Page 174 of White Wolf

“Don’t I always?”

He did; his mama had trained him well. For the most part.

The Lion’s Den had been many things in its long history. A speakeasy, a mob-owned underground fighting ring, a gay bar, a sex club, and now, finally, a regular old pub. That was the impression it gave at first, anyway; once you got inside its maze of rooms, and mirrors, trapped amongst dark-paneled walls and green leather booths, you started to feel like you’d gotten lost in a time capsule – or maybe a funhouse. The shadows were a little too deep and the wait staff a little too disinterested. It was the perfect place to score a hit, hire a hooker, meet an anonymous hookup, plot a murder, hire a hit-man. Trina had no doubt its walls had seen and heard everything imaginable. Now, they were about to see and hear a little more.

Her boot heels clicked across the dingy octagonal tile of the entryway, a glassed-in airlock with wooden coat hangers and an old brass shoe rack. It was like stepping back in time. The air lock fed into a long, tin-ceilinged room with dim lights, bar along one wall, row of booths on the other. To the left was a sequence of connected dining rooms, from which she could hear the low murmur of early happy hour conversation. To the right, and up three steps, was a small room set in the pub’s front bay window, the shades at half-mast, buttery summer sunlight fanning across the floor. Three tables, three high-backed booths. At one of them, right in the window, sat two young men, low tumblers of clear liquid in front of them.

Trina froze in her tracks.

It was them. It had to be.

One was platinum-blond, his hair shoulder-length, cut to frame his face. He looked achingly young, fresh out of high school, features almost delicate, his eyes a shocking shade of blue when he glanced at her. The other was brunette, a little older, cheekbones for days, cigarette between his lips even though he wasn’t supposed to smoke in here. Both of them wore tight jeans and combat boots. The brunette had a battered denim jacket with the sleeves cuffed. Both threw off a distinct punk vibe, the kinds of guys who slept late on weekdays and spent their afternoons thumbing through old vinyls in retro record shops just to be ironic.

But there was something…something just slightlyoffabout them. The brightness of their eyes. The way the denim jacket looked authentically decades-old. Something intangible.

The blond stood up when he spotted them, wide, happy smile splitting his face. It was Sasha, just as he’d been from her dreams, and her vision.

Which meant the haunted-looking man with her father’s cheekbones and a double-headed eagle patch sewn to the collar of his jacket was Nikita. Her family.

She realized three things all at once.

One: Sasha was coming toward her in fast, bounding strides in a way that was undoubtedly wolfish. It was true, then, all of it.

Two: Lanny had said her name at least four times by this point.

Three: she was going to faint.

“Whoa,” Lanny said. He caught her from behind just as Sasha reached them and took hold of her arms.

“Ekaterina,” he said, then everything went black.

~*~

She came to on her back, the plush bench of a boot beneath her, a cool, damp cloth pressed to her forehead. Lanny’s worried face hovered over hers, and she wondered how she’d missed that he was sick; he looked lined and sallow, evening light from the half-covered windows picking out all the little lines around his eyes.

“Lanny,” she started, reaching for him, and then clarity returned. “Oh shit.” She tried to sit up.

“Hey.” Lanny caught her and tried to make her take it slow. “Easy. You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m…”

He was in the booth beside her; she’d had her head in his lap, she realized. Someone had brought a glass of water with which he’d dampened a napkin. Nikita and Sasha sat side-by-side across from them, Sasha openly worried, Nikita harder to read.

Her vision swam and she clutched at the edge of the table. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“Yeah, sure. You got a tumor too?” Lanny joked, but it came out harsh and fretful.

“No, I just…” She shook her head to clear it – bad idea – and blinked her eyes back into focus.

Lanny sighed. “Were you gonna tell me we were meeting these shitheads before or after you passed out?”

“Hey,” she protested.

Sasha said, “It’s fine. He doesn’t like us. Understandable. He just wants to protect you.”

“Did I fucking ask you, blondie?”

“Lanny.”

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