what look he had on his face, but he could feel Balidor’s light.

Concerned…cloying as hell, but concerned, well-meaning.

Concerned, yeah.

When Balidor touched his arm a second time, Revik stepped back, warding him off almost like a blow. Without meeting the other’s gaze, he was already turning, aiming his feet for the elevators on the other end of the patio. He didn’t see the trees or the algae-choked pond with the gold and white fish or the square hole of sky. He didn’t remember passing through any doors. He didn’t remember pressing buttons on the elevator panel or seeing anyone, although he must have pressed buttons and there must have been others there.

He wasn’t sure when he could see again.

By the time it occurred to him to think about it, he wasn’t in the building at all.

He’d also started to run.

6

TRUST ME

He was late.

I don’t know why that would even bother me at this point, given everything else going on, but for some reason it did.

Well, maybe it didn’t
bother
me exactly. If I were being truthful, it hurt my feelings. I hadn’t managed to carve out any real alone time between us in longer than I cared to remember. I tried not to take that personally, too, but again, it was almost impossible not to right then.

I also tried not to read too much into his absence, considering the day I’d just had.

I tried, but I couldn’t help it.

He knew. Someone must have told him. One of the seers running security on the wall, or someone on the infiltration team. Oli maybe. Anale. Deklan.

Either way, he knew.

Maybe Revik had gone down to the wall himself, looking for me. It wouldn’t be unlike him, especially now. And he’d gotten so damned good at shielding his light working with Balidor, I doubted I’d be able to feel him if he was standing right behind me.

I’d been on the verge of biting the bullet and just calling someone. I didn’t
want
to do it, but I was beginning to think I had to. I was trying to decide who to call…who wouldn’t flip out on me, that is…when out of nowhere, Revik walked through the door.

No ping. No brief, cryptic message that he was coming up.

Revik walked into our small, fiftieth-story apartment like it was nothing.

He also did it without speaking a word. He didn’t even look at me.