“I’ll be happy when I’m picking bits of him out of my teeth.”
“That’s the spirit,” Alexei deadpanned, and started wrapping his hands.
The new guy, Dante, sat down beside Lanny, fair to bursting with outward curiosity. “You’re not what I was expecting.”
Lanny said, “The fuck?”
“Tone it down a notch,” Alexei said, and Lanny didn’t know which one of them he meant.
“It’s only,” Dante said, and his accent did something funny; went more formal, and less modern.
Alexei cleared his throat, loudly.
“It’s just,” Dante started again, “when Alexei said he’d sired someone, I didn’t think it would be…someone like you.”
“Again: the fuck? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think what he’s trying to say – and not well,” Alexei said, “is that you’re very large, and strong, and brutish, and I’m very not, and he’s having a hard time understanding why I turned you.”
Before Lanny could respond with appropriate outrage, Alexei said, “I did it because he was dying.” He secured the tape and moved to Lanny’s other hand. “And because I thought saving his life would be a good peace offering to Nikita. He’s dating Nikita’s great-granddaughter, you see.”
“You just gonna tell him all our business?”
Alexei paused, his hands cool on the back of Lanny’s, and glanced up through his lashes with his cold, light eyes, no longer the vagabond brat, but the prince he’d once been. The sort of person used to being bowed to. “Sometimes I do wonder why I turned you. You can be insufferably stupid.”
“Lex,” Dante said, chiding.
Alexei ignored him. “If you’re stupid enough to go in the ring tonight, then you’d better win.”
~*~
“How charming,” Trina said, looking up at the façade of the building Jamie had led them to.
He made a face. “Yeah, I know. Come on.” He led them through a rank ground-floor apartment full of milling people carrying red plastic cups. There was a line for what was apparently a bathroom, though she dreaded the thought of going in it. Through an open rear down, down some steps, into a moldy old courtyard lit up with construction lights.
There was a crowd, cheering.
And a ring, full of two fighters.
One of them was Lanny.
Cage matches, Jamie had told them, gaze downcast from guilt, face red with shame. Against humans. It was one thing for Lanny to use his new strength and speed against violent criminals they were chasing down; using his abilities to tackle or restrain an uncooperative suspect. Quite another to cheat his way into winning matches against humans who thought they actually had a chance to win.
But.
She’d never watched him fight before.
Stripped to the waist, already sheened with sweat, he circled his opponent, toying with him, grinning savagely.
She knew the way his sweat tasted. The way those bunched muscles on his back felt beneath her hands, when she dug her nails in. But she didn’t know him like this, drunk on his own strength and electric with violence.
He was magnificent.
His opponent feinted, but he didn’t fall for it. Moved in close, and struck like a snake. His opponent’s blow glanced off his ribs, but he ignored it, shook it off, struck again. It was over in a blink, and a rat-faced little man came out to lift Lanny’s hand and declare him the winner, extolling the audience to get out their wallets and make their way toward the table.
Sweat running down his face, hair plastered to his head, Lanny was beaming…until his nostrils flared, and he turned toward them, and the smile froze.
Trina gave herself a firm mental shake. She would not be swayed by her libido.
“What a stupid fuck,” Nikita observed, mildly, and they moved toward the cage.
Alexei intercepted them. Popped up like a jack-in-the-box. “Wait.”
“Don’t feel like waiting.” Trina stepped around him.
He was faster than her, already in her face again. He made the mistake of putting his hands on her shoulders. “Trina, I can explain.”
She gave him a look that had him lifting his hands and taking a step back. “I want Lanny to explain. Explain why he’s beating up people for money.”
“He’s just been having some fun,” Alexei defended. “Letting off steam. You know he has” – he dropped his voice, conspiratorial – “aggression issues.”
“He’s about to have kicked-ass issues,” she growled. And her own words pulled her up short. “Wait.” Alexei’s eyes widened to oh shit levels. “His face. There’s no way one of these clowns did that to him.” She gestured toward the ring, where Lanny’s next opponent looked truly miserable at the prospect of fighting him. “What happened?”
“He got–”
“Don’t say mugged.”
“He fought a vampire,” Nikita said. “In the ring.”
She whirled to face him. “What? How do you know that?”
“There’s one over there.” He nodded, and she followed his gaze toward…a truly huge guy, the kind whose muscles had totally overtaken his neck. His nose had been broken more times than Lanny’s, and his face hadn’t been pretty to start with. Rugged would have been too great a compliment.
“You know him?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Feel like making yourself useful?”
“Nope.”
She glared at the side of his head. “Thanks a lot.”
“Let’s go watch the fight.”
“Are you serious?”
He finally turned to regard her, eyes the color of frost, expression calm. “Lanny’s gotten himself in trouble because he’s an idiot. I’m not going to wade in and pull him out just yet.” When she didn’t respond, he leaned in and said, “Tell me you don’t want to watch him get his nose smashed in. He deserves it right now.”
He did have a point there. “Fine,” she huffed.
They found places near the chain link fence that enclosed the ring. Nikita flicked his fingertips at a few people, and Sasha growled, and Alexei did some staring, and they had prime spots in the front. Trina wasn’t in the mood to chastise them about compelling anyone. All her anger was reserved for Lanny right now.
He seemed to know it, too. He gave his new opponent – shoved into the ring by the emcee – only a cursory glance, and his gaze kept darting toward her, wild-eyed in a way he hadn’t been before. He and the other fighter squared off, and Lanny wasn’t even paying proper attention, his wrapped fists at half-mast.
“Who wrapped his hands?” Trina asked.
Ashamed, Alexei said, “Me.”
A stranger sat on the other side of him, a tall, lean guy with sunglasses and a shiny jacket.
“Who’s your friend?”
“Oh.” He was blushing. “This is Dante.”
The guy – Dante – leaned around the tsarevich and waved at her, smiling. “Hello!”
Nikita elbowed her in the side, and she refocused on the fight.
What was left of it.
Lanny didn’t bother to play around with his opponent this time, no longer worried about putting on a show for the crowd. He felled the poor man with a swing that bunched up every muscle in his torso, turned them to sculpted bronze. The impact hit with the terrible sound of bone breaking. Trina swore a shock wave moved through the cracked pavement underneath.
There were some cheers, and a few boos.
“C’mon, that’s gotta be cheating,” one guy called through cupped hands.
“He’s terribly strong,” she heard Dante say, suddenly with a British accent for some reason.
“He’s a beast,” Alexei agreed, happily.
The opponent didn’t get up, and two guys went in to take him under the arms and drag him out. The rat-faced emcee went in to gloat and proclaim Lanny the winner. “…trying to clean out all your pockets, folks…”
“Now the real show,” Nik said, low and near, and she follow
ed his gaze toward the towering, shirtless vampire waiting his turn to fight.
His turn had come, apparently.
“He doesn’t have anyone with him,” she observed, scanning the area around him for a trainer or a friend or an idiot Alexei-equivalent who could wrap hands and bullshit your confidence a little. No one trailed along after him as he strode toward the cage; no last-minute advice or a water bottle. A quick look at the benches where the other fighters prepped revealed buddies and wannabe trainers holding bags, and Gatorade. One fighter was getting a shoulder massage; a grizzled man with a flashlight was doing a pupil check on Lanny’s last opponent.
“You guys smell any other vamps?” she asked.
“No,” Nikita and Sasha said in unison.
Sasha added, “And he doesn’t smell like any other immortals, either.”
“Just a loner who likes to fight,” she surmised.
“Maybe.” Nik didn’t sound convinced.
“Not everything’s a conspiracy,” she said, biting back a sigh.
“You can take the Chekist out of the Soviet Union,” Sasha started, and his laugh was muffled when Nik pressed a hand over his mouth.
She glanced away from them, feeling suddenly like she was intruding on a moment, even if she loved seeing them be relaxed enough to be easy with each other in front of the whole pack like this.
The whole pack.
Her pack, even if that still sounded strange.
And even if she currently wanted to strangle one of its members.
Furious or not, her gut clenched and her pulse accelerated as the other, much bigger vampire stepped into the cage. Lanny stood in the center of the ring, stretching out his neck, shaking out his arms.
She could see the nerves lifting off of him like vapor; his opponent must have been able to smell them.
“They’re not taking a water break first?” Trina asked Alexei.
He shook his head, lips pressing into a grim line. “Not if Lanny doesn’t want one. Guess he doesn’t.”
How about a blood break? she wanted to ask. He might have been a vicious, beautiful fighter, but he was going to need all the strength he could get facing this monster.
“He’ll be fine,” Sasha offered. “He’s strong.”
“Alright, you guys,” the emcee called, grinning ear-to-ear. “You know this is the big one. The rematch!”
Cheers went up.
The boys all sat forward, and Trina realized she’d done the same. She caught Nik’s gaze, briefly, as the emcee came out and the cage was shut; his expression was inscrutable. She had the sense he was taking her measure, though.
Then the fighters bumped their wrapped knuckles together in a token show of fighters’ respect, and it began.
They circled one another, quick and light on the balls of their feet, bodies coiled like springs, rippling and ready. Lanny’s jaw was set, his dark eyes catching the light in a way that made them look black and predatory. He was ready, anxious, spoiling for it. And just fearful enough for her to tell it.
He struck first, when it became clear his opponent wouldn’t. A fast jab, just feeling the other guy out. His opponent leaned back just far enough to avoid him, but no more; not scared, not even sweating.
Shit, this was going to be so bad.
“He has to overwhelm him to start,” Nikita murmured beside her. “He isn’t going to tire out and get careless like a human that large would. He has to cripple him, make him hurt, make him bleed. Make them call the damn fight before he gets himself killed.”
“I thought there was only one surefire way to kill a vampire,” she said, aiming for cocky, landing on airless.
“There is. But alive doesn’t mean without pain. There are some injuries no one wants to come back from.”
She knotted her hands together in her lap, heart in her throat. All her fury had quieted for the moment; it would return, she knew, after, if he was okay. But right now she only had room for worry.
Maybe his hearing was good enough to have picked up on Nik’s words, or maybe he’d come to the same conclusion, but with a sudden burst, Lanny stopped testing, and started swinging to hurt. He moved in with a series of deft strikes, most of which his opponent blocked with an almost-lazy swipe of his arm. But Lanny seemed to have anticipated that, and ducked in closer, faster, and landed a solid combo right to the other vampire’s ribs.
Solid, meaty thuds on impact. Stallions kicking at one another; lions swiping. Not the sounds of a human fight.
The other vampire reacted with a shudder, and a grunt, and retaliated with a vicious swipe at Lanny’s head. It landed just above his ear, and Lanny’s eyes closed, teeth bared, fangs long.
“Shit,” she breathed. A human would have gone down to a knee and stayed there long enough to have his bell rung again.
But Lanny growled – a vampire growl, like a big cat, and she recoiled along with the rest of her pack with dismay, while some of the audience recoiled in shock – and surged back to his feet, leaping back out of the way of the other vamp’s next strike. Trina saw a crimson glimmer of blood curl down the edge of his ear, from a split in his hairline, and when he fixed his gaze on his opponent next, it was with murder in his eyes.
It was on, now.
He seemed to accelerate, as he ducked, and weaved, and struck again. Another hit to the ribs. Dodge. A hard sucker punch up under the jaw. The other vamp’s head snapped back, and then he was growling, too. Roaring, and surging forward.
Lanny met him, and then it wasn’t so much boxing, as raw grappling, fingers curled, fangs bared, hands moving in a blur. The other vamp’s head snapped back, and the lights caught the shine of blood spraying. Lanny was holding his own, but…
“Can he hold up?” she asked, because this was beyond her. Boxers she could have pegged, even with an untrained eye. But these were creatures of legend, and she had no idea how badly they’d tear one another apart before a winner emerged.
To her surprise, it was Dante who answered, definitely British this time, and sounding pinched with anxiety. “They could go on for much longer, doubtless. But too much more, and the mortals will grow suspicious.”
“Then we’ll have a whole other kind of problem,” Alexei said. “I can compel most of these fools into thinking they didn’t see this, especially if Nik and Dante help me–”
In the ring, Lanny roared; the sharp cracking roar of a Siberian tiger. He came up under his opponent’s chin, caught him with one, two, three awful blows that crunched and sent blood splattering across his own face. Then toppled the vamp back, knelt on his chest, and attacked his face with both fists, one after the next, a blur.
Beside her, Alexei hissed, low and distinctly pleased.
“Glorious,” Dante murmured.
The crowd shouted.
The emcee scrambled into the cage, panicked. “Hey, hey, hey, man! You can’t kill the guy! Jesus!”
“No–” Trina started, unheard, as the rat-faced man grabbed at Lanny’s shoulder.
For one awful moment, she thought he might kill the emcee. Coiled, snarling, feral-eyed, he whirled around, getting his feet under him, popping upright and leaning down into the man’s face. Blood on his knuckles, blood spray in an arc across his face.
He looked like something from a horror movie, impossible and terrible under the harsh lights.
“Lanny,” she shouted, standing.
He froze. Mouth open, panting, slick chest heaving. Stared at the man he’d almost struck, fist still cocked back. Then he came back to himself, wild-eyed a moment. She could see the thought cross his mind: oh no. All his powerful grace abandoned him, and he staggered back a step, nearly tripping over his felled opponent. Dredged up a smile awful in its brittle insincerity.
The emcee stared at him a moment, then brought out his own pretend smile. “Shit, dude.” He laughed. “You’re insane! Come here!” He stepped over the other vamp, and grabbed Lanny’s wrist, twisted back toward the audience and lifted a bloodied fist overhead. “Ladies and gen
tlemen!” he crowed. “Do we put on a show here, or do we put on a show?”
The crowd cheered, delighted and bloodthirsty.
Trina let out a long, deep exhale. A shiver stole through her, and it turned into full-body tremors.
Some of the fury was bleeding back in. That idiot; risking his job, his identity as a human being, and for what? The thrill of punching someone? Proving he was stronger than regular men? Was he really that shallow?
But a portion of the shaking was fear; God, he’d been murderous. Impossible.
And some of the shakes were shame, because all that murderous, impossible energy had turned her on, and she wasn’t proud of that.
“Fuck,” Nik said beside her, going suddenly tense.
Sasha made a wolf-like whuff of inquiry, and then cursed softly in Russian.
Then she saw it.
Lanny had beat the ever-loving shit out of his opponent, but he’d been fighting a vampire, and not a human. A human would have been hospital-bound. But this vampire turned his bloody head on the mat, and his hand latched onto Lanny’s ankle.
She sucked in a breath.
Nik surged to his feet, and went to the gate of the cage in a few long leaps.
Trina stood, the shakes threatening to take her out at the knees. She’d never felt this surge of fear, apprehension, and nerves all at once, not even while chasing down a suspect. This wasn’t her own life at risk, but Lanny’s. And Nik’s.
Nik, who shoved his way into the cage just as Lanny got pulled down, dragging the emcee with him. They went down in a tangle, and then the other vamp, roaring, clambered on top of Lanny, ready to strike.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion after that.
Lanny reached up for the other vamp’s eyes with curled fingers. Kneed him in the gut hard enough to draw a quick, pained inhale, but not enough to throw him off.
Nikita reached them. Grabbed the emcee by one flailing arm and lifted him up, flung him away like a doll, toward the gate without a backward glance. Then he reached for Lanny’s opponent.
He caught him in the crook of the elbow, where it was drawn back behind him, Latched on tight, and pulled.
Nikita was six-feet, easy, and not scrawny by any means…but he was slender. Under his denim jacket, he had a wasp waist, and his skinny jeans gave truth to the fact that he didn’t eat enough. Lanny’s opponent – now Nik’s – was massive. Trina had the sense that, two to one, this would still be a close fight.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 18