“Did you really go to see Vlad?” Fulk sat down on the edge of the bed, pushed up his sleeve, and reached for the knife. “Or is that just what you told her?”
“I’m wounded,” Val said. “Even now you doubt my honesty? Were the legends about me really that disparaging?”
Fulk sent him a flat look. “I thought maybe you were trying to spare your newly-immortal, incredibly young mate a bit of a fright.”
“Ah.” Val moved to sit on the other bed, facing him, their knees nearly touching in between.
Fulk smirked. Then his gaze went to the nightstand and he said, “Damn. We’re out of cups.” He set the knife aside and started to rise. “I’ll go and–”
“Wait.” Val made a staying motion, and the wolf eased back down. “I did go see Vlad. He’s preparing a mission to retrieve Romulus’s body.
“And I saw your old fellow Familiar.”
Fulk stiffened, and his brows lowered.
“He had an interesting story to tell me about his own involvement in this whole war business.” And he relayed what Liam had told him, about the mage, and nearly dying, and Romulus having a Familiar.
“Good Christ.” Fulk slammed his fists down on his thighs and surged to his feet, paced across the room, instantly furious. “That fucking – of course it’s his fault!” He whirled, teeth bared, eyes flashing. “How fucking typical of that prick! He makes a terrible mess, and then twists and manipulates everyone else into cleaning it up for him.” His fiery gaze latched onto Val. “Please tell me you told your brother. I hope he crushes him.” He was breathing hard, chest heaving.
How surreal it always was, to be the one witnessing that choked-up feeling of turmoil, rather than living it. It had a way of sharpening his mind; bringing all the logic to the fore. In a way, just this was helping him come to a decision that he now saw had been inevitable all along.
“Come sit down,” he urged.
“Did you tell Vlad?”
“Sweetheart, you’re shaking. Come sit down.”
He did, still huffing, the last coils of his braids coming loose so his hair fell in a dark curtain around his face. He looked at Val like a man betrayed.
“I have tried,” he said, with a tremulous effort at controlling his voice, “to live a less violent life this past century. But trust me when I tell you that Liam deserves whatever violence Vlad would serve him. Tenfold.”
“What was it that he did to you to make you hate him so much?” Val wondered aloud.
Fulk growled.
“Alright, alright, we won’t talk about that. To answer you: no, I didn’t tell Vlad.” He held up a hand when Fulk tried to protest. “Because I told Liam to tell him, and made it very clear to him that it’s in his best interest to confess – or else deal with retribution from both of us. If I’d told Vlad, he would have killed Liam.”
“Yes, that’s my point,” Fulk said tightly.
“Sweet one, I know that you hate him, and I know that he’s dangerous–”
“You have no idea.”
“I spent six centuries chained to a wall,” Val deadpanned. “I have some idea of danger. My point is this: right now, he’s more useful to us alive.”
Fulk stared at him a moment. “Us?”
“Hmm?”
“You said ‘more useful to us.’”
“Yes, well, obviously I meant more useful to Vlad. And someone being of use to my brother is always, by default, useful to me.”
Fulk planted his hands on the mattress, and his shoulders locked up tight around his ears. “Your grace. What did you and Vlad discuss this evening?”
“Oh? Just family drama.” He waved it off.
Fulk wasn’t dissuaded, his gaze unrelenting. “Your family is a bit more dramatic than most.”
Val stared back. I’m not dragging us into battle, he wanted to say, just to ease his worry.
But he wasn’t sure that was the truth, and he didn’t want to lie – not to his Familiar.
Finally, Fulk let out a deep breath, shoulders slumping. “Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head. His face softened, the tension bleeding out of it, leaving him tired, and young-looking. He’d been in his twenties, it was obvious to see now, in the softness of lamplight, when he was turned. A young man just starting to come into his own. His eyes, though – unguarded now, lovely blue, full of questions and fears – told the story of the centuries that had passed since then. A hundred lifetimes’ worth of strife, and struggle, and servitude. He’d been free for a while, but not anymore.
“Will you promise me something?” he asked, voice unusually raw.
Of course, darling, Val thought, but again didn’t say. “If I can.”
“If you decide – if you feel that you must fight. To take your place at Vlad’s side. Will you at least tell us first?”
“Oh, love. Yes. Yes, I will promise you that.” His eyes were stinging again. “Here, you’re right: I need to feed, but we don’t need a cup.” He held out his hand, palm up in gentle invitation.
Fulk took a deep breath and stood, the silk of his old dressing gown rustling. He pushed his sleeve up again, exposing the blue tracks of veins at the inside of his pale wrist, and laid the back of his hand in Val’s.
Val pulled him in closer, until his gown fell over Val’s knees. Until he could hear the soft rush of his breathing, and see the way his pupils expanded. He brushed his thumb over the veins, once, twice, and Fulk shivered.
“It’s alright,” Val murmured, and lowered his head, and bit, as gently as possible.
Fulk shivered again, as his blood filled Val’s mouth, and he began to drink. But another moment, and Val felt Fulk’s hand settle on his head, long fingers stroking through his hair.
Darling mother hen, Val thought, with a great swell of fondness, and then didn’t think of anything else, except the way the blood hit his belly like wine.
When he’d finished, and stopped the bleeding with a few passes of his tongue, and was licking the last sweet traces from the corners of his mouth, he heard a phone start to ring.
40
The rain had finally tapered off, the streets below gleaming in the glow of the lights from windows, traffic signals, and storefronts. The gravel on the rooftop of their building crunched underfoot as Nikita paced, working off a nervous energy that he wouldn’t have admitted to at knifepoint. Kolya sat beside Sasha on one of the air conditioning units, their legs dangling over its side and making them look like children.
“Are all vampires nervous?” Kolya asked, his voice still eerily flat, but the words themselves seeming to get bolder by the minute. “Or just Nik?”
Nikita shot them a glare, but Sasha laughed, light and easy and happy, and the glare became an effort not to smile.
“Hey,” Lanny called. He and Trina were leaning backward against the waist-high parapet, passing an open bag of Fritos back and forth. “It takes a helluva lot of booze to get us drunk. What about pot? Can vamps toke it up?”
Trina clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from spitting chips everywhere. “Toke it up?” she laughed when she could, and nearly choked.
“Hey, I know the lingo,” Lanny said, feigning affront, a smile in his voice.
Trina lost it.
“It is possible to get high,” Dante spoke up, his voice still a little hushed, face still a little haunted. “But it burns off quickly.”
“What if,” Lanny said, brightening, fumbling Fritos out on the ground, “you drank the blood of someone who was, like, real fucked up on coke or something?”
Dante shrugged. “You’d get a buzz for a little while, sure.”
Alexei made a face. “There was this boy at a club, once. He’d taken LSD.” He shuddered. “I walked off a building roof and broke both my legs.”
“Shit!” Lanny said, laughing.
Severin stood a ways apart from all of them, face a pale oval against the darkness of the night, russet brows drawn low as his gaze swapped between them all, and he struggled to understand the ebb an
d flow of their mundane conversation.
“Nik,” Lanny said, “we’ve gotta get you some weed and see if that mellows you out, bro.”
Sasha’s laugh was nearly a howl. “Lanny, you’re a cop!”
“Homicide, man. And trust me, he needs to kill that bad attitude of his.”
Even Kolya’s lips quirked in an attempt at a smile, and a tumble of laughter echoed across the rooftop.
Nikita held onto his glare – but barely, and internally, he was beaming, a rare lightness fluttering in his chest. His pack, all together, happy and joking. His mate laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes, smiling at him, radiant as a sunrise.
A still-damp breeze lifted over the edge of the roof, and brought the scent of wolves.
“If you’re all done mocking me,” Nikita said without any heat, “we have visitors.”
A moment later, Will and Much vaulted up over the parapet – showing off, Nikita thought – and landed with barely a sound. Both carried large, bulky backpacks that would have caused mortals to stagger.
Will said, “Good evening, all.”
Much shrugged off his backpack and sat on it, chin going in his cupped hands.
Nikita imagined Sasha saying be nice, darling, and said, “Thanks for coming.” It wasn’t the world’s most solicitous tone, but it wasn’t hostile. That had to count for something.
Will’s brows gave a momentary jump, but then he smoothed his expression into a pleasant smile. “Happy to help, always. There have been new developments, you said?”
“Yeah. But we’re waiting for a few more.”
“Oh?”
“Waiting? How sweet, dear Captain,” Val’s voice called across the rooftop. Nikita turned and found that the prince and his entourage had come up through the building, and out the door. They were carrying gear, too: both women with small duffels, and Val and Fulk with long, awkward bags that didn’t do much to disguise what they contained.
Nikita had never been one for niceties, but he was acting as host here. Alexei sat on an electrical box, sitting very upright in what was an obvious attempt at imperiousness – but he hadn’t volunteered to orchestrate this meeting. Nik would have thought he was being a brat, but he’d caught a whiff of apprehension; he might be calling himself a tsar now, but he was wildly out of his depth when it came to leading anyone.
So Nikita took a breath and said, “Val, this is Will Scarlet and his associate Much. Will and Much, this is–”
“Prince Valerian of Wallachia,” Will said, a little awed. He gave a quick, proper bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, your grace. I wish – and I know my alpha wishes – that it was a meeting that could have come sooner.”
For a moment, Val’s face showed surprise. But then he tugged his breezy, convivial, thoroughly-for-show mask into place. “How charming. It’s nice to know there are some immortals who haven’t branded me ‘traitor.’ This is my mate, Mia, and my Familiars, His Lordship the Baron Strange of Blackmere, Fulk le Strange, and his baroness, the Lady Annabel.”
Will’s smile widened, grew mischievous. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the baron before.”
Fulk kicked his chin up and said, flatly, “Yes. The pleasure.”
“Guys.” Trina pushed the Fritos into Lanny’s hands and stepped into the center of their gathering. “Come on. You can have a pissing contest on your own time. We called everybody here for a reason.”
“Yes, you were attacked, you said?” Will asked.
“We were,” Nikita said. “New information’s come to light about the Institute.”
“We’re destroying it,” Alexei said, drawing everyone’s gaze.
Then the wind shifted, and Nikita knew the moment all the newcomers caught the scent of a mage in their midst.
“Oh,” Will said with understated casualness. “It’s the boy.”
Fulk le Strange had a more violent reaction. He pushed his mate up against Val’s back, then threw himself in front of the prince, coiled and ready to leap, growling, one hand clawing at the top of the bag on his back.
Nikita started to say something, but he didn’t have to.
Alexei stood, a slow, regal unfolding of his body, shoulders back and square. He was the same slender youth he’d always been, but he seemed to take up more space, now. He turned a cold look on le Strange. “Severin is with us, and he won’t harm you.”
Nikita had no such confidence, but as he’d decided earlier, at Colette’s, the boy was an asset.
“He escaped the Institute and came to us of his own free will,” Alexei continued. “As an ally.” Then, cuttingly, “Please control your Familiar, Prince Valerian.”
No one murmured a low ooh, but Nikita imagined they were all thinking it.
Val was still a moment, then laid a hand on Fulk’s shoulder. “It’s alright, dear,” he murmured, drawing him back. The wolf resisted a moment, but then let himself be towed backward, so that he stood beside his master rather than in front of him. Annabel took his free hand between both of hers in silent comfort. To Alexei, Val said, “You’ll have to forgive my dear baron. He has a bit of a visceral reaction to anything or anyone who smells of Liam Price. I’m sure, though, that your new friend – Severin, was it? – bears none of his sire’s ill will toward Baron Strange.” The last was laced with an elegant threat.
Val might want desperately to befriend them all, to fit in somewhere, but he was still a vampire with his Familiar’s best interest at heart – and he was still a Dracula.
“Of course not,” Alexei said, chin lifting a fraction. “He’s never even met his sire.”
It was Lanny who waded in to smooth things over, mouth half-full of chips. “The kid just wanted out – and he wants to get his brothers out. The Institute fucked him over just like it did you. He’s wicked strong. I say if he wants to be on our side, then we let him.”
It was silent a moment.
Val finally smiled, small and close-mouthed. “How can I argue with that?”
~*~
It was a strange gathering that stood in a loose ring around Nikita while he relayed the day’s events, and the truths they’d learned from Severin and Dante. A prince, a tsarevich, a baron and baroness; two Merry Men, two detectives, a newly-turned equestrian, three Soviets, and a mage.
“Clearly, Gustav wants us out of the picture, permanently, and I think, after today, he’ll only come at us harder next time,” Nikita said. “If he was able to recruit the vampires we killed today, he can recruit more, and the Institute is not only allowing this, but encouraging it, and providing him with the means to attack us.”
Val frowned. “But they have Vlad. Why would they be throwing support behind a twentieth century German general – one still mourning a failed Kaiser, no less?”
“Dissention between the two branches I suppose,” Will said. “Perhaps the Virginia and New York branches are no longer working toward the same goal.”
“But,” Mia spoke up, and when Nik looked at her, he found her incredibly pale, lips trembling as she took a breath. “They’re doing medical research. I don’t – I understand wanting to stop – Romulus–” She stumbled over the name, doubtless still grappling with the sheer scope of history she’d thought ancient, dead and buried. “Curing cancer, fighting this evil bad guy: those are both ways of helping people. But attacking all of you…” Her eyes widened. “All of us…God. That’s…” Her gaze drew inward, panicked.
“It’s troubling, I know,” Will said, soothing, sympathetic. “But it’s an unfortunate truth: all too often, the desperate throw their support behind a cruel force. Power, no matter its nature, has a way of corrupting one’s objectives.”
“This is self-preservation,” Trina said. “They’re not going to stop coming for us, and it’s time to cripple them.” She frowned, not happy with the idea, but resolute in her determination that it was the right course of action. “We wanted to give you guys a heads up. You have no obligation to help us.”
“None,” Nikita emphasized. “It�
��s us they want.”
It was silent a long, long moment, the coldness of the wind biting through Nikita’s thin denim jacket. He caught Sasha’s gaze, and earned a supportive smile that he was helpless but to return.
Will said, “Our organization has tried to leave the Institute well enough alone for years, but I think it’s high time we took a more active role. I know Rob would want us to assist.”
Then all eyes swung toward Val.
He laughed, and threw his arms wide. “Darlings, I’ve been chained up for centuries! Of course I want revenge!”
Nikita let out a deep breath. It was a start.
~*~
“It seems we had the same idea,” Will said, opening up his bag across from Fulk, who was doing the same.
Fulk hummed a low note. “When they said they’d been fighting, I figured it was a clumsy, hopeless affair.”
“We can hear you,” Nikita said, dryly.
“Good.” Fulk straightened, a sword held in each hand. They weren’t the massive, two-handed greatswords that medieval knights used in movies, but almost-elegant shortswords with workmanlike grips and narrow, gleaming blades. He twirled them both with a deft movement, and then tossed one, caught its blade without cutting himself, and offered the handle to Nikita.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Take it, and learn something.” There was a mocking edge to the wolf’s smile, blue gaze bright in the moonlight. His hair was French-braided tightly, two plaits down the back of his head, rolled and pinned, nothing loose to get in his way. And over the sleeves of his hoodie, he’d buckled leather bracers around his wrists, supple and soft from long use.
He’d come to spar, Nikita realized. All of them had.
“We’re not going to a Renaissance Faire,” he retorted.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 53
