“Brother Wreg––” Balidor began, his voice openly angry.
“I said shut the fuck up.” Wreg’s voice hardened. “I mean it with all respect, brother, but I fucking mean it. Let her speak for herself. Or no one speak. Just sit in fucking silence, and deal with how all of us see her. Accept it. Any apology coming from you is fucking meaningless to us. You did not wrong us. You didn’t do a goddamned thing.”
“Except make her your girlfriend,” Jon muttered, giving Balidor a cold look.
Turning to Jon, Wreg shook his head, jaw firm.
“Those things are beyond us sometimes,” he said. “We’re seer. I don’t blame Adhipan for his choice in mates. I blame him for trying to force us to accept her after what she did to us. He has to live with what his light wants. We don’t.”
Balidor stared at Wreg, his jaw hard.
When the silence stretched, however, the Adhipan leader’s expression gradually changed. His light altered, growing more nuanced as he turned over Wreg’s words.
Jon saw the anger leave his face entirely a few seconds later.
Then Balidor nodded, letting out a clicking sigh.
“That’s fair,” he said. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m goddamned right.” Wreg clapped him roughly on the shoulder, giving him a half-hug and a faint, sideways smile. “And no offense, brother. I get it. I get the excuses and attempts to defend her, too. But you may need to wait on the double dates and family dinners for a little longer. At least until the wounds have healed a bit more.”
He gave Cass another hard, meaningful stare.
“…At least until she learns some fucking gratitude that we love you enough, and love the Bridge enough, that we haven’t killed her already.”
Balidor looked at Cass, his eyes holding both resignation and a faint apology.
Jon didn’t know if the apology was aimed at her, or at him and Wreg. He didn’t turn his head to try and determine which it was by looking at her.
He didn’t really want to know.
Balidor, still looking at her, nodded once, his mouth taut.
“Understood,” he said. “I’ll stay out of it.”
Again, Jon couldn’t be sure if Balidor was talking to Wreg, or to Cass––or to all three of them.
Again, he didn’t turn his head to try and determine which it was.
Jon was still looking at Balidor, frowning faintly, when Dante cleared her throat.
“Hey, guys?” she said. “Sorry to interrupt the family drama and all…”
Jon turned with the rest of them.
He found the sixteen-year-old human staring at them, a handheld screen below her pale face, shining blue light on her features.
“…but we’ve got another problem,” she finished grimly.
50
BONDED
SHE’D WALKED UP so quietly, none of them even felt her.
Jon focused on her face before glancing at Vik, who was bent over a different set of portable consoles in the small comp-hack station they set up a few days earlier. The images Vik manipulated displayed the map of hotspots criss-crossing over different parts of the globe.
Dante had a smaller version of the same maps, Jon realized, coming off her handheld.
Seeing flares lighting up several spots on both of those maps, a cold feeling rose in the pit of his stomach.
His anger at Cass faded from his mind and light.
Fear more or less washed it out.
“Gaos, not already,” he muttered. “Not now, for fuck’s sake. Jesus, did they hear you say you were waking up Allie?”
Balidor gave him a sharp look, then exhaled. “I highly doubt that, brother. But thank you for nearly giving me a heart attack at the thought.”
Wreg grunted in semi-humor.
When Jon glanced at him, the big seer motioned towards Dante’s handheld.
“It looks like we’re not the only ones hoping to provide a distraction related to those doors,” Wreg said seriously. “They must feel they’ve moved enough humans to make an attempt. That’s likely the real reason for the size of the army here. It can’t be a coincidence they’re trying to open the doors now, right when they know we’ll be preparing to meet them in battle.”
Jon nodded, but barely made sense of his words.
Wreg wrapped an arm around him, squeezing his shoulders. Jon felt his mate about to speak, when another voice, shockingly familiar, rose from further away.
“Where?” the voice said. “Which locations?”
Jon turned, staring across the length of the cavern. That time, the whole room turned with him.
Allie and Revik stood there.
Even at a glance, even with everything else going on, Jon blinked, feeling as much as seeing the difference on the two of them. That was in spite of the lights on Dante’s monitor, Cass standing there with folded arms, the Myther army darkening the ground only a few hundred miles away, everything Balidor and Wreg had told him.
All of it briefly washed away, leaving only his sister and her husband.
The energy emanating off the two of them was like a beacon, lighting up the whole cave. He almost couldn’t reconcile that light and their faces with the people he knew.
It was hardest with Allie, who he’d grown up with––but it was difficult with Revik too, who’d felt oddly like family almost from the moment Jon met him.
The difference he saw and felt wasn’t only in their light.
It lived in the expressions on their faces, their bodies, even in Allie’s eye color, which had lightened so much, her irises nearly resembled Revik’s. The differences between them remained, and not only the more prominent stain of green in her eyes, or the differences in their physical forms and faces. Their lights remained different, their presences.
Even so, Jon could feel the blending there.
He could feel the seamlessness of it, the utterly natural rhythm behind that ebb and flow.
Somehow, the changes in Revik threw Jon more.
He’d never seen Revik look so calm. Looking at his friend, Jon realized he’d never seen him look so totally self-contained, so grounded, so certain of who he was, or where he fit into the world.
He looked so… adult.
It was the closest word for what Jon could feel emanating off his friend’s light. Revik looked adult in a way Jon had never seen the Elaerian’s face or energy look before.
He also felt solid as a rock. He felt as if he were literally made of marble, or granite, like the surrounding cave walls. His light was so still, it was almost intimidating to look at him.
Revik himself, meaning his presence, the part of him that felt the most him, came down as a breath of silence from a space so high, Jon doubted he could have felt it at all on his own––not without Revik projecting and reflecting it for him down here.
Allie mirrored that stillness in some inexplicable way, but with a softer, more flowing feel to her light. They projected different colors, but more brightly than Jon had ever seen on either of them. Those colors were also more blended. Allie was iridescent gold and sunset orange; it somehow perfectly complemented and connected to the high, still, blue-white light of Revik.
It reminded Jon of the beach Revik took him to behind the Barrier.
Revik called it “Allie’s beach” at the time, and it did feel like a part of her––but now it felt like a part of Revik, too.
That same beach somehow filled the dim cave now.
Revik was sky and water. Allie was sun and earth.
They met in the middle, yet still blended seamlessly in all places.
From next to Jon, a pulse of shock left both Wreg and Balidor’s lights as they looked at the two of them. Jon saw his mate taking in the differences between them, both separately and together, as if making sense of it first with his light, then his mind.
Once he had, Jon felt a shimmer of what might have been awe off the older male.
Allie seemed to be waiting patiently for all of them to get used
to the changes.
After a few more minutes of silence, she spoke.
“Which of the hotspots is going off?” she repeated, looking at Dante.
“Lhasa,” Dante said at once.
She also stared at Allie as if she didn’t recognize her, as if she couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was about her that was different.
“––Also Dubai,” Vik added, glancing between Revik and Allie. Wonder stood out in his violet eyes, but his voice came out more or less businesslike. “Hong Kong, New Delhi, and Zurich are also showing activity, Esteemed Bridge.”
Allie nodded, her pale eyes thoughtful.
Turning, she focused on Balidor.
“I know Deifilius’ army is coming, and that needs to be the priority, but can we spare one of our high-ranked infiltrators to check out what Dante’s team is picking up on? I’ll need someone to coordinate with me on the Barrier side when I go down to the door.” Her eerily light eyes swiveled to Wreg, then back to Balidor. “I assume we have most of our high-ranked seers working on trying to crack Deifilius’ shield?”
Balidor seemed to recover first.
Even so, Jon noticed his voice had noticeably changed, losing all trace of his previous annoyance with either of them.
“We still don’t know for sure if Deifilius is with them, Esteemed Bridge,” he said, his voice openly deferential. “I have a number of people looking at the composition of the armed force they have headed this way, including telekinetics, and––”
Revik spoke up.
His voice was so deep, Jon jumped.
“He’s with them,” he said. “Deifilius is here. He leads them.”
His voice was utterly certain.
Glancing at him, Balidor nodded, a bare flicker of nerves touching his eyes. He looked back at Allie, his voice even more deferential than before.
“I’ll pair Wanai with you from Dante’s team,” he said to her. “Is that acceptable to you? We could possibly spare Holo, as well.”
“No.” She shook her head, once. “One is fine to start. If Wanai needs help, she’ll tell you.”
Balidor nodded, still watching her with a warring disbelief in his eyes.
“Is there anything else either of you would like us to focus on?” he said politely. “Besides those Barrier doors and ID’ing the telekinetics and other members of the Myther force?”
Allie glanced at Revik.
Jon didn’t get anywhere near penetrating the thick bubble he felt surrounding the two of them, but he could practically see something pass between them.
Then Revik looked at Balidor, his pale eyes glowing a faint green.
“I’ll take care of that,” he said. “I’ll be up here aiding with military ops until we’ve got a solid deployment in place, along with several contingencies.”
Pausing, he glanced around the space of the cavern, scanning faces.
“Where is Maygar?” he said. “We need him.” He nodded towards Cass. “And War. I’d like Feigran here, too. And Kali and Uye, if possible.”
He looked back at Allie.
“I want someone with Allie, too. Physically, I mean. To back her up until I can get down there. Can someone go with her to the door?”
“Tarsi,” Allie said, her eyes clicking into focus. “She already knows. I’ll meet her in the tunnel outside.”
She looked up at Revik. He returned her gaze.
After a bare breath, he lowered his mouth. He kissed her, his light flaring tangibly, even from where Jon stood. After a long-feeling few seconds, Revik wrapped an arm around her back, parting his lips and using his tongue, his fingers sliding into her hair as he held her against him, putting even more of his light into hers as she melted against him.
Jon looked away, somehow shocked at the overtly public and sexual display.
At the same time, their complete lack of self-consciousness threw him in a different way, making him realize how strangely awkward the two of them had been with one another up until now. It was even weirder when he thought about how long they’d been mates.
He was starting to understand what Wreg meant about the two of them never having bonded properly––and how it made them a bad example of how bonded mates generally behave. According to Wreg, Allie and her husband acted less like life-bond mates and more like they were courting.
Whatever had been missing in their bond before, it didn’t feel missing now.
When the kiss didn’t end after a few seconds, he felt his light reacting in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable.
“Were we like that?” he muttered to Wreg, not far from the other’s ear. Thinking, he frowned. “Are we still like that?”
Wreg chuckled, gripping him tighter.
Jon distinctly got the feeling Wreg was cheered somehow, seeing the two intermediaries together. It struck him also that most of the seers, including Wreg, were just standing there, staring, while his adoptive sister and her husband tongue-kissed in front of them.
When Revik released her some time later, kissing her on the cheek before he let her go, a softer expression rose to his eyes and face. She smiled at him, letting go of him with obvious reluctance as she retreated back through the cave door and out into the tunnel.
Revik watched her go.
When her light started to fade from Jon’s direct awareness, Revik turned, facing the rest of them. That green glow in his irises was brighter now.
“All right. Let’s see it.” His voice was all business. He looked at Cass, quirking a dark eyebrow. His eyes remained as still and far-seeing as cut crystal. “Do you have something for me, sister? What did you manage to come up with over the past few days?”
Jon looked between them.
Once he made sense of Revik’s words, he was fighting not to gape.
Revik wasn’t being sarcastic. He’d given Cass a job to do while he was in there with Allie. Whatever that job was, he fully expected Cass to not only have completed it, but to have completed it to his satisfaction.
Moreover, it was something important, if it was the first thing he’d asked about. Given Revik’s down-to-business demeanor, it was likely something critical to the military effort.
Once all that sank in, Jon couldn’t stop himself from staring.
Remembering Revik in San Francisco after Cass half-killed Allie and stole their child, Jon felt his shock deepen.
It deepened more when he remembered Revik’s usual penchant for paranoia, especially when it came to military matters of any kind.
Now I’ve seen fucking everything, his mind muttered. Now I’ve really seen fucking everything.
From next to him, Wreg squeezed him against his muscular side, chuckling.
51
PAST WRONGED
“THAT’S NOT BAD,” Revik conceded, still thinking, turning over scenarios.
Hands on his hips, he stared out over the different images captured by drones and satellites of the slow-moving mass of humans, seers, vehicles, and heavier equipment rolling towards them across the desert floor.
They were only about four hundred miles out now.
He frowned at the image capture in the center, which showed the unmistakeable profile and then front-view of Deifilius’ face through organic glass.
He’d been right. Deifilius was leading them into battle personally.
The drones picked him out with facial recognition a few minutes earlier, finding the Myther leader where he rode in an armored Humvee at the back-center of their lines.
They’d be in visual range likely within six hours, given the amount of dust they were kicking up now that they’d left the main roads.
Glancing at Cass, Revik felt his jaw tighten.
“Did you help them at all with the shield?” he said. “With them cracking it? The Barrier tech has to be based at least in part on Shadow and Dreng designs.”
“I showed them what I knew,” she said, biting her lip and shrugging. “Not like it’s much. I used a number of their more complex shields during yo
ur attack on New York.”
“Show me.”
She sent him a densely packed group of images, all of them shielding schematics from the year or so she’d worked for the Dreng.
Looking through what she showed him, Revik nodded slowly. When he finished, he sent her a pulse of approval, ignoring it when he saw her jump.
“That’s good,” he said, without missing a beat. “Good detail. What else have you got? What about content, in terms of illusions? Any thoughts on where we should start?”
She blinked, still looking at him in surprise.
She glanced in the direction of Balidor, maybe for help, but the Adhipan leader was working across the room with Jon, Wreg, and the human president, Moira Brooks. All four sets of eyes were focused intently on something Wreg had up on one of the screens.
Revik hoped like hell they were nailing down the final ground fighting plan, whether Brooks was able to help them with that or not. He knew a number of things they had in the works, but all of it was too loose right now. He needed the big pieces finalized, so they could start the process of weaving the conventional forces in with the telekinetic wing.
He wanted that done within the next hour.
He wasn’t sure how realistic that was, given that he needed Maygar where he was, which put him off-site for at least the next thirty minutes. He was helping set up something for Wreg, which included a number of Barrier illusions only a telekinetic could pull off.
Revik would have sent someone else, but at this point, apart from himself, he only trusted his son to do it at the level they needed it done.
Cass’s eyes returned to Revik when her boyfriend didn’t feel her stare.
Frowning, she seemed to think about his question.
“What about something local?” she said. “The tribal fighters I spoke to said some of their gods live in this valley… or have a line here maybe, I’m not sure. Do you think it might throw them more, if we project beings the native humans are already connected to, just from living here? If nothing else, it’ll lend some authenticity to the visions. We could infuse the local gods and devils into visual representations the humans already use. We could maybe even tap into some of the elders, if they’re cool with that… exaggerate what’s already here.”
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