Maygar’s relationship with his father was important to him.
Balidor knew that, and moreover, he respected it. Maygar was taking a big risk by helping him. He’d won his father’s trust through a lot of hard work, on both of their sides. The two of them had a relationship now, one increasingly filled with affection, love, trust.
Balidor had no intention of doing anything to harm that relationship.
He would not harm that relationship, not if there was any way to avoid it.
He would not harm Maygar’s new sense of family.
The young seer hadn’t gotten a lot of genuine love or affection in his early years, from what Balidor knew. Maygar’s biological mother––the Rook, Elan Raven––was hardly the warmest seer Balidor had ever met.
As for Maygar himself, he didn’t make a big deal out of helping Balidor either, which Balidor could not help but respect.
He could only guess the full story behind the other male’s motives, but the compassion there, the self-awareness and willingness to forgive, touched Balidor.
Maygar himself had been an outcast.
Like Cassandra, he’d also been an outcast primarily due to his own actions.
They’d also both been taken by the dark being, Shadow. They’d been taken by Shadow at roughly the same time––and housed in that same chateau in Argentina as captives. Maygar had been tortured by the same being who tortured and eventually dismantled the mind of Cass.
Maybe Maygar felt the same could have happened to him, under different circumstances.
Or maybe, like he’d hinted to Balidor, Maygar just remembered what it was like to screw up to an unforgivable degree and be totally alone as a result.
They were close to the same age, too.
Balidor realized with a flush of anger that a worm of jealousy lived there.
That same jealousy made him question if Maygar and Cass had ever been more than friends. They’d worked together, side by side, for months, particularly in the period after Allie was first awakened.
Remembering the scrutiny in Jon’s eyes as he questioned him about Cass, Balidor tried to shove that from his mind too.
You’re not her mate, Balidor.
The words echoed in his mind somewhere, and not only because they’d stung. They also ignited something in his more tactical, practical, emotionless infiltrator’s mind. That something had wormed its way into his head, and now he couldn’t dislodge it.
He knew he had more than one motive, of course.
He didn’t care.
He also remembered what Yarli had said.
He did not care about that, either.
He was seriously out of ideas.
More than that, Maygar’s warning from months before rang equally loudly in his mind.
You need to work fast, old man.
They’ll find out. They always do.
Both things echoed in his mind when he reached the outer security station, which sat just outside the doors to both Cass’s and Terian’s segments of the four-celled Barrier tank.
Maygar sat up as soon as he saw him, blinking at him in surprise.
“Another one?” he said, glancing at the timepiece embedded in the console. “I know the last session was short, but––”
“Yes,” Balidor cut in, his lips pressing together. “Another one, brother.”
Maygar gauged his face.
“You want me to look in?” he said after a beat.
Balidor thought about the question.
But not for very long.
“No,” he said after a long-feeling pause. “No. Not tonight.”
Feeling his jaw harden slightly, Balidor made his voice casual when he added,
“In fact, I’d like some privacy for this one, brother,” he said. “No surveillance. Man the station for any emergencies, obviously. But turn the inner cameras off. All of them this time. Not just the ones that route up to the CIC.”
Maygar blinked, then froze.
He just sat there for a few seconds, presumably letting Balidor’s words sink in.
Then, still watching Balidor’s face, Maygar quirked an eyebrow, pursing his lips.
When Balidor didn’t elaborate, the younger male eventually shrugged.
He made his voice as casual as Balidor’s when he responded.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be out here, if you need me.”
“Are the cameras off? Now, I mean?”
Maygar’s brow furrowed.
For a brief second, he seemed like he was considering saying something. Instead, he leaned over the console, hitting through a sequence on the control panel.
“They are now.”
“Thank you, brother.”
Maygar nodded, but the puzzled scrutiny never left his high-cheekboned face.
“Of course,” he said.
Balidor didn’t wait.
Turning on his heel, he made his way directly to the hatch-like door, knowing Maygar would be going through the unlocking and opening sequence as he crossed the floor from the security station to the hatch. He was rewarded by seeing the blue-green light blinking over the door by the time he stood directly in front of the oval hatch.
A few seconds later, that light turned to red, right before loud clicks around the rim of the door signaled that the seal had been disengaged.
Balidor didn’t wait then, either.
Turning the outside wheel, he spun it counter-clockwise, opening the hatch-style door.
Seconds later, he stood inside.
He remained by the door for a few seconds longer, possibly even a few minutes.
He stood there, gearing up for…
Well. For what came next.
A few seconds later, he glanced up in time to see the indicator light above the door go from that crimson red color back to blue-green, telling him that the Barrier seal was reignited over the tank. That same seal would keep Shadow and his people from getting anywhere near Cass’s light or mind while she was locked up in here.
It was the only thing that gave Balidor a prayer of reaching her without Shadow killing her the instant he started to make progress.
But he was still stalling.
He was blatantly stalling now, after he’d already established he could no longer afford to stall. He was out of time.
Cass was out of time.
Releasing and stepping away from the hatch, he crossed the green-tinted floor of the cell. This time, he didn’t stop at the edge of the black circle painted on the green metal that time.
He walked right over that circle instead.
Walking right up to her, he didn’t wait for her reaction.
He didn’t even look at her––not until he stood over her.
By then, even before he’d done anything, even before he’d spoken, or she’d spoken, or he’d felt her light––
––it felt like everything had already changed.
Nine
Breaking Code
On the surface, he just stood there.
He stood over her, jaw clenched, and waited.
Then, when she did nothing but stare at him, her face blank with what might have been shock, might have been caution––might even have been fear, a possibility that made him tired inside, on more than one level––he exhaled, putting his hands on his hips as he relaxed his stance. As he did it, he opened his light.
He still didn’t speak.
He felt like a fool, but he didn’t move.
He simply stood there, waiting for her to notice the difference in his aleimi.
He knew, collar or no, she would feel it.
He was still standing there, unmoving, when he felt her notice, right before he glimpsed it in her face. Surprise flickered across her delicate features… a surprise that struck him as unaffected, at least in those first few seconds.
Of course, according to Jon, Balidor was being a sucker for even thinking that.
The thought made him clench his jaw harder.
“What’s it going
to take, Cassandra?” he said. “Are you going to tell me? Or am I just the nightly amusement, in lieu of the guards offering you access to the feeds?”
She blinked up at him.
Her face and eyes rippled briefly with a second flicker of surprise.
He saw it in her light, sparking in colors he’d only seen on her a few times.
Then she leaned back against the wall.
He watched her make an effort to pull that more cynical cloak back over her light and facial expression. He was standing so close to her now, he could feel her doing it. He could feel the broken pieces there, the gaps that Shadow had exploited in her light, that he’d used to break her, to make her dependent on him.
He could see the black, hardened structure that locked down her heart.
He could see it almost hurting her, like a piece of shrapnel lodged in her chest.
He could feel she was so used to it now she barely noticed, even as it made her wince and clench, hiding herself, hiding her light from the world.
Hiding her light from him.
He was still looking down at her, when he made up his mind.
For real that time.
Reaching for the top of his shirt, he started unfastening the catches by his throat and then down his chest. He didn’t take his eyes off her face as he did it, but continued to gauge her expression, his light still more or less open.
It might not be a full request, but he could see her acknowledging the question there, even as incredulity made her expression look almost young.
Then he felt something else.
Pain rippled through her light.
It was undeniably sex pain.
Enough of it hit into him that he stumbled in what he’d been doing, losing track of buttons and button holes, his throat closing as he fumbled with his shirt. He felt his face heat, but he didn’t avert his gaze from hers.
It struck him suddenly that she wouldn’t have had sex in a long time.
She wouldn’t have had sex in a very long time, unless he was extremely mistaken about her relationship with the guards that watched over this cell.
He was already hard.
“Tell me no,” he said, gruff.
She shook her head. “No.”
He smiled in spite of himself, averting his gaze for the first time. Staring off towards the wall to his left, he went back to unfastening the catches of his shirt.
“Come here,” she said, softer.
He barely hesitated. He was on his knees in front of her then, and she was facing him, up on her own knees as she reached for his shirt.
“So I guess the talk with Jon went well––” she began humorously.
“No,” he cut in. “It didn’t. Not really.”
Studying his face, she nodded.
He forced himself to exhale, averting his gaze when she reached for him.
“They’re going to be mad at you for this,” she murmured as she took over undressing him, tugging the tails of his shirt out of his belt. “…Madder.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” he said, his voice taut.
“You obviously give a little bit of a fuck,” she said, quirking an eyebrow at him. She paused long enough with the shirt to run a hand over the front of his pants. When he sucked in a breath, she slowed, massaging him in a way that told him she was exploring him, too.
“Nice,” she murmured, wrapping her hand around him tighter.
When his back arched as he got even harder, she pressed on him more.
“…Really nice. But Balidor… this is pretty decadent for you, isn’t it?” She glanced up, meeting his gaze. “Isn’t this against your holy codes? Surely there’s got to be some ethical thing about taking advantage of prisoners… fucking psych ward patients… whatever the hell you tell yourself I am?”
“It is,” he acknowledged. “Against Code.”
“But you’re doing it anyway?” she said, rubbing her hand over his cock again.
He fought to think while she did it to him.
He had reasons of course.
He knew she would know what those were.
She likely was asking him more to see what he would say.
She likely wanted to know what he wouldn’t say, as well.
Maybe it was that, or maybe it was some other reason, something more to do with Code, with the questions behind her question. Whatever it was, he decided to voice his reasons aloud, to be as honest with them as he possibly could.
Unlike most psychological deconstruction projects he’d led in the past, meaning the infiltrator part of what he was doing here––or trying to do––or telling himself he was doing––he’d been transparent with her, pretty much from the beginning.
He’d explained what he intended.
He’d explained how he thought it would likely work between them, how it would differ from the group effort organized around Revik, when Allie led the project with him.
He’d asked her permission to try and do what he was doing.
Truthfully, he’d been surprised she’d granted it.
She’d barely hesitated, or argued, confining her resistance to the sessions themselves, where she often blocked him from the things he knew they needed to explore.
Of course, he’d suspected even at the very beginning that she’d given him permission out of boredom as much as anything. He’d become her project as much as she was his, and most of the time, she was winning.
Well, part of her was winning––most days, the least evolved part, unfortunately.
At any rate, he’d been honest.
He’d been honest with her from day one.
He saw no reason to change that now.
“I’m doing this to get into your light,” he said, meeting her gaze from only a few inches away. “I’m doing it to make it harder for you to fight me. I’m doing it to hopefully forge some kind of light-link between us, Cassandra. Something that will make it less likely you will close to me. Something that will allow me to circumvent your defenses.”
“Like when Allie goaded Revik into attacking her in the tank?” she said, her voice calm, bordering on inquisitive. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” he said, gasping a little when she went back to massaging his cock.
“I see. So this is work to you, brother? Hardship duty? Taking one for the team?”
He didn’t answer.
His jaw clenched when she gripped him tighter, feeling out his shape openly through his pants. He felt her frustration with the collar, with her inability to explore his light, right before another plume of pain left her aleimi, making his muscles clench.
Watching his face, she smiled, shifting closer to him on her knees and wrapping a cuffed arm around his neck. She pressed her face to his, reinforcing her grip on his cock through the material of his pants.
“I know you’re telling yourself that, brother seer,” she murmured in his ear.
He let out a low groan, surprising himself.
It surprised her, too.
When she jumped, flinching at the pain pulsing off him, he found himself breathing harder, even as her arm tightened around his neck.
His pain worsened.
Briefly, she lost control over her light. Her arm cinched even tighter around his neck as her pain coiled into him, bringing up a hotter flush in his own aleimi.
His arm wrapped around her roughly, yanking her closer.
She stopped him long enough to pull the shirt off his shoulders, which he only then realized she’d finished unfastening. He let her do it, and only knelt there, unmoving as she unfastened his belt.
“I could strangle you with this,” she told him, quirking an eyebrow at him again.
“You could try,” he said, amused for some reason.
He let out a heavier sound when she yanked the belt from around him.
“Maybe you should be tied up too?” she said, holding it up briefly.
He took it from her, tossing it behind him, outside the circle painted on the floor.
He could feel her pulling on his light, hard enough that a part of him had already forgotten why he was supposed to be doing this.
He reached for her shirt, unfastening it with somewhat more skill than he’d managed with his own. He started yanking it off her shoulders a few minutes later, then remembered he couldn’t get it off her with the cuffs. More pain coiled out of her light as he started exploring her with his hands. She pulled on him so intensely he groaned again, louder.
He grabbed hold of the waistband of her pants to yank her closer to him, then his hand sank into her hair, tugging it gently out of her face before he fisted it in his fingers.
He kissed her.
Not on the mouth, not at first.
Pulling on her living light with his own, he used his body with it, putting light into his tongue and lips, putting it into his hands as he massaged muscle and skin. He deliberately slowed as he did it, taking his time. He had his other hand inside her shirt now, exploring and lingering, holding the weight of one of her large breasts in one hand even as his thumb curled around her nipple.
She let out a deeper gasp when he lowered his head, following his fingers and thumb with his mouth, using so much light that time that she moaned.
Gods, she was hungry.
She was really fucking hungry.
He could almost convince himself it was for him.
He used his weight to roll her to her back.
Then he pulled her out away from the wall so she was forced to take her hands off him. He gripped her waist in his hands, holding her there, preventing her from touching him as he explored more of her with his mouth.
Somewhere in that, she broke out in a sweat.
Her pain grew so intense he was having trouble controlling his light.
Then she was asking him, and it got a lot worse.
Gaos. Gaos, please... fuck me. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to fuck me. You have no idea how many times I’ve masturbated in here, thinking about your cock in me…
He let out a heavier groan, again losing control over his light.
It took him another few seconds before it hit him that her mind was in his.
A Glint of Light Page 10
