by Deanna Chase
He feels his friend’s silence, even as she speaks.
Is that all that matters?
Vash sighs again.
It is all that can matter now, he says.
That time, her silence is total.
Inside that endless stillness, however, Vash feels her heart open to his.
18
STEREOTYPE
“You are back, Mr. Dehgoies…? I had not heard…”
Revik turned from where he stood at the balcony, a hiri between his fingers drifting smoke up into the night sky. Startled out of his own thoughts, it took him a few seconds to pull himself back, to focus on the woman standing there.
She wore an emerald-colored gown on this night, not a white one.
It made sense. It was getting close to Christmas, and the ballet was Tchaikovsky.
“I should have thought to check the balconies before,” she said, her expression bemused as she looked him over in the tux. “These seem to be your go-to place, whenever there is a black tie event…at least one that surrounds you with humans. Are you a ballet fan, Mr. Dehgoies?”
“Revik,” he said. “And yes. Well…sometimes. I like the Russian composers.”
“I see,” she said, smiling wryly. “And of course you appreciate the Russians. They are dire…overly serious. Quiet. Given your gruff exterior, what other composers could you like, really?”
“Wagner,” he said. “When I’m in a warlike mood.”
She smiled for real that time. He couldn’t help noticing that it lit up her face.
“The Nazi?” she said. “I wouldn’t go sharing that around here.”
Revik smiled back, straightening up from where he’d been leaning over the stone balcony. He felt his light coil back around his body as he did it, but he didn’t take his eyes off the female human’s face. She looked slightly drunk, even apart from the martini glass she clutched in one gloved hand. Or buzzed, maybe. He remembered she had a fondness for seer weed and fished for the packet in his pocket, offering her one.
“Miranda, right?” he said, as she took it.
She flushed a little at his use of her given name.
He could feel her reacting to his light already.
“Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?” she said teasingly, straightening from where he’d lit the hiri for her, using an organic coil he had in his pocket. “Or am I supposed to choose from one of the many salacious theories around your absence…?”
He smiled again, shrugging. “I’ll let you choose.”
“Very generous of you.”
“It’s in our nature to be generous. Seers,” he added.
She laughed aloud at that, throwing back her head, and Revik found himself looking her over again. He remembered the first time he’d met her, on that balcony in Belgrave Square.
Since that time, Durenkirk had approached him again.
Revik told him to go fuck himself. Further, he’d threatened to use his connections to Torek to out him as a member of the seer fetish circuit, if he ever came near him again.
That last part finally did the trick.
Looking at the gray-haired human now, he could feel the part of him that still liked her, that still felt a strange pull to talk to her…to confess his sins, maybe.
But he knew he couldn’t.
The thought of telling her where he’d been for the last three months was laughable at best. She would be horrified. Moreover, he would never be able to make her understand, even if she wouldn’t judge him for it.
She was human.
He took another drag of the hiri, still looking at her light.
“Do you want to spend the night with me?” he asked her, blunt.
She blinked, nearly choked on the inhale she’d been halfway through with the hiri. She looked up at him, still laughing, her eyes wide and incredulous.
“Are you toying with me, Mr. Dehgoies?” she said, her voice teasing.
He watched the blush creep over her light. He found himself getting turned on by it, even as he continued to study her face almost from a distance.
“Not at all,” he said, leaning against the balcony. “I like you.”
“You like me?”
“Yes. You’re not married, are you? You’re a widow?”
She shook her head, now visibly nervous, and incredulous, but still watching him. He didn’t see disgust there, though. Really, he saw more curiosity in her eyes than anything. But that bewilderment washed most of the other emotions away.
“I’m not married,” she said.
“Neither am I,” he said, smiling faintly.
“You are toying with me,” she said, shaking her head slightly. She raised her martini glass to her lips, taking a longer drink before exhaling in a laugh. “I thought you said you seers weren’t all whores…that that was nothing but a stereotype?”
Revik shrugged. “Some stereotypes are true.”
“So you would charge me, then?”
“I wasn’t thinking I would, no,” he said. “I wouldn’t have offered sex freely, if I meant to charge you…”
“But you wouldn’t turn down money?”
Revik only shrugged again, still watching her face. “I wouldn’t turn it down.”
The truth was, he couldn’t say she was wrong.
He didn’t even care that she wasn’t, not anymore. He’d gone on Torek’s regular payroll at the club as soon as he got released from their original agreement. True to his word, Torek let him go after that night, no strings attached. The clients Revik saw from the club had already earned him twice what he made at the Academy in a year, and in less than four weeks’ time.
They’d had a lot of sex before Torek released him, of course. Revik couldn’t remember the last time he’d had that much sex, at least not all at once like that. Maybe never. All in all, it took him about a week to recover from the whole thing, but, strangely perhaps, he didn’t harbor any resentments. Not now. He felt better. Not happy, but better.
He’d never come like that before, either.
That first time with Torek, he’d left his body totally, blacked out.
Extricating himself from the memory even as it sent a flush of heat through his light, he refocused on the woman in front of him.
Her eyes studied his openly now, holding a kind of blank incredulity. He felt her wondering if he could be the same person she’d met, just a few short months ago.
“I think I’m going to say no to your generous offer, Mr. Dehgoies,” she said.
“Revik,” he corrected her. “I told you. We don’t use those titles.”
“Revik,” she said, bowing a little to concede his words. “I still think I’m going to have to say no. I’m afraid I don’t like this version of you quite so much as I did the other one.”
“The other one?”
She smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes that time. “Yes. The angry, political one. The one who came out here, hurt and embarrassed because he’d been mistaken for a mercenary…and a prostitute.” Her eyes grew more serious. “I’m afraid they’re turning you into both already, my very attractive friend. I feared it might happen, even that first night we met…but I never in a million years thought it would be so soon.”
When Revik didn’t react, she only sighed.
Lifting her martini glass in a kind of salute, she tilted her head, then backed towards the balcony door.
“Best of luck, Mr. Dehgoies. I truly do hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
“I doubt that,” he said, smiling back. “But thank you for the sentiment.”
She was in the process of closing the glass doors behind her when she stopped again, looking him directly in the face.
“You should know something,” she said, her voice lower that time, almost conspiratorial. “That other man, the one I met that first night…?”
“Yes?” Revik said, his voice polite.
“Him, I would have definitely slept with,” she said.
She shut the doo
r behind her with a click.
For a long moment, Revik just stood there, staring out over the city streets.
I leaned back on the sand on my elbows, sighing up at the sun that beat down on us.
One of those golden, rare days of real sun in San Francisco.
It was such a beautiful city in the sun. Maybe the fog was meant to remind us of that, meaning those of us who lived here.
It was spring. I’d been waiting for spring. We sometimes got some genuinely hot days in the spring. Like eighties and nineties hot, especially in May.
It wouldn’t be that hot today, but it still felt pretty damned amazing. Amazing enough that I’d worn a bikini top under my T-shirt, and was contemplating braving the Pacific Ocean, even with how damned cold it would be this time of the year. Any time of the year, really, apart from maybe August or September.
Next to me, Jaden sighed. He sat up while I watched, grabbing the collar of the dark blue Eye of Morris shirt he wore and pulling it over his head.
“Ack!” I said, shielding my eyes jokingly. “The whiteness…it blinds…”
He turned, grinning at me. “Stuff it, Taylor. Not all of us can be swarthy like you.”
“Swarthy, eh?” Sitting up more, I rested my arms on my knees, sighing a little in contentment as I looked out over the crashing waves of Baker Beach. I’d always loved it out here, even if it reminded me of Dad. Maybe especially because of that.
In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge shone a blood red against that blue sky.
“Yeah, swarthy,” Jaden said, bumping me with his shoulder. “Why? You going to argue about it?”
“Nope. I like it. It’s so…pirate-y.”
He snorted. The smile didn’t leave his face, though.
I found myself looking at him. Really looking at him.
Cass had informed me we were in the “disgusting” stage of being in a relationship together. Meaning we were sickeningly cute, doing all of the stereotypical, barf-worthy things, according to her. Meaning no one else could stand to be around us, unless they were in the same sappy stage with someone themselves, and then they wouldn’t even notice us.
It made me laugh, I couldn’t help it.
I supposed she was right, but it hadn’t graduated to a “stage” in my mind, not yet.
After all, this was my first one. It was all pretty new for me, including being a walking stereotype of a bad rom-com, I guess.
I used a finger to brush a few stray locks of black hair out of his eyes. He was looking at me, too, and I could see what lay behind the look that time.
We hadn’t said it to each other yet, not in almost five months of dating, but something caused me to say it then.
“I love you,” I told him.
Pain hit me in the chest. Hard, nearly catching my breath.
In front of me, Jaden blinked in surprise. Then he grinned wider.
“Really?” he said. “You do?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling back. “I do.”
Even so, I rubbed my chest, confused by the heat that continued to pulse there. I looked up at Jaden though, and seeing the look in his eyes, I nudged him with an arm.
“All right, all right,” I smiled. “Don’t make a big deal about it or anything.”
“I’m just wondering what kind of sexual favors this buys me.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it.
Looking up at him, I saw the happiness in his eyes, and some part of me relaxed.
In the reflected sunlight, his eyes almost looked clear in that pause. Glass-like. Like two panes of crystal, only faintly tinted with color.
Something in seeing him like that caught my breath.
Then he turned his head, kicking at the sand.
“Want to go swimming?” he said, looking at me again, still grinning.
His eyes were blue that time. Just blue. Like the ocean behind him.
The change startled me, even as some part of me tried to bring back that other color, the one that mesmerized me whenever I saw it.
But I snapped out of that, too.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling back.
He grabbed my hand, yanking me to my feet after he’d climbed up on the sand himself.
Once I was upright I glanced up and down the beach, wondering if it was safe to leave our stuff. But we were alone. We wouldn’t be for long, I knew, but it was early yet.
Jon and Cass had each said they might join us, but I kind of doubted they would. Cass mostly liked to give me shit for having a boyfriend in general, so I knew it wasn’t personal with her, she’d just rather spend the day alone with Jack. As for Jon, I strongly got the impression that Jon didn’t like Jaden very much. I didn’t know why. He wouldn’t really admit that he didn’t like him, not in so many words, but I knew he didn’t.
I could feel it.
“I love you, too, you know,” Jaden said.
Startled, I turned, looking at him. I smiled when he squeezed my hand.
“I wasn’t going to say it,” he said. He leaned closer, kissing me on the cheek, lowering his voice to a murmur. “I was worried it would sound like, you know…b.s., since you just said it. But I do. Love you. I just was waiting for a good time to say it.”
I smiled at him when he raised his head.
“So what about that swim?” he said, maybe to break the awkwardness of that moment.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m game if you are.”
“Oh, I’m definitely game, Taylor…so no wussing out on me when your ass hits the first wave. You have to stay in at least long enough for my balls to crawl up into my ass…”
I laughed at that, too.
It hit me, somewhere in the midst of that laugh, that I was happy.
Well, mostly. More or less.
I still had things to work out, of course.
I hated my job. My mom was a mess. Cass was a different kind of mess, and I was pretty sure her boyfriend, Jack, was a full-fledged junkie by now. Jon wanted me to go back to school and wouldn’t stop nagging me about it. I wanted to be an artist, but I couldn’t figure out how to get anyone to pay me a living wage to do it.
I missed my Dad.
I missed him so much it just about killed me some days.
But overall, yeah, I was happy.
Maybe for the first time since Dad died, I was really happy.
For some reason, the thought made me feel strangely guilty.
I brushed that away too, along with another fleeting impression of those colorless eyes, of a narrower mouth than Jaden’s, of a taller, leaner body. I pushed it all away, tilting my face up towards the sun as I willed myself to just appreciate what I had…what I actually had, the things that were real in my life, right now.
As I did, I sighed up at that warmth, smiling into it.
Then I was laughing again as I let Jaden drag me by the fingers towards the curling waves. We were splashing each other in minutes, trying to dunk each other.
And yeah, I knew this was just another breath in time.
The clouds would come back. They always did.
Until then, I was going to enjoy the sun.
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THE ALLIE’S WAR SERIES is a dark, unique and gritty psychic romance involving a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying e
nemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled unpredictable twists.
THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES is a dystopian new adult romance about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she must learn to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, their modern day version of the coliseum where she must fight just to survive.
THE GATE SHIFTER SERIES is an unusual shifter romance centering on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth. Part urban fantasy, part detective series, part paranormal romance, part science fiction adventure, the Gate Shifter series explores crime solving, interstellar warfare and alien romance with the least likely candidates imaginable.
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THE ALLIE’S WAR SERIES
MAIN SERIES
Rook: Allie’s War Book One
Shield: Allie’s War Book Two
Sword: Allie’s War Book Three
Shadow: Allie's War Book Four
Knight: Allie's War Book Five
War: Allie’s War Book Six
Bridge: Allie’s War Book Seven
Prophet: Allie’s War Book Eight
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New York: Allie's War Early Years (FREE)
Revik: Allie’s War Early Years
Terian: Allie’s War Early Years
