Allie's War Season Three (148 page)

“You need to get over it,” I advised him. “Seriously. We just got up in front of all of our friends, the gods, Tarsi...whoever else...and promised we’d stop acting like children. We’re married. I’m never leaving you. I’m never cheating on you again. You’re an idiot to think otherwise, and you know it. People are trying to kill us, husband,” I added sternly, smacking him again. “...The world is dying all around us. We can’t afford to act like this anymore, okay? You need to trust me. I need to trust you. We need to get over it, Revik...”

When he raised an eyebrow at me questioningly, I smacked him again, harder that time, and he laughed, catching hold of my wrist.

"Okay, okay,” he said. “I agree.” I heard relief in his voice and smiled, even as he yanked me closer to him. “You keep getting more and more violent with me," he said, his German accent prominent again. "Should I be worried about this?"

"This from a man who tried to bully me into group sex earlier...” I reminded him, struggling to free my hand so I could hit him again. "...And who keeps secrets from me. Secrets everyone else in the hotel seems to know.” I writhed out of his hold, half-smiling in spite of myself. “Is this about that stupid Lao Hu clothing? Because if you’d just told me, I would have ditched that stupid dress right off. But no. You let me parade around like that for
months
..."

“I told you. I’m not going to tell my wife what to wear.” His smile crept out again. “Besides. It was great masturbation material..." he added, laughing again when I struggled harder to free my wrist. "I didn't have to try to conjure anything..." He laughed again when I fought to hit him, jerking my other arm free of his hands. "...Speaking of which," he added, his eyes on my face again, right before his voice got gruffer. "...I may not make it to the shower."

"This turns you on?" I said. "Me trying to smack you?"

"You stark naked and writhing against me, with that light in your eyes?" he said, smiling. "Yeah, wife...it turns me on." He pressed his body against mine.

I smiled at him. "I thought I was barf girl?"

"I'll survive," he said. "...For this one, anyway."

"This one, huh? You sound pretty confident."

He nodded, pressing his erection against me, closing his eyes for longer than a blink when my pain worsened. "Gods, Allie...you have no idea how much you don't need to worry about me." He released my wrists, twisting his body so that most of his weight fell on mine again.

Feeling another pulse of that pain on him, I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"Can I give you head?" I murmured. "Before, I mean." Kissing his throat, I nuzzled his neck. "You can't yell at me for teasing, though. Just this once, you have to let me...and if you're good, I'll let you do the same. You can use rope and everything..."

Pain ribboned off his light, slow and liquid that time, even as he pulled me tighter against him. "Yeah," he said softly in my ear. "You say shit like that to me, then complain because I’ve got issues with you and other men..."

"Why? You’re the one I’m offering to molest!”

Revik laughed. "Really? Is that what that is? An offer?"

"What do you think it is?” I said, my voice a little sharper. "I'm allowed to play a little with you, aren't I? I thought you liked it sometimes..."

"I like it a little too much," he admitted, caressing my neck. "Truthfully, it still makes me jealous as hell when you do that."

"Jealous?" I said, bewildered. "What for? It's
you
I'm doing it to..."

"You're a lot more confident now," he said. As I opened my mouth to protest, he clarified, "...About sex, Alyson. You used to be more shy. Even at the rebel compound, you were shy. You just didn't say no very often. But you got embarrassed easy."

He tugged my thigh further around his waist, entering me without waiting for my answer. I let out a gasp when he angled to the end of me, then went all of the way in, extending without preamble. I clutched his back and his bicep as his eyes closed, fighting to control my light while I watched his face. I felt his pain worsen as he stared back at me, as he watched my expression change when he arched in further.

“But I’m hearing you wife,” he added, his breath short. “I swear I am...”

“You’re just choosing to ignore me,” I told him. Even so, my breath stopped when he slid into me deeper, closing his eyes briefly. I let out a low gasp. When I opened my own eyes, he shook his head, his eyes serious.

“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. I’m not ignoring you. Really.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it, and he smiled.

"You like my arms?" he said, his own breath short. "I felt you. On the submarine..."

"I like a lot of your parts," I said. "But yeah, you have sexy arms...and hands," I added, as he closed one around my breast. "I like your feet, too..." I gasped when he arched into me harder, his eyes on my face. "...Gods, Revik...baby...aren't you going to let me play with you at all? I asked nicely..."

"Not yet," he said, grunting a little as he rocked into me again. He closed his eyes when my pain worsened, tautness flickering across his expression. "...I need to build up my mental fortitude first..."

"Your mental
fortitude?"

Fighting back another laugh, I bit my lip, falling silent when he arched into me again.

"I need to fuck out some of my jealousy, wife..." he told me, his voice short. "...Jealousy and whatever else. Before you get mad and start hitting me again...”

I laughed again. “Whatever else?” I said, cocking an eyebrow at him.

His eyes looked serious when I met his gaze.

He didn’t answer me, though.

I could feel where his energy and light were going, even before he caught hold of my hips, angling into me harder. His eyes half-closed when he did it the next time, and then he had a foot on the floor by the couch, his hand holding me down as he gripped the back of the couch with the other, that time for leverage. He lost himself as the motion grew more intent, as his hand gripped me tighter the longer he went. I found myself holding him back, and then both of us were sweating, fighting to get him further inside me.

His eyes still shone with that inhuman stare as he lost control.

Even so, in those few seconds before that denser heat began to blur my vision, I wondered again, as I looked at him, what it was that he wouldn’t tell me.

9

PSYCHOPATH

BALIDOR FACED THE silver-eyed seer, his surface mind close to blank.

Keeping his thoughts away from the range of the lead Lao Hu infiltrator’s lower aleimi formed only one of the precautionary protocols he’d drafted for his infiltrators, when it came to dealing with this particular prisoner.

He’d made a list, essentially, with that one being pretty on the low-priority end, all in all.

It fell well after the two-way collar, the organic and dead-metal chains, the gas triggers, pressurized floor panels, DNA encrypted locks and the multiple-layer construct over the cell itself, much less the one they’d designed over the detainment area as a whole.

Even so, anyone caught in here who forgot to shield their thoughts, in addition to the rest, would be instantly pulled, and never allowed in this particular cell again.

He wasn’t taking chances with this one. Not even deeply remote chances.

He already knew he likely wouldn’t be able to let Dehgoies in here at all. Balidor himself had questioned Ditrini only a few times at this point, given everything else they’d had on their plate, but he’d picked up enough already to know Dehgoies wouldn’t be reliable. He’d probably kill the Lao Hu infiltrator if he listened to even a random sampling of his surface thoughts through the collar’s one remaining open frequency.

Folding his arms, Balidor looked at the Lao Hu infiltrator, assessing.

As of that morning, Ditrini had been approved for an interrogation protocol that included mind-altering drugs. Balidor himself made the call, and about three weeks earlier than he would have normally. According to the Adhipan’s ethical code, common decency and whatever else, Balidor would usually proceed in carefully escalating stages whenever a fellow seer required interrogation.

This time, he wasn’t feeling quite so courteous.

What he’d seen on the Lao Hu seer so far had not inclined him towards leniency in much of anything, really. Ditrini only seemed to revel in the fact that his thoughts made so many of them uncomfortable, and Balidor more than suspected he went of his way to intensify those reactions, particularly when it came to his very vivid memories involving Allie.

Balidor had known that not everything that occurred within the auspices of the ‘contract’ Allie signed with the Lao Hu had been strictly consensual. It may have started out that way, more or less, but after Allie killed Shadow’s employee, Gerwix, her status abruptly deteriorated inside Forbidden City’s walls. Balidor had also known, from Wreg and eventually Dehgoies himself, that part of that had involved Voi Pai giving Allie to Ditrini for a time.

What Balidor
hadn’t
realized, at least not until they captured Ditrini himself, was that Voi Pai allowed Ditrini to turn Allie into his own personal slave.

They’d taken the most revered soul of the seer race, and handed her around like some kind of toy, like an object of amusement...a party favor.

It sickened Balidor, to the point where he’d been forced to walk out himself more than once. It sickened him enough that he had to very carefully watch his own decision-making processes, when it came to how best to extract information out of Ditrini.

Maybe for the same reason, he had zero remorse about the drugs.

He was already preparing protocols that would involve using wires, too, and he’d only resorted to using those machines twice in his entire military career, at least on a fellow seer.

Anyway, they were running out of time. All of them felt it.

Things were getting ugly in China, and fast.

From preliminary reports, Beijing didn’t get the head’s up that New York and the other safety zones did, despite the supposed alliance between the Lao Hu and Shadow. The irony of that, given that Voi Pai’s attempts to stay in Shadow’s good graces largely accounted for her extremely poor treatment of the Bridge, was not lost on Balidor, but it didn’t exactly make him feel better about the risks China’s current situation posed.

Beijing’s water supply had been targeted right along with Shanghai, Chengdu and Guanzhou’s. From what Balidor had discerned from his contacts overseas, it might be too late for them to lock down any part of China at all, apart from Hong Kong, where there appeared to be another safe city set up, but without the involvement of the Chinese government at all.

Clearly, the Lao Hu and the human communist government were making a last ditch effort to preserve the Forbidden City, but Balidor had no idea if they would succeed, despite the near impregnability of the outer walls under normal conditions.

Balidor couldn’t help wondering what had turned Shadow so clearly against his Lao Hu ‘allies,’ and in such a seemingly short span of time. He and the rest of the Adhipan and Seven infiltrators had previously operated under the premise that the reason for much of Voi Pai’s odd behavior stemmed from the Lao Hu’s foreknowledge of some of these events, and a desire to be on the safe side of the quarantine walls when they came crashing down.

Now, Balidor wasn’t so sure.

Sighing a bit, Balidor brought his mind back to the present, and the senior infiltrator sitting in front of him.

Ditrini still hadn’t condescended to meet his gaze.