Allie's War Season Four (141 page)

“She won’t leave,” Mika repeated in Prexci, lowering her mouth to his ear.

Mika massaged his shoulder sensually with one hand, and Loki felt another stab of pain from the woman, enough to make him writhe under Mika’s fingers. He missed some of what the other seer said to him, picking up only the tail end of her words.

“...her to leave?” she finished.

“What?” Loki said, still staring at the human woman past Mika’s arm.

Mika clicked at him, but the sound was light, more teasing than usual.

“I said, you need to stay awake,” Mika said in Prexci, her voice holding more amusement than patience.
“If
she can keep you awake...
if
you can make her understand this, I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

Raising her head, Mika grinned at him, again exuding relief. She massaged his chest again, and Loki closed his eyes, fighting back a stronger response when he felt another flush of irritation from the human. Mika winked at him, glancing up at the human, and obviously feeling the woman’s irritation, too.

“I admit, it’s a bit of a turn-on, being around the two of you,” Mika mused. “...but as I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment, it’s kind of annoying, too, brother.”

“Stop it,” Loki said, also speaking in Prexci. “You’re angering her.”

“Oh, I know I am, brother. You should have seen her earlier, when I was washing off your leg. I really thought she might attack me...”

For the first time, Loki jerked his eyes off the human, looking up at Mika. More than anything, he still felt confused. His body and light had scattered in those few seconds, and his nausea grew almost unbearable as he stared up at the Asian seer’s face.

Clicking at him bemusedly, Mika switched to English.

“Okay,” Mika said, sighing. “I’m probably verging on mean now.”

She glanced at the woman who stood next to the bench, then back at Loki.

“Listen up, brother.” She looked again at the woman, still speaking English, only louder now. “...You too, cousin.”

Her eyes swiveled back to Loki’s as she continued in her accented but precise voice.

“Your shoulder wound, brother...it is mostly superficial,” she said. “A clean shot, not even any shrapnel. So it might hurt, but do not worry so much about this one. It’s been cleaned thoroughly, stitched and bandaged.” Mika gave the woman another warning look, before aiming the same at Loki. “...Your leg is more serious, brother. Illeg says it’s not broken to feel, but our hand-holds got hit in the field, so we can’t confirm that for certain...there may be a fracture there, something Illeg and Holo didn’t catch...so whatever you do, don’t put any pressure on the thing until we can look at it on the carrier, okay?”

Reaching towards him with a hand, Mika pressed on his forehead again, pushing him back to the pillow. She’d done it to stop him raising his head again...which Loki had barely noticed himself doing.

When he obeyed her, she rubbed his chest again, feeding him light through her fingers, and again, Loki felt the human woman’s irritation.

“You got hit pretty hard in the head, brother,” Mika said, still in English for the human’s benefit. Her voice grew a little sharper that time, and a little louder. “Definitely a concussion...we don’t know how serious. Jax’s pack got shot while you and Rex were bringing him in. Those stinking armor-piercing bullets managed to raze off part of his rifle, and it hit you in the back of the head, my brother...pretty damned hard, we think. It knocked you out, and the others tell me that’s no small feat with your thick skull.”

Loki grunted. He didn’t know if something showed on his face at that, but Mika sighed, giving him a few reassuring clicks and purrs as her fingers fed him more light.

“Still. It is probably nothing serious, brother,” she assured him. “...We do not think so, anyway. No head injury can be treated as safe until we get it checked out, though...and like I told you, no hand-helds to do that thoroughly out here. We’ve got your leg splinted, cleaned and stitched up. Your head is bandaged in back, too, and we gave you a few shots, which is probably the only reason you’re not whining like a baby right now...”

Loki frowned at that, and Mika laughed.

“A reaction! Finally.”

She rose smoothly to her feet, then indicated towards something next to her, a little lower than where Loki’s head rested on the pillow. Whatever she pointed at, it lived somewhere not far from where the light source came, too, so Loki guessed it as a table.

“See if you can get him to eat something,” Mika said then, addressing her words to the woman. “...At least make him drink some of this water. All of it, if you can.”

The human looked nervous again, maybe at the idea of being left alone with him. She only nodded, though, her dark, sharp eyes glancing at whatever Mika waved a hand towards.

“Okay,” Mika said. She gave a single nod of her head, seer-fashion, then gestured a sign of respect and affection to Loki. “I’ll be back in an hour, brother. Longer if I hear anything obscene going on here.”

She gave him another wink and a grin. As she walked away from the bed, Mika shook a finger teasingly at the woman, too.

“Don’t hurt him, cousin!” she scolded. “Not too much funny business, okay?”

“Okay,” the woman said.

Loki felt a faint tremor in his light from hearing her voice. It sounded husky and low in the dead air of the room, and he realized she’d remained on her feet, hovering over the bench but looking like she’d rather be hovering over him by now. Loki watched as she shoved her ring-clad hands into the front pockets of her form-fitting jeans, shifting her weight between slim hips. She didn’t look at him, though, in spite of his stare, but continued to watch Mika as the smaller, shorter female fussed over the table for a moment and then walked out the room.

The human avoided looking at him, Loki noticed, until a few seconds after he heard the door shut behind Mika’s retreating footsteps.

When she did finally turn, Loki could only stare. Her dark eyes looked almost liquid to him now, and the pain in his gut and chest grew unbearable.

He wanted her to come nearer.

Gods, he wanted it so badly.

He could feel a faint throbbing in his shoulder now, distant still but moving ever closer to the requisite nerve endings. He could feel other things, too, a sharper pain in his leg, a duller, throbbing, more debilitating pain coming from the back of his head. He tried to focus on these things, to distract himself, but he could tell they’d pumped drugs into his system, like Mika said, enough that his inhibitions were lowered past where they should be.

Or maybe that was just another excuse.

Either way, he couldn’t maintain the silence as long as she could.

“Come here,” he said in English. “Please, cousin.”

She jerked as if she’d been stung. He didn’t know at first if it came from him breaking the silence, or from what he’d said. He felt her surprise at the sound of his voice, too.

She liked his accent, though. She thought it was sexy.

His pain worsened. He closed his eyes that time, shifting his head so that his eyes aimed at the ceiling instead of at her. He thought maybe it would help if he stopped looking at her. He could still feel her light, but maybe it would help if he didn’t keep looking at her body, watching the way she moved her hands and arms, the micro-expressions on her face. Maybe he would fall back asleep...go back to dreaming of her by that golden ocean...

But didn’t Mika just tell her that he couldn’t sleep?

The next time, it was the woman who spoke.

“What is your name?” she said.

He flinched, opening his eyes, then regretted it when his head started to throb louder in the background. Despite what he’d just been telling himself, he turned his head, looking at her again. She’d moved closer to him, and now stood almost directly over where he lay.

He looked more or less up now to see her, instead of to the side.

He could feel her thinking that he couldn’t fall asleep, either.

She felt nervous, conscious that she had to keep him awake. He felt the bare edge of panic in her light at the thought, a worry that touched him when he realized it was for him. She was afraid she would fuck up and he would die on her watch. She was terrified of that happening, actually. He wanted to reach a hand out to reassure her, but he didn’t.

“It’s Loki, isn’t it?” she said, her voice slightly louder.

He felt her thinking that maybe she needed to call one of the seers back in here after all, to help keep him awake. He felt her thinking that his eyes looked unfocused, that his color looked better, but that he really looked pretty out of it, too.

He heard her thinking that she really wanted to touch him.

What the hell is wrong with me?
she thought.
Why am I acting like this?

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice coming out thick, almost dense.

He fought to clear his throat, then reached for her, for her fingers, in spite of himself. He clasped them almost nervously, still watching her face. She didn’t move away from him though, and he felt her fingers squeeze his back as she took another step closer to his bed.

“Sorry?” she said, quirking an eyebrow at him. “What for?”

He didn’t know how to answer that, either.

When her cheeks turned pinkish, his tongue thickened in his mouth. He slid his fingers deeper into hers, reaching his hand out farther, not letting himself think about whether that was a good idea, either. She moved closer a second time when he did it, and that time, she clasped his hand with both of hers.

Once she had, she seemed at a loss again, as if unsure what she should do.

Is he doing this to me?
he felt her wonder.

“No, cousin,” he told her, unthinking.

She started, blinking in surprise as she stared down at him. He watched her eyes widen slightly as she thought over the ramifications of what he’d just said.

He just read my mind. He just read my fucking mind...he must have. What the hell am I doing? He’s obviously one of them. Isn’t this what they do? Bewitch people?

He felt her struggle to make her thoughts harder, more cynical, and felt his pain worsen when she didn’t quite succeed. She didn’t want to believe she couldn’t trust him. She didn’t want to believe he would harm her, either. More than anything, she didn’t want to believe that how she felt was just some form of seer manipulation. He felt her trying to force herself to believe it, that this was an illusion, but she couldn’t quite do it.

His pain worsened as he felt the conflict on her, as her fingers tightened around his.

Her mind grew almost panicked.

What does he want from me?
A shiver of fear coursed through her light, leaking into her body.
Is this because he saw me as a whore? Because he saw me in that place?

He shook his head, adamant.

“No,” he said. “No, cousin...do not think such a thing. Please.”

When she looked down, her cheeks and neck darkening with blush, he closed his eyes briefly, fighting to control his light. She seemed to have accepted that he could read her mind, which turned him on, too, maybe because she still didn’t feel overly afraid of him.

When he continued to watch her, her jaw hardened, her dark eyes growing defiant.

“Because I’m not like that,” she told him. She gripped his fingers more tightly in hers. “I’m not like that...you know that, right? I was just trying to survive. For Dani...and for me.”

“I understand,” he assured her, gripping both of her hands with the one of his. “Cousin, do not concern yourself with this.”

“I know how it looked...” she began, but Loki already shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You do not. Not to me.” Making a seer’s shrug with one hand, he added, “Many of my people are forced into such circumstances. You will find that there is little judgment on such things from seers...that I am not unusual in this. We never assume one would ever do this thing, given a better choice. It is not a matter of morality for us.”

His words seemed to stump her briefly. He saw intelligence spark in her eyes, though. He could also feel that she’d understood him the way he intended.

While she thought about his words, Loki’s eyes took in the rough cut of her black hair, realizing he recognized the basic style.