White Wolf

by Lauren Gilley

  The whole walk there, Lanny waited for some sense of self-preservation to kick in, but it never did. In the middle of the night, exhausted beyond belief, counting the minutes left of his life, he couldn’t find a reason to turn back.

  When he knocked, Sasha opened the door, smiled at him. “Come in.”

  That was when his breath caught and his heart started hammering. Shit. What was he doing?

  But it was too late for those thoughts, because he was standing in the middle of a surprisingly cozy living room, Nikita seated with a glass of vodka and a cigarette in a battered corduroy recliner just this side of well-loved. He wore gray sweatpants and an often-washed AC/DC t-shirt, his hair soft and messy like he’d been running his hands through it, or sleeping. Lanny saw Trina in the shape of his face, the assessment in his eyes, and shivered.

  The door closed softly behind him, and that was that. He was trapped.

  Nikita exhaled a stream of smoke and said, “To be honest, I thought you’d turn up sooner.”

  Lanny scowled out of reflex. “This ain’t the kind of thing you decide on a whim.”

  “No. It’s not. Have a seat.” He gestured to the worn-out sofa with his cigarette, and Lanny sat.

  And that was when the enormity of what he’d done hit him. He wasn’t visiting a friend. Hell, he wasn’t even interrogating a suspect of walking alone through a bad neighborhood. He’d walked right into the proverbial lion’s den, and he had the distinct feeling that the department-issue gun on his hip wouldn’t do him a bit of good if one or both of them decided to rescind their hospitality.

  “This’ll help,” Sasha’s voice said, and a cool glass was pressing into his hand.

  He’d zoned out, he realized, startling back to the moment at hand to find his fingers curled around a tumbler of vodka.

  “It’s all we have to drink,” Sasha said with an apologetic shrug, going to sit in a wingback chair that had once been ornate, and now looked lived-in. “Unless you want Coke? Would you rather?” He made a move to rise.

  “Nah, it’s fine.” Lanny was surprised by the rough scrape of his voice. Shit, he was scared. In more ways than one. He brought the glass to his lips with a hand that only shook a little and cracked a smile he knew looked like a sad imitation; it was the same smile he’d given to his family right after his hand shattered, when they were trying to convince him he still had his whole life ahead of him. “Kinda cliché, though, isn’t it? Russians drinking vodka?”

  Nikita snorted, and one corner of his mouth twitched like he almost smiled. “You have no idea.”

  Sasha said, “I do like American whiskey. Jack Daniel’s is my favorite.”

  “Yeah?” Lanny said.

  “It’s like caramel,” the Russian boy said, his face expressive and open, going thoughtful. “Sweet, like vodka is not. Yes, I like it.” He smiled, and maybe it was that first sip of liquor, but Lanny smiled back. The kid was irrepressibly cheerful and…and just nice. He didn’t fit in New York at all – but maybe nice didn’t fit in anywhere anymore.

  Nikita said, “You’ll drink anything.” Made a dismissive hand gesture that made Sasha laugh.

  “You’re just boring,” he shot back.

  What was it like, Lanny wondered, to have been alive with someone for so long? To know what they thought, felt, dreamed? To be that strongly linked? Sometimes, if they were lucky, people had lifetimes together. But what did forever feel like? Did it burn? Or was it the balm that made life worthwhile?

  Belatedly, he noticed that both of them were staring at him.

  All the laughter bled out of the room.

  Nikita drank off his vodka and said, “When were you diagnosed?”

  He’d been expecting the question, but still, Lanny’s breath caught in his throat. “Trina told you?”

  “No. I smelled it on you the second we met.”

  “Oh.” The air left his lungs on an explosive sigh. “Yeah, um…” The idea of it, smelling something like cancer, like one of those trained dogs…

  “It’s in your lymph nodes,” Nikita said, his matter-of-fact tone – like he just knew – as unsettling as icy fingers down Lanny’s neck. “The ones in your throat, and under your arms, and in your groin. It’s spreading to your organs. You seem alright now, but you’ll be dead in a month or two.”

  Lanny opened his mouth to respond, and made an embarrassing whimpering sound instead.

  “You’re a proud man, Roland,” Nikita continued, and it wasn’t a question. “You don’t want to die, but you aren’t the sort to ask for help. You’re here because of Trina. Yes?”

  “Yeah,” he croaked.

  “But you don’t like it.”

  “Should I?”

  That finally earned him a real smile. Or a close approximation of one.

  Nikita shook his head, lips turned up at the corners. “No, definitely not. Do you hate me, or are you afraid?”

  Lanny hesitated, and Nikita lifted his dark brows. “Both,” he admitted gruffly. “A little.”

  Sasha said, “Nik is a very good vampire, though.”

  “Sashka,” Nikita said, scolding.

  “You are,” his friend insisted.

  “You ever, what’s the word, turned anyone before?” Lanny asked, interrupting them.

  “Never.” The first edge of emotion crept into Nikita’s voice. “Not even when I wanted to.”

  “Your girl?” Lanny guessed.

  Nikita pressed his lips together, hand tightening on his glass until his knuckles turned white.

  “Katya,” Sasha said, when it became apparent that Nikita wasn’t going to answer.

  “Trina’s great-grandmother?” Lanny said.

  “Yes.” Nikita’s voice was all gravel and grit. His throat jumped when he swallowed. “I left her human.”

  Lanny felt like he stood on the edge of a cliff when he said, “Do you regret it?”

  Nikita breathed a humorless laugh. “Yes, and no. Yes for me. No for her. Not ever – she didn’t deserve that.” He looked up then, and Lanny had no idea what his own face was doing, but it prompted Nikita to say, “You’re surprised.”

  “No, I…well, I mean. Yeah. Who doesn’t want to live forever?” But he heard the hollow sound of his voice.

  Nikita cocked his head, and for a moment, he didn’t look quite human. Same face, same shoulders, same unruly dark hair, same threadbare shirt. But something in the tilt of his head spoke of prehistoric times, when birds bigger than men walked the earth; spoke of an hour in the night that no living thing had seen.

  Lanny shivered.

  “You don’t want to live forever,” Nikita said. “Do you?”

  “I…”

  “It’s alright. I think better of you for it.”

  He sighed, and felt something that had previously been locked tight inside him loosen. Like a muscle cramp that finally eased. “I was raised Catholic,” he said, and then the valve was open, and he could give voice to the things he hadn’t been able to tell Trina. “I believe in God. In heaven. I think our souls go there when we die. Well, mostly.”

  Nikita nodded.

  “What happens…what happens if you don’t die? If you cheat death…doesn’t that make God angry? Shit, I sound like a kid.” He wiped at his face, trying to ease the tension between his brows.

  “A good question,” Nikita said. “And I don’t know the answer.”

  “Well that’s comforting.”

  Nikita drained his vodka and, unasked, Sasha got up to take the glass into the small kitchen and pour him another. “Maybe I should tell you some things, and then you can tell me some things, and then we can really talk.”

  Lanny didn’t know what that meant, but he was adrift here, so he nodded.

  “Here’s what I do know about vampires,” Nikita continued. “They are immortal. They require food and drink, just like humans, but they also require the blood of living things. Animal blood can get you by, but there’s a natural craving for human blood – it’s stronger. We” – he sai
d, gesturing between himself and Sasha – “have a theory that it goes all the way back to Rome, that it’s an instinct that helps turn people into subjects. You can literally hold their life in your hands.”

  He made a disgusted face, took a sip of his refreshed vodka, and pressed on. “Humans can be turned. Which you saw. But vampires can breed, too. And unless you cut the heart from their bodies, they can’t be killed. Mostly.”

  “That what you did with Chad Edwards?”

  “Yes.”

  “You done that a lot?”

  “When necessary. When I come across a vampire who kills people when he feeds.”

  “Nik believes in humanity,” Sasha put in. “He has a big heart.”

  “No. I’ve had enough of killers, is all.”

  The two immortals stared at one another, Sasha’s gaze asking for a little lenience, Nikita glaring back at him. They created the sort of tableau that Lanny had only ever seen in affectionate, but long-suffering marriages. The thought made him want to laugh, and maybe it was the vodka, but in that moment he couldn’t help but like them, at least a little. And he approved of Nikita’s attitude toward the whole thing. He guessed.

  Nikita sighed, exasperated, and finally gave Sasha a tiny smirk – the boy beamed in response and settled down into his chair, satisfied – before turning to Lanny. He grew thoughtful. “You watched me snap Chad Edwards’s neck tonight, and then you came to see me.”

  “Yeah.” His voice had never sounded this rough, this shaken, not even after his toughest nights in the ring. Lanny was someone who could take a physical hit…but this introspective, getting inside his own head shit…that messed him up. “Yeah,” he repeated. “If I get treatment, I’ll die slow and painful. And if I don’t get treatment, I’ll die slow and painful. I guess I just…I thought that was it, you know? But then Trina found you, and. Shit. Yeah. I don’t know what I’m supposed to want, now.”

  “Most people would want the chance to stay alive. To be stronger, healthier,” Nikita said. “That’s normal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you love Trina?”

  Lanny blinked. He hadn’t expected that question. But this guy was her relative; he had a certain right to want to know a man’s intentions toward her. “Yeah.”

  “And you want to be with her, marry her, have children with her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you asking me to turn you for her? Or for yourself?”

  “For…” Too late, he realized the question was a trap.

  Nikita’s smile was half-gotcha, half-apology. “If I’m being a good great-grandfather, then I have to say that I want you to worship the ground she walks on. I want you to ask me to turn you for her sake, because it will crush her when you die, because you love her so much you can’t bear to imagine her going through that kind of pain.

  “But if I’m being honest? This isn’t something you do for someone else. If you don’t want it, really don’t want it, you’ll regret it. Forever. Forever is a lot of regret.”

  “Yeah, I–” All the tension in his spine gave out at once, and he slumped. Took a shaky breath. “Yeah.”

  Nikita finished off his vodka and set the glass aside on a little round table. “Stand up,” he ordered, and did so himself.

  Lanny found that his knees were shaky, and it took him two tries to gather himself and get vertical. He flicked a glance toward Sasha, whose eyes were troubled, but who smiled in encouragement.

  Nikita closed the distance between them with two predatory strides, his gate rolling and graceful even in close confines. Not human those two long steps said. And something more sinister Lanny decided not to think about.

  The Russian was only a hairsbreadth shorter than him, but Lanny had the distinct impression he was somehow looking up at Nikita.

  “You want me to turn you?” Nikita asked, and his eyes changed, pupils dilating.

  Lanny’s stomach clenched tight. “I…” He felt sweat pop out on his temples. “Shit, I dunno.”

  Once upon a time, Lanny had been the fastest boxer in town. He’d had cobra reflexes, could duck any punch. He kept up a rigorous gym routine, and he knew he was still fast. Faster than any suspect who’d ever tried to deck him, for sure.

  He should have been able to dodge Nikita, and that fact alone was enough to break him out in goosebumps when suddenly there was a hand around his throat, a thumb digging into his windpipe until he gasped.

  He hadn’t even seen Nikita move.

  Man, if he had that kind of speed, and strength – Lanny started to choke a little – just imagine what he could do in the ring…

  Not the time.

  Nikita leaned into his face, snarling low like a mountain lion, teeth bared. “I’ve never turned anyone in my life and you think I’ll turn you?” he hissed.

  Lanny’s answer came out a garbled plea.

  Nikita made a disgusted sound and threw him back into his chair. He landed so hard he almost tipped over, and air rushed to fill his lungs, bruised throat sending sharp darts of pain up into his jaw and down into his collarbones.

  Through a painful coughing fit, he noted Nikita pacing away from him, hands on his hips, shaking his head.

  “All you mortals are the same,” he lamented, staring down at the carpet, thick dark hair falling across his forehead.

  A cool hand touched the back of Lanny’s neck, and Sasha appeared in front of him, holding a glass of water. “Here, drink this. Sorry.” But his worry was clearly for his friend, his gaze shooting to Nikita.

  “Yeah?” Lanny wheezed, missing the scornful tone he’d been shooting for. “How’s that?”

  Nikita’s eyes were still dilated when he turned his head, tips of his fangs still showing. “You’re not afraid enough.”

  “What?” His voice was coming back to him, but he was still covered in gooseflesh, shaking inside his skin. He sipped the water Sasha had given him.

  Nikita sighed. “You’re afraid, yes.” He relaxed a little, which in turn helped Lanny relax. Walked over to the table where he’d left his glass. “But it’s still exciting – the idea of all that power. And you’re afraid, but not afraid enough.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth, and bit it.

  Lanny watched, sickened and fascinated, as blood welled against Nikita’s lips. As he reached for the empty glass and then held his wrist over it, blood dripping down into it in crimson spatters.

  “You don’t see the power as a responsibility.”

  Drip, drip, drip.

  “And so you abuse it.”

  The blood ran quicker. Several ounces stood in the bottom of the glance, enough that it lapped up the sides a fraction.

  Nikita brought his wrist back to his mouth and sucked at it. Slid the flat of his tongue across the punctures his fangs had made.

  The whole room seemed to tilt sideways. Lanny had the sense that he’d been watching a movie, one of those hokey, gaudily-spooky things teenagers flocked to, and that somehow he’d managed to step through the screen.

  Wounded hand tucked in close to his chest, Nikita picked up the glass with the other and turned to Lanny, eyes normal again, expression resigned. He offered the glass. “You can drink this, if you want to. It isn’t a cure – not a permanent one – but small doses will keep the cancer in check without killing you the way chemo does.”

  Lanny looked at the glass of thick, dark blood. Then at the man’s face. “Are you serious?” His stomach lurched at the thought.

  “Afraid so. It’s your choice, but this is the only help I can offer you.”

  Do it, Trina’s voice said in his head. Buy some time.

  “It won’t make me…?”

  “It won’t turn you, no.”

  “It sounds too good to be true.”

  “It probably is.”

  But what choice was there?

  “This is insane,” Lanny said, and reached for the glass.

  ~*~

  He sat with his forearm resting on his knee, watching the punctures in his w
rist knit together. A few last drops of blood welled, and then the skin fused, dark pink, then pale, then white. He licked the blood away absently; his own taste didn’t elicit so much as a twinge of hunger tonight.

  Lanny was gone, the stained glass sitting on the coffee table, still giving off a faint heat from the man’s fingers. His smell – sick and scared – still tainted the air and it made Nikita’s skin itch.

  Sasha settled at the near end of the sofa, close enough for his scent to drown out the others in the room. One of those automatic, comforting, wolfish things he did without being asked.

  “You regret it?” Sasha asked, pale brows drawing together over worried blue eyes.

  “Regret what?”

  Sasha’s voice dropped to a whisper, head ducking slightly. “That I turned you.”

  Pain lanced through Nikita’s chest, like a blade right through his heart. “No. Sashka, no, come here.” He opened his arms and Sasha came with a whimper, folded himself into the corner of the chair, legs flung over its arm, pressing the top of his head under Nikita’s jaw and curling himself up tight in his lap.

  Nikita kissed the top of his head. Held him. Rubbed his arms and let a low, hopefully soothing rumble loose in his chest. “No, I don’t regret being here with you. Not ever. I was dying a horrible, painful death, and you saved me.”

  Sasha whined, distressed, a shiver moving through his frame. “But you told Lanny–”

  “I know, I know.” Nikita ran a hand down the back of his head, cupped the vulnerable curve of his skull, fingered the silky long lengths of his hair. “But I’m not him. We’re not them. Don’t compare it.”

  Sasha breathed in fast little exhales, warm and damp against Nikita’s throat. “I want you to be happy, though.”

  “I am.” And in that moment, with his wolf in his arms, Nikita was. Happy in a selfish way, glad that he had his wolf all to himself, all the time. Same job, same apartment, no friends, no one else but them. Sasha would forever be the outgoing, exuberant boy he’d been at nineteen, and Nikita would always be the bitter, jaded asshole who clung to what little he had left.