Allie's War Season Four (175 page)

“ALYSON?” BALIDOR SAID, his voice polite.

I turned, feeling myself tense... and blush... even before I saw the uncomfortable look on the Adhipan leader’s face. My rear end still hurt from Revik’s hand, my skin and bones from the cuffs he’d tightened around my wrists. My back hurt... along with other parts of me... and I had the disconcerting feeling that everyone around the two of us knew it.

Worse, it kept pulling my mind back to Revik, back to sex, back to what I could still feel both of us wanting to do... or really, get back to doing.

It also made me conscious of the darting yet somehow overly intimate touches I still felt from Revik’s own light, which of course only made it that much more likely everyone else in the room
would
notice the two of us.

Jorag was the worst about staring, and getting too close to me with his light. For some reason, he’d been positively shitty about that for months now. I had no way of knowing whether his reaction to seeing me and Revik so obviously post-coital had anything to do with specific knowledge around what we’d been doing, anything to do with me specifically, or just horniness in general. Whatever the cause, I felt more pain off the other seer than I ever had.

It was bad enough that I gave him a warning look, glancing at Revik meaningfully.

Jorag caught my stare and flushed.

He looked away pretty damned quick the instant he saw Revik glance in his direction, but I couldn’t help thinking––probably too loudly––that Jorag needed to get laid. Badly.

Revik didn’t have a lot of patience with other seers messing with my light at the best of times, and right now he was positively hair-trigger on the issue.

Even as I thought it, I saw Jorag glance at me surreptitiously again.

I could have imagined it, but it seemed like his eyes lingered longest on my rear end, which made me wonder again if they’d seen more of me and Revik in that flag cabin than I really wanted to think about. Either way, I probably needed to have a little chat with Jorag privately before his light’s more specific interest in me earned him a black eye from my somewhat hovering and overprotective husband.

Or worse, really.

I’d seen Dalejem’s eyes on Revik’s body more times than strictly necessary, too. Unlike Jorag, he had the sheer politeness (or maybe common sense) to stay away from us. I consistently saw him hovering at the more distant edges of the room, putting himself as far away from us as physically possible. He even avoided sitting at the table with the rest of us during meetings, preferring to stand and watch the proceedings from the wall, his muscular arms folded.

I still didn’t like it. Truthfully, I had to fight not to give him hostile glares, as well.

Kali and Uye had left while we’d been gone.

I didn’t ask why. Truthfully, I didn’t want to know.

Either way, in relation to the room as a whole and even the seers who seemed a lot less interested in us than in Jorag and Dalejem, I still felt overly conscious of my relevant body parts and their visibility––as if every seer in the room could actually see the print of my husband’s palm and fingers on my ass through the thick fabric of my combat pants.

Thinking about that wasn’t such a great idea at the moment either, though––especially since it immediately turned me on, bringing liquid pain coursing through my light and causing a corresponding ripple in Revik’s when he glanced my way.

The fact that probably the best infiltrator alive stood in front of me, subtly checking out my light, didn’t exactly help the embarrassed heat that crawled traitorously over my skin.

I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.

I could feel the reluctance in Balidor’s aleimi as he cleared his throat, averting his gaze soon after he’d studied my expression in a brief but penetrating stare. I couldn’t feel anything on his light about what he wanted, not specifically. But that was hardly unusual with Balidor, no matter how embarrassed he might be.

Anyway, I could guess.

The cautious but intense feel of his light reinforced that probability in my mind, enough that my own light began to shield more intensely in reflex. I glanced at Revik a second time, feeling that pain in my light worsen when I glimpsed his profile.

Fuck. What was the matter with me?

What was the matter with both of us?

“...May I talk to you for a moment, Esteemed Bridge?” Balidor said, polite as always.

I glanced across the room and caught Dalejem staring again, only at me that time, not Revik. I returned his stare, flushing, then looked back at Balidor, almost before I’d registered the question.

Revik stood a few yards away, talking to Vikram and Yumi. Even so, I felt his light’s attention more than halfway on mine, wrapped into parts of me that were difficult to ignore, despite the thoughtful nod he gave to whatever Vikram was saying. He gave me another bare glance, his eyes sliding over Balidor before a small frown touched his narrow lips.

I felt the more protective shield that went up in his light, wrapping mine more densely in his. His stance shifted in the same beat, his arms folding over his chest as he planted his legs wider apart. It was his immovable stance, I noted, with a bare thread of humor.

Or maybe his
just try it
stance.

That time, when he looked at me, he sent me a whisper of heat. Maybe he could tell I liked it when he got all male on me, even when it wasn’t particularly warranted. Or maybe he could just tell I was having trouble ignoring anything about him right now, much less when he was doing something invasive to me with his light.

“Sure,” I told Balidor.

I tore my eyes off Revik, only to find the Adhipan leader looking between the two of us, that sharper scrutiny back in his eyes.

“What?” I made my voice flat, abruptly businesslike. “What is it, ‘Dor? Is this about the primary landing again? Because I told you... I’m going. Which means Revik is going. That’s non-negotiable.”

He barely seemed to hear me.

Looking between me and Revik, he scanned us both openly that time, a harder look in his gray eyes when he clicked out.

That time, he dropped the polite act.

“What is this,” he said, motioning between the two of us. “What is going on, Alyson?”

I paused a beat before answering, maybe because I felt my light flare in reaction to the aggression in his voice, along with a corresponding flare from Revik.

“...Like that,” Balidor said, his voice pointed. “Like what just happened there.” He motioned between the two of us again, his gestures sharper. “What is that?”

I was about to answer, when I found myself glancing at Revik. He was watching the two of us closely now, his clear eyes wary, his light slightly charged.

I sighed, folding my arms, barely conscious that I’d already more than half-imitated Revik’s wide-legged stance. “Is there a problem, brother Balidor?” I bit my lip. “Is this about the sex? Because we’re not exactly the first couple who’s ducked out of work to indulge. In fact, I hear you and Yarli––”

“This isn’t about that,” Balidor cut in, motioning in the negative with one hand and giving me a warning look. He looked at Revik that time, his expression harder. “Something is going on between the two of you. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about... or that I don’t have a right to ask. You know damned well he’s only recently been disconnected from Menlim’s construct... and we don’t even know for certain if that was accomplished in its entirety. You cannot afford to be secretive regarding any changes in his light, Alyson. You cannot be secretive with changes this drastic in
either
of you. Now, tell me. What the hell is going on?”

Revik was staring at us again.

Catching my eye, he entered my light even more.

What does he want?

I rolled my eyes.
He wants to know what’s going on with us. What do you think?

His jaw tightened.
I don’t like his tone. Tell him to back off. He’s standing too close.

“––Alyson?” Balidor said, sharper.

Realizing I’d missed the first part of what he’d said, focusing on Revik, I found myself refolding my arms around my ribs, taking a half step back without thinking about why I did that, either. I struggled to focus on the male seer in front of me, on what we’d been talking about.

As I did, part of my brain acknowledged the validity of Balidor’s question, as well as my unwillingness to go there with him, regardless of what I felt.

Revik’s light continued to wrap into mine, pulling my attention, demanding it––

Balidor caught hold of my arm. “Alyson!”

I stepped back, startled.

Even so, the Adhipan leader’s grip on me managed to jerk my attention back to both him and the room. It worried me when I realized how quickly I’d drifted again. Before I could speak, or pull my mind together enough to try, Revik appeared at my side.

Well, a little in front of me, really.

He inserted his body between mine and Balidor’s so quickly, I barely acknowledged the fact that he’d forced the other seer to let go of me.

“What the fuck do you want?” Revik said. “What is this?”

The maleness thing was on overdrive now, and while it affected me, I grew conscious of the stares we’d officially begun to garner from around the room. I also grew conscious of the fact that Revik had been speaking in Russian... and that I’d understood him, even though I don’t speak or understand Russian.

Balidor stiffened. To his credit, he barely flinched though.

He didn’t back off, either, despite the hotter frequency of Revik’s light.

Instead, he looked around Revik’s body to me, his eyes showing an open exasperation. He didn’t send any words to me directly, but from his vague hand-wave towards Revik and his meaningful frown and head-tilt, I got the point without needing to hear it.

He might as well have said,
See? You’re seeing this, right?

I sighed, catching hold of Revik’s waist with my arm.

Without meaning to almost, I didn’t just tug him back, I wrapped my arm around him, pulling on him with my light as much as my body, pulling him against me, so that I felt his aleimi wrap into mine, his body melting against my side even as that protective thing continued to emanate off his light. The latter thing caused his muscles to continue to tense and release against my side, making me conscious of his hands, of the long muscles in his thigh, his arms. He let me pull him back, though, and I felt elements of his light grow submissive, even as his pain sharpened from the direct contact with mine.

And yeah, okay, none of that exactly helped with my concentration issues.

I forced my eyes back to Balidor, even as my vision blurred. Realizing my eyes had started to glow, I blinked them, trying to clear them, to pull back my light.

“Both of you, chill,” I said, without releasing Revik. I looked at Balidor directly. “Yeah, ‘Dori, I get it,” I said. “I’m just not sure how this falls into the ‘dire, imminent peril’ category, given what we have on our respective plates right now. Yeah, there’s something going on with our light. Yeah, we’re acting a little weird because of it. It’s not like we’ve been hiding that fact, have we? And if we feel the need to take a few more private moments together as a result, then what’s the big deal? We’ll do our job, I promise you––”

But Balidor was already clicking at me, at both of us now.

He glanced up at Revik more warily, then returned his gaze to mine.

“Alyson,” he said. “It’s not okay. Not now. Not when we don’t know what’s causing it.” He gave Revik another look. “Neither of you will be able to view this objectively.”

“And you can?” I said.

Balidor gave me a harder look, one that bordered on angry.

Realizing how that sounded, I glanced at Yarli in reflex, feeling my face grow hot. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Clicking at me in irritation, Balidor waved off my words.

Feeling my jaw tighten more, I said, “So what do you suggest? Are you really telling me to stop having sex with my husband?”

I didn’t realize how loudly I’d said that until the room around us went quiet.

Glancing around without releasing Revik, I felt my jaw clench before I looked back at Balidor. I saw his gray eyes watching me again, me even more than Revik. I felt pain on Revik, too, but I also felt him thinking, worrying maybe... and looking at his own light where it wrapped too tightly into mine, especially in terms of specific structures we shared through our aleimi. I felt him worrying about me, about what his light might be doing to mine. I felt him remembering how deeply parts of his light had been hooked into Menlim’s, and how connections of that kind always went two ways.