It was a lot like the way she looked at her own reflection.
And then there was the blood.
Every night, Anna came to her with an innocuous paper cup – usually one of the free ones from the hotel bathrooms – full of hot blood. It was Fulk’s; she could tell that by its scent, and what a hell of thing to be able to detect.
Drinking it out of a cup wasn’t like that heated moment back at the mansion, when Val had turned her. When drinking from his wrist and his throat had gotten all tied up in sex; his fangs piercing her skin nearly as pleasurable as the joining of their bodies. No, when she looked down into the cup, the velvet crimson liquid turned her stomach.
And made it growl.
As much as the idea repulsed her – mostly on principle – her body craved it. Needed it. Hunger won out over nausea every time, and she drained it all down in a few greedy swallows. It was no longer the salt-copper of biting her own lip as a human. There was a richness to it now; a rightness. Headier and warmer and more soothing than wine.
Last night, Nikita had said that immortality wasn’t a gift. It wasn’t a cure.
He was right.
In her worst moments, when she felt close to something like dissociation, she reminded herself that she was alive. That she was loved. That would have to be enough.
She sat now on the end of the made bed, staring down at the carpet fibers she could pick out with wondrous detail, concentrating on her breathing. Slow in, slow out. Letting the conversation wash over her; actively pushing back against the anxiety that pulsed off Fulk in waves.
They stood in the bathroom, he and Val, the door open, while Val brushed out his hair in front of the mirror.
“He’ll have to be a bit more patient,” Val was saying, his voice low and soothing. “Nikita’s hardly in a state to tolerate my presence, much less deal with a shock like this.”
Fulk made a low, frustrated sound in his throat that wasn’t quite a growl. “We aren’t going to be able to keep him penned up much longer. He tried to go out the window last night.”
“And did he?”
“No.”
“So you can prevent it.”
Another noise, this time an actual growl, a low, unhappy rumble.
“He’s a human,” Val said, with a touch of disbelief. “A skilled fighter, obviously, but he has no preternatural strength, nor powers. Am I to believe you’re incapable of restraining him if necessary?”
Silence. Mia had known Fulk long enough now to imagine his expression, the pinched, sour look, the little lines across his forehead.
“It won’t be much longer,” Val said. Light sound that she thought was Val patting Fulk gently on the cheek. Doubtless it only deepened the wolf’s scowl. “Tonight, probably. Or in the morning.” Mia looked up in time to see him come breezing out of the bathroom, wearing black jeans, a silver-studded belt, boots, and a clinging tank top cut low enough to show the grooves of his ribs on the sides. He’d pulled his hair back at the crown and tied it with a simple elastic. She’d braided it for him yesterday, while he hummed happily, leaning into the scrape of her fingers like a happy cat, and she’d felt like a girl playing with a horse’s tail.
“I would invite you along for brunch,” Val called over his shoulder as he went for his jacket. Fulk leaned against the bathroom doorframe, arms folded, expression as sour as she’d expected. “But obviously someone has to stay with Kolya. I don’t expect you’d enjoy it, anyway.”
“And what are we supposed to do with Kolya?” Fulk asked tightly.
Val flashed him a grin as he shrugged into his jacket. “Keep him from leaping out of windows, of course.”
Fulk grumbled wordlessly under his breath, and headed for the room’s door.
Val came to Mia, his grin softening into a true smile, warm and gentle. He’d been handling her with kid gloves; she was mildly insulted by it, but not steady enough yet to ask him to stop.
“Are you ready, darling?” he asked, offering a hand. “You look lovely.”
She was wearing an outfit they’d bought several cities ago: jeans, a sweater, boots, and a corduroy jacket she would have worn at the barn. Fitted, with a leather collar, lots of pockets.
But she couldn’t wear it to the barn. Her life as a working student and trainer was over, and she was…
Val’s fingers wiggled, and she took a deep breath, and hauled herself out of the kind of spiral that would leave her breathless and clammy. She put her hand in his, and when she met his gaze, she found that his smile had grown pained. He knew what was happening; could sense it in every way.
What are we doing? she wanted to ask. They were on their way to have brunch with a Russian prince who was supposed to have died in 1917. And to what purpose? Val had wanted to come to New York, to meet up with his “friends” – only one of whom seemed genuinely friendly. The woman, Trina, and the vampire who, by scent, was her mate, Lanny, had seemed cautious. Nikita Baskin had been outright hostile. Val was charming enough to win them all over – but why did he want to? What was the plan here?
In the immediate rush of fleeing the Institute, she’d wanted only to get away. But as the weeks dragged on, as her anxiety mounted, she had trouble divining a big picture. Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe they would find an apartment and live in New York.
And then what?
Asking herself those kinds of questions yielded nothing positive, so she let Val pull her to her feet, and slipped her arm through his, and went down the hall to the elevators with him.
~*~
The restaurant Dante had picked for brunch was fancier than Sasha was used to. The nicest clothes he owned were those he tended bar in, so that’s what he wore: his pressed black shirt, black skinnies, and his usual leather jacket. He’d put a quick coat of polish on his Docs. Secured his hair at the nape of his neck in a tiny bun.
Nikita had looked at him as he’d left in a way that had nearly crumbled all his resolve. But Nik hadn’t tried to stop him; had kissed him softly, lingeringly on the corner of the mouth, and told him to have a nice time.
“You could come,” Sasha had said.
“No, I can’t,” had been the simple answer.
He was early, the first one here, and stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, belly tight with nerves. Groups and couples moved in and out of the restaurant; sat chatting and laughing on the other side of the big smoked-glass windows. A few stopped, cupped their hands around their eyes, and peered through to see if their party was there; they smiled and hurried to the door when they noticed them.
Sasha felt keenly alone without Nik there. Even though Nik would have been terrible company – he was Sasha’s terrible company.
Alexei and Dante arrived first. Alexei looked different – like Dante had styled him as a toned-down version of himself. The British vampire wore peach silk, black pants, shiny oxfords, and a long wool coat unbelted, collar popped.
Alexei, Sasha noted right off, wasn’t happy to see him. His lip curled a brief moment before he smoothed his expression and said, “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Val’s my friend,” he said, fighting for a bit of that haughty coolness; he thought he failed, for sure. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”
“Because Nikita doesn’t want you to be,” Alexei said, like that was a given.
It was. But.
“I can make my own decisions,” Sasha said, feeling petulant as a child.
Alexei’s snort said he found that doubtful.
“Good morning,” Dante said pleasantly.
“Good morning,” Sasha returned, tone wooden.
It was awkward, and the worst part was, it shouldn’t have been. Something had changed with Alexei. He’d always come across as young – not in years, but in experience. Carefree, heedless, the picture of youthful nobility. The son of a rich man who’d never wanted for anything, an aura he’d carried into this century despite the atrocities committed against his family. It was his shield, Sasha had always thought, the s
ame way Nikita clothed himself in anger.
But with that youthfulness had come uncertainness, too. Alexei was quick to defer to true leadership. He whined and wheedled, but he never challenged Nikita outright.
He was insouciant, now. Removed and actively cutting.
“Good morning,” Val’s bright, accented voice called, and dispelled the tension. He approached from across the street, his arm linked with Mia’s. His mate wore a smooth, difficult to read expression, but Sasha caught the acrid whiff of nerves.
As unexpected as Val’s arrival had been, him showing up with a mate had been an even greater shock. Who was she? Where had she come from? How had Val met her while he was locked up in a cell two floors beneath the ground? A few possibilities sprang to mind – that he’d met her while dream-walking, obviously – and some of them pointed toward the Institute in a way that left Sasha uneasy.
But he smiled at them both, genuinely glad to see Val. “Good morning.”
“Hello,” Alexei greeted coolly. He pulled off haughty well – he’d been born to it, after all – but he looked better when he was smiling and mischievous.
Dante’s face had gone blank with awe. He looked unsteady on his feet, Sasha thought.
Alexei leaned in, elbowed him in the ribs, and whispered something low and stern to him.
“Good morning, your grace,” Dante said, ducking his head in a hint of the bow he obviously wanted to deliver.
Val chuckled. “Shall we go in?”
~*~
Will and Much were staying at the Waldorf, because, apparently, these days, Robin Hood didn’t just rob from the rich, but enjoying being rich himself, and setting his people up in style when they traveled.
Jamie felt ten kinds of grubby walking into the lobby; carefully avoided his rumpled reflection in the elevator.
When he knocked on the right door, Will opened it with an easy, expectant smile. His text reply earlier had been bare bones, so Jamie hadn’t known what to expect; some of his worry eased as the wolf waved him in with a warm greeting and offered to take his jacket.
Much lay sprawled on his stomach on one of the two beds, gaze fixed on a laptop screen, mindlessly eating Cheetos from a massive family sized bag.
“We’re going through the security footage we retrieved last night,” Will explained as he hung Jamie’s coat up in the room’s small closet and slid the door shut. “Nothing of any note so far. But it takes time to comb through it all.”
“I figured,” Jamie said. He wandered deeper into the room, noting that only Will’s bed looked rumpled and slept-in; that the nightstand on Much’s side was cluttered with paper cups and a few energy drink cans. The TV was on, a cooking show with the sound muted; Ina Garten tossed pomegranate seeds into a salad while Much wiped his orange-dusted fingers on the white coverlet.
Jamie winced. “Did he sleep?”
Will sighed. “No. I’ve threatened to replace his Monster with vodka if he doesn’t take a break soon.”
Much never glanced away from his computer, but he slowly lifted an orange middle finger in their direction.
Will chuckled. “Here, come sit down. He won’t be much company for a while. Do you want anything to drink?”
“No, thank you.” Jamie sat down in one of the two chairs by the window, a little sitting area with a small table between, and a view through sheer drapes of the street down below. He glanced out at the cars creeping along, and tried to be stealthy about running his clammy palms down his thighs. Becoming a vampire might have cured his asthma and fixed his eyesight, but it hadn’t done a damn thing for his anxiety.
Will settled across from him and offered a sideways smile. “Forgive me for assuming, but I don’t get the impression this is a social call.”
“What? No. Um.” His fingers drummed and he forced them still. Took a breath. How rude to show up like this looking for answers from a stranger. He shouldn’t have come. He should apologize and leave. What would Lanny and Trina think if they knew he’d come here to talk about them? Oh, God.
“Hey.” Will leaned forward, expression softening. He reached out a hand, but didn’t touch Jamie; let it hover, like he was trying to calm a frightened animal.
Which Jamie very much felt like right now.
“It’s alright,” Will said. “I didn’t expect you to bring us biscuits and ask after our health.” He smiled to show he was joking. “If I can help you in some way, I’ll gladly do so. What do you need?”
Jamie let out a deep breath. It shivered in his lungs and throat. “It’s not – I don’t need anything. Nothing like that. I just…” He bit his lip, and felt very much like he was betraying his pack.
If they even were his pack. If they intended to stay that way. If everything didn’t crumble apart…
“Jamie?” Will prompted.
“Why can’t everyone just leave us alone?”
Okay, that was not what he’d meant to say. The anxiety had swelled inside him in a black tide, and the words had come spilling out without permission.
He meant them, though, even as he clapped a hand over his mouth.
Will’s brows went up in mild inquiry. “Beg pardon?”
In for a penny…
He lowered his hand, and knotted it with his other, fingers clenched together tightly. Fine tremors stole through his arms and legs, but he tried to ignore them. “Alexei didn’t turn me. Someone he’d turned did. I guess that makes him my grandsire? I don’t know. But when it happened, things were upside down. Trina had just found Nikita, and I woke up in a morgue drawer, and Lanny was dying, so Alexei turned him. Everything seemed to be going a hundred-miles-an-hour after that. Chasing Alexei down, fighting, and then Sasha got kidnapped, and that whole thing in Virginia happened.”
That had been the first time he’d heard gunshots at close range. The first time he’d seen men fall, and die, and bleed. It hadn’t felt real until then; it was easy to pretend he was the same when he was sipping microwaved pig’s blood out of a coffee mug. But when he’d put his fangs in a throat, and human blood had flooded hot and fresh across his tongue…
He shuddered. “I thought maybe things could settle down after that. Go back to normal. But then there’ve been the murders. And Lanny’s been an idiot with the whole fighting thing. And we’ve gotta deal with this Gustav guy, who is clearly a bad dude. And then you show up and want Nik and Sasha to join your freaking army or something. And we went back into that building, where they have killer kids with – with fucking fire. And…” He was babbling, and forced his mouth shut. His teeth clicked together. He breathed sharply through his nose, lungs aching like he still needed an inhaler.
Just stress, just stress, he told himself. No human ailment could kill him now. But the pain was there. The breathlessness. It felt real, even if it wasn’t.
“Why can’t people just leave us alone?” he said again, voice small and strained. “I just want – to be. That’s all.” His gaze had dropped to the rug, a pattern of rich reds and golds, tasteful swirls and leaves. He lifted his head, and forced himself to look Will in the eyes. Swallowed and tried to wet his mouth. A full-on panic attack loomed on the horizon; its threat buzzed just under his skin. “Sorry.”
But Will didn’t look offended. He tipped his head to the side and considered him thoughtfully, concerned notch between his brows.
A darted glance showed that Much had turned away from his screen, and watched Jamie through a screen of pale hair, expression unreadable.
Will said, “Something Rob told me right after I was turned: ‘It’s up to those with exceptional strength – of body and of character – to look after those in need.’ It’s become something of a motto for all of us. And I suppose we’re guilty of sometimes carrying it too far. Projecting it onto those who don’t feel the way that we do.”
Jamie blinked at him a moment, and then frowned. “That sounds like it could be an insult.”
“Quite the contrary.” His smile looked genuine; it touched his eyes and lit them up from t
he inside out, warm and dark as coffee. “I’m apologizing. For myself, and for the rest of my team. I’m afraid you can take Robin Hood out of Sherwood forest, but…” He shrugged. “Rob is good at fighting. The good fight, he thinks of it. And it suits the rest of us, too, I suppose, or we wouldn’t go along with it so happily. We’re in the business of defending innocents; we begin to think that other immortals are, too – but that isn’t always the case.”
“Still insulted.”
Will made a face. Shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”
It was quiet a beat.
Jamie thought about getting up and leaving – but dashed the idea as rude. He’d been the one to reach out, and come all the way here. He was the one who’d dumped his feelings out on the rug. He could at least respect a differing opinion.
He glanced toward Much again, but the other wolf had gone back to his computer-staring, and it felt pointed this time.
“The thing is,” Will said, and his tone had shifted; less formal, his accent softer. He sounded more like the modern young man he looked, and less like a relic from a bygone century. That, Jamie realized with a jolt, had been his presentation voice; his sales pitch. This was what he really sounded like, unguarded and without artifice.
It put him immediately at ease; his lungs relaxed.
“I’m not sure anyone ever is going to leave you guys alone,” Will continued with true regret. “This thing with Gustav and the Institute would have happened despite our showing up in your lives. Sasha was turned with the Institute’s approval – at their command, really, all of it carried out by the Soviet government. If not for Dr. Ingraham and his blasted Institute, Sasha would have died twenty years ago in his bed in Tomsk, Siberia. He was their first successful experiment, and no matter what sort of deal Trina worked out with them, they’ll never be content to let Sasha live on his own recognizance. He’s a weapon. Dr. Ingraham was there for the science of it all, but whoever funded him, whoever allowed him to experiment and secured him the resources necessary to build a lab in Stalingrad – that person knew about immortals. Knew about them, feared them, and decided having their own tightly-controlled immortal force was the best way to protect themselves from the threat they could pose.”
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 32
