“He is safe,” Vlad said mildly. He didn’t move, but the sword caught the light somehow, a persistent glimmer. “You should not worry.”
“There are other wolves,” he said, thinking of the ferals they’d never been able to find back in New York. Of the wolves that Val had told them resided here…And where were they? The baron and his American baroness? Hiding? Choosing not to take sides? Assholes. “You can use them. For your tests.” To be your slaves, he didn’t say. “You have no need of Sasha. He isn’t a good war dog anyway. He wouldn’t be useful.”
But he remembered Sasha’s chin smeared with blood, the appalled excitement in his eyes, glinting bright as the sun-warmed snow. That was the beautiful thing about Sasha: he was all youth, and spark, and heart, and curiosity. He killed like he did everything else: passionately.
If he was doing it for someone he loved.
Vlad’s face did something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Is that why you don’t use him?” His head tipped the other way. “Or do you use him for other things? He smelled like you, all the way down to his scalp.”
Another growl rippled up his throat, unbidden, this one a direct challenge. “I don’t have a beef with you. Whatever you’re doing here, I don’t care. All I want is Sasha.”
Vlad seemed to consider it. Or pretended to. “No.”
Nikita started forward, brought up short by Lanny’s hand on his shoulder. He growled again, a true snarl this time.
“Do you want to fight me?” Vlad asked, and he sounded truly curious, the bastard. “Maybe I should tell you first: I have no…what’s the word? Fetish? Yes, fetish. I don’t care about Sasha. He is young, and skinny, and a boy besides. I don’t want a pet, Captain Baskin. But if I’m to go into battle, I need a wolf at my side. That’s how it was done in the old days – in my father’s days. And then again in mine. A wolf to act as right hand. My wolf died over five centuries ago, and so you see, I have need of one. Dr. Talbot said he would provide, and he has provided Sasha. Sasha who is, as I say, not bound to anyone. He is, as the Americans say, free for the taking.”
“You fucking–”
“Hey,” Lanny said, squeezing Nikita’s shoulder hard. He must have been very strong as a man, because as a vampire, his big boxer’s hand threatened to dislocate Nikita’s shoulder. To Vlad: “Okay, look. Mr. Dracula. Shit. Wow. Anyway. You can see my friend here is upset. And you get that, right? He’s not normally the sort of person who sticks his nose in other people’s business. Which is ironic since he was secret police, you know–”
“Lanny,” Alexei sing-songed, the tone belied by an undercurrent of stress. “Perhaps stick to the point, starshoi, yes?”
“Yeah. What I’m getting at is: these guys? Nikita and Sasha? They’ve been together, just the two of them, a real long time. They’re like a coupla old marrieds. I haven’t met a lot of wolves, but there have to be others, and it’d be real great if you could – bond, or whatever – with one of them. You don’t wanna break up best friends like this, huh? Also, he’s freaking out. Look at him. I don’t wanna ride all the way back in the car with him when he’s like this. Come on, bro, whaddya say?”
Nikita vowed to kick Lanny right in the balls at the first opportunity, the stupid meathead.
Or maybe hug him, because that little spiel had made him feel like family.
Vlad took a step forward, and they collectively tensed. They were all of a height, but Vlad managed to look down his nose at them. “When my uncle wakes, it won’t matter that you and your friend are together. Nothing will matter. Are you so selfish that you would stand in the way of my war over one person? That you would let friendship be the thing that breaks the world?”
Nikita felt a brittle smile steal across his face. “You arrogant idiot. The world’s broken a thousand times. You missed most of it while you were asleep. It always breaks, and stupid people always die trying to keep it from breaking, and it always mends itself in the end. I can live through that. I have. But I won’t live without him.” He’d find a way to end it all, finally, once and for all if that was the case. “Get in my way, and I’ll go through you, Son of the Dragon or not.”
Lanny hissed out a breath. “Writing checks you seriously can’t cash,” he whispered.
“My lord Dracula,” Alexei said, taking a hesitant, non-threatening step forward. He must have finally shaken off his shock. “I’m sure there’s something we can work out. We are both, after all, royalty – both princes, even – and I’m sure, just as my papa would say, that there is nothing a little diplomacy won’t–”
Vlad turned a look on the tsarevich that made even Nikita’s knees feel weak. “Shut up. Russian princess.” He turned back to Nikita. “Through me it is, then, Captain.” He lifted his sword.
“Both of you, go,” Nikita said, shrugging Lanny off, and raising his gun. “Find Sasha. I’ll hold him.”
Lanny cursed extravagantly, calling him an idiot, but he grabbed Alexei, and they went.
*
The noise coming from downstairs. The scents.
Annabel’s hands, clammy with nervous sweat, skidded and slipped as she popped the latch on the box that Fulk had dragged out from beneath the bed. Most of his treasures of the past – he called it “old junk,” but she’d seen the way he looked at some of the jewelry and, especially, a few hand-carved wooden figures – were kept safe at a self-store facility in Georgia. But this box went with them everywhere. Just in case. His one concession to the threat that they pretended didn’t exist, but which had haunted their every step, from Beijing, to Paris, to Rio.
She finally got the latch and flipped the lid back. He’d pulled his longsword out just minutes before. The shortsword remained. And the American cavalry saber; that was the one she pulled out and unsheathed, the hiss-ting of the blade drawing a familiar comfort.
Stay in the room, sure. Like hell.
She was headed for the door when a sound froze her in her tracks. Downstairs was a discordant symphony of panicked noise, but this sound had come from above. Faint, but distinct. She–
She caught the first faint whiff of strange wolves before a dark shape moved toward the window, a blur, and the glass shattered.
Fulk!
Anna threw her head back and howled.
*
For such a short distance, the elevator moved awfully slow.
Rooster had Red shoved behind him while they waited for it to arrive; she gripped the back of his hoodie with both fists, not wanting to let go. He understood; if he could have spared his gun hand, he would have picked her up and carried her against his chest. Beside them, the boy, Sasha, braced himself with one shoulder against Rooster’s and fought hard shivers that left his breath coming in short, sharp pants.
Every second the elevator took to come was another second when they could be set upon.
“Come on, come on,” Rooster chanted under his breath.
Only Val seemed unbothered. He swayed gently side-to-side, dreamy smile on his face, watching the doors with obvious anticipation. Weirdo.
After what felt like an eternity, the car arrived with a polite ding and the doors slid open…
To reveal two men in jeans and Kevlar. Both carrying guns.
“Shit.” Rooster fingered the trigger of his stolen gun–
And Val laughed. “Detective Webb and his pet tsarevich in the flesh.”
“Hey,” one of the men, the younger one, protested.
The other guy, dark-haired, with a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once, opened his eyes wide in surprise. “Dude. Val? You’re loose?”
“Very much so. You were looking for us?”
Both men – neither of which made aggressive moves toward them – peered around Val’s shoulders.
“Sasha,” they both breathed out at the same time, relieved.
Broken Nose stepped off the elevator and went to the blond boy, took him by the shoulder and peered into his face, brows knitting. “Shit, kid, what’d they do to you?”