And the sex had been frequent, and intense... even out here. Even in a tent where I suspected the others stayed awake at night simply to watch us.
At this point, I had more or less stopped trying to fight it.
I never forgot just how stupid I was being, however.
Varlan had warned me.
Terian himself had essentially warned me, too, if only by making it clear he intended to treat me like a possession, not like any kind of partner or even friend.
Hell, I knew Terian’s reputation, even apart from Varlan’s warnings. I knew the seer could supposedly be whimsical at best, if not out and out sadistic with his affections. I continued to catch glimpses of that instability in different forms as I spent more time with the other male... the shifting moods, the self-aggrandizement, how easily bored Terian often seemed, even in the middle of an active op, his tendency towards obsession, his propensity to lie, that near-insatiable ambition and appetite and inability to control his own voltage.
Unfortunately, I strongly suspected that some of those same things were what made Terian so attractive to me. Those, and a maddeningly cheerful self-confidence that bordered on manic... and that mind-blowingly unbelievable light of his... light that got me hard whenever I got even moderately close to touching it.
I found it was something else, however, that pulled on me more.
That something lived even deeper in Terian’s light.
... Deep enough that its pull was more difficult for me to tear apart and examine.
Whatever it was, it drew me closer to the other seer. Those other qualities might make Terian more disorienting and worrisome, causing me to back off and reassess periodically, to determine just how far I should be letting this other person into my aleimi... but that quality of light drew me back, time and again. I wondered sometimes, too, just how many Terians really lived inside the man with whom I’d spent the last seventy-two hours.
I still hadn’t answered that question to my own satisfaction, either.
In any case, Varlan did not.
... Object, that is, to my new assignment.
Of course he did not.
How could he object... and moreover, why would he?
Meanwhile, I felt my own test occurring in that conversation, as well... mainly in the overt way in which Terian staked his claim over me, body and light. I could feel the seer testing my reactions throughout that exchange, trying to see how far he could push in terms of his ownership before I began to push back.
I pushed back in my own way, though.
Primarily, I did so by refusing to react.
I simply stood there, unapologetic, and let my light be put on display by the senior seer to the entirety of my pod. Realizing what I was doing about halfway through his act, Terian broke out into a grin, even as he backed off my body and light in front of the others, throwing a secondary shield up over the two of us, in addition to that.
He’d continued to wrap his aleimi into me from behind that shield, of course.
Gods, you just gave me such a hard-on, he’d murmured.
My light reacted sharply to the male’s words, but I still hadn’t spoken.
Very clever, little brother, Terian whispered, winding that dense heat deeper into my light, enough that I felt my chest clench. ... Very, very clever. So that is the plan, eh? You make me look like a rapist, to keep your unit’s sympathies with you? That way they see me as the big bad wolf... and you as a poor innocent, rather than an opportunistic status-climber with a talented tongue and a sharp cock?
A silence fell between us.
Then I shrugged subtly with one hand, a seer’s shrug.
When Terian pulled on me again, demanding a real answer, I relented.
You seemed to enjoy the role of overseer, I sent, stripping the thought of emotion. Perhaps I merely did not wish to deprive you of it, sir... ?
Terian laughed aloud at that, wrapping his arm around my waist.
It was the first time he’d touched me physically in front of the others, but I found I didn’t mind that particularly, either. I pretended not to notice the stares, but I didn’t look directly at Terian, either, not until the other seer jerked at my light, insisting I turn my head.
Once I had, Terian met my gaze directly with those fiery, amber eyes.
Shall I order you down on your knees right now, brother? he sent, still staring me in the face. Show them just how compliant you really are? I wouldn’t want them to think I was abusing you, after all. You are their friend. Their comrade. Perhaps they need a demonstration to know their concerns for your innocence are exceedingly kind, but wholly unnecessary, my brother?
I shrugged again with one hand, refusing to lower my eyes.
If you wish, sir, I sent easily.
Terian grinned at that, too.
That time, however, he backed down for real.
He released me with his arm, stepping a few feet away. The shield he’d erected around the two of us dissipated a few seconds later, leaving me feeling strangely naked, and alone in a way that disconcerted me, given that I’d known Terian for less than twenty-four hours at that point.
Still, the skill with which Terian both created and then dissolved that dense and highly-specific shield blew me away, even as I fought to sort through my more personal reactions to what Terian had chosen to show me.
Stranger still, perhaps, I felt like I’d passed that particular test.
I wasn’t sure how, precisely.
Terian seemed to appreciate that I often took a somewhat unconventional approach to his power-plays, but I got the sense it was more than that, too. Now that it had been a few days, I thought perhaps it was simply because I had proven myself not to be a fool... or weak... at least not overly so in either category.
I definitely got the sense Terian above all valued cleverness and mental strength in his subordinates. I suspected Terian found both qualities more interesting in his sexual partners, too, as opposed to mundane subservience or stupidity.
... Or, perhaps the wrong type of subservience would be more accurate, since Terian definitely preferred some forms of unconditional submission during sex.
I understood the difference, however.
I could appreciate similar distinctions in my own preferences. Truthfully, I found these observations about Terian reassuring on multiple levels.
Whatever his reasoning, Terian kept his hands and his light off me in front of the others after that, at least while we were working. He only broke that pattern a few times. Once, on our first night in the field, when he’d grabbed me by the belt and essentially demanded that I accompany him to his tent immediately.
The other time had been after that same, initial briefing, when he’d wrapped his arm around my back to push me in the direction of the infiltration op center, right as the meeting broke up. By then, Terian had already verbally dismissed the rest of my pod––if I could even realistically call them that anymore––and told them to go outside and finish the requisitions check while Terian connected me with his personal infiltration team.
Terian had already explained how I would be acting as his direct liaison with that team in the field, even beyond what he’d told Varlan at the meeting’s opening.
I knew it was a promotion.
I’m ambitious, so that pleased me, truthfully.
As much as Terian joked about me cock-sucking my way to a higher status, I knew that he didn’t mind my ambition, either. Personally, I didn’t mind if the cock-sucking bit was essentially true; I didn’t care particularly how I moved up the hierarchy, as long as I did. Given my potential and actual sight ranks, and the number of times I’d been passed over already, I felt I deserved to move up, and a lot faster than I had been. I had zero issue with Terian helping me to that end, and in fact overtly hoped Terian would help me to that end.
I also didn’t give a rat’s ass what the others thought about my reasons for advancement... or even whether I deserved that advancement.
When I
proved myself in the field, they would shut up.
That’s all I cared about.
Terian seemed to know these things about me, too.
More refreshing still, he didn’t appear to care in the slightest. If anything, I got the impression Terian approved of my pragmatism and refusal to apologize for wanting to advance... perhaps even more than he’d said in so many words.
Either way, he clearly had no qualms around giving me preferential treatment as long as the two of us were fucking... which was just fine with me.
Terian also expected me to work for it, which I didn’t mind, either.
I paid close attention once we entered the intelligence control center.
Inside that room, Terian was all business... introducing me around and explaining my new role and then spending another few minutes methodically hooking and connecting my light into that of his own infiltrators. He explained the purpose of many of the structures he added to my light as he did it, and how he expected me to use those structures out in the field.
He remained silent on just as many others, however... as well as how those added elements in my light hooked into the overall shielding and mobile field construct.
I still didn’t know if I would be receiving as much bad information as good, with only Terian being able to discern the difference... but I suspected as much.
Regardless, I would serve as the main conduit for information from the stationary infiltrators operating out of the work camp––both private contractors and those employed directly by SCARB and the Sweeps––and the field units under Varlan and Terian.
I would be transmitting information in the opposite direction, too, meaning from the field back to base. I had additional structures added to my aleimi so I could be the stationary infiltration team’s eyes and ears, as well, and not only a filtered antennae. Most of those structures would serve to assess the Barrier and even physical environments apart from those aspects to which I myself paid direct attention.
Meaning, those structures would cause my light to act closer to a camera than my ordinary aleimi’s behavior, recording everything without filtering or discernment, and not only those things that caught my direct notice... the latter being how normal seer memories tended to work.
I found that by the end of it, both Terian and I were reacting strongly to one another’s light again. Terian didn’t give any hint of that to the others, though, or even directly to me... and after a few minutes of working to control my own aleimi, I started to wonder if maybe I’d imagined the difference in Terian’s. Truthfully, Terian barely even looked at me while we were in sight of his infiltrators. He only glanced at me a few times before we’d left that room behind, and then usually to ask me a specific question.
I didn’t take offense.
In fact, I almost took it as a compliment... once it occurred to me that Terian might be serious about keeping me here in South America with him, after all. It would go far to explain why he didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass how my pod or Varlan perceived me, yet had exercised caution when it came to presenting me to his own infiltrators.
Of course, I knew better than to ask about any of that, either.
Especially now, while we were mid-op.
My mind did come up with a few other possible explanations, too.
I had a fit of paranoia before we left the Central Intelligence Command bunker, in fact, that Terian might have another lover here, meaning one of those in his own infiltration team, the group of seers who worked directly under him. I wondered whether this other lover might be the real reason Terian didn’t want me introduced with any hint of impropriety to his senior officers. Maybe he was avoiding some kind of scene.
Unfortunately (fortunately?) Terian felt that flicker of possessive anger, too, and not long after we left the CIC, he acted on it, dragging me into a darkened supply room where he promptly ordered me to service him after all, regardless of the open construct. He demanded an apology from me, too, a formal one, with additional promises regarding penance and a few other stipulations, most of which probably made it to the construct in some form, as well.
Between the two things, we didn’t make it outside for another thirty or so minutes.
By then, I was in a lot of pain, high on a few lines of coke that Terian conveniently had on him in the aftermath of our supply room detour... and strongly of the mind that I was in over my head. When I stumbled outside into the heat and humidity and direct, tropical sunlight, I definitely got the sense that the others of my (now ex-) pod could definitely feel some hint of all three of those things in my light, too.
I noted a few grumbles from them, as well, if only from behind the Barrier.
Truthfully, my pain still wasn’t getting any better from the sex.
In fact, it seemed to be getting worse. Now that it had been a few days, I had started to wonder if maybe Terian really was an intermediary being, or some other mutated form of seer, given my borderline-insane reactions to the other man’s light... seemingly without any of the other signs of a true fixation. I didn’t confuse my longings for love, or even for some kind of desire to be mated. I instead wondered if Terian had perhaps done something to my aleimi other than add structures to help me act as a intelligence transmitter out in the field.
Was this just another way he entertained himself out here? Making the occasional pet out of a fellow seer? If so, I knew this would definitely have a time limit.
The thought didn’t reassure me.
In fact, it only made that anxiety worse.
Between that and the obsessive coils and rotations I still felt in Terian’s aleimi around Dehgoies, I found myself watching the seer almost compulsively from behind the Barrier, and in the physical, too. I noted that my attentions weren’t reciprocated most of the time, either, but that only made my grasping worse, and less rational, as I tried to determine what it was about our connection that Terian found so easy to ignore.
It didn’t help that my aleimi continued to act possessively towards Terian’s, even when I didn’t go there consciously in my mind... even going so far as to shove a few of the other seers away when they ventured too close to Terian’s light. The first time that happened, I slammed Gregor so hard from the Barrier that I gave him a nosebleed.
Terian seemed to like that, too.
I tried to ignore the others’ reactions to me in all of that, and mostly succeeded.
Of all of them, Varlan seemed to know the most fully what was happening... or, at least, to have the most fully-formed opinions.
I supposed that wasn’t surprising, given Varlan’s sight rank, coupled with his intimations about knowing Terian from the past. I could tell, in watching the two of them, as well as listening to how they spoke to one another, that Varlan and Terian had worked together before. That much, Varlan hadn’t fabricated, although I still couldn’t decide if that made Varlan’s other statements about Terian more credible, less credible or neither.
I would have given a fair bit to hear some of those stories now, though.
Since Varlan no longer seemed inclined to share his opinions with me, however, I was on my own in that regard, as well. Which I supposed made sense, given that I’d basically ignored the other seer’s warnings before, as well as his advice.
Still, I wondered.
In the end, I chose to ignore the stares and Barrier whispers and simply focus on my work. I did the same around Varlan. Although I strongly suspected Varlan didn’t approve of what I was doing with Terian... not if our conversation during the flight over the Amazon was any indication... I stopped caring about that, too.
For the most part, anyway.
More or less.
Luckily, the work kept me more than busy.
Like now.
Anything from the team? Terian sent. When I didn’t answer right away, Terian’s mind sharpened. Quay? What does Central say? In terms of why they might have gone up there?
His voice sounded strangely loud in my mind, after the near-silence
of our progress through the jungle.
Varlan says they’ve abandoned the river again... Terian added.
Nodding, I took a snapshot of Varlan’s current imprints, sent it, then consulted with the infiltration team back at the base, mostly without words.
A few seconds later, I clicked out.
No, I sent. They still theorize you were correct, however, sir... that we are following the main group. Tule says that they now appear to be lagging about a half a click behind a smaller sub-set of their team.
Pausing at that, I glanced at Terian.
... A rear defense, sir? I ventured.
You mean that they know we’re here, Terian sent back, short. That they’ve deployed some of their soldier seers to keep a closer eye on us... possibly to cover their exit?
It wasn’t really a question.
It’s a possibility, I replied, diplomatic.
Show me, Terian sent.
I flashed the image at the other’s light. The instant I did, I felt a sharper reaction from Terian. Feeling my own light react to the emotional surge off of that particular set of imprints, I changed the tenor of my light, cutting the rest of the pod off from my next communication.
Even then, I used the subvocal in my headset, to avoid being overheard.
“Dehgoies?” I said silently.
“Possibly, yes,” Terian said. “It’s a trauma marker. One I mapped a long time ago in Revi’s light. He’s gotten better at hiding it... but it’s pretty distinctive.”
“Can we cut him off, do you think? From the others?”
“They have a lead on us. One they seem determined to maintain.”
“We have helicopters,” I reminded him. “Couldn’t we send someone ahead?”
Terian glanced at me from where he walked in the near-dark a few yards away. His amber eyes shone like cat’s eyes in the faint light from the twilit sky above the canopy.
Allie's War Early Years Page 34
