Page 200 of White Wolf

“Alexei,” Sasha said, voice low and soothing beneath the thump of club music. “Come on now, it isn’t as if it’s a shock, right? You said so yourself that you thought he was dead, and he was badly hurt. He was hibernating. He couldn’t come get you.”

“But he was awake when he turned you.” He turned puffy, red, miserable eyes to Nikita. “Why didn’t he look for me then?”

“How could he know you were alive, too?” Sasha said. “We told him about the family. About…” Even after all this time, Sasha stumbled a little bit when he talked about the atrocity.

Was it any different from the thing Rasputin had done to them? No, Nikita didn’t think so.

Sasha said, “It was the middle of the war. When it was over, I’m sure he would have looked for you.”

Alexei sat up a little straighter. “But…but the war is over. It’sbeenover.” He turned to look at Sasha’s face. “So this time he really is…”

“Dead, yes.” And credit to Sasha, he didn’t flinch when he said it, even though it had been his fangs and fingers that had dug the heart from the monster’s body and fed it to Nikita.

“Oh,” Alexei said, sagging down into the booth again. He wiped at his eyes again, but this time, no new tears sprung forth. “I…oh.”

Nikita had had enough of this. He sighed. “Rasputin was a greasy, psychotic, womanizing piece of shit. He didn’t care about anything but drinking blood and fucking whores,” he said. “You’re better off without him.”

Alexei grew indignant. “He was a good man! A holy man. He–”

“Was probably fucking your mother.”

“You–!” The tsarevich lunged across the table and Sasha grabbed the back of his jacket, holding him back.

“Not helpful, Nik,” he muttered.

But at this point, Nikita was done. He braced both hands on the edge of the table to keep from throttling the kid. Whatever his face was doing, the sight of it thumped Alexei back down in his seat.

“You wanna know about Rasputin?” Nikita hissed, a growl stirring in his throat. “Let me tell about your belovedstarets. He woke up caterwauling like a woman – like you’re doing. Wanted blood from women, wanted his ‘little ladies.’ He tried to go after my wife, over and over, every day. Made her crazy.” He tugged his shirt collar down to reveal the jagged white scar that still looked, in the right light, like teeth marks. “Bit into me and drained me dry.”

“He was hungry,” Alexei said, just a whisper.

“No, he wasinsatiable. He tried to send us off to find him whores. Night after night, one after the next after the next…even in the middle of a war zone…” Nikita was breathing hard, chest pumping like he was running a race. “We woke him up so he could help us win the war, take back the country for the monarchists, and what did he want? Blood and pussy. That’s all.”

“Nik,” Sasha said, gently.

He was getting too worked up, but he didn’t care. Fuck it. Fuck everything. “He had a temper, though, didn’t he?” When Alexei glanced away, Nikita pressed harder. “Yeah, you know about it. A bad temper when you crossed him. We poured out all his wine and told him there’d be no more whores until we’d finished the job at Stalingrad. And that’s when his temperreallycame out. Have you ever seen a man’s head get ripped clean off his body? You can’t imagine the blood.”

“Nikita, please…”

“He killed mybrothers. He killed ourpack. And I ate the heart out of his chest.” Nikita spit on the tabletop. “FuckRasputin. I hope he burns in hell forever.”

He realized then that he was shaking hard enough to make the table rattle, threatening to rip out the screws that secured it to the wall. He breathed in ragged, panting breaths, and sweat rolled down his body, his clothes clinging to his skin.

All the energy left him at once. He was so tired these days. The side effect of living too long. “You were a boy,” he said, voice hoarse and exhausted now. “You didn’t see everything as it really was. Don’t tell me that he was holy. He was just another monster – and the worst part is that I ever believed there was any hope.”

His stomach clenched and he thought he might be sick. “I threw my life away for your family,” he told Alexei. “I won’t do it again, not even for you.” He slid out of the booth. “My break’s over.”

Sasha sent him a sad look, but only nodded, and didn’t try to stop him.

~*~

It was quiet a long moment after Nikita was gone – as quiet as it could be in a nightclub.

“I, uh…” Alexei said. “I don’t want to be tsar, if that’s what he’s thinking.”

Sasha shook his head. “It was hard for him to realize the thing he was fighting for could never happen. It’s not about you, and it’s not even really about Rasputin. He’s a righteous man without a cause, and that can be dangerous.” He offered a smile.

Alexei said, “Oh.” He rubbed at his jaw.

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