Page 75 of Seer Prophet

“It is okay, beautiful cousin,” Anale said. “You should stay here. We want you to stay here… where it is safe. We will not be gone long. We have only a short thing to do here.”

Still on her feet, the woman, Gina, looked directly at Loki.

Even without turning, he felt her stare.

Again, pain tried to take over his light.

Anale must have felt it, too, from standing so close to the human. Whatever her reasons, she stood more squarely in front of him, blocking the woman’s view of him?or maybe trying to get in between their respective lights.

The next time Anale spoke, she seemed to be trying to get the human’s stare to shift to her, to get her to stop focusing on Loki. Loki knew his light was only wrapping deeper into the woman’s, however; he almost told Anale it would do no good.

“It is okay,” Anale repeated. “We will not be gone long, cousin. We will all come back, and then we will leave here. We will take you to your daughter.”

“Dani?” For the first time, the woman’s eyes shifted away from Loki. She looked at Anale, focusing on her alone, her mouth in a slight frown. “You’re going to take me to Dani after this? When? Where is she?”

“Soon, cousin,” Anale soothed, nodding. “Yes, cousin. We will. We are only stopping here for a very short time. She is on a ship, and we will go there next.”

Seeing the woman’s stare shift back to the Middle Eastern seer, Anale snorted, as if unable to help herself.

You are truly fucked, my brother,she sent to Loki.She has it as bad as you do. What did you do to her down there? She seems to think you saved her personally, brother… that you went in there looking just for her.

Loki didn’t answer.

He couldn’t tear his eyes off the human woman, either.

Mika clapped Loki on the shoulder with a grin, maybe to distract him, to give his light something else to feel. She aimed her words at the human woman, speaking English.

“Hey,” she called to Gina. “We won’t let him get hurt. Don’t worry, cousin.”

The woman, Gina, looked doubtful at Mika’s words.

“We’ll keep him safe,” Rex seconded, also gripping Loki’s shoulder. “Promise.”

Loki felt Gina’s light pulling on his, willing him to turn, to look at her, maybe to reassure her himself. He told himself he wouldn’t turn, that he wouldn’t look at her again?but after a few seconds more he did, unable to deny her light what it wanted of him.

When he met her gaze, he found himself staring, lost in those dark eyes which still seemed to be looking for him behind his silence. He didn’t see fear for herself in that look. Or maybe, that’s not all he saw. Returning that worried look in her, noting the firmness of her mouth, he briefly lost control of his light.

He gripped the seat in front of him, fighting to retract it from hers.

He muttered words in Arabic, in spite of himself.

“Steady there, brother,” Mika said from his other side, touching him along with Rex, rubbing his arm. “Hey. Control. You’re control guy, aren’t you? Chill.”

Loki felt another darting pang of jealousy off the woman from Mika’s touch, and his pain worsened. He bit his tongue, trying to pull back his light.

Rex laughed behind him.

“It’s the tightly-wound ones you have to keep an eye on,” the large seer joked. “I think maybe he’s the one we can’t trust to be alone with her. One of us should check her light. Make sure he’s not manipulating her to act like a dog in heat with him, just as he is with her. Dante will never forgive us if he is bending the light of her mother.”

For a long-feeling count of seconds, Loki wondered about Rex’s words.

Then he wondered if perhaps he should not go on this mission.

Perhaps he should stay here, on the Chinook.

Perhaps he was a liability.

The thought brought another swell of pain, one he found himself fighting more deliberately, maybe in horror of how visible he was, or how much he could feel himself genuinely alarming the other seers with his erratic behavior.

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