Page 166 of White Wolf

And suddenly Sasha was human-shaped again, kneeling in the snow, shivering beneath his white pelt cloak, sobbing and choking and retching.

“Oh, God, oh God…”

Slowly, gracefully, Val knelt opposite him. He was clean and unmarked, not really here at all, and so unaffected by the battle. “Do you remember what I told you, Sasha? A long time ago?”

“I…”

Val sighed, patient. “About cutting the heart out?”

“Oh.” So that’s what he’d been talking about.

His gaze moved over the bloody, moaning shape that had once been Rasputin, and he shuddered.

And then he remembered Nikita.

~*~

At first he was very cold, but he was beginning to be warm again. The cold was the blood loss, he figured, and the new warmth was because the blood loss was killing him.

Nikita was too tired to question these rational thoughts. He supposed everyone thought those sorts of things when they were about to die. When the world went gray, and you couldn’t move your limbs, and you acknowledged that you’d lost. That it had all been for naught.

In that moment, though he’d spent his life working to restore the empire, he found he didn’t care about it at all now. Now he thought about the child that would grow up without a father – if Katya was still alive. He thought about how he’d failed his brothers, all of them. About how he deserved this. How he hadn’t just died at the hands of a monster, but was one himself, too.

It was very quiet now. He thought he might sleep.

But then…

The earth was shaking. Or he was. Or…

Warm hands on his face, his neck. A shadow floated over his face. Someone was speaking…

“Nik! Nikita! Nik!”

Oh, bless him, it was Sasha. He smelled like blood, and wolf musk. His voice was choked, like he was crying.

“Nik…” A sniffle. A hand across his forehead, pushing his hair back. “I’m going to save you.” Determined, firm. And then Sasha moved away.

Nikita tried to say something to him, but he couldn’t. Everything was gray, gray, gray. So tired…so…

The hands again, so careful on his face. And then warm breath against his mouth. And then lips. A kiss. Something wet, and hot, and slick. A tongue pushed into his mouth, and he tasted the hot, salty, coppery tang of blood. Blood in his mouth, filling it. Sliding from another mouth and into his.

Sasha’s voice, thick with…with blood. “Swallow that.”

He did.

~*~

Rasputin was still alive, his wounds still pumping blood, and Sasha carried it to Nikita, fed it to him, as fast and as easy as he could think to do it – in his mouth. Mouthful after mouthful. Until Nikita’s color started to come back.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked imploringly to Val. “Is it enough? To turn him?” Because that, he’d realized, was the only way to keep him alive. The exchange of blood between vampire and human was half-done; if Sasha could complete it, Nikita would live. And his wolves were dead, Ivan was dead, Kolya and Feliks too, their bodies black and twisted on the snow. He wouldn’t lose Nikita. Hewouldn’t.

“It might be enough,” Val said, considering. He glanced over at Rasputin. “But there’s one way to be sure. Kill two birds with one stone – pardon the expression.”

Whatever it took. Whatever, he didn’t care.

Sasha nodded, and walked back to the vampire to claw out his heart. He would feed it to Nikita, bite by bite, until he was alive, and the monster Rasputin was finally dead.

~*~

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