Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (61 page)

Whoever she was. Whoever the fuck he was with.

Hurry, Allie…
he sent, from that higher, more silent place.
Hurry, baby…please…

Some part of me fought back.

I fought him, shoved him out of my light, maybe harder than I’d ever done, even outside that farmhouse in Colorado. I used structures I normally only used for the telekinesis, slamming against his aleimi, hitting out at him in the space, punching him…anything I could to get him away from me. Anything so I wouldn’t have to hear her under him, or see her hands caressing his chest.

When I could see again, I was lying on the tile floor.

The water was beating down on me from above, hurting my skin, blinding me where it fell on my face and hair. When I tried to pull myself up, I let out a low gasp, fighting tears as my hand slipped on the tile. I whacked my head on the low wall behind me and let out a muffled cry, cutting it off by biting my lip. Still gasping in pain, I clenched my jaw to remain silent, mostly because I was afraid someone might hear me and come in.

But that only brought my mind back around to Dragon, to what he’d done in that underground lab.

He hadn’t explained himself. He hadn’t said anything.

I could scarcely believe it when he’d started undressing me.

Feigran stood there, watching us from the wall, unmoving. He’d looked more fascinated than turned on, but something about those yellow eyes studying mine as Dragon held my light clenched in a fist, yanking down my combat pants with hands that were both urgent and strangely businesslike.

Not long after that, he’d been inside me.

I don’t think my mind had even caught up at that point. I’d heard Dalejem let out a cry. I remembered Dragon doing something…I remembered worrying he’d killed Jem, but I could still feel him gasping, still making low cries and realized Dragon had only restrained him in some way.

Apart from the brand, which he’d done before he even took off my clothes…he hadn’t hurt me. Maybe it would have been better if he had. He’d held me still with his hands and his light, but he’d been almost gentle for the act itself. More gentle than Revik often was.

More gentle than most of my clients in Beijing had been.

Then Dragon had wound into those structures in my light…

I’d lost control. I’d totally and completely lost control.

I couldn’t help myself…any more than I could when Revik did that to me.

At some point, I left my body entirely. I think I actually came, but I couldn’t be sure of that either. I couldn’t see anything by then. Stars.

Nothing but black night and stars…

Wincing, I shut my eyes, fighting the coil of grief that wound into my gut. Shame lived there, too. I knew it was irrational. I knew it, but I couldn’t make the feeling go away. I was ashamed of my loss of control…beyond what I could even think about now.

Panting, that hot water still beating down on my head, I tried to block it out of my mind. Pain wound into my light, behind the shield I still wrapped around myself as I sat on the dirty tile floor. I fought back every emotion I could, everything that wanted to boil up to the surface, to touch me in any way.

He hadn’t kissed me…maybe he couldn’t because of the mask, but his eyes grew soft at the end. I’d seen stars in his light, that denser blackness.

As he left with Feigran, he spoke to Dalejem, not me.

“Don’t worry, brother,” he’d said. “You’ll get your turn.”

Dalejem hadn’t answered him, but I’d felt his anger, a deeper helplessness that touched me if only because I felt the genuine emotion behind it.

I tried to force that out of my mind, too.

I knew Dalejem had watched Dragon fuck me.

I knew he’d seen me lose control.

I had no idea how it had looked to him from the outside…or what he’d felt from me. I hadn’t felt judgment on him; I hadn’t felt anything on him, truthfully, not about that. But like Balidor, Dalejem was Adhipan trained. I doubted I would know
what
he felt, not unless he chose to tell me. So far, he hadn’t.

He hadn’t said anything about it at all…directly, at least.

Instead he’d argued with me about operational priorities around Brooks. He’d informed me that I needed to see a medical technician before I met with her. He’d argued those two things for half of the drive back to that farmhouse…he’d also argued that I had to contact Balidor right away and let him know what happened, and I could tell he didn’t
only
mean that we had a rogue telekinetic on the loose. When I disagreed, he told me I was in shock.

When I argued the same could be true of him, he told me he didn’t matter…that I was the one who’d been hurt.

That was the closest he came to acknowledging what happened to me, directly at least. Although he’d obviously had zero qualms about telling the others.

Wincing, I tried to force that out of my mind, too.

I couldn’t, though, not at first.

Knowing he’d probably told them for operational reasons didn’t help; nor did it remove the feeling of betrayal I’d felt when I came out of that farmhouse and realized they’d all been talking about me. Dalejem and I may have fought, but I honestly hadn’t thought he actively disliked me until that moment. Since the op in NORAD, I’d reassessed that impression, leaning towards the operational thing again, but truthfully, I had no idea what he was thinking.

I hadn’t known how to ask him that either, or even if I should.

Either way, I didn’t want to talk about the thing with Dragon with any of them. I honestly didn’t see the point. I barely remembered the act itself. I had no idea why he’d done it, or what he wanted from me. Whatever he’d done to my light, I couldn’t explain my reaction to any of them. I wasn’t the kind of person who felt like talking solved much anyway.

Besides, there was only one person I really wanted to talk to…and he was the one person I couldn’t talk to right then.

But I couldn’t start thinking about Revik again.

I had to get out of there. I’d been lying on that floor too long already. The thought of having someone find me like this, sprawled out naked in the showers, got me moving again.

When I pulled myself up off the tile the second time, the pain in my leg shot up to my back. I ignored it, fighting myself upright in another burst of effort and straining arm muscles, my light halfway out of my body as I struggled to control my mind.

For a long moment, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it.

I could feel the part of me trying to run away.

I could feel the part of me that would do anything…anything…to get away from this.

But I couldn’t…I knew that, too.

Hurry, Allie…
The words echoed there, hurting me.
Hurry, baby…please…

I stood outside his door for longer than I should have.

A lot longer maybe, given that anyone could have walked down that hall. Anyone could have seen me there…with their eyes, I mean, since I had such a stranglehold on my shield I doubted even Balidor could have seen past it at that point. I continued to grip that shield obsessively, mostly so the person inside wouldn’t know I was there.

Well, not until I’d decided whether to knock.

I did knock though. Eventually.

Rapping hard on the door with my bruised knuckles, I dropped my cloak just enough that he’d know who it was, even as I slid a more military-esque flavor into my aleimi.

His absent summons told me he wasn’t asleep at least.

In that bare second before I reached for the door handle, I honestly wasn’t sure if that relieved me or not.

Swinging the door inward, I walked in without speaking only to stop short, startled to find him in bed. His mattress didn’t look much better than mine. It definitely appeared to sink too low where he sat up near his pillow, his back against the bent wooden backboard that leaned on the wall. He wore a dark green T-shirt that might have been military issue but that I suspected wasn’t. For the first time I noticed he had a tattoo on his arm, of the Sword and Sun.

Of course he did.

Feeling my jaw clench slightly, I returned my gaze to his face, only to find him staring at me with his green, violet-ringed eyes.

They shocked me a little, after the duller contacts.

“Esteemed Bridge?” Dalejem said. He kept his voice carefully polite, verging on businesslike. “Can I help you? I was about to turn in.”

I averted my gaze, making an awkward sound.

It was maybe supposed to convey humor, but if so, it didn’t quite come off.

“Yeah,” I said, folding my arms even more awkwardly before I realized that was weird and dropped them back to my sides. “…I’m not surprised. About the turning in, I mean.”

When I glanced over that time, he was watching me, the scrutiny in his emerald eyes close to overt. I saw him hesitate, as if about to say something, then thinking better of it.

He waited.

Rubbing my face with a hand, I massaged my bare arm next, conscious of the thinness of the white shirt I wore. I fought with whether or how to ask him, trying to remember if there was some formal way I’d never used.

It never occurred to me to whip out the consort stuff, and probably wouldn’t have, even before it crossed my mind that he might be insulted.

Fighting back and forth for a few seconds more, I finally exhaled in a sigh, then reached for the front of my shirt and began unfastening the buttons. I didn’t do that in a particularly seductive way either. I couldn’t even really look at him until I was about halfway done.

When I did glance up, I tensed, stopping.

He was staring at me.

To say his expression was…shocked, to say the least, might not do it justice. He looked like he was having a borderline panic-fear reaction.

It struck me suddenly that maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe I’d made a big mistake.

When I paused, his eyes flickered up, meeting mine.

That shock gradually bled into something else as I watched, something I didn’t even know how to identify at first.

Then his light exuded fury.

Cold, unbridled fury.

“Get the
fuck
out of here,” he said. “Now, Esteemed Bridge.”

His voice was low, but I couldn’t mistake the emotion in his words. I felt the anger, but something else lived there, too. I realized in a kind of shock he was on the verge of tears.

When I didn’t move, that fury turned hotter in his eyes.

“Get the fuck out!” He pointed at the door.
“Now,
goddamn it!”

Before I could move, or even tear my eyes off his face, Dalejem had thrown back the covers. Then he was on his feet, walking towards me with fast, purposeful strides, that threat and fury and violence seething off his light. I couldn’t help but notice he was nothing but lean muscle, wearing only the green shirt and black boxer briefs. I flinched when he caught hold of my arm, stepping back in alarm, but he only gripped me harder.

I wasn’t really afraid of him.

Even so, the intensity there completely blanked my mind.

I was still staring at his eyes, at the near-tears I saw there, the emotion that bled off his light as he refused to meet my gaze.