Page 140 of White Wolf
“So let me guess,” Nikita said, “Sasha’s got some magic, super strong werewolf blood, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you.”
“You also might be interested to know that Sasha can afford to lose more blood than your average mortal.”
Nikita’s thoughts up to this point had been laser-focused. Now they hiccupped. “Why would I be interested in that?” But he was. He was also starting to expand his bubble of worry beyond Sasha.
Philippe’s mouth turned up a fraction at the corners, a small, unsettling smile. “Did you also know that vampires are strongest when they feed from humans? Oh yes. Pig blood will keep them alive, but human blood is how they thrive. Our Friend will need human blood to get properly back on his feet, and experience tells me he was always hungry for it, even when healthy. Now, he can drain soldiers, or we can supplement him with Sasha’s blood. Sasha who is strong, who can make plenty more blood, who won’t notice the loss of it. Or we can bring him mortals. What do you think, captain?”
Nikita swallowed. “Call the war office. Tell them we want German POWs.”
Philippe’s smile stretched. “I like the way you think. But. With luck, we can get him strong enough that he won’t need to feed often, or deeply. A healthy vampire doesn’t need to drain anyone.”
It was ludicrous. All of it. A horror story told around autumn fireplaces come to life.
But it was real. And it was something he had to weigh carefully.
Fuck.
“I can promise you,” Philippe said, “that Rasputin will never feed from Sasha’s throat. We’ll do it all clinically and professionally. And only while it’s necessary.”
Nikita stared at his boots and didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
~*~
Summer on the steppe was oven-hot, heat mirages dancing out across the brown grass. The mosquitos were thick enough to choke a man at night, this far from the city, and its river breeze. It was no more miserable than Siberia this time of year, but the vistas were different, and Sasha was homesick, sometimes, when he allowed himself a moment to feel a little self-pity.
He went running in the early mornings, when the heat was still muffled by darkness, when the bugs had quieted somewhat. Long, aimless runs, just to move, and hear the wind rushing in his ears, to smell earth and wolf and listen to the happy panting of his pack. Away from the all-too-human base. And Rasputin.
Thestaretshad been awake for six weeks. Sasha went down to the labs every other day to give blood…and to help the man walk the halls, becoming more mobile every day, his wounds fading into barely visible white scars. Rasputin reminisced about the royal family, and talked a lot about God, and heaven, and sin, and the ways he’d tried to “drive out evil” before his attempted assassination.
Attempted. Felix Yusupov would turn over in his grave if he knew that all his many efforts had failed.
Pleasantly winded, long hair still dripping from a drink and a fast dunk of his head in the stream, he walked back to base as the light was turning pink and found Kolya sitting out in the yard, on a bench made of overturned crates and a few fence rails, sharpening his knives. What else.
“Morning,” he grunted, distracted, when Sasha sat down beside him.
“Morning.” Sasha pushed his hands back through his hair, slicking it down against his head, his neck. It was getting too long, well down past his shoulders, but he liked it. It made him feel more like a wild creature than a boy.
The wolves came up to greet Kolya, tongues out. His hands stilled, letting them lick at his fingers, so he wouldn’t cut them with the knife.
Sasha became aware of tension, an uncertain set to Kolya’s always steady shoulders. “What?”
“Rasputin wants to go into the city,” Kolya said, voice casual. “Philippe said the war will be here soon, and he thinks we should take him. Let him get familiar with it, he says.”
Sasha took a breath. And then another. “Well. That was the plan all along.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I hate him,” Sasha admitted, and Kolya finally dropped the indifferent act and turned to him, knife sliding away into its sheath somewhere.
The Chekist looked at him a long moment, eyes unusually soft. “We were friends when we were boys, you know. All of us. And back then Nik was full of a lot of piss and vinegar. Always on about the empire. Quoting Catherine, and Peter, and Nicholas. Nicholas was his favorite; he was the soft-hearted one, you know.”
