Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (51 page)

Without waiting for her to get up, I excused myself.

I didn’t really think about what I’d said to her until I’d already left out the kitchen door, letting the screen door bang shut behind me. I didn’t have long to marvel at my own stupidity in potentially alienating someone we might need and who had recently been one of the most powerful people in the human world.

After the day I’d had, I kind of marveled that I’d made it through that meeting at all, much less managed to stay more or less on task.

Even so, for those seconds, anxiety gnawed at my chest.

I probably could have handled that better.

“Sister!”

The male voice snapped me out of my reverie.

I turned my head, sighing internally when I saw the cluster of seers waiting for me. They all looked paler than usual. I could already tell from the charged and disjointed aleimic strands still flickering around the group that they’d been talking about what happened earlier that day.

Dalejem wasn’t with them, though.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know where he was.

“Sister,” Talei said, her voice soft.

I looked at her, startled more from the open concern I could hear in her voice. Then, realizing what it probably stemmed from, I felt my jaw harden.

My skin flushed hot before she even continued speaking.

“Jem told us what happened,” she said carefully, confirming my suspicions and making me stiffen more. “Esteemed Sister…we should get you to our medical technicians, as soon as possible. We should also contact sister Yumi, if you––”

I shook my head. “No. I’m fine. Thank you sister. But no. Not right now.”

“Allie––” Chandre cut in, her voice noticeably harder.

But I couldn’t deal with her right then. I really couldn’t.

I looked away from their concerned stares, flattening my voice.

“Suit up,” I said to Mara and Kat, knowing they wouldn’t give a shit about me, at least.

I switched to Prexci, partly in case Brooks came out of the house, but also because I knew formal Prexci carried the tonal qualities I needed to get them to drop what happened in that cave and get their heads back in the fucking game.

Also, Neela’s English sucked.

I returned my gaze to Talei and Chandre only after Mara nodded.

“You, too,” I said, my voice only a touch less hard. My eyes shifted to Jorag and Neela last. “I want the you two to be ready, as well…in case Brooks takes me up on the offer of bringing a larger team with her back inside. I gave her the basic op plan…and the parameters. Don’t hesitate to push her if she tries to tip anyone off about who you are. In fact, monitor all of her transmissions from now on…at least until we have Novak.” Pausing, I looked around at all of them. “Anyone heard from Deklan? Surli? They’re still in there, right?”

Talei nodded, once. “Yes. Deks called. He found Novak’s sleeping quarters…as well as what appeared to be some kind of private work station only she has access to.”

I exhaled. “Good. Tell him to wait on approach until he has back up. Preferably me. I don’t want him going after her alone. I don’t give a fuck how old she looks…Balidor agrees with me on this. She’s fucking dangerous…she might even be an actual Dreng spirit in a material body, like Menlim. I want zero fucking casualties on this.”

I glanced at Kat, frowning when I caught her staring at me, looking over my body and hair like she’d never seen me before.

“…There’s a good chance Menlim is going to bring the house down on us the second we go live,” I added, ignoring whatever the hell was going on there. “He might even bomb the complex outright. So we need to do this fast. No mistakes. I want Brooks safe, but Novak is the priority. She needs to go. I want that to happen in under twenty-four hours. I strongly suspect our window will close after that.”

Some of the worried, depressed chaos I’d felt in their lights started to clear at my words.

That time, I saw no rebellion in those eyes. They all nodded, murmuring as one.

“Yes, sir…”

“Good,” I muttered to myself.

I needed this dealt with. I hadn’t been lying to Brooks about that.

Novak had to go. After what happened that morning, she wasn’t the burning, number one priority in my mind anymore, but she was still pretty danged high on the list.

As I thought it, the tape rewound in my head before I could stop it.

That crazy fucker holding me against the wall by the throat. Me choking, legs kicking out as I fought to work the telekinesis, thinking this was it…I was going to die. I’d already punched the monster, trying to get him off Feigran. But Dragon picked me up like I weighed no more than a doll. I don’t know how long I hung there, slowly blacking out.

My mind had ripped open at some point…my light.

I remembered screaming Revik’s name…Lily’s.

Dragon had already thrown Dalejem aside, taking the gun out of his hands with the telekinesis. He caught that same rifle, one-handed, only to let it drop to the floor, turning those glowing green eyes on me.

But I couldn’t think about this right now.

I couldn’t go there, no more than I could let Talei or Chan go there. There’d be time enough for that later.

There was always time to break down later.

Rubbing the skin around the burnt part of my leg through the charred pants, I fought to clear my head, to think through the intensity of the different shocks to my system, with little or no breathing room from one to the next.

I had to think about what to do now––not just for me but for the rest of my teams. I had to think about how to tell Balidor what had happened, and the fact that I’d lost Feigran for what felt like the millionth time. I had to think about how I would even go about tracking Dragon without getting a hell of a lot of people killed.

I knew we had to track him though. Somehow.

The thought caught in my chest, clenching something there so tightly I could scarcely breathe. I fought it, trying to force it back even as pain leaked over my light…separation pain, but more than that, too. That day’s events fought to overwhelm me briefly, even as I did my best to force it out, to not think about it yet.

I couldn’t think about this now…I fucking
couldn’t.

I couldn’t fall apart
now.

I managed to force it back simply because that was nothing more nor less than the complete truth. Even so, something in that rush of pain and fear opened my light. It opened it maybe more than I had been in days…certainly since I’d landed back in America.

It could have been a coincidence. It could have been.

Either way, I could feel him.

Suddenly I could feel Revik.

At first his presence alone cut my breath. It blanked my vision, stuttered my mind, hurting my very skin. I hadn’t felt him at all that day, not in any of that nightmare with Dragon, but now, outside of an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, I felt him. I felt him all around me and then…then I felt more than just his presence.

He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t alone…

Pain hit me. It didn’t just hit me…it nearly knocked me out.

I let out a low cry, part of it disbelief.

Gods, he wasn’t…he couldn’t be…not already.

I panicked, fighting to get it out of my light.

When he didn’t withdraw, only coiled into me more intensely, I shoved at it, at him…fighting him, hitting out at his light, doing anything I could to get him away from me. I panicked just from the barest taste of it, slamming out harder before I would have to feel it for real. It took what felt like an endless stretch of time. It took too long, longer than I could stand, but eventually I got the last taste of his presence away from me.

That hurt too. Him being gone almost hurt more.

Almost.

I found myself coming back into my body like water dripping through a dense cloth, and then I was fighting to rebuild my shield. Only then did the mission reassert itself, enough to make me wonder how much of me he’d felt on the other end.

Did he know where I was? Had I just lied to Brooks?

Had he felt anything of what happened that day? Had he seen me with Dragon?

I couldn’t think about that right then, either.

As for the rest…

Pain fought its way back into my chest, so intensely I couldn’t think through it at first. I struggled with it, fought to rebuild my shield around it when I found myself choking back what might have been a cry, or maybe something a lot more animal. I tried to be rational. I tried to hold onto that military thing, the part of me that could stand to think about any of this.

I knew this was coming. I fucking
knew
it. He’d warned me they’d probably throw women at him from day one, if only to see how he’d react.

I knew. I’d been waiting for this.

But not now…not today. I couldn’t deal with this today.

I didn’t realize how much I’d lost track of everything around me, or how tightly I’d shielded, until I felt a hand rubbing the small of my back in slow, strong circles.

I had no idea how long he’d been doing that, either.

I blinked, fighting to focus my eyes. Once I had, I found myself bent over by the SUV, no memory of walking there.

Dalejem stood next to me, silent.

I didn’t look up, but I knew his light by now. After today, I’d always know it.

I wondered if he’d been trying to talk to me, but I shoved that out of my mind, too. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

“Are you okay?” he said, soft.

Realizing tears ran down my face, tears I could only hope had been obscured by my hair hanging down, I wiped my cheeks without raising my head.

“I’m fine,” I said, clearing my throat. “Has she left the house yet? Brooks.”

“They’re long gone, Esteemed Bridge.” His voice remained low, stripped of emotion but softly reassuring. “She took Chandre, Mara, Talei and that Kat seer with her.”

I nodded, still bent over, fighting to control my breath and light.

He didn’t move away, or take his hand off my back.

I barely noticed. My mind still reeled around the flicker I’d felt of Revik, strongly enough that it must have blacked me out entirely. I must have been offline for at least a few minutes if Brooks and the rest of them had gone.

I’d felt something in those few seconds of contact.

Meaning, something other than the one thing…which felt a hell of a lot like my husband getting a blow job from someone who wasn’t me. I fought again to control my light as the thought reverberated, fought to focus on the detail that actually mattered…the one that had some bearing on what I was trying to do.

Once I had, I realized I’d already known.

Feigran had imparted that piece of information, too. It might have been his final gift before Dragon took him.

Revik was going to China.

16

FALL OF AN EMPIRE

Revik stared out a dirty car window streaked with rain. His jaw ached from clenching it.

He fought to shut out the pain that still coiled around his light. Guilt lived there too, a denser pain that had little to do with separation and more to do with what he’d let happen in the back rows of the plane on the way here.