Nik growled.
It was low, and probably passed for human, but Sasha kicked him again.
“Stop that. Be mad as you like, but you know the only way to prevent that from happening.”
“No,” Nik said again, cold now, and sat back, averted his gaze. Like the matter was decided.
“Why won’t you at least consider it?”
He folded his arms. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sasha knew a sudden urge to laugh at the childish absurdity of the pose. Big baby, he thought fondly.
“Well,” he said, “if Gustav doesn’t want that, then why call off the hunt?” When Nik didn’t respond, he let some of the carefully checked hurt bleed into his voice. “You really won’t tell me? You’re just going to keep secrets?”
The words hit Nik like a slap. The frown was blasted away, leaving wide eyes, and a slack mouth, shock and vulnerability.
Sasha offered a smile. Tipped his head imploringly. “I just…I thought we were being...” Honest, he didn’t say. “But I don’t – I won’t pressure you. You don’t have to tell me.”
Nikita stared at him a long moment, face uncharacteristically open. Emotion writ in every line. Then he exhaled, and he seemed to sink down deeper in his chair. Defeated – but looking relieved for it. “You’re right. We should – I should – be honest.” He traced nervous fingertips along the table’s edge, but met Sasha’s gaze, his own still unguarded. “Colette says he owns a bar. A bar for immortals. That he’s well-liked. And she thinks, for some reason, that he’s very powerful, and has important connections.”
Sasha let that sink in. “There’s…a bar?”
“Apparently.”
“Why haven’t we ever heard of it?”
Nik tipped his head, and smiled faintly. “We aren’t exactly a part of the immortal community.”
“No,” Sasha agreed. “And what sorts of important connections?”
“I’ve got no idea.” He frowned, but thoughtfully this time, and took a sip of his drink. “That’s what I can’t figure out.”
“It isn’t like there’s any sort of – secret vampire society.”
“Not that we know of.”
A disturbing thought.
“Still,” Sasha said, “powerful or not, we’re–” He flexed one arm dramatically, and Nikita smothered a laugh into his hand, playing it off as a cough. “You don’t back down,” he said more seriously. “It might be smart to leave Trina and the others out of it, but I’m surprised you want to stop.” When Nik didn’t respond right away, he said, “Nik, what did Colette say to you?”
“That I needed to leave this alone. ‘Mind my own business,’ she said.”
Sasha felt his brows go up. “She thinks he’s that powerful?”
“She thinks I’m going to get myself killed. And – and she’s right that I have more important things to worry about.”
“Like what?” Sasha said, stupidly, and earned the quirk of a single brow in answer. “Oh,” he said, face heating. “Me?” he guessed, hopefully.
“Yes, you.” Small, but wonderful smile. “You. Always you. Maybe…” He contemplated his knuckles. “Maybe it’s time I stopped trying to look after the whole damn world.” His gaze lifted again, bold, intense through the dark screen of his lashes. “And just look after my own world.”
Sasha sucked in a breath. “Oh.” His cheeks started to tingle, he was blushing so hard. “Should we, um.” He gestured to the food between them. “Take this to go.”
“Yeah.” He swore Nik started purring. “We should.”
~*~
When Trina got back from her walk – because she was taking one, by God – Lanny was long gone, and she sank down into her chair just before her shaking legs gave out.
She wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t. Except she’d felt fear, out on the steps, as his pupils had narrowed to slits, and his fangs had shown, and he’d growled on every breath. He’d barred her path, and told her she couldn’t leave. The fucking audacity.
But some part of her had believed that he might use force. She would have never believed that of Human Lanny. And just thinking that phrase – Human Lanny – revealed that, despite her insistence to the contrary, she didn’t think of him the way she had before his turning. He was a vampire now, and something about that had sent her hand to the butt of her gun.
She wasn’t proud of herself.
But she was furious with him. How dare he?
(How dare he spook her like that?)
So deep in her thoughts, she startled hard when Delgado stopped beside her desk and asked her a question.
“Whoa,” he said, when she slapped her hands down on her desk and sucked in a breath. God knew what her eyes looking like. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
He frowned.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
His brows jumped. Whatever you say. “I asked where Webb is. Thought I saw him here earlier.”
“He had to leave. Wasn’t feeling well.”
“That sketchy-looking hotdog stand, right?” He patted his own stomach with a grimace. “Been there.” He headed off. “Next time you see him, tell him to answer my texts. Wanna see if he’s down for poker night next week.”
“Sure,” she said, over her shoulder. Poker? she thought savagely. He won’t even go see his own mother.
She glanced at her computer screen, touched the mouse to wake it up. Their most recent case was pulled up, the one she’d thought as ordinary and dull. The one that had seemed like a roadblock to the mystery of the feral werewolves savaging pedestrians. A man had died, and she’d gone to investigate, and she’d decided it was boring.
Disgusted with herself, she shoved thoughts of Lanny aside, pulled up the list of calls she needed to make, and got back to work.
She lost herself in it, the way she tended to, running leads down until she could cross them off with definite marks in red pen, arranging with Harvey to come see the autopsy the next day; looked back through her other open cases, searching for important tidbits she might have missed earlier, following up with witnesses. She was aware of other detectives coming and going, lifted a hand when they spoke to her. But when someone said, “Trina?” and she lifted her head, she realized hours had passed. It was nighttime out beyond the tall, pre-war windows, and she was one of only three detectives still at work.
Jamie stood at the end of her desk, working his hands together, expression worried.
“Hey,” she said, easing back in her chair, suddenly aware that her back ached and that her eyestrain was making him blurry at the edges. “What’s up?”
“I…” He took a deep breath and linked his fingers; squeezed his hands until his knuckles went white. “Okay,” he said on a gusty exhale. “I didn’t want to do this. It feels wrong.”
“Jamie,” she said, worry needling past her fatigue. “What is it?”
“It’s Lanny. It’s what he’s been doing. I think you need to come see.”
~*~
They ended up spreading the books out on the floor when they ran out of room at the desk. A few dense history texts, but mostly the leather-bound scrapbooks that Dante himself had put together back when he’d been Basil. Old photos pasted in carefully, little triangles of paper pinning down the corners, and his own elegant, loopy cursive notes about them. There were pages of just writing; detailed lists of meetings with the photographs’ subjects, and the anecdotes they’d relayed about other relatives.
Dante let Alexei turn the pages, his long, pale fingers twitching in his lap like a parent who’d handed their baby over to someone less careful.
“I can’t believe this,” Alexei said for the fifth time, turning another page and confronting his own nine-year-old face. He was wearing a miniature sailor’s costume, aboard the Standart with his tutor Monsieur Gilliard. “Would you have ever told me? If today hadn’t happened like it did?”
When he checked, Dante had bitten his lip. “I wanted to tell you.”
“Hey,” he huffed, affronted. “I have an image to maintain.”
Alexei stared at him.
“An immortal who was only turned twenty years ago, who uses his powers to fuck and day drink, isn’t nearly as interesting to higher authorities as one with an erudite memory who was once employed by the Queen of England.”
“You have a point.”
“Besides.” He drew his robe tighter around his throat, as if warding off a chill. “I think Gustav is beginning to suspect that I know things.”
“What sorts of things?”
“He asked me about you.”
“What did you tell him?” Alexei asked, and heard the imperious note in his voice. It was automatic, a reflex, something of which he’d had possession since birth. A person could live however he liked, but being born into monarchy wasn’t something he could ever shake.
“Only that you had quite the appetite, in more ways than one.” Dante lifted his head to a self-defensive angle. “He lost interest when I went into details about our orgies.”
“Orgies?” Alexei choked a little. “I don’t think us and a few girls counts as an orgy.”
Dante lifted a brow.
Less certain: “Does it?”
“Well, it doesn’t count as boring, unless you’re a wily bar owner looking for a different kind of juicy gossip.”
Alexei had the urge to tighten his own robe as well, but resisted. “You’re sure you never told him anything important?”
“Lex, I swear.”
“But he knows who I am.”
“Like I said: you look like your parents. And you haven’t exactly been…secretive…about your ancestry.”
He winced. There had been a time or two, in the last decades, when he’d maybe bragged a little. Used his name for clout. Back when he’d thought his human identity would sway immortal kind. And vampires did love to gossip, perhaps even worse than people; they had longer, more stable memories, anyway. “You might have another point.”
“What I’ve not been able to figure out,” Dante said, gesturing to his centuries’ worth of work, “is why you and your family matters to Gustav. Nor have I had any success in figuring out who he is. And more and more, I think he might be someone.”
Not a comforting thought.
“We know he’s German,” Alexei said.
“Or so he says. I’m proof positive that accents can be affected and adopted, and names can be changed.”
Alexei swallowed.
“As discreetly as I’ve been able, I’ve asked around about him, and no one has a clue where he’s come from: not what city, and not which century.”
“He probably has his reasons for wanting to start over with a new identity. You did.”
“Yes.” Dante smiled sympathetically. “But I also haven’t been siccing a wolf on innocent humans, either.”
Alexei’s next breath was shaky. “Yeah. Damn. I really hate when Nikita is right.”
Dante grinned. “I’m starting to think I’d enjoy meeting him.”
“He wouldn’t like you.”
“I can be very charming.”
“Charm has zero effect on him. Unless you’re a blond Russian werewolf named Sasha.”
“Ooh, now I’m immensely curious.”
Alexei’s stomach rumbled, and he realized he was starving. He lifted his head, and realized it was dark beyond the window. Shit, how many hours had he spent? Many, if the numbness in his ass and legs was any indication. His third, and perhaps most important realization, was that he’d spent all day poring over history books with Dante, and that he might, during that time, have made a friend.
Speaking of friends…
“Shit. Lanny,” he muttered, getting to his feet. Which were full of pins and needles, so he staggered a bit, and Dante held out his hands as if to catch him. “What time is it?”
“Um.” Dante peered up at the clock on the desk. “Just after nine.”
“Shit. I have to go.”
Dante stood with his own degree of difficulty, robe settling around his long legs, brows notched. “Why? What’s the matter?”
“There’s a thing I have to go to. For a friend.”
“What sort of thing?” Dante asked, with the air of someone who wouldn’t be shaken off easily.
“It’s a fight. The matches over behind the old Brooks building.”
“Oh.” Clearly, Dante had heard of them. His eyes went wide. “Your friend is fighting there?”
He was so openly curious that Alexei turned away, and headed back toward the master bedroom, where his clothes still lay crumpled on the floor. “He’s more of my–” he said, over his shoulder, wincing to himself “–my offspring. As it were.”
“Someone you turned?” Dante hurried along after him, sounding fascinated. “Who is it?”
“You don’t know him.” He shrugged out of his robe, tossed it over the still-rumpled bed, and fished his underwear off the floor.
“Well. Perhaps I could.”
When he’d tugged the boxer-briefs into place, Alexei looked toward him, and found him with fingertips drumming together, looking hopeful. “You want to come with me?” he asked, skeptical.
“Well…yes. I do.”
He debated a moment, as he stepped into his jeans. The risks were few, he decided, except perhaps to Dante, who Nikita might take an instant disliking to and threaten in some way.
That’s not fair, his conscience whispered.
Then there was the issue of furthering the intimacy that he and Dante had begun to establish today. Did he introduce him to the pack? And how? He’d never had so many consistent connections as he did now, and, frankly, he wasn’t sure what to make of them.
In the end, it was Dante’s hopefulness that decided him. The way he looked, tousled, and tired-eyed, but with his lips pressed together and a blush coming up in his cheeks; like a child on the verge of bouncing on his toes.
“Fine,” he said, and Dante actually clapped.
17
“Just a second!” Nikita called after she knocked on the apartment door, and it was a long moment before he came and opened it. He was out of breath, his face flushed in a way it never was, his mouth a little swollen and damp. “What?” he asked in response to her expression, too winded to scowl properly.
“Your hair,” she said.
He smoothed it ineffectually with one hand and waved them in with the other.
Sasha was on the couch, loose-limbed and sprawled, though he drew upright as they entered; there had been hands in his hair, and his cheeks blazed with high color.
Jamie cleared his throat and looked toward the TV – which was off, and not even a good distraction.
Trina didn’t feel like sparing them. “Hey, guys,” she drawled. “Been busy?”
Sasha laughed and ducked his head, blushing furiously.
Nikita shrugged and tried to play it cool, which just made him look ridiculous. “Oh, you know…”
“I think I do know.”
He sighed. “Why are you here?”
That sobered her up quick. “Jamie told me what Lanny’s been up to. It’s not good. I thought – if you were willing – it might be good to have backup.”
“A cop needs backup?”
She suppressed a shiver. “This time? Yeah, I think I might.”
~*~
“You’re late,” Lanny said when Alexei finally showed up, cheeks red from the cold, winded from hurrying. Then he noticed he wasn’t alone. He growled. “Who’s that?”
“Dante,” Alexei said, hooking a thumb toward the stranger.
Dante – and what kinda douchebag name was that? – was tall, leggy, and dressed in a black satin bomber jacket over a floral-print shirt, dark hair slicked way back, shiny and stiff as a helmet. He offered a little wave. “Hey.”
Vampire.
Lanny growled again, and showed his fangs.
“Stop that,” Alexei said, ma
tter-of-fact, and Lanny felt the sharp nudge of his sire’s magic pushing against his own. A forceful shove of his ability to compel. It didn’t work – not the way it would have on a human – but it shocked Lanny into silence. “Dante’s a friend. He wants to help with our Gustav problem.”
“You told him?”
“He’s trustworthy.” But Alexei cast a glance back at the guy like he was only hoping that was true.
Lanny gave him a displeased glare – both of them – but decided, ultimately, that he didn’t care. Bigger fish to fry. “The big one’s not here yet.”
“Big one what?”
Another glare. “The guy I fought last night. The one who cleaned my fucking clock.” He had to spit on the ground afterward, the words tasted so bad. “He’s on the list, though.”
“And drawing most of the wagers, I’d guess,” Alexei said. “Alright. So?”
“So I’m gonna beat him this time.”
“And how are you going to manage that?”
He didn’t like being doubted, especially when he already doubted himself. “I’ll think of something.”
Alexei sighed. “You know thinking’s not your strong suit.”
Lanny bared his fangs and hissed at him.
“You’re angry, at least. I’ll give you that.”
“Shut up and go place the bets.”
“Fine, fine.” He and his friend – and since when did he have friends? – walked off toward the table, and Lanny bent down to lace up his shoes.
He felt it when the other vampire walked into the courtyard. Scented him, and had an immediate physical reaction, adrenaline flooding his veins, his fangs pressing long against his lip, a growl building in his throat. Rival. Enemy. Instinctual labels that came from his gut and not his mind. He had the prehistoric urge to bite, claw, maim, kill.
He lifted his head, and his gaze went straight toward him. As hulking as Lanny remembered, ugly and mean-faced. Without question, he’d been turned because of his size and no doubt an urge to violence. A vampire soldier. But whose? And why had he been made in the first place?
Alexei returned. “Well, there he is,” he said glumly, and dug the tape out of Lanny’s bag. “I hope you’re happy.”
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 17
