Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (17 page)

Looking up, I tried to meet his gaze, but he wouldn’t let me.

Eventually I gave that up, too.

“Do you really think Shadow’s going to try that now?” I said. I made my voice more subdued. “…Here? We’re hundreds of miles away from them, Revik. You don’t even know that he can get to you long distance.”

Revik gave me a hard look. I saw the warning there.

I saw the disbelief, too.

I felt my jaw tighten at his expression, but I plowed on, shrugging with one hand.

“You don’t know if he can get to you at all when you’re outside of his immediate visual range,” I continued, my voice still neutral. “‘Dori’s pretty sure you need to be inside one of his constructs at the very least. In fact,
all
of the evidence from our senior infiltrators suggests that. He would’ve used you to kill me months ago if he could have. He wouldn’t keep trying to lure us closer to him, like he did in New York and Dubai.”

Seeing the immovable look on Revik’s face, I fought not to react.

Shrugging with a hand, I added, “He probably hasn’t even re-grown or re-implanted into a new body yet. Balidor seems to think that’s not a simple thing for him, either. He said Chan killing his last body caused a noticeable crash in their construct in Dubai, right? One that isn’t fully repaired? So it couldn’t have been nothing to him, to lose a body like that. He’s probably distracted with other stuff right now, baby, or else––”

“Allie, all of that…every bit of it…is just bullshit speculation.”

I bit my lip, then forced another shrug. I used my shoulders that time, my hands gripping the edge of the desk. At least he was talking to me, I told myself.

At least he was talking to me about something other than Chandre.

“It’s evidence-based bullshit, at least,” I said, feeling my jaw harden. “Which is more than your…I don’t know…rampant paranoia based ‘caution’ or whatever you want to call it…”

He gave me a harder stare. “Sorry if I’m not about to risk you and Lily’s lives on your fucking
guesses,
Alyson.”

I felt my anger worsen. More than that, my defensiveness.

No one could make me defensive like my own damned husband, especially when he was in one of these moods. I knew the mood was my fault. I knew that…and I knew I’d be fucking livid if I’d seen him kissing someone else, whatever the reason, especially now.

But I also needed him to trust me, damn it.

After everything we’d been through, I deserved that much, at least.

I also knew this was a tactic of his…meaning to piss me off to the point that the conversation was over. Even now, he might be waiting until he had a semi-valid excuse to leave. He’d been doing the exact same thing to me for weeks now, so I knew that wasn’t all about Chandre, whatever he might be telling himself.

And yeah, he was better at avoiding me than I was at not letting him.

Fighting to pull my reactions back, I bit my lip. Exhaling again, I clicked under my breath, maybe just to keep from saying anything before I’d calmed down.

I looked at him, focusing on his clothes that time.

He wore a threadbare T-shirt that did nothing to calm me down in other respects, or to get my mind off what I’d been hoping might happen tonight. Given that I was now feeling pretty damned sure it
wouldn’t
happen, looking at him didn’t really help my mood. I knew I wasn’t being rational about it, but I couldn’t really help that, either.

The truth was, I was hurting. I had been for awhile.

Chan had
zero
to do with that, and he knew it. Or he should know it.

I’d been hurting since before Dubai.

He’d barely let me be alone with him since he’d regained consciousness. We hadn’t kissed. He didn’t touch me at all if he could help it, nor would he let me touch him. He rarely even looked at me these days I was realizing. When he did, it wasn’t for very long.

So yeah, maybe my eyes lingered on him longer than they should have.

I could tell he’d been fighting at some point that day.

He’d been working out obsessively again, pretty much since he’d been cleared by the medical techs following that mess in Dubai. Even before we got to Bangkok he’d been running on the ship’s deck. Fighting a few hours a day. He’d been lifting…even swimming.

Wreg told me Revik approached him the day he got cleared by the techs and asked for his help in designing routines that would push him more than he might push himself. The combination had him lean but hard, which was apparent even through the loose clothes he wore. His work pants hung on him, a dusty black, also probably from fighting in the ring earlier.

Or maybe running, if he really had been running fully clothed.

Exhaling again, I forced my eyes off his body.

Then I held up my hands, palms up, a seer’s gesture of defeat.

“So?” I said. “That’s it, then? We’re not going to talk?” I bit my lip, then said it anyway. “And clearly…you’re not going to touch me. Right?”

He exhaled too, clicking more angrily than I had.

“Alyson, for fuck’s sake. If you think I want to
touch
you after what you just did––”

“Don’t pretend this is about Chandre,” I cut in, angry. Looking away from his glare, I fought to control my voice and failed. “You’ve been avoiding touching me for
weeks
, Revik. This isn’t about Chandre. So let’s just have the conversation, okay? The quick and dirty version. Just tell me. Tell me to shut up about it, Revik…I’ll shut up. Hell, I’ll move to a different room if that’s what you want…”

“Fine,” Revik said, his eyes glass. “Get the fuck out.”

I stared at him.

I felt my face harden as his words sank in, as his expression refused to waver. Then I was fighting not to react for real.

“Do you mean that?” I said finally.

He exhaled nothing but anger. “I honestly don’t know.”

I bit my lip, shaking my head as I stared out the window.
 

Now I really didn’t know if I should leave. I knew if I did, I might really be sleeping somewhere else that night. Maybe for a lot longer than just one night.

When I looked back at him that time, my mind fell silent.

His expression shocked me.

But it was more than that, too.

I knew a part of it was my human upbringing, which in some ways remained pretty danged ingrained…in some areas of my psyche at least. I knew male seers were different than male humans. I knew one of those differences had to do with cultural norms around demonstrating emotions. I knew that, and I’d known it for a long time now. Even so, I never really expected him to cry, no matter what I said.

Part of it was him. His whole soldier, fighter thing made the contrast even more dramatic. I expected him to yell at me, to get angry, but not to fall apart.

So when he did cry, yeah…it always floored me.

It also rendered me pretty much speechless.

Like now, I just stood there, unsure if I should try to approach him or not. I waited until he’d pulled it back, watching as he wiped his face with the heel of his hand, avoiding my eyes. He was leaning against edge of the thick glass window. He looked out it periodically even as he cried, probably to continue avoiding looking at me.

I watched him fold then refold his arms. I watched as he continued to fight with his own light. And yeah, damn it…I wanted to touch him. I wanted to touch him so badly I felt a swell of frustrated anger that made me want to yell at him. I wanted to immerse myself in his light, badly enough that I was on the verge of begging him to let me.

But I knew he wouldn’t.

Worse, it might just shut him down more.

“Allie,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t understand why you don’t see this…”

I deflated even more.

“I do see it,” I said, softer.

“I don’t mean about Chan…”

“I know what you mean. Revik, I get it…I swear I do.”

“I don’t think you do.”

I shook my head, clicking, but he wasn’t finished.

“…I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. He looked at me, his eyes still overly bright, despite the hardness of his mouth. “I fucking tried to
kill
you, Allie…” At my silence, he looked away. “No one will even tell me what I did,” he muttered. “I can guess…of course I can fucking guess. But I can’t
see
it. You block me whenever I try…”

I winced. Then, thinking about his words, I shook my head slowly.

“It’s not going to help you to see that, Revik,” I said. “Anyway, you can guess, like you said. Whatever that trigger is, you thought I was the enemy. Imagine what you’d do if you thought that of anyone.” I shrugged at his incredulous look. “It wasn’t
you,
Revik. Do you think
anyone
here is confused about that? Anyone at all? Besides you, that is?”

“What difference does it make, whether it was ‘really’ me or not?” he said, his voice still holding that incredulous note. “Allie…why would you want to risk that?”

I sighed, combing the hair out of my face, fighting not to react.

I gestured around the small room, sighing again.

“Revik. We’re in the same room now. What’s the difference? If you’re right and Menlim can jerk your puppet strings whenever he wants, why doesn’t he just kill me now?”

“We have gas hooked to this room,” Revik reminded me.

“And the gas’ll be on if we fuck, too…” I said, exasperated.

He winced. Probably at my word choice.

Seeing his closed expression, I sighed in frustration.

“Revik. What’s the difference? Seriously? We’ve been in the same room off and on for weeks. We’ve been alone together. We’ve been alone when there wasn’t gas…or ‘Dori and Tarsi watching. We’ve been alone with Lily.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be,” he said, his jaw hard. “I told you I should wear a fucking collar, Allie. I’ve been saying that since day one…”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No…don’t play dense about this. I’m saying why is
sex
the thing you’re fixating on? Why touching me? Why is that where you’re drawing the line?”

“Because I can’t fucking control my light when we have sex!”
he snarled.

His words and light silenced me.

It felt like getting hit. Close to, anyway.

It was intense enough to bring me up short. And cause me to retract my light, which I hadn’t realized until then was all over his.

I felt his anger around Chan in that. I felt his frustration…the pain on him that he’d been blocking from me, too. For weeks, I realized.

I felt the two things mix.

I felt him wanting to beat the fuck out of Chandre.

I felt the utter lack of rationality around that, too.

His face darkened in that silence, but I didn’t feel any kind of apology in his light. He took his weight off the wall by the window, but he didn’t move any closer.

“Gods,” he said. He wiped his face with a hand and turned, staring at me like he couldn’t fathom where I was coming from. His German accent grew more prominent again, making it harder to understand him. “I’ve
never
been able to control my fucking light with you. I can’t change that now, no matter what you and ‘Dori and whoever else teach me. It’s fucking
impossible
for me. It will be worse now, because we’re separate. I can barely keep my light under control around you as it is.”

His voice grew colder, even as his eyes brightened again.

“You pulling these passive-aggressive seduction games doesn’t help…wife.”

I swallowed. Even so, a near relief washed over my light, I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was seeing him for the first time in weeks.

“…And you’re right,” he growled, staring at me. “I don’t want to be here right now. I didn’t want to come here even
before
I saw you stick your tongue down Chandre’s goddamned throat. I don’t want to be in this fucking room and have to watch you try to seduce me…I can’t fucking stand it, Allie. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me to go to a prostitute for real. Your utter lack of
empathy
on this with me is unbelievable…”