Page 123 of Golden Eagle

“Let’s clean you up a little,” he said, cutting on the tap and twisting it to warm, aiming for cheerful – landing somewhere shakier and more fretful.

When Nik didn’t immediately start washing his hands, Sasha reached gently for them and drew them beneath the running tap. The blood had dried, some of it flaking off, the water streaming pink down into the drain. Sasha took a few pumps of soap from the dispenser and massaged it between Nik’s fingers, worked it beneath his short nails with the tips of his own.

He dampened a paper towel and, taking Nikita’s chin gently in his other hand, wiped the blood spatter from his face.

While he was doing this, Nikita blinked a few times, and his pupils shrank back to their normal size, and awareness crashed across his features. He braced his clean, wet hands on the edge of the sink and turned into Sasha’s touch, just far enough for their gazes to meet.

“Where are we?” His voice a lost, frightened whisper.

Sasha set the paper towel aside, took Nikita’s face between both hands, and reeled him in so their foreheads touched. A shiver moved through Nik, but he leaned into their point of contact, shuffled his feet forward, seeking closeness.

“We’re at the Lion’s Den,” Sasha said, as soothingly as he could. “Everyone’s here. Everyone’s safe. Do you remember what happened?”

He dampened his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t kill him like you wanted.”

Nikita huffed a soft, breathy laugh, and angled his head, pressed a slow, lingering kiss to Sasha’s mouth. When he pulled back, it was far enough to search his face, gaze tracking back and forth over Sasha’s features. Fear lent his voice a hollow ring. “I couldn’t do it.”

Sasha stroked his temple, his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “Couldn’t do what?” Felt the rapid tattoo of Nik’s pulse against the pad of his thumb.

“That mage. The boy. I couldn’t compel him. I tried, but I just…” He sucked in a shallow breath.

Sasha petted him some more. “He must have been very strong, then. You saw his fire; he was no mere Philippe. He smelled like a whole building on fire.”

“Yes, but, Alexei could. And Dante. And I…” His gaze dropped to his hands, empty and dripping onto the tiles.

“Did you need to feed?” Sasha wished now that he’d insisted, before they set out for the night’s mission. Even if he’d had to pull Nikita into a dark corner and score his own wrist or throat to entice him.

“No. No.” Nikita closed his eyes, briefly. “I just…I was distracted.” When he opened his eyes, the oh-so-familiar eyes that had first captured Sasha’s attention on a train bound for Moscow, and which he’d been looking into for decades, he was startled by the intensity of emotion in them. “You weren’t with me, and I couldn’t…my head was all…”

Later, once his thoughts had been properly gathered, Nikita would be embarrassed to know that he’d been fumbling and frightened like this. But in this rare moment of vulnerability, it pained Sasha to see how torn-up he was.

He thought of their parking lot argument before the op went down, of the cold, composed mask Nikita had pulled over his face. It was long gone, now; he looked like something inside him had broken.

I did that, Sasha thought.Worrying about me did that to him.

But he was too in love to even consider stepping back and putting any kind of distance between them – not literal, nor figurative.

He cupped the back of Nikita’s neck and urged his head down onto his own shoulder. Stroked his hair. “It’s alright,” he said. “We’re fine.”

Bind me, he wanted to say.Do it right here, right now, and we won’t ever have to be apart again.

But Nik was too fragile right now.

They stood for a long moment in front of the sinks like that. A customer came in to use the urinal, staring rudely and curiously at them the whole time. Sasha ignored him, and Nikita didn’t seem to notice his presence.

Finally, Nikita lifted his head, took a deep breath, and seemed himself again, if tired, and down. He pulled away from Sasha with obvious reluctance, touching his cheek, briefly, then washed and dried his face. Finger-combed his hair.

“Sorry,” he said, low and ashamed.

Sasha leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Don’t be.”

When they returned to the table, the big round booth that was fast becoming their own, they found Will and Much shrugging on coats. Much leaned back toward the table to pick up a beer that he doubtless hadn’t ordered himself, and chugged it.

“You’re leaving already?” Nikita asked, fully himself again, his voice strapped-down and sour.

“We want to get started right away,” Will said, straightening his collar. “And we have a charm. No one should be able to find us.”

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