Page 14 of Golden Eagle

Sasha pulled his hand away, and it was a loss.

They went around the back, through the dark loading dock where there always seemed to be puddles, no matter the weather, and pressed the buzzer at the heavy steel door beneath the one flickering security light.

“Yeah?” Dr. Harvey’s voice came through scratchy, uncertain.

“Nikita and Sasha,” Nikita said, and a moment later the buzzer sounded and the door unlocked.

Harvey waited for them in the hall, outside the morgue proper, arms folded, head tipped against the wall in a way that spoke of fatigue. She straightened, though, as they approached, and Nikita recognized the way her shoulders pushed back and her hands tightened into fists; she might trust Trina, and believe her, and even value their opinions, but she still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of having two preternaturally strong immortals across from her.

“Hi, Christine,” Sasha said with an easy smile.

Harvey smiled back at him – and just him. No one was afraid of Sasha. The folded arms and tense spine were for Nikita, he knew. “Hey, guys. I told Trina you didn’t have to come tonight–”

Nikita waved her off. “Might as well. Where is he?”

She led them through the swinging doors into her exam room, and the scents hit Nikita the second he crossed the threshold: blood, death, gore,wolves.

Familiar wolves.

Sasha growled beside him.

The body lay sheet-covered on the slab, and Harvey went to its head, lips twisting in a wry smile. “Lanny said that two of the wolves smelled familiar.”

“The ferals,” Sasha said with a low growl.

But the problem was, all three smelled familiar. Nikita just couldn’t place the last, the female, the one who was obviously bound to a vampire master.

Harvey folded the drape back, revealing a pale, dead face, and a throat savaged by fangs. “I thought,” she said, tone careful, polite, “that you guys might have a better feel for who our perp might be than Lanny. No offense, but – he’s kind of an idiot.”

“And a new vampire besides,” Nikita said, stepping up to the table, leaning low, inhaling.

A memory assaulted him: a sidewalk, snow, Christmas music. A vampire with an accent, and a female Familiar…

He sucked in a breath. “Gustav.”

Sasha whipped around, eyes wide. “Hannah,” he said, like a curse. “His wolf. It’s her.”

“Acquaintances of yours, I take it?” Harvey said, doing an admirable job of masking her nerves.

Nikita’s stomach tightened; he gagged, and spun away from the table. Choked on nothing – there was nothing in his stomach.

“Shit,” Sasha said.

“Is he alright?” Harvey asked, distant, as if from down a tunnel.

Nikita swayed, and barely caught himself against the wall, the tile cold and slick beneath his palm. He retched, and nothing came out, and he was going to faint–

An arm came around his shoulders, iron-strong. He heard Sasha say something polite and excusing, a murmur compared to the rush of blood in his ears. His feet shuffled, and his vision turned to black spots, and when it came back, he was leaning against the railing that overlooked the loading dock, Sasha holding him upright.

A wrist appeared beneath his nose. “Feed,” Sasha said sweetly, “or I’ll force you.”

His fangs elongated. The world narrowed down to his mouth, full of saliva, and the thumping vein in front of him, freely offered.

Blood. Wolf blood.Sasha’sblood.

He opened his mouth, and breathed across the tender inside of his wrist–

“Hullo!” someone called from down in the loading dock.

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