Page 25 of White Wolf

As with any predator, Sasha didn’t want to risk glancing away. Turn your back on a wolf, and it was the last mistake you’d make.

The wolf in that scenario was never worried, though, and neither was the captain, casting his gaze toward the window. The sunlight rose in discreet spokes, white-gold against a pink backdrop. The tundra glittered, gilded and magic-kissed as light struck ice.

Sasha had always wanted to see the rest of the world, but not like this, never like this.

“It’s Sasha, right?” the captain asked, gaze still trained on the window.

Sasha groped for the defiance he’d shown Ivan, but found it had abandoned him. “Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever been outside of Siberia, Sasha?”

“No, sir.”

“This must be overwhelming for you.”

“I…yes.”

He turned to face Sasha, then, expression unreadable. “Are you frightened?”

He swallowed. “Yes. A little.”

The captain’s face softened. He didn’t smile, but the tension in his jaw eased, and his eyes grew warmer – summer storm clouds rather than winter. “You don’t need to be frightened of us. My men and me.”

Sasha felt his brows go up.

A corner of the captain’s mouth twitched; Sasha thought he almost smiled. “We’re just following orders. It’s Monsieur Philippe who hasideas.”

“What…what sorts of ideas?”

The captain propped an ankle on the opposite knee. His boots were very worn, Sasha now saw, the leather cracked along the line of stitches at the sole. But beneath the dampness of snow, they had been lovingly buffed and oiled.

“I don’t actually know,” he admitted. “Our orders were to retrieve you and take you to the lab in Stalingrad. No one told us what for. I guess we’ll learn at the stopover in Moscow.”

The lump in his throat swelled. His voice came out choked and halting. “What kind of weapon is he making?”

The captain shook his head. “I don’t know. He won’t tell us.”

“He said…he said if I didn’t come with you, you would have hurt my parents.”

“I probably would have, yes.”

He’d figured as much, but hadn’t expected such brutal honesty.

The captain snorted. “I’m not a nice man. But I always tell the truth.”

Sasha gulped. A truth of his own slipped out. “I don’t want to join the Red Army.”

“No one does,” the captain said, tone almost soothing. “But I think it’s better than some alternatives.”

“Like?”

“Like being dead.” A smile, bare but unmistakable, graced the man’s face. It made him look younger, friendly even. “Get some rest, Sasha. I think you’ll need it.”

8

EVERY HUNTER WORTH HIS SALT

Nikita’s mother was beautiful. Everyone said so. She was the source of his gray eyes, and his straight, regal nose. She used to wear her coppery-brown hair caught up at the back of her head, and by the end of the day, when it was dark and she finally let herself into the apartment, limp strands had fallen down to frame her face. She always smelled of furniture polish, and strong soap…and of a stranger’s cologne. Some nights there was a button missing from her dress, a torn sleeve, a frayed seam. She would sit under a flickering lamp, bent nearly double, straining to see, and mend her dresses with great care.

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