The Adhipan seemed to have their shield under control once more, but Revik could still feel Terian’s aleimi. With him so close, pressed against his body and in his light, he couldn’t keep him out, not entirely.
Nor could the Adhipan.
For a long moment, Revik fought with what to do.
He wondered at Balidor’s silence, then wondered if Terian was keeping them away, if he’d found some means of cutting off his link to the Adhipan altogether.
Before Revik found words, he felt Terian’s hand on his belt.
Revik felt the other seer unhook the clasp, without decreasing the pressure of the knife. Revik could only stand there, his whole body reacting, yet also going into a form of paralysis.
This wasn’t happening.
This wasn’t fucking happening.
The Adhipan weren’t going to just stand there and let him––
Then Terian had his hand on Revik’s cock, and Revik closed his eyes, enough pain rising in his light that it briefly blanked his mind. Disgust warred with that pain, revulsion even, a desire to wrap his hands around the throat of the other seer, but somehow, he still hadn’t moved. Fear wound somewhere into all of that, the sudden certainty that even allowing this wouldn’t keep him from getting his throat cut as he came.
The thought forced words to his lips, even as he remembered Dalejem was watching this.
All of them were.
They were just standing there, watching him do this.
They were just letting it happen.
“Terry, jurekil’a mak rik’ali. Stop––”
“Come on, Revi’. One blow job. What could it hurt?”
“You really are fucking crazy. You’ve finally cracked––”
“I want you on your knees, brother Revik. Now. Right now, in fact.”
“Fuck you––”
“Revi’. Just do it. I can feel how hungry you are.”
“Gods…” Anger warred with the pain, confusing him. He fought to think, to decide how he could get out of this, but his mind was utterly blank. He tried to slide back a step, but Terian gripped him tighter, pressing the knife deeper, forcing another gasp from him. The two types of pain mixed, confusing him more, even as the separation pain began to win, to pull at him, wanting him to let this happen.
Gods. He was desperate enough to nearly want this.
He closed his eyes as Terian continued to massage him. One of his hands gripped Terian’s arm now, but he couldn’t remember doing that, either.
“Stop it,” he gasped. “Please, Terry. Please… don’t do this.”
He let out a low groan when the other male’s hand tightened on him.
Terian clicked at him, giving one of his batshit crazy laughs.
“Stop?” he said, mimicking Revik’s pleading. “Who are you kidding, Revi’? You’re so hungry right now, your light is practically fucking mine already. I’ll have you begging me here in a minute. Hell, I could probably get you to do it now.”
“No. I don’t want this. Terry––”
He heard the lie in his own voice, and the truth in it, too.
He knew what Terry would hear.
“Come now, Revi’,” Terian said, his voice cajoling. “Come, brother mine. I know what you like. Let go. Just let it happen…”
“No, goddamn it––”
Revik’s voice cut out when Terian used more of his light, pulling on him, and not only with the light in his hands. Revik let out another gasp, and then he nearly was begging him. Pain blinded him, taking over so much of his light he didn’t care about anything anymore. He closed his eyes, trying to shove it away, but he couldn’t do that, either.
They were going to let Terian fuck him.
They were going to let it happen, right in front of all of them.
Memories slid out of the dark recesses of Revik’s mind, a familiarity to this. It came with a self-loathing so intense that it nearly blacked out his mind altogether.
“Come, Revi’,” Terian coaxed, softer. “Come now. Come for me, brother. You know you want to. Just once, let me watch you. Then I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”
“Crazy bastard.” Dehgoies gripped his arm harder, groaning. “Jesus… Terry. Fuck you…”
Terian laughed. “I’m trying to, brother. I’m trying. You need to imagine your precious cunt, while I jerk you off? Go ahead, Revi’. I don’t mind. Pretend it’s her stroking you. Pretend it’s her mouth, not my fingers.”
Revik let his mind go there, for the briefest instant.
He saw Kali there, saw those dark green eyes.
His pain grew so intense he nearly cried out.
“Ah, you like that,” Terian said, his voice a murmur again. “You like that a lot, don’t you, Revi’? Tell me again how you’re just friends, you and she. Tell me how grateful you are, about all the help she’s given you since you ran away from me and everyone else who gave a damn about you. Then tell me how you aren’t out here, hoping she might give you a pity fuck, if you can manage to separate her from her mate…”
Revik fought with the other’s words, trying to force them out of his mind.
He couldn’t do that, either.
His words came out hollow. Unconvincing, even to him.
“You’ve lost your mind, Terry. You really have––”
But another voice cut him off.
“Brother Terian. Let him go.”
When Revik looked up, still more than half-blind with pain, he saw a gun pressed against Terian’s neck. It wasn’t Balidor who held it, though.
It was the violet-eyed seer.
The older one, the Rook with the iron gray hair.
“Let go of him,” the seer said, louder that time. “Now, brother.”
Hearing those words, Revik realized it was over.
Terian had stopped what he was doing. He still held onto Revik, almost possessively with the hand not holding the knife, but he had stopped. This seer’s words had stopped him, which meant the gray-haired seer with the Nazi scar was likely speaking for Galaith.
It was over.
It was finally over.
Galaith was going to let him go.
Even as he thought it, the pain in Revik’s light twisted.
Coiling around him, it lost its purchase on Terian, on Terian’s light––
––right before it turned inwards.
Emotion rose with the pain, until it felt closer to fury, maybe even hatred.
Revik didn’t even know who he felt that hatred towards until he realized he could feel Balidor’s light once more, resting quietly next to his. Revik could feel the rest of the Adhipan seers there as well, and the thought again slid through his light that they’d just stood there, letting that happen. They hadn’t done a damned thing to try and stop Terian.
They just let Terry molest him, right in front of them.
They hadn’t spoken so much as a single word.
Logic tried to assert itself, to tell him they had little choice, that he, meaning Revik, didn’t know what they’d been doing behind the scenes.
He didn’t really care about logic, though.
Whatever they’d said to him before, whatever Balidor might pretend about Revik being under his protection, he was on his own.
He was really on his fucking own out here.
Feeling Balidor’s light react to his thoughts, Revik slammed the shield back over his own aleimi. He stood there, closing his heart and light until he couldn’t feel any of them anymore. He didn’t even want to share his anger with them, much less any of the rest of it.
He felt some of them react, Dalejem and Balidor especially, but he didn’t care about that, either. He didn’t fucking care anymore.
He was done.
He was really fucking done with this shit.
Seventeen
Deal With This
No one said much on the walk back.
Well… not that Revik could hear.
Then again, he didn’t try very hard to listen.
<
br /> All six of the other seers gave him a wide berth after they dragged him out from under Terian’s knife. Balidor approached him not long after they’d left the Org’s mobile construct, but Revik slammed out hard enough with his aleimi that the other seer promptly backed down.
After that, all of them left him alone.
Not long after they left the Rooks’ clearing, Revik heard a shot echo through the trees from the place they’d left behind.
He didn’t bother to try and figure out if that meant what he thought it meant.
He knew it wouldn’t matter, even if he was right. Terian couldn’t be killed like that, not really killed, not anymore. It might shock Terian’s men, including his new fuck-buddy, “Quay,” Revik’s look-alike. It would likely be calculated to shock them, and to send a message, but that’s all it would do, given who and what Terian was.
Shoving his ex-partner from his mind, Revik fought to erase his thoughts altogether.
He and the Adhipan seers walked the several miles back to the lower staging area.
Once they got there, Balidor informed the larger team, headed by Garensche, that they would be joining the rest of the Adhipan seers at a higher-level camp, one located a few miles south of where Kali and her husband were now encamped.
Apparently, they’d been moved around the same time Balidor left to find Revik.
Kali and her husband, Uye, were now surrounded by that mysterious group of infiltrators who had come to protect her and her child from the Org.
The Adhipan would maintain the second camp as back up, from what Balidor said, in the event something happened and Galaith didn’t honor their agreement.
They would not be joining the larger camp in those higher hills.
Revik barely listened as Balidor explained all of this.
He didn’t look at any of them, or let any of them touch him, not even to dress the wound on his neck, although Yumi, and then Ontari, who didn’t seem to know what was going on, at least not yet, both offered to do the latter.
Revik managed it himself.
Well, more or less.
He stopped the bleeding on the way back to Garensche and the others.
Then, once they’d reached the staging area, he opened his pack long enough to find the shirt he’d been sleeping in for the past few days, and tied that around his neck to keep the wound closed.
He knew he’d need help to stitch it up once they got to the upper base, but at least then he could ask one of Balidor’s other seers to do it––meaning one he didn’t know and didn’t give a damn about. At the very least, he could find one who wouldn’t ask him any questions.
He walked with the rest of them through the trees, silent.
On that leg of the journey, he could hear the other seers talking to one another in low voices, though. Most of that talking had to do with Vikram, Yumi, Dalai, Mara and Balidor telling the others what had taken place while Revik was “negotiating” with Terian.
Revik heard flickers of his own name in that, of course.
He ignored it, shutting down more of his light.
Dalejem also remained notably silent.
Dalejem was also one of the few seers who didn’t try to get anywhere near Revik or his light.
Neither thing particularly surprised Revik.
He just wanted to get the fuck out of here now.
He wanted to go back to the Pamir, back to those caves, and not talk to anyone else for another five or so years… if not longer.
Hell, maybe he’d take a vow of silence and celibacy himself.
Maybe he’d end up a fucking monk, yet.
His anger didn’t really crash until about two hours later.
By then, he sat in front of a real fire.
By himself, of course.
He’d asked one of the medical techs to stitch up his neck.
She informed him the wound wasn’t bad, in terms of the cut itself.
She’d been more worried about the possibility of infection, and chewed him out for wrapping the shirt around it without putting any kind of disinfectant on the wound first, especially given they were out in the middle of the damned jungle.
She washed the cut carefully, put alcohol on it, then a salve, then stitched it up and covered it with an organic bandage, which should have its own antibiotics in the gel that surrounded the wound.
Revik found himself touching the bandage periodically, anyway.
Tents were still being put up, but he probably could have found one by then.
Truthfully, he was considering sleeping out here, in the open, even with the bugs and whatever else, if only because he didn’t want to be that close to the light of any of them. He knew to sleep indoors he’d have to share a tent with at least two other seers.
The groups had remained more or less in their previous units, which didn’t help.
It meant this fire provided the focal point for the same seers Revik had been traveling with for days now, along with a few others who came over to visit with friends.
Dalai had a boyfriend, as it turned out, a muscular, Chinese-looking seer by the name of Nurek. Revik recognized a few other faces from before they’d split into separate units, but he didn’t have names to go with a handful of them.
He supposed it didn’t matter.
They all gave him a wide berth, too.
He hadn’t seen Dalejem since they’d gotten back to camp.
In the end, Revik just sat on a log by the blazing campfire, trying to pull his shit together before he made a final decision on where and how he could handle sleeping––assuming he could handle it at all.
Truthfully, he wished he could get drunk.
He considered asking someone if that was possible, but he didn’t––pretty much for the same reasons he didn’t ask anyone if they’d give him his own, private tent for the night.
He could still feel flickers of light from the others, darting around him in rippling, if subtle waves. He felt concern in some of those touches, even worry, but he didn’t want to deal with that, either.
He could feel them talking about him.
He didn’t hear any of the specifics.
He didn’t want to.
In any case, no one tried to sit by him.
They sat around the fire on different logs, most of those opposite where he sat, and talked quietly amongst themselves. Not content to simply avoid sharing Revik’s specific log, they left a space of something like fifteen feet on either side of where he sat, clustering together on a few downed tree trunks across from him.
As per usual with the Adhipan leader, Revik didn’t even see him until it was too late to avoid him. He didn’t see his body, much less feel his light, until the older seer was sitting right beside him, on the same log.
Revik started to stand up, moving without thought.
But that time, Balidor didn’t let him leave.
His hand clamped down on Revik’s arm, hard, holding him in place.
“You need to listen to me, brother,” he said.
His voice was low, almost a murmur.
Even so, it held an open warning.
More than that, he put light in his words, compelling Revik to obey them.
Reluctantly, Revik let his weight rest back on the log.
He didn’t look over at the other male.
He kept his gaze trained on the fire, even as he fought not to react to the hand on his arm. He knew the other seer was speaking aloud so they wouldn’t be overheard, but he found it difficult to muster much gratitude for that, either.
Why the hell wouldn’t they leave him alone?
“Revik.” Balidor’s voice grew harder, denser, still carrying that thread of aleimi and command. “You are losing control over your light.”
Revik shook his head, feeling his mouth harden. “I’ll be fine.”
“You will not be fine,” Balidor growled. “You are not fine now.”
Revik fought with words. In the end, he bit his tongue, saying nothing.
> Balidor wouldn’t let it go.
“You must do something about it,” he said. “Tonight.”
It wasn’t a question, or even a request.
Balidor continued, “I cannot have a trained infiltrator out here in this state, brother. I cannot. You must understand my position in this.”
Revik let out a humorless laugh.
Balidor cut him off.
“I mean it, Dehgoies,” he snapped, his words still quiet, but holding more emotion. “Why have you not asked anyone to help you with this? I expected you to. On the very first day we left those caves, I expected this. Why have you not done it?”
Revik fought not to turn his head.
He could feel the other seer pulling on him for that, trying to force him to make eye-contact, but out of sheer stubbornness, Revik wouldn’t do it.
“What would be the fucking point?” he said finally.
There was a silence.
Then Balidor let out a clicking sigh, without loosening his hold on Revik’s arm. “Brother, are you wondering why none of them has asked you?”
Revik shook his head. “No.”
“Of course you are. Why would you not wonder?” Balidor said, his voice openly exasperated. “You must have felt their interest.”
“What?” Revik couldn’t help it. That time, he turned, staring at the older seer. “Are you trying to screw with my head, brother Balidor? Or do you simply think me an idiot?”
Staring back at him, Balidor exuded disbelief.
Then he frowned, clicking at him in open irritation, even as he shook his head. The irritation didn’t seem aimed at Revik that time, though. Not precisely, anyway.
“Brother, you are not thinking clearly right now,” Balidor said. “You are not. In fact, you are far deeper in this than I realized. Honestly, I would never have let you go near that Org bastard, had I fully understood the state you were in.”
Revik flinched at the mention of Terian, but Balidor only hardened his voice.
“I ordered them to leave you alone. I ordered them, Dehgoies. You must understand this! I could not have them taking advantage of you in this state. I told them not to approach you unless you asked one of them for it directly. But you never asked. Not even when it was practically offered to you.”
The Defector Page 19
