Page 173 of Golden Eagle

Fulk sighed, nostrils flaring. “Manipulation. He thought if he offered you your friend, you’d cooperate with him – and with the Institute.”

Puzzling over machinations was easier than grappling with the knowledge that Kolya was alive – was back from the dead – and that he was lying at their feet. “This Liam works for the Institute?” Did everyone?

“Not anymore,” Val said. “He works for my brother.”

A small relief. Sasha’s gaze strayed to Kolya again. He breathed through an open mouth, short, shallow breaths. His gaze was haunted; hard to decipher, awful to look at.

“Kolya,” Sasha said, pulse pounding. He had to clear his throat. And when he spoke next, he did so in Russian: “Do you remember who I am?”

“Sasha,” he said, right away. “You have wolves. Realwolves, a whole pack of them.”

“Not anymore.” A smile touched his mouth, sad with old grief. “I have a pack, though. A two-legged one. My friends: Trina, and Lanny, and Jamie, and Alexei. And Nik.” He slid his hand down to Nikita’s shoulder, where Kolya could see it. “My pack. My mate.” If he was going to explain things to him, he might as well explain them all the way, no hiding, no living in the past, where what he’d felt for Nik had been illegal.

Kolya’s eyes widened a fraction – Sasha felt Nikita tense – but then he nodded, and some of the stark fright bled out of the scarred face. He nodded.

“Do you speak English?” Sasha asked, in that language.

“Mostly.” His voice was rougher than it used to be, and Sasha wondered if there were scars on the inside, too, places where he hadn’t fit back together all the way.

In the gentlest voice he could manage, Sasha said, “Why are you here?”

Kolya swallowed, and the motion looked painful. “To find you. You and…” His gaze shifted over. “Nik.”

Sasha looked to his mate again. Nikita was staring at Kolya with a glazed-over expression. Was he even seeing him? Or was he lost in his head somewhere?

It was unsettling, seeing Nikita so in need of him. This was far worse than a hunger-induced swoon, or the stubbornness of delaying a feeding. This was a kind of vulnerable that Nik would later be mortified by.

But it unleashed something warm and tender in Sasha. Something protective. He wanted to reel Nikita into his chest, put arms around him, stroke his hair, and shield him from all of this.

He settled for sliding an arm around his middle and pulling him closer. Ruffled a hand through his silky dark hair and urged his head down onto his own shoulder. Nikita breathed shallowly, open-mouthed. Sasha could feel and hear the racing of his heart.

“He didn’t want to stay with the Necromancer,” Val said, his tone hushed, respectful, like he was in church. “We were coming here, so we brought him along. I’ve told him about you – told him what to expect. I imagine seeing you both in the flesh has been a shock, however.”

Sasha lifted his head, searching out Val’s gaze, knowing his own must have asked a dozen questions. He would comfort and love Nikita, always, but he was at a loss here.

Val seemed to know it, if the tilt of his head and the angle of his smile were any indication. “I shall be happy to continue providing Mr. Dyomin with lodging. But he’s a free man. If he should wish…” He made an elegant gesture toward Sasha.

“We’ll take him home,” Nikita said, and sounded almost like himself. “We have a spare bedroom.”

When Sasha looked at him, Nikita lifted his head and attempted a smile. It was small, pathetic really, and laced with grief. But he was coming back to himself, and Sasha was more than happy to be a shoulder to lean on for however long that process took.

~*~

After several frustrating hours of poring over Institute files, Trina had determined that, for whatever reason, they were hunting and killing the rejected medical study applicants. Or, at least, Gustav was, with the help of the Institute’s feral wolves. And probably Much was right, and thewhydidn’t matter so much as the bold fact of it. Sometimes people were just awful, and did awful things.

She sat back with a sigh and reached for her glass. Lanny had wordlessly kept her in beer, and she’d probably had too much at this point, but she didn’t care at the moment.

On either side of her, Lanny and Will sat up straight, and she lifted her gaze to see that Val, Mia, and another couple were pulling out chairs and settling in across from them.

“Good evening,” Val said, he smiled, but his voice was tired. “Too late to join you?”

“Looks like you already did,” Lanny said, without malice. He sounded tired, too.

“I suppose you’re right,” Val said, and his smile grew strained – and then fell away. “My Familiars,” he said, gesturing to the other couple. Both were dark-haired, the girl small and elfin, the man tall, and thin, almost gaunt. He wore his long hair loose, save braids over both ears, and he looked at them without a shred of politeness.

The girl’s face was more open, though, her eyes big, her mouth soft, her expression curious.

“The First Baron Strange, Fulk le Strange, and his baroness, the Lady Annabel,” Val said, formally.

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