Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  “I seriously doubt there’s ever been a damsel in your family.”

  She smiled, faintly, looked up at him through her lashes. “Mom plays one, sometimes, when she wants something from Dad.”

  “But not you.”

  “Nah. I’m all Baskin.”

  Just like her great-grandfather.

  And he was all Webb – which sometimes meant he was as contemplative as his father, but most of the time meant he was blunt and fiery as his mother.

  “Is it going to get better?” he asked.

  “Is what going to get better?”

  “Us.”

  She stared at him a long moment, and he felt the push-pull of one step forward, two steps back. She had leaned into him outside the hospital yesterday, but then she’d flinched away walking up to Colette’s door last night.

  “You’re the one who said I was the same person,” he said, bitter now.

  “I know,” she said, softly. “You are. It’s just…instinct, I guess. Fight or flight.”

  “Because you don’t trust me.”

  “Because it’s still early. You went through a major change, and I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet. It’s going to take some time. You – we should both – be patient.”

  He snorted.

  “What do you want me to say?” She sounded like she was really asking, looking for him to shine a light on this situation that neither of them had ever expected.

  He shrugged. “I dunno.” And he really didn’t.

  ~*~

  Disabling the security cameras and destroying the footage of him entering the building was an easy enough task, with Mona the nurse guiding him straight to the security center and watching him adoringly as he charmed the guard on duty.

  Figuring out what the hell the Institute was up to was more complicated.

  He used the charmed guard’s ID badge to swipe his way into several labs, and sat at a desk in one now, unsuccessfully trying to hack his way into the computer system.

  “Can I help you with anything?” Mona asked, voice spacey and drugged-sounding, as she hovered behind his chair.

  “No, I need a doctor’s password, and I–”

  “I’ll go get one.”

  She was gone before he could turn around and order her to stay.

  He sighed. Why did anyone enjoy enchanting people? They were so stupid and worshipful when they were under the influence.

  When his phone rang, he kept one eye on the door as he answered it.

  “It’s me,” Sasha said, voice low and urgent. “I can smell them.” Low, urgent, and angry.

  Nikita didn’t need to ask who it was his wolf could smell, nor if he was sure. Sasha was never wrong. “Where?” he asked instead.

  “A few blocks away.” On the other end of the line, Nikita could hear the rush of traffic, and a sharp sniff as Sasha scented the air. “I could catch up to them, easy.”

  Mona the nurse reappeared, towing a confused, disgruntled doctor along behind her.

  “What in the world?” he said. “Who is this.”

  Nikita took a deep breath. “Sasha, listen to me. Colette has the house warded. When they get close enough, they won’t be able to follow the scent to the door, and whichever humans are with them are going to catch a bad case of amnesia. Go back in the house, keep the others safe, and wait for me to get back.”

  Sasha’s answer was a growl.

  “Sashka.”

  “How did you get in here?” the doctor demanded, voice rising. “Who are – I’m calling security.”

  “Please,” Nikita barked into the phone, ended the call, and got to his feet. “Hello,” he said, rich dark velvet and melting chocolate. Calm, he pushed into the air around him. Help me. You know you want to.

  The doctor cut off mid-sentence, face slowly going blank, mouth hanging open as his pupils blew.

  “Now,” Nikita said, “would you mind logging me into the system?”

  “Not at all,” the doctor said, and moved languidly toward the keyboard.

  ~*~

  Sasha didn’t realize just how many hours a day he spent walking until he was forced to cool his heels for a while. He’d always liked Colette’s place, and goodness knew moving furniture was good exercise, but sitting around waiting for a threat to bypass them went against every instinct he possessed. Their little band was starting to feel very much like a pack – even if a pack with far too many vampires and only one wolf – and his lupine side wanted to be out on the streets, prowling, hunting, going on the offensive.

  He stepped outside to get some air. That’s what he told himself. He was tired of looking at Alexei, of listening to him breathe, of smelling him. Ugh. No one understood – except for Nik. The scent of all vampires, that dark copper tang, made him want to bow up his back and show his teeth. He felt the urge around all of them, even little Jamie – all except for Nik. Nik was the exception to most things.

  So after breakfast he went out on the front stoop, ignoring Colette’s raised-brow look that said, Is that wise? It was fine. He just needed to breathe some air that wasn’t tainted with vampires.

  But then he scented the two wolves who’d killed that family, and the wolf that lived inside him had raised its hackles and pressed right up against his skin, growling and snapping his teeth.

  When Nikita hung up on him, Sasha slipped his phone in his pocket, and went down the porch steps, following the trail.

  It was a bright and warm morning, the sunlight angled, now, as summer slowly gave way to fall. In another month his breath would be a vaporous cloud, and scented with the first iron-filing notes of frost. Now the sidewalk boasted pedestrians in good measure, people out shopping on their lunch breaks, the proprietors of all the Boho-chic storefronts that neighbored Colette’s building.

  Sasha knew that he didn’t look casual, the rolling, prowling gait he’d settled into, the set of his shoulders, his hands poised at his sides. He didn’t much care. These feral wolves smelled wrong. And now that he knew what they’d done…that they’d killed an innocent family…

  To be a werewolf was to be an actual wolf: patient, cunning, territorial, and pack-oriented. It was nothing like the movies said: being overtaken by a creature that drove you to blindly attack and kill, rabid and unreasonable. Sasha had never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, and these two deserved it.

  They’d passed Colette’s building without lingering, so her wards must have worked; they’d tailed their little band and then, when they reached the steps, were sent off on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction. Their scents were fresh, though, only minutes old. They’d turned right at the red light, and so did Sasha, lengthening his stride as the scents grew closer, warmer. He started growling, and didn’t seem able to stop. A woman gave him a sharp look and side-stepped out of the way. He was too focused on the hunt to apologize.

  The trail led him another block, and then veered down into an alley, the kind that was the perfect place to hide. Crammed with dumpsters and smaller trash cans, stacks of pallets and shipping boxes. The unwashed, dirt and urine stink of them was strongest here, burning in his nostrils, drawing a deep, rumbling growl out of his chest.

  Sasha made it about three paces into the alley, had reached the first dumpster, when he felt a sharp pinch at his neck, like a bee sting. He slapped at it, and his fingers brushed the feathering of a dart.

  Oh no.

  Oh, Nik was going to kill him.

  He spun. Tried to. His movements were already unsteady, his heart lurching and slowing. His vision swam and he had just a moment to make out the silhouettes of several men blocking the mouth of the alley before the drug swept over him like a tide, and everything went black.

  13

  Nikita got within five feet of Colette’s front steps and froze. He smelled the feral wolves, and Sasha. Which he’d expected. Trina stood at the top of the steps, though, expression one of careful control; the face of a police officer about to deliver unfortunate news.

  “What?”
he asked, heart hammering.

  Trina took a deep breath. “Okay. I need you to promise that you’re not going to do something incredibly stupid.”

  He growled, and her brows shot up.

  “Nikita.”

  “Tell me.” He could already predict what she’d say, though. That was the beauty of being a chronic pessimist: you were so rarely proven wrong.

  She was brave enough to look him in the eyes when she said, “Sasha wandered off about an hour again, and he hasn’t come back.”

  Nikita let the words hit him, took them in, interpreted them. And spun away from her, following the fading scent trail on the sidewalk. Already an hour old; where was he now? How far had he gotten? Had he found the wolves? And had they–

  “Nikita,” she snapped. “This counts as something stupid!”

  He ground to a halt, almost staggering. It felt like someone was sitting on his shoulders, pressing down on his lungs, constricting his breathing, driving him right down through the sidewalk. He opened and closed his hands, fists so tight his nails scored his palms. The pain was good; it grounded him.

  He half-turned, speaking over his shoulder, voice jagged and full of glass. “Why did you let him leave? You were all supposed to stay here.”

  “Let him? I’m not his keeper, and he sure as shit didn’t ask for permission.”

  It wasn’t her fault. He took a deep breath and tried to tell himself that. “Stay here. I have to go and find him.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “No.”

  “I’ll go,” Alexei said. When Nikita turned all the way around, he saw that the tsarevich had joined her on the porch. “I know you don’t care if anything happens to me.” He gave a small, rueful smile as he loped elegantly down the stairs and came to stand beside Nikita. “Two is always better than one, yes?”

  Nikita sighed. “Yes. Thank you.” He glared at Trina and jabbed his finger toward the building. “Go back inside.”

  “Don’t disappear,” she shot back, and, thankfully, slipped back through the door.

  Nikita set off down the sidewalk, following Sasha’s scent, not caring if Alexei had any trouble keeping up.

  “He seemed restless,” Alexei said, and though his voice was pleasant, comforting even, Nikita didn’t want to hear anything he had to say about Sasha. “I don’t think he likes being cooped up.”

  Nikita growled at him, which startled a group of teenagers passing the other way. “Freak,” one of them accused.

  “I didn’t chase him outside,” Alexei said in his own defense, snorting. “It was your order he disobeyed.”

  “I don’t give him orders. He isn’t my pet.”

  “He’s your Familiar.”

  “No, he…” Nikita choked on another growl and it hurt to swallow. “We are friends. Brothers. Equals.”

  Alexei murmured something disagreeing to himself.

  “What?”

  “I hope that he’s alright, I said.”

  Nikita hated him…but not in the cold, all-consuming way that he hated these feral wolves. Their scents lay like toxic waste beneath the fresh pine-and-earth scent of Sasha, unnatural and twisted.

  “I wonder–” Alexei started.

  “Shut up.” And he actually did.

  Sasha hadn’t gone far. The scent trail turned right at the light, went a block, and took another right in an alley. Where the scent just stopped. Nikita smelled humans, lots of them. And chemicals. Sasha was gone.

  But.

  The afternoon sunlight glinted off something against the base of a dumpster, and he knelt to pick it up. It was a 10cc syringe. Empty. And it reeked of a drug that wasn’t the kind humans injected into their veins for fun.

  “There’s another one over here,” Alexei said, bending for it. “Junkies, probably.”

  “No.” Nikita brought the needle to his nose and inhaled: Sasha. And blood. “They injected him with this.”

  He stood up slowly, shakily, his pulse thundering in his head. He thought he might faint, and for once it had nothing to do with his constant hunger.

  Alexei looked at him, regal brows knitted together. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” Nikita curled his hand tight around the syringe. “It was a trap.”

  ~*~

  “Next time, use a handkerchief,” Trina said, picking up the syringe with a bit of tissue.

  “What,” Lanny said, “you’re gonna take this to the lab?” He snorted to show what he thought of that idea.

  “Well, I…” She sighed. He was right. You couldn’t print a syringe your immortal great-grandfather found in conjunction with the unreportable kidnapping of his werewolf best friend. “Nikita,” she started, but he wasn’t listening to their exchange.

  He paced the width of Colette’s second floor, hands knotted behind his back, head tipped down, face an expressionless mask. If he’d had his black coat, he would have looked like an enraged Chekist commander about to hand down a death sentence. He reached the couch and spun back, closed the distance to the kitchen table with a few long strides, and did the whole thing again.

  “Nikita,” she said, louder this time, “we’re going to get him back.”

  He started muttering in Russian, the harsh consonant sounds emphasizing his furious panic.

  “What’s he saying?” she asked Alexei.

  “Um. He’s very angry.”

  He stopped then, and spun to face them. “I’m going to gut them with my bare hands,” he hissed – actually hissed, like an enraged puma, hands leaping up to shoulder-height, curled into claws.

  “Dude, that’s kinda dramatic,” Lanny said.

  Nikita took an aggressive step toward him.

  And Trina got to her feet, slapping her hand down on the table. “That’s enough. Everybody, that’s e-fucking-nough, okay? Someone drugged Sasha, and took him, and that’s terrifying and awful, but we have to do something about it. We can’t do anything if we’re bickering and getting theatrical about it. Okay?”

  Surprisingly, Nikita backed down first. He went back to pacing, without the Russian cursing this time.

  Lanny looked at her. “How do you want to play this?”

  A smile touched her mouth before she could help it; she didn’t want to smile, not when things were so serious and Nikita was so upset, and Sasha was God knew where. But it was so much like the old Lanny, the guy who’d never had a problem deferring to a woman and who’d always said she had better ideas than him.

  He smiled back, faintly.

  “I don’t know yet,” she said. Then, warming to the notion: “I need a notebook. And a pen.”

  “I’ll get you one,” Colette said, and Trina had no idea how long the psychic had been standing in the doorway.

  “Thanks.”

  “A notebook?” Nikita asked, voice mostly a growl.

  “Don’t knock the process,” Lanny said. “We can’t all just barge into a house with Stalin’s blessings and steal everybody’s vodka.”

  Nikita said something soft and vicious under his breath.

  “What the hell did you guys drag me into?” Jamie asked, but he seemed to be talking to himself, and sounded resigned besides.

  Colette returned bearing a leather-bound journal that seemed too special to write in, and an honest-to-goodness fountain pen.

  Trina opened up the cover and started a detailed case outline, from the night she and Lanny found Chad Edwards’ body in the alley to just a half hour ago, and Sasha’s abduction. Everyone save Nikita – who kept pacing like a madman – crowded around her chair and studied the notebook over her shoulder.

  “Okay,” she said when she was done, sitting back and reviewing her tidy notes. “I’m going to assume that Chad isn’t the first person Alexei’s taken too far.” She glanced at him for confirmation and received a tight, blushing nod. “But I think he must be the first person who’s made the news for getting up off a morgue slab and walking out into the street. That got the Institute’s attention. They had their pet
wolves start sniffing around, and they found not just one, but several vamps in town, and a wolf. Which, judging by their own wolves, and their ‘Project Kashnikov,’ they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to create some mentally-sound, fully-functional wolves for a while now.”

  She glanced up, giving the others a chance to chime in. Nikita had come to stand at the far end of the table, she saw, arms folded, scowling down at the wood grain of the tabletop.

  “Okay, so,” she continued. “They tracked us here. Colette’s wards worked, obviously” – she would have loved to know how, after watching the burning herb ritual Colette had performed – “but they knew we were close. And if they had tranqs, that means they had a trap. My question is this: did the mean to catch Sasha? Or is he just the first one to take the bait?”

  “My question,” Nikita said, “is where is he?”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious he’s at the Institute,” Trina said, careful to keep her tone neutral. “What sort of containment unit would they need to hold him?”

  Nikita made a face, shook his head. He looked like a man struggling to think in the midst of mind-numbing rage. “Concrete. Strong metal. He can take most doors down – silver.” He glanced up at her, and the look in his eyes made her want to shiver. “You can control immortal things with silver.”

  “The old silver bullet trick, huh?” Lanny said.

  Trina elbowed him. “Not helping.”

  Nikita started to pace again.

  Trina said, “I’m going to call Dr. Fowler and set up a meeting.”

  That got a reaction. “What?” everyone said in unison.

  All but Lanny, who nodded beside her. “Yeah.”

  “You can’t–” Nikita started, the same moment Jamie said, “That sounds like a really bad idea.”

  Trina sliced a hand through the air, and, miraculously, they fell silent. “Hear me out. I’m going to meet with Dr. Fowler alone, in public, while the rest of you get into the Institute and see if you can find Sasha.” When there were no immediate protests, only thoughtful silence, she offered a bare smile. “I can’t sniff anyone out, or Jedi Mindtrick anyone, but I can cause a distraction. And get some useful intel out of the idiot. What do you say?”