Page 53 of White Wolf
Katya bit down on a gasp. Now they knew her name! It was her first name only, but still. If they inquired about her with the ship’s captain, then he would tell them whatever they wanted to know about her. Surely the Cheka wouldn’t arrest a sniper on her way to her post. Surely…
“What did I tell you about going off by yourself?” the man with the eyes – Nikita, she guessed – said, ignoring Sasha’s comment. Ignoring her, too, she realized, when she cut a sideways glance toward the men.
The Chekist managed to look both terribly stern…and terribly helpless. Like a parent reprimanding a child they knew they couldn’t hope to control. And fittingly, in his fur-trimmed coat and hat, Sasha was the overgrown boy who couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong.
“But I–” he started.
The Chekist, Nikita, stepped in close, so they were almost nose-to-nose, jaw clenched tight. (Katya would have laughed under different circumstances.) In a low, furious hiss, he said, “We’ve talked about this. You can’ttrustpeople, Sasha.”
The other Chekist groaned quietly and said, “Nik, don’t lecture him.”
Color her intrigued.
Sasha stammered another moment, and then went still. He drew himself upright, shoulders squared. He was thinner, rangier, like a colt, but he was of a height with the enraged Nikita. His own narrow jaw set, and the almost-feminine prettiness of his face settled into something fiercer, more masculine.
“I’m not a child,” he insisted.
The second man, all too-long hair and dark eyes, bit his lip like he was fighting not to grin.
Nikita pressed his mouth into a thin, white line. “Not here,” he said, and his arm went around Sasha’s shoulders, steered him away from her.
She thought she was home free, but at the last moment Nikita looked back at her, eyes a piercing blue-gray, and her breath caught. Whatever he was looking for in her face, she hoped he didn’t find it.
~*~
By the time Nikita got Sasha a safe distance away from listening ears, he’d realized two things. One: he’d overacted. Two: he couldn’t seem tostopoverreacting.
Logically, he knew that the woman at the rail hadn’t posed any threat to the boy. They’d only been talking, and no one, man or woman, from the Red Army was as threatening as he himself was as a Chekist.
Also logically, he knew that his current anger was a cover for a deep, darkly twisted fear. He’d grown up knowing – been groomed by his mother – that one day he would turn his gun back on the men who controlled him and kill as many of them as possible before he was cut down. It had always been a doomed suicide mission in his mind, going out in a big useless blaze of glory. After Dmitri, he started to crave it. He’d never counted on a thought-dead mage waltzing in with power, and ideas, and a plan that, despite its mystery, seemed somehow like something that would work. He resented Philippe for that, shaking up all his plans and ideas. Offering him success was…incomprehensible. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And now he was taking his fear and frustration out on Sasha.
But knowing that didn’t mean he could adjust his behavior.
“What did I tell you?” he repeated when they were alone. Kolya had lingered far back, acting as sentry. Later, Nikita would be glad for the assurance that no one would walk up on them. He had to look like an ass right now. “Don’t go off by yourself! Don’t talk to strangers!”
Sasha’s hat had tipped back on his head, and several fine white-blond locks curled around his ears and across his forehead, lifting in the wind. His fierce scowl was comical in its total lack of intimidation. “I’m not a child!” He was just as furious, Nikita realized, his chest heaving under his coat. “I can look out for myself!”
“In Siberia, maybe,” Nikita snapped. “You can’t even begin to understand how dangerous it is here.”
“On aboat?”
“I told you–”
“You’re not my father,” Sasha hissed, hectic spots of color blooming on his cheeks. “Don’t pretend you’re worried. That you care about me. Even he doesn’tcare–” He choked on the last word, voice cracking. He shook his head and dropped his gaze, pressing on. “I’m just your prisoner,” he said, miserable. Voice fading. “I know that. I’m not going to run away, or jump overboard. Or tell anyone what’s happening. I won’t tell anyone what you are. No one would help me, anyway.”
Oh.Oh. Through the angry red haze of his own jumbled emotions, Nikita felt the clutch of guilt. Again. He would always feel guilty about this poor, snatched boy.
All the fight bled out of him with a deep exhale. “Sasha.”
He didn’t respond.
“Sasha, look at me.”
He glanced up through his lashes, not petulant, but defeated.
Nikita bit his lip. He wanted to assure him that he wasn’t a prisoner; wanted to make more promises to him. But he wanted to be honest – he’d promised that, too. “I worry,” he said. “There are a lot of things that could go wrong before–”
