“Nikita and Sasha,” Nikita said, and a moment later the buzzer sounded and the door unlocked.
Harvey waited for them in the hall, outside the morgue proper, arms folded, head tipped against the wall in a way that spoke of fatigue. She straightened, though, as they approached, and Nikita recognized the way her shoulders pushed back and her hands tightened into fists; she might trust Trina, and believe her, and even value their opinions, but she still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of having two preternaturally strong immortals across from her.
“Hi, Christine,” Sasha said with an easy smile.
Harvey smiled back at him – and just him. No one was afraid of Sasha. The folded arms and tense spine were for Nikita, he knew. “Hey, guys. I told Trina you didn’t have to come tonight–”
Nikita waved her off. “Might as well. Where is he?”
She led them through the swinging doors into her exam room, and the scents hit Nikita the second he crossed the threshold: blood, death, gore, wolves.
Familiar wolves.
Sasha growled beside him.
The body lay sheet-covered on the slab, and Harvey went to its head, lips twisting in a wry smile. “Lanny said that two of the wolves smelled familiar.”
“The ferals,” Sasha said with a low growl.
But the problem was, all three smelled familiar. Nikita just couldn’t place the last, the female, the one who was obviously bound to a vampire master.
Harvey folded the drape back, revealing a pale, dead face, and a throat savaged by fangs. “I thought,” she said, tone careful, polite, “that you guys might have a better feel for who our perp might be than Lanny. No offense, but – he’s kind of an idiot.”
“And a new vampire besides,” Nikita said, stepping up to the table, leaning low, inhaling.
A memory assaulted him: a sidewalk, snow, Christmas music. A vampire with an accent, and a female Familiar…
He sucked in a breath. “Gustav.”
Sasha whipped around, eyes wide. “Hannah,” he said, like a curse. “His wolf. It’s her.”
“Acquaintances of yours, I take it?” Harvey said, doing an admirable job of masking her nerves.
Nikita’s stomach tightened; he gagged, and spun away from the table. Choked on nothing – there was nothing in his stomach.
“Shit,” Sasha said.
“Is he alright?” Harvey asked, distant, as if from down a tunnel.
Nikita swayed, and barely caught himself against the wall, the tile cold and slick beneath his palm. He retched, and nothing came out, and he was going to faint–
An arm came around his shoulders, iron-strong. He heard Sasha say something polite and excusing, a murmur compared to the rush of blood in his ears. His feet shuffled, and his vision turned to black spots, and when it came back, he was leaning against the railing that overlooked the loading dock, Sasha holding him upright.
A wrist appeared beneath his nose. “Feed,” Sasha said sweetly, “or I’ll force you.”
His fangs elongated. The world narrowed down to his mouth, full of saliva, and the thumping vein in front of him, freely offered.
Blood. Wolf blood. Sasha’s blood.
He opened his mouth, and breathed across the tender inside of his wrist–
“Hullo!” someone called from down in the loading dock.
Nikita reeled back, vision swimming. Inhaled. Smelled two wolves. Saw them, man-shaped, standing below.
One tall fellow with pleasing features and glossy dark hair, and the second short, slight, and tow-headed. A teenager, at most.
Sasha’s wrist fell away, and his arm tightened across Nikita’s shoulders. He growled, body tightening where it was pressed to Nik’s.
“Hello,” the dark-haired stranger said again, softer. He had a British accent. “I’m assuming you’re Nikita Baskin and Sasha Kashnikov?”
Nikita couldn’t answer, his throat clotted with nausea, his head spinning.
Sasha bowed up beside him, growl touching his voice. “Who wants to know?”
“Friends. Potentially,” the man – the wolf – answered. “We saw your work in Virginia, and we want to discuss a potential business arrangement. An alliance.”
Sasha’s growl deepened.
“This,” the strange wolf said, touching the boy’s shoulder, “is Much. And I’m Will Scarlet. We’re friends of Robin of Locksley – his pack. And Familiars of Richard the First, the Lionheart, King of England.”
Nikita shut his eyes, and tried very hard not to succumb to unconsciousness, belly gnawing at itself.
“Perhaps we should get him something to eat before he passes out,” Will Scarlet suggested.
And then Nikita did just that.
4
Nikita came to propped up in the corner of a dim booth, Sasha warm beside him, a hand resting on his thigh beneath the table, a grounding pressure.
“He alright?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“Yes, fine,” Sasha said, faux cheerful. “Just needs to eat.”
“Right. I’ll get your order right out.” Footsteps retreated.
Nik cracked his eyes and took a breath, inhaling familiar scents. They were at the Lion’s Den, wedged into a favorite booth, his face resting against the wall paneling just beneath a beer sign. His limp hand had been curled around a tumbler of vodka. Sasha beside him, and, across from them, the two wolves: Will and Much.
Nikita conjured a pathetic growl.
Sasha patted his leg. “Drink your vodka. I ordered you a grilled cheese.”
It took three tries to lift the glass, and he only barely managed not to slop the vodka down his shirtfront.
Scarlet watched him with what Nikita read as careful blankness.
Much, however, for all that he looked fifteen, and sullen, his pale hair framing his face, sneered openly, lip peeling back off his teeth.
“Much,” Will said with a sigh. To Nikita: “He’s rude. Ignore him.”
“Hey!”
Nikita managed a sip, the chilled vodka splashing across his tongue in waves of cold and then hot, a welcome fire down his throat.
“You helped us escape,” Sasha said, hand pulling away – Nik immediately regretted the loss of its heat and weight on his thigh. “At the mansion. You were with Red.”
Will nodded. “We were, yes. She and Rooster are a part of our team, now.”
“Who?” Nikita asked.
Much snorted.
Will sent him a surprisingly patient look.
Sasha rested a hand on Nik’s shoulder. “Vodka,” he prompted, gently.
Nikita drank some more.
“The mage from the Institute,” Will said, speaking low enough so as not to be overhead – and slow enough for Nikita’s foggy brain to keep up. “The redheaded young woman who used her fire against Vlad Tepes.”
It rang a bell. Faintly.
“She and her human companion – Rooster – have been under our protection for the past few months. Working alongside us.”
Nikita frowned. “How did you find us outside the hospital?”
Will’s indulgent look suggested he’d already told this to Sasha. Nik wanted to hear it for himself.
“Trina, actually. She gave her name and information to one of our officers – Deshawn Williams. She didn’t mention this…?”
She had. He thought. He was too fuzzy from low blood sugar. Trina had called tonight, told him about the murder, suggested he go talk to Harvey, but she hadn’t said–
Sasha’s hand landed on his arm, and Nik realized he was glaring at Will Scarlet. Growling, a little.
“Trina didn’t know,” Sasha said, soothingly. “They didn’t call ahead, which I told them was rude, and they’ve agreed not to do it again. But. They got into town, and when Trina wasn’t home, they picked up our scents and came to find us.”
“You sniffed us out like hunting dogs?” Nikita asked, incredulous. His fangs scraped across his lower lip, too long for the middle of a pub.
Much sneered again
.
Will looked like he suppressed a smile. “No. Like wolves.”
“Do you not have cellphones?”
Their server returned, tray heaped with plates that he began doling out, heedless of the bristling tension at the table.
Really, the tension was only Nik’s. No one else seemed bothered by this encounter, since he didn’t think teenage insolence really counted.
A plate thumped down in front of him: grilled cheese on thick buttery toast, small mountain of fries beside it.
His stomach shrank.
When the server left to get them drink refills, Sasha leaned in close and said, “Eat. Please.” Soft, but urgent. Begging.
Nikita lifted a fry with a shaking hand and dutifully nibbled at the end, stomach cramping.
“I do apologize,” Will said. He looked distinctly roguish, in a battered old canvas jacket, long green hoodie, jeans, and with his hair in haphazard curls across his forehead, but he spoke like someone who’d been brought up in a royal court somewhere. Or, at least the way Nikita imagined someone who had would sound. “We’ve bungled this a bit, I’m afraid. But we came only with the friendliest of intentions.”
Nik glanced over at Much, who’d ordered a bacon cheeseburger the size of his head, and who was trying to take an unsuccessful, messy bite of it, ketchup and grease dripping down onto his plate.
He set the fry down and drained off his vodka. “Which are?”
“Recruitment, of a sort.” Will fished something from his pocket and flipped it out onto the table. A business card, Nik saw, matte black, with a glossy embossed lion on it. One word: Lionheart.
“Lionheart,” Nikita said, without taking the card. “As in…?”
“Richard, yes.”
“So he’s a…”
“Yes. Turned, actually, during the Third Crusade.”
Nik lifted his brows. “I don’t keep up much with world history.”
“Shame,” Will said with a grin. “It’s quite useful. But, here allow me to–” He leaned forward, rested a fingertip on the card. Gearing up for a speech of some kind.
Nik thumped his empty glass down. “No.”
“No?” Will asked, not surprised, but questioning. You sure of this?
Much snorted, licking a piece of wayward bacon into his mouth.
“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t bother,” Nikita said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Nik,” Sasha said, “Will was telling me a little about Lionheart while you were…”
“Passed the fuck out,” Much supplied.
Sasha gave a low, quick chuff of warning. To Nikita: “They help people. Mortals who are having trouble with immortals.”
Nikita stared at Will.
“We’re military contractors, of a sort,” he explained. “As wolves, we have a bit of a leg up on mortal soldiers, as you can imagine. We take private cases. Special ones. The kind governments don’t want leaked to the public.”
“You mean the kind that pay well.”
A head tilt of concession. “Sometimes.”
He thought the rolling in his gut was only part blood sugar sickness, at this point. “No,” he repeated. “Not interested. We have jobs. We don’t want to join your little crusade.”
A smile, edges sharp; not mocking, but pitying, almost. “You were in that house, Nikita. You fought with Dracula himself. Are you really going to paint this as a crusade? Like it’s something we’re taking upon ourselves? A war is brewing. A big one. Maybe the final one. We’re only gathering what allies we can.”
Silence reigned afterward. A long moment. Nikita never broke the wolf’s gaze.
Finally, Will gave a little sigh and glanced away. “Finish your food,” he said to Much. He himself had only ordered a whiskey.
Sasha’s elbow touched Nik’s ribs, and he mechanically picked up his sandwich and forced a few bites while Much crammed down the rest of his burger.
“We’ll be in town for a week or so, I think,” Will said, sliding out of the booth. He pulled out his wallet and thumbed a few bills down onto the table. “I wrote down my number and the name of our hotel on the back of that card. If you change your mind in the next few days, or you just want to talk, please call. Come on, Much.”
The small wolf wiped his face hastily with a napkin and then slipped out.
Will gave them one last surveying glance, and nodded. “Lovely to meet you both. I do hope you’ll think of us as allies.” And they left.
Nikita stared at the tufted leather across from him, the whole booth still scented with strange wolves, breathing shallowly through his mouth.
“Nik,” Sasha said, softly, beside him.
“How did I get here?”
“What?”
“I passed out at the hospital, and I woke up here.” And for the first time since then, he turned his head to really look at Sasha.
Blue eyes big and full of guilt, Sasha wore the kind of uncertain expression that made Nik want to put arms around him immediately; pull him in close and assure him that everything was alright – that they were alright. He’d watched him tear a man’s throat out with his teeth without a backward glance, but with Nik, he was always afraid he’d done something wrong; especially lately.
God, Nik hated himself.
“I carried you,” Sasha said, gaze dropping to his lap. “Mostly. Your feet held you up, a little.” Quick, humorless smile. “The server thought you were drunk when we came in.”
His pulse beat quick and light in his ears, and his next words tasted foul in his mouth. “Why did you – why did you go with them? Why did you listen to them?”
A tiny shrug. “They were bound, I could tell. And they weren’t – they weren’t bad, Nik. I could tell that, too. And they helped us, before. I just…” He trailed off, biting at his lip.
A realization dawned, one that kept Nikita up more nights than he’d like to admit, one that frightened him worse than facing off from Dracula. He alone wasn’t enough for Sasha. He didn’t doubt the love, the caring, the desire to be close – more often than not he’d pushed those things away, lately, bastard that he was – but Sasha had so much love to give. Eventually, at some point, he’d find a pack as loving, welcoming, and warm as he himself. One that could provide him with everything he needed.
It was Nikita’s greatest fear, and yet he sabotaged himself at every turn.
Maybe for the better. Maybe Sasha would be better off…
“I’m scared,” Sasha whispered, and it took Nikita a second to drag himself out of his own pity party and register the words.
“Scared? Of what?” His heart was climbing, was up in his throat now.
Sasha lifted a glance up through his lashes, unintentionally alluring; Nikita’s breath hitched. “I spoke with Dracula, Nik. Some. He’s violent, and he’s frightening – but he’s not like Rasputin was. He isn’t trying to trick anyone. Not that I could tell. He’s…he says there’s a war coming. A bad one.” He shuddered. “I don’t want anything to do with that. But.”
“But nothing,” Nikita said, finding some firm ground at last. Protectiveness he could do. Looking after Sasha, shielding him. He twisted in the booth, so they faced one another fully, and put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder, tight enough that his knuckles turned white, but Sasha didn’t flinch away from the touch.
“Sashka, listen to me.”
Sasha’s eyes widened.
“Whatever this war is, whatever those people” – he stabbed a finger toward the empty side of the booth across from them – “want to fight: that isn’t our business. It isn’t our fight. We lived through our war.” Flashes of memory: blood on snow, the cry of ravens, the stench of burned hair. “It took its pound of flesh, and we don’t owe anyone anything. Do you hear me? Not a thing.”
He was panting through an open mouth, head swimming, heart hammering. Drowning in Sasha’s gaze.
Finally, Sasha blinked and turned his head away; nodded, hair slipping loose from behind his ear and swinging forward to
shield his face. “That’s the thing about war, though,” he said, still soft. “It has a way of sweeping people up, whether they want to fight or not.”
It did, didn’t it? That was how Sasha had come into his life, after all. A war had sent him speeding across the wilds of Siberia on a train, bound to collect an innocent boy so he could be turned into a weapon.
Nikita swallowed down the urge to be sick and withdrew his hand.
“You should eat,” Sasha murmured. “And then we’ll go home.”
~*~
He managed to choke down the sandwich, helped along by another glass of vodka. After, he could at least walk home on his own two feet, even if he did stagger a few times, and catch himself against a mailbox, once. He let Sasha worry about unlocking their apartment door when they got there.
He went to the couch, and all but fell on it, exhausted, and weary in a way that had nothing to do with a lack of food.
“Don’t stay there,” Sasha said, relocking the door and going to the kitchen. “You need to lie down.”
Nikita tipped his head back and closed his eyes; listened to the rattle of things moving around in the fridge.
“The shaking will be worse this time.” Ice cubes falling in a glass. “You’ll need more sugar, I think. Where is – ah, there. Hold on.”
Footsteps. And then a sigh. Something landed softly on the table, and then Sasha came close and knelt at his feet. Plucked at Nikita’s boot laces.
Nik cracked his eyes open; his vision was blurred, but he could see the glass of Sprite on the table, the box of crackers, and he could definitely see Sasha unlacing his boots.
A lump formed in his throat. “Don’t.”
“No.” Sasha sounded not just tired, but exasperated. “I’m done with that.” He tugged one boot free and reached for the laces of the other.
“But,” Nik started.
“Shut up.” Sasha made it sound sweet, but he was firm.
Nikita closed his mouth and waited. Perhaps the first smart thing he’d done all night.
Sasha pulled the other boot off, and then set them neatly beneath the coffee table. He stood, and collected the Sprite and crackers. “Wait here,” he said, with the air of a command, and went to Nikita’s bedroom, flipping on lights as he went.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 4