More consideration. “If I get lost, can’t you follow my trail and find me?”
“That’s beside the point.”
Kolya waited, staring.
Fulk sighed. “You wouldn’t even know how to find them.”
Anna thought the responding blink was, somehow, a sort of argument to the contrary.
“And you can’t go leaping out of windows,” Fulk said. “We’re four floors up!”
“I wasn’t going to jump.”
“Well, you aren’t bloody Spider-Man!”
Despite all her efforts to avoid learning it, Anna had been raised on a steady diet of Southern manners and feminine grace. Her mother had despaired of her, and certainly wouldn’t have believed that she was capable of what she was about to do now.
She stood, smoothed her hands down her legging-clad hips as if she wore a hoop skirt and gown, and walked up to lay a hand on Fulk’s arm. He cut off mid-tirade, and glanced down at her.
“Kolya,” she said. “Honey. I know you’re feeling impatient, and I don’t blame you one bit. What you’ve been through is ten different kinds of terrible. Anyone would be anxious to catch up with old friends, but in your case…I can’t even imagine.”
Beside her, Fulk let out a slow breath, relaxing a fraction.
“I hate to say this,” she continued, “and you aren’t gonna want to hear it, I know. It’s not easy. But your friends – Nikita and Sasha – think you’re dead.”
She gave him a moment to let that sink in. His gaze narrowed a fraction, and drew inward.
“Finding out someone you cared about isn’t really dead is – it’s gonna be a shock. Nobody’s got the equipment to handle that, you know? They’re gonna freak out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’ll be so happy. But at first, there’s going to be lots of questions. Some heart palpitations. I don’t think they’re gonna believe right away,” she said with real regret. “There’s a good chance they’ll think we’ve dressed up someone who looks like you did, back when they knew you.
“It’s important to tell them the right way, is what I’m saying. Somewhere private. Fulk will want to explain about Liam’s powers first. Not every mage can do that, you know. Most can’t. It’s something–” She started to say special, but she didn’t like giving Liam that much credit. “They’re not expecting it,” she said instead. “And you don’t want to walk into the middle of a crowded bar and just say ‘hi.’ You know? That won’t be good for anybody.”
He studied her a long moment, his gaze inscrutable. He still smelled faintly of earth. Of something that had been buried, and like ash, because all of Liam’s magic required fire, even when he was forging something – even if he was forging a human.
But he smelled like a man, too. A scent that was just him. Would Sasha know it? Remember it? Would that be enough of an ID?
She had a feeling, though she’d never met him, that Nikita Baskin would be the hard sell of the two of them. And God knew what memories would come flooding back for Kolya when he finally came face-to-face with them.
“It’s better to wait,” she said, with a bit of firmness. “Okay?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, but she knew he’d heard her, the way his gaze tracked back and forth across the width of her face. Finally, he nodded.
He turned back to the window, and stared out at the night; at the street crawling with lights and pedestrians.
Slowly, Fulk reached up and brushed her hair over her shoulder; trailed his fingertips down the back of her neck, a slow and gentle caress. An acknowledgement. A thanks. Then he retreated back to the couch.
Anna sat down in the chair nearest Kolya, tucked her legs up beneath her, and said, “It’s something, isn’t it?”
She didn’t know if he would acknowledge her, but she noticed a flicker of movement: his lashes, as he glanced over from the corner of his eye.
“They call it ‘the city that never sleeps,’ and it really doesn’t.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “We lived here for a little while. Fulk and me. It’s not my favorite place on earth, but it’s got its good qualities.”
It was quiet a moment, so it surprised her when she heard his rusty voice say, “Where is your favorite?”
She nearly choked on air. He’d never asked her anything approaching a personal question before.
The answer came automatically, though. “Georgia. That’s where I grew up. That’s home.”
And probably, bound to a Romanian prince, they’d never get to go back there.
~*~
“Now,” Val said after he’d taken a long swallow of the red wine he’d ordered, “what have all of you been up to this evening?”
Nikita realized that every member of his pack turned a glance to him. Deferring.
Val looked at him expectantly.
Nikita’s immediate, gut instinct was that they didn’t need an outdated prince nosing around in their personal business. Princes didn’t do things meekly, as Val had proved tonight, just with his entrance and his general theatrics. If he told him about their night’s adventures with the Institute, and with Gustav, Val would undoubtedly want to get involved. He might even want revenge; he probably loathed the Institute more than anyone else at this table.
Things would get messy, and dramatic, and all Nikita cared about, at this point, was keeping his pack safe, and putting Gustav in the ground – permanently.
He shrugged and said, “Nothing, really.”
Val grinned. “You’re a good liar, but still a liar.”
Mia, who’d been drinking wine, too, said, “God, Val.” The alcohol had eased some of her visible tension, but hadn’t improved her mood, it seemed. Newly turned, this must all have been insane to her.
“I smell a mage,” Val said to her, eyes trained on Nikita. “They just don’t want to tell me about him.”
Mia’s eyes widened, and she scanned the table, and then the bar, like she expected a mage to pop into sight. “Oh, I didn’t even think – the smoke smell…”
“Just so, darling,” Val said. “Has one of you acquired a Familiar? Or is it an adversarial relationship?”
No one responded.
“We don’t–” Nikita started.
Sasha said, “We’ve been at the Institute.”
“Shit,” Lanny breathed.
Shock moved through Nikita like a punch, spreading out from his chest, through his ribs.
Val’s eyes popped wide a moment, and then he carefully smoothed his features. Sipped more wine. “Oh, well, that’s none of my worry.”
Nikita turned to Sasha, whose face had gone pink, but who refused to meet his gaze.
“There’s been a string of murders. Feral wolves killing humans,” he explained. “And we thought the Institute might be involved. We were there earlier.”
Nikita’s pulse pounded in his ears. It took him a long, breathless moment to name the sensation churning in his gut: betrayal.
“And dealt with a mage, obviously,” Val said in a strange tone. He’d dialed the charm back; the vibrancy and enthusiasm. He turned to Mia, and said, “One of Liam’s batch, I suspect.”
Mia’s expression told him that was a significant piece of information. “Val,” she said, softly, almost pleading.
“I know, I know.” He turned back to Nikita. “As you can imagine, I don’t want anything to do with” – he gestured vaguely – “any of that.” He drained the last of his wine, and Mia clutched the halves of her jacket together. “This has been lovely, though. What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?” The charm returned, if a bit forced. “I hear humans enjoy something called ‘brunch.’”
“We’re busy,” Nikita deadpanned.
“We’re not,” Alexei piped up, gesturing to Dante. “Have brunch with us.”
“There’s a lovely café not far from my apartment,” Dante offered. He still looked ready to go to one knee, or bow, or something equally stupid. “It would be an honor to have your company.”
“Wonderful,” Val said.
Alexei sent Nikita a smug look he didn’t begin to understand.
Val and Mia stood, and Sasha looked a little forlorn, and Nikita thought he might be sick.
“Thank you for an entertaining evening of freedom, all,” Val said to the table. He dipped his head in Alexei’s direction. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Eleven,” Alexei said. “Give me your phone and I’ll put in my number.”
Mia produced a phone, and the swap was made.
The prince and his mate – his princess, technically, Nikita supposed – walked arm-in-arm through the thinning crowd toward the doors.
“I’ll be damned,” Lanny murmured when they were gone. “Did anybody believe any of that? Was that for real?” He looked at Nikita. “Are they for real?”
Nikita felt his earlier numbness creeping back in. He could only shrug.
When he tried, again, to make eye contact with Sasha, he found Sasha’s gaze trained on the table, on the two empty wine glasses.
Tonight officially sucked.
~*~
When last call came around, it became clear that there wasn’t anything else for any of them to do tonight.
They left the way they’d come, on foot; everyone headed in more or less the same direction.
Dante and Alexei broke away first; Jamie tagged along after them with a regretful glance back at the rest of them. He looked lost, Nikita thought, and then pushed any worry he might have felt to the side. He had bigger worries, tonight.
When it was time to say goodnight to Trina and Lanny, Nikita knew a sudden, unexpected urge to touch his great-granddaughter. To pull her into an embrace, and reassure himself that she was safe and whole.
He settled for offering a tight smile and an admonition to be careful.
He was pleased to see Lanny put an arm around her as they went into the lobby of her building.
Then he and Sasha were alone.
Cars still drifted past, and pedestrians still moved up and down the sidewalks, heads ducked against the wind that was kicking up, hands in jacket pockets. It wasn’t a midday crowd; just enough company to feel that they were public.
A ways ahead, a couple walked with hands linked. A simple touch; commonplace; chaste.
Nikita could have reached for Sasha’s hand. That was allowed, now, between them, and in front of the world. It was celebrated, even.
On a different night, he would have. But tonight…
Sasha didn’t speak. The silence burned, and left Nikita acutely aware that it was Sasha who always lightened the mood. It was Sasha who cracked a joke, or pointed out a beautiful vignette. Who teased Nikita into a good mood, usually just by being his usual, joyful self.
Now he stared down at the sidewalk, hands tucked in his pockets, the wind blowing his hair across his face, shielding his gaze totally from view. Nikita caught the faint strains of distress on his scent, but couldn’t puzzle out the particulars of it. Was he angry? Embarrassed? Wishing he’d gone with Val?
Nikita was thoroughly paranoid by the time he closed their front door behind them, locked it, and slid the chain home. He stood a moment, hand pressed flat to the panel, and listened to Sasha shrug out of his jacket and hang it up. Tug his boots off one at a time and line them up neatly against the baseboard.
Then he stilled; in the quiet, Nik could just make out the quick thump-thump of his heartbeat. “You’re mad at me,” Sasha said, in a very small voice.
Nikita turned, and braced his shoulders back against the door to keep himself from going to his mate. The soft hurt in Sasha’s voice was a sound that threatened to send him flying across the distance, arms open. Wanting to hold, and soothe, and reassure.
“No,” he said, and meant it, but his belly clenched.
Sasha tucked his hair behind his ears, his chin still tucked in what was either defensiveness, or apology. With his face drawn, his mouth downturned, he looked terribly young, and terribly vulnerable. “You don’t like Val.” He sounded young, too, a little lost, a little simplistic – painting things in mad and don’t like.
No, he started to say. I don’t like him. But here was the evidence, looking at him uncertainly from beneath lowered lashes, of Sasha’s own love for the prince. One of them needed to try to unravel the strange tangle that had formed around the two of them tonight, and since he’d been the one to start it – flat-out refusing in a parking lot – he supposed he ought to be the one to do it.
They’d spent too many decades keeping their deepest thoughts to themselves. It had only hurt them.
He pushed off the door and held out his hand. “Come sit down.”
Sasha took his hand, a quick clasp, like grabbing for a lifeline. Followed him to the couch, where they both sat sideways, facing one another. He picked at a loose thread on one of the back cushions, gaze landing on Nikita’s face, and then flicking away again, like he was afraid of the answer.
Nikita hated how putting his feelings into words was still one of the most challenging things he ever did.
He took a deep breath. “It isn’t about liking or not liking him.” Though he couldn’t say he did like him. Val was showy, and provocative, and impractical, and nothing at all like Nik himself. “It’s that I don’t trust him, and I think you know that.”
Sasha tugged lightly at the loose thread, and one corner of his mouth quirked up in knowing acknowledgement.
“What he was able to do – get inside my head, and Trina’s at the same time. Take her dream-walking back to the past with me…that’s a kind of powerful I didn’t even think existed. And it’s psychic power. Harder to measure than physical power, maybe, yeah, but that’s why it can be abused so easily. If he could do that while he was imprisoned, what can he do now that he’s loose?”
“He isn’t going to hurt us,” Sasha said, sounding affronted, meeting his gaze head-on. He still looked young and lost, but there was a firmness in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. He trusted Val, and he was willing to argue about it. To defend him.
“Maybe he wouldn’t,” Nikita said; he’d already stated his own distrust. “At least not on purpose. But it’d be really easy to make a wrong step while you were playing around in someone else’s mind.”
“Speaking from experience?” His tone was soft, but the words were cutting.
Nikita fought to keep from having a visible reaction to them. “Do you believe his story?” he asked, changing tacks. “That he and Vlad patched things over and that Vlad actually helped him escape? With both those wolves? He was so unwilling to let you go that he was going to run me through with a sword. A sword, Sashka.”
Sasha shuddered, and turned his face away again, blinking.
“This is a man who impaled his own people. He enjoys violence.”
“Val said that the story was a lot more complicated than the history books make it out to be.”
“So is every story. But why should I believe that Vlad let Val go out of love?”
Sasha’s gaze flicked toward him again.
“What if this is some plot? What if he sent Val and the le Stranges up here after us?”
Sasha blinked, his face going blank. “Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he’s mad we got away. Maybe he wants you back so–”
“Nik.” Sasha exhaled hard through his nose, nostrils flaring. The first signs of irritation touched his features. “Vlad doesn’t want me.”
“He did before.”
“Yes, and, well, clearly his plans have changed. I’m just one wolf. You can’t convince me I would make any kind of difference to anyone’s war.”
The Soviets wanted you for our war, he thought.
“Then why is Will Scarlet here?” Nikita snapped. “With his business cards and his steak dinners and trying to recruit you, huh? If you’re just ‘one wolf,’ then why is everyone in the whole world trying to get hold of you?”
“It’s just flattery–”
“It’s true! You’re special – you’ve always been special. And
no one’s ever going to leave you the hell alone.”
Sasha stared at him a long moment. Then, softly, “And yet you won’t do the one thing that could change that.”
He was on his feet before he registered moving, a growl building in his throat. “Not this again. No. Just – stop.”
He heard Sasha breathing behind him, fast and open-mouthed. Then: “Do you love me?”
Nikita whirled. “Yes. You know I do.” But Sasha’s expression was tortured, so he went back to the couch, as if magnetized, and got down on his knees on the rug, hands latching too hard onto Sasha’s thighs. “Sashka, look at me, yes. More than anything.”
“I know.” Sasha voice wavered. He laid his hands over Nikita’s, and they trembled. He kept his head bowed, hair falling in platinum curtains on either side of his face. “But how could you think that doing this would hurt me? I know you love me. But I wish you trusted yourself enough. You don’t, and I…I don’t know how to show you that it would be okay.”
Nikita searched for an answer.
He didn’t find one.
26
Sasha dreamed of the clearing.
A carpet of snow, and the reaching fingers of bare trees, and ravens, high and silent in the white-gray sky. It was the forest north of Stalingrad, where Rasputin had died.
The starets was there now, a blackened, smoking ruin like a scar on the snow. Other bodies, too. Kolya, Ivan, Feliks. His wolves, the wind stirring their fur, lifting the scent of blood to his nose.
And there was Nikita, skin nearly white as the snow beneath him, a crumpled doll with a slick, red mouth.
Sasha walked toward him, and pulled up short when a voice said, “This is a dream, you know.”
He turned, and there was Val, as he’d appeared that day, all those years ago. Hair pulled back at the crown and spilling like a rustling banner over one shoulder; cloak of shining sable on his shoulders, over red velvet, and dyed-red breeches. Shining leather boots up to the calves in the snow. His eyes glowed, bright blue gems in the colorlessness of the unnatural twilight.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 30
