Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (27 page)

The next morning he was just…gone.

I can’t say I was really surprised.

Shocked, yeah…sure.

Paralyzed, at least once I realized he really had gone…definitely.

I didn’t have to fake that part. We hadn’t discussed exact timelines, for obvious reasons, so while I’d had my suspicions, the shock itself had been real. I didn’t have to work to come up with realistic-sounding words. Truthfully, I couldn’t have talked to anyone even if I’d wanted. I didn’t feel or acknowledge anyone or anything for hours…not even after everyone else found out that he’d left and started grilling me about
why
he’d left, where he might have gone, what he might be doing. But no, I can’t say I was surprised.

I’d felt things on him the night before.

There were things he said…things that hurt me even as he said them. I don’t think he’d ever told me he loved me like that before. Not in the cabin…not even in our softer moments in the time since. He’d said the words like he never expected to see me again.

So yeah, it hurt like hell.

He let me do anything I wanted.

He gave me everything I asked for too, even things I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted him to give me, like what he’d done with Raddi. I felt his heart behind even the most intense things he offered me. I felt him wanting to give me things, to do things for me…anything he could, no matter how much it hurt both of us.

He’d offered to let me be with others too, while he was there.

I hadn’t wanted that at all, though. All his asking did was make both of us cry.

None of the words he wrote in the note he left behind surprised me, either.

He apologized to me. He begged me to forgive him for what he’d been about to do.

He released me from my marital vows…

He told me why he was doing it. None of that surprised me, either. It was the same reasons he’d been giving me for weeks. That he truly believed it was the only way to keep me and Lily safe, that he knew we’d both be dead soon if he didn’t do it.

He asked me not to look for him.

He begged me not to go looking for him.

He cautioned me to think of Lily before I did anything rash that might kill all three of us. He told me it was up to me to keep Lily safe now. He said he’d do whatever he could for both of us, but that she was mine to raise. He said he trusted me to do it for both of us.

I found the note tied around my wrist when I woke up on a mattress by the swimming pool on the roof. He’d put a sheet over me, somewhere in that. He put a sheet over me and tied a silk scarf with the note to my arm, like he was afraid I wouldn’t find it.

Or maybe it was just his way of trying to soften it.

If so, it didn’t work.

He must have left as soon as I dozed off…as soon as I closed my eyes. Dawn had been peeking over the horizon when I lay my head down on that mattress. I woke only a few hours later, but somewhere in that brief spell of unconsciousness, my husband left me.

I knew even then that it was probably for the last time.

He didn’t have to tell me where he was going.

I knew that part already, too, although I definitely wasn’t ready to think about what his going there really meant.

But yeah, I knew.

He was going to the only place he
could
be going, given the reasons he’d laid out for leaving…and the things he’d said to me the night before, the things he’d been saying to me and hinting around for the past eight or nine weeks. He’d gone where I strongly suspected he’d been planning to go ever since he woke up from being knocked unconscious in Dubai.

He’d gone to protect me and Lily in the only way he knew how.

If it destroyed what remained of my husband in the process, I knew he’d let that happen, too. I knew Revik. I knew what motivated him, both the good and the bad of it.

I also knew that once I could feel that part of this…
really
feel it…it would crush me.

More than crush me. It would break my heart beyond what I might ever recover from, beyond what I’d ever be able to live with, even if my body marched on without him. Even if he found a way to keep all three of us alive.

Because I knew, at base, he’d done it for me.

He’d say it was for Lily, and maybe that was true, too, but that wasn’t most of it.

Once again, he’d broken himself against the rocks for me.

Jon stared around the table, fighting incredulity.

No one had spoken in the last few minutes.

No one appeared likely to speak, either.

Jon watched them look at Allie, their expressions grim…grieving in some cases, some openly grieving, like Jax and Raddi and Neela…but none of them willing to question her. None of them willing to stand up to her at all.

Allie didn’t look at any of them, Jon noticed.

Her eyes trained off towards the river.

She’d seemed to be staring there for most of the meeting, although Jon strongly suspected she wasn’t seeing any part of the view spread out below the sixty-story apartment building.

They were on the roof again.

They’d come up here partly to get out of the suffocating heat of the apartment building itself. Air conditioning no longer worked in any of the buildings here, given that power was extremely limited inside the city walls…so it was a tropical furnace in most of the rooms, even with the windows open.

They’d also moved the meeting up here partly, Jon suspected, to utilize the denser construct that had been erected for the “bonding” ritual of the night before.

It was difficult to think about that right now, though.

Flickers of the night before remained in Jon’s light, more than he’d even had time to process in the hours since. Given what he’d woken up to, the note from Revik and his brother-in-law missing, Jon hadn’t even had time to be embarrassed.

Even so, certain images still stood out in his mind’s eye…things he knew he’d have trouble shaking any time soon.

Jon couldn’t believe less than twelve hours had passed since he’d fallen asleep.

When that silence only deepened, Allie cleared her throat.

“Is there a problem with that?” she said. “With what I said? If so, we should discuss. The logistics, I mean.”

There was no emotion in her voice. None whatsoever.

Again, no one spoke.

Allie cleared her throat again.

“She’s got radio silence on her end,” she added. “…Chan. But I think I can catch up with her before she reaches Mumbai. I’ll bring Talei with me. And Neela, if that’s all right. And Raddi and Illeg…maybe a few others. We can keep all of the same security protocols. Balidor will be the ranking officer while I’m gone…assuming that’s agreeable to you, brother Wreg.”

Jon glanced at the muscular Chinese seer. Wreg didn’t look up, but motioned a vague acquiescence with his fingers, murmuring,

“Of course, Esteemed Bridge.”

Allie nodded, once, her eyes on the horizon past the edge of the roof. “Good. You will continue to have authority over all military matters, of course. But someone’s got to be in charge. I figured Balidor made the most sense…”

Her words trailed off, almost as if she might say more, then didn’t.

The silence thickened.

Looking around at the stone-like faces of the seers sitting on the same side of the table as him, Jon felt a heavier pain return to his chest. Seeing the blank, grieving looks deepen in their respective lights and expressions, something in him broke.

He spoke, blurting out words almost before he knew he meant to.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice held disbelief, along with a harder accusation. “Are you fucking
kidding
me, Al?”

Brother…
Wreg warned.

Fuck off!
Jon snapped back at him, switching to his mind as well.
Are you really all just going to sit here and say nothing while she does this? What is the matter with you? Did the two of them fucking drug all of you while you slept?

Wreg didn’t answer.

Jon looked back at Allie, feeling his jaw clench.

Somewhere in that silence, her green eyes had shifted from the horizon to his face. She studied him almost clinically now, like she didn’t know him but was trying to assess what he might do. Jon saw her almond-shaped eyes narrow, her mouth firming as she looked him over with her light.

He couldn’t feel any real anger there. He couldn’t feel any emotion at all. If anything, she looked mildly puzzled.

Even so, he didn’t give her the chance to shut him up.

“You’re not going after him?” Jon said, his accusation on the surface now. “Revik. You’re not going after him? Seriously? He’s your goddamned
husband,
Al…”

He watched her jaw tighten.

But only a little.

After that, she couldn’t seem to force herself to hold his gaze. She shrugged, but the gesture struck Jon as wholly scripted…practically forced. He watched her small fingers as she tugged at the edge of the long T-shirt she wore. He found himself wondering if the shirt had been Revik’s then shoved that angrily from his mind, too.

“Allie?” he said, his voice harsh.

She pulled harder on the shirt, shrugging human-style that time, using her shoulders.

“He made it clear he wouldn’t appreciate that,” she said. “…Revik.”

Jon gaped at her.

“And you’re
listening
to him?” he said. “When he’s obviously not in his right fucking mind? You’re going to let him just…what? Bail? Commit suicide? You know damned
well
where he’s probably going, Al…and why he’s doing it like this. It’s that shit in Dubai. He’s convinced he’ll kill you and Lily if––”

“Jon.” She met his gaze directly.

That more distant look receded from her eyes, if only briefly. Her voice grew into an open warning, right after her lips pressed together in a hard line.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said. “That part of the discussion is closed.”

“Closed? Fuck you, it’s closed! What the hell is wrong with you, that you’d––”

“Jon.” She met his gaze, her eyes harder that time.

“Al,”
he snapped, his voice twisting in sarcasm.

Before he could gear up to speak again, her light darted out, silencing him.

Jon barely felt it while it happened. It was there and gone…and then he fought to breathe, feeling the hairs on his arms standing on end. A sharp, electric-like current vibrated his skin and light. Whatever seethed off her aleimi touched him in a millisecond, even from across the table. The voltage behind that single touch nearly stopped his heart.

He went from angry…to afraid…then, when her light retracted, to even angrier.

When he met her gaze next, her eyes clicked into sharper focus.

“Jon…stop.” She held up a hand. “Revik made a formal request of me. A formal request.” Her voice grew cold, holding that denser warning. “It was a
spousal
request, Jon. As a result, it’s none of your goddamned
fucking
business. Do you hear me?”