“You might have led with that.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
“Lanny.”
“Three wolves, actually,” he elaborated. “Two I’ve smelled before.” He inhaled deeply, brow furrowing. “And one I haven’t.”
All the fine hair stood up on the back of Trina’s neck. “The ferals?”
“Yeah. Think so.”
“I’m sorry,” Harvey said, slicing her gloved hands through the air like someone was safe at home plate. “Ferals?” She only sounded a little panicked.
Trina and Lanny shared a look.
“I don’t know what that means,” Harvey said, “but I’m guessing a ‘feral’ werewolf is somehow worse than a regular one. It sounds worse.”
“Um,” Lanny said elegantly.
“It’s fine,” Trina said, and earned lifted, doubtful brows. “No, really. We’ll take care of it. Where was the body found?”
They got an address, and a few more details she’d gleaned from the detectives, and bid Harvey a good night.
In the hallway, headed for the exit, Lanny said, “I caught a whiff of a vamp, too.”
“You what?”
“I didn’t wanna say it in front of Harvey and freak her out more. But, yeah. It was real faint, though. More like one of the wolves smelled like a vamp…? I dunno. I can’t explain it. But there’s one that’s put his stink on this, somehow.”
Trina sighed. “Nikita won’t be happy about that.”
“Is Nikita ever happy about anything?”
“He’s dealing with some stuff.” She heard the defensiveness in her voice, and pointedly didn’t glance Lanny’s way to catch whatever face he made in response. “Speaking of which: what exactly did you say to him tonight?”
They reached the heavy double doors at the exit and pushed through. The nights were getting colder, and Trina immediately wrapped her arms around herself as they walked to the railing that edged the loading dock, and leaned against it.
Lanny dug out a cigarette and took his time lighting it.
She cleared her throat.
“Hm. Yeah.” He made a face on his first exhale, turning his head to blow the smoke away from her. “I talked to him. Both of them, actually. Said they were being stupid, respectively.”
The news settled in her stomach, something akin to dread that she didn’t understand. “Shit.”
“Keep in mind they’ve been together a long time, babe. Longer than you’ve been alive. I’m sure they’ve been like this before.”
“Yeah.” But this seemed like it had to be different: it wasn’t just the two of them anymore. They’d become a part of a pack, perhaps unwillingly. And Nikita had finally met his son, and the tsarevich that had been a part of the family he’d been loyal to for so long. Sasha had been taken from him…That was a lot of change in a short span of time. “I just feel bad for them.”
Lanny nodded in understanding, and took another drag, gazing out over the half-dark parking lot.
She took a moment to admire his profile. The little bump at the bridge of his twice-broken nose; the way his lips fit against the cigarette filter; the strong, corded lines of his throat, framed by the popped-up collar of the leather jacket he’d pulled on over his workout gear.
She took a deep breath and tried to let it siphon away some of her tension on the exhale. She worried about Nik, because he was her family, and she worried about Sasha because he was Nik’s family, and a sweetheart, and pack besides, at this point. But she couldn’t let that worry consume her; couldn’t obsess about things she couldn’t change.
“What else did you do tonight?” she asked, shifting closer. They wouldn’t touch outright or put arms around one another – no one knew they were together, and broadcasting it publicly seemed like a bad idea – but the proximity was nice. He put out heat like a furnace, tangible even at a few inches away.
“Worked out.” His gaze slid over, touched with amusement, but curious. “I told you that.”
“Yeah. But then your mom called me.”
His eyes widened. The cigarette fell out of his hand, and landed on the concrete below.
“She said you’ve been dodging her calls. She thinks you are, anyway. But I told her you wouldn’t do that. You’re just busy.”
He blew out a breath. “Shit.”
She spoke softly, without judgement. She would damn well judge him for clipping his toenails in bed – “What the hell are you doing?” she’d exclaimed when she found him doing that in her bed – but in this, family stuff, she wanted to be a safe place for him. “When was the last time you talked to your mom, Lan?”
He was quiet a long beat. Inhale, exhale. “Not since before,” he said, like an admission, tone grim.
She worked to keep the shock from her voice. “Not since before Alexei turned you?”
He made a sound in the affirmative.
Trina took a breath and swallowed her initial reaction – managed not to call him a dumbass. “Okay,” she said instead. “That – wow, okay, that’s been a long time. You’ve at least texted her, though, right?”
“Yeah. Couple times.”
“So she knows you’re alive. Good.”
“I talked to Pauly,” he said of one of his brothers. “He knew I was sick.” He made a face. “Now he knows I’m not anymore. I’m sure he passed it along to Ma.”
“How did you explain the not being sick thing to Paul?”
“Uh…kinda didn’t. He doesn’t need to know.”
Dumbass nearly slipped out again. But he did have a point. Her own family, brought up by two people who’d not only escaped the Soviet Union, and its war-torn countryside, but who’d known Nik, and what he was; two people who’d fought alongside Sasha and Rasputin – well, they didn’t have exactly normal sensibilities when it came to the supernatural.
Who was she to judge how he handled breaking the news to his family that he was not only well, but immortal?
Carefully, she said, “I’m not saying you have to tell her…everything. But I think you do have to go and see her.”
He sent her a look.
“I can come with you. Of course I will,” she added. She rested a hand over his, where it gripped the security rail in front of them. “We’re…well, we’re pack, aren’t we?” She smiled. “You don’t have to do anything alone.”
“Pack’s for wolves,” he murmured.
“Which we have.” A thought occurred. “Unless you said something really stupid to him tonight.”
Lanny scoffed. “He’s not going anywhere. Him and Gramps just gotta figure their shit out.”
“Pretty sure calling him ‘Gramps’ isn’t helping with that.”
“Hey, he’s your gramps. Your great-gramps. What am I supposed to call him?”
She faced out across the parking lot, a smile tugging at her lips. She knew he would never admit it, but she thought that, secretly, Nikita enjoyed having a new pack. Sasha would always be his favorite – his beloved, if he’d ever let himself admit it – but he did care about the rest of them. Even liked them, though he’d deny it bitterly.
“How about,” Lanny said, “we shelve all our personal shit and figure out who’s eating people in our city, yeah?”
She snorted. “All our personal shit?”
He turned to her then, eyes going wide, the whites bright in the dark. “Well, I mean…” His expression slid into a smirk, the one that doubtless worked on lots of women – it worked on her, at least. “Not all.”
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”
“You eat yet?”
“No.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders, heavy, strong, and comforting. He was healthy, now, alive, and vital, and whatever else was going on, she could revel in that fact. “How ‘bout Chinese?”
“Sounds good.” She let him steer her down the steps and toward her unmarked, not as scared as she might have been. The scariest thing of all had an arm around her, right where she wanted it.
3
“Nik.” Sasha thought he did a decent job of keeping his voice even. “What are you doing?”
They stood at the sinks in the men’s room, still at the club, the lurid blue neon shining down on the black tile of the floor and walls, and rendering Nikita’s normally-pale complexion downright ghastly. He cupped water in his palms, splashed it on his face, and used his wet hands to slick his hair back off his forehead. Skin pallid, the bags beneath his eyes dark as bruises, he looked sick. He couldn’t have eaten at any point in the past twelve hours, and the only blood he’d had for weeks had been pig – and that sparingly. Small sips from the same pint out of the fridge that couldn’t possibly be good anymore.
Nikita braced his hands on the edge of the sink and stared at his own reflection a moment, water dripping off his chin, darkening the chest of his plain black t-shirt. He’d put his jacket on, the soft, faded denim one with the Romanov patch, the one whose collar Sasha liked to scent out of instinct. Ready to leave the club; ready to go out front and meet the woman he’d told to wait for them.
Sasha’s heart knocked hard against his ribs. “Nikita,” he tried again. “This is a bad idea.”
Nik turned to look at him then, finally, his gaze eerily flat. “It was your idea,” he said, with a note of accusation.
“Yes.” Nikita must be able to hear his pulse, the awful throbbing of it, so forceful it hurt, made it hard to breathe. “I thought that you might…you’ve been very…” He didn’t want to say it, the words foul-tasting on the back of his tongue.
“It was your idea,” Nikita repeated, firmer, jaw clenched tight. “You want to have some fun? Want me to show you the ropes?”
He could see it all too vividly: clothes crumpled on the floor, a tangle of sweaty limbs, and the scent and sound of someone who wasn’t pack, who wasn’t even a friend, in Nik’s bed. In the place where Sasha offered his throat, and held his best friend as shivers wracked him; where they clung, and swallowed down things they should have said seventy-seven years ago.
Nikita had a woman every now and then, and, occasionally, a man, his jaw always tight afterward, like it was now. But Sasha was never there for that. He would send him off with a shaky smile, and a sip of blood, wanting to ensure that he stayed well in control of himself, that he didn’t do anything he’d regret.
But now Nik wanted them to be together. To take that woman home. To–
He swallowed convulsively against a surge of bile in his throat. He was madly, desperately afraid for that to happen, and he didn’t even know why.
(Don’t you, though? a mocking voice in the back of his mind asked. You know.)
“It’s been weeks since you fed properly,” he said, aiming for reasonable, though his voice trembled. “If you want to – want to go home with her. Just. Let me feed you, first.” He reached to unzip his jacket with an unsteady hand. Adrenaline chased through him, chilling him. He didn’t want to send him off, no – stay, please, just come home and stay with me, and talk to me, and let me touch you again, he wanted to say. But he wanted to be fed from, so badly; wanted the heat and weight of bodies pressed flush together, the prick of the fangs, Nik’s breath hot as it fanned across his skin, as he panted, greedy – needing Sasha. He wanted to be needed.
“I’m not feeding from you,” Nikita said, turning away, head hanging down between his shoulders. Hands bloodless where he gripped the sink. Wet hair flopping back over his forehead. He looked at the verge of something – smelled like it, too. Tense, and frantic, and sweating.
“Nikita, you need–”
“I said no!”
Sasha reeled back. The words, the tone, hit him like a slap. “Why not?”
Nikita breathed raggedly, the sound bouncing off the porcelain below.
“Why not?” Sasha repeated, and the back of his neck prickled, hackles raising. His wolf pressed up close to his skin, riled. “The drugs are gone. I won’t make you sick. You already are sick,” he said, voice hardening. Anger bled through his despair, and he latched onto it, glad of its strength. “You’ll end up biting that poor woman, and it’ll be my fault because–”
Nikita’s head whipped around, pale eyes narrow, blazing, teeth bared. “Because I can’t control myself?”
“You can barely stand!”
As if to prove otherwise, Nikita straightened his arms, and drew himself upright. He held onto the sink, though. Bared his teeth in a grimace. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. And you’ll be furious with yourself if you hurt an innocent mortal. Here.” He shrugged off his jacket, and laid it over the neighboring sink. Tipped his head to the side, exposing his throat. “Have a drink, and–”
“I will not use you!” Nikita shouted, a growl punching out of him that rattled the mirrors on the wall. It echoed through the cold, empty room. As did the silence that followed.
Sasha finally sucked in a breath when his lungs started to hurt, staring at his friend’s face, the pain etched into it, his elongated fangs.
It hurt to breathe, and his voice came out small. “Is that what you think? Really? After all this time? That you’re using me?”
Two hectic spots of color bloomed along Nik’s sharp cheekbones, and he turned away, hanging his head again, ashamed. “I drink your blood,” he growled, rough and low. “I take your life into my body. There’s not another word for it but use.”
“Nik.” Sasha ached. “I’m a wolf. I was meant to give you blood.”
Nikita shook his head.
Sasha stepped in closer, hand hovering, afraid to touch – it broke his heart, that fear, but he didn’t push through it, not now, not when he felt as if they were poised on a precipice. “I am. This is what we are. We take care of each other.” We need each other, he meant, but didn’t say. “You came to get me, in Virginia, when–” His voice caught. “Why won’t you let me help you? Why do you keep pushing me away?”
Silence stretched. So long that Sasha wilted back, hand falling to his side. Why couldn’t they get past this? Why were they stuck in this terrible limbo? Nikita had always felt such guilt, but he’d at least let Sasha try and soothe it; let him be close; would let him sit in his lap, and stroke his hair, and allow their bond to ease the tension in his limbs.
But since Virginia it had only been distance. And coldness. And this ever-widening chasm that Sasha didn’t know how to span.
“Nik,” he said again, helpless.
Nikita shook his head, water droplets flying off the ends of his hair, and finally stepped back from the sink, smoothing his hair back with both hands. He trembled all over. Exhaled. “If you want to fuck that woman, she’s probably still outside.”
The crudeness of the statement sent Sasha back a step. “Is that…is that what you want?”
Nik looked at him, gaze gone flat, disinterested. “Did you not mean to share her?”
Another step back. Sasha felt like he was being goaded. This wasn’t Nik, not at all. He hated this. But he wanted to help his friend. If this was the way to do it…to span some of that distance…
“Whatever you want,” he said. “But you must feed first.” On that he was firm.
Nikita drew breath to respond–
And the bathroom door swung open. The woman poked her head inside, expression caught between invitation and question. They’d left her waiting a long time, and she was starting to wonder.
“You guys about ready to go?” she asked, smile widening, affected.
Nikita turned to look at her. “Yeah. Coming.”
Sasha could admit that she was pleasant. And beautiful. And that she’d been perfectly polite, and that he had been the one to initiate all of this; that she was merely accepting an invitation. And on some level, Sasha found her alluring. In a way.
But when Nikita looked at her, Sasha saw red.
And finally, finally, he placed the emotion that had been hounding him all night: jealousy. He was wildly, furiously jealous when he thought of Nikita having sex with this woman.
A tin
y explosion unfolded in his brain. An avalanche of years’ worth of realizations, tackling him all at once. He’d always wanted Nikita; he’d never shied from his own urges and emotions. But he’d never let that steer him before; had never actively felt hostile toward anyone on the receiving end of Nikita’s attraction.
Virginia had brought some things into focus for both of them, it seemed.
But if Nik wanted this…
A phone trilled.
After a moment, it became clear that it was Nikita’s.
“Shit,” he muttered, fishing it out, and Sasha didn’t miss the way he swayed, off-balance, weak and in need of blood and food. “It’s Trina,” he said, reading the screen.
Sasha could have kissed her. “Maybe some other time,” he told the woman with an apologetic smile.
~*~
When a man’s intended hook-up was interrupted by business, one probably wasn’t supposed to feel relief. But Nikita did.
They walked from the club to the hospital in silence. He felt Sasha’s eyes on him, darted glances; felt the wolf’s emotional upheaval, the taint of stress and anger on the air, and something even sourer, like grief, almost.
Nikita was tangled, too. Relieved, mostly, because though the woman was pretty, and he might have, on another night, taken up her ready offer on his own, the idea of sharing Sasha with her left him sicker than he already was. Most of his energy went toward keeping upright, keeping steady, not keeling over. His pulse beat high and thready in his ears, and the edges of his vision flickered; if he didn’t eat, and soon, he’d do a header on the sidewalk.
But the thought of Sasha in ecstasy with someone else…
“We’re here,” Sasha said, and touched his arm, and Nikita realized he’d almost run right into the brick wall of the building.
“Oh. Right.”
Sasha pulled his hand away, and it was a loss.
They went around the back, through the dark loading dock where there always seemed to be puddles, no matter the weather, and pressed the buzzer at the heavy steel door beneath the one flickering security light.
“Yeah?” Dr. Harvey’s voice came through scratchy, uncertain.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 3
