Page 156 of Seer Prophet

I wouldn’t have survived it.

Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that, apart from him.

“Revik.” I held up my hands. “Revik, you’re not going to hurt me. I know you’re not. I need you to know it, too.”

He stared at me.

I saw his pupils dilate, even as his clear eyes seemed to grow sharper.

“What’s going to help?” I asked, frustrated. “What’s going to help with this? Because you know damned well I can’t have you doing this.”

“Doing what?” he snapped. “Trying to protect mywife?”

“Fomenting a goddamned mutiny on this ship!” I snapped. “I can’t have it! You would never stand for it! Not from Wreg. Not from ‘Dori. How am I supposed to take this from you?”

His eyes hardened.

Even so, I could tell I’d gotten through to him that time.

A little, anyway.

I’d deliberately chosen the military thing as a place to start. I needed to talk to him in a way he would actually hear it, that wouldn’t just bring up all his defenses, or convince him I was being irrational, or speaking purely from sentimentality about Cass.

“Revik,” I asked again. “What’s going to help with this?”

His eyes grew colder. “Let me kill her.”

“No.”

“No? Why?” he growled. “Because it will look like I overruled you? Since when have you given adamnabout that with me? They know we talk about this shit. Usually we’reopenabout that fact. They know we decide on courses together… at least when we can!”

He lowered his voice with an effort.

“Besides, it’s pretty clear you didn’t listen to me about Dubai. Or fuckingMacaufor that matter, where I was dead against using you as bait. Or about your own goddamnedsecurity protocolsregarding tracking ops. And given your little display out there, I don’t think you left any doubt aboutwho’s in charge,wife. So if you’re looking for ways to up your macho points, you might have used them up for today.”

He said that last with more than a little bitterness.

I kept my voice calm. Maybe too calm.

“You know this isn’t about power for me.”

“Then what the fuckisit about, Allie?”

The heat remained in his light, but I felt more of him now, too. Enough that the shell I’d been wearing began to melt. I realized I’d been defending myself from him the second I walked through the door. More than that, I’d been approaching him as an adversary, not my partner. I’d been thinking of him as puzzle I needed to solve, maybe even to manipulate.

Once I realized that much, all the charge in my light deflated.

Leaning against the wall he’d just pushed me against, I sighed, combing my fingers through my hair. Feeling his light start to de-charge in that same pause, I waited until he felt more open, then I looked up, meeting his gaze.

“Do you want to be in charge, Revik?” I asked.

“No!” His anger rose to the surface, but it felt more open, more genuine, and if anything it made me relax more. “That’s not what I fucking want, Alyson!”

“Then what do you want?” I asked.

I saw him flinch, saw surprise flicker through his eyes and light.

Then, everything in him seemed to de-charge all at once.

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