Page 118 of Golden Eagle

“Was Red like this?” Nikita asked. He knew it was a waste of time – now wasn’t the moment for such questions, not when seconds could count – but he kept thinking about the boy he’d strangled, the smaller version of this boy here. That one hadn’t resisted; had gone limp between his hands. He remembered the particular crack of his spine snapping.

“Inhuman, you mean?” Will asked with a snort. “Not that I’ve seen. But she’d been five years out in the world when I met her for the first time. She’s a delight. This poor wretch doesn’t even have a name.”

“Yeah, well, poor wretch or not,” Lanny said, “it’ll still hurt when he sets our asses on fire.Let’s go.”

“We won’t trouble you,” Dante was telling the boy. “All we want is safe passage.”

“You can escort us out if you like,” Alexei said, still low, and soothing, and pleasant, but Nikita could smell the sweat that had bloomed across his skin.

“You still want to talk to him?” Nikita asked Will, mocking.

“Ideally, yes, but this isn’t the place or the time.”

“Come on,” Alexei said, voice starting to shiver at the edges. “You want to help us, don’t you?”

And then, as they watched, he leaned forward and kissed the boy.

~*~

Alexei could be vicious. Not the petty cruelties of a boy born to royalty, nor the casual nastiness of a modern young man with an outsized sense of entitlement. No, there was a true viciousness in him. Part of it was Rasputin’s gift; part of it was waking just before his body could be dismembered and tossed down a hole along with the rest of his butchered family; part of it was the Revolution, and the thing it had done to him that it had done to so many Russians.

But mostly it was just him. It had lived in him always, and it came out sometimes, hot, hard to hold, and ugly. It had saved his life a few times, he knew; sometimes he thought it was the only thing that stopped his bleeding, when it seemed that he would bleed to death.

Alexei could be vicious, but when he hunted, he’d learned to rely on charm. On his psychic abilities, and his sweet face; he’d learned the arts of pleasure in brothels in Istanbul, and in seedy London flats with fogged windows, and on the streets of New York City, amid glittering lights and sticky-sweet liquor. Men, women, he had no preference; he liked giving pleasure nearly as much as he did receiving it. And he’d learned along the way that, sometimes, a kiss worked just as effectively as a knife when it came to getting your way.

He could feel the boy resisting his compulsion. He’d slipped under, at first, not prepared for the sheer force of Alexei’s will. But now he’d dug in his mental heels and was pushing back against the influence, eyelids fluttering.

Dante was able to help, and for a moment, both of them touching him, both of them bearing down on his mind, Alexei thought they’d done it. When you properly compelled someone, there was a sort of click. A lock sliding into place; the compelled person would go along docilely for several minutes, or several hours, and the vampire didn’t have to focus so much energy. They stopped struggling.

But this redhaired mage boy kept fighting. He ducked his head a fraction, like he was pushing back against a physical force, and his now-empty fingers flickered, curling and uncurling. Alexei could feel the fire in him; it was like holding his hands close to a furnace, a wall of heat against his mind that he wanted to shrink from. This boy waspowerful.

And he wasn’t going to be able to subdue him. Not like this, not just pushing will against will. Sweat began to bead on his brow, and a hot flush moved through him from the effort. The mage had been prepared for them, had steeled himself; his magic was strong and his will was stronger, and he hated them – Alexei could feel that, too.

They would have to distract him. To knock him so thoroughly for a loop that he couldn’t keep his walls up.

Alexei considered punching him.

But then he had another thought. A boy braced for a mental assault could be braced for a physical blow, too. Maybe now wasn’t a time for a knife, but for a kiss.

He cut a quick glance toward Dante, and saw his own desperate fear reflected back at him. Dante’s hair clung to his temples; sweaty, too, straining with the effort.

What would Dante do in this situation?

Alexei really didn’t have to think, and he didn’t have time to, anyway. A few moments more, and the boy would overpower them.

Trusting Dante to follow his lead, he turned back to the boy, and moved like a lightning strike. Grabbed the sides of his face, surged forward, and mashed their mouths together.

Shock moved through the boy. Alexei felt it like the silent chiming of a bell, a reverberation that shivered from his body into Alexei’s. The threatening heat of fire pulled back; Alexei’s head felt cleared, felt open, and strong, and like it wasn’t resisting anything at all.

“Excuse me, what in the ever-loving fuck?” he heard Lanny say behind him.

“It’s working,” Dante said through his teeth.

Alexei angled his head, softened his mouth, and swiped his tongue over the boy’s lower lip. He felt him shudder. And a moment later he went lax. The unmistakable, boneless obedience of the compelled. Dante had done it.

Alexei pulled back to check, and, yes, the boy had the vacant face and glassy eyes of someone whose mind had been completely invaded. He glanced over at Dante, who wore a deep crease between his knitted brows, his jaw tight.

“I don’t know how long it’ll hold,” he said.

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