Page 210 of White Wolf

He’d zoned out, he realized, startling back to the moment at hand to find his fingers curled around a tumbler of vodka.

“It’s all we have to drink,” Sasha said with an apologetic shrug, going to sit in a wingback chair that had once been ornate, and now looked lived-in. “Unless you want Coke? Would you rather?” He made a move to rise.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Lanny was surprised by the rough scrape of his voice. Shit, he wasscared. In more ways than one. He brought the glass to his lips with a hand that only shook a little and cracked a smile he knew looked like a sad imitation; it was the same smile he’d given to his family right after his hand shattered, when they were trying to convince him he still had his whole life ahead of him. “Kinda cliché, though, isn’t it? Russians drinking vodka?”

Nikita snorted, and one corner of his mouth twitched like he almost smiled. “You have no idea.”

Sasha said, “I do like American whiskey. Jack Daniel’s is my favorite.”

“Yeah?” Lanny said.

“It’s like caramel,” the Russian boy said, his face expressive and open, going thoughtful. “Sweet, like vodka is not. Yes, I like it.” He smiled, and maybe it was that first sip of liquor, but Lanny smiled back. The kid was irrepressibly cheerful and…and justnice. He didn’t fit in New York at all – but maybenicedidn’t fit in anywhere anymore.

Nikita said, “You’ll drink anything.” Made a dismissive hand gesture that made Sasha laugh.

“You’re just boring,” he shot back.

What was it like, Lanny wondered, to have been alive with someone for so long? To know what they thought, felt, dreamed? To be that strongly linked? Sometimes, if they were lucky, people had lifetimes together. But what did forever feel like? Did it burn? Or was it the balm that made life worthwhile?

Belatedly, he noticed that both of them were staring at him.

All the laughter bled out of the room.

Nikita drank off his vodka and said, “When were you diagnosed?”

He’d been expecting the question, but still, Lanny’s breath caught in his throat. “Trina told you?”

“No. I smelled it on you the second we met.”

“Oh.” The air left his lungs on an explosive sigh. “Yeah, um…” The idea of it, smelling something like cancer, like one of those trained dogs…

“It’s in your lymph nodes,” Nikita said, his matter-of-fact tone – like he justknew– as unsettling as icy fingers down Lanny’s neck. “The ones in your throat, and under your arms, and in your groin. It’s spreading to your organs. You seem alright now, but you’ll be dead in a month or two.”

Lanny opened his mouth to respond, and made an embarrassing whimpering sound instead.

“You’re a proud man, Roland,” Nikita continued, and it wasn’t a question. “You don’t want to die, but you aren’t the sort to ask for help. You’re here because of Trina. Yes?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

“But you don’t like it.”

“Should I?”

That finally earned him a real smile. Or a close approximation of one.

Nikita shook his head, lips turned up at the corners. “No, definitely not. Do you hate me, or are you afraid?”

Lanny hesitated, and Nikita lifted his dark brows. “Both,” he admitted gruffly. “A little.”

Sasha said, “Nik is a very good vampire, though.”

“Sashka,” Nikita said, scolding.

“You are,” his friend insisted.

“You ever, what’s the word, turned anyone before?” Lanny asked, interrupting them.

“Never.” The first edge of emotion crept into Nikita’s voice. “Not even when I wanted to.”

---