“Leave him, you idiot!” Will shouted.
Sasha hooked a strong arm around his waist and hauled him bodily toward the open rear doors of the van.
Lanny and Trina were waiting inside, and they took his arms, pulled him in.
Things went fuzzy after that. Slamming doors, and roaring engine, and a hard lurch.
And the warmth and scent of Sasha; Sasha’s face in his hair, and his hands on Nikita’s throat, and his murmur in his ear, low and soothing and Russian.
“It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.”
~*~
Much drove like a madman. They’d found Jamie scrambling out from behind a dumpster. Alexei and Dante jumped down off a low roof. With some fast turns, running a few lights, and even going the wrong way up a one-way street, they managed to shake their Institute tail, and cautiously doubled back to pick up Lanny’s Expedition.
“We need a debriefing,” Will said, jaw clenched, but otherwise outwardly calm.
“Somewhere public,” Trina said. “If they manage to catch up to us, they won’t make a scene in front of a bunch of civilians.”
They went to the Lion’s Den, again, like always.
And while everyone else went to secure a table and order drinks, Sasha shepherded a terrifyingly pliant Nikita to the restroom and positioned him in front of a sink.
“Let’s clean you up a little,” he said, cutting on the tap and twisting it to warm, aiming for cheerful – landing somewhere shakier and more fretful.
When Nik didn’t immediately start washing his hands, Sasha reached gently for them and drew them beneath the running tap. The blood had dried, some of it flaking off, the water streaming pink down into the drain. Sasha took a few pumps of soap from the dispenser and massaged it between Nik’s fingers, worked it beneath his short nails with the tips of his own.
He dampened a paper towel and, taking Nikita’s chin gently in his other hand, wiped the blood spatter from his face.
While he was doing this, Nikita blinked a few times, and his pupils shrank back to their normal size, and awareness crashed across his features. He braced his clean, wet hands on the edge of the sink and turned into Sasha’s touch, just far enough for their gazes to meet.
“Where are we?” His voice a lost, frightened whisper.
Sasha set the paper towel aside, took Nikita’s face between both hands, and reeled him in so their foreheads touched. A shiver moved through Nik, but he leaned into their point of contact, shuffled his feet forward, seeking closeness.
“We’re at the Lion’s Den,” Sasha said, as soothingly as he could. “Everyone’s here. Everyone’s safe. Do you remember what happened?”
He dampened his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t kill him like you wanted.”
Nikita huffed a soft, breathy laugh, and angled his head, pressed a slow, lingering kiss to Sasha’s mouth. When he pulled back, it was far enough to search his face, gaze tracking back and forth over Sasha’s features. Fear lent his voice a hollow ring. “I couldn’t do it.”
Sasha stroked his temple, his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “Couldn’t do what?” Felt the rapid tattoo of Nik’s pulse against the pad of his thumb.
“That mage. The boy. I couldn’t compel him. I tried, but I just…” He sucked in a shallow breath.
Sasha petted him some more. “He must have been very strong, then. You saw his fire; he was no mere Philippe. He smelled like a whole building on fire.”
“Yes, but, Alexei could. And Dante. And I…” His gaze dropped to his hands, empty and dripping onto the tiles.
“Did you need to feed?” Sasha wished now that he’d insisted, before they set out for the night’s mission. Even if he’d had to pull Nikita into a dark corner and score his own wrist or throat to entice him.
“No. No.” Nikita closed his eyes, briefly. “I just…I was distracted.” When he opened his eyes, the oh-so-familiar eyes that had first captured Sasha’s attention on a train bound for Moscow, and which he’d been looking into for decades, he was startled by the intensity of emotion in them. “You weren’t with me, and I couldn’t…my head was all…”
Later, once his thoughts had been properly gathered, Nikita would be embarrassed to know that he’d been fumbling and frightened like this. But in this rare moment of vulnerability, it pained Sasha to see how torn-up he was.
He thought of their parking lot argument before the op went down, of the cold, composed mask Nikita had pulled over his face. It was long gone, now; he looked like something inside him had broken.
I did that, Sasha thought. Worrying about me did that to him.
But he was too in love to even consider stepping back and putting any kind of distance between them – not literal, nor figurative.
He cupped the back of Nikita’s neck and urged his head down onto his own shoulder. Stroked his hair. “It’s alright,” he said. “We’re fine.”
Bind me, he wanted to say. Do it right here, right now, and we won’t ever have to be apart again.
But Nik was too fragile right now.
They stood for a long moment in front of the sinks like that. A customer came in to use the urinal, staring rudely and curiously at them the whole time. Sasha ignored him, and Nikita didn’t seem to notice his presence.
Finally, Nikita lifted his head, took a deep breath, and seemed himself again, if tired, and down. He pulled away from Sasha with obvious reluctance, touching his cheek, briefly, then washed and dried his face. Finger-combed his hair.
“Sorry,” he said, low and ashamed.
Sasha leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Don’t be.”
When they returned to the table, the big round booth that was fast becoming their own, they found Will and Much shrugging on coats. Much leaned back toward the table to pick up a beer that he doubtless hadn’t ordered himself, and chugged it.
“You’re leaving already?” Nikita asked, fully himself again, his voice strapped-down and sour.
“We want to get started right away,” Will said, straightening his collar. “And we have a charm. No one should be able to find us.”
Nikita snorted. “What if we want to find you?”
“Oh, we’ll be in touch shortly. Don’t worry.” He dipped his head and touched the brim of an imaginary hat. “It was a pleasure, gentlemen. My lady,” he said, with a quick, correct bow in Trina’s direction.
Much caught Sasha’s eye as he turned to follow his packmate. Make him do it, he mouthed, and Sasha knew he meant a binding.
The two wolves moved through a jostling, happy crowd, beneath the buttery warm glow of all the mismatched antique lamps, and disappeared.
Sasha liked them fairly well, and was grateful for their help tonight, but he had to admit that it was a relief to be with just his pack, now.
And Dante. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that vampire, yet; for now, he sat on the very outside edge of the booth, quietly sipping a beer, his expression thoughtful, but not intrusive. Sasha slid in beside Nikita and decided not to worry about it.
Nikita’s hand landing on his thigh under the table helped, too.
A server came around with vodka for Nikita and whiskey for Sasha.
“We ordered for you guys,” Trina explained.
Nikita raised his glass in brief salute to her.
It was Jamie who finally let out a deep sigh and broached the subject. “Guess it’s safe to say Gustav has Institute ties?”
“Or was tailing us tonight at the very least,” Trina said.
“No, we would have caught their scent,” Sasha said.
“You heard Pretty Boy,” Lanny said, gesturing to the two empty chairs pushed in at the far side of the table. “They had a magic flash drive, and some magic cloak of invisibility or some shit.”
“A ward, rather,” Dante corrected politely.
“Whatever,” Lanny said. “Who’s to say Gustav doesn’t have one? Maybe he’s been following us all along and
we just haven’t noticed.”
“I don’t think so,” Sasha said, but his belly squirmed with doubt. He reached for his whiskey.
“Anyway,” Nikita said. “Gustav wasn’t in any shape to walk off when I left him. Either his Familiar came to his rescue, or the Institute did. If he’s working with them, they’ll patch him up. If he’s not, and hopefully he isn’t, then they’ve got themselves a fat prize to play with, and maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
A beat passed.
“Whaddya mean?” Lanny asked, leaning forward to peer down the table. “Did you and him get into it?”
“Yes,” Nikita said simply, and drained his glass.
The others all traded glances, brows lifting and frowns plucking at their mouths. When Sasha met Trina’s gaze, she tipped her head in silent question.
He shook his head and mouthed, Later.
Lanny made a face, but shrugged. “Well. I’m starving. Let’s order a shit-ton of food.”
“An excellent idea,” Dante said.
When the server came back with their refills, Lanny took command, ordering multiple baskets of hot wings, fries, potato skins, and chips and salsa for the table to share, and burgers on top of that.
“We can’t eat all that,” Trina murmured.
“Baby, watch me.”
When the food arrived, fragrant, steaming, and glistening with grease, Nikita leaned an elbow on the table and asked Trina, “What are the odds you’ll keep your job?”
She sighed, but Sasha saw relief on her face. What had just happened had been terrifying for all of them, risky in a way that surpassed regular, everyday worries. The risk of capture, of torture, of experimentation, or death had set all of them on edge. What was a job in the face of that, Sasha figured.
She plucked a wing out of a basket and said, “Not terrible. But not good either.”
They ate, and drank, and talked, and, slowly, the tension bled out of all of them.
Lanny laughed at something Jamie said, and the way he threw his head back with the motion left Trina smiling, pink-cheeked. Nikita gave Sasha’s thigh a reassuring squeeze, and pressed their shoulders together, and things were okay. They were okay.
“Allow me to get the next round,” Dante said, dramatic, nose in the air and arm gesturing elegantly.
Lanny threw a balled-up napkin at him. “You fucking better.”
The napkin bounced off Dante’s forehead and a grin threatened. “I shall return.” He wriggled through the ever-increasing crowd toward the bar, since their server hadn’t been able to get by their table again.
“Like hell can he carry that many drinks,” Lanny said. He made a distasteful butler joke that had Jamie and Trina groaning.
Sasha didn’t hear the particulars of it.
Above the crush of bodies, and food, and hops, and the antique wood perfume of the place, he caught another scent: vampire.
A fresh wave of adrenaline flooded his tired body, and he sat bolt upright. Nikita’s hand clamped down like a vise: he’d smelled them, too.
There were two. Male and female. And the male was…familiar, almost. Something…
A boisterous group of twenty-something boys barreled through the pub, slopping beer and shouting to their friends already seated. In their wake, they left a rare opening in the crowd. That was when Sasha saw him: standing just three paces from their table.
His tall, slender build was highlighted by skinny jeans and a black leather jacket. He wore his golden hair in one long braid that draped over his shoulder. Sasha had never seen him like this, in modern clothes. But there was no mistaking his face; the twinkling blue eyes and the sharp smile and the beautiful bone structure.
“Val!”
24
Given the fugue he’d only just emerged from, Nikita wasn’t convinced that the Wallachian prince walking up to their table wasn’t a hallucination.
It looked like Val, despite the clothes, and despite the fact that he had to pause to let someone pass, and was clearly corporeal, which he’d never been before. And Sasha had shouted “Val!” across the room like a kid who’d just spotted Santa Claus.
He himself had even caught the scent of a vampire – two, actually.
But.
Surely not…
There was no way…
But there he was, drawing to a halt, beaming, laughing. Opening his arms. “Hello, sweetheart. Fancy running into you here.”
Sasha slid out of the booth.
Nikita made a lunging grab for him, but he was still a little untethered, and Sasha had always been quicker. He scrambled after him, tripping, because he couldn’t tear his eyes away from what was unfolding:
“Val, you’re really here!” Sasha said, and stepped into the offered embrace; let Prince Valerian of Wallachia fold arms around him and hug him tightly, almost reverently.
“I’m really here.” Val cupped the back of Sasha’s head, briefly, and in just a low, pained murmur, said, in Russian, “How good it is to see you, my little White Wolf.”
Someone was snarling, and it took Nikita a belated moment to realize it was him.
Val – his face a mask of anguish – opened his eyes, and smiled at Nikita over Sasha’s shoulder. He kissed Sasha’s cheek – Nikita’s snarl deepened – and eased him back, so they at least weren’t touching. “Oh no. I’ve made him jealous. Let your mate touch you, so he knows I’m not trying to steal you away.” He gave Sasha a conspiratorial wink and let his hands fall away.
“Captain,” he addressed Nikita, all courtly charm and grace. His posture and his expression and his voice were at such odds with his clothes as to make the whole picture ludicrous. “You have my deepest congratulations. It’s about fucking time.”
Nikita looped an arm around Sasha’s waist and pulled him in flush; bared all his teeth at the other vampire, fangs threatening to prick his lower lip.
Val laughed, delighted. “Making up for lost time? Really now, hush. I am very much spoken for.” He lifted a hand, palm-up, out to the side in unmistakable invitation. He turned his head, his chin tucked, his expression going soft. “Darling,” he said, in an entirely different sort of voice.
A hand slid into his, and a woman stepped forward – a vampire.
Nikita had been so wildly, stupidly territorial that he hadn’t even noticed her. She could have attacked him from the side and gotten the drop on him, and he wouldn’t have even been able to defend himself.
Not that she looked about to do any such thing. She had an athletic build, detectable even beneath a long jacket and jeans, but she held herself uncertainly. Nervous, her eyes a little wide, nostrils flared as she breathed in the tangle of scents around them. Her hair was a darker shade of gold than Val’s, worn in loose waves over her shoulder, spangled with rain drops that glittered in the light.
Val drew her up beside him, and Nikita could smell the way their scents mingled. Lovers. Mates.
“This is Mia,” Val said, transferring her hand to his other hand, and putting a steadying arm around her back. There was no other explanation necessary, not between immortals. She was his, and he was hers, and that was very much that.
It eased some of Nikita’s initial worry…and made him feel like twice the idiot.
“Um,” Trina said from the table, and, great, he’d had an audience for his little display.
Val turned immediately, he and Mia pivoting as a unit. It left Val’s entire right side exposed, vulnerable to an attack from Nikita. One he didn’t expect. One that Nikita, no matter how little he trusted the prince, couldn’t execute in good conscience.
For one thing, it would disappoint Sasha.
And for another, Val was the only reason they’d escaped the Virginia branch unscathed.
He glanced over at Sasha, and found him studying Val with a raw, unguarded wonder. That stung, more than it should have, so he looked instead toward the table.
Trina, Lanny, Alexei, and Jamie had all scrunched in closer together – unconsciously, he would have guessed
– and stared up at the prince and his mate with matching looks of shock.
Trina cleared her throat and said, “Val. Hi. What are you – how did you – I mean, last we saw – and then we didn’t see…” She made a face, huffed a breath, and squared her shoulders. “What are you doing here?” She managed to sound almost casual.
Val sketched her a half-bow. “It’s lovely to see you, too, Detective. Detective,” he added with a nod to Lanny. “And your grace,” he addressed Alexei. He gave Jamie a little two-fingered wave. “I managed to escape.”
“I can see that. But how?”
“I had some help.”
“From?” Trina lifted her brows.
Val swallowed, the first sign of tension. “My brother, actually.”
“What?” they all four asked in unison.
“Vlad helped you?” Sasha asked with disbelief.
Val turned back to him, expression a complicated blend of regret and affection of an inward kind: affection for his brother. “He did. It’s all a bit complex, I’m afraid.”
Nikita managed to speak without growling. “Considering you’ve walked in like we ought to welcome you with open arms” – and Sasha had – “a bit complex isn’t going to cut it. Explain.”
Val sighed, but smiled. “Very well. I don’t suppose–”
“They gave me a tray,” Dante said as he returned, said tray loaded down with glasses and balanced precariously on one hand. “I don’t think–”
Val twisted around to see who’d spoken.
Nikita turned his head just in time to watch the disaster.
Dante’s mouth fell open. He dropped the tray – glass shattered with an awful crash, beer and liquor spraying everywhere across the floor – and went to one knee, head bowed, shoulders trembling.
“Your grace,” he said, as customers shouted in alarm and turned to see what had happened. “I am at you service. Completely.”
“Jesus – get up,” Nikita hissed, took Dante by the arm, and hauled him back to his feet. “You look like an idiot.”
Dante had gone chalk-white. His lip quivered. “But that’s – isn’t he–” In a terrible stage whisper: “The Prince of Wallachia.”
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 28