Nikita returned, bearing breakfast in a hamper: bacon and eggs and hot coffee in a thermos.
“I was going to walk down to the house,” Sasha protested, mouth already watering.
“Rachel fixed us a basket, though.”
They sat on the made-up bed, cross-legged, and ate while they watched the morning news. Boring local stories about tonight’s Halloween parade in town, and a special segment on trick-or-treating safety. In their first few days here, there had been stories about the fire in Queens, the one barely contained in time to save the neighboring buildings. Sasha had felt guilty for endangering innocent civilians – but seeing the Institute ablaze had been deeply satisfying.
Outside their windows, he could hear birds calling, and someone operating a chainsaw somewhere deep in the forest; the occasional thump of snow that had slid off a branch. No cars, no traffic, no horns nor sirens nor blasting radios.
It reminded him of home. The home he’d known, and left, so many decades ago.
“I like it here,” he said, licking bacon grease off his fingers.
Nikita smiled at him. “Maybe we can stay for a while.”
But something about Nik was…off. He was a little unsettled. Prickling with dormant nerves.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, baby.”
Sasha squinted at him. “You’re all squirmy.”
“I don’t squirm.”
“But you are. A little.”
“Your imagination.”
They cleaned the dishes, and packed them back in the hamper. Watched TV for a little while, until Sasha got drowsy again.
It was midday, the sun bright on the snow outside, when Nikita kissed the top of his head, stood, and went to put on his boots.
“Are you taking the basket back?” Sasha asked, pushing up on an elbow. “I’ll go with you.”
“No.”
Sasha froze.
Nikita’s face colored; his expression was strange – nervous, almost. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”
“But–”
“Please, Sashka.” And, oh, he couldn’t say no to that pleading tone. “It won’t be long. Wait here for me. It’s important.”
“What’s going on.”
“Nothing – nothing bad. A surprise. A good one. Just wait here. Please.”
Sasha subsided with a huff. “Fine.”
Nikita grinned at him, and ducked out.
But he wasn’t back. And it was long. Long enough that the noon news ended and Sasha watched two episodes of Seinfeld on the local station. Long enough that he got up, and started pacing, and, had he been in wolf form, would have been swishing his tail back and forth viciously as he did so.
Finally, he laced up his boots, tugged on his jacket, and went out.
Val was coming up the hill toward him, halfway there, walking in the tracks Nikita had left.
“Ah, I was just coming to get you,” he said, his smile bright.
Sasha paused just outside the door, struck with a wave of déjà vu. Val was dressed in jeans and a long, black puffer jacket with a bit of fake fur on the hood, his hair worn loose down his shoulders, but tied back at the crown. Sunk up to his calves in the snow…
Just like the very first time Sasha had seen him, as a boy.
“Are you a prince?” he asked, a little dazed, because that was what he’d asked, then.
Val’s brows went up a moment, and then he laughed. “I am, yes. And who might you be?”
For a moment, just a moment, Sasha reflected that it had been that moment, back then, when a chained-up vampire prince had been dragged across the astral plane to him, that the entire course of the rest of his life had been determined.
He wouldn’t trade it, no matter how dark some of it had been.
Then he walked down to meet his friend.
“Where’s Nik? He told me to wait here and said he was coming back, which he obviously isn’t.” Sue him if he sounded a bit petulant.
“He wanted to surprise you – he’s dearly sentimental at moments, your darling Nikita – and I’d say he’s succeeded.” He turned and offered his elbow. “Come, my dear, and I’ll take you to him.”
Sasha looped his arm through Val’s, and they started down the hill. “What kind of surprise?” His heart thumped.
“The good kind,” Val sang, his smile sly.
“You’re no fun.”
“Darling, I’m too much fun, most of the time. Trust me: you’ll like it.”
They went down the hill, and hit the path – which had been shoveled, the snow-packed gravel easier walking than the knee-high snow had been. A fresh bank of clouds had rolled in, though the sun still shone in patches, and fresh, fat flakes began to sift down onto their heads.
The path went around the guest house, and opened up to a view of the iced-over pond, and the clear stretch of open field beside it…
Where everyone waited for them.
Everyone.
Val paused a moment, to let Sasha take it in.
There was Trina, and Lanny, and Jamie, and Kolya. Alexei, Dante, Severin. Mia, Fulk, Anna – and Steve, and Rachel, and Raymond, and Valerie, and Kolya Baskin, and Trina’s grandmother, and…
And there was Nikita. Waiting. In his black coat that Sasha had always liked so much, beneath the naked, twisting branches of the lone apple tree that stood at the center of the clearing. He held something, both hands cupped around it, and his eyes seemed very bright and blue-gray against the white backdrop of the snow.
There were snowflakes in his hair, Sasha noted, a bit numbly. Like there had been the day they met, in his mother’s kitchen.
Val leaned in close to whisper in his ear: “Sentimental, but also rather graceless.” He chuckled. “I told him to ask first, and not simply spring this upon you. Just like I told him there ought to be fairy lights, and garlands, and decorations. But he didn’t want to wait. And he wanted it to be simple, he said. Just the pack, and the snow. That was right, he said. And supper after, which, thankfully, the rest of us have managed to make quite grand, to make up for all his oversimplified tastes.”
“What are you talking about?” Sasha whispered back, but his gaze never left Nikita.
Because he thought…he hoped…that he knew.
Val patted his hand. “Come along, then.”
He towed Sasha through the two lines of their people, all gathered together, smiling hugely. Sasha wasn’t aware of moving his feet, but, somehow, he went the distance, and then Val was pulling his arm free, and Sasha was standing in front of Nik.
Nikita’s face had gone white with nerves, and the sight of it, the faint trembling in him, his snowflake-laden hair shivering against his forehead, propelled Sasha out of his own disbelieving fog.
“Hi,” he said, and reached for Nik’s hands.
“Hi,” Nik said back. He put a velvet box in Sasha’s palms, and then supported his hands with his own, his skin warm despite the way he was shaking. “If you don’t like them – or if you think it’s stupid – and Fulk said maybe you ought to wear yours on a chain around your neck, for when you shift…”
Sasha opened the box, and there were two rings inside, silver in color, white gold to touch, because they didn’t carry the spiritual heaviness he felt whenever he touched real silver.
“Oh.” The word left him on a punched-out breath.
“You let me bind you,” Nikita said, his voice rough. “And now I want to bind myself to you. This way. Will you marry me?”
Sasha tore his gaze from the rings, lifted his head, and locked gazes with him. Stark terror showed on Nik’s face. Doubt, fear of rejection.
Sasha tightened one hand on the box, and with the other reached up to touch Nik’s face, his jaw tight beneath his fingers. In Russian, he said, “I wanted you in my mother’s kitchen. And I’ve loved you since I looked up at you from the table where I was given the strength to save your life. You don’t even have to ask.”
Nikita leaned into his touch, eyes closing; tears
slid down his cheeks, and Sasha brushed them away with careful fingers.
Val cleared his throat, quietly. He’d moved to stand beside them, directly under the tree. “The rings, please.”
Sasha threw him a surprised look. “You’re marrying us?”
He looked affronted. “Darling, I’m royalty. Who else is fit to perform such a ceremony?” Then he winked. “Also, Uncle Raymond helped me get ordained online. It’s amazing the things one can do with computers.”
Sasha snorted, and so did Nik, helplessly.
“Now.” Val accepted the rings. “Join hands. Stare soulfully into one another’s eyes – yes, that’s right. And repeat after me. I, Aleksander Ivanovich Kashnikov…”
Sasha was aware that his lips formed the words, and that Nikita said them back to him. Felt the smoothness of body-warmed gold as the ring slipped onto his finger, and as he put the other on Nikita. Nikita’s mouth was warm, when he kissed him, a soft press that he wanted to fall into; heard the cheering of their guests – of their pack.
Nikita rested their foreheads together, after, snowflakes drifting at the edges of his vision. His breath warm, when he whispered, “My whole heart.”
“My whole heart,” Sasha echoed.
And wherever they were going now, whatever adventures and dangers awaited, they were going, and would face them, together.
The snow fell gently, silently, and Sasha knew that, from now on, snow-filled clearings would no longer bring memories of fire, and blood, and death.
But of this.
Of quiet, perfect joy.
THE END
~*~
The packs will return in the next Sons of Rome adventure,
Lionheart
Coming Soon.
About the Author:
Lauren Gilley is the author of over twenty novels. She writes contemporary and historical stories with a focus on found family, and overcoming tough odds. She blogs, sometimes, at hoofprintpress.blogspot.com, and accepts emails at [email protected] She lives in the South; when she’s not writing, she’s mucking horse stalls, or walking her giant dog.
You can also find her on these social media sites:
Instagram: @hppress
Twitter: @lauren_gilley
Facebook: “Lauren Gilley – Author”
Other Titles From Lauren Gilley
The Dartmoor Series
Fearless
Price of Angels
Half My Blood
The Skeleton King
Secondhand Smoke
Loverboy
American Hellhound
The Lean Dogs Legacy Series
Snow In Texas
Tastes Like Candy
Prodigal Son
The Russell Series
Made For Breaking
God Love Her
Keeping Bad Company
The Walker Series
Keep You
Dream of You
Better Than You
Fix You
Rosewood
Standalones
Whatever Remains
Walking Wounded
Shelter
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 71
