Page 147 of White Wolf

Someone grabbed him under the arms and hauled him up, away. His master’s fangs caught, tore his skin, long grooves down his throat. Blood ran hot and slick down into the collar of his shirt. The room tilted, and then there was something hard at his back: the wall. He was sitting.

And Nikita was crouched in front of him. He looked worried. He always did.

Poor Nik, always so…

“Sasha!”

~*~

Nikita pressed his hand to the ragged wound in Sasha’s neck and watched the boy’s eyes flutter shut. He tried not to panic. He panicked anyway.

“What did you do to him?” he roared, twisting awkwardly to look at Rasputin over his shoulder.

Thestaretsstill lay sprawled on the carpet, Ivan kneeling behind him, holding both his arms. It might have looked and felt like a supportive posture, but Nikita knew it wasn’t.

Katya knelt beside Nikita, and something soft brushed the back of his hand. “Here, use this.” A towel.

He lifted his grip only long enough to put the towel between his hand and the wound, and then put firm pressure back on it.

“I didn’t harm him.” Rasputin sounded winded; and why not: he’d been thrown off the bed, apparently, and had one-hundred-fifty pounds of wolf-boy sitting on his chest.

“Nik,” Katya said, and he turned back around.

Sasha’s eyes fluttered open again, and he stirred a little, growling quietly. “Wha…”

“Hey, easy. You alright?” Nikita asked, sounding calm, like he wasn’t about to have a coronary. He checked under the towel, and the bleeding had already slowed. The nasty wounds in his throat were turning pink, starting to heal.

Sasha tipped his head back and blinked a few times, an eerie blankness giving way to confusion. “What?” he asked.

“Are you okay?” Nikita asked again.

Sasha took a long moment, struggling to think. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.” There were none of his usual sad little smiles, his assurances that he was strong enough to handle whatever they threw at him. He wasn’thimself, and that terrified Nikita.

“Hold on.” Katya took over with the towel, shooting him a questioning glance.

Nikita got to his feet, turned around, and kicked Rasputin as hard as he could. In the face.

Ivan said, “Shit.”

Rasputin howled and grabbed at his nose, which had broken with a muffledcrunch. There was blood immediately, leaking through his fingers onto his shirt, and the carpet.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and Nikita whirled, fist clenched and ready.

Philippe took a startled step back, but didn’t check his anger. “You can’t do that,” he hissed. “You fool.”

That was it. He was done. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. You know what?” To the room at large, he said, “I’m fucking done with this sideshow. I’m in charge now.” When Philippe started to protest, he ran over him: “Fuck you, I don’t care. I’m the captain. I’m in charge. He” – he pointed at Rasputin, still whimpering and holding his nose – “is your responsibility now,Monsieur.” He snarled the French word, sick to death of the taste of it in his mouth. “Not mine, and not Sasha’s.I’llmake the battle plan,I’lldecide when we move, and where, and you just keep that asshole entertained until it’s time to use him as an attack dog. We clear?”

It was quiet for a long, pained moment, save Rasputin snuffling through his broken nose.

Something dangerous lurked in Philippe’s gaze when he said, “Fine, captain. You’re in charge. I thought you were already, but I guess you had to flex your authority, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Guess I did.”

~*~

Sasha’s eyes were open, and he knew that he was in a bedroom, lying on his side on the bed. That it was evening, and someone had taken the prostitutes back to where they’d come from, that his human pack was near. But something wasn’t right.

He felt disconnected, like a filter now existed between the world and his awareness of it. He didn’t like it, but found he was too disinterested to get riled up about it.

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