Page 221 of Golden Eagle

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The rain had finally tapered off, the streets below gleaming in the glow of the lights from windows, traffic signals, and storefronts. The gravel on the rooftop of their building crunched underfoot as Nikita paced, working off a nervous energy that he wouldn’t have admitted to at knifepoint. Kolya sat beside Sasha on one of the air conditioning units, their legs dangling over its side and making them look like children.

“Are all vampires nervous?” Kolya asked, his voice still eerily flat, but the words themselves seeming to get bolder by the minute. “Or just Nik?”

Nikita shot them a glare, but Sasha laughed, light and easy and happy, and the glare became an effort not to smile.

“Hey,” Lanny called. He and Trina were leaning backward against the waist-high parapet, passing an open bag of Fritos back and forth. “It takes a helluva lot of booze to get us drunk. What about pot? Can vamps toke it up?”

Trina clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from spitting chips everywhere. “Toke it up?” she laughed when she could, and nearly choked.

“Hey, I know the lingo,” Lanny said, feigning affront, a smile in his voice.

Trina lost it.

“It is possible to get high,” Dante spoke up, his voice still a little hushed, face still a little haunted. “But it burns off quickly.”

“What if,” Lanny said, brightening, fumbling Fritos out on the ground, “you drank the blood of someone who was, like, real fucked up on coke or something?”

Dante shrugged. “You’d get a buzz for a little while, sure.”

Alexei made a face. “There was this boy at a club, once. He’d taken LSD.” He shuddered. “I walked off a building roof and broke both my legs.”

“Shit!” Lanny said, laughing.

Severin stood a ways apart from all of them, face a pale oval against the darkness of the night, russet brows drawn low as his gaze swapped between them all, and he struggled to understand the ebb and flow of their mundane conversation.

“Nik,” Lanny said, “we’ve gotta get you some weed and see if that mellows you out, bro.”

Sasha’s laugh was nearly a howl. “Lanny, you’re a cop!”

“Homicide, man. And trust me, he needs to kill that bad attitude of his.”

Even Kolya’s lips quirked in an attempt at a smile, and a tumble of laughter echoed across the rooftop.

Nikita held onto his glare – but barely, and internally, he was beaming, a rare lightness fluttering in his chest. His pack, all together, happy and joking. His mate laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes, smiling at him, radiant as a sunrise.

A still-damp breeze lifted over the edge of the roof, and brought the scent of wolves.

“If you’re all done mocking me,” Nikita said without any heat, “we have visitors.”

A moment later, Will and Much vaulted up over the parapet – showing off, Nikita thought – and landed with barely a sound. Both carried large, bulky backpacks that would have caused mortals to stagger.

Will said, “Good evening, all.”

Much shrugged off his backpack and sat on it, chin going in his cupped hands.

Nikita imagined Sasha sayingbe nice, darling,and said, “Thanks for coming.” It wasn’t the world’s most solicitous tone, but it wasn’t hostile. That had to count for something.

Will’s brows gave a momentary jump, but then he smoothed his expression into a pleasant smile. “Happy to help, always. There have been new developments, you said?”

“Yeah. But we’re waiting for a few more.”

“Oh?”

“Waiting? How sweet, dear Captain,” Val’s voice called across the rooftop. Nikita turned and found that the prince and his entourage had come up through the building, and out the door. They were carrying gear, too: both women with small duffels, and Val and Fulk with long, awkward bags that didn’t do much to disguise what they contained.

Nikita had never been one for niceties, but he was acting as host here. Alexei sat on an electrical box, sitting very upright in what was an obvious attempt at imperiousness – but he hadn’t volunteered to orchestrate this meeting. Nik would have thought he was being a brat, but he’d caught a whiff of apprehension; he might be calling himself a tsar now, but he was wildly out of his depth when it came to leading anyone.

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