Psychic Storm: Ten Dangerously Sexy Tales of Psychic Witches, Vampires, Mediums, Empaths and Seers

by Deanna Chase

Revik nodded. “Yes. Yes…I saw her. You already know I did.”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  Revik stared up at the ceiling. Briefly, his mind was blank. Then he let out a low laugh, remembering the last time he’d seen Allie, watching her with Jaden in the same house where the human coaxed her into group sex with his bandmates. Other things hit out at him in the same few seconds, things he hadn’t let himself think about for days now, maybe weeks.

  He’d been pulled. They hadn’t come for him, so he had to assume the Council had someone else watching her by now. They must think he took off, that he went away to get wasted…that he cracked. Either way, his time with her was over.

  It was finished. It really was. It was finally over.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. His pain worsened. “No, I didn’t fuck her. She’s with someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Human,” Revik said, shaking his head. “Fucking asshole…rapist.”

  “Ah, that is too bad, brother,” Torek said, his voice sympathetic. “So what is this thing you have with her? Why don’t you move on? Find one who wants you?”

  Revik felt that sick feeling coil back into his gut.

  Torek was right. She didn’t want him.

  For a moment, he couldn’t make himself answer.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Yes, you do. What is it? Is it the male I felt in your light? The ex-boyfriend?”

  But that sent Revik’s light off in another direction it didn’t want to go. He remembered the last time he’d seen Dalejem. It had been in the Pamir. The seer came to see him, to tell him why he left, why they couldn’t be together. He remembered tears in the seer’s eyes. He remembered knowing that he’d never see him again…

  The pain in his chest worsened, grew unbearable. He couldn’t breathe suddenly. He couldn’t fucking breathe…

  “Brother, calm, calm…you need to feel this…you must…”

  Revik shook his head. “No. I don’t want to…”

  Torek smiled. He stroked Revik’s hair and face, his light all warmth now, softer than Revik had ever felt it. Under his fingers, Revik felt his chest start to relax, unwillingly almost.

  “No one wants to feel these things, brother,” Torek murmured. “No one. Not ever. But you must. It will kill you, if you don’t. You and I…we are not human. We cannot simply bottle these things up as a human does. They will kill us in the end…”

  Revik shook his head, but not really in a no that time.

  Again, that pain in his chest worsened.

  He fought it, then questioned why he was doing that, too. Once he let go, that pain turned to heat, a dense grief that still wanted to suffocate him, even as some part of him tried to turn it back into anger.

  He remembered the last twenty years. The first seven of those he’d spent in the Pamir, mostly alone…then alone again in that cabin in Russia. He’d gone to Moscow when he needed to…usually for intelligence, or to get laid, but he never spent much time there, either. They’d wanted him off the grid, Vash said. Where the Rooks wouldn’t think to look for him.

  They wanted him invisible while they first tied his light to Allie’s.

  But that made the pain worse again.

  He remembered the mountains. He remembered walking in the mountains of Siberia, a rifle slung over his back, watching the eagles overhead, the darkness of the trees. He usually had nothing but a satellite link to tie him to the rest of the world, and the Barrier to tie him to Allie.

  He’d felt almost free there. But he’d still been alone.

  “I hated her,” he blurted.

  His voice came out harsh, unthinking.

  He wasn’t even sure who he meant at first.

  Kali’s face swam before his, her words to him by that hotel pool in Saigon, then again in South America, after she’d given birth to Allie. He remembered Kali’s husband glaring at him, warning him with his eyes. He remembered the distrust there, a disgust barely concealed as he wrapped his light around Allie’s on the bed.

  He saw Allie then, standing in the ocean. He felt her wanting to disappear, like he did sometimes. It scared the fuck out of him, seeing that on her.

  Tears came back to his eyes.

  He looked up, avoiding the seer’s eyes, looking at the ceiling instead.

  “I fucking hated her…for years. I blamed her for his leaving…”

  “Who, brother?” Torek said. “Who did you blame?”

  Revik only shook his head, though, not answering. “They all pretend…”

  “Pretend? Pretend what?”

  “To care,” Revik said, looking at him. “They pretend to care, but they don’t give a fuck, not really. They all just want something…”

  “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know. Half the time, I don’t even know…I just feel it. I fucking feel it. They want something. They want something from me…”

  Torek nodded, unflinching from the emotion in his voice.

  “Is it only from you that they want this thing?” he said finally. “Or do you think no one loves anyone, brother? Do you think it’s all just seers using other seers…?”

  “No.” Confusion twisted Revik’s light, even as the pain in his chest worsened. “No. I don’t believe that…”

  “Then it’s only you, do you think?” Torek said, his voice more gentle. “You think they all just want something from you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Torek continued to stroke his skin, massaging his shoulders, caressing his hair, then his jaw and face. Revik lay there, willing himself to be finished with this somehow…for this thing to crack open inside him, to leave him alone. He didn’t care if it hurt, not anymore…not if it meant it would finally be over afterwards. He wished he could just hollow himself out. He wished he could just break that thing inside him that refused to let it go.

  If they wanted him to be alone, why did he have to feel it so much?

  Why couldn’t he just let it go?

  “Do you still hate her, brother?” Torek said, soft. “This person you blame, for your lover leaving you?”

  Revik turned over his words.

  He thought about Allie, how hard he’d tried to keep his distance from her…how badly he’d wanted that. He’d even asked Vash for his help, to keep their lights from becoming too entwined. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost that battle, too.

  “No,” he said. He shook his head. “No…I don’t hate her.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I…I love her.”

  The words just came out.

  As they did, that pain in his heart worsened sharply, overwhelming him. Fire lived there. More than that. He saw dark gold and red clouds…a white sun…a diamond-covered ocean. He felt Vash there again. Others, too. What might have been Yumi…Poresh…Mara.

  He let out a heavier cry, even as that pain turned liquid in his chest. As he made his way back to his body, that weight that had been pressing down on his chest finally lifted.

  It still hurt. It hurt more, in fact, but it also felt…better.

  He could breathe again. It hurt, but he could breathe.

  Above him, Torek clicked softly, what sounded like a sigh. Something in his light made Revik think the seer was relieved, too…partly, at least. Like he wasn’t finished, not yet, but the biggest piece had already fallen. Revik didn’t really want to think about what that meant. He didn’t want to think about whether he was being manipulated in this, too.

  He didn’t care. He didn’t want to care about that.

  Leaning closer, Torek caressed Revik’s hair, using light in his fingers.

  “I know you do, brother,” he said, soft. “I know you love her…and it is good that you can tell me this. So did you tell her? On this trip you took, did you tell her that you loved her?”

  Revik stared up at the ceiling again.

  His light still hurt like hell, but he felt strangely calmer now, almost at peace.

  Even so,
the pain returned when he remembered Allie flirting with Jaden in that restaurant. He remembered her sitting down across from him, coffee pot in hand, almost as if pulled there, as if drawn to him, like Revik was drawn to her.

  “No,” he said only. “No, I didn’t.”

  Silence fell between them.

  Somewhere in that, Revik realized Torek held his hand. His fingers felt hot, almost wet with sweat, but the other seer didn’t let go.

  “She is of high rank, is she not?” Torek said, softer. “This one you love?”

  Another jolt of fear hit Revik. Did he know? Did Torek know who she was? He might have to tell Vash. He might have to admit to him what he’d done, get the Council to erase Torek, make him forget any of this happened. Thinking about this, Revik felt his jaw harden. He fought to control his light again, feeling another flare of irrationality go through him like a wave, bringing a heated anger as he read behind the seer’s words.

  His light only hurt more when he tried to pull it back.

  Fuck it. If Torek knew, he knew.

  He couldn’t do anything about that now.

  “Yes,” he said, blunt. “The highest.”

  “And she is young?”

  “Yes,” Revik said, exhaling. “Yes. Very young.”

  Torek nodded slowly, still using his light and free hand on Revik’s chest, pulling softly at the strands of his aleimi, especially around his heart. When the gold-eyed seer spoke next, his words were gentle, but Revik felt a harder steel behind them.

  “Then you know she won’t stay with this human,” he said. “Whatever they are to one another now.”

  Lying there on his back, Revik turned over Torek’s words.

  He thought about Allie with Jaden, how she’d acted with him. Then he thought about who she would be when the Council finally woke her. His light resonates with hers briefly as he remembers, tasting frequencies he feels in her light, who she is past the veneer she projects out into the world. He remembers about how different she is in that space.

  Something in his body relaxed, even as that pain in his chest worsened.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I understand that.”

  Torek nodded, looking down at him, his gold eyes glowing faintly.

  “Brother,” he said, softer. “You also know how unlikely it is…that she would be with you?”

  Revik felt the pain in his chest sharpen back to a hot iron.

  For a long moment he couldn’t speak.

  The reality of the words crashed into him, obliterating his mind, blanking out his vision. Again, that wave of feeling overcame him…a liquid heat that suffused his chest. He could only breathe his way through it, waiting for it to pass, lost in a feeling of being nowhere. Of not really existing at all. It felt like being cracked open inside.

  He felt the truth there, though.

  He felt it, and realized he’d always known.

  He would never be allowed to have anything truly intimate with the Bridge. His light wasn’t clean. He had been a Rook. He had no status, no name to speak of. He’d been shunned by his own family. He had no place in Asia. Hell, he wasn’t even allowed in Asia.

  The Bridge, on the other hand, was royalty.

  She would be the highest ranked of all, among the seers.

  “Yes,” he said. His chest closed, hurting him. “Yes, I know…” He opened his eyes, realizing only then that he’d closed them. Tears filled his eyes for a second time. He looked up at Torek, feeling his jaw tighten. “I was told that she would, that we would…” He shook his head. “I never believed them. I didn’t understand why they would tell me that…”

  He fought to remember the words Kali had used.

  She’d said they’d be together, that they’d love one another…but that could mean anything and nothing. It could mean they would fuck one night, years into the future, after Allie had awakened and they had become friends. It could mean Revik would end up being an ally, someone she trusted, maybe even a longer-term lover, while she was single, at least. It could mean that Revik took on some kind of a big brotherly role while she was being trained. Hell, it could mean he’d be her teacher, for the more militant aspects of sight-skill training, at least. It could mean that Revik remained her bodyguard.

  It could mean anything.

  Realizing what he’d made Kali’s words mean, in some not-so-secret part of his light, he closed his eyes again, his chest pain worsening.

  “Do you trust this person?” Torek pressed. “This person who told you that you would end up with her in some intimate way?”

  Revik couldn’t answer at first.

  That golden ocean stood in the distance, growing fainter still. He fought not to remember what he’d felt there, how much it had felt like home. Real home.

  He fought to remember who he was. Who he really was.

  When he opened his eyes next, he saw Torek frowning down at him, sympathy in those gold eyes, warmth pulsing off his light. Revik felt a harder current there, too, but not an unkind one. A determination to not coddle him, perhaps.

  A determination to tell him the truth, maybe.

  Something about remembering where he was, the base physicality of the room, of knowing he was in London, that he was chained in another seer’s living room, that Torek intended to have sex with him after this…it brought Revik’s mind back online.

  Clarity reached him. Real clarity that time.

  “No,” he said. “No, I don’t trust her.”

  Torek squeezed his hand. Again, sympathy plumed off his light.

  Revik felt the sincerity behind it. He even felt what might have been love coiled into the gold-eyed seer’s light…not real love, of course, but affection, anyway.

  Revik wasn’t looking at him anymore, though.

  He found himself staring at the fireplace instead…not at the fire itself but above it. His eyes sought out the mantle, lingering on a heavy clock embedded there in the stone and mortar before drifting lower, to a row of silver statues resting on the wood. He knew all of them, each figure depicted. They all stood for one or another god or goddess or intermediary in the seer pantheon. He saw Dragon there…Turtle, Arrow, Knight…the Bridge herself…the Shield.

  On the center of that same mahogany mantle sat a silver statue, larger than the rest.

  It was a depiction of the Sword and Sun.

  He remembered staring at that same symbol for hours on the cave walls of the Pamir. Looking at it now calmed him. Or maybe it just made him remember what he was doing here.

  He hadn’t come here for himself. He’d come here to make amends. To serve the Bridge.

  Nothing else mattered.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said aloud, echoing the thought.

  “Does it not?” Torek said.

  When Revik looked up that time, Torek quirked an eyebrow at him, smiling faintly. He still held Revik’s hand, gripping his fingers where it lay chained above his head.

  “No, brother,” Revik said, exhaling. “No, it really doesn’t.”

  17

  SILENCE

  You know what he believes, do you not? she asked him.

  Her distant thoughts are a whisper, a faint breath on a light wind that drifts across the sand. She is not there, not really, but she is always with him in some fashion. Always.

  Vash doesn’t answer at first.

  He looks up instead, gazing out over the diamond flickers faintly sparkling on the crests of gentle waves. It is mostly dark here still, in the depths of this rolling ocean. It is morning, however, those cold hours before dawn, whatever that means in this space. The light is rising, but there is still night at his back, still indigo shades of moonlight blanketed by fading stars.

  He is here, but not.

  It is not a construct that Vash himself has built, although he has channeled these beautiful frequencies of light into his own creations before, threading them into landscapes of his own design. He had even channeled these frequencies into beings that reside in those spaces.

&nb
sp; Lakes. Honey bees. Clouds. Birds.

  He had done this for himself. He has more often done this for others. Especially for some of his students. Especially for those who needed it most.

  Especially for Dehgoies.

  I do know what he thinks, Vash sends finally. He sighs, leaning his weight deeper into the sand, propping his upper body on his bony hands. He thinks Kali lied to him. He thinks he is not good enough for her...for the Bridge.

  The presence grows warmer, but her thoughts remain quiet.

  Is that what you wish for him to believe? she asks.

  Again, her voice comes through almost like wind, like something not quite there.

  He hears no judgment there, but Vash winces. Perhaps he winces solely from his memory of the last taste he took of Dehgoies’ light.

  He also thinks about her words.

  We needed him calm, Vash sends after another pause. We needed to ensure he would not approach her before it is time. We needed him to regain control over his light. To keep him from awakening her too soon. We needed him to be able to perform the job with which he has been tasked by the Ancestors.

  At the other’s silence, Vash adds,

  Adhipan Balidor thought––

  What do you think, beloved friend?

  There is no rebuke in her words.

  Even so, Vash feels that heavier pain return to his light.

  He contemplates his bare feet in the sand, his toes squishing through the cool, white grains. He imagines shells under his feet, clams, bird’s eggs and sand crabs.

  The light in front of him is growing brighter, but he imagines clouds there now. Darker, heavier portents build behind his eyes, waiting beyond the confines of this beautiful space. He feels the weight of that change, even inside the living, breathing presence that surrounds him. He watches the birds wing overheard, feels their individual souls.

  He thinks about his old friend’s question. He thinks about what he would have wanted, if he could have dictated things on Earth.

  He thinks about the differences down there compared to how they work up here, where time has no meaning.

  Where no one ever has to be alone.

  I think brother Dehgoies is now fully functioning in the role we require of him as the Bridge’s guardian and protector, he sends, sighing as he clicks under his breath. I think we no longer have to worry about him approaching her prematurely…or overstepping his bounds in regard to either her person or her light.