Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  A sensation too visceral and painful to be called relief swelled inside him, surged out of the cracks of something dark and ugly that had fractured when she grabbed for him, unhesitating and trusting. He put his arms around her in turn, hand cradling the back of her head, holding her there.

  Her lips moved against his chest, a quiet murmuring he couldn’t hear.

  He dropped his face into her hair, trying to hear, but trying to get closer, too. Smell her shampoo, and her skin, feel the warmth of her, even though she shivered like she was cold. “What?”

  It was a chant: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m…”

  “No,” he said. “No, no, sweetheart. Don’t be sorry.”

  But he was, because he’d made her cry, and made her think that he would abandon her. That was maybe the worst thing he’d ever done.

  “Red, listen to me,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “And listen good, because you know I’m not any good with words, so I probably won’t be able to repeat it.”

  She sniffled, and made a noise that might have been a weak chuckle.

  “I – I died over there. The thing they loaded in that helo that day was just a corpse.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. You gave me a reason to get up in the mornings again. Made it so I can. So don’t…” He trailed off into a sigh. He wasn’t saying this right, and he knew he never could, but it was important. “I don’t know how all of this is gonna turn out in the long run.” Secretly, he knew that there was a clock somewhere, ticking down to the zero hour when he finally got caught unawares and taken out. Just like he’d known on this last deployment, when he’d shielded Deshawn with his body: his days were numbered; he gave them willingly so that someone worthier might live. But. “But I’ll never walk away,” he told her. “I won’t ever leave you. So get that out of your head right now, alright? I can’t promise I won’t be kinda crazy.”

  She tipped her head back, her chin resting on his sternum, tear-bright eyes looking up into his. A crooked, tremulous little smile touched her mouth.

  “I’m a Marine, kid, it just comes with the territory.”

  “I know.” She settled again, cheek pressed over his thudding heart. “I’m just sorry you don’t get to do normal things.”

  “What’s normal, huh? Rush hour traffic and the bar scene? Nuh-uh. I ain’t missing that.”

  She hesitated a breath, and then, just a whisper: “You could have a family.”

  He squeezed her gently, combed his fingers through her hair. “I have a family. Right here with you.”

  She dug the tip of her little nose into the groove under his pec and dissolved into silent, shaking tears.

  Rooster held her, rocked them side-to-side, for a long time.

  26

  Buffalo, New York

  “You’re a lucky girl. Not just anybody can say they had a Russian prince over for dinner,” Lanny said as he dropped down beside Trina on the top step of her parents’ back deck.

  She rolled her eyes and took another sip of her vodka tonic. “It’s tsarevich, dummy.”

  He elbowed her. She could feel his smile, the way it took up physical space. Her dad had busted out the good scotch and Lanny had had enough to put down three men; he was only pleasantly buzzed, loose and relaxed in a way he hadn’t been in a long time – even since before the craziness had started. He’d been living with his diagnosis – wallowing in misery – for a long time now, she realized. It saddened her.

  “Don’t get all technical on me,” he said, a laugh threaded through his voice. “He’s an asshole. End of story.”

  “Hmm. And yet you seem weirdly fixated on him.”

  He made an affronted noise. “He turned me into a…” He gestured toward himself.

  “Can you not say ‘vampire’?”

  “It’s a stupid word.”

  “I think you just insulted yourself there, champ.”

  He grimaced. “I just mean…”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  It was a beautiful late summer night, just cool enough for her to be grateful for her light jacket, the crickets and tree frogs hosting a pastoral symphony across the moon-silvered fields. Trina stared out across the shadowy vista and took a deep breath of country air, resolutely pushing aside the worry that it might be the last chance she had to do so for a while.

  Lanny wasn’t one for quiet, though. Never had been. Trina suspected it was because he had so many siblings; he’d never learned how to enjoy silence.

  He said, “This just doesn’t seem like you to me.”

  She glanced over with surprise. “What doesn’t?”

  He shrugged, gaze fixed on the purple horizon. “Out here in the country. Being a farm girl and all.”

  “It’s not a farm.”

  “Look at all that acreage.”

  “We don’t have animals.”

  “Tell me somebody here doesn’t have a tractor and I’ll buy that it’s not a farm.”

  She made a face, and he laughed.

  “I don’t look like I could be a farmer?” she asked, only half-joking. A part of her – before they found Nikita, before Lanny’s cancer confession and subsequent turning – she’d entertained fantasies of finally telling him how she felt. Of them transferring to a local sheriff’s department and building a little house on the family compound. Wildflower summers and downhill sledding winters.

  But that was part of a fantasy that asked too much of Lanny. That assumed all the obstacles could be overcome.

  And that was before she’d known that the obstacles involved his need to drink blood.

  As if he sensed her eyes on him, his slid over, narrowing. “Nah, it’s just – you like having a cause, you know? Something good to do. At work, in the city, you stand out. You’ve got this walk, you know? Like you’re a badass and you don’t care who knows it.” He grinned a moment, sly enough to make her stomach leap. But then it faded. “Here, though…you fade.”

  “I fade?” She tried to disguise the flare of hurt in her voice. Tried. “Damn, you’re a sweet talker.”

  “No. I mean–”

  “I’m invisible.”

  “Damn it. Okay. Lemme try that again.”

  “Please do.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I know putting sentences together is hard for you,” she deadpanned, and he shoved her shoulder, which made her smile in spite of the lump forming in her throat.

  “What I was trying to say,” he said, “is that I don’t know what kind of badass stuff you’d do around here is all. If you weren’t making arrests, and interrogating shitheads, and just in general being the coolest fucking chick ever, what would you do? Garden?”

  “What’s wrong with gardening?”

  “Nothing. But I can’t see you doing it.”

  He’d hurt her, and the most frustrating part was she didn’t know why, exactly. “Okay.” She turned away from him, facing the gently tumbling hollows that stretched on toward the tree line.

  Talk to him, her mom had urged.

  You just have to sort through it, her grandmother had said.

  But it wasn’t that simple. Nothing ever was.

  “Shit,” he said, “I stepped in it, didn’t I?”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  He shifted closer, until she could feel his body heat pushing against the coolness of the evening. His voice dropped, just a low murmur. “I know things are messed up,” he confessed. “But I don’t know how to fix them.”

  “I know. Me neither.”

  She felt something at the back of her hand, and looked down with a little start to find that it was his thumb: smooth hard calluses from lifting weights for years. His skin warm. Human. He didn’t feel any different than he had before. So why was she…

  Her breath hitched, a painful little hiccup in her throat, and he pulled her whole hand into his, cool palm to warm one, their fingers interlaced.

  “It’s still just me,” Lanny murmured,
his breath fanning across her cheek. He smelled of Scotch. Like himself. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “No.” She squeezed his hand. “Maybe.”

  He pulled her in close, into the sheltering solidity of his shoulder, and pressed his lips to her temple. “I would never hurt you. Never, Trina.”

  “Not on purpose,” she whispered, a shiver stealing through her.

  “Not ever,” he insisted, and the fierceness in his voice made her smile. He was a fighter in all senses; he didn’t know how to be anything else.

  He worked his hand loose from hers so he could put his arm around her shoulders, and Trina realized how much tension she’d been holding when she let it go, slumping into his chest.

  “I’m not trying to push you away,” she said, playing with the zipper on his jacket. “Everything’s just been…”

  “Weird as fuck?” he suggested, and she snorted.

  “Yeah, pretty much. I know it was my idea for you to ask Nik for help. And Lanny” – she tipped her head back so she could look up at his face, edged silver by moonlight – “I’m so glad you’re healthy. You have to know that. The thought of you…” Her eyes started to burn and she ducked her face into his throat, blinking hard. “So I’m glad. I am. It’s just…”

  “Not as hot as teenage girls seem to think it is?”

  She breathed a wet laugh.

  “I’m super disappointed about that, by the way. All the vampire movies make it out like you get all sparkly, and irresistible and shit. Women just throw themselves at you, you know? And here I am, same old chump with a broken nose.”

  “Please. Like you ever had trouble attracting women.”

  He shifted, his breath warm against the top of her head. “Couldn’t attract you.”

  “Oh no. You did.” She patted his chest…and let her hand linger, over the hard swell of muscle. “I was just. You know. Denying myself. Trying to be a badass.”

  He laughed softly, and it rustled her hair. “Total badass. Stone cold. And hot. You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence descended, but not the awful kind. Trina breathed deep the smell of rural night and the faint, lingering traces of Lanny’s cologne. Listened to his heart thump steadily against her ear. Strong. Healthy. She hadn’t had a chance to marvel properly yet, and she regretted that, closing her eyes now and thanking every higher power that existed for the gift he’d been given.

  Nikita said it was a burden, and she agreed with his reasoning, but at this moment, listening to Lanny’s lungs work, forever was a miracle.

  “I’m gonna say something,” he said, “and I want you to at least consider it before you shoot me down.”

  “If it’s about sex, it won’t take that much convincing.”

  He chuckled, but it was hollow. “Nah. Not yet. And definitely not in your dad’s house.”

  She pressed a smile into his shirt…one that faded. She could feel the heaviness gathering again, the relentless forward movement of danger and responsibility.

  “Now that I am what I am,” he went on, growing serious, “I figure it’s only fair that I help Nik do…whatever he’s gotta do to get Sasha back.”

  She could see where this was going, and sat up, fixing him with a look. “Lanny.”

  “I mean,” he continued, “what good are superpowers if you don’t do super things? Right? Apparently I’m almost indestructible now.” He grinned. Sideways and wry. “So I’m not worried about me. But–”

  “Don’t say it,” she warned, pulse accelerating.

  “No, hear me out, okay? You’re a badass. We’ve established that. But you’re not a…like us.”

  “Say ‘vampire,’ Lanny, it’s what you are now. And also, kiss my ass, you’re not leaving me behind.”

  His expression hardened. “We’ve got no idea what we’re walking into down there.”

  “Which is why there’s safety in numbers.”

  “You’re–”

  “Weak?” she guessed, jaw clenched now, breathing hard.

  “Human,” he said, almost patiently. “You’re human, babe. You’re also important enough that I don’t want to drag you into a firefight if I don’t have to.”

  “Drag me? Drag me? This is my family. I dragged you in the first place.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Do you think I’m not scared? I’m terrified,” she said, and she was, stomach roiling with fear. “I have to look at what we’re about to do one step at a time, or else I might throw up I’m so scared. We – our fucked up little A-Team – are staging a rescue from a government facility we don’t know anything about…except for the fact they have Wallachian princes – Vlad the goddamn Impaler – in a meat locker somewhere. At the very best, we’re looking at getting arrested. And I can’t think about the worst. I just can’t.

  “I’m scared, Lanny. We all are. But I will not hide under the bed while you guys risk your lives. If you’re in a firefight, who do you want at your six, huh?”

  He swallowed, throat moving. “You. Always you. You know that. But these aren’t drug dealers. They’re not even murder suspects.”

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to let it out slow. “I know.”

  They studied one another.

  “You wouldn’t have to, though,” he said.

  “But I do,” she insisted. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “That runs in the family, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s annoying as shit.”

  She smiled. “Duly noted.”

  His hand moved up from her shoulder, slid into place at the back of her neck. She couldn’t get over how warm he was. Anyone in literature who had ever called vampires the undead had been badly misinformed. They were very much alive, maybe even more so than mortals, with pulses, and heartbeats, and body heat. They were just…undying, she guessed.

  Lanny stroked the nape of her neck with careful fingertips, like he was still learning his new strength, and pulled her in.

  She went willingly, lips already parted in anticipation when he kissed her. The kiss was careful, too, but sweet. His tongue–

  “Am I interrupting?” someone asked, and Trina had heard that voice enough times now to know the Romanian accent straight away.

  She pulled back from Lanny with a wry smile, hand still resting over his heart. “Hi, Val.”

  Lanny, by contrast, jerked like he’d been shocked, eyes popping wide. “Jesus, what–? Is that–? Aw, fuck.”

  Valerian stood in the grass at the foot of the stairs, arms loosely folded, chuckling quietly. “Good evening, detectives.”

  “Fuck,” Lanny said again, angry this time.

  “Oh,” Valerian said, his show of innocence so theatrically false it almost made Trina want to smile. She hadn’t learned much about this prince, but she knew for damn sure that he was a showman. “Were you going to? And I…oh. How inopportune of me. I can just go over there and wait.” He pointed off into the night. “I’ll just leave you–”

  “Val,” Trina said. “What’s up? You’ve got intel?”

  He rolled his shoulders, sable cloak settling with a little flutter that was somehow royal. Alexei held himself like royalty, but it was an imitation of things he’d seen his father do decades before; the movements of a child who’d been told he was special, and destined for great things. Val carried himself like someone who’d had to prove he was royalty – most likely again and again.

  “Indeed I do,” he said, more serious now. “I have…” He made a face. “An ally, it would seem. She’s told me what she can about the facility.”

  “Okay, great.” Trina fished her phone from her pocket. “Will your voice show up if I record it? I want to be able to play this back for the others.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Well, let’s try it, and–”

  “He is here, you know.”

  She froze, thumb hovering over the Record button on the app.

  “
Sasha,” Val explained. “I scented another wolf, and, well, I obviously can’t see him. Or visit him, strangely enough. They must be lining his cell with silver so I can’t get through.”

  Trina swallowed. “Cell?”

  “One can only assume.” He shrugged. “Annabel has said she would try to speak with him. If they’ll allow it.”

  “Okay, that’s…” Her heart was pounding, she realized. Lanny laid a comforting hand on her thigh, patted it, before he got to his feet. “What do you think they want with him?”

  Val tilted his head side to side. “I don’t know, exactly. I can guess. The Institute seems to think my brother holds the keys to everything from cancer research to prosthetic limb technology. Wolves and vampires are inextricably linked. I can think of all sorts of reasons for wanting to study a wolf – and a rather infamous one at that.”

  During his speech, Lanny had moved down the steps and now stood beside the prince. When Val stopped talking, Lanny chopped a hand through him. The projection jumped and flickered like an old newsreel, before settling again, the image closing in smoke-like tendrils until it once again looked like a corporeal man stood at the base of the stairs.

  Val turned his head and shot Lanny a withering look. “Really?”

  “I just wanted to be sure,” Lanny said, shrugging, unbothered by the other’s glare.

  Trina tapped her nails against her phone case. “Alright. How about that intel now?”

  27

  The Ingraham Institute

  He slept. He didn’t know for how long, but eventually, awareness returned. First in the muffled flashes of dreams, and then the painful battle for outright consciousness.

  When Sasha finally opened his eyes, it felt like a victory. A pathetic one.

  He took a moment to blink his vision clear and get his bearings. It wasn’t the same room as before. For one, the lights were, blessedly, lower: a series of wall-mounted lamps on dim settings rather than harsh overhead tubes. He lay on a bed, across from a heavy steel door with a wire-reinforced window at its center, like at a hospital. He could smell chemicals, cleaners, humans. His body felt heavy; whatever drug they’d used had been strong. Calibrated for a wolf, he guessed. They’d known not to bother with human sedatives.