“Yeah. But then your mom called me.”
His eyes widened. The cigarette fell out of his hand, and landed on the concrete below.
“She said you’ve been dodging her calls. She thinks you are, anyway. But I told her you wouldn’t do that. You’re just busy.”
He blew out a breath. “Shit.”
She spoke softly, without judgement. She would damn well judge him for clipping his toenails in bed – “What the hell are you doing?” she’d exclaimed when she found him doing that in her bed – but in this, family stuff, she wanted to be a safe place for him. “When was the last time you talked to your mom, Lan?”
He was quiet a long beat. Inhale, exhale. “Not since before,” he said, like an admission, tone grim.
She worked to keep the shock from her voice. “Not since before Alexei turned you?”
He made a sound in the affirmative.
Trina took a breath and swallowed her initial reaction – managed not to call him a dumbass. “Okay,” she said instead. “That – wow, okay, that’s been a long time. You’ve at least texted her, though, right?”
“Yeah. Couple times.”
“So she knows you’re alive. Good.”
“I talked to Pauly,” he said of one of his brothers. “He knew I was sick.” He made a face. “Now he knows I’m not anymore. I’m sure he passed it along to Ma.”
“How did you explain the not being sick thing to Paul?”
“Uh…kinda didn’t. He doesn’t need to know.”
Dumbass nearly slipped out again. But he did have a point. Her own family, brought up by two people who’d not only escaped the Soviet Union, and its war-torn countryside, but who’d known Nik, and what he was; two people who’d fought alongside Sasha and Rasputin – well, they didn’t have exactly normal sensibilities when it came to the supernatural.
Who was she to judge how he handled breaking the news to his family that he was not only well, but immortal?
Carefully, she said, “I’m not saying you have to tell her…everything. But I think you do have to go and see her.”
He sent her a look.
“I can come with you. Of course I will,” she added. She rested a hand over his, where it gripped the security rail in front of them. “We’re…well, we’re pack, aren’t we?” She smiled. “You don’t have to do anything alone.”
“Pack’s for wolves,” he murmured.
“Which we have.” A thought occurred. “Unless you said something really stupid to him tonight.”
Lanny scoffed. “He’s not going anywhere. Him and Gramps just gotta figure their shit out.”
“Pretty sure calling him ‘Gramps’ isn’t helping with that.”
“Hey, he’s your gramps. Your great-gramps. What am I supposed to call him?”
She faced out across the parking lot, a smile tugging at her lips. She knew he would never admit it, but she thought that, secretly, Nikita enjoyed having a new pack. Sasha would always be his favorite – his beloved, if he’d ever let himself admit it – but he did care about the rest of them. Even liked them, though he’d deny it bitterly.
“How about,” Lanny said, “we shelve all our personal shit and figure out who’s eating people in our city, yeah?”
She snorted. “All our personal shit?”
He turned to her then, eyes going wide, the whites bright in the dark. “Well, I mean…” His expression slid into a smirk, the one that doubtless worked on lots of women – it worked on her, at least. “Not all.”
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”
“You eat yet?”
“No.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders, heavy, strong, and comforting. He was healthy, now, alive, and vital, and whatever else was going on, she could revel in that fact. “How ‘bout Chinese?”
“Sounds good.” She let him steer her down the steps and toward her unmarked, not as scared as she might have been. The scariest thing of all had an arm around her, right where she wanted it.
3
“Nik.” Sasha thought he did a decent job of keeping his voice even. “What are you doing?”
They stood at the sinks in the men’s room, still at the club, the lurid blue neon shining down on the black tile of the floor and walls, and rendering Nikita’s normally-pale complexion downright ghastly. He cupped water in his palms, splashed it on his face, and used his wet hands to slick his hair back off his forehead. Skin pallid, the bags beneath his eyes dark as bruises, he looked sick. He couldn’t have eaten at any point in the past twelve hours, and the only blood he’d had for weeks had been pig – and that sparingly. Small sips from the same pint out of the fridge that couldn’t possibly be good anymore.
Nikita braced his hands on the edge of the sink and stared at his own reflection a moment, water dripping off his chin, darkening the chest of his plain black t-shirt. He’d put his jacket on, the soft, faded denim one with the Romanov patch, the one whose collar Sasha liked to scent out of instinct. Ready to leave the club; ready to go out front and meet the woman he’d told to wait for them.
Sasha’s heart knocked hard against his ribs. “Nikita,” he tried again. “This is a bad idea.”
Nik turned to look at him then, finally, his gaze eerily flat. “It was your idea,” he said, with a note of accusation.
“Yes.” Nikita must be able to hear his pulse, the awful throbbing of it, so forceful it hurt, made it hard to breathe. “I thought that you might…you’ve been very…” He didn’t want to say it, the words foul-tasting on the back of his tongue.
“It was your idea,” Nikita repeated, firmer, jaw clenched tight. “You want to have some fun? Want me to show you the ropes?”
He could see it all too vividly: clothes crumpled on the floor, a tangle of sweaty limbs, and the scent and sound of someone who wasn’t pack, who wasn’t even a friend, in Nik’s bed. In the place where Sasha offered his throat, and held his best friend as shivers wracked him; where they clung, and swallowed down things they should have said seventy-seven years ago.
Nikita had a woman every now and then, and, occasionally, a man, his jaw always tight afterward, like it was now. But Sasha was never there for that. He would send him off with a shaky smile, and a sip of blood, wanting to ensure that he stayed well in control of himself, that he didn’t do anything he’d regret.
But now Nik wanted them to be together. To take that woman home. To–
He swallowed convulsively against a surge of bile in his throat. He was madly, desperately afraid for that to happen, and he didn’t even know why.
(Don’t you, though? a mocking voice in the back of his mind asked. You know.)
“It’s been weeks since you fed properly,” he said, aiming for reasonable, though his voice trembled. “If you want to – want to go home with her. Just. Let me feed you, first.” He reached to unzip his jacket with an unsteady hand. Adrenaline chased through him, chilling him. He didn’t want to send him off, no – stay, please, just come home and stay with me, and talk to me, and let me touch you again, he wanted to say. But he wanted to be fed from, so badly; wanted the heat and weight of bodies pressed flush together, the prick of the fangs, Nik’s breath hot as it fanned across his skin, as he panted, greedy – needing Sasha. He wanted to be needed.