Allie's War Season Four (185 page)

“Who are you?” he demanded of Dalejem, still speaking Arabic. “I could have you arrested, do you know this? You do not simply ‘borrow’ merchandise meant for the markets... brother.”

Dalejem smiled at him, gesturing an apology, but he didn’t look or feel very apologetic.

“We thought there was no harm,” Dalejem said, his voice calm. He glanced at me, using the fingers of his free hand to tug at the loose neck of my shirt. He pulled the thin fabric up over my shoulder, sliding a few stray wet locks of my hair behind my ear, right before he caressed my collarbone with those same fingers, pulling at my light. “We intended to return her very shortly, my brother... as you can see us doing now.”

Behind him, Revik let out a laugh.

I was probably the only one to hear the anger in it.

On the outside, it sounded almost like he was drunk.

“A few more minutes would have been better,” he muttered in Arabic.

I glanced at him that time, and saw him finish fastening up the front of his pants.

His light exuded a pulse of post-coital heat that caused a flicker of reaction in mine, even given where we were. Dalejem’s arm squeezed tighter around my waist, his hand gripping my ass harder briefly, even as his own light exuded a dense whisper of the same frequency I’d briefly felt on Revik’s. I felt that heat, enough to react to it.

Which of course brought another flare of reaction off Revik.

Clearly, the sheik-guy in front of us felt it, too, although Dalejem managed to make it seem almost as if he was attempting to shield his reactions to me, either out of politeness or embarrassment for letting me get to him.

“Surely you must have noticed this one, brother?” Dalejem said to white robe guy. “Can you blame us, really, for taking a small taste? And everyone else was so busy...” he added, grinning as he motioned vaguely over the pier.

While Dalejem continued to caress my neck and rear, using both of his hands now, I subtlely highlighted several structures in my light that I’d gained from working for the Lao Hu. I tried not to be too heavy-handed about it, more using them to pull lightly on Dalejem’s aleimi as he touched me. Once I had, I felt a flare of reaction off him again, and that time, it didn’t feel quite as scripted. Moreover, I could tell now that he was getting turned on for real... enough that I looked down before I’d really thought through whether I should do that, either.

Yep. Definitely getting turned on.

A more cynical, or maybe just a more possessive side of me wondered if it was actually from me, or the fact that Revik was watching this.

Behind me, Revik’s light had gone unnervingly still.

In any case, the seer in front of us, the one wearing the robe, blinked up at the space above my head not long after I highlighted the Lao Hu structures. I saw him notice those structures for the first time.

Once he had, his light sparked in interest, as well.

“Ah,” he grunted. Understanding reached his voice, even as he switched to Prexci, the seer tongue. “She is one of those Lao Hu bitches. I heard we had some in this shipment.”

Shipment?

My mind understood the word just fine, but some part of me fought to suppress my outrage anyway, even apart from the role I was supposed to be playing.

As it turned out, outrage wasn’t a terribly unusual sentiment for seers in my position.

“Your sexy little bauble does not like this,” the seer sheik said, smiling at me knowingly. He waggled a finger in my face, clicking in mock admonition. “Get used to it, sister. This is a new world we are in. Chinese whores like you don’t get to play high and mighty to the rest of us anymore... no matter how good they are with their tongues.”

I felt my mouth twist into a darker frown.

“Yes, this is, indeed, a brave new world,” I retorted, using the more formal version of Prexci, the same version I’d learned as a consort of the Lao Hu. “Where seers enslave other seers... after fighting for generations against our human cousins for doing the same.”

The robed seer only laughed, his light exuding indifference.

Clearly, I wasn’t the first seer to lob those words at him.

Glancing briefly at the soldiers standing behind him, the male seer clicked his tongue, looking at Dalejem and then at Revik, his eyes holding a more open sympathy that time.

“I see why you took her,” he said, his voice definite now, even patient. “I do, my brothers. But do not do this again.” Making his mouth firm, he gestured sharply with his hands to reinforce the point. “The bosses... they do not like this. If they caught you at it again, you might receive more than my gentle rebuke. More than a loss of your jobs, even,” he said, his voice slightly darker. “They want the cargo to go right to the markets... especially the expensive ones. It is my own ass on the line, you see... and these Lao Hu cunts may be difficult to train in manners, but they are also very rare. Especially now.”

I found myself pausing on his last words, turning them over in my mind.

I didn’t have long to do that, either.

As soon as he finished speaking, he motioned with his head and eyes to the soldiers waiting behind him. Two of them stepped forward at once and caught hold of me, one at each arm. They pulled me away from Dalejem without a pause... without so much as an apology to either of us. Dalejem released me when their pull grew insistent, but I felt the reluctance in his light.

I wondered how much of that was put-on, too.

The sheik-guy only smiled at Dalejem though, again exuding mostly sympathy, and even some humor now.

“How was she?” he said, his voice holding more of a friendly tone. “Can I ask top dollar for this one, do you think, my brother? What is your expert opinion?”

Dalejem gave the barest of glances at Revik.

In that one look, for the first time, I saw an infinitesimal break in the infiltrator’s mask he wore. It was there and then gone, flashing so quickly across his eyes that I almost questioned if I had seen it at all.

His answering smirk met the sheik’s a bare sliver of a second later.

“Definitely,” he said, winking at me. “She was... quite talented, brother. A mouth like an angel, and a velvet cunt to match. We were just considering taking her again, when you came.” Clicking softly, Dalejem clapped the robed man on the shoulder, giving him another knowing smile. “If you want my advice, I would accept nothing less than the very highest price for this one, my brother. Perhaps, if they argue with you, you should remind your buyers that training them in manners is half the fun?”

I felt something off Revik’s light at that, too, but he muted it almost at once.

Even with our connection, it barely lasted long enough for me to feel it, and most of that reached me through the bond structure we shared.

The sheik didn’t spare Revik so much as a glance.

Instead he laughed again at Dalejem’s words, tilting his head in acknowledgment as he smiled. He gave both of them a polite bow, making a respectful sign with his hands in seer sign language, even as he straightened.

“Very good,” he said, still smiling. “I will do exactly as you say, my brother.”

He clicked his fingers then.

Before he’d even turned to follow, his guards were already leading me away.

I wasn’t wearing shoes, but I guess that wasn’t a priority for them, either.

It didn’t occur to me until I’d already rounded the corner that I hadn’t gotten a chance to grab the earpiece I’d brought, either... or my gun.

Then again, given where I was going now, maybe that was for the best.

27

UNREQUITED

REVIK FOUGHT TO control his light.

He fought to remain silent, too, knowing they were still under surveillance, particularly while they remained in the area of the docks. As long as he could feel those lines humming around his form and recording his light, he focused instead on his physicality, as well as the aleimic cloak he’d woven over his light. He focused on keeping his legs walking outside of their normal rhythms, on holding his body differently, on keeping his mannerisms and the way he used his light in relation to his body less...harmonious...than usual.

He hunched more, too, and patterned his gait after a civilian, versus how he normally walked, which had more of a military and mulei bent to it, at least when he wasn’t trying to make it otherwise.

Even so, he had to fight to control his light.

He kept his cloak tightly around his body as they left the main area of customs, watching as Dalejem flashed badges for both of them to get them through the access gate.

The guard waved them through once they’d gone through several scans, and Revik stood there, feigning tiredness as if coming off a shift, but even with the added distraction, he felt his light struggling. He continued to follow Dalejem’s lead as they exited through the transit portal used by the rest of the dock workers, then walked down a long corridor to the train station dedicated to the main port.

Dalejem took him to the train reserved for the dock workers themselves, Revik noted, clicking back and forth from his memory of the specs. He knew civilians got out via a different line, one that fed into a second set of customs and quarantine protocols on the city side, which is why they’d gotten him and Allie worker IDs, instead of civilian ones.

Once they hit the cool, outside air of the desert––or what Revik could feel of it from the aboveground, train station platform––Revik could no longer remain silent.

He didn’t lose his head totally, of course.

He knew this part of the platform had minimal surveillance, from the specs he’d studied on the carrier. Even so, his eyes searched for any additional surveillance briefly, any changes to the landscape from the specs he had memorized.

Then he looked for other bodies, human or seer.

Once he knew the area was clear, he grabbed the other seer’s arm. He stopped him in mid-stride, even as Dalejem had been aiming his feet to bring them closer to the yellow line warning them off the train’s tracks, and back into the line of the cameras.

Revik lowered his mouth, until he was speaking directly into the other’s ear.

“What the
fuck
did you just do?” he growled. He bit his lip, barely keeping his light under control, or his voice. “What if they knock her out? Or drug her?”

He didn’t add the rest of what he was thinking.

Meaning in terms of the other things they might do to his wife.

Dalejem looked up at him, his light exuding calm. He held up a cautioning hand, even as his eyes did a perfunctory scan of the platform, as well.

“Relax, brother. Your light will be protected. Relax...”

“Maybe you’d better not fucking
call
me that right now, brother...” Revik said, lower, again glancing around their immediate environment. “And I don’t give a damn about my light! Do you really think that’s my primary concern right now?”

He paused in his words, seeing a small group of seers descending onto the platform in the distance, walking down a recessed set of stairs. They were far away from where Revik and Dalejem stood... too far to hear any of their words, or even see what they were doing clearly. They definitely wouldn’t be able to make out their facial expressions with any accuracy, especially if they were human, but Revik fought to control himself anyway.

Luckily, it was early enough yet...or late enough...that any major shift changes remained a few hours off. Revik and Dalejem stood more or less alone on the north end of the platform at the moment. Even so, conscious once more of where they were, Revik released the other male’s arm, right before he stepped closer to him, lowering his voice.