Page 198 of Golden Eagle

The female’s face erupted in a shower of blood and bone, and the force of impact sent her body falling heavily backward like a felled tree. Her arms and legs flopped, and surged, and she emitted an awful, garbled sound that tried to be a scream.

A volley of short, cracking gunshots sounded to her right: Nik. These vampires who’d attacked them wanted to brawl, but Nik, she knew, still carried a handgun.

She turned to find another vampire down, bloody, twitching, and useless. Nikita’s jacket was pushed back, and she saw the knife at his hip. When the immediate danger was past, he would start cutting out hearts and burning bodies, she knew. She expected the knowledge to give her a sick jolt, but it didn’t.

More gunshots down below, three staccato bursts.

“Alexei.” She turned and headed for the edge of the roof.

~*~

Belatedly, Alexei realized he had no practical idea how to use a gun. Trina had shown him just an hour ago – “Two hands, like this, one for the grip, finger on the trigger, and the second to steady and support;” “I know that,” impatient; she’d lifted her brows – and he understood it in theory: make sure the safety was off, finger on the trigger, aim and fire. But marksmanship required patience, repetition, and practice, of which he had none at the moment.

He pushed Dante behind him with one hand, and held the gun with the other. Aimed at the oncoming wolf in the lead – Carey, he thought – and squeezed off three fast shots. The gun kicked harder than he expected; it bucked in his sweat-slick hand; he tripped and nearly went sprawling, only saved by Dante’s hands gripping his shoulders.

One shot connected, though. Carey yelped, and ducked sideways, skidding fast-first into the gravel. Alexei smelled blood, but had no idea which part of the wolf he’d hit.

Hannah gathered her hindquarters, sprang upward, and launched herself at him.

Alexei aimed the gun again.

And a jet of fire knocked the wolf aside. Hannah toppled to the ground beside Carey, squealing, fur aflame. She yelped and rolled frantically.

The sharp scent of a bonfire filled the lot; the scent of ash, and flame, of burning, and blood, and ofmagic.

Alexei turned, and there was the redhaired mage from the Institute, the one he’d kissed, and compelled, and just barely managed to overpower with Dante’s help.

He looked different. Still wearing the white scrubs from last time, but now with a long, olive green wool overcoat over them, and a pair of black sneakers. His hair, gleaming copper in the sun, faintly curled, stood up, wild, corkscrew tendrils waving in the breeze. But it was his face that stood out the most, his expression starkly different from the passive, automaton mask he’d worn in the Institute. Lips parted, cheeks flush, his eyes a clear, glassy green, hectic, almost feverish. He was a boy unmoored. Not a blank weapon, not a vengeful angel, but the trembling child wreck that he should have been from the first, incandescent with power, certain of nothing.

Gustav’s backup.

Except…it was Gustav’s Familiar he’d just singed, and it was Alexei he stared at now, blinking, and swallowing, and swaying forward.

Alexei wondered if vampires could have heart attacks.

He swallowed with difficulty, surprised by the even, pleasant tone of his voice. “Hello.”

The boy blinked at him a few more times. “Hello.” Faint, and then, wetting his lips, russet brows lowering, a little firmer. “Hello, Alexei Romanov.”

Dante’s hands tightened on Alexei’s shoulders in silent question. The wolves were stirring; Hannah whimpering and licking at her singed, smoking side, Carey getting unsteadily to his feet, holding one foreleg off the ground. They would heal quickly, but they were rattled.

Alexei said, “It’s Seven, right?”

“It’s…yes. No.” A groove appeared between the boy’s brows, and he chewed at his lip. “Sev…call me Severin.”

A small distinction, one Alexei didn’t understand, but one he’d honor if it kept them all alive.

“Okay. Severin. Are you here to help these guys?”

Gustav shouted, “What are you doing, you stupid brat! Don’t attack my wolves, attack them! Help me subdue them! The skinny one you can have! Roast him alive!”

Dante’s hands retracted, like he meant to flee.

Alexei darted a hand back and caught a fistful of the front of his jacket without looking. “Stay,” he ordered, so low, and authoritative, and uncharacteristic that Dante went still, probably with shock.

Severin glanced at Gustav, the furrow between his brows deepening, then he glanced back to Alexei. “No,” he said, “I’m not helping them.”

Then he flung up his arm and shot a curling, crackling arc of flame right at Gustav.

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