Gina scowled again.
Loki felt some alarm when he saw her eyes brighten.
She broke into a quiet sob while he stood there. Feeling strangely helpless, he continued to stand there, giving her space as she brought herself back under control.
“Damned kid,” she muttered, wiping her cheek with her knuckles. “It’s been like this forever with her. Since she was a little girl…she just has to fight everything, all the time. The whole world is a war zone to her. You give her a rule and she just wants to break it. You give her an authority figure, and she just wants to take them down…”
Loki walked towards her, feeling a rush of protectiveness.
“It is okay,” he assured her. Feeling her light open, he wrapped his arms around her when she let him. “These qualities will probably serve her well in this world she was given, Gina. And what happened today, maybe it is good, too.”
At Gina’s incredulous look, he shook his head.
“…Not her hand. Her and I. It is better now. She was afraid for you…for months, she thought you were dead. Then she sees us together, and it is like I stole you from her again. Moreover, she felt responsible. In her eyes, you were someone she left in harm’s way. This is love, not mindless rebellion. It speaks well of her, not the reverse. And she thought I was leaving you. On this assignment the Bridge and Sword have given me. She was protecting you again.”
Seeing Gina’s eyes brighten more, he held her tighter.
Feeling his pain worsen when he realized she was grieving his leaving that time, he shook it off, focusing on what he’d been saying before.
“It is good,” he repeated. “You and she will have dinner tomorrow night. It is all arranged.”
Gina looked up at him, wiping her face with one hand.
“What about you?” she said, her voice holding a faint accusation. “Are you coming to dinner with us as well?”
He inclined his head slightly, the same seer’s apology the Bridge had given him.
“I will be unable to join you,” he said, his voice still light.
Her light exuded frustration, and he felt the grief there again too. Somewhere in that, he also felt a flicker of hope and realized that was about Dante. She was looking forward to sharing a meal with her daughter. The realization both touched him and filled him with relief that his interference had not been unwelcome.
“You’re leaving,” she said, her voice dull. “Aren’t you?”
The grief worsened in her light, along with a denser pulse of fear. It touched him. Enough that he held her tighter, in spite of his attempts to be cautious.
“I am in love with you,” he blurted.
At her silence, he cleared his throat.
“…I hope that’s okay,” he said.
Blinking up at him, her eyes stunned, she laughed.
While it wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for, Loki found himself relaxing at the warmth he felt in her light, the same warmth he could now see in her eyes. Smiling at her, he curled his arms a little tighter around her back and waist, aware that he now held her with a seer’s overt possessiveness.
“This amuses you?” he said, quirking an eyebrow.
She wiped her eyes, still giggling. Looking up, she gave him a mock frown.
“You won’t sleep with me, but you’re in love with me?” she said. “You’re leaving me tonight, for God knows where, and you’re in love with me?”
His pain worsened and not only because she pressed against him as she said it.
He felt his light snake out, reacting to the vulnerability that whispered off her light, along with the very real question he heard in her words. She met his gaze directly, unflinching when he continued to look at her. Her eyes showed a faint embarrassment when he began to caress her face and neck, and he realized in some surprise that it was because she’d been asking him for sex again, indirectly that time…and he hadn’t answered her.
“You still want me?” he teased, tracing her collarbone with his fingers. “Even though your teenaged daughter just bested me in a fight?”
She let out a snort, shoving at his arms. “Oh, for crying out loud. Is this really going to be your latest excuse not to––”
Before she could finish, he bent his head, kissing her mouth.
She softened against him at once and Loki felt his light open without warning, wrapping around hers with an insistence that caught him off guard. His breath paused, but he took his time as he kissed her. He kept his movements cautious, too, but only on the physical end…with his light, for the first time, he didn’t hold back. He bled it steadily into hers, tightening his arms around her until he felt her gasp, her chest struggling to breathe against his.
He felt her desire intensify, even as she wondered what the kiss meant.
“No excuses,” he told her, ending the kiss. “Can we do this? I don’t want to wait any more…I can’t stand the thought of waiting until I return.”
Her eyes widened.
He felt her wondering if he was serious, then realizing from his expression that he probably was. He felt his pain sharpen when her pupils abruptly dilated. She only paused a second more before sliding her arms around his neck. Smiling up at him, she curled her fingers into his hair, touching the back of his neck.
“Are you really asking me that?” she said.
Without letting himself second-guess any of it that time, Loki lifted her in his arms, yanking her off her feet. When she wrapped her legs around his waist he let out a low gasp, curling his arm under her and walking her into the apartment’s bedroom, to the king-sized bed that sat in the corner of the well-lit room. He laid her down unceremoniously on the bedspread, then he was kissing her again, feeling his pain worsen when her hands slid down his ribs, pausing to massage muscles, then moving to the fasteners holding the cloth together down the front of his chest.
“Can I read you?” he asked, fighting to control his voice when she started undressing him. “Gina…can I read you during?”
He felt a flicker of nerves on her as she thought about his question.
His pain worsened as he realized she might say no.
He wondered if he’d be able to stop himself once he had his body inside of her.
Feeling a kind of panic when he realized he probably wouldn’t be able to, that maybe they would have to wait after all, he started to withdraw from her arms. She stopped him, tightening her legs around him, pulling him closer by gripping his arms and thighs.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes…just…” She hesitated, then her eyes flickered up to his. “Just…don’t judge me, okay?”
Feeling his pain grow almost debilitating, he shook his head.
“Never, Gina,” he said.
She slid her hand further down his torso. He fought to control his light when that same hand roved down his abdomen, then below it…then pressed hard against his erection, massaging him deliberately with her fingers.
That time, he lost touch with the room briefly.
He’d already shown her his body.
He’d insisted once she told him she’d never seen a seer naked before, although she’d looked at a lot of images on the black market feeds not long after the two of them met. She’d heard stories, too, mostly from other humans. She told him she hadn’t had the nerve to ask another seer, even Alyson the Bridge, who she’d started to befriend.
From what he could tell of her words, she’d also seen feed images of larger-than-average seer sexual organs and strange deformities that might be part of the fetish industry.
She’d heard whispers of what seers were like sexually.
Half of those stories had been lies, but she’d been curious, which turned him on.
She’d also been enthusiastic when Loki offered to educate her, which turned him on more. She’d been fascinated by him, specifically, but he’d felt her fear, too. He’d lain with her naked, then offered her oral sex when she’d wanted intercourse.
By the end of that, all of her nerves and
misgivings seemed to have abated entirely…enough that she’d wanted to return the favor for him.
He’d been nervous about letting her, so he’d refused that time.
He’d masturbated in front of her, instead, so he could show her the hirik…the part of a male seer’s sex organ that extends just prior to ejaculation.
Seeing that had surprised her…a lot, actually.
It also turned her on.
He hadn’t expected the second reaction from her, especially not so soon. It caught him off guard…completely off guard, in fact…so much so that he came almost at once, and pretty much on her…which she deliberately let him do. He’d been unable to stop himself once he felt her arousal in his light, especially after she offered herself under him.
He still blushed remembering that, but Gina found the whole thing funny.
Funny, and, more strangely still, to Loki, at least, she’d found it endearing, too…maybe because he’d lost control with her for the first time, maybe for the vulnerability he’d shown her in those few minutes while he climaxed, when he was pretty sure he’d been calling her name…or maybe for some other reason he’d been too nervous to probe her light to determine specifically.
But she knew his body, at least.
Not well, but she had seen it.
She seemed to feel some portion of his thoughts around that, too, even as she continued to unfasten the catches on his shirt.
“Will it hurt?” she murmured, not looking up at him. “That…thing. You know. How you’re built. Is that going to hurt me?”
He fought to control his breathing, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No, I’ll pull out before…I won’t let it hurt you.”
At that, she did look up.
Loki met her gaze, then watched her brow crinkle as she frowned.
“Really?” she said. “Every time?”
He nodded, frowning back. “It would hurt you a lot if I didn’t. It even hurts female seers until they get used to it…” Seeing the doubt in her eyes, he caressed her face with one hand. “Trust me on this, Gina. You would not like it.”
She nodded, but her frown didn’t dissipate from her eyes or the edges of her lips.
His pain worsened abruptly when her thoughts touched his light, without him reaching out that time. He felt her worry that he would lose interest in her if he had to control himself every time…if he couldn’t let go inside of her, if she couldn’t give him what his body wanted. He felt her thinking that it might not bother him at first, not for weeks or even for months…for years, maybe…but eventually it would be an issue. She feared he wouldn’t be satisfied, that he would eventually look elsewhere for this.
She seemed to think it would only be a matter of time.
He let out a low groan when he felt her fears about losing him.
“Do not worry about this, Gina,” he told her, gasping, feeling his pain worsen. “Seers…we are different about this. We want light. We want the light of the person we love…” Feeling her fear intensify, he gripped her hair in his hands, blowing warmth over her aleimi. “Trust me,” he murmured. “Gods, trust me…please. It does not matter to me…I swear to you it doesn’t.”
“It will…”
“No.” He shook his head, once. “No, it won’t…I promise.”
He felt her thinking again, wanting to believe him.
He let out another low gasp when he felt her thinking about giving him oral sex.
She looked up, her cheeks pinkish that time.
He realized she knew he’d heard her from his reaction.
“Well?” she said. “Does that work? At the end, I mean?”
He nodded, feeling his pain grow sharper once they made eye contact. “Yes.” Hesitating, he shrugged with one hand, still holding her gaze. “You have to know how to avoid the hirik there, too, or you can hurt your mouth or tongue…but I can show you that, and yes, it can work very well.” He felt her desire intensify as she turned over his words. Loki fought back another stab of pain, closing his eyes. “There are other things, cousin…things I can show you…do not worry. Please. This is such a small thing…please do not worry. I will be satisfied. More than satisfied, I promise you. I will not look for this elsewhere…I will not.”
He felt her fighting to hear him, to let his words reassure her.
He felt her wanting to believe him, and his desire worsened. He remembered her thoughts. She had been thinking years with him…she had already wanted that, to be with him for years.
He had told her he loved her.
He wondered how she understood that, too. He sensed with human men, it often had a lot to do with sex, but he wondered if it would reassure her or not that he meant it more in relation to her light than to her body.
She was back to undressing him, and he hung over her, holding his weight off her with his elbows, fighting to calm himself, to control his light.
She was thinking about him leaving then, and that fear in her light worsened.
He bit his lip when her fingers began massaging the front of his pants again.
“Are you really leaving tonight?” she said.
Loki hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
She bit her lip.
Loki winced, but didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t lie to her about it. But he wished now he had avoided telling her that, too. He didn’t want her to think he was doing this because he would be going. It wasn’t the reason. Not the only one, anyway.
He fought with what he might say.
Before he’d managed to come up with the right words, he glanced down at her.
Gina was crying. Her dark eyes had filled with tears. They ran down her face, running a small corner of her make-up, softening her heart-shaped face.
Loki felt his light open, hurting him even as he unshielded. His pain flared in the same instant, so intensely that he couldn’t speak at all at first. He hung over her, his shirt open, feeling helpless for a few beats more. Then he bent his arms, dropping his weight so he pressed the length of his body against hers. He had her in his arms before he let himself think about what he intended, cradling her against his chest, pouring his light over her.
They were kissing then, and he felt his pain worsen.
He’d never had any human react to his pain like Gina did. She had her hands under his shirt before he could take a breath. He let her shove the shirt off his shoulders, and the aggression behind it had him gripping her tighter, nearly losing control of his light for real.
She had her hands on the fasteners of his pants next.
That instant seemed to stretch, to pull at him. Feeling a sliver of fear run through his aleimi, he realized something else.
He’d been using Dante as an excuse.
The truth was, he was terrified of this.
His mind fought with the reasons why, even as those few seconds stretched, as the brief confession to himself triggered a deluge of smaller confessions making up his specific fears.
Humans died so easily…they lived such a short time.
Gods, what the hell was he doing with her?
He could get her killed just by having her here with him. He would be leaving her now…leaving her unprotected. She should not be so close to the front…she should not be so close to the Bridge and the Sword. She should have gone with the other humans, with the civilians taken by the Bridge’s biological parents to whatever safe haven they were carving out in this new world.
She shouldn’t be here with him.
He let out a low groan when her fingers got the front of his pants undone.
He’d been stalling for his own reasons, not only because of her daughter. He understood in the same set of seconds that Gina had every right to be annoyed with him about this. He’d been hiding behind Dante, when the real issue had been him all along.
The longer he thought about it, the more he realized how childish it was.
He also realized he was done with it.
Whatever his fears of being hurt, of being aba
ndoned, of needing one so different from him, of vulnerability to a female with a lifespan significantly less than his…wherever those fears lived or had been born, he was finished.
He had committed to this thing, for better or worse.
He would see it through to the end.
4
DRAGON
He dreams in magentas and indigos and grays.
He is the fire.
He is the no one, too. He fills the cracks between light and dark…black and white photos tinged with crimson and jeweled strands. Streaks of color live on either side of his line…but he is the black line, the hair’s width, the mind the gap…
He is the singularity, the silences where they overlap.
He is the no thing…he is everything too.
He is the backdrop, that which lives in the spaces.
Between dark and light.
Between Barrier and not.
Between Barrier and beyond.
Between living and death.
He watches the currents go by on either side. Lights like party boats in water rolled over by dark clouds…distant stars. He coaxes and teases. He pulls at the currents, bringing them closer, blowing them further away. He feels…so much.
He feels nothing.
It is smoke and glass…it is death. It takes so little to shred. They rebuild it again and again, flimsy diversions in flickering shadow and pale lights.
He is a slave. He knows. They think he does not, but he does.
Or perhaps they simply don’t care.
In through the out door…
Out in the open now. Revealed. She feels him there, although she cannot yet name him. She sees him in dreams although she does not yet recognize him. She looks for him, for who might be next, knowing only that it will be someone she loves…
She will come here.
She cannot ignore him forever.
She will embrace him, as it is written.
Together.
Together, they will watch the world burn.
Together they will close all of the remaining doors.
I folded my arms, nodding as I stared out over the horizon of shadow-darkened buildings framed by aging sunlight.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 5
