Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (95 page)

I wouldn’t get another chance.

I rose the rest of the way to my feet at the thought, biting my lip as I tried to decide what to do. I could risk the shield. Try to crack the wall from this side, then look for Lao Hu loyalists to help me on the other side. I was wearing the dress. I might be able to slip in as a consort, if Barrier security didn’t ID my light.

If I could manage to organize the Lao Hu infiltrators, even a little…

The thoughts faded as I froze.

The wall was opening in front of me.

It opened slowly, the door appearing out of nowhere in that stone and mortar-looking surface, blending in seamlessly with the original wall even where it was partway open. The hands I saw pushing on it were precise, unhurried, but not particularly cautious. Instead, I got the sense they were testing the door panel in some way, perhaps experimenting with how the door opened and swung. Perhaps trying to understand the design...or merely curious about it.

I saw a form there, in the shadow of the wall.

He was tall.

I watched him exit through the opening he created then hesitate, as if trying to remember why he was there. He stopped almost casually to turn around, then remembered the door and turned again to push that closed behind him. Right before it would have disappeared back into the wall, he paused again, as if thinking better of locking himself on the other side.

I watched, dumbfounded, as he felt around on the grass under the overhanging trees.

Seconds later, he’d wedged a rock into the opening between the door and the wall.

He did it all so easily, like he was taking an afternoon stroll.

When he straightened, I found myself staring at the shape of that shadow, even as my heart leapt into my throat.

I didn’t move, though. I also didn’t hide.

I just stood there and watched him approach me, his steps unhurried.

He walked directly up to me, his body and face still in shadow.

He had his hands in his pockets, I realized. He was looking at me, but he didn’t seem worried, or particularly aggressive…or particularly anything.

Once he was close to me however, I could feel his light, so tangibly it cut my breath.

“Hello, sister,” he said.

It was Revik’s voice, but I didn’t know it at all.

He looked me over in the green dress, and I felt an equally unhurried whisper of pain leave his light. It made me flinch, but otherwise, I didn’t move.

Curiosity touched his voice when he spoke to me next.

“What are you doing out here?” he said.

I opened my mouth, unable to speak.

“You’re very pretty,” he said, still looking at me. His voice remained light, but I felt a near shyness there that time. “Do I know you, sister? Do you live here, in the City?”

I was still fighting to make a sound. To say anything.

Then I heard a soft but strangely familiar noise.

Whuffft
…

Revik flinched visibly, especially his head and neck. He clamped a hand briefly over the same side of his neck where he’d jerked, then removed the hand again, as if startled.

Looking up, I saw something sticking out of his throat. I saw the tufted barb, even as Revik’s other hand left his pocket, his fingers tentatively touching around the thing sticking out of him. I felt him wince, even as a faint worry stole over his light.

“What…what is it?” he said. “Am I hurt?”

Then, without warning, he collapsed.

I let out a low cry, still conscious of needing to make little noise, even then. I leapt forward, maybe in the thought of catching him, but I barely managed to get my arms around his back before he brought both of us heavily to the ground.

I let out a low grunt as we landed.

Panic flooded my light as I looked down at him.

“Revik…” I whispered. “Revik…can you hear me?”

He didn’t move.

He was breathing though…he was breathing.

His eyes half-opened, even as I thought it. Reaching up, he went back to touching the dart hanging out of his neck. Moving his fingers aside gently, I grasped it in my hand, yanking it out in one hard pull. Revik let out a low sound when I did, and I wrapped my arms around him, shushing him with my light and hands even as I cradled him. He now lay with his head and part of his upper body in my lap.

I looked around then, breathing hard…nearly panting.

Someone else was out here. Someone just shot him in the neck with a tranquilizer dart.

What the fuck was I going to do? I couldn’t carry him…

A shape appeared out of the trees.

I tensed, gripping Revik tighter. Then I realized I knew that form, too. I found myself staring, my jaw hardening so that it hurt my face as the male seer walked towards me, holding a dart rifle and wearing full combat gear.

At first I had to keep my jaw clenched to keep from screaming at him.

When he got close enough I unleashed a low whisper instead.

“What the
fuck
are you doing here?” I hissed.

“You needed him down…” Jem said. He bent his knees in a smooth crouch, leaning down next to me and checking Revik’s pulse with his fingers. “He’s fine, Allie,” he said, exhaling. Probably feeling the fury on my light, he turned, meeting my gaze. “I wasn’t going to let you do it alone. You weren’t being fucking rational, Alyson…”

“I can’t do this with him unconscious!” I said, keeping my whisper low with an effort that time. “Goddamn it, Jem…we’ll have to carry him out of here now! You might have blown everything with this…”

But Dalejem shook his head. “No,” he said. “I didn’t hit him with a Dehgoies dose…I hit him with a regular one.” Still looking at me, he frowned at me with those sculpted lips, just visible in the light of the moon. “It’ll keep him calm, Allie…it’ll keep him from killing you at least. Just work fast. It won’t keep him down for very long…”

I clicked at him, again so soft it was barely a murmur.

“We need Balidor, Jem. I
need
him––” I said.

“You’ll have him,” Dalejem cut in. “I’m leaving now. I just did this first.”

“You’ve been out here this whole time?” I said, disbelieving.

He looked at me, his expression unmoving. Then he shrugged.

Feeling a pulse off his light, I flinched, fighting the emotion that wanted to rise in mine. I shook my head, maybe to get it away from me.

“You’ll never get away in time…” I said. “You won’t.”

“Yes I will,” he said. He caressed my hair, leaning over both of us as he slung the rifle over his shoulder. “…A little faith, sister. I’ve done this before.”

I let out a disbelieving snort, but he only smiled at me.

He was starting to straighten when I grabbed his arm.

“Wait for my signal okay?” I said, still fighting with that emotion still seething in my light. “It’ll take me at least twenty minutes to map this. Probably more. Get as far as you can in that time. You won’t be able to get out of Beijing, but––”

“Don’t worry about me, Alyson,” Jem growled. “I mean it. Just do what you have to do. This isn’t about you and me…it never was.”

I nodded, biting my lip.

The pain in my light worsened when I felt Revik gripping my arm. His light was coiling into mine already, pulling on me so hard I could barely think straight, could barely focus my eyes.

But I was still holding Jem’s arm, too. I could feel him waiting.

Waiting for me to let go of him, probably.

“Thank you,” I blurted, looking up at him. Releasing his arm, I felt Revik stir in my lap and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tighter in my hands, gripping his chest and shoulder against me. “Thank you, Jem…thank you…so much…”

“More gratitude,” he grunted.

But that time he smiled.

Leaning down, he kissed me, putting heat into it as he used his tongue.

In my lap, I felt a flicker of pain off Revik, sharp enough that it got me to pull away from Jem’s mouth. I felt myself flush, but I didn’t look away from Jem’s face.

“Go,” I told him. “Please go. And don’t get killed, goddamn it…”

Before I’d even finished saying it, Jem had disappeared into the trees.

31

RAIN COMES GENTLY

Nine Months Earlier

The hold of The Abresne

Somewhere off the coast of India

I lay wrapped in his bare arms and legs, lying on as much of him as I could, my face pressed against the upper part of his chest. I was still in pain. I was still struggling not to pull on him, not to coax him into getting hard again, even though both of us were sore…even though I knew I’d have trouble hiding what we’d been doing tonight already.

Revik wanted it to seem like we weren’t having a lot of sex.

He wanted it to seem like we weren’t getting along.

I got that.

I understood all of it, given everything he’d been telling me, but I still hated the idea, still rebelled against it. I struggled enough that the public fights we’d been staging almost felt real at times, even when my emotions had no relationship to what I was saying.

“There’s no other way, wife,” he said softly, coaxing me open with his light.

“There has to be another way,” I mumbled against his bare skin.

“He’d never let me back into his network willingly…” he murmured, kissing my temple as he cradled me in his arms. “Not if he knew I wanted it. Never.”

I slid my arms around him tighter, fighting to think about his words, to think about them rationally in some way, even as some part of me struggled not to see the implications.

I’d been trying to talk him out of it again.

To come up with a new plan.

I’d been trying for weeks now, but I had no new plan…neither did he.

This had become a near ritual for us by then, with me arguing and him talking me into it, or sometimes we would reverse roles and I would be forced to defend his crazy plan, if only because I had no other one and I could see all the same things he did.

But tonight it was my turn again.

Tonight I would force him to be the one to talk us both into it.

“I don’t see why you think he’d believe this at all,” I argued. “So you want to go to him, say you’re willing to work for him, but that you
won’t
be in his network…? All in the hopes that he’ll believe you and later
force
you to be in his network?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you think he’ll believe that?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, stroking my hair with one hand.

“Why?” I said. “Why would he believe that, Revik?”

My husband exhaled, wrapping his arms around me tighter.

“Dubai,” he said with a sigh, kissing my face. “He would believe it because of Dubai, wife.”

I bit my lip, fighting not to react to my own memories of what happened in that boathouse. I could see the logic in what he was saying. I could feel the different layers he was threading together. I could see the fucking
brilliance
there, too, of course, that damned multi-layered thinking of his and how much sense it made. I just didn’t like it.