Allie's War Season Four (196 page)

“I do
not
want you dead, brother,” Terian said at once. He leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “I
never
wanted that, Revi’. Never.”

When Revik looked over, the amber eyes were deadly serious, as well as Terian’s voice.

“I do not want you dead, my brother,” Terian repeated. “Gods, Revi’... I want you to save me. I am begging for your help. I want you to take me from this place. You and your wife. I knew you would never come here just for me... but I want you to take me with you. Please, brother. I am asking you for this... I am begging you, as I said.”

Revik stared at him, fighting to suppress another laugh... but more than that, fighting to suppress the puzzlement that coiled through his light at the other’s words.

Disbelief, too, but yeah, puzzlement.

The disbelief curled off and sideways into confusion, a confusion that deepened the longer Revik looked at Terian’s face. It took him a few seconds longer to understand the source of that confusion. Then it hit him.

He was confused because he believed him.

He actually believed what Terian was saying to him right now. His logical mind told him he was nuts for believing him, that he was being played, but nothing in Revik’s light believed that, even when he tried to convince himself otherwise.

Terian looked afraid.

More than that, he looked desperate.

Something in what Revik could see in Terian’s dark yellow eyes, and feel in the erratic, darting flickers of his aleimi, managed to almost entirely disarm him. More than that, it affected him, bringing an unwelcome swell of pity. Revik didn’t lose leave of his senses entirely, of course, but yeah, he was knocked off balance for those few seconds––enough to make him wonder if the construct was fucking with him a hell of a lot more than he’d realized.

Sensing movement from someone other than Allie herself, Revik’s eyes shifted back towards the stage. The pain in his light worsened abruptly when he saw her down on all fours, her back arched. He felt that aggression ratchet higher in his light as seers got up from their seats to approach her as she crawled across the black surface.

He felt pain on more than a few of them.

He felt them wanting her, and fought to clear the irrational fury that coursed through his light, erasing those few minutes of compassion he’d felt for Terian.

Of course they would want her.

Of course they would feel the pain on her, too.

They would feel it from the half-bond. They would feel her light react to Revik being here, to the connection that would inevitably spark. The very fact of him being so physically close had to be making it worse. She was on a damned stage, wearing next to nothing, exuding heated light... looking like she did, even with the contacts and the prosthetics and whatever else.

It wasn’t their fault. They thought it was part of the show. They thought they were
supposed
to react that way.

It
was
Terian’s fault, however.

“What did you tell her?” he said, before he knew he meant to speak. “To get her up there?”

Terian smiled, leaning deeper into the couch.

Revik glared at him. “What the fuck did you tell her, Terry?”

The other seer grunted, throwing up a hand. “What do you think I told her, Revi’?”

He made another graceful wave, clicking impatiently.

“...I told her the same thing I told you. That I would kill you. That I would have a sniper shoot you in the head as you walked into my club, as you undoubtedly would, sooner or later, looking for her. You are both so very predictable on that count, you know. It is the only way to motivate either of you to do anything. Or had you really not noticed that?”

Terian winked at him, arranging his back in the couch.

“I told her to give it her all, too,” he added, giving him a broader wink. “That part was for you, brother. I thought you might as well get your rocks off, since I had no choice but to use these heavy-handed appeals to sway you.” Terian glanced at the stage. A tangible coil of pain left his light, tightening his expression. “I think she believed me, Revi’. Don’t you? You would surely know more than me. But her performance seems quite, well... authentic. Does it not? In fact, I’m quite certain I would be reconsidering my offer to you right now, if it wasn’t so deadly, deadly serious to me, Revi’––”

His words cut off.

Mostly because Revik had his hand around the other seer’s throat.

He’d done it almost before he knew he intended to. Slamming the auburn head against the back of the couch, Revik squeezed hard enough that the other seer gasped, his fingers wrapping around where Revik’s held him.

Revik lowered his voice to a near-growl.

“Call off the fucking goons. Or this body is gone. You know I can do it. One hard snap. They won’t be fast enough, Terry.”

He watched as Terian motioned his hired security back, stopping them in mid-motion as they’d been about to yank Revik off him. Revik waited until they’d backed off a sufficient amount, then he turned back to stare down at Terian’s face.

“What the fuck do you want, Terry?” he said.

“I just told you!” he gasped. “I want you to save me, Revi’.” He fought to smile, even as he gasped for breath, and Revik’s fingers abruptly tightened. Terian let out a pained cry. “I want you to take me out of here,” he said, still gripping Revik’s hand. “I want you to do it now, before he finds us. I want you to bring Feigran... before he kills me for good.”

Revik stared at him, his mouth twisting into a hard frown. “Feigran’s here?”

“Yes.”

Revik’s frown deepened. “Why the fuck would Shadow want to kill you, Terry?”

Tears filled the amber eyes, startling Revik enough that he let go, releasing him before he knew he meant to. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Terian cry. Feigran, yes...but not Terian. Not once, in the over seventy years he’d known him. Even as he thought it, Revik found himself thinking Allie had been right.

Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t really Terian. It might not be Feigran either, but it definitely wasn’t Terian.

“He’s going to kill me, Revi’...” the seer said, clasping hold of Revik’s arms.

Revik looked down at where those long fingers held him, feeling that sense of unreality worsen.

“He’s going to kill me, so that he can get to
her.”

Revik frowned, clicking. “That doesn’t make any sense. Shadow wanted you and Cass alive. So he could separate me from... from my wife.” He couldn’t quite make himself say her name, not with her on the stage below them. His voice turned harsh. “Why the fuck would he kill you now? Why, Terry?”

“Because he knows what she did.” Terian’s amber eyes grew more desperate as he continued to clutch Revik’s shirt. Revik tried to push off his hands, but the seer only clung to him harder. “He knows what your wife did to you, Revi’...and to the child.”

Revik felt his jaw harden.

Shaking his head, he clicked louder.

“Why the fuck would you tell him that, Terry?” He gritted his teeth. “If you wanted our help, why would you tell Menlim––”

“I don’t
have
to tell him! He knows! He knows
everything!
You know that!”

Feeling more in those words than the obvious, Revik shook his head.

“Yes, you do!” Terian said, gripping him tighter. “Don’t
lie
to me, Revi’. He already knew. He knew before I did...”

“So?” Revik said finally. “That doesn’t tell me anything about why he would want you dead. You asked Allie to come here before she did any of that.”

“But I
saw
it,” Terian said, his voice imploring. “I saw it... don’t you see? I saw what she would do. And I saw what he would do to me. And then it happened and I knew it wasn’t just pretty pictures, like before. I knew it wasn’t far away... it was close. So very, very close. Like the falling stars and the cunt with the green eyes and you coming here. I knew it was
now,
Revi’. I knew I needed you to come save me
now
... not in far away...”

Revik felt his indecisiveness worsen.

Being so close to the other male, his light now skirted and wove into the other seer’s, without his really willing it. In fact, with the other’s hands on him, his face only a foot or so away, Revik couldn’t really keep him out.

Yet he knew he wouldn’t see anything definitive there, even if he could scan him. Terian’s light didn’t work like that of most seers; it never had. It’s why collars didn’t work on him, why they could split his mind and it didn’t kill him, how he knew the future in more than just dreams. Whatever happened to him, no matter how fucked up he got, that higher part of him always, magically, remained untouched.

It was how Terry was able to see things through them that no other seer could see, not even Allie. Not even Kali.

“Revi’, please...” Terian begged, clutching at him again. “Please help me! I will give you all of the seers I have from your List. I will give you whatever you want! But you
must
help me! He will not let me stay alive for much longer. It is a clicking clock, tick-tock, tick-tock. You must know, if I die now, it will not be good for me...”

Revik stared into those eyes, at the expression there, the light he saw shining behind it.

All he could see was fear.

Terian, or whoever the fuck this was... was afraid.

“Get her off that fucking stage,” Revik growled. “Get her off there, and take us to the seers on the List. Then we’ll talk, Terry.”

Revik hadn’t even finished speaking when a smile split that face, relief pouring through Terian’s eyes and light so intensely that Revik winced back.

“No promises!” Revik snapped. “I mean it! I answer to her.”

“Thank you!” Terian said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you so much, brother... thank you! Thank you!”

“Terry... cut it out. Jesus...”

“I’ll suck you off, if you want,” he offered, still clutching his arms. “Or you can do me, and your wife can watch. She would like that, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she like that, Revi’?”

Revik grimaced. “I highly doubt it.”

Even so, something in the way Terian said those words finally caused Revik to relax.

They also made him want to laugh more than punch the other seer in the face––probably because he’d sounded a hell of a lot more like Feigran just then than Terian.

Revik glanced at the stage as he thought it.

Allie was already walking off the long platform, aiming the stiletto heels towards the dark blue velvet curtain on the far end. Disappointed calls from the audience accompanied her, but when her eyes flickered back over her shoulder, Revik saw them shift up, and again he found himself thinking she was looking in his direction.

Before he could make up his mind for certain, she winked.

...Right before a bare smile crossed her lips, and she looked away.

For a long moment after that, Revik felt nothing but pain.

31

WATERFRONT

I MET THE rest of them in the lobby of the club.

They’d taken off my collar by then. The orange-eyed seer met me on the other side of the stage, grinning down at my half-naked and now sweaty body before he twirled a finger in the air, indicating for me to turn around. He took the collar off me after using the retinal scanner to open the lock, and once he had, he kissed the back of my neck.