Page 187 of Golden Eagle

Didn’t take too much blood. With a startled jolt, Alexei realized that he hadn’t taken too much, either. His greatest vice, the sin that had haunted his entire immortal lifespan, was his tendency to overindulge. To leave those he fed from nearly dead with blood loss. But tonight, all four women had been smiling and laughing as they left, with water and protein bars from Dante’s pantry. None had swooned; none had needed to be revived, or, as he’d done too often, turned.

He rolled his head, so he stared up at Dante, and Dante’s brows went up.

“What is it?” His fingers kept scratching along Alexei’s scalp, easy and affectionate.

“I didn’t drink too much,” Alexei said, unable to keep the wonder from his voice.

Dante grinned at him. “No, you certainly didn’t.”

He hadn’t a few days ago, either. He hadn’t been scolded, nor belittled, nor threatened, but somehow, Dante had seen him through two human feedings, and neither had ended in disaster.

Something bright and warm unfurled in Alexei’s chest, and it took him a moment to recognize the emotion as pride. And hope, too. Hope that he could be stronger than he had been. That he could control himself.

He sat up and headed for the front door, the peg there where his jacket hung.

“Something wrong?” Dante called after him.

“No. But I need to make a phone call.”

~*~

Nikita was usually a restless sleeper, waking often, plagued by nightmares. But after the stress of the last few days – capped off by the trauma of seeing Kolya – he dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep, with Sasha’s fingers still coming through his hair. He woke in the gray hush just before dawn, opening his eyes to find that he’d slept through Sasha repositioning them. He was on his side, Sasha too, facing one another, snuggled up together, touching, arms and legs intertwined. Sasha’s face was peaceful in sleep, his mouth slack, and soft, and pink in the scant light, lashes long shadows on his cheeks.

Nikita allowed himself to stare; to drink in the sight of him, nose full of his scent, feeling the slow, steady thump of his heart against his own arm. Guilt threatened, his constant companion, but he shoved it ruthlessly away. Let Val’s words from last night fill his mind instead; let himself think about love, its perfect simplicity, its forgiveness and generosity, and the way it was the strongest thing he’d ever felt – stronger than guilt, stronger than fear, or worry, or hate.

He sighed, and Sasha’s eyes fluttered open, hazy with sleep.

“Are you okay?” he asked, right off, voice drowsy.

Out in the living room, he heard the slow, careful slide of the window going up, and realized what had awakened him: Kolya stirring.

He leaned forward, and kissed Sasha on the forehead. “Go back to sleep, baby. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Another kiss. “I’m going to see Kolya.” He disentangled them carefully, and Sasha snuggled into the warm spot he’d left behind, sighing, already drifting off again.

He tugged on sweatpants, grabbed his smokes and lighter, and went out into the other room.

The window was open, as he’d expected, and a shadow sat perched out on the fire escape, black, hunched, and faintly man-shaped against the backdrop of lighted windows across the street, dawn silver over the building tops.

Careful to make enough noise to be heard, Nikita swung out of the window and landed on the cold metal of the fire escape, the bite of air-chilled metal oddly bracing, even as goosebumps shivered across his chest. He’d grown used to modern comforts, but there was a part of him that would always enjoy the bracing of the cold; the way it reminded him of the country that had birthed him.

Kolya sat on the ground, knees drawn up to his chest, arms folded over them, hood pulled up to cover his ears. He turned his head a fraction when Nikita settled down cross-legged beside him, his expression shuttered – not with blankness, no, but in the way it had always been. Nikita had practiced his captain face in the mirror when he was a human, but he’d always thought it had nothing on Kolya’s stone cold regard.

“Did you sleep?” Nikita asked, fingers busy shaking out and lighting a cigarette. He needed it badly.

“A little.” Kolya turned away – a small relief; Nikita wondered what he saw when he looked at him now: an old friend, still fresh in his slowly-returning memory, or a total stranger. He stared out at the building opposite; blinds and curtains rattled in windows, and more lights came on, warm yellow against the chill of the morning. “Your place is big.”

“Not really.”

“Bigger than what we had before, and for just the two of you.”

Nikita breathed out a plume of smoke. “Guess so.”

Yellow cabs went by down below; a bus belched exhaust. Nikita heard the distinct clatter of the bodega owner downstairs pushing up the metal roll-top grate he pulled down snug over the front of his shop every night to deter window breakers. The coolness of night had suppressed the hot garbage-piss-damp smell that persisted across the city, dulled it down to a faint tang beneath the scents of exhaust, cold concrete, and the tangle of notes funneled along by the breeze.

It was 2019, and he sat beside a friend he’d known for a hundred years, both of them young-faced, still…and haunted.

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