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Watching him struggle only made it harder to keep my hands off him, although if it was in protection or some twisted part of me that got off on his vulnerability and loss of control, I couldn’t tell.

We weren’t the only ones being affected by then.

I felt the room react in waves. Those waves hit at us, amplifying our light. I glanced away from Revik long enough to look at them, but I could barely see through the light in my irises, and most of me didn’t care about them anyway, not enough to focus past that green glow.

Revik’s pain worsened.

I felt him looking at me, his light wrapped into mine, his hands and arms wrapped around my body. I felt the others in our light, but having them there only made that pain worse. It reminded me of other times people had been in his light, people who shouldn’t have been there, seers and humans who didn’t belong.

Next to me, Revik let out a low sound, gripping my leg tighter.

My pain worsened when I felt it mirrored in him, even as he pulled me closer on the bench, using both of his hands, tugging my leg up around him.

The pain worsened after he slid his arms around me.

Even in that, I felt him trying to reassure me with his light.

Embarrassment lived there. Anger, too, as I felt him thinking about Beijing, about Jaden, Surli, Balidor, Ditrini…

A kind of horror washed over me when I remembered the others could feel this.

I could feel that Revik didn’t care. They barely registered for him now.

I cared, though.

I cared what they knew about him. About us.

Worse, I could feel the rest of them really in it now.

They weren’t just watching us anymore, but feeling what we felt, listening to our thoughts, seeing the same mental movies. I felt some react more strongly to the two of us, and that made my paranoia worse. I sat in Revik’s lap now, and I found myself fighting to hide him from the rest of the room.

Briefly, I felt Balidor there, trying to calm my fears.

I felt Tarsi, Chandre, Yumi––even Kali––but I couldn’t make myself care about anything they tried to tell me.

I fought with shame, too, around Beijing and the things I’d done there, even around my possessiveness and anger at Revik’s past. But I couldn’t seem to stop my reactions to those things either, or the compulsion to try and expel every other seer from our light.

Within seconds, I was fighting an urge to use the telekinesis.

My pain worsened the harder I fought it, until fear exploded over me. I remembered hitting out at Jon in the diner, in the mess hall, and that fear turned to panic.

Revik! Don’t let me, please. Please, God––

You’re okay,his mind murmured.You’re okay, Allie. You won’t do anything bad. You don’t want to hurt them.

I’m not okay. I’m not––

Allie,he cut in, soft.You won’t hurt anyone. You won’t. You’re not like me, wife. You’re not a killer. You’ll never be a killer. You’ll never be like me––

I let out a gasp. Tears blinded me as I remembered our conversation on that airstrip in Brazil. Grief overwhelmed me, memories of lying to him, betraying him, betraying the Rebels. Pain hit as I remembered how badly I’d wanted to tell him everything, to ask him to leave with me right then, to leave Salinse––

His pain worsened.

His light snaked through mine, turning harder, even as that vulnerability in him deepened, widening to a chasm.

He leaned up, bringing my mouth roughly to his.

He kissed me, his pain exploding somewhere in my chest as he lowered the shields he’d once more thrown over his light. I felt those shields waver, click open and shut, then fragment as he deepened the kiss, pulling me against him, so I was fully astride him.