Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (73 page)

Goddamn it, Alyson. Tell me. Tell me who the
fuck
that is…

I didn’t feel any whisper of let’s pretend in that voice.

He’d warned me about that, too.

He’d said he wouldn’t have to fake his reaction to this.

He’d warned me that he would react, that he would react for real…that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself, even if he’d wanted to. I fought with the memory of that conversation now, of the two of us lying naked on blankets on the floor of the tank.

But I couldn’t think about that either. Not now. Not even with the anger coiling off his light, the hurt I felt there, that denser hurt…

I let out a low gasp, closing my eyes…fighting against my own mind.

But I couldn’t…I couldn’t win that fight, either.

I shut down instead. I slammed him out, closing down my light.

I clenched it tighter…tighter, cutting my own breath, making the world flat, two-dimensional. In what felt like a long stretch of me closing and shutting down and pushing him out…I waited until I couldn’t feel anything at all.

Everything got strangely quiet.

I don’t know how long I lay there like that.

Time stopped somewhere between those two moments; I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember feeling anything. When my vision cleared I was panting, sweating, lying on my side, in more pain that I knew what to do with. I felt broken.

I remembered that feeling, too.

I remembered it from back when Revik and I were first together.

Tears blurred my eyes…I was shocked when fingers brushed those gently away, stroking my face, my hair, my neck. He coiled his arm around me from behind and I realized it was his heart I could feel against my back, beating steadily but too fast, his breath catching in his chest. He wasn’t inside me anymore, but both of us were naked, lying together on the cat-smelling couch.

“That was him, wasn’t it?” he murmured.

Feeling myself tense, I fought to control my light.

When the pause stretched, I nodded, realizing Jem was waiting. “Yes.”

Caressing my hair back from my neck, he kissed my throat. His light grew harder, more heated in the few seconds before he spoke.

“I don’t care what his reasons are anymore, Allie.”

“Jem––” I began, frustrated.

“No, I really don’t,” he said. Sliding his hand around me again, he caressed my side, looking down at my face. He was still looking down when he shook his head, clicking softly as he kissed my shoulder. “I’m done, Allie. I mean it. I’m done giving a fuck about him in this. I know what you said…I know who you say you belong to. But in my mind, none of that matters anymore. Do you understand? I don’t give a fuck.”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to understand. But I knew if I shook my head, he’d probably say it, and I couldn’t handle hearing it right then, either.

Not now. Maybe not ever.

Leaning my face into his tattooed bicep, I fought to relax, to blank out my mind. I couldn’t think about what I could feel Jem telling me. I couldn’t think about him like this.

I felt his heart open as he looked at me, and clenched my jaw.

He wouldn’t let me misunderstand him, though.

“I’ll go anywhere with you, Allie,” he said, softer. “Even after that fucking Dragon. Even to take you back to your husband, if that’s what you want of me…but you’re lying to yourself if you think this is about him anymore. I’m not sure it ever was, truthfully…for me, at least…although I’ve been telling myself that, too.”

Feeling me tense, he pulled me against his chest, sending me more of his heat. Tendrils of his light pooled softly in my heart. I felt the emotion there, so much that it clenched my jaw. I fought not to understand that too, but he wouldn’t let me. He held me tighter, speaking softly against my ear as he spread his light deeper and more intimately into mine.

I felt the possessiveness there.

I couldn’t mistake it now.

“I’ll go anywhere,” he murmured, kissing my face. “Wherever you want me to go, Allie. Maybe you and I will even have a real conversation about this…about exactly what this thing is, Alyson…for both of us. I’m ready to have that talk, Allie. I’m ready…whenever you are.”

Closing my eyes, I fought back another blinding stab of pain.

I didn’t answer him though.

I didn’t say another word, not for what felt like a very long time.

23

RUMORS

Revik felt the other seer enter the room, although he hadn’t heard them.

He’d been staring out the round, wood-framed window set with intricate carvings of blossoms and birds…looking out at real cherry blossoms swaying lightly in the breeze where small birds flitted to and fro among the eaves, mainly sparrows and finches. Multi-tiered silk kites swayed from those same gnarled branches and Revik could see the edge of a waterfall in an elaborate rock garden that had been cleaned up and activated in just the past few weeks.

The window stood in the far south-east corner of the high-ceilinged room he’d been using as an office since he’d arrived here, meaning in the Forbidden City.

He had no idea how long he’d been staring out there.

He had no memories of genuinely watching the birds, either.

A very old tea set sat on his office desk, the tea inside it likely stone cold by now. Someone had poured him a cup at one point, probably a servant when they first brought it in, but that cup still sat on its saucer in a wooden tray, utterly untouched.

Revik had no memory of even seeing a servant in there that day.

But this group pulled his light…and therefore his attention.

Their entry also brought his infiltrator’s cloak back with an abrupt click he could almost feel, blanking his expression.

Turning, he fought to keep his expression neutral when he saw the entirety of the small group. In particular, he had to work to hide the scowl that wanted to form on his lips when he saw Raven walking between Ute and Hilo, her red-lipsticked mouth already stretching in a slight smile as she looked pointedly down Revik’s body.

Her strides altered in the same set of beats, her hips swaying deliberately over the four-inch black heels she wore, even as she arched her back slightly to push out her chest. The dress she wore had a v-neckline from the wrap, a neckline that opened down to her sternum. It might as well have been her navel––or have been absent altogether––given how little the water-thin fabric actually covered. It was a bastardization of a hanfu dress, he noticed, complete with the Lao Hu scarf around her waist, and a bright, turquoise blue that matched her eyes.

It also had slits that cut up each of her thighs all the way to Raven’s waist, a detail Revik was relatively certain hadn’t made it into any of the traditional designs.

She looked like a high-priced unwilling.

Come to think of it, she’d probably borrowed the clothes from the consort staging area, given that the fabric pulled at his light, even from fifteen feet away.

He was so not in the mood for this shit today.

“Well?” he said, his voice hard.

He directed the question at Ute, ignoring Raven completely, both with his eyes and light.

“Well, what, Illustrious Sword?” Ute said, her voice bored.

The female infiltrator’s tone was also clearly calculated to set his teeth on edge.

“Where are they?” he said, not lowering his gaze. “Rigor. Tan. The second half of my fucking military force they took with them…am I to be apprised of their location?”

Ute clicked at him in mock distress, glancing at Hilo. The male seer retained an infiltrator-smooth face, but his dark gray eyes sharpened slightly on Revik.

Ute faced Revik again.

“No,” she said, blunt. Bowing so deeply that it could not possibly have been meant in sincerity, she inclined her head in a half-assed seer’s apology. “I am very, very sorry, my most powerful brother,” she said, her voice also exaggeratedly polite. “I inquired for you, as you asked, to determine the answer to this mystery of your lieutenants’ disappearance. I regret to inform you that I was told that Rigor and Tan’s current assignment falls under strict ‘need to know’ parameters. As this assignment is
also
deemed non-essential information for you to possess right now, O Illustrious Sword…my request to share it with you was denied.”

A faint smile appeared on her lips, even as she bowed again, once more making an exaggerated version of the respectful sign of the Sword.

“Can we bring you anything to compensate for this injustice, brother?” Ute said, her voice still mockingly polite. “…A drink, perhaps? Or perhaps a female to pleasure you? There must be one or two left in the consort arena who haven’t yet had that honor…?”

Looking between the three of them, Revik felt a denser heat build in his chest.

He didn’t have the fucking calm to deal with this today.

He knew he didn’t. He also knew that for that reason alone he needed to end this interview…or whatever the fuck this was…as quickly as possible.

Even so, his brain didn’t shut off altogether. He could feel Menlim behind this, and not only in the flat denial of basic intel he needed to do his damned job.

Despite the heavy-handedness there, he could feel the psychological component as well, the attempt to wear him down by throwing his powerlessness in his face.

Worse, he could feel it working.

They
were
wearing him down, if in bits and pieces, here and there. Even the inconsistency of approach felt calculated to him…the fluctuations between flattery and helpfulness and subtle attempts to knock him off balance. The unending supply of alcohol and sex, if only because the construct could clearly feel what it was doing to him.

The more subtle machinations, where they gave him the illusion of making an impact, even if it was simply to prevent the murder of one more child seer or human.

Then, there were things like this.

Blatant attempts to provoke him. Open displays of derision and disrespect. Repeated attempts to put him in his place, to make him angry to the point of unreason.

He could not help noticing that the timing was usually stellar for any one of these different angles into his mind and light.

Revik could feel the threads his old guardian tried to pull in that, too.

Not only around Allie and the fact that he could feel his marriage disintegrating from afar, unraveling more with every hour he spent here. Not only that he missed his daughter desperately…and his son, for that matter…and his fucking
wife,
who he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about no matter what he was doing. Not only because they couldn’t have picked a worse day to remind him how far away he was from all of them…or how little he could do to control what was happening to himself or to them…or to in any way salvage some shred of the life he’d left behind in coming here.

He could feel older resonances there, too.

He felt the connections to his childhood, to the war, where he’d also been widely disliked by the other soldiers in his fighting force. He felt connections to Elise, too…his first wife, who they’d also managed to take from him.

The subtle key turns and tugs worsened as he fought with the emotions that wanted to rise, even as the construct toyed with different levels of his light across the spectrum of his reactions, looking for openings, for any way inside the parts of him he struggled to protect.