Page 136 of White Wolf

So he trained. He took the wolves out running in the woods. They loped for miles, breathing in soupy summer air, shaking mosquitos off their faces, collapsing in a heap in the grass, panting and relatively happy. He wrestled and sparred with Ivan. Worked on his knife skills with Kolya. Katya took him to the range, and though he was still an accurate marksman, he found that the gun felt heavy and alien in his hands. Animals didn’t use guns; he felt, even after he’d hit five consecutive bullseyes with her Mosin-Nagant, very much like an animal.

He avoided the lab space in the basement of the base. Rasputin lingered down there, a malevolent shadow at the edge of Sasha’s awareness. He felt, every time he was on the stairs, an unwanted urge to go down there, to see him. That little voice calling to him again.Submit.

Dr. Ingraham had been so preoccupied with his new shiny toy – not just a boy who howled, but a real vampire – that Sasha had started to forget that he was something to be poked and prodded until the doctor sent for him.

Rasputin had been awake for three weeks. It was the first time Sasha had set foot in the labs since that first difficult encounter, and his hackles were up, nervous energy making him twitchy as he took a seat on the exam table.

The lab seemed busy, but a normal kind of busy, rather than the frenzied excitement of the day Rasputin woke. Two techs measured out liquids on the far side of the room, consulting clipboards and one another. Dr. Ingraham snapped on a pair of gloves and smiled at Sasha.

Sasha gripped the edge of the table hard, until he felt the thin steel dent beneath his fingertips. “What do you need me for, Doctor?”

“Just a blood sample today,” he said, cheerfully.

“Another one?”

Ingraham made what Sasha thought of as a token sympathetic face as he laid out a tourniquet, needle, and syringe. “I’m afraid the other samples were corrupted by our testing. I’d like a fresh sample for a new test.”

“What sort of test?”

His face lit up, delighted to have been asked. He tied the tourniquet around Sasha’s arm with efficient movements, and said, “I took a sample from you before the procedure, if you’ll recall.” Cold prick of a needle in his arm just minutes before the hot fire of a knife going into his heart. “And when compared with your more recent samples, the increase in red blood cells is remarkable. In short, you have very rich blood, and I think this is a reflection of your new stronger, heartier state as a…”

“Werewolf.”

The doctor blushed. “You’ll forgive; I’m a medical man and I can’t get used to–”

“Saying werewolf? It’s what I am.”

“Yes. Well.” The doctor stuck the needle in Sasha’s arm. “Our Friend,” he started, and Sasha interrupted.

“You’re calling him that now?”

Dr. Ingraham looked startled. “Well, I…”

“It’s what the royal family called him,” Sasha said, careful to keep his face blank. Inside, he was squirming away from the vocabulary.

“Oh. Well.” The doctor shrugged, looking uncomfortable. He stared intently at the syringe in his hand. “Rasputin, if you like. He’s getting stronger every day. Slowly healing. But it’s just that – slow. I have this theory that a dose of your blood – strong werewolf blood – might be the bump he needs to get back on his feet.”

Sasha went cold all over. His voice came out oddly flat. “You want him to…feed from me?”

Dr. Ingraham stepped back so fast he almost pulled the needle from Sasha’s arm. “What? Oh. No. Nothing so base as that. I meant a transfusion. Or he could…” He gulped audibly. “Drink it from a cup.”

“But….”

A lab tech walked up with an empty blood bag, and a length of tubing.

“You want to collect a lot,” Sasha said, heart falling down into his stomach.

“I think you can spare it.” Dr. Ingraham gave him a tight grin.

He knew there was no way out of this, but he hated it.

The bag filled slowly, and by the end, he felt a little lightheaded, but in a manageable way.

“Are you taking it to him now?”

“In a few minutes.”

Sasha hopped off the table. What he wanted to see wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. He didn’t want to be around when his blood crossed the vampire’s tongue.

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