He hadn’t been involved with many males.
None really, apart from sex.
Well, none other than Terian… who was such a freak show deviant coupled with a mass of complicated mental illnesses, Revik couldn’t imagine how any aspect of that particular relationship would help him navigate this one.
When he continued to stand there, Dalejem cleared his throat.
“Are you coming?” he said, his eyes patient once more. “I will take the shower with you, if you want. If that was your next question.”
“Don’t we need to be out here still?” Revik said, hearing the stall in his voice. “Balidor. Didn’t he want us to walk the perimeter or something? Patrol something?”
Dalejem smiled. That time, it barely touched his mouth.
“He’s letting us off the hook, brother,” he said gently.
After the barest pause, Revik nodded again.
That time, he took the hand offered to him, clutching the fingers in his own.
He knew his skin was hot, borderline sweaty, but he didn’t let go, and he couldn’t quite meet the other’s gaze.
Twenty-One
Rescinded
They didn’t have sex in the shower.
Revik wanted to.
He let it go when he realized they were being watched, that Dalejem was right, that the showers were too public, given that it was broad daylight and they stood in a row not far from the mess tent… not to mention the fact that the wall only covered about half of his body with translucent organic sheeting.
In the end, Revik shoved the other seer out of the cubicle altogether, naked, and still wet, and finished showering alone.
Even so, he felt flickers of curiosity aimed at him by passing seers.
Some had clearly felt what he’d been doing the night before.
Some just heard about it, or heard his offer around the fire.
Some stared at his scars, seeing their patterns on his shoulders and upper back as they walked behind him outside the shower cubicle.
When Revik finally left that cubicle, Dalejem was gone.
Snaking his light out cautiously to look for him, Revik grew aware of even more eyes on him and his back once he left the area of the showers. Ignoring those stares as best he could, he walked through the camp as casually as he could, given that he wore only a towel and borrowed shower sandals that Ontari had lent him days earlier.
He didn’t particularly want to ask anyone where Dalejem’s tent was.
He didn’t really want to be out here on his own much longer, either.
Feeling a whisper of irritation from Dalejem himself, who clearly felt the attention on Revik’s body as he wandered around camp in a towel, Revik smiled faintly, but not with a lot of humor, right before the seer sent him an abrupt snap-shot of where he was.
When Revik showed up outside Dalejem’s tent a moment later, smacking at bugs landing on his legs, then frowning when he remembered what the monks would say about that, he hesitated again, wondering if Dalejem would screw with him by sending him to the wrong tent. Somehow, after their confrontation in the jungle, Revik had an easier time imagining the other seer throwing him a random test, just to see what he’d do.
Even as he thought it, Dalejem appeared in the tent’s opening, frowning at him.
The green-eyed seer no longer even wore a towel.
Revik stared down at his muscular body, right before he glanced over his shoulder, moving to block Dalejem’s nakedness from view of the wider camp before he’d thought about what he was doing.
He gripped his own towel tighter in his hands, scowling at the shockingly handsome seer, remembering again just how good-looking the other male was. He remembered how stunned he’d been by his appearance when he’d first seen him, nearly star-struck by it.
Even for a seer, Dalejem was physically beautiful.
Seeing him naked didn’t exactly lessen that fact––and that was just physically, not even taking into account his aleimic light.
“You really think I’d send you naked and wet to another’s tent?” Dalejem asked him incredulously. His long, dark hair hung to his shoulders, wet and straight, and Revik felt his tongue thicken.
“Are you going to let me come inside?” he said.
“That depends.” Dalejem cocked an eyebrow at him. “Did you tell them?”
“What?” Revik stared at him, seeing seers pass out of the corner of his eye, feeling them notice Dalejem’s nakedness. “Get back inside your fucking tent!” he growled. “Can we talk about this in there?”
“No,” Dalejem said. “Did you tell them?”
“Tell them what?”
“What the fuck do you think?” Dalejem frowned at him for real that time.
Revik just looked at him, then tensed, hearing laughter behind him as a group of female seers passed by behind him. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see one of them looking pointedly at Dalejem’s crotch, a smile at her lips.
Revik didn’t hear exactly what she said to her friend, but he got the overall gist.
He glared back at the other male.
“Are you fucking with me right now?” he said.
“Meaning what?”
“Are you trying to make me jealous?”
“I’m honestly not sure. Why? Is it working?”
Revik felt his anger worsen, even as he glanced behind him again. “Am I supposed to make an announcement in the construct? Right now? Seriously?”
“Why not?” Dalejem’s eyes grew a touch colder. “You seemed to have absolutely no problem announcing your sexual needs to all of them last night, brother.”
“Balidor gave me a fucking ultimatum––” Revik growled.
“To ask someone,” Dalejem snapped. “Not all of them. Not every damned seer in the camp, brother Revik.”
Realizing he was serious, Revik exhaled in open anger.
Opening his light, he sent up a flare in the construct, if only to get the seers in the immediate vicinity to notice him.
Silence fell over their whole area of the working Barrier space.
With it, Revik felt attention from at least a dozen presences, and suddenly, he felt a lot more naked than he had with just the towel.
I’m rescinding my offer of last night, he sent clearly into that quiet, waiting space. If you’re wondering why I’m interrupting your goddamned breakfast to tell you that… ask brother Dalejem, he added, letting his irritation be felt in the construct as well. I’m finding he’s a bit of a control freak.
Revik heard laughter.
Some of it was physical, from seers near enough for him to hear.
Some was in the Barrier.
In the pause that followed, Revik continued to feel open amusement in the Barrier construct, along with knowing smiles about him and Dalejem, a few flickers of surprise and even a few pulses of annoyance.
Some of those he even recognized by then.
Ontari was one of the loudest in terms of amusement.
Revik couldn’t focus on any of that for long, however, since Dalejem was still standing there, arms folded, naked.
Moreover, he was now mouthing words at him.
Realizing what the seer wanted him to say, Revik clicked aloud, shaking his head.
I am also no longer taking offers, he added in that same space, rolling his eyes openly at the older seer. “…Although I’m pretty sure that was implied with the first thing,” he added aloud to Dalejem, his voice holding a touch of real annoyance. “Now will you go back inside your goddamned tent? Or are you making an offer of your own right now?”
Smiling, the seer bowed, receding backwards through the flaps of the tent as he did and holding one side open for Revik to enter after him.
After the barest hesitation––Revik did.
Twenty-Two
Older, And Adhipan
Once they were both inside, Dalejem didn’t wait.
Catching hold of him by the arms, he had Revik down on the mat in seconds, pinning him to the cushion with both hand
s before he studied Revik’s face in the dimmer light.
“Are you really okay with this?” he asked then, still watching Revik’s face. “I think Balidor thinks I snapped… that I bullied you into being my sex slave in a fit of jealousy.”
Revik rolled his eyes, clicking a little.
“He’s not entirely wrong,” Dalejem added.
Revik laughed at that.
He couldn’t help it.
He was having trouble focusing though, especially when the other seer pressed his body against his, aligning most of his skin against Revik’s leg and side.
“I thought I was just an ex-Rook?” Revik said, biting his lip when his pain worsened. “Who cares what I think? It’s all karma and bad spaces on my part anyway, is it not, brother?”
Revik meant the words as a joke.
Also, maybe, as a more cowardly way of lightening things, using humor to dodge the fact that both of their lights were opening, that it already felt more intimate than anything that had happened the night before.
When he glanced up at Dalejem, the other seer wasn’t smiling.
Dalejem stared down at Revik instead, a frown pulling at his lips.
“Don’t talk like that anymore, Revik,” he said, his voice serious. “I mean it. I hate it when you say things like that to me, brother. I don’t want to hear it any more. Not with me. Say it to one of the others, if you need to.”
Revik flushed a bit, but felt his mouth harden.
He quirked an eyebrow up at the other seer, torn between amusement and annoyance.
“You don’t want to hear about what? About me having been a Rook? I was a Rook, Jem. I don’t think anyone’s going to let you forget that, especially not if we’re fucking.”
Dalejem winced.
“Don’t call me Jem, either,” Dalejem said, his mouth firming. “I like that you call me by my full name. Hardly anyone ever does. Not even Balidor calls me that. And no, I didn’t mean you having been a Rook. I know you were a Rook. I don’t care. I meant about you being bad now. I meant that tired spiel about you being somehow wrong or irredeemably evil inside because of what you did in the past.”
Revik stared at him.
That time, puzzlement leaked into his words.
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” he said, when the other didn’t change expression. “My light is corrupt now. It will always be corrupt from what I did.”
Dalejem’s expression grew genuinely angry.
“Your light’s not fucking corrupt, Dehgoies! Gods above! Are you an old man? That’s old fashioned, to think that way. And dogmatic. And untrue.”
“Don’t call me Dehgoies,” Revik said, his voice curt. “I don’t like it.”
“Fine… Revik,” Dalejem said, clicking at him. “But if that was another attempt at distraction, I mean what I said. Stop thinking of yourself that way. It’s pissing me off. That’s not what those fucking monks are teaching you in those caves, is it?”
Revik thought about his words.
Frowning faintly, he slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said, realizing the truth of that even as he said it. “No. That’s not what they teach. That’s not where I heard that.”
“Good.” Dalejem exhaled, but didn’t let go of Revik’s wrists where he had them held down on the mat. “Then listen to them. They are your teachers. Not those ignorant assholes in Seertown.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Is that why you don’t like to be called Dehgoies? Because of your adoptive family?”
Before he could stop it, Revik felt his jaw harden.
Looking down at him, Dalejem exhaled, clicking under his breath.
“I don’t care, Revik,” he said, shaking him lightly. “I’m not one who gives a damn about the prominence of the old clan families. I couldn’t give two shits that Clan Dehgoies is one of the first clans… or how much they think of themselves for that reason.”
“They do not like me,” Revik said.
“Is that all it is?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Revik growled, staring up at him. “I never asked to be given their name. I did not want it, and they did not want me. I don’t care if the others call me Dehgoies, but I don’t want you to call me that. Do you have a fucking problem with that, brother?”
Dalejem soothed him with his light, sending warmth into his skin.
Realizing he was overreacting, Revik’s embarrassment returned, even as his anger dissipated.
“No,” Dalejem said, his voice as calming as his aleimi. “I have no problem with that, Revik. And I am sorry. I won’t call you Dehgoies.”
Revik nodded, but still felt puzzlement coiling around his light.
Fighting to let it go, he shrugged.
“Are you having second thoughts about me, brother?” he said finally. He kept his voice subdued, careful not to push, even as he looked up. “This isn’t the conversation I thought we’d be having in here. Do you not want to do this with me now? Just tell me.”
Dalejem just stared at him for a moment.
Then he frowned.
Gripping Revik’s wrists, he pressed his erection deliberately against Revik’s thigh, closing his eyes for longer than a blink as he opened his light.
He let out a low, pained sound when Revik’s aleimi opened in response.
Revik found himself writhing somewhat to free his hands, then, when the other only gripped him tighter, Revik gave in, closing his eyes as he forced himself to try and relax. He felt Dalejem’s pain worsen as he hung over him. Then the other seer began winding his light more tightly into Revik’s, pulling on him in more subtle, expert ways, experimenting to find avenues into structures in Revik’s aleimi.
Lost in the sensual subtlety of the other seer’s light, Revik briefly lost touch with the room. It occurred to him, as he lay there, he might be in over his head.
Dalejem was older than him.
He was older, more experienced.
He was better trained.
Fuck, he was Adhipan.
When he opened his eyes next, Dalejem’s expression had lost most of its hardness.
“I want to fuck you so badly I don’t know how to start this,” the seer said. “And I’m still jealous. I know you prefer females… and I’m not female, brother.”
Revik frowned, about to protest, to argue maybe.
Finally, he shut his mouth, shrugging.
“So?” he said, matter-of-fact. “I’m still seer.”
“A seer who prefers females.”
Revik shrugged again. “Does any seer really care that much, when it comes down to it? In the end, it’s always about light.”
Dalejem nodded, but a frown touched his lips.
“We’ll figure that out later,” he said neutrally.
It occurred to Revik that was almost word-for-word what he’d said when Revik talked about returning to the caves of the Pamir.
Before he could decide what else to say, Dalejem lowered his mouth.
They were kissing again, harder once Revik started kissing him back.
They kissed until Revik’s light began to open for real, until he started losing that clenching around his chest and heart, then losing himself, first in the pain, then in the sensation, then back in the pain when it grew unbearable again, slanting out his mind.
By the time Dalejem ended it, Revik groaned, following him up with his mouth. He felt sick again, in a way he hadn’t the night before. Vulnerability lived there now, not only fear. He found himself acutely aware of the other’s light, of his mind probing his.
“Are you going to let me in?” Dalejem said, as if he’d heard him.
Revik hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Really? You’ll really let me in?”
“Yes.”
The seer’s expression grew taut, right before he kissed him again, hard, using enough light in his tongue to slant out Revik’s vision. He had the towel off Revik’s waist a moment later, and Revik felt himself handing over more of his light, even as that feeling of v
ulnerability sharpened, sparking a near panic in parts of his aleimi. Dalejem pressed more heat into him, trying to reassure him, even as he started exploring Revik’s body with his hands.
“Gods.” Dalejem frowned, looking down at his body. “Those fuckers marked you all over.” He glanced up, meeting Revik’s gaze. “I felt them, you know.”
Revik closed his eyes, too conscious of the other’s hands to think clearly.
“I’m sorry,” he managed.
Dalejem gripped his hair tighter. “You aren’t yet, but you might be later, brother. I’m not sure if I’m up for being gentle with this.”
Revik nodded.
He fought to keep it off his face, but the other’s words immediately made his pain spike, nearly blinding him. When he could see again, Dalejem was watching his face, his expression intent.
Revik saw the understanding there and winced.
“That Rook was right?” Dalejem said, his voice neutral, despite the look in his eyes. “You want me to hurt you?”
Revik felt the other male thinking about the scars on his back when he didn’t answer. Revik didn’t feel judgment there, although he had been looking for it. Instead, he felt the other seer trying to decide what to do with that information exactly.
“It helps me… open,” Revik admitted, still watching that high-cheekboned face.
“Is it the only thing that helps?”
Revik fought with embarrassment, trying to think, to answer his question.
“No,” he said, then amended, “…Well. Sometimes. It was difficult for me. It still is. In the Rooks, I think it was more about sensation. Intensity. The constructs made it harder to feel, so we all overcompensated, usually in all the wrong ways. Terian was big on that kind of thing. He was always big on pushing things.”
“He was your lover, then? That Rook in the clearing?”
Revik hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
Revik thought about that, feeling his face warm.
“We were exclusive for a while.” He fought to remember those years, clenching his jaw when he only got impressions, pieces. “He was unstable. I wanted women, and…”
The Defector Page 24
