Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  I felt him thinking about my words.

  After both of us were just lying there again, staring into the darkness, he exhaled, as if letting go of something he’d been thinking.

  “Well, it was over after,” he said, gruff. “It wasn’t an issue after Russia. Maybe I just needed to learn how to be alone again, after the Pyramid. Or maybe I just needed time to accept who I’d been under the Rooks, how it marked me.”

  “Marked you?”

  I felt him turn his head, looking at me.

  I wondered if he could see me.

  “It is still there, Allie. All of it. It always will be.” He caressed my neck with his fingers. “I went from trying to purge it all out of me, to being depressed when I realized it would never really be gone… to making friends with it, in a way.”

  He exhaled, and briefly, I felt anger in his light.

  His voice turned gruff.

  “Dalejem helped with that.”

  Feeling my jaw harden, I nodded. I wasn’t fully over watching what he’d shown me about him and Dalejem. In all honesty, I didn’t want to think about it.

  Pushing the images from my mind, I shook my head, staring back up at the ceiling.

  “You went to London after?” I said, my voice neutral. “That’s what I’ll see next, right? London?”

  He hesitated, then slid his hand into mine. Raising it to his lips, he kissed my palm.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you still hate me there?”

  Pain reached me from him. He suppressed it, but I felt him struggle with it behind the shield. I felt regret on him, and guilt.

  “For part of it,” he said, his voice low. “Not for most of it, Allie. By then my feelings had been changing for a while. In London I started to consciously see things differently. I started to see things differently before then, truthfully… while I was still in Russia. I didn’t really face all of that until I moved to London.”

  “Why?” I turned my head. “What changed?”

  There was another silence. Then he exhaled, once more exuding regret.

  “You know what changed,” he said.

  Thinking about his words, about the timeline, about how old I was during those images he’d shown me so far, I nodded.

  Slowly, I found I understood.

  “My father died,” I said simply.

  There was a silence.

  In it, he grew so quiet, I wondered if he held his breath.

  Then he rolled to his back. I felt him shake his head, exhaling, but not in a no. More pain left his light before he clicked softly, turning towards me.

  “That may have been the beginning,” he admitted. “But that wasn’t all of it, Allie. I definitely grew more empathy for you and Jon after that happened… and for your mother. I realized what a bastard I’d been, too. By then, the hate was gone entirely. My time alone in Siberia accomplished that much. It forced me to face how much I was projecting my own issues. But my feelings didn’t start to change for real until later. At least a few years later.”

  I frowned, looking towards his voice.

  “Why?” I said.

  Pain left him in another cloud, just before his voice grew gruff.

  “You grew up, Allie.”

  I stared at him through the dark, feeling a pain start somewhere in my chest.

  I felt pieces of what lay behind his words, the shame that lived there too, his confusion as he realized I was no longer a child, his confusion on how to view me.

  I opened my mouth, about to speak––

  A tone went off in my headset from where I’d left it, cutting off my unformed words. I had a memory of tossing it on a built in shelf on my side of the bed.

  The sound came from there.

  A bare second passed before a tone went off on Revik’s headset too, that time from the direction of the fold up table where we’d both eaten breakfast, what felt like a hundred years ago now. Realizing what that particular tone meant, I swallowed, lying there for a second longer, even knowing I had to answer it.

  Revik squeezed my hand, kissing my knuckles before he released it.

  “Come on, wife,” he said, soft. “Time to deal with the apocalypse for a while.”

  Following his voice through the dark, I smiled, shaking my head.

  Before I could think of how to answer, he was already climbing off the bed.

  We were officially back on the clock.

  11

  A HARD LINE

  “GAOS,” JON MUTTERED.

  He stared as the two Elaerian entered the low-ceilinged room adjacent to the Operations Room, or Combat Information Center (CIC). The room, dubbed “the bullpen” after a similar space on their first aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Vashentarenbuul, was similarly covered in screens. Since the early hours of the morning, over two days ago now, more than half of those screens showed Barrier maps and satellite feeds of different parts of the world.

  Most of those maps depicted different iterations of the one Dante had been using to monitor energetic hotspots near the quarantine cities.

  A good number of Dante’s comp-nerd squad had been relocated in here with her. All of them were currently hunched over screens, looking at readouts from each of those locations. From what Jon could tell, they’d been like that for hours. Other than occasional trips to the ship’s head, or to find something they could eat at their desks while they worked, Jon doubted they left this room at all, even to stretch their limbs.

  Even now, Sasquatch was crunching something that left orange residue on his lips and goatee, his eyes fixated on the screen in front of him, his headset cutting him off from the rest of the room. Next to him, Anale didn’t look much different, although she drank tea with milk and chewed on what looked like a kind of meat jerky.

  Jon barely saw them now, other than to note they hadn’t moved since the last time he’d walked into this room.

  Only Dante stood, pacing between screens and her hacker pals like she couldn’t manage to stand still and think at the same time.

  Jon barely looked at her, too.

  Allie and Revik held his attention instead––both his eyes and his light.

  Jon followed them as they passed through the room, noting their facial expressions, the look in their eyes as they walked, holding hands, their bodies overly close although not touching.

  He continued to watch them as they separated, seemingly with difficulty, despite the room being not all that big.

  Revik kissed her cheek, releasing her hand.

  After the slightest pause while the male Elaerian watched his wife walk towards Dante by the opposite wall, he tore his eyes off her, glancing around with irises that held too much light, that weren’t entirely in focus.

  After assessing the space, Revik approached Balidor, who sat at the end of the long table they’d been using as a conference area for the infiltrators to share notes. Dropping his weight into the chair next to the one occupied by the Adhipan leader, Revik leaned his head towards Balidor’s, murmuring something Jon was too far away to hear.

  Jon glanced over his shoulder, giving Wreg a fleeting look before he went back to staring at his adopted sister and her husband.

  “They look stoned,” he said, his voice low. “What the fuck is the matter with them? That’s not from sex, is it? What have they been doing in there for two days?”

  Wreg glanced up from the monitor where he’d been working, which showed a map Jon recognized from some of the transmissions Loki sent back from the Middle East.

  Jon knew they’d all be on dry land again relatively soon, with a few detours along the way. The first of those would be to pick up Loki in Turkey, which should happen in just a few days, barring any emergencies.

  Part of what Balidor needed Allie and Revik’s input on now was where to make landfall––for the entire team, that is. There was some debate over which continent and region made the most sense. There was also some debate about how much to split up the team.

  Wreg and a few others thought per
haps the military arm should break into smaller deployments, leaving the infiltration team to protect the bulk of their people, including the refugees, the remaining Council members, the religious leaders, the Listers. Both Wreg and Balidor wanted to discuss sending smaller deployments to some of the less-dangerous Shadow cities, specifically those who hadn’t yet been invaded by the Myther armies.

  Increasingly, they all believed it was only a matter of time before the Mythers established a presence in every one of the Shadow cities.

  Jon knew Balidor wanted them back on land, though, as soon as possible.

  The Adhipan leader had been open about his belief that it was only a matter of time before the Mythers or some other off-shoot of Shadow’s people ID’d this ship and blew it out of the water. He seemed to think they were living on borrowed time now.

  Wreg looked over at where he felt Jon staring.

  He looked at Allie first, then at Revik, who was still talking to ‘Dori.

  He frowned faintly, his obsidian-black irises going just enough out of focus that Jon knew he was scanning the two of them, looking at their lights.

  “They’ve been doing something with their light,” Wreg said, his voice equally low, and gruff, before he shifted his eyes back to the monitor. “It’s connecting them more, whatever it is.” Giving Jon a sharper look, he raised an eyebrow. “They look like they’re bonding, brother.”

  “Bonding?” Jon grunted, fighting the impulse to roll his eyes. “So what else is new? Aren’t they always bonding?”

  Wreg shook his head, clicking softly. Still scanning Revik and Allie subtly, the muscular seer went on in an even lower voice.

  “This looks like the real thing. I don’t know how the hell they expect to do this and continue operations, though.” He nodded towards Revik. “He’s not holding back at all. It’s going to make them both crazy, if they keep going like this.”

  His eyes clicked back into focus before he frowned slightly at Jon.

  “Adhipan agrees. But he also seems to think there’s not much we can do about it. They’re definitely bonding. Not like before, with whatever that jurekil’a mak rik’ali Feigran did to them, where they were fucking all the time, trying to keep Feigran from separating their light. This is different… more like what you and I did on that ship.”

  Jon blinked, frowning as he made sense of Wreg’s words.

  Glancing at Allie, then Revik, he felt a flicker of pain in his lower belly as he remembered his own bonding with his mate. He sat with the feeling long enough to conjure memories, even pictures. His tongue thickened and he pushed the feeling back, knowing it might be picked up in the construct if he let too much of that feeling grow visible in his light.

  Wreg gave him a knowing look, smiling faintly.

  “Don’t go there, brother. Adhipan wants a deployment plan from me for these fucking hotspots by the end of the day.” His eyes flickered back to Allie and Revik. “Anyway, they’re not to that part yet. From their lights, I don’t think they’re even having sex.”

  Jon’s followed his gaze, trying to see what his husband saw in the other two.

  “Not having sex?” he muttered. “How the hell are they going to bond without that?”

  Wreg shrugged with one muscular hand, tilting his head to one side.

  “I’m not saying they won’t have sex,” he clarified, still speaking low. “I’m saying I don’t think they are yet. If I know Nenz, he’s being careful as fuck with this.”

  Jon thought about his words.

  From what he knew of Revik, he had to agree with Wreg.

  No one could ever fault Revik for not planning things out when it was something he cared about. Nor could they fault his attention to detail. In both things, Jon’s brother-in-law had a focus that was borderline unnerving, if not full-blown obsessive-compulsive.

  The more Revik cared about something, the more pronounced that trait generally was.

  Still following them with his eyes, Wreg paused, still obviously puzzled and intrigued by whatever he saw on both Elaerian’s lights.

  “I don’t know what they’re doing exactly,” he admitted a beat later. “But I feel a lot of determination on both of them… Nenz, especially. Whatever this is, Nenz knows the risks, and he’s set on doing it now anyway. From what Adhipan just sent me, brother Nenz is ready to fight anyone who so much as questions him about it. Balidor said he barely asked the question, and Revik looked at him like he was going to rip his head off if he said another word.”

  Jon grunted.

  That sounded like Revik, too.

  Remembering listening to Revik and Dalejem exchange words when they first picked Revik up in Beijing, Jon found himself increasingly unsurprised, the longer he thought about Wreg’s description of Revik’s mental state.

  From what he’d discerned in his brother-in-law during the flight on that Russian helicopter, Revik flat-out saw his marriage as being under attack. He didn’t just see it as being challenged by Dalejem, or by whatever Revik himself had done in Beijing, or even by Allie’s pregnancy.

  Revik acted like a man in fear for his life.

  Jon hadn’t been the only one worried he’d kill Dalejem. The quieter Revik got in that helicopter, the more sure Jon was that he would kill Dalejem.

  Then again, he was so relieved Revik didn’t seem to be aiming any of that anger or fear at Allie herself, he almost couldn’t care about Dalejem.

  Dalejem hadn’t exactly been a saint in that exchange, anyway. The handsome, green and violet-eyed seer seemed to go out of his way to provoke Revik. His words grew increasingly cruel––and graphic––the quieter Revik got.

  Jon should have known Revik would put all of his focus on winning Allie back.

  He should have known he’d approach it with the same obsessive focus he did with anything to do with his family, especially anything to do with Allie herself. His greeting of Allie when she climbed on board the ship only made Revik’s priorities that much clearer.

  Whatever the two of them were up to now, Revik clearly wasn’t going to let anyone get between him and his effort to repair his marriage.

  He was in full-blown courtship mode… or full-on marriage therapy mode… or some hyper-obsessive-possessive seer equivalent of both.

  Wreg grunted a laugh, glancing at him.

  “Careful with the racial criticisms, brother. You’re one of us now.” He looked back at Revik, his full lips pulling in a faint frown. “You’re not wrong, though. I think Nenzi would chew through glass right now, if he thought it would help his marriage.”

  Thinking about that, Jon glanced around the room, frowning again.

  “Where’s Dalejem?” he said, even lower. “Did they move him to another ship? Gaos, I hope so. I don’t like his chances if he showed up here right now.”

  Wreg gave him a sideways look, then nodded, once.

  “Yumi ordered it before we got back here with Allie. I guess security had them locked up together most of the time we were gone… in the same cell, if you can believe that. From what Pagoj told me, they were hoping the two of them might talk it out. It was going nowhere, though, and not entirely due to Nenz, who apparently barely spoke at all. In the end, Uye intervened.”

  Wreg jerked his head over his shoulder in the direction of Revik.

  “That must’ve been when Uye put his foot down with Nenz,” the big seer added. “He basically demanded to be given parental rights, from what I heard, but Poresh said Nenz didn’t fight him much. Apparently Uye had words with that dugra-te di aros, Jem, too.”

  Jon shook his head. “This isn’t Jem’s fault. Not from what Allie said.”

  Wreg grunted, quirking an eyebrow at Jon. “You sure you want to defend that fuck, ilyo? He told Uye he wanted to contest their marriage… that he wanted to make a competing claim. He also asserted the kid she was carrying was his.”

  Jon grimaced.

  Glancing at Revik, he rested his hands on his hips, clicking softly before he looked back at his mate.
r />   “Guy’s got a fucking death wish,” he muttered.

  Wreg laughed, rubbing him affectionately on the back before pulling him into a half-hug by the shoulders. After he released him, his voice grew somber.

  “He might actually think the kid is his,” he conceded with a flip of his hand. “Uye didn’t think he was lying deliberately. I don’t know if Allie’s talked to Dalejem at all yet. I’m not sure she’s talked to anyone since she got back, apart from Uye and her husband… unless she and Nenz worked something out around that.”

  Looking back at Revik, at the set of his jaw, even with the excess of light in his irises, making them appear almost blurred, Jon clicked under his breath.

  “I seriously doubt it,” he said, giving Wreg a flat look.

  He was about to go on, when a commotion hit the construct, along with a hot burst of light.

  Both things were intense enough, Jon’s eyes were immediately jerked towards Revik.

  He turned fast, without an instant’s hesitation, but not in time to witness Revik leaving his seat, or in time to catch him before he’d already crossed most of the room.

  Revik stood at Allie’s side by the time Jon finished a single blink.

  That’s when Jon remembered Jaden was in here.

  Revik wasn’t looking at Jaden though.

  Instead, he stood over Allie, his light in her light, as she stared up at a screen.

  Jon couldn’t really see what was wrong with either of them at first. He walked in their direction, puzzled, after glancing behind him to make sure Wreg was following.

  It wasn’t until he got closer to the screen that he realized Revik had reacted to some kind of emotional response in Allie, not anything that was happening in the bullpen itself.

  He’s fucking hair-trigger, all right, Wreg agreed, speaking in his mind, but low, and through the bond-link they shared. She saw something on the screen that startled her, and he crossed that room like her life was in danger. Expect this to get worse, brother.