Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4)

by Lauren Gilley

  “She pestered us,” Nik whispered back, turning his own head, so their cheeks pressed together, briefly, and sent a delightful thrill through Sasha’s veins.

  When they turned back to Trina, together, she’d cocked a single brow, and was smirking at them.

  “Don’t be smug,” Nik said, sourly.

  “Don’t be adorable,” she shot back.

  Sasha had to laugh.

  Nik rolled his eyes; but his shoulder pressed warm and firm into Sasha’s.

  Sasha felt giddy. He wanted to throw his head back and howl, a joyful, full moon cry of celebration. Nikita was being prickly, because he was prickly about everything; because emotions were vulnerabilities in his mind, and he didn’t like looking vulnerable in front of anyone – in front of anyone who wasn’t Sasha. But he wasn’t denying; wasn’t pretending things were the same; wasn’t pulling away from Sasha’s arm against his own, and Sasha could be endlessly patient with any amount of prickliness, so long as this was real, and Nikita returned his love.

  “We’ll find Gustav,” Nikita said, firmly. “Leave that part to us. You can try to keep your human police from getting into something they can’t handle.”

  “I love how you think I can somehow control all of the ‘human police.’”

  “You can try,” Nik said, some of the confidence coming back to his voice, returning her smirk now, the shape of their mouths the same.

  “Ass,” she said, warmly.

  Nikita breathed a laugh. He caught Sasha’s hand in his own, gave it a quick, hard, reassuring squeeze, then stepped away so he could dig out another cigarette. “Where is Lanny?” he asked.

  She shrugged, and it looked too casual. Forced. “Dunno. Nobody tells me shit.”

  Oh no, Sasha thought, and started to respond, to reassure her, when he caught Lanny’s scent. Close and coming closer, blown around the corner by the breeze. “He’s here,” he said instead.

  Sure enough, Lanny rounded the corner a moment later, dressed as he usually was for work, in jeans, a plain dark shirt, and his thick leather jacket. Badge on his belt.

  He had a whole mess of healing bruises down one side of his face.

  “Hmm,” Nik hummed, and blew out a long plume of smoke.

  Trina hadn’t been slouching, exactly, but she straightened. A slight movement, a stiffening of her spine, and the way Lanny’s gaze snapped to her, as he approached them, told Sasha he’d noticed it.

  “I got your text,” Lanny said with a casual wave. He put his hands in his pockets afterward, and drew to a halt on the damp concrete of the loading bay below the platform. Tipped his head up to look at them, gaze flicking briefly toward the two of them.

  Sasha knew when he caught the change in their scents. The new way they overlapped. He knew from his time spent with Fulk and Annabel le Strange that mated pairs smelled different; like they lived in each other’s skin. He didn’t know if it was the same for a vampire and wolf pair. But sex was one of the hardest scents to scrub off.

  Lanny sensed it, judging by the way his eyes widened, and the way a sideways grin slowly tugged at his mouth. “Hey, guys,” he said, and Sasha knew right away that his tone, all cat-with-the-canary, would get Nik’s hackles bristling.

  Nik gave a quick, sharp growl, and blew more smoke. “Where’ve you been, shithead?”

  “Where’ve you been?” Lanny countered.

  “Do you remember,” Nikita said with deadly calm, “what happened the last time we fought?”

  It hadn’t been a fight, really. More of a choking out.

  Lanny chuckled. “Dude, don’t be so sensitive. Congrats! Sasha, kid, congrats, man. I don’t know about this shithead, but you deserve it.”

  Sasha tried to smother a laugh in his hand, but of course Nik heard, and shot him a dirty look over his shoulder.

  Trina said, “What happened to your face?” And all the humor drained out of the situation.

  “Oh. I. Uh.” Lanny cleared his throat, and winced. “Kinda got mugged.”

  “Mugged,” she said, without inflection.

  “Yeah.” Pained smile. “I was with the guys; ran down to the bodega to grab more Gatorade after our workout. Ran into these four vamps, and, uh, they were big.”

  “Vampires mugged you,” Nikita said with disdain.

  “Well, not very well,” Lanny countered. He touched his face. “Left a mark, though. We sent ‘em on their way, but they had our scent.” He turned to Trina, then, expression going earnest. “I didn’t want to lead them back to your place in case they were tracking me.”

  “You didn’t call,” she said. Her tone was that careful kind, without inflection, one that hinted at incandescent anger kept in rigid check. A tone that had the potential to herald disaster.

  “Yeah…” His hand shifted to the back of his neck; a blush was coming up beneath his bruises. “I was…unconscious?”

  “You don’t know if you were unconscious? Jamie couldn’t call and tell me?”

  “I…”

  She blew out a breath and said, “Whatever. Glad you’re okay.” That sounded grudging. “There’s another vic. Not ours, but chewed up all to hell. Nik says it’s Gustav and the ferals again.”

  “Shit,” Lanny said. “I guess–”

  His and Trina’s phones went off at the same time.

  Saved by the bell, Sasha thought.

  “Dispatch,” Trina said, after she’d checked hers. “We’ve got a case.” She lifted her head. “I’ll talk to you guys later. Keep me posted?”

  “We will,” Nikita said, grinding out his cig.

  She nodded and started to walk for the stairs. She paused, though, and stepped in to give Sasha a hug – one he returned warmly, heart glad. “Good for you,” she whispered as she drew back.

  She sent Nik a grin. “I’d hug you, too, Gramps, but I know you won’t like it.”

  Nikita grumbled, but blushed, smile threatening. He turned to watch her leave; watched her go around the corner with Lanny, a gap longer than a handspan between the two of them.

  Then he turned to Sasha. “He’s lying.”

  Sasha sighed. “So is she. It’s very much not ‘whatever.’”

  14

  Jamie looked nothing less than suspicious when, after breakfast, Alexei washed and put away all the dishes, pulled on his jacket, and said, “I’m going out for a little while.” He didn’t ask where he was going, though, which was good – Alexei wouldn’t have told him, and the refusal would have left Jamie even more sullen.

  Something was going to have to be done about him. Plainly, he wasn’t going to be content waltzing through eternity, aimless and pleasure-seeking, like regular vampires.

  The day had dawned sunny, but clouds were rolling in now over the building tops, the morning turning cold and overcast. A breeze tumbled bits of paper trash, and pulled at the hems of coats. The air was a riot of scents, the humid promise of oncoming rain the strongest. It left Alexei feeling…unsettled. More so than expected.

  He was grateful to duck into the old building and head down the ladder to Nameless.

  The werewolf doorman gave him a look, but opened the door wordlessly; Alexei privately wondered if he was mute.

  The bar wasn’t empty; it never was. Alexei spotted Dante in his usual booth, a girl sitting on either side of him. And near the back noted a few loners: a vampire and a wolf, sitting at separate tables. No sign of Gustav.

  But the wolf, a female drinking beer and paging through a magazine, smelled like his bound Familiar.

  Ah, he thought, and headed that direction.

  Her head lifted slowly when his shadow fell across her table, and she arched her brows, expression otherwise bored. “What?”

  He put on his best courtly smile. “Good morning.” His mother’s crisp British accent, without a hint of Russian. The accent of his homeland, he’d noticed over time, came out when he was in a state of high emotion – or when he was around other Russians. “I hate to overstep, but I think – I think – you might be able t
o help me. I’m looking for Gustav.”

  She stared at him a moment, expressionless, then snorted and looked back down at her magazine: motorcycles, he saw. “He’s not here.”

  “So I’ve noticed. But I thought perhaps, you being his Familiar–”

  Her head snapped up, gaze narrow this time, openly hostile.

  “–you might be able to put me in contact with him.” Hopeful lilt at the end, still smiling through his mounting unease.

  “Like I said, Gustav’s not here,” she said. “And I’m not giving his number to some fancy little prince shithead.”

  She knew who he was, then. He swallowed. “That’s an impertinent way for a wolf to speak to a vampire, don’t you think?”

  “This isn’t the Old Country.” She put a dramatic, offensive fake accent on the words. “Beat it, fancy pants.”

  For a moment, he was swamped with rage. It swept through him like a tide, red as the blood on the basement floor the night his family was slaughtered; black as the bruises that still sometimes swelled beneath his skin, that had crippled him as a human boy. How dare she, he thought, and for that moment of radiant anger, he wasn’t the vampire that bummed around Manhattan, couch surfing and occasionally turning a promising lover. He was Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of all the Russias, heir to the empire, and he ought to kill this insufferable peasant for her insolence.

  Quick as it came, the rage was gone, leaving him feeling helpless and wrongfooted as the child he’d been when that old life had died. His hands curled to fists, and he turned away from her, mentally berating himself. No wonder Nikita was the de facto leader of their little dysfunctional pack: Alexei couldn’t even command respect from–

  “Lex,” a voice called, when he was almost to the door.

  He pulled up short and realized he was right beside Dante’s table. Dante was grinning at him over the rims of his perpetual sunglasses, and the women, cozied up at the vampire’s sides, looked at Alexei with an experienced, heavy-lidded sort of consideration. They might have been compelled.

  Bristling with unhappy energy, his errand derailed, Alexei realized he was very, very open to suggestion all of a sudden. “What?” he asked, voice snapping.

  Dante laughed, flashing his fangs. “Jesus, you’re wound tight. I was gonna ask if you wanted to join us, but now I think I’m gonna insist.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Dante flicked the tip of his tongue over a fang, and despite the excess of hair product, and the terrible shirt, he was more than handsome when he smiled like that. He knew it, too. “Oh, you won’t.”

  And he didn’t.

  ~*~

  “You want something to drink?” the blond asked, putting on a little show as she slipped out of bed and got to her feet. The curtains were open, and sunlight glinted off her nipple piercings. Her mascara was smudged, and she didn’t look unhappy about it, patting absently at her wrecked hair. She didn’t seem to notice the two small puncture wounds at her throat, already clotted from saliva. A few words from Alexei had seen to that oversight.

  “No, sweetheart, I’m good,” Dante said, flopping back onto his pillow with a contented sigh. “You girls help yourselves, though. Fridge is fully stocked.”

  She gave them a smile, then went to join her dark-haired friend at the bedroom doorway. Naked, they went down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Dante reached over and slapped Alexei lightly on the stomach. “Still frowning, huh?”

  He was. Up at the ceiling, now that the girls had gone, still loose-limbed, and sweaty, still catching his breath. But still unsettled, too.

  When he didn’t respond, Dante sighed and sat up to get a cigarette from his nightstand. “Want one?”

  “Please.”

  Dante rustled around, the lighter clicking twice; little sharp inhales. He settled back a moment later, on his side, propped on an elbow, and set a crystal ashtray on the mattress between them, an already-lit cigarette held out in offering.

  Alexei accepted it with a murmured thanks and took a slow drag.

  “You were looking for Gustav,” Dante observed, tone deceptively casual. He wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t half as suave as the ladies seemed to think he was.

  “I was.”

  “Why?”

  Alexei twisted onto his side, mirroring Dante’s posture braced on one elbow, so he could tap his ash into the tray.

  Dante’s hair had gotten hopelessly mussed, strands clumped and greasy with pomade hanging down past his ears, framing his face.

  “You shouldn’t put so much shit in your hair,” Alexei said. “It would look nice if you just left it be.”

  Dante raked it back with the hand holding his cig, grinning sharply. Self-consciousness glimmered in his eyes, though, poorly disguised. “You just gonna avoid the question?”

  “Someone I know is pissed at him,” Alexei said. “I wanted to get his side of things.”

  Dante snorted. “Everybody’s usually pissed at Gustav. Your friend’s gonna have to get in line.”

  Alexei worked to keep his expression bland. He’d come home with Dante and today’s diversions thinking that, even though his morning had been a bust, he might as well have a little fun. But perhaps it would prove more useful than that. “Everybody?” he asked. “How so?”

  “Oh, you know. Guys like him are always making enemies.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  Dante’s gaze – drifting lazily – flicked back to him, and then held, narrowing. He took a thoughtful drag and turned his head to exhale the smoke, eyes staying pinned to Alexei’s. “What’s this really about?”

  “I already told you.” His pulse gave a little bump. He was a terrible liar; always had been.

  All traces of his grin gone, Dante studied him a moment. Tipped his head to the side. “Who’s your friend? The one who’s pissed?”

  Alexei shrugged. “Nobody special.”

  “Liar.” A hint of a smile returned. “I heard you the other night, you know, talking to Gustav at the bar. You know Nikita Baskin.”

  Oh, shit.

  “What is he, a celebrity or something?” Alexei grumbled, sucking down the last of his cigarette and stubbing it out.

  “Kinda, yeah. Guy goes around killing vampires for fun or something. Word gets around. Speaking of.” He pressed his hand over his heart, dramatically. “You’re not his little apprentice or something, are you, Lex?”

  “Ugh. No. Fuck you.”

  Dante gave a facial shrug. “Can if you want. Or we can do it the other way. Whatever.”

  Alexei rolled over onto his back with a groan, fluffy pillow cupping around his head. He made a mental note to ask where Dante had bought them. “He doesn’t do it for fun,” he said, before he could register the thought forming. It caught him by surprise.

  “Who doesn’t what now?” Dante asked, shifting closer, so he could look down at his face. His expression was relaxed.

  “Nikita Baskin. He doesn’t kill other vampires for fun.”

  “So it’s a compulsion, then? He’s a serial killer?”

  “No.” He made a frustrated sound, and smoothed away another frown when he felt it forming. “It’s – he thinks it’s honorable. He’s all about honor, that one.” Despite being a fucking Chekist, he reminded himself grimly. “He kills vampires who are killing or turning humans. The ones who hurt people.”

  “The ones who bring willing ladies home to their lairs?”

  “No, don’t be stupid.”

  Dante chuckled. “Will you protect me if he changes his mind about that?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Oh, lighten up.” Dante stubbed out his cigarette and then set his fingertips lightly against Alexei’s sternum. Drew aimless patterns there, skating out to the sides, toward his nipples, but not touching them. “I’ve never seen someone so tense after coming. Is it really as bad as all that? What does Nikita Baskin want with…” His hand stilled, and his eyes widened. “…Gustav?” he finished, looking like he’d already fi
gured it out.

  Damn it, Alexei had said far too much. He could stop now, get up, get dressed, and leave – stop digging the damn hole – or he could see just how much Dante knew.

  “Does Gustav kill humans?” he asked.

  “I’m sure he does. That shouldn’t be a surprise.”

  “Does he…he doesn’t sic his wolves on people, does he? Kill them that way?”

  Dante looked surprised again. “Shit. What’s been going on?” His hand flattened out on Alexei’s chest, and it almost felt like a gesture of caring concern.

  Dangerous, that.

  “I don’t know.” He tried to sound flippant, but was afraid it came out worried. “Humans keep being eaten. Torn apart by wolves. The crime scenes stink of ferals and Gustav’s wolf, Hannah.”

  “Christ,” Dante said, sounding truly worried for the first time. “There’s having a snack” – he tipped his head toward the door, toward the two women in the kitchen they’d fed from – “and then there’s eating people. Nikita wants a word, huh?”

  “More than that. I haven’t agreed to help him,” he said with a sniff.

  Dante grinned. “Yeah, but you’re gonna, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You know.” Dante shifted, getting up on his knees. “For a prince.” His grin became mischievous, and he swung a leg over Alexei’s hips, so he straddled him. “You’re awful gloomy.”

  “Princes are gloomy,” Alexei huffed, but interest stirred in his belly.

  Dante leaned down into his face, laughing. He smelled like sex, and fresh blood, and smoke. He smoothed both hands across Alexei’s chest. “Prove you can have a little fun, and then we’ll talk about Gustav, if you want.”

  Alexei scoffed. “Fun? What do you call what the four of us just did?”

  “I call it lunch with a side of handjobs. Now I wanna fuck.” He leaned down and kissed Alexei roughly, with fangs, and Alexei didn’t think about Gustav much after that.

  ~*~

  When they finally came up for air, the angle of the sun had changed, and the women, and their clothes, were gone. One had left a Post-It note stuck to the fridge, a pair of phone numbers with a little smiley face in the corner. Dante flicked it with a fingertip before he opened the freezer in search of ice.