Page 161 of Golden Eagle

Sasha’s expression was skeptical. “Uh-huh.” He laid out two small, pink cocktail napkins with a professional flair. “What can I get you guys to drink?”

Mia ordered Merlot, and Val told Sasha that he wanted to try something “new and extravagant,” and to “be surprised.”

When Sasha turned to pull their drinks, Val leaned in close to Mia, rested a hand on her hip, and directed her gaze toward the dance floor with a nod, his lips right against her ear when he spoke. She shivered, and his hand tightened, briefly, on her hip. “Look at that,” he whispered, his voice gone breathy. Suggestive.

It was just a dance floor, just like every other one she’d ever seen, but she tried to distance herself and look at it through his eyes. Through the viewpoint of someone who’d missed centuries, and who only understood modern social culture through what he’d witnessed dream-walking, on TV, and through his human handlers over the years.

The dancers moved in pairs, sometimes in groups, and sometimes all alone, arms raised, heads thrown back, and then forward, hips rolling. Men with women, women with women, men with men. Thighs slipping between legs, pelvises flush together. Swaying, grinding, spinning. It was an upbeat song, with a deep, rhythmic bass line that pulsed, pulsed, pulsed in a way that mimicked an elevated heartbeat – and sex. It was commonplace by today’s standard, but when she let herself really look at the scene, it was undeniably erotic. Boldly, unashamedly so.

She had a fleeting mental image of medieval dancing; slow, stately prancing, two lines of dancers, gliding forward, turning, breaking apart, the women moving slow and ponderous as ships at sea to accommodate their bulky skirts. She’d seen something like that in a movie once, with dulcimers and lutes accompanying, onlookers clapping their hands to the regular beat of it.

How strange this must look. How wild and inviting for someone of Val’s…appetites.

She’d never had sex like this in her life, hot, and slick, and relentless, in turns playful and then fraught. He loved it, and was teaching her to love it, and she turned her head a fraction now, breathing in the scent of his skin, his hair tickling her face, so she could see his expression.

Pupils dilated, fangs just visible through damp, parted lips. She hadn’t seen him wet them with his tongue, but wished she had, imagined it, that glimpse of pink tongue.

All day, she’d floated along, brain buzzing with sensory overload, numb and struggling to take hold of reality. Batting away question after question:what are we doing here? Where will we go if Nikita turns us away? Will you fight him? What is Sasha to you? How much do you love him?And, worst of all:Why am I even here? Do you need me at all?

Now, when he shifted his electric gaze to meet hers, all that static disappeared. All the doubt and worry.

Adrenaline flooded through her, and with it want, and love, and the urge to laugh. To grab onto him and let him lead her anywhere and everywhere.

“Do you wanna dance?” she asked him.

His smile widened, his fangs long. “Oh, darling,yes.”

~*~

Sasha turned to set their drinks on the napkins he’d already laid out, and was met by a vacant stretch of bar. They’d walked away. It wasn’t hard to find them, though, despite the crowd. Val’s hair shimmered under the lights, rippling over his shoulders like molten gold – a hue mirrored, two shades darker, down his mate’s back. They were dancing, right at the edge of the dance floor, but other dancers had already noticed them and stepped back a fraction to watch; before long, there would be a ring around them, couples watching, emulating.

They weregood.

Not in a flashy sense, not modern and gesticulating andtryingto be seen, not like some he’d seen in here over the years. But they both had an easy, sinuous way of moving their spines, and rolling their hips. They’d found the beat right off, and worked with it, following it, rather than providing a physical counterpoint.

Val reeled Mia in for a moment, rested a hand on her waist, and took her other hand in his, stepped lightly, spun her, a perfectly executed movement from a dance that had been popular in another century. Mia laughed – smiling, mouth open, pink-cheeked – and let him lead her along, taking control back a moment later, spinning and putting her back to him, urging his hands to her hips.

Sasha watched them with a smile, his chest light. He hadn’t thought to see this: Val free. Smiling, dancing, living in this modern world. With his own mate, no less. He had so many questions about Mia – where had Val met her? Where had she come from? – that he hadn’t asked, too wildly happy for Val to worry about the details.

Questions Nikita would voice, no doubt, with skepticism. He would question everything about her, if Val stayed here in New York, just like he’d questioned Val’s story about Vlad’s help.

His smile dimmed, and he felt an invisible weight settle over his shoulders. He stowed the drinks he’d poured down below the bar, where they’d be safe, and turned to his next customer with a fresh cocktail napkin. “Hi, what can I get for you?”

He got lost in the usual rhythm of work for a while, smiling, mixing drinks, fielding the occasional flirtation from customers. He didn’t play along with any of them tonight; didn’t collect any phone numbers on napkins to share with Nikita later.

If he thought too hard about Nikita going home with a stranger, he wouldn’t be able to contain a growl.Fuckthat, he thought with an inward snarl, so vicious he surprised himself.He’smine. Whether or not things were strange right now.

Lost in his own dark thoughts, he startled a little when Val and Mia slid onto the stools across from him. Both of them smelled of clean sweat, their temples shiny with it, hair clinging to their necks and faces flushed.

Val shed his jacket and laid it on the bar, revealing lean, bare arms, sharp collarbones, and a glimpse of ribs through the too-large openings of his tank top. “This place is wonderful,” he exclaimed, talking too loud after having been so close to the dance floor speakers. His eyes sparked and flared beneath the lights, almost feverish.

“I feel like I’ve been falsely advertised to,” Mia said, lifting her hair off her neck with one hand and fanning herself with the other. “I thought I wouldn’t get tired anymore.” She was smiling, though, her gaze impossibly fond on Val.

“Ah, that’s a misnomer,” Val said. “You still get tired – you just recover faster.”

“Boo. I didn’t want it to belogical.”

Val beamed at her.

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