Page 110 of Golden Eagle

He hedged backward a half-step, clenched knuckles visible through his jacket pockets.

“We’ve been talking about trusting people. About how hard it is. And here you are, a total stranger, who goes back and forth between two accents. And you want him to join the pack?” she asked, turning to Alexei, who swallowed, throat rippling, chin kicking a fraction higher in a display of dominance steeped in childish insecurity. “Then tell me us who he really is. Tell us why you brought him here.”

“I trust him,” Alexei said stiffly. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Wrong,” Nikita said, low, bristling.

Alexei whirled to face him, forgetting all his practiced posture. He regathered it, but he’d already betrayed his nervousness.

“You’re not a tsarevich anymore,” Nikita said. “You don’t give orders. You aren’t owed our grace or favor.”

“We aren’t saying no, understand,” Trina said. “But a pack is a family, and we deserve to know who we’re inviting in. Don’t you agree?”

Alexei turned to her, cracks in his haughty mask; panic in his eyes. “I…”

“You can’t command us,” Nik said, behind him. “You aren’t our leader. You aren’t the alpha here. You’re not thetsar.”

When Alexei turned back to him, Trina traded another glance with Nikita.

They’d slid into Good Cop/Bad Cop effortlessly. One of those reminders of their relation; that they understood each other, better than either of them ever wanted to admit. Everything savage in her had come down from him, and from the furious girl with a dead-eye on her sniper rifle.

“We’ve been hard on you, Alexei,” she said, softening her voice. “We’ve treated you like a dumb kid, and like a brat, and we haven’t let you have as much of a say as the rest of us. That hasn’t been fair.”

“No one gets a say until they prove they can be trusted,” Nikita said. “And that they aren’t an idiot.”

“We know it was very traumatic losing your family the way you did,” Trina said.

“Everyone loses their family,” Nikita countered. “But they don’t do stupid shit afterward.”

“A few mistakes don’t condemn a person.”

“It’s more than a few.”

Alexei’s gaze pinged between them, expression growing stricken, head whipping back and forth like a tennis spectator.

Dante took a step forward and cleared his throat delicately. “Um. If I may.”

Nikita pressed his lips into a flat line.

Thoroughly British now, controlled and correct, Dante said, “While I appreciate Alexei fighting for me, I’m not actually asking to join your pack. You’ve only just met me. Of course you don’t trust me. But I’d like the chance to prove that I can be trusted, if you’ll let me.”

He looked to Trina, then, appealing to her as the more forgiving of Alexei’s two inquisitors.

“You want trust?” she asked. “Answer my first question: who are you?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but didn’t answer.

“Don’t try to tell me your name is really Dante.”

“No, it’s not.”

She lifted her brows.

“It’s an alias I concocted a century ago. To protect myself.”

“Vampire fugitive?”

“The possessor of useful and potentially dangerous information,” he said, head tilting in a gesture of accession. “I’m a historian. Have always been. I knew people, important people. They’re all dead now, so, perhaps not as important as they once were. But still. There are vampires who would dearly love to get their hands on my collection.”

---