Page 115 of Golden Eagle

Will chuckled. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Alright, I’m in,” Much’s voice said through the walkie.

“Oh my God,” Lanny said. “It’s magical computer hacking.” He huffed a breath. “Shit, that’s cool.”

“I’ll need a few minutes,” the walkie announced in Much’s voice.

Nikita reached up to rub at the back of his neck, and realized all the fine hairs there were standing on end. He would have never considered something like this possible, and he had no idea why it left his skin crawling with unease.

~*~

In the mostly-empty back of a plumber’s van parked half-a-block down from the Institute, Much hunched over a laptop, and Trina laid a hand on Sasha’s arm, hoping it was a comforting touch. He leaned into it, a little, so she guessed it was.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “He’ll come around.”

Though, in this instance, she agreed that Sasha hadn’t needed to go inside. It would be difficult enough for that many vampires with hypnotic powers to get in and out cleanly; throw a vulnerable Sasha in the mix, and not only would Nik be distracted, but there was every chance Sasha could be taken captive again. She didn’t like to think about the what-ifs of that scenario.

Sasha gave a thin, wry smile, the blue glow of the laptop screen limning his profile. “Nik will always see me as the boy he failed. Always protecting me, even from himself. From himself especially.”

Trina sighed, and could think of nothing to say, so only squeezed his arm in silent sympathy.

“I’ll need a few minutes,” Much said into the radio in his hand, and Trina glanced toward him.

Sasha had been turned at nineteen, and he still looked it. A man, yes, though slender and lanky and very boyish. But still a man grown. He probably got carded at every bar, but he could have walked into a nightclub no problem, and doubtless passersby would assume he was a college student, or the front man of a struggling rock band. Looking nineteen forever wasn’t exactly a curse.

Much, though…

Will had said he was turned at fifteen, but it was a young-looking fifteen. He would never have made a strapping adult, but as a teenager, he’d been nearly ethereal. How must it feel to look like a child forever? To have people notice your slender wrists, and narrow shoulders, and the smoothness of your cheek? To know you would never catch up to your packmates? To be centuries old, with all the wisdom and experience that had granted you, and yet have people want to ruffle your hair and call you “kid?”

No wonder he was prickly as a rosebush. Sullen and standoffish. She would have been, too.

“What’s happening?” she asked him.

A beat passed before he answered, the line of his back tense, even through his jacket. “Downloading all the security footage available on the main cameras. And trying to get into the encrypted files.”

“How quickly will you know if there’s anything useful?”

Hetsked. “Hours. Maybe days. Not tonight.”

Fair enough. She turned back to Sasha. She intended to offer some banal scrap of reassurance, but elected not to. There was nothing she could say to make him feel better. She couldn’t promise to talk Nikita into binding him. Couldn’t assure him it would happen eventually. Couldn’t even begin to understand what something as strange asbeing bound to a vampiremight even feel like.

That sparked an idea.

“Hey, Much?”

“Ugh, what?”

“What’s it feel like being bound? Will said you and your pack are all Familiars of the same vampire.”

He didn’t respond at first. But she could see the little download window on his screen, and knew he could spare them a moment. And, surprisingly, he finally did, twisting around so he faced them, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the van with his hair falling over one eye. The other eye sent a glare first at her, then at Sasha, measuring them.

His gaze lingered on Sasha, and though his mouth was set in an unhappy line, he said, “Rich, yeah. We’re all bound to him.”

“What’s that like?” Trina pressed.

He shrugged, but his tone was sincere. “It’s not bad. You don’t hear voices or anything. But he’s there.” He tapped his knuckles against the side of his head.

“You can feel him in your mind?” Sasha asked.

---