Do not kid yourself, he says. They recruited him for one reason. At his core, he was an evil fucking bastard. That’s all he ever was, Esteemed Bridge...
I look at Revik.
Revik from the past, but still the light I know.
He is looking at me, too, I realize.
I am still standing there, watching his face, when roughly, Maygar uses his aleimi to change our frequency. As soon as he does, the past around me unravels.
The last thought I have as I lose him yet again is that I’m thirsty.
More thirsty than I’ve ever been in my life.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
25
WIRE
He feels her, feels her skin, the ends of her fingers as she caresses him, touches his face, his arms, his chest, his cock. He thinks of all the times he wanted her to touch him, that he fantasized about her touching him...all the regrets about what he should have done in Seattle, on that ship, even in the dirt that night in Vancouver. She’s already driving him crazy and they are kissing again...his tongue thickens, pain rising in his belly.
She reaches for him, and he opens at once.
But something twists his light, forcing him back.
His wanting turns to aggression, frustration, a bleak hopelessness when she returns, lets him feel her...but it’s never enough.
Gods...she’s fucking with him. She’s teasing him, trying to make him insane. She knows he’s in pain, that he can’t go to her.
But something darker lingers there.
Someone else is with her.
She isn’t alone.
He groaned, unwillingly awake. Lying on a wet tile floor, he couldn’t move. The pain sharpened as he lay there, worsening as the ache in his arms and neck returned. He was shivering, naked, freezing cold, so fucking thirsty he couldn’t think about much else once he noticed...but the pain on his neck and back felt like fire.
It occurred to him then. Water still ran over his bare skin.
He hadn’t been asleep. He’d passed out.
The other seer dropped the water spigot. Crouching down, he stared into Revik’s face.
“Feeling better, Revi’?”
Revik threw out his light in reflex and the collar around his neck tripped, bringing another blinding jolt. His head snapped back, then fell back to the tile. He groaned, unable to stop it.
“Apparently so,” Terian gazed down Revik’s body. “Missing her again, are we?”
He fought to go unconscious again, willing it.
“Let’s go over it again...”
Revik tried to remember the line of questioning they’d been on, couldn’t.
“Who has the succession order, Revi’?”
The sickness worsened. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Really?” Terian walked around where he lay. “Shall we pull your friend out of her cage again? Maybe if I played with her a bit, that might jog your memory?”
Revik clutched the chain where it attached to the floor.
He avoided the female with his light, but he couldn’t help looking for her with his eyes. Her naked body lay slumped in an iron box against the far wall, her eyes half-lidded, catatonic. The slack look on her face was more than he could bear, worse than the long cut that bisected her delicate features. He remembered the last time Terian brought her out here, felt his stomach lurch even as his eyes drifted to her feet bleeding through the dirty gauze he’d used to staunch the blood. He’d taken two of her toes that time, one from each foot.
“No,” he said, hoarse.
“No?” Terian said. “Say please, Revi’.”
“Please.” His eyes returned to the floor. “Please, I—”
“All right.” Terian smiled, waving him off. “...Since you’re being a good boy.” His eyes narrowed. “The succession order, Revi’...the truth this time. I have it from very reliable sources that you were the only one who had it after Galaith.”
When Revik hesitated, trying to think, Terian kicked him, hard, aiming at the muscled part of his thigh. Revik gasped.
“I don’t know,” he blurted. “...I swear it’s the truth. You can read me. You know I’m not lying. If I ever had it, they wiped it when I left—”#p#分页标题#e#
Terian kicked him again. Revik shifted half to his side, fighting to breathe.
Rocking on his heels, Terian touched his lips with a finger, gazing up at the ceiling.
“Yes,” he said. “That memory loss is most irritating. But you know I don’t fully believe you, don’t you, Revi’? Your light is different, you see...ever since that day on the ship. I know you can’t feel it with that restraining device around your neck, but take my word for it...it is. Quite different. You feel much more like my old friend than you did in San Francisco. So much so I have a hard time believing you, when you say you don’t remember.”