But then Nik reminded her of what had happened the one time he and Lanny had faced off, the day Lanny had pummeled Alexei into a bloody pulp.
Nikita tugged, and the giant vampire toppled backward, off balance, landing at Nik’s feet, staring up at him in shock. Before he could gather himself, Nikita grabbed his square jaw in one hand, and squeezed, knuckles going white with the effort.
The vampire’s mouth opened on a pained gasp, and Nikita gripped tighter. The vamp’s legs kicked, and he reached up to claw at Nikita’s wrist.
Nikita leaned down, and snarled something too quiet for her to hear. When he straightened, it was with one fast, fluid movement, and he brought the other vampire with him. Threw him over his shoulder like so much garbage.
The other vamp hit the far side of the cage and collapsed in a messy sprawl.
The audience was going insane, half with wild cheering, the other with wild recriminations.
“You can’t do that!”
“Fucking cheaters!”
“Kick his ass!”
“Oh my God!”
The big vamp got up slowly, uncoordinated. His mouth hung open at an odd angle, jaw slack. Broken, Trina realized with a sick lurch. Blood poured down from his split hairline, his eyes mere slits in the puffy, bruised skin around them. He got to his knees, and then dragged himself up with help of the cage. Looked over his shoulder, once.
Nikita stared at him with every ounce of his cold Chekist fury. He said nothing, but a message was sent.
The vampire staggered out of the cage, ignoring the crowd that surged around him.
Nikita turned to help Lanny up, who weaved and stumbled, but didn’t look any worse for wear. His face, though, beneath the sweat and blood, had blanched, and he looked rattled.
She could read that look: if not for Nik, he would have been pounded into unconsciousness. Maybe worse than that.
She shuddered. The emcee looked like he might have a coronary, and people were mobbing the betting table, and it was high time they got the hell out of here.
When she glanced at Sasha, though, she found that he was still sitting, staring fixedly at the cage, gaze gone glassy. Eyes dilated, she saw, when she leaned in, pupils totally blown. Face slack, lips parted a fraction as he breathed through his mouth.
It’s not just me, she thought wryly. At least she wasn’t the only weirdo turned on by her mate’s violence.
~*~
They took Lanny back to his old apartment, the one Jamie and Alexei shared these days. He pulled on street clothes over his shorts, and washed his face with a water bottle and a cupped hand, but he wasn’t quite steady. Alexei and Jamie bracketed him, ready to catch him by the shoulders should he stumble.
Alexei’s new “friend,” Dante – and Nik would suss out that story at some point soon; he didn’t trust strangers, especially not ones cozy with Alexei – led the way, turning around every so often to walk backwards and say something to the trio behind him. Nik walked behind Lanny, keenly aware of Sasha behind him – the weight of his gaze – and of Trina beside him, walking with her arms folded, and her head down, brows drawn low.
Sasha was pulsing with energy; Nik had caught his gaze, briefly, when he’d turned from inspecting Lanny. A fast meeting of gray eyes to blue through a screen of chain link that had hit him like an electrical charge. That had happened before – before. But now that he was allowed to want, and touch, and have things, now they could do something about it.
But later. Time for that after this; after he’d cleaned up this mess that the rest of his idiot pack had started.
He took a breath that only shivered a little – Sasha could probably hear it, feel it – and turned all his attention on Trina. “Will you forgive him?”
Her head lifted, and she blinked up at him with obvious surprise. He watched her give the question thought, and then watched her shield her expression. She was nearly as good at that as he himself was. “What, you think I shouldn’t?”
He shrugged. “It’s not my place to say. Just wondering how angry you are.”
She stared at him a moment, flat, then faced forward with a sigh. “I’m furious.” He didn’t prod, and a moment later she said, “And it’s not about the fighting. He’s been doing that in some capacity his whole life. It’s who he is.” She fell silent.
“It’s because he hid it from you,” he said.
“Yeah.”
A food truck sat parked up ahead, clean light spilling from its open window out onto the sidewalk, and the faces of the eager crowd of young club-goers waiting in line. Steam wafted from a vent on its roof, scented savory, spicy, and fatty; for once, the smell of food didn’t make his stomach turn at first sniff.
“Ooh, look, it’s Lima,” Dante said, spotting it, accent firmly American again. “I’m getting some. You want some?” he asked the three walking behind them.
“What is it?” Lanny asked with obvious interest.
“Is this the truck that does the salmon tacos?” Jamie asked. “I’ve been wanting to try it…”
Nikita tuned them out, halting a few paces back as they went to join the line. Sasha bumped in close and rested his chin on his shoulder.
Trina halted beside them, too, arms still folded, chewing at her lip. Pointedly not looking at them.
“Are we disgusting?” Nik whispered to Sasha.
That got him a warm snort in his ear. “No, she’s trying to be respectful.”
“Oh.”
Trina said, “What did you say to him? That other vampire.”
“To leave us alone,” he lied. Smoothly, thank you very much, but Sasha let out a silent breath of laughter.
She sent him a narrow look. “Sure.”
“It’s like you said: not everything’s a conspiracy.”
She shook her head and glanced away. “You know the worst part?”
He kept silent, listening.
She hesitated, voice just a whisper when she finally spoke. “I don’t think any of our – our issues – are because he’s a vampire. I think we just…don’t fit. Sometimes.”
Sasha picked his head up and said, “What?” Disbelieving.
“We never had a chance to be together before he was turned. Maybe it would have worked out differently if we had…but maybe it wouldn’t.”
Sasha made a nearly inaudible sound of distress, and that wasn’t acceptable.
“Don’t be maudlin,” Nikita told her, sharper than he should have.
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she shot back.
“Exactly. Don’t be like me. Don’t worry about stupid shit when maybe a good shouting match is all you need.”
She gathered breath to respond, but then reconsidered. Hummed thoughtfully instead.
Sasha’s chin went back on his shoulder.
~*~
Eating helped. By the time they walked into the apartment, and Lanny had scarfed down five chicken tacos on the way, his dizziness had receded. He could already feel that some of the swelling in his face was down. A dull, thumping headache was setting up shop just behind his eyes, but a good night’s sleep, and a few shots of blood out of the fridge would take care of that.
The real problem, now, was Trina.
(And the horrifying personal knowledge that it had taken Nikita coming to the rescue to keep him from getting his ass handed to him.)
Alexei went to the freezer, pulled out an ice pack, and tossed it across the back of the couch to Lanny. “For your thick head,” he said, with a sideways, shit-eating grin.
“I for one was very impressed,” his new friend, Dante, said, and, okay, when had that guy become British? “You’ve a very powerful hit.” He mimed a punch.
Alexei sent him a look. “Down, boy.”
Jamie fell onto the couch with a deep exhale, like he was the one who’d fought three men – and one vampire – tonight.
“Do you have blood?” Nik asked, and went to the fridge to check. Pushy bastard. He came back out holding the clear plastic soup container Lanny
had bought from David the butcher. “How old is this?”
“Few days.”
Nikita made a face. “If you’re going to keep this much of it stocked, you’ll have to freeze it.”
“Ooh, blood smoothie,” Alexei said. “Those are delicious in the summer.”
Lanny ignored him, glaring across the room at Nik, and only partly because it was a less frightening prospect than facing Trina. “Yeah, well, not all of us live with fresh blood dispensers.” Ha, he thought, viciously, for one stupid second. And then, uh oh.
The fridge door fell shut with a slap as Nik turned to face him fully, soup container threatening to buckle in his grip. His face hardened into the mask he’d worn in the ring earlier, that cold fury that had gotten a much-larger vampire thrown across the cage. When he opened his mouth, and a growl slipped out, his fangs were showing. “Don’t you ever–”
SLAM.
They all jumped.
All but Trina, who’d thrown the front door closed, and now stood glaring at all of them. Shit, she looked murderous, eyes flashing, her expression eerily similar to Nik’s.
“That’s enough,” she said, low and dangerous, voice shaking with repressed fury.
“Babe,” Lanny started, because he was an idiot.
“Enough,” she repeated. “I am sick to fucking death of all you jackasses acting like dumbass cavemen. I’m the only woman trapped here in Testosterone Land, and maybe that makes me the stupid one, but my God, you’re all fucking morons!
“You” – she jabbed a finger in Alexei’s direction – “don’t have enough morals and sense to keep this one out of the goddamn underground human fighting ring. You” – Jamie – “are a tattle-tale. You two” – she whirled to face Nik and Sasha – “have been in love with each other since nineteen-fucking-forty-two, and have only just now hooked up.”
Sasha went beet red.
She turned back the other way. “You…” Her accusatory finger wavered in Dante’s direction. “Well, I don’t know you, but your accent keeps jumping back and forth, and your hair looks really stupid.”
He gave a quiet gasp.
Lanny cleared his throat – he was already a dead man at this point; why not help her drive the nails in the coffin? “What about me?”
“You.” Her gaze snapped to him. Still cold, still furious…but brittle enough to break. The sharpness in her tone bled out to exhaustion. Heavy and flat. “You knew better. Or maybe you didn’t. I can’t decide which one’s worse.”
“Let me explain.”
She stared at him.
Sasha said, “Maybe we should go…”
“Splendid idea,” Dante said. Alexei followed him to the door, and a moment later, Jamie, big-eyed and looking properly chastened, left, too.
Nikita lingered; Lanny was aware of him in his periphery. Was aware, too, of Sasha plucking at the cuff of his jacket and murmuring, trying to draw him toward the door.
Lanny kept his eyes on Trina, on the way her face had settled into a kind of resignation and disappointment that scared him. To Nik, he said, “I’m getting real tired of you acting like I’m going to hurt her.”
A beat. Nikita said, “You already have.” But he let Sasha tow him away.
The door shut, and they were alone.
Lanny’s headache intensified; wincing tugged at the healing split along his scalp. “Trina–”
She turned away, put her shoulder toward him, arms folding across her middle. It sparked a sudden fury in him – an instinctual one that he tamped down. It was a defensive posture she’d adopted; shielding herself.
He’d growled at her today. Chased her. Told her she couldn’t leave.
God, he’d been a jackass.
He sighed. “You can yell at me some more if you want.”
“I wasn’t yelling, I was talking forcefully. And I didn’t want to do it.”
“Had to feel good, though. I deserved it.”
She dropped her head for a moment, looked down at her boots. When she looked at him, shook her hair back off her face and locked gazes with him again, he was surprised by the rawness of her expression. Not just hurt, but doubt and hopelessness, too. All the heat had bled out of her voice. When she spoke, it trembled. “You’re a fighter. I know that; it’s a part of who you are. If you hadn’t hurt your hand all those years ago, you would have fought until some other injury laid you out. Being a cop is your backup plan.” When he started to protest, she said, “I know that, Lanny.”
He fell silent.
“Just like I know that Nik killed innocent people when he was a Chekist. He burst into houses on orders and stole from them, terrified them. And I know that Alexei turned you, without being asked to.
“And I know you killed a man behind a fucking Subway on the way to Virginia.” Her next breath shuddered. “And I shot men with Katya’s old rifle. The rifle I’ve been keeping in the back of my closet ever since.
“We’ve all got blood on our hands. We’re all capable of terrible things – me included. But you didn’t even try to talk to me about this – about the way you’ve been feeling. Like I’m just some nagging girlfriend you need to get away from, and not a part of this pack.”
Of all the things he’d expected her to say, none of it had been that.
He swallowed. “Pack? You’re starting to sound like Sasha.”
“And you sound like someone in denial about who he really is. We’re a pack, Lanny. That’s the word for it. You’re a vampire, and it isn’t something that’s going to change, no matter how long you put off seeing your mom.” She turned for the door.
Like earlier today, his insides screamed at the idea of separation: of her walking away from him. But he took a tight grip on it, teeth gritted. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, but kept moving.
“Trina, can’t we – come on, let’s talk about it. You can yell some more – or, talk forcefully. Let me explain.” And how lame that sounded, because she already had it all figured out, inside out, backward and forward, so much more thoroughly than he himself. “Trina.”
“I need some time to myself,” she said over her shoulder, and opened the door.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, the desperate shaking of all his instincts bleeding into his voice.
She paused a moment, in acknowledgment, then went out and shut the door behind her.
He counted to ten, then turned around and chucked the ice pack across the room. It hit one of his old framed boxing photos, and shattered the glass.
18
Sasha had heard what Nik told the other vampire: “Run tell your master I want a chat.” Then he’d thrown him across a cage like he was nothing, like a crumpled paper coffee cup. Without a second thought.
And Sasha ached.
He’d felt as electric and giddy as the boy he’d been decades ago, back in Moscow, when they would sit side-by-side at the flat’s kitchen table and Nikita would pore over maps with him, showing him escape routes, smelling like pomade and harsh soap and cigarette smoke. He still smelled like pomade and smoke – but now also of blood, and vampire, and pack, and family, and home, and mate, and mine.
Sasha heard what he said – run tell your master – and a chill went down his back, and his hackles raised, and his cock stirred, and his jaw throbbed with the urge to bite, his fingers with the urge to claw. He wanted. But he waited.
Through the walk to Lanny’s apartment, the food truck. Trina yelling at them. They all deserved that – though, mostly Lanny did. Mates should be honest with each other; should cherish and confide in one another. He’d always thought that, even if he was very new at being a mate himself.
Though, perhaps an outsider would have found his and Nikita’s slow, painful dance across the decades toward one another to be just as shameful as outright lying. He didn’t know, and right now he didn’t care. Nikita had been so forceful, and that was all he wanted to think about.
The second the door to their apartment was shut, Sasha was on him; crowding him ba
ck against it, fastening his mouth to his throat.
He knew a brief moment’s worry, a fear of rejection.
But Nik’s hands landed on his waist right away, under the open halves of his jacket, on the thin material of the t-shirt that covered his ribs. He chuckled, and Sasha felt the vibration of it through his throat, a buzzing in his own lips. “Which one of us is the vampire again?”
Sasha pulled back, already breathless, heart pounding, and met Nik’s gaze. Found it amused, yes, but heavy-lidded, too. Anticipatory. “I want you to fuck me.”
Nikita blinked, surprise smoothing his expression. A blush rose in his cheeks, though. Maybe he could pretend to be full of self-control, but he liked that idea. Sasha heard his breathing hitch. “Sasha, we talked about this.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“Sasha–”
Sasha leaned in close, so they were pressed flush, chests, and bellies, and hips. Let Nik feel how hard he was already. “I’ve been waiting for seventy-seven years. Don’t make me wait anymore.”
Nik’s mouth fell open; Sasha watched his fangs elongate; his pupils dilate. His pulse leapt, hard as a shove against Sasha’s breastbone.
Sasha leaned up to kiss him–
And Nikita met him halfway, crashing their mouths together, hands gathering fistfuls of his shirt. A harsh, biting kiss, because Nikita had been waiting too. The sharp point of a fang nicked Sasha’s lip, and Nikita licked the blood from out of his mouth, growling in the back of his throat.
“Bed,” he rasped against Sasha’s lips. “Now.”
They went in a hurried, clumsy rush, dropping jackets, kicking off boots, pulling at each other’s clothes and leaving them where they fell. Nikita cracked his elbow on the doorframe going into the bedroom, and Sasha laughed at the face he made, until they had to stop kissing, and Sasha was wheezing, and Nikita called him a “shithead” when he pushed him down onto the bed, grinning like mad, fangs flashing in the lamplight.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 19
