Screaming it to the beings behind the Barrier.
For a long time, it feels like no one is listening.
For a long time, it feels like no one cares.
Fourteen
A Glint Of Light
He opened his eyes.
He couldn’t see.
He stared up, in more pain than he could think through.
His heart hurt, throbbing like an open wound in his chest.
His blindness confused him, even inside that pain.
For a few seconds, he thought he was back there, in that underground room. It took him a few seconds more to realize he was blinded by his own tears––that, and more light than he could comprehend. Light rained down on him.
Light rained down on both of them.
Light rained down on her.
More than him, light rained down on her.
It rained down like it was physical, like liquid aleimi infused with gold.
He had no idea where that light was coming from.
It could not possibly be happening while both of them were inside the tank.
He didn’t know where he was.
All he knew, all he could bring himself to care about, was that she was there.
She was with him.
His chest continued to hurt, but he could barely feel it as he groped for her, looking for her light even as his hands looked for her body. She was right next to him, lying on the organic metal floor beside him. While some part of him had known that, the relief that washed over him as his hands confirmed that fact brought tears to his eyes all over again.
He turned to his side before he could see clearly, pulling her against him.
He held her closer after he’d felt over her, checking her for injuries, bizarrely concerned about the fact that she was lying in the ice cream cake, that her hair is coated in it.
She was crying, but he almost didn’t notice.
He swam through her emotions instead.
He swam through her light.
All he had the space to notice was everything he felt in her light.
The more he felt, the more he felt his own aleimi react.
His own light flared out, enveloping hers, and she clutched at him.
For the first time, her light didn’t push his away.
She didn’t resist him at all.
No part of her resisted him, or fought to keep him out.
The realization confused him at first…
Then he felt his confusion turn to disbelief, a kind of wonder-filled bewilderment as his light exploded outward, his aura rippling in a hot arc that enveloped hers.
He could feel her heart.
He could feel her fucking heart.
He felt that pain in her chest, throbbing, and realized the pain he’d felt was hers as much as his own. Their hearts seemed to beat as a single force, so hard his frame shuddered with every thud inside his chest.
He felt the opening there, in her light.
He felt that white and violet light, that precious, delicate, gorgeous light… and found himself crying with her.
He couldn’t even comprehend why at first.
He couldn’t comprehend the confusion of emotions. He couldn’t comprehend his own relief at how open she was, how that dark, metallic structure he’d felt in her heart, from the very beginning of their sessions together, had finally cracked open.
He found himself kissing her face, kissing her tears, caressing her cheek with his fingers, wiping them away. She didn’t fight him that time, or even flinch away. Instead he felt her pulling on him, and when he could finally see again, her hands were wrapped around his arms, one of her legs coiled around his.
Letting his weight fall on her when she pulled on him demandingly, he tried unsuccessfully to wipe the cake out of her hair… or maybe her hair out of the cake.
After a few seconds, she noticed his concentration.
She looked up and back, puzzled, then seemed to put it together with what he was doing, why his brow was furrowed.
She startled him, breaking out in a laugh.
It was a real laugh.
It was a laugh filled with that light, the violet-white light of her heart.
When he looked down, surprised, she smiled.
Tears filled her eyes again.
“I ruined your cake,” she said.
Despite her laugh, her voice came out broken, unclear.
Leaning down, he kissed her mouth. They kissed like that for a few minutes more and she was crying while he flooded her with his light.
“I can wash it out,” he murmured. “Your hair… there’s a shower…”
She laughed again, clutching him tighter.
She didn’t speak though and he felt pain on her, not sex-pain that time.
He felt her struggling, wanting to ask him things.
Or maybe to yell at him some more, or beat on him with her hands. Maybe she wanted to demand things of him, make him promise her things. Maybe she wanted to fuck him, to put her mouth on him, to punch him in the face.
He opened his light further as he felt all of those things, surrendering his light to hers completely, offering her whichever of those things she wanted, whatever she needed from him. He was sending her love then, in every way he knew how, and she let out a low, pained gasp when he held her tighter.
He felt her flinch away from the heat in his light; then she seemed to give up on that, too, until she was just lying under him, gripping his shirt in both hands, her fingers sweated into the fabric.
He felt her growing quieter in that.
He felt her light begin to open once more, slowly at first, cautiously, then in more and more relief when he only opened more to accommodate her.
He listened as her heart slowed, as her breathing deepened.
Eventually she just lay under him, her forehead pressed to his chest.
She unclenched her hands.
Then they were inside his shirt, stroking his skin. He fought with whether he should say something, but felt her shake her head where her forehead remained leaning against his chest.
“No,” she said quietly. “No, please don’t.”
His arm tightened around her, even as he supported himself on his other arm and elbow to keep from crushing her under his weight.
When she started crying again, he didn’t move, or try to change position.
He started stroking her hair again when he felt her ask for it.
Then he rolled to his side, wrapping both arms around her when he felt her ask for that, too. He opened his light more, sliding deeper into hers as he coiled that warmer part of himself around her.
That time, she didn’t fight him at all.
Instead she wrapped herself around him in return, sighing in a surrender he felt down to his bones. Pressing her face to his chest, she curled up against him, inserting one of her legs between both of his.
He sent her more of that heated affection even as tears came back to his eyes.
He had no idea if she even noticed.
Fifteen
Girlfriend
He woke up on his back, with her lying on his chest and most of his abdomen.
The sickly-sweet smell of ice cream seemed to be coming from under him now. After a few more seconds of lying there, unwilling to move, despite the smell and the stickiness of his hand, he decided they must have rolled into the cake again at some point in the night.
He touched her hair and his hand came away sticky and he almost laughed.
He’d woken her though.
More guilt slid over him as she raised her head.
For a long moment, they only looked at one another.
It was dark in the cell now, so he had no idea if she could even see him.
“I can’t take the collar off you,” he blurted. “Not yet. I can’t, Cassandra.”
She didn’t look away, but he felt a whisper of puzzlement on her.
Part of his military training included being able to pull detail out of
darkness, and the cell wasn’t completely without light. They had made the lighting system in here that way by design, so a military-trained seer could always see the cell’s occupants.
Therefore, he also saw her frown.
“I know,” she said, her voice puzzled too.
He nodded, but that guilt didn’t leave him entirely.
“Can I have that shower now?” she asked, pulling on him deliberately with her light.
He barely hesitated before he nodded.
“I’m going to get turned on,” he confessed, feeling the need to say it for some reason.
He saw her grin.
“I hope so,” she said. “That’s the main reason I asked.”
Later, he couldn’t remember how long they actually showered.
He managed to reconfigure the set up they had in place for her bathing needs, enough to get the organic floor to create a drain wide enough to get rid of the last of the cake once he’d hosed down that part of the floor.
He tried to move the backpack and the stray comic book out of the way first, but the latter had already stuck to the floor with melted cake, and gotten crumpled from one of them rolling over it while they slept.
Balidor felt bad about that, too.
For some reason, Cass seemed to find it funny.
He hosed off the floor and then the two of them, then she had her mouth on his cock and he forgot about everything else for a while.
By the end he couldn’t take it anymore and had her pinned under him on the floor as he fucked her into an orgasm, using his light so intensely that she yelled at the end, digging her nails and fingers into his back.
He came somewhere in that too.
He’d tried to hold it back.
He’d really tried.
He’d been unable to stop himself once she opened her light, especially after she opened her heart, winding her aleimi into his. When she started calling out his name as she tightened her legs around him, he lost it entirely.
He’d lost control entirely––even using every trick he knew to control his light.
It occurred to him also, somewhere in that, that he hadn’t done that in sex in longer than he could remember. Just like with every other area of his life, he’d always held back. He’d always softened his light, keeping some of it in reserve.
But Cass’s light was huge.
Cass’s light enveloped his, even when he opened entirely.
Even when he lost control, she could take it.
Moreover, she wanted it. She pulled on him for more.
She wanted more.
He felt a swell of possessiveness when he realized that.
He felt another one, a worse one, after he’d finished orgasming. That one was aggressive enough, violent enough, it made her flinch, then stare up at him in the dark. He tried to pull it back, to regain control over his light, but he struggled with that too.
It wasn’t pride that time. It wasn’t even a fear of hurting her or pushing her with his light; he doubted he could do that anyway, even with the collar.
It was guilt.
It was shame at how fucking irrational he was acting.
She told him he was being stupid.
“You’re a seer,” she’d said impatiently. “Seers are possessive. Deal with it.”
He nodded, pulling on her with his light as he kissed her shoulder. Pain flickered back through him, making the possessiveness worse.
“You might not want to give me permission to indulge that,” he murmured.
She shivered when he bit her.
He let out a low gasp when he felt her light react more, wrap into his more. He felt her getting turned on by his possessiveness, turned on by his hand gripping her wet hair in his fingers, his other hand clenching her ass, yanking her up against him.
When it got quiet again between them and he felt himself getting hard, she exhaled in a sigh, looking up as pain ribboned off her light.
“Balidor,” she said, making his cock harder when she spoke his full name, enough that he closed his eyes. “Balidor… what are you doing?”
“Trying to fuck my girlfriend,” he said, his voice low.
She stiffened. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said, his voice hard, even accusing. “Can we just cut the crap on this? Yarli knew. She knew for weeks before we called things off for good. Hell, she probably knew for months. Are you seriously going to pretend you didn’t know?”
He felt more than saw Cass gape at him in the dark.
Then her cat-like eyes narrowed.
“Don’t I get a vote in this?” she said, her voice sharper.
“Of course. You have been voting,” he said gruffly, pressing his cock against her. “You can reverse your vote at any goddamned time. Tell me to leave you alone. I swear to the gods, I will. I won’t come back at all, Cassandra. Not if you don’t want me to.”
There was a silence.
He felt her try to take his words in different ways than he meant them.
He felt her try to hear them as a threat.
Then to hear them as a lie.
She struggled with it though.
Her heart was too open now. She could feel too much of him.
She could feel exactly how he meant the words.
Worse, she could feel how seriously he meant them.
In the end, she sighed.
He felt the surrender in her light, right before she reached up, sliding her fingers into his hair. She clenched her hand until it hurt. He felt her willing him to look at her, so he did, wincing as her fingers clenched harder.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as she spoke, putting light in her voice.
“If I ever catch you lying to me, it’s over ‘Dor. Even once.”
He nodded. “Agreed.”
“If you ever try to pull some power trip on me while I’m in here, prisoner or no––”
“Agreed,” he said, holding up a hand in a seer’s vow. “Absolutely. I vow it.”
There was another silence.
Then he said, “Do I get any stipulations?”
“No,” she said, her voice sharp. She tilted her head sideways in a seer’s shrug. “Not yet. You’re a trial boyfriend at this point. Can you handle that?”
He fought not to smile.
He knew she probably still felt it on his light.
“Yes,” he said, feeling his pain worsen as her light opened. “Yes. I can… handle that, Cassandra.”
“Are you going to fuck me again?” she said, her voice still faintly demanding. “Right now, I mean?”
“Yes,” he said, opening his heart as he leaned his weight on her.
She sucked in a breath.
Somewhere in that, he also felt her make up her mind.
For real that time.
Heat hit him in the chest as he felt the intensity of her decision.
Her light began to open then. It was more than he could deal with at first, and again he felt a near-awe at the sheer amount of it, of everything he could feel in her.
Then she opened her heart, and he groaned.
That achingly soft light wound into his, delicate, but somehow frighteningly strong.
He felt the possessiveness there.
He felt her claiming him, wrapping his heart into hers.
When she continued to open, he let out a heavier groan, pressing his body against hers, but when he raised his head, he was smiling.
She must have felt it or seen it on his face, because she let out a half-annoyed snort that wanted to turn into a laugh.
“Don’t get cocky, brother Balidor…” she warned.
He laughed for real, even as his pain abruptly worsened.
“You might want to rephrase that,” he murmured, kissing her face. “You just gave me an unbelievable fucking hard on, Cassandra.”
She pursed her lips.
Again, he felt her struggling to remain annoyed, and failing.
Again, he felt her fear, the part of her that wanted no
t to trust him.
Again, he felt that violet-white light in her heart coiling into his, as if that part of her simply ignored the parts of her that wanted to keep him at arm’s length.
To that part of her light, Balidor was already hers.
She’d claimed him.
She’d claimed him as hers.
He belonged to her now.
Moreover, Balidor was completely in agreement with that.
“Fine!” she said, her voice still an endearing mixture of annoyed and amused. “I’m your girlfriend, okay? We settled that part. Now are you going to fuck me? Or kiss me at least? What are you waiting for?”
He grinned. “For you to ask.”
“I just did!” she said, letting her hands drop to her sides. At his silence, she let out an exasperated snort. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine. Kiss me. Fuck me. What, do you need an engraved invitation with your name on it? Or––”
That time, he didn’t let her finish.
That time, he did as her heart told him, as soon as her words matched.
He had a feeling he would be doing a lot of that from now on.
A softer, quieter part of his light told him he might be doing that for a very long time––possibly a very, very long time.
Maybe for the rest of his life.
WANT TO READ MORE?
Check out the next book in the series:
DRAGON (Bridge & Sword #9)
“It turned out those crazy Mythers were right. That dark angel of death, the bringer of the end… it really was me.”
Allie and Revik are on the run, dragging the remains of their army ahead of Shadow.
Revik knows they can’t run forever.
He comes up with a plan––a crazy plan, one that might just destroy everything he and Allie hold dear.
A plan that means sacrificing himself for one last shot at Shadow.
Then Dragon appears, another broken intermediary with unbelievable power.
He might just be the most dangerous seer Allie’s ever encountered––including her husband, who Dragon seems determined to hunt for reasons of his own.
A Glint of Light Page 16
