In spite of what I’d told myself, the voice made me jump.
Not the tone of it, or what he said, but who it was.
It wasn’t one of the five or six people I’d maybe expected.
“Hello, Esteemed Bridge,” he said.
I turned at once. Hand on my holster, I blinked at the seer’s face in confusion.
Maybe some part of me was fighting to confirm his identity.
Or maybe I was just in denial, since this wasn’t a seer I was prepared to deal with emotionally right then. He also wasn’t one I knew well enough to know what to expect. Him being Revik’s ex-boyfriend didn’t help…particularly in terms of the “zero emotional reaction” thing.
Because yeah––rather than Jon, Balidor, Wreg, Tarsi or even Yumi––it was Dalejem who stood there, wearing full combat gear and holding an automatic rifle.
He wasn’t aiming the rifle at me, which I guess was a bonus.
He didn’t smile when I turned.
Rather, his forest-green eyes with the violet rings studied mine, his face infiltrator blank. His hands adjusted themselves on the rifle when my eyes drifted down to the combat gear he wore. When I didn’t speak, he let out a clicking sort of exhale.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
I looked up at his face. Blinked again.
Then I shook my head, clicking sharply under my breath. Without another thought, I turned my back to him, settling my eyes firmly on the case filled with guns.
“No, you’re not,” I said. Without looking over at him, I let my voice grow dismissive. “How are you even out of the hospital, brother? I suspect this is your concussion talking, in any case, because if you think I’m taking you with me, then you’re seriously––”
“I wasn’t making a request,” Dalejem cut in. “I was merely doing you the courtesy of informing you. I am coming with you, Esteemed Sister.”
I glanced back over my shoulder in spite of myself.
Seeing the hard look on his handsome face, I let out a humorless grunt, a smile touching my lips. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said, gripping the gun tighter.
I shook my head, clicking softly. Glancing back at the gun case, I muttered in annoyance, “Funny. I seem to remember you waxing quite eloquent on the whole ‘I serve the Bridge’ crap before. I guess following orders isn’t a part of that, brother?”
“I don’t work for you directly,” he said, with barely a pause. “…I serve you. There’s a difference. Further, your mother, Kali, for whom I actually work, will soon be in possession of your daughter.”
My smile faded.
In the seconds that ticked by, my jaw hardened to granite.
After another short pause, I turned, facing him directly. I let that hotter light spark down from the higher areas of my aleimi.
“What?” I said. I walked towards him, letting that higher voltage of light snake out to where it would touch his. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”
Dalejem held his ground.
Even so, I saw nerves flicker through his light. I saw his fingers tighten on the gun even as his pupils dilated. As I got closer though, he only shook his head, clicking louder.
“Save it, sister.” Giving me an immovable look, he shook his head again, his long dark hair stopping the movement slightly from where it tangled in the strap of his gun. He lowered his voice to a growl. “I don’t know what the fuck you and Revik are up to. I really don’t. But if you think I buy this bullshit story of yours, that he just up and left you and your daughter, then you really don’t think much of me…or of the rest of your ‘followers’…”
I opened my mouth, but he kept talking, cutting me off.
“…Further, if you think I intend to let you just take off…by yourself…unprotected…given everything that happened in Dubai, then you might just be suffering from a concussion of your own, my oh-so-precious intermediary…”
I narrowed my eyes up at him.
It occurred to me for the first time that he was almost as tall as Revik.
Maybe half an inch off, if that.
He locked gazes with me unflinchingly.
“Go on,” he said, his voice an open taunt. “Tell me a story, Alyson. Tell me how Revik would have left you like you’re both claiming. Tell me how he’d leave his daughter, too. I could use a fucking laugh right now.”
I folded my arms, exuding impatience with my light.
“I don’t give a shit what you believe,” I said. “You’re not coming with me.”
Dalejem shook his head, planting his feed wider apart. “Again. I’m not asking.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Male bravado. Nice.”
“Just how do you intend to stop me, exactly?”
I didn’t think.
Uncoiling the telekinesis, I slammed him into the wall, hard. Hard enough that I winced, especially after I remembered what he’d done for me in Dubai…especially after I remembered he really had just gotten out of medical observation due to serious injuries from the same, including a head injury that nearly killed him.
My jaw tightened at the thought, but I didn’t move, or try to help him as he struggled back to his feet.
He’d slid down the wall, falling nearly to his knees before he caught his balance.
“Pretty fucking easily, I’d say,” I told him. “And if you or my ‘parents’ threaten me with my daughter again, I’ll send them your head in a fucking hat box…brother.”
Gripping the wall with his free hand, Dalejem pulled himself back up to standing.
I still didn’t feel any fear on him.
Mostly, I felt anger. Even now.
I wasn’t sure if that made him brave or a fucking idiot, but he still didn’t seem to think I would hurt him seriously. He felt shaken, but that struck me as more adrenaline and physical shock than fear. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t even really want to scare him.
But no way was I letting one of my parents’ spies come with me to Denver.
“Spies?” Dalejem snorted, his voice openly incredulous. “Gods. You and Revik…you are like the same fucking person, do you know that? You really think your own fucking parents are trying to harm you? That they would try to harm your mate? Do you have any idea how much they’ve sacrificed for the two of you already…?”
But that made my light spark out in fury for real.
“My parents are dead,” I snapped. “Those…people…you’re talking about…they might be related to me biologically, but they sure as fuck didn’t raise me. It’s a little late to pull the mom and dad card now, since all I really know about them is that they ordered you leave me under a freeway overpass when I was too young to crawl…next to a dumpster, no less.”
For the first time, Dalejem flinched.
I saw it in his eyes.
Surprise…maybe that I remembered that at all, or that I’d throw it in his face. I saw him thinking about what I’d said. I could see the light coiling strangely around his body in those few seconds too, but I ignored that as well.
“…Apparently they couldn’t even be bothered to abandon me themselves,” I added, unable to help the anger that crept back into my voice. “Or was that supposed to absolve them of the karmic stain of leaving me to rot next to a human garbage bin?”
My words visibly threw him off balance.
I saw it, there and gone, but he only looked away, color rising sharply to his cheeks right before he shook his head.
“You don’t know anything about that,” he said.
“Don’t I?”
“No,” he growled, glaring at me. “You don’t.”
I shrugged, averting my gaze. “Well, I’m sure it’s a fascinating story.” I turned my back on him, focusing deliberately on the gun case. I let my voice turn polite. “Unfortunately I don’t have time to hear it right now, brother. Perhaps when I get back…?”
Looking at the case, I decided fuck it, I’d bring the whole thing.
Yanking on the lea
ther strap to close the polymer lid, I shut it, latching the case on each side then spinning the combination lock closed with my thumb.
I picked the case up by the handle, only pulled off balance a little by the weight as I turned back towards where Dalejem stood between me and the door. I was about to grab the canvas satchel with my other hand, but Dalejem stepped forward, taking it from me before I could.
Frowning, I looked up at him, more in disbelief than anger.
“Do you have some kind of death wish, brother?” I said. “Or do you just not find female telekinetics particularly scary? Maybe I need to call brother Wreg up here?”
“Maybe I just have more faith in my Esteemed Bridge than to believe she would harm a brother simply for wanting to protect her,” he said, his voice gruff.
That time, when he met my gaze, I was startled to see tears in his eyes.
Dalejem added, his voice rougher, “…Maybe I think she would respect that a friend of her husband’s would not wish to see any harm come to a dear friend’s wife, particularly when her husband is not in a position to aid her himself…”
I let out a disbelieving laugh, but Dalejem gave me a direct look.
That time, his eyes sparked with an inner light.
“…Particularly when that husband visited his friend prior to leaving,” he added darkly, his voice still low. “Particularly when he asked his friend to act as his wife’s personal guard…whether his wife complained about that assignment or not…”
That time, I could only gape at him.
Dalejem let his words hang, but only for a few short beats.
Then he shrugged with one muscular hand.
“I didn’t believe a single other fucking thing he told me, of course,” he said, his voice gruff. “But I believed him when he made this request in regards to you. Some promises must be given, no matter what the pretext. Even if one is lied to again and again and again about why such a thing might be necessary…”
When he met my gaze that time, I felt my vision blur.
I fought to speak, to argue with him maybe, but he kept talking before I could.
“Perhaps you might try to understand my desire to help you, too,” Dalejem said, his voice holding more emotion, despite his anger. “And perhaps you might realize I have my own reasons for agreeing to my friend’s request, regardless of his bullshit reasons for asking. In either case, I already requested and was granted reassignment from your parents…as well as my old friends in the Adhipan. I admit, I had hoped the life debts we share between us might be enough for you to feel some obligation to me, as well…and allow those requests to stand. Was I wrong in that, sister?”
I stared at him, genuinely thrown.
I couldn’t get past the Revik part.
Had Revik really gone to him? When?
In the middle of the fucking night? Or in the dawn hours of the morning? Had he gone to talk to him before the bonding session or after? Before he talked to Lily or after? Weeks before? Maybe back when Dalejem first regained consciousness…or when Revik first decided for certain that he intended to leave me here in Bangkok?
Why, though? Why would Revik be assigning me bodyguards now?
Why would he do that?
But I already knew why. I understood perfectly.
I just didn’t want to.
Jealousy seethed briefly through my light too, although I did my best to push that back. I didn’t need that crap clouding my mind along with the rest of it.
Dalejem didn’t wait for me to process it all.
His jaw still hard, he bent down, grasping the canvas satchel handles in the hand not gripping his rifle. Hefting the bag easily, he slung the whole thing over one shoulder, pushing the gun down to get it out of the way. Without looking at me directly, he gestured politely towards the bedroom door, using the fingers of the same hand holding my bag.
“Shall we go, Esteemed Bridge?” he said.
Still spinning through everything he’d said, I found myself at a loss for words.
I considered arguing with him.
I considered pointing out that I had my own bodyguards already, that I wasn’t going alone, whatever he or Revik discussed or imagined without me. I considered naming them off, telling Dalejem that I’d vetted each one personally, including on the night of Revik’s and my “bonding,” when most of them had been otherwise occupied with their lights.
Looking at Dalejem, I realized all of that was besides the point, though.
Revik had asked him to go with me. He’d asked because he trusted Dalejem. He’d asked the one person he really trusted, besides me. And maybe that was good enough.
After all, I couldn’t do much for Revik now.
But I could do this. I could give him this one thing.
Anyway, I’d already told him I would.
So in the end, I only nodded.
“I want us out of here in five,” I said. “Are you packed?”
“It’s already on the truck, Esteemed Bridge.”
I nodded again.
There really didn’t seem to be anything more to say.
10
PRODIGAL
Revik raised his hands…slowly. His eyes didn’t move from the end of the rifle the guard aimed at his head.
“Don’t fucking move!” the seer hissed in Mandarin.
Revik looked over the other male carefully.
The seer had black, matted hair tied back by a leather thong. Bare feet. Torn, filthy jeans. Shirt open to display a thin chest with visible ribs. Homemade, black-faded-to-blue human ink tattoos crawled up from his chest to his neck, covering his arms, hands and fingers. The marks and symbols themselves mirrored those Revik had seen on many ex-slave campers, as well as those who ended up in work camps. The poor seers, that is. The ones without the sight rank or the connections to be bought out.
The seer wore earrings too, human-style.
Although his dark skin looked sun worn and rough, Revik pegged his probable age at just over one hundred years…two at most. He’d definitely come into this world post-First Contact from the looks of his light and body. A recent refugee from one of the liberated work camps most likely. That, or one who’d been enslaved for years and only recently obtained a half-assed form of freedom, courtesy of the Dreng.
He could have worked fishing trawlers, from his skin. He wore the open uniform shirt of dock security, but Revik focused again on his bare feet.
They couldn’t have splurged on boots for this poor fuck?
Revik took in the other seer’s light in a single pass.
He didn’t lower his hands.
“Relax,” Revik said in the same language, sending a pulse of warmth. “I’m not armed, brother. I’m not here to cause trouble, either. I’ve come to––”
“Who are you?” the guard snapped, cutting him off. “How the fuck did you get out here? This area is restricted.”
Standing at the end of the dock, Revik kept his expression still, unmoving apart from a slight widening of his feet and legs. He hadn’t done that aggressively either, more to connote that he fully expected to be frisked. The posture was meant to imply he wouldn’t fight them on it when they did. Nothing to hide, so to speak.
“I took a boat,” Revik said, fighting not to add something sarcastic about the obviousness of that fact. “As far as who I am, I would happily tell you that, brother, if you would just allow me to––”
“Shut up!” the guard snapped. “I don’t want to hear your lies!”
Revik bit his lip.
He tried to decide if he should attempt again to calm him, then fell silent when another guard walked up and grabbed his arms from behind. The sudden, rough contact made Revik jump. He’d felt other lights in the background, of course, and knew the first guard wasn’t alone, but the second infiltrator had been a fuck of a lot closer than Revik realized.
Already he was struggling inside the denser construct. He was an outsider here. None of that functionality would be working for him, only again
st him.
He wondered if he’d need to use the telekinesis after all.
The idea didn’t thrill him.
Then again, neither did the idea of being shot then drowned in the ocean by underfed guard dogs bought off with scraps.
“You think you’re funny?” the first seer grunted, still aiming the rifle at him. “You a fucking comedian brother, is that it…?”
“No,” Revik said only.
“You like jokes?” the seer with the ponytail sneered, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You want to tell us some funny jokes, brother? Right before we splatter your brains and bone over these crates? Or should we save the bullets…just throw you back in the water, like you were thinking? Watch you sink like all the other fishes? Maybe then you don’t come on shore where you not supposed to…?”
That time, Revik opted to remain silent.
He kept his mind silent too, realizing he’d underestimated the construct already.
He didn’t fight the seer behind him as they cuffed his wrists behind his back. He felt the muscles of his arms and back tense, though.
He also started to wonder if this had been a mistake.
He should have stuck with his original plan and crossed into Singapore from Malaysia. He could have made a formal petition for entry there, on the land side. Hell, he wouldn’t have needed to…his image would have lit up their facial-rec software like a damned Christmas tree the second he got into visual range. That, or the Barrier construct would have ID’d his light the second he crossed through the gateway of their OBE.
He wouldn’t have had to explain anything.
They likely would have shoved him on a boat for Hong Kong themselves.
Ironically, he hadn’t done it that way because he’d been worried some trigger-happy guard might recognize him before they could run his stats up the flagpole, and he’d get shot. Now he might get killed by some dock-rat security guard for no reason whatsoever.
He decided to take a chance.
“Do you not recognize me, brothers?” he said.
He let the second one shove him forward, stumbling a little as he took a few steps. It hit him that they really were shoving him towards the end of the pier. They might really just throw him into the water, cuffed, likely shot…and let him drown.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 19
