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Really, more than anything, I felt relieved.

For the first time in weeks, I felt like I’d made a clear decision without worrying I would piss off someone in my leadership team. More than that, it felt like the right decision. Ifeltthe rightness of it, in my light, my mind, even my heart. Given that, I would deal with the usual protests and lectures later.

I would deal with Revik later, too.

I already knew he’d like this course change even less than Balidor, especially since he’d just pulled my memory of Terian telling me to do that very thing.

He would fucking hate this.

I would deal with that, too.

But not right this second. After we’d both calmed down. Maybe after he’d finished venting at Balidor and Vikram and whoever else he felt the need to yell at.

Definitely after I’d had my first cup of coffee.

Either way, I would cross that bridge… so to speak… when I came to it.

Chapter23

Mutiny

“No!!” Revik growled. “No…fuckthat!”

Turning, the tall seer glared at Balidor, his angular face half in shadow where he stood by the door. He narrowed his gaze.

Balidor couldn’t help but notice the hostility in those nearly colorless eyes as the Elaerian stared from the dark. Wanting to calm the other male down, Balidor didn’t try to shield his thoughts. He left his light open. He didn’t move from his position behind a semi-organic desk in his small office off the control deck.

“No,” the Elaerian repeated. “Absolutelyfuckingunacceptable, ‘Dori.”

His clear irises reflected light like a cat’s. They glowed faintly even in the shadows.

The look there caused Balidor some unease.

He hadn’t seen the Elaerian this angry in weeks.

Months, really, perhaps even longer than that. Balidor certainly hadn’t seen him this openly emotional, not even during those few times in San Francisco and New York where he displayed anger on the surface. Something about the Sword’s anger during those months without his wife always felt muted, anyway.

Back then, Revik felt almost entirely shut down.

Pretty muchallof his emotion got locked down behind dense infiltrator’s walls. Balidor suspected Revik had to do it, that he did it as a survival tactic. He closed himself off so he could continue to work, maybe even to function.

Balidor shouldn’t be surprised, really.

Revik being reunited with his wife and daughter had already started to tear down those previous defenses.

Balidor knew the Sword and Allie had been having a lot of sex, which tended to be how seers re-bonded following long or traumatic separations––and theirs had been both. Balidor also knew Dehgoies had been thwarting at least some of that re-bonding, likely due to the intensity of trauma he’d suffered.

Balidor didn’twantto know any of those things.

Information came at him as an occupational hazard, given who he was.

He’d also read from Allie that she was frustrated at how protective her husband had become, combined with how much he still held her at arm’s length. They were having communication problems, too… problems Revik also seemed to be trying to fix with sex.

Balidor understood and sympathized with both sides of their struggle.

He understood Allie’s point of view as well as Revik’s, but he found himself wondering if Allie had anyrealidea just how different Revik was––how different hehadbeen, the whole time she was gone. He doubted Allie fully understood just howbadthings with Revik had been, or that all of them thought his mind had been permanently damaged.

He doubted this in part because he doubted Revik had shared any of this with her.