Page 164 of Golden Eagle

“My dear captain,” he said, and for an awful moment, Nikita was in front of Rasputin again; but then Val came closer, and it was impossible to mistake his beauty for the grizzled, wine-soakedstarets. No, Val was a whole other kind of devious – and doubtless more dangerous. “I don’t take you for a stupid man – so that leaves” – he drew up right in front of Nik, just that much taller that Nikita had to tip his head back a fraction to keep glaring at him – “stubborn.”

They stood close – too close. Just a few scant inches between them. Close enough that when the wind toyed with Val’s hair, Nik felt the tickle of it against his bare neck. Close enough to feel the heat rolling off his skin; vampires ran warmer than humans – all the blood, Nikita had always thought – and Val had been dancing besides. Dancing with Sasha – close, too close, touching.

But his expression was nothing like the open, tender joy he’d worn when he was with Sasha. No, this was raw and honest as a wound, hungry, pained, desperate,terrifying. Every time Nikita had encountered the prince, he’d had the sense Val was playacting; projecting exactly what he wanted people to see, a composed, snippy, weaponized sort of charm. His pupils were dilated; he looked frightened, lost…and his fangs were long, glinting in the moonlight and the ambient glow of the neon on the street.

Nikita wasn’t being compelled, he knew he wasn’t, but he couldn’t move, rooted to the spot, shaking and lightheaded like he might faint.

“I think,” Val said, his voice a soft purr at odds with the awful, frantic look on his face. “That you’rejustlike me. Always hungry. Always ashamed of what you’ve done – even when you had no choice. The difference, though…” He trailed his fingertips down the side of Nikita’s face, and Nik was shocked and ashamed that he didn’t pull back – yes,ashamed. He always was, wasn’t he? Maybe that was why he didn’t flinch. Maybe that was why, when Val cupped his chin, and tipped it up, and trailed his other hand down Nik’s chest, he let it happen. “Unlike you, I don’t feel even theslightestbit guilty about pleasure.”

His grip tightened on Nik’s chin, almost cruel, and he kissed him.

Nikita registered the press of lips, and the insistent, hot thrust of a tongue between them, the scrape of fangs.

Then he felt a shove between his brows, and the kiss, and the rooftop, and everything faded away in a cascade of black spots and wheeling pinpricks of light like stars. Just like the night his mind had merged with Trina’s, and he’d shown her his past.

No, he thought, furious, trying to shield his thoughts. But this wasn’t an invasion; this time,hewas the one seeing.

He saw a child, a little golden-haired nymph of a boy – Val, he realized with a start – being cuffed on the back of the head and slung across the pommel of a saddle. A soldier in gleaming chainmail, with a red cloak, and a high, white hat studded with jewels. Chaos all around, riderless horses rearing and screaming, swords glinting in the sunlight, men fighting, shouting. A dark-haired boy in the dirt, spitting and hissing, fighting off attackers much larger than himself. Vlad, he knew, on instinct. Fighting to get to his little brother.

The scene wheeled away to star-studded darkness again, and he was in a gilded room lit by candles and the glow of a brazier. Val again, a little older, pale as a china doll and dressed in blue silk, covered in delicate gold chains that dripped pearls and sapphires, a circlet on his head, and his hair braided elaborately. He couldn’t have been much older than ten, but Nikita knew instantly what the mark on his neck was: a love bite. A mark of passion. A young man stepped into view, rings flashing on his fingers, silk kaftan weighted down with jewels and embroidery.His Majesty the Sultan, Val’s voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He wasn’t here, not truly, and so he couldn’t shut his eyes against what Val showed him next, could only watch, revolted.

More stars, and Val was a young man, lithe and lovely, muscled like a jungle cat. Bare save the necklaces he wore, some long pendants, and one a tight circle that looked more like a collar. Bells chimed in his hair, and stones clicked on the bracelets that circled his wrists, and candlelight glowed off his sweat-sheened skin. No longer the frightened child, but a skilled and experienced lover, one who was enjoying himself.

The scenes shifted, faster and faster. A war, armor, screaming. A head rolling across a trunk, and Val making awful, animal sound of anguish.

Then there were chains, bars, cells. Captivity. Women in gowns eyeing him from the other side of his cage with interest. Men mocking him – and then pushing him down to his knees.

Nikita knew the sensation of falling, of tumbling, in turns sick to his stomach, and then embarrassingly aroused. And then–

It was still. And the scene was white – was snow. Falling in silent drifts, the faint crack of overloaded branches somewhere deeper in the forest.

“Are you a prince?” a small voice asked in Russian, and there was Sasha.

He wasn’t corporeal here, but Nikita felt as if his heart stopped, and his breath caught. Sasha was just a little thing, all bundled up in warm Siberian furs, the flaps of his hat pulled down over his ears, and tied under his chin. But a few stray wisps of platinum hair peeked out, and his face – tiny, and round, and cherubic – was unmistakable, soft, and innocent, and not yet touched by war, or magic, or Nik’s own treacherous hands.

Sasha, he tried to say, but he had no voice. This wasn’t his memory, and he couldn’t exert any control over it. The edges of the vision dimmed and fizzled, black spots.Sasha, wait!He reached out with hands he didn’t have, and then the stars again.

And then it felt like he slammed back into his body, dizzy, sick, and acutely aware of every physical sensation. The wind on his face, the sweat gluing his clothes to his skin. Val’s tongue in his mouth. Val’s hand on his very hard cock, trapped behind his fly.

He reached up with shaking hands and shoved Val, hard, right in the chest.

Val didn’t stumble back, as he’d hoped, but drew back slowly, their lips parting with a soft sound, Val’s tongue making one last, leisurely swipe across Nik’s bottom lip. He pulled back just far enough for their gazes to meet, hand still splayed across the front of Nik’s jeans.

Even with swollen, wet lips, and his breathing compromised, Val managed to look smug.

Nikita sucked in an unsteady breath and attempted a growl. It came out pitiful, kitten-small. And when he said, “Don’t touch me,” it was a plea and not a command. The inside of his head felt like a shaken beer can, all his thoughts scattered and flying off one another like bubbles. Too slippery to take firm hold of.

Val leaned forward, damp lips ghosting along Nikita’s cheekbone, and whispered right in his ear. “Gods, the things I could teach you,” he whispered, and punctuated the words with an expert squeeze. “You haven’tbegunto understand pleasure, my dear, all bottled-up, denying yourself everything. I could sit on your cock andownyou. I’ve been fucked by sultans, and princes, pirates, and whores, and even uptight military captains, like you. I’m the perfect harlot. It would be glorious.”

And how much, Nikita wondered, had all his thoughts of tearing this creature to pieces been about wanting to attack him in a very different way?

Val chuckled, and, to Nik’s surprise, stepped back. Put a reasonable distance between them, and put both hands on Nikita’s shoulders, a not-at-all-sexual touch. The heavy-lidded, dazed, lusty look faded from his face, and instead he became grave. Tired, sad.

He sighed. “Nikita. Dear.” All the dripping intent was gone, his voice practical, if still melodious. Less flirtatious than Nik had ever heard him. “For just a second, crawl outside all your prejudices–”

Nikita finally managed a full breath. “I’m not–”

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