War: Bridge & Sword: Apocalypse (Bridge & Sword Series Book 6)

by JC Andrijeski

  Jon yanked on the seer’s belt, forcing Wreg backward with his hands.

  Wreg’s eyes were glazed when Jon pulled away long enough to look at him. His light slid around Jon’s in erratic sparks, as if he was losing control over it, and unsure if he should try and stop that, too. The caution remained, however, bordering on fear and seething through his light, making it react even more strongly to Jon’s.

  “Brother.” Wreg clasped the back of Jon’s head in both hands. “Talk to me, please. Just for one moment. Tell me this isn’t some kind of human goodbye fuck, that you’re not still angry with me… or at least not still planning to leave me.”

  Jon looked up from where he’d finished with the seer’s belt and unfastened most of the front of his pants. Feeling another surge of that anger that wasn’t really anger, Jon hardened his jaw, meeting that darker gaze.

  “It’s not,” he said.

  “Which part, goddamn it?” Wreg stared at him, his expression openly frustrated.

  “I’m in love with you,” Jon told him, blunt. “I might end up killing you, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to leave you.” He shook his head, scowling. “…Especially with all of you insisting my homicidal rage is ‘normal.’”

  He’d looked away from the other man when he said it, taking his hands off his belt and stepping far enough back to retract at least some of his light. When he glanced at Wreg, he felt a jolt of shock go through his light when he saw the seer’s expression.

  “Wreg… jesus,” he said at once. The anger, at least the hardest part of it, leached out of his voice. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like I did it on purpose. I left so I wouldn't crack your head open with the butt of one of your guns…”

  The seer sat on the cushions, wiping his eyes with the fingers of one of his hands.

  Revik told him Wreg had been crying in their room.

  He told Jon that was “normal,” too, that male seers tended to be emotional––openly so, especially with this kind of thing. Revik told Jon that he’d cried in front of Allie numerous times, and away from her, too, especially when they were in the midst of something similar. What “something similar” meant exactly, Jon hadn’t gotten him to say, but he hadn’t missed the crack about him not being able to leave Wreg––at least, not without help.

  That was another thing that had changed. Jon found he remembered conversations almost word for word now, even weeks after they’d occurred. He knew Allie and Revik could do that, but it still felt strange. He had to admit it was handy, though.

  A hell of a lot more handy than some other seer quirks.

  He watched Wreg avoid his eyes. The seer shook his head belatedly to Jon’s words, still wiping his face with one hand.

  “I’m not angry, Jon,” he said, gruff.

  Jon walked to him a second time. He found he was still fighting that feeling, the one that no longer felt appropriate with Wreg so obviously emotional. Unfortunately, Wreg sitting there with his light completely open and utterly unshielded only made the feeling worse.

  Jon bent his knees so that their eyes were more-or-less level, laying his hands on Wreg’s legs. He found himself massaging the muscles there, watching Wreg’s face as the seer continued to avoid his gaze. Jon felt pain on him, and the utter exhaustion that lay just under it. He felt flickers of that other, physical pain in Wreg’s shoulder, too, and frowned, moving closer as he continued to massage the muscles of his legs with his hands.

  “What, then?” he said, his voice quieter. “If you’re not angry, then what? Do you not trust me, because I walked out like that?”

  Wreg reached out with one hand. His fingers gripped Jon’s hair, tugging on the back of his head. Pain pulsed off his light, enough that Jon felt it in his knees, even his feet. He caught hold of the seer’s other hand, gripping it almost tightly.

  “If you don’t want me to attack you again,” he murmured, kissing the seer’s fingers. “You should probably stop doing that, Wreg. With your light, I mean.”

  The seer pulled on him harder, sliding his hand down Jon’s neck.

  Warmth seeped off his hands, along with a deeper pain he no longer seemed to be trying to hold back. It worsened as he massaged Jon’s neck and shoulder, his dark eyes now on his face. When Jon returned his gaze, he saw pain in the nearly-black eyes as well, just before the seer worked his hands down his chest.

  “Seriously, man,” Jon said, fighting with his light again, and his breath. “I wasn’t actually kidding when I said that.”

  “We need to do that mulei,” Wreg grunted, as if Jon hadn’t spoken. He continued to massage the muscles across the front of his body, strongly enough that Jon closed his eyes. “You’ve lost weight. You had even before I left on that damned trip.”

  “Are you critiquing my body now?”

  “No.” Wreg smacked his shoulder in irritation. “And fuck you.”

  Jon smiled wryly, watching the seer avoid his eyes. “I just need to get back in the ring with Allie,” he said, keeping his voice neutral, but knowing the seer heard his meaning. “I need her to start teaching me how to incorporate the sight and light side of things, so I can actually start beating her again.”

  “I thought I was doing that?” Wreg grunted.

  “Beating her?”

  “Teaching you,” he said, giving Jon a warning look. “She’s training with Nenz these days. He claims she can kick my ass, but I have no idea. He’s a shit-talker anyway… and cocky as hell when it comes to fighting.”

  Jon rolled his eyes. “I seem to remember him having some pretty good reasons for that.”

  “Are you saying I can’t beat him? Or that you’d rather have him train you?”

  Jon laughed aloud. “I don’t know… should I really want you as my teacher again, Wreg? If you plan to employ the same methods you used to teach me blocking, shielding and reading, then no thanks, brother. That’s probably the real reason I lost weight. You had me hanging over a toilet more days than not, as I recall.”

  Wreg only nodded, his hands still massaging the front of Jon’s body. After another few minutes of that, Jon let out an involuntary sound. His hands went to the front of the seer before he’d made a conscious decision. He finished undoing Wreg’s pants, feeling another hard coil of pain in his gut that might have come at least partly from the other man.

  “Are you going to fuck me in here?” Wreg said, his voice quiet again.

  “Is that all right with you?”

  The seer’s hands clenched around the back of Jon’s neck. “They’ll feel it,” he said after a pause. “They can feel this. I don’t think I can shield right now, Jon.”

  Jon nodded. “So you want to go upstairs?”

  When the seer looked up, there was enough pain in his expression that Jon gripped Wreg’s shirt tighter. He yanked him closer, kissing him on the mouth.

  The kiss grew more insistent when the seer opened his light.

  Jon felt that vulnerability on him again and shoved him backwards on the cushions, sliding his hands under the other man’s shirt, pulling on him with his light as Wreg let out a low groan. Pain coiled out of Wreg in another hot wave, and Jon opened his light, if only to feel Wreg react again. He had Wreg’s pants off then, jerking them down his legs, and Wreg gripped his shoulder, his light once more slipping out of his control.

  “Goddamn it, Jon. Half of them want you already…”

  Jon grunted. “That didn’t stop you when you had me give you head in here before. In the middle of a full restaurant, no less.”

  Wreg winced, looking away, but his pain flared as his expression tightened.

  Watching his face, Jon felt his own jaw harden.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he said. “Do you want to go upstairs? Or not?”

  Wreg’s expression grew conflicted. He gripped Jon’s hair, pulling his mouth down to his. He kissed him, hard, using his tongue. His hand slid between Jon’s legs while the latter struggled to unhook the front of the organic military pants.

  �
��Can I do this or not?” Jon heard the near-anger in his voice as he looked down at the seer. He had his fingers in the other man’s mouth, using his saliva and his hand before he gave a low groan. “Christ. I didn’t bring anything. Is it okay…? Can I do this?”

  Wreg shoved his hands out of the way, pulling Jon’s hips closer. Jon leaned his hands on the padded wall behind the cushions as Wreg finished unhooking Jon’s pants with deft fingers.

  Jon just stood there until Wreg had his mouth on him. Closing his eyes, he forgot everything as the seer used his lips and tongue along with his light. He gripped Wreg’s hair in his fingers as the pain worsened, expanding rapidly out of his abdomen in a flush of liquid heat. He let out a weak sound when it worsened, low enough that it mixed somehow with the pain, and Jon felt the other seer lose control over his light.

  A few minutes later, he forced the taller seer to his back.

  Then he was trying to get inside him, barely waiting until Wreg let him before he pushed his way inside, feeling it all the way through his body, as if every vein of his light pulled at Wreg’s.

  He lost it, briefly, and then he didn’t care anymore, about the complete irrationality of what he was doing, the fact that the others might feel this, or what he’d said to Wreg before all of this started––or even what he was turning into, apart from Wreg.

  Feeling overcame him instead. That denser heat mixed with aggression, a possessiveness he’d never felt with anyone, alien enough that it was closer to a drug than an emotion, especially after he finally stopped trying to block it.

  He remembered Wreg and Dorje squaring off in the atrium that day, only a few days before the Tibetan seer died, and his pain worsened. He found he understood now, what Revik had been trying to tell him, as well as the pain in his friend’s light whenever anyone mentioned Allie’s time with the Lao Hu.

  He even understood what he’d meant about self-control––but he didn’t care about any of that now, either. He let that pain take over his light instead, his hand on Wreg’s cock as he slammed into him harder, putting more of his aleimi into Wreg’s.

  Wreg caught hold of his arms, gripping them tight enough to hurt.

  “Do you want me to stop?” Jon asked him.

  “No. No, brother,” Wreg managed.

  His light grew submissive as he said it, so different to how Jon normally felt it that he closed his eyes against another hard rush of pain. When it hit Wreg, the seer’s back arched, even as he let out a nearly helpless-sounding groan.

  “Jon, tell me. Tell me again. Did you mean it?”

  “Did I mean what?” Jon said.

  He knew what the seer wanted, but that wanting on his face only intensified the other thing coursing through the veins in his light. He found himself looking down at Wreg’s features, taking in the hard planes of his jaw, the high cheekbones.

  “You’re beautiful, you know,” he told him, gruff. “A little too damned beautiful at times. What do you want from me, Wreg? What do you want me to tell you?”

  Pain eclipsed his vision, that time definitely from Wreg.

  His hands were on Jon’s shoulders, digging into muscle as he angled his body under Jon’s. When Jon let out a pained cry, Wreg’s hand went to his face, then the back of his head, gripping his hair.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Please, brother…”

  “That I love you? You already knew that.”

  “No.” The seer shook his head, gripping Jon tighter when he started massaging Wreg's cock again. “No. I didn’t know. Gods damn it…” he cried out. He tried to come, but Jon stopped him, using his hand along with his light.

  The seer’s light grew submissive again when he couldn’t get past the block, and Jon felt another rush of that aggression, intense enough that he started to lose control.

  “If you cheat on me, Wreg… it’s over,” Jon said. He arched into the seer’s body and stopped, meeting his gaze with a gasp. “…I’m not my sister. If you pull any of the shit Revik pulled on her, we’re done. I mean it. And the way I feel now, I’ll probably be in someone else’s bed by the end of the day.”

  Feeling a sharp, anguished pulse off the other man, one that didn’t feel so much like separation pain, Jon frowned, lowering his head as he tried to pull back his light.

  Once he’d managed it, at least marginally, he met Wreg’s dark eyes, his voice hard.

  “I was tempted to hit on Revik today. And you didn’t even do anything. I can’t promise I’ll be rational about this, Wreg. I can’t. Not now.”

  “I understand, brother,” Wreg said, his voice quicker that time, even as he dug his fingers into the back of Jon’s neck. “I understand. I’ll be more considerate. I promise.” His eyes tightened, closing as Jon went deeper into him again. “Gods, I’m sorry. I was trying to make you jealous.”

  Jon grunted a half-laugh, gripping the seer’s hair.

  “It worked,” he said.

  “A little better than I expected, yes.”

  He pulled Jon’s head down, kissing him, pulling on his light, even as he did the same with his body. Jon broke out in a sweat when the seer didn’t stop, then he was doing the same back, opening his light as much as he could, helping Wreg when the seer fought to coax it open still more.

  The older man lost control. Groaning, he gripped Jon’s back, pulling him further inside when he let out a thick cry, loud enough that they probably heard it on the other side of the bar, even with the door closed––even with seer percussion music playing in the background. Jon pulled on him harder when he felt him on the verge of coming, his hand back to massaging the other seer, coaxing him with his fingers and his light until Wreg let out a longer, deeper cry, jerking under Jon’s hands.

  Jon watched the seer’s face as he came, the pain that came to his eyes as he let go, barely covering that debilitating openness below.

  He came himself, somewhere in those few beats, feeling his body turn into liquid as he rocked into him, lost in his light, half out of his body. He couldn’t remember making a sound, but it seemed to take a long time, longer than it had for Wreg.

  He let everything go––all of it.

  All the things he’d told himself when he left that penthouse apartment. Everything he’d confessed to Revik when he’d been sitting there, fighting not to want revenge, not just on Wreg, but on Allie, too.

  Tears came to his eyes as the thought reached him, but he fought to push it back, aware somewhere of Wreg’s hands on him, of his fingers stroking his face.

  “I love you,” the seer murmured, his voice close to hard. “I’ve known for months. Long before you finally kissed me in that fucking kitchen.” His hands tightened on him, exuding a near-anger mixed with grief. “I thought you brought me in here to kill me.”

  Jon gasped a half-laugh. “Don’t worry. Revik already warned me. They never would have let me come in here, if they thought I’d hurt you.”

  Wreg shook his head. “No. They thought so, too. Nenz was trying to decide how long to give things before he came after us. I told him to wait.”

  Jon laughed again, still trembling as his body spasmed.

  “Then why did you come?” His voice caught on his breath. “You’re not even armed,” he observed. “What is that, a first for you? Even Revik had his gun with him when he showed up at my door.”

  “Do you want him?” Wreg said, his voice tense. “Nenz.”

  Jon stared at him. Then, frowning slightly, he shook his head.

  Sighing, he let more of his weight sink into the other seer’s body, then shook his head again, more adamantly that time when he saw Wreg’s skeptical look.

  “No,” he said. “Gaos, no. He’s like my brother, man. Not in the seer sense, in the brother-and-sister sense. Like Allie. I don’t want to sleep with Revik. He’s a good-looking guy and all, but he’s not my type. Seriously.”

  Wreg’s face seemed to relax, at least the tension around his forehead and eyes.

  “It’s how I see your sister, you know,” he said, his
voice apologetic. “Her and Nenz… they were in so much pain they affected all of us for awhile. But that’s all it was.” Giving Jon another cautious look, he added, “They still do, sometimes. But we affect them the same. I have seen it on both of their faces. It makes your sister very uncomfortable, honestly.”

  Still watching Jon’s expression, he chuckled a little, as if involuntarily.

  “…It is not the me part of the equation that she reacts to, brother,” Wreg added. “She focuses on me because it is easier for her to wrap her head around. But it is the you part that throws her. She is not used to you bringing up these kinds of reactions, in her own light or anyone else’s. Her and Nenz, they haven’t been around a lot of other relationships like this, not since they got together. Nenz is okay with it, I think. But she is having a harder time.”

  Jon nodded, thinking about the seer’s words.

  Separating their bodies carefully, he felt another flush of pain when he watched Wreg’s face as he did it. Jon’s voice turned gruff when he next spoke.

  “You won’t miss it?” he said.

  “Miss what?” Wreg gave an incredulous snort. “Fucking baby seers when I’m frustrated? No. I won’t miss it.”

  Jon rolled his eyes, leaning his weight against the back cushion. “I’m younger than any of them, Wreg.”

  “You don’t feel young to me,” Wreg said seriously. “I call you little brother like I call Nenz ‘runt.’ In all honesty, Nenz feels younger to me than you do. Maybe because I knew him before his balls dropped.”

  Jon was already shaking his head. “…and anyway, that’s not what I meant. I meant women. Females. You’re kind of built to enjoy sex with them, right? More so than humans, I mean. Human men… you know what I mean,” he finished, flustered. “The whole extra part thing. Won’t you miss that? Want that sometimes?”

  Wreg stared at him. After another pause, he gave a short laugh.

  “You’re serious?” he said.

  “Yes, I’m serious,” Jon said, frowning a little. “Revik explained the whole thing with the light and whatever, but I also heard what he said to Allie in the Tank. About ‘biology being a bitch’ and how he worked around that with his human wife by sodomizing her, but that it wasn’t as good. Physically, I mean.”