Page 165 of Golden Eagle

“Oh, you most definitely are. Painfully so, and all because of your blasted year of birth, and your blasted career, and because of all the awful things you’ve told yourself your whole life.

“If the situation was different, I’d like nothing more than to show you all the fun you’ve been missing out on. And trust me” – here his voice went coy another moment – “you’d bebegging me. But.” Serious again. “But listen to me. Right now. Not to whoever you think I am, but listen to the boy who learned to master cocksucking before he learned to master a sword. There are all sorts of things that people call love that aren’t: infatuation, guilt, lust. There are slaves who convince themselves they love their masters. There’s love that is only jealousy, or possessiveness, or the urge to own someone, to break them and remake them into something powerless that they can control. I’ve been alive long enough – been on my knees often enough – to recognize when love isn’t love, but something twisted.

“But love does exist.”

Nikita swallowed hard. “After what you showed me – how can you believe that?”

“Because I’veseen it, darling. And I’ve felt it, like just now, when I showed you the Sasha that I first met, and I thought you might very well learn how to dream-walk in that instant so you could protect the little boy he once was.” He smiled, sideways and forlorn. His hands tightened on Nik’s shoulders. “Nothing about what you and Sasha have is wrong. It isn’t something you have to earn. There’s nothing for you to atone for.”

The old protests built in his throat, but when he opened his mouth to voice them, it was a low, anguished sound that broke out instead. His eyes burned, and he clamped them tightly shut. “I let – I let them put him – on that table–”

“Oh, darling, hush.” Strong arms closed around him and reeled him in close, a hug tight enough to be bracing, soothing. A hand cupped the back of his head and Val swayed gently side to side, as if he was shushing a crying baby. “What would have happened if he hadn’t been turned, hm? He would have died an old man in Siberia. Or maybe been drafted, and died in a snowy trench somewhere, with his legs blasted off.”

Nikita shuddered against the images.

“He’s a wolf,” Val continued. “Not the child I met in the snow. Not the confused boy who admired the color of your eyes on the train – oh, yes,” he said, when Nik stiffened in his arms. “Do you think he ever didn’t find you lovely? He’s adored you always. He turned you because of it. And maybe you would have rather died bloodless in that snow bank, but now he’s a wolf – your wolf – and he loves it, and he loves you, and I know you love him more than you’ve every loved anyone or anything, you miserable thing.Bind him, Nikita. For him, and for you. Stop worrying about the past, or the old way of thinking, or what it means to be human – you aren’t. Bind him, and love him, and learn how to dance, because the world’s hateful enough, and you shouldn’t deny yourself something precious like this. And itisprecious. Believe that.”

Val pulled back a fraction, smiling softly when Nikita opened his eyes, and smoothed his thumbs across the dampness on Nik’s cheeks. “Please tell me some of that got through your thick skull.”

Nikita rolled his eyes – eyes that ached with unshed – and a few shed – tears, and felt his face heating beneath Val’s palms. Shame, again, like always, already. For showing emotion, for being weak…

But that was what Val had been talking about. Berating himself –punishinghimself. He’d grown up in a very different time; its weight dragged at him, still. Couple that with his nature, throw in his former career, his history…

Val tapped his cheeks with his thumbs. “You’re doing it again.”

Nikita blew out a breath, and nodded. “Old habits.”

“Hmm, yes. Just like I seem unable to comfort anyone without offering to fuck them.” He said it teasingly, fangs flashing, but something flickered in his gaze that told Nikita he’d said something very true – that he was self-conscious about.

“Not anyone?” he pressed.

“Most,” Val corrected. “I’m a very good fuck, though.”

“I figured,” Nik said, dryly.

“My greatest weapon, really.”

“Might be better to get a gun.”

“I have my sword. Not with me now, obviously – but you’ve seen her. Mercy.”

Nikita snorted, and felt the pressure of real laughter building in his chest. They werebantering. People did it all the time, but it felt like a bit of a revelation now, between the two of them.

Val beamed at him, without artifice, and looked incredibly boyish. He was prettier like that – when he was being honest – than when he worked at seduction. “Shall we go down and assure our lovers we haven’t run off together?”

Nikita still had questions; still wondered how Val meant to fit in here, if he even did, or if he’d grow bored of this modern city and want to drag his mate and his wolves back to the Old Country that had birthed him.

But he didn’t feel the need to ask those questions now. “Yeah,” he said. “I gotta finish my shift, too.”

As Val fell in beside him, and they walked back toward the door, he felt a hundred pounds lighter. Peaceful, even.

A sharp gust of wind, promising even colder temperatures, blasted across the roof…bringing with it the scents of wolf, and man. Something that saidVal’s, and something that stunk like old, stale dirt recently turned over.

“Val!” a man’s voice shouted.

Nik stopped, and turned, already coiled for action, his peace gone in a flash, and spotted three figures. Two hauling themselves up over the edge of the roof, like they’d climbed up; a man and a woman. Wolves. A man who was just a man – and who smelled wrong – stood in front of them, clothed in a long black jacket with its hood up.

“Oh, fuck,” Val murmured, tensing beside him. “Le Strange–”

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