Page 51 of White Wolf

But Sasha wasn’t trying to do anything but survive. Maybe find a way to feel some sense of peace in this strange new life he’d been dragged into. And in the process, he was starting to care about them, Nikita could tell. And they in turn were beginning to care about him. He was bright, and curious, and sweet, and always glad to lend a hand. And sometimes, when the light hit his face just right, there was something of Dmitri in the curve of his smile, the straight line of his nose.

For his own sake, Nikita didn’t want to like the boy, but he couldn’t help it. He really, really did. And he was ashamed to admit that sometimes, when he was thinking about that, holding back a smile, he didn’t miss his dead best friend so acutely.

“I ate,” he said. “An American chocolate bar and one of those awful C-ration cans of meat and beans.”

“Mm. God bless America.”

One of the crewmen shouted something from above and a moment later a thick chunk of ice came lapping back along the ship. It was mostly submerged and slicked over with water, a dangerous hunk of pewter in the black chop.

More ice lurked closer toward the bank, a hammered-steel sheet of it that ran aground amid the rocks. The landscape was a sloppy gray, gripped by a spring melt that would turn the soil to boot-sucking mud. The Germans were regrouping, somewhere way, way past the tree line, radioing back home, licking their wounds, formulating a strategy. They would wait for the steppe to dry out before they mobilized, Nikita knew. When the ground was packed hard and the panzers would kick up great clouds of pale dust. When they could get a running start, and when the Red Army was without the home advantage of snow and ice. The Germans had the equipment advantage – but the Russians had winter on their side, and after Moscow, the Nazis weren’t soon to forget it.

Kolya took a breath, and said, “You know I’m fond of Sasha.”

Oh no. Here it came.

“…And I think you are, too.”

“But?”

“I’m skeptical.”

“Of?”

Kolya sighed. “Come on.” His voice lowered. “Magic? Ifmagicwas the answer, why hasn’t anyone used it before now?”

Nikita sighed and let his head hang forward, stretching the sudden tension in the back of his neck. This was the thing that kept him awake at night: the magic, and Philippe’s closely-guarded plans that involved Sasha. “What do you want me to say? That I’m confident? I have no idea what we’re doing – but it’s the only thing we can do right now?”

He turned his head so he could see Kolya’s face, the notch of concern between his brows, the way the wind tugged his hair back so he couldn’t hide his worried frown. “I just…”

“What?”

“If something happens to Sasha, I don’t want you to take it personally. That’s all.”

He didn’t want Nikita to feel even more guilt, he meant, until he eventually drowned in it and never came back.

He felt his mouth settle into a grim line. “Nothing’s going to happen to Sasha. I won’t let it.”

~*~

During his second week in Moscow, Ivan took Sasha to the apartment of a woman who answered the door in an elaborate, beaded red wrapper…and nothing else. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her painted mouth, and she stood with one hand braced high on the doorframe, the lamplight behind her showcasing her bare silhouette through the wrapper, the curve of waist, and hip, and thigh. Her nipples stood out against the fabric, stiff little buttons. She shook back her mane of dark hair and gave Sasha an up-and-down look that made him blush and want to curl up into a little ball around his sudden, painful erection. He was thrilled, and nauseas, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to shield himself from the woman, or start shucking his clothes right there in the threshold. He’d never felt that way in his life, and he hated it.

“What did you bring me today, Ivan?” she’d asked, eyes heavy-lidded, tone disinterested.

He’d kissed a girl once, back home. Just a dry press of lips, and she’d blushed and turned away from him. But this was no girl leaning in the doorway, and nothing about her made him feeldry.

Ivan’s big hand had gripped him by the back of the neck. “I brought you a country puppy to play with, Natalia,” he’d said, and laughed.

Natalia’s chuckle had been throaty, her fingers surprisingly strong when she gripped his jacket and tugged him inside. Sasha had filled head to toe with a craving that made his face unbearably hot; his stomach cramped and his cock drooled in his pants, and he thought he might pass out. He wanted her, and he was terrified, and when she reached for his hand, he pulled away.

He wound up sitting on her pink velvet sofa that looked like something stolen from the Kremlin while she entertained Ivan in the bedroom. The walls were thin, and he heard everything. His pants were tacky when they walked home later.

So Sasha didn’t have the best track record when it came to the fairer sex. Which was why he hung back, not wanting to be seen, when he spotted a pretty girl with twin dark braids standing at the rail of the ship, leaning into the wind, holding onto her Army-issue hat with one hand.

Her profile gleamed white and fragile as porcelain against the gunmetal sky. She held herself perfectly still; if she hadn’t blinked, and her cheeks hadn’t been pink from the cold, Sasha might have thought her a lovely statue. The wind toyed with her braids, ruffled the bits of white ribbon that tied them off at the ends. Her jacket billowed around her knees. But her flesh and bones could have been marble. The utter stillness of her was more arresting than any provocative movement could have been.

Predator, Sasha thought, and he wasn’t so afraid of her. No wolf could ever be as intimidating as the people he’d met in Moscow.

As if she’d heard his thoughts, she turned then, braids slapping against her back, and fixed him with a flat, unreadable look.

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