Hell, he hadn’t even been sure he was married back then.
For the same reason, he’d slept with a human on the ship. That essentially had been a trick, someone who picked him up in a bar, wanting to use a seer prostitute to get back at her unfaithful husband.
And anyway, he’d been trying to distract himself from Allie then, too. Not very successfully either; he’d spent most of his time with that human trying to fuck his wife from the Barrier, half out of his mind when she kept pushing him away.
It had been the thing to make him realize he was married though. It also nearly earned him a divorce.
Then there was the op, in D.C.
Whatever she’d thought, then or now, he’d done that for her. She’d walked in, seeing him with Kat, and he could understand why she couldn’t let go of that, especially given their history and how Kat treated her in Seattle. But a part of his mind rebelled at that, too...unable to equate the two things, to put what he’d done in the same category as what she’d done to him.
For the gods’ sakes. He hadn’t gone there to get laid. It had been a damned military operation. He’d used them because it was the only way to get her out.
It wasn’t the same thing, his mind repeated. It wasn’t the same at all.
She’d wanted Balidor.
She didn’t even hint about that part...she told him outright she’d wanted the Adhipan leader. She said she’d wanted him even before, when things had been good with them before D.C. That meant she’d been interested in him in the period before they’d consummated.
Maybe she’d even considered severing things with him, marrying the Adhipan leader instead. Maybe they’d delayed him in Cairo on purpose, long enough to give Balidor time to persuade her.
The pain in his heart worsened, forcing him to shield so it wouldn’t wake her.
She hadn’t said anything to him. She hadn’t even hinted that someone else was in the picture. He’d been worried about Maygar, for fuck’s sake.
The anger wouldn’t dissipate; it seethed in his chest, a hot coil of hatred against the other seer. Maybe a little towards his wife, too.
She’d slept with him, knowing all that. She had sex with a 400-year-old male seer she had a crush on, even after they’d consummated. She didn’t come out and say it, but she’d enjoyed it, too. A lot, from what he’d been able to pick up from the imprints left in her light.
Worse, it had been intimate. Enough to scare her...to make her back off.
And Revik hadn’t felt it.
The reality of that hit him again, making every inch of skin on his body hurt.
Why hadn’t he felt it? How was that even possible?
Balidor must have figured out some way...just like he figured out a way to fake her death. But he couldn’t have had sex with her in that same sensory deprivation chamber Allie told him about. He would have felt that, for sure...the complete absence of her would have been enough to send him over the edge, especially then, so soon after Delhi.
No way the sex happened after Balidor shot her, either...not right away, anyway. And by the time Balidor took her out of that thing, she’d been half-dead.
Revik continued to stare up at the ceiling, trying to wrap his head around it.
He had to get up. He was going to be late.
Forcing the rest from his mind, he started to slide out from under her arm. Her grip on him tightened, however, just before she jerked...then raised her head.
“Hey.”
He watched her face as she woke up.
Blinking against the sun coming through the windows, she squinted up at him, rubbing her eyes and one cheek. The sheet fell off her as she did, and he found himself staring at her bare shoulder and back, down to where it met a round curve of her buttocks...right before she shifted to her side, and he found himself looking at her breasts and belly instead.
His light reacted ahead of his cock...but not by much.
“Hey,” she said again. When he started to move away, she caught hold of his arm. “Where are you going?”
“Salinse,” he said. He avoided looking at her, but kept his light neutral. “I still haven’t debriefed with him about the Registry job, and—”
“Hey!” Alarm pitched her voice upwards. She grabbed his arm tighter, forcing him to turn. “Baby...what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
He hesitated, looking at her face. The endearment disarmed him a little, in spite of himself. Feeling her light slide around his in fearful eddies, he leaned down, kissing her.
“It’s nothing. Promise.”
“Liar.” She yanked on his arm again when he started to pull away. “Revik! You said you wouldn’t freak out! It was your idea, remember? You said you wouldn’t!”
He just stared at her for a moment.
Then he realized what she meant.
Tracing his thoughts back to their origins, he even wondered if she might be right.
He forced himself to exhale, to relax. Settling his weight back on the mattress, he turned to her again, studying her high-cheekboned face. Letting his eyes drift over hers, he fingered the hair off her cheek, opening his light. He saw relief touch her expression, but the worry remained there as she looked from one of his eyes to the other.
“I’m sorry,” he said, soft.
“But why?” she said. “What is it?” She sat up, and he felt his body react again when she sat there naked next to him. She kissed his face, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I thought it was nice,” she murmured in his ear. “The you and me part...I thought we finally, you know...” She hesitated a half-beat, kissing his ear again, using her tongue. “It felt like things changed with us again. In a good way, I mean...at the end...”
He didn’t move as she stroked his hair and the back of his neck.
He thought about her words, though.
Her fingers explored his chest then, and he felt her light darting out in pale pulses, softening his heart. He let her open him gradually, even as his light followed how subtly she did it, how much more sophisticated she’d gotten at pulling him into her.
“Revik,” she said softly. “Revik...” She kissed his ear, and he felt his groin react, even as his breathing grew more shallow. She shook him lightly by the shoulders, kissing him again. “Revik,” she said softer. “Please. Talk to me.”
He bit his lip, staring out over the view of the canyon.
“Did you mean it?” he said finally.
“Mean what?”
“What you said. About how you’d never fuck anyone else again.”
His voice came out bitter. Harsher than he’d intended.
She flinched, raising her head. Her fingers were on his face then, caressing his neck, and he felt himself softening, in spite of himself.
“Yes,” she said. “You know I meant it.”
He felt his jaw harden. Anger welled up in him again, sharp enough that he couldn’t control it briefly. She must have felt it, because she pulled at it, coaxing it out of him. When it started to slip through his fingers, he looked at her, feeling his chest hurt, throbbing under his ribs. Her eyes met his, their light jade serious in the early sun.
“Why do you want me to feel this, Allie?”
“Because you’ll never get over it until you do.”
“What makes you think I’ll get over it at all?”
“Do you want to hit me?” she said. “Would that help?”
There was a silence while he stared at her, incredulous.
“No,” he said. His eyes flickered to her mouth, then back to hers. “Did it help you?”
“No. Not really.”
He bit his lip again, wanting to yell at her, to tell her everything he’d been thinking before she woke up. More than anything, he wanted to know why he hadn’t felt them together.
Something about that bothered him more than the rest. Maybe if he’d been a part of it, even peripherally...even if it made everything worse at the time. He’d still have something more concrete to work with.
Something other than his imagination and the whispers of emotion he discerned in her light.
“Are you pissed off at Wreg?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.” He paused, trying to smile. “I do want to hit him, though.”
She smiled. “Why? For getting off on watching us?”
“No.” His voice hardened again. “For wanting my wife.”
She rolled her eyes at this, sliding her arms deeper around his neck. “If that’s the criteria...I’d have to punch out your whole squad.”
He continued to look at her, frustrated, and still angry. She watched his face cautiously, and he could tell from her eyes she felt it.
“What do you want me to do, Revik?” she said.
“I want you to have never slept with him.”
He saw her eyes wince, right before they shifted away. She tugged her arms from around his neck, retracting her light.
“I’m sorry,” he said, blunt. He wasn’t though.
“Revik,” she sighed. She rubbed her eyes. “Please. Please believe me on this. He isn’t a threat to you. I swear to the gods, he isn’t.”
“You don’t even believe in the gods, Allie.”
“What do you want?” she said, frustrated. “What do you want me to say right now?”
“Will you be angry with me, if I kill him?” he said.
There was a silence.
She looked up, her eyes widening a little. “What?”
He averted his gaze back to the window, feeling his jaw harden until it hurt. He didn’t want to see her emotional reaction if she thought he might be serious. He’d seen the fear there, in that brief instant, and that had been enough.
“Forget it,” he said. “I didn’t mean it, Allie.”
He felt another whisper of her fear though, and had to clench his jaw to remain silent.
“I have to go,” he said. Without looking at her, he rose to his feet. Feeling her about to speak, he cut her off before she could. “...We’ll talk more later. I really do have to go, Allie. I’m late to see Salinse. It shouldn’t take long...”
After the barest pause, she nodded, tugging the sheet back around herself.
He only looked at her once more before he left.
She hadn’t moved from the bed, but watched him with those jade green eyes, a wary look on her face as she scanned his light.
REVIK BARELY HEARD most of what Salinse said in the first twenty or so minutes of their interview. He spoke, but more in rote, and found himself staring at the fire for a few seconds between each of the old seer’s questions to clarify his words.
He knew Allie didn’t like the old man.
He’d even found it touching in a way...mostly because he’d picked up on a few inklings of her reasons. For one, he’d caught her thinking that Salinse acted like he owned him.
More than anything, however, she hated him because he looked so much like Menlim.
Revik had to remind himself sometimes, that she witnessed a fair chunk of his childhood while studying the Barrier in Tarsi’s cave.
He glanced down at the stone tile floor, focusing briefly on the sword and sun mosaic. Pale blue slate stood beside the gold, marbled rock of the sun’s center. White crystal made up the sword bisecting the middle of the gold circle, patterned with ribbons of some other clear stone. The room itself was almost an exact replica of the rebel quarters of Menlim during World War I.
Glancing around at the antique furniture, he supposed Allie had a point.
Revik frowned a little, shifting in his seat as he folded his arms. Depending on what she’d seen, Allie probably had good reason to feel the way she did. If anyone had treated her like that as a child, he would kill them. No question.
Still, he didn’t feel that way about the old man himself.
And anyway, Salinse wasn’t Menlim.
He couldn’t say really, why it didn’t bother him more. Maybe because, by the end, he’d understood why Menlim had done the things he’d done. He didn’t condone it, but he got why he’d felt he needed to do them.
Glancing up, Revik found himself studying the face of the old seer.
Salinse really did look remarkably like Menlim.
His eyes shone an opaque white instead of that dark yellow of Menlim’s. He wore a slightly more rounded jawline...slightly lowered cheekbones. Yet Salinse’s face managed to retain every bit of the skeleton-like quality of Menlim’s skin-stretched-over-bone features.
In fact, staring up at him, Revik found himself understanding Allie’s perception in a whole new light. She looked at Salinse and saw the man who’d turned her husband into a killer.
Swallowing a little, he averted his gaze.
“...Nephew.”
Revik realized Salinse had been silent for a few seconds at least.
He turned his head, meeting the old man’s stare.
“...Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Salinse said. “...Or shall I be forced to continue to guess?”
The old Sark re-laced long fingers on the tops of his bony thighs over the long robe he wore. He continued to study Revik’s expression, his own inscrutable, despite the whisper of concern Revik felt in his light. Revik saw the flavor under that concern, too, the level scrutiny in those opaque, white-irised eyes.
“No,” Revik said. “I’m not. Do you need anything more from me, uncle?”
Salinse just looked at him, his white irises unmoving.
“I respect your wish for privacy, nephew,” he said then, softer. “But you are not dismissed. For if you have nothing to say to me, then I have something to say to you...”
Revik felt his body tense. “Can it wait?” He gestured deferentially to the old seer. “...I mean no disrespect. I’m not in the mood for a long talk today...”
“No,” the old seer said. “It cannot wait, nephew.”
He paused, blinking once, slowly, as he stared at Revik’s face.
“...However,” he said. “I will do you the courtesy of being direct, my dear friend.”
Revik felt his jaw harden still more. Still, he motioned an acquiescence. He didn’t really have a lot of choice. He’d let the old man give his lecture or words of advice or whatever couldn’t wait, and then he would go for a walk by himself...look at the cliffs for awhile in the sun before heading back.
Even as it whispered through his mind, he realized he wanted her to come with him. Anger touched his light at the realization, but it didn’t change anything.
Salinse let out a sigh, bringing Revik’s eyes back to his. Clicking in a near-purr that still somehow wasn’t soft, he gestured smoothly with one long-fingered hand.
“...I wish for nothing but happiness for you and your bride, Illustrious Syrimne,” he said, his voice holding regret. If he noticed Revik stiffen, he didn’t react. “...I wish that very much. In all of the time I have known you, nephew, I have wanted that for you, more than anything. I knew how badly you wanted it in your youth...I knew the very idea of her got you through some of those dark times, whether that idea was realistic or not...”
Revik didn’t speak, but felt his throat close a little.
Salinse met his gaze directly. “...Yet she is still a mortal being down here, Illustrious brother. Still fallible. Still prone to certain immaturities and excesses...especially at her young age...”
Revik didn’t answer that, either.
“I watched her too, you know,” the old seer added. “Not as closely as you did, of course, especially in those early years...but I feel I know her in some ways, your Bridge.”
Revik looked away. A surge of emotion caught him off guard, making it hard to hold his expression still. He remembered following her as a child, and again as she got older, and the pain worsened. There were times, even then, even not knowing who she was...but he pushed it from his mind, even as a memory of her, the one time he’d gotten near to her when she was small, swam into the forward part of his consciousness. He’d scared off a group of boys who’d been teasing her. She’d at
tracted unwanted attention even then.
He remembered her looking up at him, her green eyes catching the sun. She hadn’t been afraid of him. Even then, she hadn’t been afraid.
When the old man didn’t go on, he nodded, wiping his face with one hand.
“You want to say something uncle.” His voice came out blunt. “So say it.”
“I am not trying to distress you, nephew,” Salinse said.
“Just say it.”
Salinse sighed once more, clicking in regret.
“...In all of that time of watching her, nephew, I paid particular attention to her motives. You see, what matters to me, more than anything, is that I understand why my brothers and sisters do what they do...even the intermediaries with whom I’ve been blessed to cross paths...”
He made a respectful gesture with one hand.
Revik bit back impatience, but didn’t voice it. When he still said nothing, Salinse smiled again, his eyes verging on kindly.
“Do not misunderstand me, brother Syrimne. Through the vast majority of the time I’ve observed your mate...at least since she has known her true nature...it strikes me that she has wanted nothing more than to do what is best for our people. Even though I was not always in full agreement with the means and strategies she employed, I believed that. I believed her to be honest...loyal. Well meaning in her intentions. I believed her, in fact, to be a person who acted with a very high degree of integrity...”
He sighed again, his voice still holding regret.
“...I also thought she would have sooner died than betray you, nephew...”
Revik’s jaw turned to stone. His fingers curled into fists under his biceps where he had his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t move his gaze from the fire, but felt the old seer staring at his face once more.
“However,” he said. “There are things here that do not add up, my brother.”
Revik looked up, in spite of himself, feeling his body tense.
Salinse held up a hand, as if to forestall something he saw in his face.
“I do not blame you for missing it, nephew,” he said. “You are blinded by your feelings for her...that much is obvious, and more than a little touching. None of us wanted to take that from you, not after how much you have been forced to suffer in waiting for her...”
Allie's War Season Two Page 48
