“Huh,” he said aloud, voice echoing off the wet tile around him.
“Talking to yourself again?” Kolya asked, drawing up to the next sink over. His hair had grown so long that it hung almost to his shoulders, longer than normal since it was wet from the shower. He slicked it back with both hands and shot Nikita a questioning glance. “You had breakfast?”
“Fuck you. Yes.” Nikita snorted and returned his attention to the mirror, feeling only a little guilty that he’d lied.
They’d trooped in after dark last night, bone-tired, swaying on their feet, too exhausted to even get cleaned up. Nikita had awakened earlier that morning to realize he’d even slept in his muddy boots.
The door to the bunk room had been cracked, and the scent of breakfast had wafted down from the floor above: the nauseating stench of burnt grease and something pre-packaged. The appetite he’d enjoyed during their expedition shriveling up into nothing.
“Your girl,” Kolya started, and Nikita made a dismissive sound.
“Not mine. It isn’t like that.”
“Uh-huh. You just wish it was.”
“Shut up.”
Kolya chuckled, a rare and surprisingly-delicate sound from him. It was easy to forget, when faced with his daily scowling countenance, shaggy hair, and the cold way he killed, that he used to be charming and courtly. “I’ve never even see you look at a girl before.”
Nikita stiffened, razor hovering against his cheek. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Kolya said easily, and began to lather his own face. He shrugged. “You’re too tense. Always gloomy. It’s good for you, I think. At least a little.” In measurements, he meant. Enough to cheer him up, but not enough to distract him.
“I’m gloomy? What about you?”
“I’m just very, very proficient.”
Nikita felt something light and effervescent bubble in his chest, and it was such a rare occurrence that it took him a moment to realize it was laughter.
Kolya grinned at his reflection and said, “I wonder how Sasha’s wolves are getting along with being inside.”
~*~
His wolves hated being inside. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” Sasha cooed for the thousandth time.
His alpha girl responded with a doubtful snort.
“It is, I promise.” He scratched her ears. But she didn’t lean into the attention like normal, pinning him with a yellow-eyed, accusatory glare.
“It’s remarkable how they listen to you,” Dr. Ingraham said, circling the steel table where she sat.
“Not really.” Sasha shrugged and took a tighter grip on the wolf’s ruff. “It’s a pack thing.”
Ingraham looked up from his clipboard, pen poised at the ready. “Could you describe that to me? The ‘pack thing’?”
“Oh. Well…”
Dr. Ingraham reached with one finger toward the wolf and she swung around to snarl at him, teeth bared.
“Oh!” he gasped, leaping back, almost tripping over his own feet.
Sasha tried not to laugh. “I don’t think she wants you to touch her.”
The doctor, now white as chalk, nodded and took two careful steps back, until his shoulders hit the bank of cabinets behind him and he was forced to stop, eyes trained on the alpha female the whole time.
“In the pack,” Sasha explained, “there’s always one alpha male, and that’s me. I’m their leader. If I say that it’s safe, they’ll believe me.” Even if they didn’t like it, like right now, indoors and underground. “But a good alpha listens to his pack, and takes it seriously when they sense danger.”
“So they actually speak to you? In words of some sort?”
Sasha frowned. God, this man was dense and overeager. He couldn’t really believe Monsieur Philippe had entrusted this man with their secrets. “No,” he said, speaking slowly, in case the doctor’s poor grasp of Russian was part of the problem. “Some of it’s growls, and yips, and howls. But mostly it’s a…a sense.”
“A sense?”
“I can’t explain it very well.”
“Doctor,” Philippe said as he entered the lab, “you’ve studied wolves in America, haven’t you? They aren’t so different in Russia, I wouldn’t think.”
For once, the mage wasn’t wearing his fur coat and hat, instead an outdated suit with a long row of gold buttons down the front and at the cuffs, the collar buttoned all the way up to his chin. It looked like something a military officer might have worn twenty years ago…save there were no marks of rank or accomplishment. Without the coat, under the harsh caged lights, Philippe looked like nothing more than a pudgy old man with bags beneath his eyes and a carefully-groomed mustache.
His presence immediately put Dr. Ingraham at ease. “Monsieur Philippe,” he greeted with a relieved sigh. “Sasha was trying to tell me about communicating with his pack.”
Philippe drew up beside Sasha and offered the back of his hand to the female; she sniffed his knuckles and turned her head away, disinterested.
“Sasha communicates with his pack the same way any wolf would,” Philippe said.
“Yes. But.” Ingraham drew himself up straighter, which looked like it took some effort. “I’ve never had the chance to – well, to ask a wolf what that was like. And now I do.”
“And you’re not happy with the answers you’re getting?”
“What? No. Oh no! It’s just. If Sasha could collaborate–”
“Elaborate,” Philippe corrected, and then said a word which must have been the English translation for benefit of the doctor.
“Yes, yes, elaborate. It would be so helpful.”
“What do you say, Sasha?” Philippe turned to him. “Care to put it into words.”
Sasha knew he made a face, but figured he might as well try.
He pulled his hand away from the female and said, “Go to the door, please, that’s a good girl.”
She got up on all fours, leapt gracefully down from the table – Dr. Ingraham flattened himself against the cabinet faces with an alarmed sound – and went to the door where she sat down and craned her neck to look at Sasha, searching for instructions.
He patted at the air and she lied down, going into sentry mode.
“But – but I thought–” Ingraham looked between Sasha and the wolf, brows at his hairline. “You said you didn’t talk to them.” He sounded offended.
Sasha made another face. “It’s not the words. I don’t think so, anyway. She knows what I want her to do– what I’m asking her to do,” he amended. “I don’t force them. It’s not mind control. It’s…” Shit, this was hard to explain.
“If I may?” Philippe said, to Sasha’s relief. “All mammals communicate largely through non-verbal cues. I believe that the wolves read Sasha’s intent and energy through body language, and his tone of voice, yes, but, in this case, I do believe there’s an element of the supernatural at play.”
“Really?” Dr. Ingraham looked delighted. “Fascinating.”
“Perhaps we can convince Sasha to give you a demonstration in one of the larger laboratories.”
“That would be wonderful.”
Sasha bit back a sigh. He hadn’t been an impatient person before, but now he felt restless after just one night back at the base.
The wolves had bristled the moment they drew close enough to the building to smell the humans inside it, which was well before they were able to see its lights through the dark lace of the trees. They’d stopped in their tracks, looking to Sasha, asking with their eyes to stay back, not to go.
It had stirred a physical pain in his belly to force them onward, a dull ache that lingered now. They were wild, and didn’t belong indoors – not like this, in a heartless concrete box of a building, deep underground surrounded by steel and tile and machines.
A “demonstration” sounded a lot like circus tricks to him, and he found himself frowning heavily just thinking about it. They’d decided on a course of action, and he wanted to pursue it – not sit in a
basement growing lazy.
“Let’s go to your office, doctor,” Monsieur Philippe said, moving toward the door and snagging Ingraham by the elbow, towing him along, “and I can tell you more about the behavior patterns of wolves.”
Dr. Ingraham twisted to watch Sasha over his shoulder as he was dragged, obviously reluctant – and he almost missed the alpha girl at the door, remembering her when she growled a warning not to step on her. He yelped, jumped over her, and drew a quiet laugh from Philippe.
Sasha just sighed again, holding out a hand and wiggling his fingers in invitation. “Come here, girl.”
She did, nosing into his palm, licking the thin skin of his wrist.
“I know.” He scratched her just behind the ears, until she closed her eyes and tipped her head to give him better access.
“There you are,” a familiar voice said from the doorway, and Sasha glanced up to find Pyotr, with the omega wolf leaning against his leg. “Found something of yours in the hallway.”
“Oh no. Did you see the others? I wanted them to stay together.”
“They were in the big lab, but Monsieur Philippe and Dr. Ingraham went in there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in indication, and the rest of the wolves crowded in behind him, slipping past his legs to come into the room with Sasha.
He greeted them all with pets and scratches, letting them crowd around and scent him.
Pyotr came in, too, stroking the omega between the ears in an absent way that meant he was totally at ease with the animals now, a sight which filled Sasha with gladness. He wanted his pack to get along – his whole pack, human and lupine.
“Can I ask something?” Pyotr moved in close, dropping his voice. “Why don’t they like Monsieur Philippe so much? I mean, he is…magical, after all.”
“It’s the smell,” Sasha said, also quiet. He thought Philippe probably had ways of spying on their conversation if he wanted to, but no sense being loud about it. “Like burnt toast and melted iron. Like a forest fire,” he said, and realized, finally putting that term to it that, yes, he smelled like a forest that had caught fire…and the men who’d done the setting, industrial and iron and threatening to all the wild things in the woods.
Pyotr’s eyes widened, but he nodded, understanding. “I don’t suppose animals like that smell.”
“No, and me neither.”
One corner of Pyotr’s mouth twitched, holding back a smile.
“Yeah, I’m an animal, too.” Sasha grinned at him, to show he wasn’t offended. “I guess maybe I always was.”
Pyotr chuckled, but then grew serious again, thoughtful, glancing down at the omega as he stroked his tawny fur. “Do you think he’s telling the truth? About everything?”
“Well.” The true answer to that wasn’t easily put into words. “He told the truth about me. That I wouldn’t get hurt. That I’d be strong, and fast.”
“Yeah, but he stabbed you.” Pyotr’s head snatched up, brow clouding with anger. “He stuck a knife through your heart. You – you screamed, Sasha.” His face paled, throat jumping as he swallowed, remembering. “I thought Nikita was going to kill the old man. He – he did hurt you.”
He suppressed the low growl that built in his chest. Barely. “Yeah. Well. I got better, didn’t I? I’m fine now.”
But Pyotr looked unconvinced. He dropped his gaze, watching the movement of his hand, eyebrows pinched. “You look like my brother,” he said, so quietly Sasha didn’t think he would have heard it if he wasn’t a wolf.
Some of the four-legged wolves lifted their ears, glancing between Pyotr and Sasha, reading Sasha’s surprise.
“I don’t,” Pyotr went on. “I look like our mother, and Dima looked like Papa. But you do, and that’s why Nikita gets so worried about you.” He lifted his head, smile sideways and half-hearted. “I know I remind him of Dmitri, in my own way – he feels guilty, thinks he got my brother killed. It’s why he pushes me away, I think.”
“Pyotr,” Sasha started, reaching a hand toward him, wanting to comfort him somehow. He’d always been the first to offer an arm or a hug; “my caring boy” his mother would call him. It was the only child in him, that longing for brothers and sisters. It was an urge that had been amplified after his turning, the alpha wolf in him wanting to gather his packmate close and reassure him.
But Pyotr shook his head. “It’s fine. But.” His weak smile went even more lopsided. “I think he sees a ghost when he looks at you. Like…like maybe you’re his second chance to save Dima.”
Sasha whined – a purely wolfish sound – and then cleared his throat. He felt an instant, alpha distress: pack, comfort, love, together. And then the human weight of unasked-for responsibility. He knew Nikita had come to care for him like he did the others, that he was one of them now, but he hadn’t suspected it ran deeper than that, or that he himself was a constant, painful reminder of the man’s dead best friend.
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” Pyotr said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m glad you did.” Sasha smiled to show him that he meant it. “Thank you, Pyotr.”
~*~
Katya spent twenty heavenly minutes in the showers on the second floor, enjoying the hot water and the harsh soap too much to care if anyone walked in on her. No one did, thankfully, and she went back to her quarters to change into clean clothes (cleaner than what she’d worn on the road, at least), and braid her hair into two tidy plaits that she secured with a bit of stained white ribbon and flicked back over her shoulders. Then she went in search of breakfast.
The mess hall was busy, but there were plenty of empty seats, and after she’d had porridge slopped in a bowl, she made her way to an out-of-the-way spot that put her back to the wall, so she had a good view of the wide room.
She wasn’t surprised to see her roommate seated too-close to a young soldier with a strong jaw and a stronger nose, the two of them cozy, though not looking at one another while they ate. She hadn’t been in the room when Katya crawled into bed last night, and clearly she’d been bunking with her beau.
She was surprised to see the furtive, suspicious glances shot her way. Some curious, some almost hostile.
After the near-disaster in Moscow, women had become commonplace in the Army, but she guessed the men still so far outweighed them that she was, by default, a novelty.
But. She spotted a group of Army nurses sitting together, laughing with one another over their breakfasts. And there was her roommate. No one was giving them dirty looks.
Her bite of porridge went down like a lead ball when realization hit. It was because she’d gone off on an expedition with the Cheka, wasn’t it?
In a feat of horrible timing, Ivan and Feliks appeared opposite her, thumped their bowls down, and settled on the bench across from her, blocking her view.
“Morning,” Ivan said, cheerfully, and Katya decided she wasn’t going to give a damn if strangers didn’t like her because of the company she kept. These boys, as imperfect as they were, liked her – or at least seemed to – and that was better than she could say for most.
“Good morning. Ivan, did you get your side looked at?”
He lifted his shirttail from his pants, hiking it up to show her a clean white bandage wrapped around his midsection. “Scraped it clean, washed it out, gave me three stitches. Hurt like hell.”
“He cried like a woman,” Feliks said into his porridge.
Ivan elbowed him so hard Katya thought he might go tumbling off the bench, but the big man laughed: no hard feelings.
“It hurt!” he protested.
“More than getting shot?”
Ivan drew himself upright, expression turning indignant. But his mouth twitched. “Yes.”
Feliks made a dismissive sound and turned to Katya. “You talked to Nik yet this morning?”
She felt her face heat. “No. Why would I?”
Feliks rolled his eyes. “Alright. I thought you might know when we’re leaving.”
Because they assumed she
was traveling with them.
She set her spoon down. “Oh. No, I have no idea.”
Ivan wasn’t as dumb as he looked. His eyes narrowed. “You’re not coming with us, are you?”
She shrugged, and it was an effort not to keep doing it. “I don’t know.”
Feliks started to look cagey. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You aren’t thinking of saying anything to anybody, are you?” It wasn’t quite a threat. Not quite.
“No,” she said, firmly. “Absolutely not.”
He didn’t relax much.
“She’s in the army,” Ivan said, like Feliks was being stupid, shoveling porridge into his mouth. “She wants to shoot Nazis, not go chasing ghosts with us.”
“No, that’s not it. I–” She stopped herself. That was exactly the excuse she would have given a few weeks ago, but now, she found that wasn’t the first protest that came to mind. In fact, it wasn’t even in the top five.
For the first time since her family died, she found that she was scared. Of several things: the idea of magic, of monsters, of a dead starets. Of the handsomeness of Nikita’s face, and the way the sight of it opened up a vulnerable place in her heart that she thought she’d welded shut when everything went up in flames. She was scared because she felt unsure, and girlish, and because she was questioning her commitment to the cause.
She loved her country, was a patriot through and through – but maybe there was another way to save the Motherland. A better one.
That’s why she was scared. She was shaking with it, suddenly, pressing her hands flat to the table to keep them still.
White Wolf (Sons of Rome Book 1) Page 29
