Fulk sighed and crouched down in front of him, something almost like softness in his face. “You’re having a meltdown.”
“I can’t – I won’t…”
“Listen to me.” His hand closed around Sasha’s neck and squeezed. “I know,” he whispered, too low and close for the cameras to pick it up. “I know, alright? I belonged to the same master for centuries, and I still have nightmares. I know. But right now, it’s more important to stay alive, and to earn some trust. You won’t see Nik again if you fuck this up. Alright?”
Sasha breathed. In and out.
He thought about Nik being hungry, and irritable, slipping into one of his too-long sleeps because he refused to feed.
He thought about the warmth of sunlight falling on the bed through the window, sheets that smelled like pack; the awful buzz saw snoring that Nikita denied. Shoulders touching on the sofa, fingers combing through his hair. Safe, and warm, and not owned, but loved.
He closed his eyes and breathed some more. Worked on slowing his lungs.
“Okay,” he whispered.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
*
He got them to shake hands, though Sasha visibly flinched. Just a fraction. The girl, Red, remained stoic throughout, but Fulk could feel the vibrating anxiety lifting off her like steam. She was worried, and frightened…and furious, too. The mages he’d known – the girl’s own father, judging by scent commonalities – had possessed a smug superiority. Not her. She was just enraged.
Fulk had no idea how it would all shake down; he knew things were coming to a head, could feel the pressure swelling to fill all the dark crevices of the manor, but right now, he was just tired.
He stripped on his way through their opulent suite, down to his CKs by the time he reached the bathroom with its historic marble and modern fixtures. He started a bath and unbraided his hair in front of the mirror.
His fingers picked with careful familiarity through the tight little braids that Anna liked to layer over his ears. Each day was a slight variation on a similar theme: pulled back at the crown so it didn’t fall into his eyes, but artfully twisted and threaded with flowers, and sometimes even jewels. “Better than a doll,” she’d said on more than one occasion, laughing, beaming, pressing her soft warm cheek to his as she kissed the corner of his mouth. He liked it long, that had been the style in the year of his birth, but he’d gladly let her shave it if that was what she wanted. The simple joy she found in his hair, playing with it, styling it, filled him with an echoing sort of joy.
As if summoned by thoughts – really, it was the scent, the magnetism of having imprinted on one another as mates – Annabel appeared in the threshold, shoulder propped against the jamb.
“Mm,” she hummed, Southern accent coming through strong. “Look at the handsome thing I stumbled across. I’m a lucky, lucky girl.”
He shook out his loose hair; a piece fell over his left eye and he flicked it away with his fingers before he turned to face his wife. His mate.
Her expression flickered, gamely trying for aroused, but falling more toward the worried truth.
“Sasha’s falling apart,” he said, voice heavier than intended. “And this girl, Red, I don’t…” Why, he wondered, did the responsibility of things always fall to him, of all people?
Anna came to him, soft and yielding now, the fa?ade wiped clean. “Oh, baby.” She hooked her arms around his neck and pulled his face down into her throat. Stroked his hair. “It’s okay.”
He pulled back, hands braced on her shoulders. “No, darling, it’s not.”
She sighed. “I can at least say it, though. And no matter what, we’ll stick together.” Her eyes were imploring in a way they hadn’t been in a long time. They’d been together so long, attached and connected, reading one another’s impulses. They hadn’t had to ask such a thing in forever.
He nodded. “Right.”
She studied him a moment, eyes widening in reaction, finally. “Fulk.”
The best way to say terrible things was just to say them; he’d never had trouble delivering bad news before Anna came along, but after over a century together, the words scraped his throat on the way out. “If Sasha’s friends come for him, and they manage to pull off an escape, I want you to go with them.”
For a seemingly-endless moment, she didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe, didn’t react. And then her face twisted up and she shoved him, hard. He took a step back and his hip hit the edge of the counter.
“You dumbass,” she hissed. She slapped him for good measure, hands hitting his chest with a satisfying smack. Her mouth worked, and her chest heaved as she sucked in a few breaths. “Dumbass,” she repeated, eyes wild in a way he knew meant she was overcome.
He caught her wrists in both hands when she moved to strike him again. “Darling, listen to me.”
She growled.
“I’m being completely serious.”
“So am I, and you’re a dumbass!” Her eyes glittered like jewels, sheened with tears she fought valiantly to check.
He leaned in close so they were almost nose-to-nose. She smelled like acrid panic. “Listen,” he repeated, gently, chest aching. “I think they’ll fail. They can come and throw themselves against the walls all they want, but they won’t succeed.
“If, though. If by some miracle they get inside, and they get hold of Sasha – I won’t stop them, but I can’t help them. And when Sasha is gone, they’ll take it out on me. I won’t let them have you, too.” He growled now, lower, deeper, darker. A threat to anyone who would dare touch her. “Vlad’s not getting a matched pair in us.”
“Then come with me.” She twisted her wrists, but not to get away; only to wrap her hands around his own wrist-bones and cling tight, nails scoring his skin. “We’ll go together. We’ll go right now.”
How many times had he dreamed of such a thing? Stealing away in the dark; leaving the car, all their things. Shifting and running four-legged through the tangled Virginia forests. Running beneath full and new moons. Not stopping until they dove off a cliff into the California ocean. Cutting his hair, hiding in Bali, or Bangkok, or Anchorage.
But if they got caught…when they got caught.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to Anna’s. Steam from the bath filled the room, hot and choking. “They only want me,” he murmured. He was the legend, the one with the strength to make wolves, the one who could make the perfect Familiar for vampire royalty. “Let me keep you safe. Please, darling.”
“No.” A shaky whisper, but he felt the tensile steel in her fingers where she gripped him. “Together or not at all.”
He whined.
She whined back.
“Come get in the water with me.”
He unclothed her deftly, gently, long fingers lifting off her black tank top, working the button fly of her cutoffs. He twisted off the taps and tested the full bathtub with one hand – the water was so hot it almost burned. He lifted her up and stepped inside, careful, folded them both down into the tub, Anna perched sideways in his lap, his long legs bent, toes snugged up to the porcelain.
The tap dripped, soft plunks into the water.
Annabel pressed her face into his throat, her breath even warmer than the steam.
He gripped her shoulder too tight, but she didn’t protest. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
She made a soft inquiring sound, a little wolfish ruff.
“I always wanted you to be free, and I can’t…” The lump in his throat rose and he choked it back down.
“Oh, baby,” she murmured, smoothing her hand across the red mark on his chest where she’d smacked him. “That doesn’t matter to me. It never has.”