Page 222 of Golden Eagle

So Nikita took a breath and said, “Val, this is Will Scarlet and his associate Much. Will and Much, this is–”

“Prince Valerian of Wallachia,” Will said, a little awed. He gave a quick, proper bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, your grace. I wish – and I know my alpha wishes – that it was a meeting that could have come sooner.”

For a moment, Val’s face showed surprise. But then he tugged his breezy, convivial, thoroughly-for-show mask into place. “How charming. It’s nice to know there are some immortals who haven’t branded me ‘traitor.’ This is my mate, Mia, and my Familiars, His Lordship the Baron Strange of Blackmere, Fulk le Strange, and his baroness, the Lady Annabel.”

Will’s smile widened, grew mischievous. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the baron before.”

Fulk kicked his chin up and said, flatly, “Yes. The pleasure.”

“Guys.” Trina pushed the Fritos into Lanny’s hands and stepped into the center of their gathering. “Come on. You can have a pissing contest on your own time. We called everybody here for a reason.”

“Yes, you were attacked, you said?” Will asked.

“We were,” Nikita said. “New information’s come to light about the Institute.”

“We’re destroying it,” Alexei said, drawing everyone’s gaze.

Then the wind shifted, and Nikita knew the moment all the newcomers caught the scent of a mage in their midst.

“Oh,” Will said with understated casualness. “It’s the boy.”

Fulk le Strange had a more violent reaction. He pushed his mate up against Val’s back, then threw himself in front of the prince, coiled and ready to leap, growling, one hand clawing at the top of the bag on his back.

Nikita started to say something, but he didn’t have to.

Alexei stood, a slow, regal unfolding of his body, shoulders back and square. He was the same slender youth he’d always been, but he seemed to take up more space, now. He turned a cold look on le Strange. “Severin is with us, and he won’t harm you.”

Nikita had no such confidence, but as he’d decided earlier, at Colette’s, the boy was an asset.

“He escaped the Institute and came to us of his own free will,” Alexei continued. “As an ally.” Then, cuttingly, “Please control your Familiar, Prince Valerian.”

No one murmured a lowooh, but Nikita imagined they were all thinking it.

Val was still a moment, then laid a hand on Fulk’s shoulder. “It’s alright, dear,” he murmured, drawing him back. The wolf resisted a moment, but then let himself be towed backward, so that he stood beside his master rather than in front of him. Annabel took his free hand between both of hers in silent comfort. To Alexei, Val said, “You’ll have to forgive my dear baron. He has a bit of a visceral reaction to anything or anyone who smells of Liam Price. I’m sure, though, that your new friend – Severin, was it? – bears none of his sire’s ill will toward Baron Strange.” The last was laced with an elegant threat.

Val might want desperately to befriend them all, to fit in somewhere, but he was still a vampire with his Familiar’s best interest at heart – and he was still a Dracula.

“Of course not,” Alexei said, chin lifting a fraction. “He’s never even met his sire.”

It was Lanny who waded in to smooth things over, mouth half-full of chips. “The kid just wanted out – and he wants to get his brothers out. The Institute fucked him over just like it did you. He’s wicked strong. I say if he wants to be on our side, then we let him.”

It was silent a moment.

Val finally smiled, small and close-mouthed. “How can I argue with that?”

~*~

It was a strange gathering that stood in a loose ring around Nikita while he relayed the day’s events, and the truths they’d learned from Severin and Dante. A prince, a tsarevich, a baron and baroness; two Merry Men, two detectives, a newly-turned equestrian, three Soviets, and a mage.

“Clearly, Gustav wants us out of the picture, permanently, and I think, after today, he’ll only come at us harder next time,” Nikita said. “If he was able to recruit the vampires we killed today, he can recruit more, and the Institute is not only allowing this, but encouraging it, and providing him with the means to attack us.”

Val frowned. “But they have Vlad. Why would they be throwing support behind a twentieth century German general – one still mourning a failed Kaiser, no less?”

“Dissention between the two branches I suppose,” Will said. “Perhaps the Virginia and New York branches are no longer working toward the same goal.”

“But,” Mia spoke up, and when Nik looked at her, he found her incredibly pale, lips trembling as she took a breath. “They’re doing medical research. I don’t – I understand wanting to stop – Romulus–” She stumbled over the name, doubtless still grappling with the sheer scope of history she’d thought ancient, dead and buried. “Curing cancer, fighting this evil bad guy: those are both ways ofhelpingpeople. But attacking all of you…” Her eyes widened. “All of us…God. That’s…” Her gaze drew inward, panicked.

“It’s troubling, I know,” Will said, soothing, sympathetic. “But it’s an unfortunate truth: all too often, the desperate throw their support behind a cruel force. Power, no matter its nature, has a way of corrupting one’s objectives.”

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