Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  Sasha would have had something to say about this, the way he stood amid the sparkling dew and twittering birds of early morning, digging his nails into his palms until his hands bled, hating himself.

  Warring with himself.

  When he’d awakened propped against a tree on a snowy November morning in 1942, and Sasha told him what he was now, had seen the way Katya recoiled from him, he’d known that any future he’d envisioned for the two of them was gone. The possibility starved out the moment Rasputin’s heart crossed his lips. He wasn’t a man anymore, but a beast. A thing. A creature with insatiable cravings and too much strength in his hands. One who would, inevitably, kill the woman he loved in a fit of lust, or rage, or thirst. The most important thing was to keep her safe, and he was the greatest danger of all. Clean cuts always healed the fastest, so he’d never allowed himself to search for her. When he started to imagine what it could have been like, he sliced the thoughts away, never letting them fester, never letting them haunt him.

  (A few had festered anyway, digging deep, impossible to weed-out roots in his mind. Portraits of what could have been: staying with her, holding his child when it was born; sinking his fangs into a pillow in bed so he wouldn’t be tempted by Katya’s throat. She would grow old, and he would stay twenty-seven, smooth-skinned and unchanging. Would he turn her? Would he sentence her to the cold, terrifying depths of forever out of the selfish need to keep her with him?)

  But now. Now that she was gone. Last year. He faced the truth: he hadn’t cut anything away, had only stowed it in a locker somewhere deep, and now the lock was busted, and all of it was spilling out, slick and dangerous as oil. He could have seen her again, but he’d never looked. Had she ever missed him? Had she grieved for him? Or was she glad he never showed his face again?

  None of those questions mattered, because she was gone now. Just like Sasha was gone.

  Christ, Sasha…

  Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind him, a slow approach, and there came a quiet clearing of a throat. Jamie.

  Nikita stood with one hand braced on the trunk of a dogwood tree, staring unseeing at the dew-drenched field, clenching his teeth, shaking, choking, hating, aching. He would have turned around and roared at Jamie. Sent him running. But he didn’t have the strength to do so.

  Sasha would have cupped a gentle hand around the back of his neck. Told him he needed to feed. Told him nothing was his fault, that he’d done his best.

  But Sasha wasn’t here.

  Behind him, Jamie took a breath, preparing to speak, and there was nothing he could say that Nikita wanted to hear.

  But he said, “I was madly in love with my roommate.”

  Nikita stilled, for just a moment.

  Jamie sighed. “It was pretty pathetic. We met at school. Our first day. And she was just…” He exhaled in a way that spoke more eloquently than words could. “And I was the nothing-special friend. And her boyfriend was…well, he’s a lot like Lanny, actually.” His voice grew sour. “He doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body. Or, if he did, it got crowded out a long time ago by protein powder and muscles.”

  It wasn’t funny, but Nikita snorted. “Pathetic.”

  “I know.” Jamie moved up to stand beside him, on the other side of the narrow tree trunk. “The sad part is, now I’m strong, and I can breathe, and I don’t need glasses…and she thinks I’m dead, or that I’m a zombie she ran into in our favorite coffeeshop and…well.” Another sigh. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Nikita glanced over at him, suspicious…but found no trace of manipulation in Jamie’s features. Only wistfulness; the pain of a lost chance.

  You don’t know anything, Nikita thought, and almost told him. A schoolboy crush was nothing like his own loss. If Jamie Anderson thought he’d been through something terrible, immortality wasn’t going to serve him well.

  But he was too tired to voice those things.

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said after a long spell of quiet. “I know that doesn’t mean anything, coming from me, but I am.”

  Nikita nodded, swallowed with trouble. “Thanks.”

  Footsteps again. Loud and graceless, human.

  “Hey, Nik.”

  Nikita turned and found Steve Baskin standing behind him, within arm’s reach, close enough to kill him. If he’d wanted to. So he wasn’t afraid, then. Maybe he shouldn’t have been – what child feared his own grandparent?

  “Nik,” Nikita said. “That’s awfully familiar.”

  Steve had his eyes, just like Trina did. His smile was half-hopeful, half-rueful. “Sorry. I just feel like I already know you.”

  “You don’t.”

  Jamie looked between them, and then silently walked back to the house.

  “If it helps,” Steve started.

  “It probably won’t.”

  “She had a good life. Lots of family. Nice place to live.” He looked so…so sad, and understanding. Nikita wanted to vomit. “She always missed you – she kept your memory alive – but I think she was content. Happy, even. She loved her kids, and–”

  “Kids?” His breathing hitched.

  Steve, if possible, grew even more sorry-looking, eyebrows crimping, frown one of consolation. “Yes. She had three – including my dad.”

  Nikita tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “She found someone else, then.”

  “Nik – Nikita…she married Pyotr.”

  Blankness.

  For one blessed second, he thought nothing about that.

  Then it was, Huh, well, okay.

  Then, That makes sense.

  Then it was…painful.

  He dragged in a breath and pushed something like a smile across his lips. “Well. Good for little Pyotr.”

  “I’m sorry–”

  “I got his brother killed, you know. Did they tell you that? My best friend since childhood, Dmitri, and my lack of leadership got him stabbed to death by a fucking farmer in some fucking backwater village. I took Dima from him, so I guess it’s only fair he took my woman.”

  Steve’s features settled into something harder, angrier. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Don’t tell me what it was like,” Nikita snapped. “I’m glad they had each other. They deserved every happiness, both of them.”

  Steve took a breath. “I know it stings, though.”

  “You don’t know anything. They should have never mentioned my name. I should have been the monster story that woke the children up with nightmares in the middle of the night. How dare they tell you who I was. What I was.”

  The morning spun around him and he made himself take another breath, clutching at the bark of the dogwood tree for balance.

  Steve gave him a flat look that Nikita had seen countless times in the mirror. “You need to get over yourself.”

  “I–”

  “Every family has its dark secret. Ours is you. And Sasha.” He looked sorry again. “Trina said they took him. Those Institute people.”

  Nikita slashed a hand through the air, trying to silence him. He just…couldn’t anymore.

  But Steve was a Baskin, after all, and he was good at pushing. “Grams would be glad that you two stayed together all this time. It’s good that you have someone.”

  “Shut up!” Nikita roared – really roared, the snarling big cat sound punching out of his lungs, echoing off the front of the house. He kept growling, low and constant, the taste of blood filling his mouth as his fangs nicked his tongue. “I don’t have him,” he said viciously, “I lost him, and it should have been me. Why didn’t they take me instead? Why is it never me?”

  Steve stared at him, gaze assessing, terrifyingly penetrating. “But it was you,” he said, softly. “Once. Sasha had your back then. And you have his now. Right?”

  Nikita swallowed his growl and wiped a hand down his face.

  “Trina says you guys need to have a séance,” Steve continued. “So let’s walk up to the other house and see if Mom’s got enough candles. Yeah?”


  Slowly, Nikita lowered his hand, marveling. He’d just yelled at this man. Was his century-old grandfather, back from the dead, or from legend, or wherever. And Steve was inviting him in, accepting him, like…

  Like he was family.

  Nikita swallowed. “Your father…”

  Steve smiled. “Kolya.”

  Oh. Oh, didn’t that hurt.

  “I think he’d really like to meet you, if you’re up for it.”

  He didn’t think he was; would probably never be. But he nodded.

  “Come on,” Steve said, gently, and he went.

  20

  Farley, Wyoming

  She woke up slowly, like she always did after an energy transference. Rooster called it “healing,” what she did, but that wasn’t how it felt. For her, it had always been like taking a deep breath, gathering her power, feeling it move through her veins like blood, like something brighter and stronger than blood, and pushing it through her skin and into someone else’s. She didn’t know the medical mechanics of it, how Rooster’s body was able to absorb and metabolize her energy like that. She could only be grateful for the process.

  She opened her eyes to a room striped with dawn shadows, Rooster’s arm heavy around her waist, his breath regular and reassuring against the top of her head.

  She craved this: the closeness. The touch of skin, the warmth of shared body heat. Knowing that he was whole, and safe, and near enough for her to ease, to heal, to soothe if she needed to. She’d never had this – intimacy – before she fled the Institute and found Rooster. There had been the other LCs, the redheaded children who looked so like her, testing their budding powers on mannequins in gun ranges, but they’d each been assigned a bunk and told to stay there. They’d never touched; the only hands that had ever touched her body belonged to the doctors and nurses and techs. Touches used to manipulate her limbs, and draw samples, and administer drugs that made her see double, and throw up, and lie shivering in her bunk for hours.

  But Rooster touched her like he thought she might break, always so careful, mindful of the size of his hands and the strength in his big, warrior’s body. Touched her like she mattered, and always had, since that first night in his friend’s house when he’d pulled her with his arms and comforted her.

  Sometimes she wanted more, a low, humming sort of craving in the pit of her stomach. She understood what it was, mechanically, but practically, it overwhelmed her. Almost frightened her, the things she wanted.

  The things she wanted from Rooster.

  She tipped her head back and looked up at him, her vision hazy with sleep.

  His eyes were open, she could tell, trained on her. He had such pretty eyes: a gold-flecked green that he called “muddy,” but which was really hazel. No one noticed their color, she figured, because his scowl was usually enough to put people off from a distance. But in the quiet, stolen moments like these, she got to admire them up close. And think…

  Things.

  Things maybe she shouldn’t.

  Things he most certainly didn’t reciprocate.

  “You alright?” he asked, his voice steady, like he’d been awake for a while, watching her.

  “Yeah, I’m alright.”

  He reached out – careful, always careful – and cupped the back of her head in one big hand; it felt supportive, steady, even though the pulse in his wrist flickered against her scalp, betraying nervousness.

  “You were having a nightmare,” she said, remembering. She’d been awakened by his moaning, the shushing of his legs kicking around in the sheets. When she’d turned on the light and said his name aloud, he hadn’t awakened, though he’d turned toward her, grimacing in his sleep.

  “No,” he’d whimpered. “No, no, no.”

  He’d thrashed, and then stiffened, hissing in pain, his left side catching in that way that had become so familiar to her. She’d known that he was hurting, that he’d needed her touch; but she hadn’t known what had snuck up on him in his dreams and tormented him. Drawn him up tight as a bowstring until he’d twisted and turned himself into a full-body crick.

  He swallowed now, throat bobbing. Wet his lips. “Yeah. I was.”

  He wore a deep groove between his eyebrows, and she reached to smooth it with her thumb. It relaxed beneath her touch, though the rest of his body stiffened, arms and legs going taut against her own. “What was it about?” she asked.

  His gaze slid away, moving over her shoulder. His breath stuttered a step. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said, cajoling.

  “Red, just…” His hand flexed against the back of her head, and then fell away, moving to her shoulder, and then off completely as he drew it back to hold awkwardly at his side. “Leave it,” he said, heavy, sad.

  She frowned, wishing he would cradle her head again, leaning into him. “Rooster.”

  His eyes snapped back to her face, gaze harsh now, breathing quick, like he was in pain. “Red…”

  “Do you ever,” she started, and the words welled up on her tongue, fully formed, betraying her carefully-controlled subconscious. She looked at him – the suntanned lines of his face, the pale wheat of his mussed hair on the pillow, the bulk of his shoulders throwing shadows over her, blocking the sun, blocking the world, and anyone in it who would dare hurt her – and something tightly held inside her loosened, suddenly. She took a deep, quick breath. “Do you ever wish you weren’t alone?”

  He blinked, face wiped clean by surprise. “What? I’m not alone. I have you.” He said it like it was obvious.

  She smiled, but she knew it was sad. “But,” she said, “don’t you need someone…someone who’s just yours? Someone who…loves you?”

  His eyes widened. He looked like he’d been punched. “You don’t love me?” Like a wounded child.

  “I love you more than anything,” she said, immediately. “I’ve never loved anyone or anything, but I love you.”

  He breathed out in a rush, sour morning breath against her face.

  “But, I mean.” She cupped his jaw in her hand, the sharp line of it like cut glass against her palm. And then, caught between her better judgement and sleepy impulse, she moved her body against his; tried to be sinuous like the temptresses in the grocery store paperbacks she read. “Someone you can…someone…” She blushed, face hot, palms tingling. “Someone to…to make love to. Don’t you want that?”

  His reaction was bad.

  Embarrassing…for her.

  He clamped his hand down on her shoulder and held her there while he pushed back with his own body, breaking the contact between them. At another time, she would have laughed to see his eyes so wide, his mouth open in shock.

  Shame flooded her, hot as a brand. She shrank back, letting go of him, pulling her hands into her chest.

  His mouth moved silently for a moment. “Red,” he finally said, helpless.

  “No, I–”

  He caught her with both hands: one on her shoulder, one awkwardly capturing her face. His eyes flared. “Hey. Hey. Listen to me. You are the most important – important person – who’s ever been…I’ve never…” He took a deep breath, expression clamping down with frustration. He’d never expressed himself eloquently.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered, but it wasn’t. She’d ruined everything.

  “No, listen,” he repeated, eyes blazing now. “Red. Sweetheart.”

  Her heart leapt, just a moment. But then…

  “I would never do that to you.”

  “Do…” she started, and then understood. “Oh,” she said again, even softer, a bare breath of sound.

  “I would never hurt you,” he said.

  She glanced away from him, shifting her gaze to his shoulder, the threadbare cotton of his t-shirt. “Hurt me,” she murmured, but it felt like she was hurt. Like he’d reached inside her and broken something fragile and tentative with his bare hands. Snapped it in two without even looking at it first.

  “You don’t want me,” she said.
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  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She looked back at him, sharply, because those two things weren’t the same. His face was pained, features twisted up with an emotion she couldn’t label.

  He exhaled in a rush. “Where is this coming from?” he asked, but guilt lurked in his eyes.

  He’d thought about it, too, she realized. He’d wondered.

  Maybe. She hoped.

  “I…” she started.

  His phone rang, and he rolled away from her to reach for it, breathing a relieved sound.

  Red let her hands fall to the mattress and stared at the line of his back, the musculature visible beneath his thin shirt.

  He’d said he didn’t want to hurt her.

  But he had.

  ~*~

  The phone call was from Jake: news about the truck. Bad news, she guessed, judging by the heavy frown that graced Rooster’s face as he stood and started rummaging through his duffel bag for clothes.

  “We gotta head to the garage,” he said, tone flat. His all-business voice.

  Red took a moment to sit up and let the room stop spinning, sighing quietly to herself. When he got like this, there was no shaking him out of it. Their conversation, however strange and disappointing, had come to a close for now.

  She showered, brushed her teeth, and frowned at her too-pale, black-haired reflection in the mirror. The dye made her face look sallow and sickly; she had a true redhead’s skin tone, and the black leached all the meager color from her cheeks. There was nothing to be done for it, though, so she dressed and followed Rooster out of the room, waited patiently while he checked that the door was securely locked once, twice, three times.

  After, he ushered her forward with the usual gesture of his arm; he always wanted her to walk a half-step ahead of him, so he could guard her from all sides at once. This morning, though, she was struck by the way that gesture never actually brought them in contact. He didn’t hook his arm around her, or slide her arm through his, no. At least a foot separated them.

  He would have said he had to keep his gun hand free, and she knew that. She was being stupid. She…