Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Read Online Free

too early to know what it would look like if he let it grow and branch out and become something workable…or what would happen to it when he brought his wife into his thinking. She had this tendency to make his already crazy ideas even more crazy.
    Like batshit, full-blown irresponsible crazy.
    But the idea was there and Revik knew it wouldn’t be going anywhere, not until he’d let it run its course. Not until he’d talked to his wife about it, at least.
    He knew one thing for certain.
    This wouldn’t happen again.
    It wouldn’t.
    Not if it meant cutting his own throat.

2
    EIGHT MONTHS, FIVE DAYS

    "We both knew this would happen. We saw it…" he murmured.
    Without thinking, I answered him.
    “So we know it'll be all right,” I said. “That it'll all work out all right in the end…”
    I trailed, then looked over at him sharply.
    Meeting his gaze, I swallowed. A dark, swift, sinking feeling filled my gut, like something in there was kicking at me, making me bleed on the inside.
    That feeling was fear, I realized.
    Terror maybe. The sudden stab of déjà vu that came from our exchange of words only made that fear worse. But it wasn’t déjà vu really…it was memory. And I could say that with utter certainty now, because I was a seer after all.
    Photographic memory.
    So yeah, I knew immediately where I’d heard those words before.
    The night of our wedding. Tarsi’s cakes.
    Revik and I said those exact words to one another as we looked into our future together, under the spell of those crazy cakes and a lot of wine and not enough sex. Even then, it hadn’t been two strands, it had been one.
    One that broke somewhere along the way.
    One that hurt like hell…even when I couldn’t remember the specifics.
    I glanced over at the couch, where Lily slept.
    One small arm curled under her dark head. Her clear, green-rimmed eyes were closed now, framed in dark lashes under an already narrower-looking face. I watched her almost clinically in those few seconds, looking her over in a way I couldn’t while she was awake.
    She looked older to me again. She’d lost some of the baby fat she’d worn what seemed like only weeks before, that same cute, dimply layer that made her so utterly squeezable. She was losing that layer too fast, faster than even a human. Its loss made her look older, childlike in a way that appeared different to me already…more like a little girl and less like a baby.
    She was beautiful. So beautiful it still took my breath.
    “…We knew it, love,” he repeated, softer.
    I nodded, fighting tears.
    I knew. I knew he was right.
    But I really really wished I didn’t.

    An explosion ripped through the silence of the late afternoon light, jerking my eyes up.
    It got all of us to our feet, staring down from the roof of the thirty-story apartment building where we worked. I looked west with the rest of them, holding my breath. Raising a hand to shield the sun, I gazed towards the line of the horizon.
    My eyes found the snaking curve of river reflecting sunlight first.
    Then I saw the smoke.
    Pretty much due west, from the lines of the sun.
    I was still staring when a second detonation went off.
    I ducked in reflex. Before I’d straightened, a third, larger one detonated along a different part of the wall, causing all of us to flinch, and many of the seers next to me jerk back from the edge of the roof. Glancing to my right, I saw Jorag lower his arm from where he’d used it instinctively to shield his face, even though we were more than a mile from the blast.
    He frowned at the horizon even as I watched.
    Black smoke plumed up. Again, I raised a hand to shield my eyes.
    For a moment I forgot what we’d been doing as I watched the scene unfold.
    Sirens went off, even as I heard distant staccato bursts of what sounded like automatic rifle fire. I cursed a little under my breath as the breach siren wound higher.
    It wasn’t our siren, of course. It belonged to the Thai humans.
    The Mythers were