Allie's War Season Three (20 page)

Without trying to peer inside in advance of entering, I just walked in.

Once I had, three sets of eyes jerked in my direction. Two of those looked almost guilty. The third, which belonged to Revik, looked closer to relieved. The relief I saw there didn't reassure me, however, nor did the more predatory look I saw under it.

Instead I was staring at the rest of him, and understanding immediately why Balidor, Wreg, Poresh and Loki hadn't wanted me there.

"What
is going on?" I snapped. "Why do you have a collar on him?"

The words burst out of me, so filled with fury that I actually saw Wreg flinch. His expression made it look like he was wondering the same thing, however, even as a guilty kind of defensiveness rose to his eyes.

Balidor looked equally defensive. There was a lot more obstinacy in his expression, though, when he trained his gaze my way. That expression hardened further while I watched, as if he was readying himself for a fight.

"Are you going to answer me? Why do you have my husband chained to the bed with a sight restraint collar on?" I said, my voice holding more disbelief than anger now. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Alyson..." Balidor began angrily.

"Don't 'Alyson' me...take that thing off him. Now!"

Revik still hadn't spoken, but I could tell from his eyes that they'd drugged him with something, probably for the pain. Either that, or no one had bothered to give him any light at all since he'd left me in the hotel lobby.

"Seriously...what are you doing?" I said. "Are you going to tell me?"

It was Wreg who answered me, not Balidor.

"He's refusing light," Wreg said, motioning towards the bed. "He wanted to go to you. He's not in his right mind, Allie...we were trying to sedate him. The only way we knew how..."

"What do you mean, he's refusing light?" I said.

Worry showed in my voice that time, even as I approached the bed.

Balidor stepped directly into my path, holding up a hand like he might try to stop me from going to Revik. I pushed past him though, only angered by it, and he didn't resist.

I sat next to Revik on the bed a few seconds later.

He lay halfway on his side so that the shrapnel wound didn't support any of his weight. Wearing a thin T-shirt and dark, soft-looking pants, he might have been comfortable if they hadn't cuffed his hands together and chained one of the links to the headboard of the bed. He didn't move away when I approached, but I felt another pulse of that relief on him. He clasped my fingers when I took his, laying his head in my lap. Something in the simplicity of the gesture drained the anger out of me, leaving me at a loss.

He'd avoided touching me so often in the past few weeks. I was a little thrown by the openness I could now feel in his light. He merged into me more when I shifted closer to him, sliding his arms over to rest on my thighs.

I could feel what Wreg had been trying to tell me, though. I just had no idea what it meant. He almost wasn't there, like a part of him wasn't anchored to his body at all.

"Do you have him on anything?" I asked, my voice subdued. I stroked his hair, feeling his light fighting against the collar, trying to get closer to mine.

"No," Balidor said. I heard a kind of resignation in his voice, too.

I looked up at him. "Why didn't you just call me? Right away?"

"Because he told us
not
to, Allie."

"What?" My hands tightened on him. "Why would he do that?"

When Balidor merely avoided my eyes, I looked at Wreg, who was glaring at Balidor, his eyes holding an open accusation. It wasn't until then that it struck me how strange this was, the two of them in here, working over Revik together.

"Why would he do that?" I asked again, this time aiming it at Wreg.

The tattooed seer shrugged, his voice more matter-of-fact. "He said if we brought you in here, he'd rape you, Esteemed Bridge. He made us promise we wouldn't...not even to feed him light. He didn't want you involved..."

My heart stopped beating briefly, stuttering over the word I'd heard somewhere in the middle of Wreg's answer. Even so, my hands only tightened on him more.

"He's just in pain," I said. "Both of us are. You should have overruled him..."

"He's
not
just in pain," Balidor snapped. "Alyson...have you heard nothing of what Vash and I have been telling you about this? You're only halfway bonded to him again. You need to remember what that was like...and then remember it's about ten times worse this time, as now he's full Elaerian. As are you..." he added pointedly, motioning vaguely above my head. "He was right to avoid you. He asked for the collar..."

"He
asked
to be collared?" I stared down at his neck, where the two ends joined in the back, digging into the flesh around the top of his spine.

Revik asking to be collared wasn't only unheard of...there was a time where you would have been risking your life to even suggest it, even with a good military reason. He hated collars more than any seer I knew, and that was saying a lot.

Wreg sighed at my disbelief, as if he shared it.

"Yes, princess," he said, his voice gentler. "He asked for the binders, too. He really was afraid he would hurt you. He could tell he was losing control over his light..." Wreg glared at Balidor at this, his voice turning openly angry. "I told Adhipan and that old fossil that we should involve you from the beginning. That we should let you decide if it was time to stop this ridiculous separation between you..."

"We have
no idea
what he will do," Balidor snapped, turning on him. "Even
he
doesn't. He was as worried about it as we were...you heard him!"

"He's worried he will be jealous," Wreg said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. "He
will
be jealous. He will probably want to kill half of those bastards they sold her to..." At Balidor's angry clicking, Wreg raised his voice. "I ask you again...so what? How is prolonging this helping him any? You are only feeding his fears, making him wait until he has completely lost control of himself. And the end result will only be the same. He will be jealous. He will be angry...he will lose his temper. They will work it out, like every bonded seer pair has before them. You are so busy tip-toeing around him, you are
making
him unstable. He really will hurt her, if you keep them apart much longer..."

Listening to Wreg's angry words, I swallowed, realizing I agreed with them.

I'd always agreed with them really, but I'd been trying to respect Vash and Balidor's concerns, and Revik's, too. The last thing I wanted to do was push Revik into dealing with this before he was ready, given everything he'd been through in the last year.

But I couldn't help wondering how much of his hesitation had to do with Balidor and Vash actively worrying that he was going to flip out and go serial killer the instant he felt another seer or human in my light. Even on the plane from Beijing, he'd seemed like he wanted to have sex...he just hadn't wanted to do it in an open construct with a bunch of other seers watching. Neither had I, for that matter.

Then we got to New York and Balidor and Vash had that 'talk' with him.

Ever since, he'd acted like he was afraid he was going to completely lose his shit again, as soon as he hit those imprints in my light.

By imprints, I mean the ones I'd gotten working as a consort for the Lao Hu. The ones I couldn't avoid collecting when I'd been having sex with other men, thinking he and I were done being married...in the strictest sense, at least. I'd learned the hard way a few years earlier that when seers have sex, imprints are left behind of the experience. Supposedly those imprints could gradually be erased, or severely weakened if enough time was allowed to pass.

According to Dorje, there were even seers who could pull those imprints out of another seer's light...almost like a specialized skill.

Unfortunately, none of those seers worked for the Adhipan.

Nor were any of the rebels who followed Revik to New York able to do such a thing.

As far as doing it the normal way, Revik and I couldn't wait that long. We'd been waiting months as it was, and Revik had gone a lot longer without sex than I had. In fact, if he was telling the truth, he was going on a year without sex, as that was the last time we'd been together at that rebel hideout in the mountains. For a seer with a mate, that was a really,
really
long time to not share light. It was almost unheard of, really, if I could believe what Chandre and others had told me in the past.

I wasn't looking forward to the imprint side of things, either. I knew it would suck...for both of us really, but for him a lot more than me. Having been on the receiving end with him on more than one occasion, I wasn't minimizing that fact at all.

But I also wasn't clear on how our waiting was going to make it easier for either of us.

"You see?" Wreg said.

He motioned towards me with a dramatic seer-style gesture...and also managed to startle me, as it occurred to me that I hadn't been making any effort to shield my thoughts.

"...She agrees with me," Wreg burst out angrily. "She knows that this delay is only making things worse. Why are you still pretending you do not see this, as well? Is it so important to be right
all
the time, Adhipan?"

"In this?" Balidor said, folding his arms. His voice turned cold. "Yes. I'm afraid it's fairly important to be right about this, Wreg. A highly-trained, only recently reintegrated telekinetic seer who has a tendency to lose his shit and go dark where his mate is concerned? Yes, I'd say that it's pretty damned important that we get this one right..."

Wreg threw up his hands, making an angry noise. "This is only more words...it is bullshit, Adhipan. You do not know him at all, if you think he is so easily damaged..."

"You didn't see him in that tank," Balidor retorted.

"I saw him well enough when she betrayed him in those mountains..."

"He was under the control of the Dreng then!"

"You are
overstepping,
Adhipan," Wreg growled, his stance bordering on threatening. "This is between the two of them. You are involving yourself in something that is
not your business.
You are letting your fears of
Syrimne d'Gaos
get the better of you..."

I couldn't help but agree with that, too.

Seeing Balidor's eyes dart towards mine, his mouth hardening in a line, I only returned his gaze, unapologetic. I continued stroking Revik's hair as I finally looked away, wondering how much of this he was even hearing. Looking at the fresh organic bandage on his back, I scanned it briefly, trying to get a sense of how deep the wound really was...and how dangerous. I didn't let myself think about all the reasons I did that, either.

But apparently Balidor heard some part of those reasons himself.

"You can't be serious," he said, giving me an incredulous look. "You half-kill him, dragging him on this personal project of yours...the details of which you didn't even deign to inform the rest of us...and now you want to try and kill him again? Are you really that unbelievably selfish?"

I rolled my eyes, but bit the inside of my cheek involuntarily.

"I'm trying to think of solutions, 'Dori," I said quietly.

"You know why he is like this, don't you?" Balidor took a step closer to the bed, motioning towards Revik with one hand as he raised his voice. "It is because of that damned
op,
Allie. We told you it wasn't a good idea for him to be in the field yet...especially not with you. Did you think these were just idle words?" At my angry look, he only spoke louder.

"...To do that type of work, he has to exert his light, Alyson. He has to use his light in conjunction with the light of whatever seers he is working with...meaning
your
light, Allie. Meaning the light of a mate he is only half-bonded with at this point...who he is already having trouble controlling himself around. The separation pain, all of that would have to be worse from hours of such exertion...much, much worse. The fact that you pulled him into doing this thing with you...that you
coerced
him, knowing he would not refuse you..." His voice grew angrier. "...Do you not realize this is entirely your fault, Alyson? Or do you simply not care?"

I felt my jaw harden more.

Shrugging, I didn't look up at him when I answered.

"I can make it easier for him," I said, keeping my voice low and even. "I can make it so he can relax, get some sleep, take some light. It would only be short term, but –– "