Rasputin lay on his back on the bed, head turned so he could drink from the throat of one girl, who lay passive and dead-eyed beside him. The other sister sat astride the starets, hands braced on his chest, bouncing on his cock with little pleasure-rich laughs, heavy braid slapping at her bare back.
Philippe cleared his throat, and the girl on top paused, glanced back over her shoulder. She stared at him, uncomprehending, and her hips twitched still. She wasn’t a pretty girl, but was young, smooth-skinned, with pert breasts. She moaned, and Philippe felt an unwanted stirring.
He cleared his throat again, louder this time. “Grisha? I think it’s time we leave.”
Rasputin opened his mouth slowly, turning loose of the other girl’s throat at his leisure. He licked the torn flesh a few times, tongue crimson with blood. Then finally lifted his head to regard Philippe.
“I’m not ready to leave,” he said, and his voice was whiny as a child’s.
“We should,” Philippe said, and stood unwavering as Rasputin groaned theatrically. He wasn’t going to be like the indifferent Okhrana handlers who’d let the man get into horrible trouble. This was bigger than base appetites. “Get dressed, please. It’s time to go.”
Rasputin pouted, and caressed the girl above him as he did so, running his hands up her sides, cupping her breasts. She squealed, and laughed, and began moving in earnest again.
Rasputin groaned happily, and smiled, lifting his hips to meet her thrusts. He tipped his head to the side so he could look around her at Philippe. “Have a turn. You’ll feel better.”
Philippe sighed. “You have five minutes. I’m keeping time.”
“Fine, fine.”
In the parlor, the girls’ mother had sunk down to sit on the floor, head lolling, stupefied.
Philippe stepped over her, grimacing as he listened to the sounds behind him speed up and intensify.
God, he hated vampires.
At least this one could be controlled with blood and women. Thank God for small favors on that front.
32
SUMMER IN A RIVER CITY
The windows were open, letting in hot, heavy summer air that was so thick it barely ruffled the curtains. Nikita was sweating inside his clothes; he felt it gathering under his arms, trickling in little rivulets down into the waistband of his pants.
It smelled like summer in a river city outside.
Inside, in their cramped rooms, it felt like a campaign tent on the edge of a warzone.
Nikita had a map of the city unrolled across a table, the corners weighted down with empty vodka bottles. He stared at it, and stared at it…and had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, or thinking. He wasn’t a soldier; he was a paid bully. He had no access to military intelligence.
Not yet.
He finally heaved a deep sigh and glanced up at the faces around him, all of them looking to him for guidance. No thanks to his insistence that he be in fucking charge. What an asshole.
“I got a note a few hours ago,” he said, fishing it from his pocket and laying it on top of the map for the others to see. “The major general here wants us to report in. He’s been in contact with Stalin and he wants to formally integrate us into a special unit.”
Everyone stared at it like it might bite.
Kolya finally picked it up. “We knew this was coming.”
“Yeah,” Nikita said.
“Tomorrow.” Kolya glanced up from the note, gaze cautious. “First thing.”
“All of us?” Feliks asked, with a not-so-subtle glance toward Sasha.
Poor Sasha, still eerily vacant-eyed after yesterday’s debacle. All day they’d meant to take him back to the Institute to fetch his wolves, and it kept getting put off.
Now, he smiled a little, forlorn and small-seeming. “I have to go. I’m the point of all this. Or.” He drew his shoulders up a little closer to his ears, gaze on the table. “Rasputin is, I guess.”
As if on cue, the sound of footfalls coming up the stairs reached them.
“That’ll be them,” Nikita said, and registered grim looks all around.
“You think he killed any of them?” Ivan asked, a note of accusation in his voice.
Nikita gave him a flat glance. “I don’t really care at this point.” But he did. It ate at him, like every other damn thing. It was a miracle he had any stomach lining left.
Philippe entered first, as stiff and composed as always, and in waltzed Rasputin behind him, loose-limbed and well-fucked, reeking of sex and alcohol. He tripped on the edge of the rug and laughed to himself, stumbling to a halt just shy of colliding with Philippe.
“Well don’t you two make a classy picture,” Nikita deadpanned.
Philippe managed a tight, quick smile.
Rasputin threw his arms wide, tilted his head back, and laughed up at the ceiling. “My friends! It’s a beautiful night out there, full of beautiful sights. Why do you hide indoors looking at papers?”
“Because some of us have to plan things,” Nikita said. He noticed the way Sasha ducked his head and pressed into Pyotr’s side, and he wanted to take Rasputin by the collar and throw him back down the stairs.
“Hmph.” The starets executed a sloppy gesture of dismissal and fell into a chair, sprawling rather than sitting, head hanging off the back of it. “Do you know what?”
No one answered him.
He went on, unperturbed. “All the great men of history had plans. And look at them. They’re all dead.” He barked a laugh. “It’s better to have faith than plans. God is one thing we can truly rely on. His divine intervention. His grace. His forgiveness.”
“And you need a lot of his forgiveness, huh?” Feliks asked.
Rasputin either didn’t hear him, or ignored him. “Something tells me, captain, that you haven’t prayed enough. Because your plan isn’t possible. You have no army, no resources, and no special powers yourself.”
Nikita clenched his teeth to keep from fidgeting. It was the same thought he had at least once a day, but when he voiced it, his friends – his pack – always told him that it could be done. That they believed in him. They were kind liars, in that respect.
“What you need,” Rasputin said, “is a miracle. As a performer of miracles myself.” He sat up and twisted around to look at Nikita, eyes blazing in the dim room. “I know a little something about performing them.” He held Nikita’s gaze a long, airless moment, then resumed his sprawl. “You were smart to wake me. It’s maybe the smartest thing you’ve done.”
It was silent a beat.
Then Kolya said, “What miracles?”
Rasputin waved a dismissive hand. “What?”
Kolya stepped away from the table and paced slowly across the rug, his gait the rolling, predatory strut of a big cat. His hair kept growing, shaggy curtains that framed his face now. With his shadow climbing the wall behind him, he looked poised, and sinister.
Not that Rasputin cared.
“What miracles have you performed?” he asked, drawing up to Rasputin’s chair. “Because I think you’re just bragging.”
“Officer Dyomin–” Philippe started.
“Shut up,” Nikita said.
Rasputin grinned, the kind of lazy, uncoordinated smile that spoke of drinking and fucking. It was a terrible expression on his bearded face, flashing his long yellow teeth. “Don’t the Soviets teach about the empire in schools? I suppose not. But you’re a White. You must know about the miracles I performed on the tsarevich.”
Nikita wanted to dismiss the claim out of hand, but he’d always harbored a secret fascination about Alexei’s ability to overcome so many hemorrhages.
“My poor dear boy,” Rasputin said, voice going thick with emotion. Nikita had never met anyone so easily overcome by his feelings; he was like a Shakespearian stage actor, weeping one moment and laughing deliriously the next. It was tiresome. “He couldn’t even play with his sisters. One fall, one bruise, and the bleeding would start. His arm or his leg would swell. Bloated with blood that
had nowhere to go.” He made an expansive gesture, miming the swelling. “None of the palace surgeons could do anything for him – but I could.” And here he sounded satisfied.
A cold, sick dread washed through Nikita. “You drank from him.”
“Of course I did. Was I supposed to let him suffer? How cruel! I fed from his bruises, took away his pain and swelling. The blood had nowhere to go, you see, his little body would have had to work so hard to reabsorb it. So I fed. Carefully. And then afterward I would open my hand.” He ran a too-long fingernail down the opposite palm. “And feed him a little of my blood. It only took a little to help him. To heal him.”
“Vampire blood has incredible restorative properties,” Philippe explained. And then, doubt creeping in: “Grisha, you didn’t turn the boy, did you?”
“I was trying to. Slowly. He would have been the perfect tsar.” He sighed wistfully.
“But he’s dead,” Kolya said, voice a flat contrast to all of Rasputin’s dreamy reminiscing.
“So was I, for a while,” Rasputin said. “But now I’m awake again. Is that not enough of a miracle for you?”
“You’re a vampire. Apparently, that’s normal.”
Rasputin laughed. “Isn’t the existence of vampires a miracle in itself?”
“Or an abomination.”
“Kolya,” Nikita said. “That’s enough.” He sent his friend an apologetic look, and got a snort in response.
“Monsieur Philippe,” he continued, changing course. “We’re expected in front of the major general first thing tomorrow. Something about a specialized unit.”
Philippe looked almost relieved. “Ah, yes, good. Do you hear that, Grisha? You should get some rest.”
Getting the vampire out of his chair and into the bedroom he’d claimed for himself was an ordeal, but then finally the door was shut and they didn’t have to look at him anymore.
“Now,” Nikita said. “It’s getting late, but we’ve got passes. Let’s go get the wolves.”
Sasha perked up, smiling for the first time all day, and Nikita couldn’t help but smile back.
It took them a few minutes to sort things, but ultimately decided that Nikita would take Sasha and Pyotr back to the Institute to fetch the wolves, which left Ivan, Feliks, and Kolya behind to hold down the fort…and, though he wouldn’t admit it to her for fear of offending, to watch after Katya.
“Be safe,” she said, and kissed him, the kind of quick, affectionate kiss that promised more to come.
Monsieur Philippe pulled him aside once the young ones were already out the door, catching him on the staircase landing. “One request, Captain Baskin, if you please.”
Nikita paused with his hand on the bannister.
The mage produced a small package wrapped in brown paper. “Give this to Dr. Ingraham for me, if you would. I think he’ll be disappointed to see us all leave.”
Nikita took it carefully. “What is it?”
Philippe smiled his kindly old man smile. “A token of thanks for his hospitality.”
~*~
Katya was well-acquainted with exhaustion by this point. Aching muscles and neck spasms and eyes full of grit were daily nuisances at this point. But tonight, as evening bled into a steamy dusk, she found that she wasn’t just tired, but sleepy. Terribly so. She swayed in her chair and only realized her eyes were shut when Kolya spoke to her and she opened them again.
“I might as well play cards by myself if you’re going to do that,” he teased, but she saw real concern behind his smile.
“I’m fine…I just…” She could barely move her mouth to speak she was so sleepy.
“Go get some sleep,” he suggested. “These idiots can keep me company.”
To the sound of grumbled responses from Ivan and Feliks, she yawned, nodded, and got to her feet. She swayed a moment, and had to grab the back of the chair for support.
“Need help?” Kolya asked, half-out of his own chair, hands reaching for her.
She managed a smile. “No. I’m fine.”
Getting into the second bedroom, the one the boys had graciously let her share with Nikita, took a supreme effort. She managed to toe off her boots, and then sank down on top of the covers in her clothes, eyes shut at once.
She slept.
And then she dreamed.
Dreams that were flickers of light, and sensations, a tumble of emotions, but nothing concrete she could stand in and have a look around. They were pleasant, though. She felt warm, and happy, full of a bright, fizzing kind of hope. She felt like someone had pulled her into a loving embrace, soothing hands petting over her hair, and back, and shoulders. Over her hips and down her legs – and then between them. A bold, knowing touch at her sex that sent curls of excitement through her, delicious little shivers.
Nikita, she thought.
But it wasn’t Nikita’s voice that seemed to speak somewhere inside her head. Open yourself to me, it said, a coarse male voice. Familiar. I can please you like he never could.
Yes, she thought.
While a part of her though, Rasputin.
She jolted awake. She lay on her side, just as she’d fallen asleep, but now she was damp all over with sweat. She’d spread her legs, and had a hand between them, touching herself through her heavy wool army trousers. She was wet, pulse throbbing in her sex. Panting into the pillow and wretchedly sensitive. Ready to be fucked.
“Shit,” she murmured, pushing up on one elbow. The room seemed to spin and she groaned as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Ekaterina, that low, rough voice said inside her head again, and she gasped. Open yourself to me. It will be so good for you.
There was a sudden rush of wetness between her legs, a spike of need so intense she gritted her teeth together.
And her stomach rolled so hard she thought she might be sick.
No, she thought wildly. No, no, no.
An image that wasn’t of her own imagining flared to life behind her eyes, two writhing bodies on a rumpled bed.
No, no, no, no, no…
She couldn’t stay here, not in the room right next to him. He was controlling her somehow, and she had to get out.
She staggered to her feet, grasping at the bedstead for support, clothes clinging to her sweaty skin. She felt drunk. Aching, needy, desperate for touch, for relief. And so scared she thought she might swoon. This was twice as terrifying as wrestling with a Nazi intent on killing her, or a Chekist about to rape her; those threats had been external, and this one was coming from inside her.
She stomped into her boots and fled the room. The candles had all been snuffed in the parlor of their suite. The boys were asleep on their pallets, Ivan snoring like a tank engine.
She had reached the doorway when she spotted the dark silhouette at the window. The blackout curtains were drawn, but she could still see him somehow, the shape of his long hair, his narrow, rounded shoulders.
Something inside her tugged, urged her toward him.
She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream and tore away from the invisible grip. No, no, no, she chanted internally, fumbling her way onto the landing. The banister was cool and smooth against her damp palm, and she clung to it. Followed it down, down, around the next landing.
She seemed to run downstairs forever, and then suddenly she hit the bottom, going to her knees on the runner in the first floor hallway.
She stayed there for a long moment, gulping air, fighting the repulsive urge to go back upstairs, to shed her clothes and let that…that creature touch her.
She didn’t notice there was a lamp on in the library until she head the delicate clearing of a throat. Then she startled hard, almost falling on her face, scrambling around to see who was watching her.
It was Monsieur Philippe, and he lifted both hands, palms toward her, to show her he was harmless.
They stared at one another, his gaze shrewd and assessing. He knew, she figured.
But all he said was, “Nightmare,
dear?”
Her teeth were chattering. “Y-y-yes.” The worst one of her life.
“You can sit with me for a while if you like,” he offered, and instantly, she felt calmer.
Slowly, she got to her feet. “Yeah. Thanks.”
~*~
Dr. Ingraham was sorry that he wouldn’t get to speak with Philippe or Rasputin again for some time, but seemed more than a little relieved to be rid of the wolves. “They keep howling,” he lamented, watching as Sasha knelt among them and they swarmed over him, yipping and panting and smiling with all their teeth showing.
Nikita handed over Philippe’s gift, shook the doctor’s clammy hand, and was glad to be off.
The wolves seemed happy enough to ride in the wide-open back of the lorry, and the humans sat three-across in the cab, Sasha in the middle.
Sasha had become more and more animated the farther away they drew from the city, and by the time they started back, he was his old chatty self.
“Do you think our landlady will mind too much about the wolves?” he asked, voice ringing with boyish excitement.
“If she does, I figure the old man or khlyst can enchant her or whatever it is they do,” Nikita said, and immediately wanted to kick himself when he saw Sasha’s face fall in the glow of the dash lights. “Not that they’ll need to,” he rushed to add. “She seems a reasonable sort.”
“And they’re basically tame now,” Pyotr said, catching on to Sasha’s sudden shift in mood. “They’re amazing. Who could turn away a tame wolf?”
“We’ll tell her they’re special, military-trained guard wolves, keeping her house safe,” Nikita said, nudging Sasha with his elbow.
“Hmm.” Sasha breathed one soft, humorless laugh. “Yeah.”
It was time for a new topic, and fast.
Pyotr to the rescue again. “Do you think I could borrow one? Just for a little while, to impress some of the local girls?”
That startled a genuine laugh out of Sasha, and then the boys settled back into a real conversation, Sasha in light spirits again.
Nikita studied the road ahead and went slow, to keep from jostling the wolves in back, and because he had to, the road illuminated only by the full moon. It was lights-out across the Eastern Front; no one wanted to create a target in case the ever-present threat of German planes finally descended upon them. Tomorrow would bring more duties, more higher-ups to impress, more lies to tell, but for now, he enjoyed a quiet, dark road, and the happy sounds of the young ones talking about unimportant things.
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