Page 292 of Golden Eagle

“No.”

“It snowed.”

“Noooo.” He wriggled around, shoved his face into Nik’s armpit, and made a dramatically pitiful sound.

Nikita laughed. “Well, I’m getting up.” Sasha clung to him playfully, but finally gave up with a huff and curled himself up tight beneath the blankets, burrowing into the warm spot on Nik’s pillow. “I don’t like this early-rising version of you,” he said, one blue eye slitted open.

But hedid, and Nikita knew it. Apparently, being happily mated and bound eased so much of Nikita’s anxiety that he could sleep through the night, and woke energized in the mornings. A not-small miracle he was still getting used to.

Out from under the blankets, the cabin wascold. Nik hurriedly tugged on clothes, slipped on his jacket, stepped into his boots, and cast one look back at the bed. Sasha’s halo of bright hair on the pillow was the only thing visible above the heaped-up quilts, and his breathing had already evened out into the slow rhythms of sleep again. He could feel Nik in the back of his mind, just like Nik could feel him, and it was nearly as soothing as a physical presence.

Nikita smiled to himself, and slipped silently outside.

The cabin sat at the top of a low rise, at the edge of the tree line, and offered a view of all the tumbling, folded hills of the property. Virgin snow lay in every direction, untouched save the light indentations of squirrel and what he thought might be possum tracks. The forest behind him was full of the hush of fresh snowfall. Ahead, he heard the trilling calls of birds – and the strike of steel on steel. Val’s laugh floating along on the breeze.

Nikita lit a cigarette and headed that way, wading through the snow.

He was pleasantly warm from the exercise when he drew up to the scene, a little ridge overlooking the yard of the guest house by the pond, a perfect stretch of split-rail fence to lean against and observe Kolya and Val spar – like theotherKolya was doing.

Nikita’s son.

On the drive up to Buffalo, Nikita had been caught between an unfamiliar sort of excitement, and an all-too-familiar sort of worry. Excitement that he could finally introduce the boy who’d been his family longer than anyone to the blood family he’d only recently met. He’d thought of Sasha shaking hands with Steve, and Raymond, and Kolya, and his chest had filled with warmth. He’d wondered if Sasha would like the farm, if he’d be as proud of them all as he himself was, creating this safe, beautiful place for themselves to live. If he’d be as proud of Katya and Pyotr, making the most of what they’d been handed.

But thought of Katya and Pyotr had left him doubting. He’d loved Katya, yes, but he’d left her. It was Pyotr, and not Nik in the framed photos on the wall; Pyotr who’d raised Kolya, done all the things that fathers did. And not because Nikita had died in the war, but because he’d fled – fled with Sasha. Whom he loved above all things, and who he was bringing now to the compound where his son, and his grandsons lived with their families.

He’d nearly asked Trina, when they’d stopped for gas. Had met her gaze at the neighboring pump and nearly blurted, “Will they be offended?”

But he hadn’t.

And his worry, it seemed, had been for naught. There hadn’t been handshakes, buthugsfor Sasha, warm, and sincere. Exclamations, and expressions of gratitude that he’d come safely home from Virginia.

Raymond had said he wanted to see the “wolf trick,” and his wife, Valerie, had elbowed him sharply, but Sasha had laughed, and obliged.

And Sasha had turned to Nik, that first night, when they were finally alone in the cold cabin, his eyes gleaming, his cheeks pink, and said, “That’s your family.”

“Yes…Do you like them?”

“Oh, Ido. I love them.” And he’d kissed Nik, and Nik hadn’t asked any more questions that night.

Nikita shouldn’t hesitate now, seeing Kolya’s slightly stoop-shouldered back before him, but he did, just a moment – long enough that Kolya turned his head a fraction and said, conversationally, “Guess you’ve seen this before. It’s wild, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Nikita moved to stand beside him, elbows leaned on a dusted-off portion of the top rail.

Down below, Fulk had joined the sparring partners, and was frowning at them. “You’re getting sloppy with your free hand,” he told Val.

“Ha! Sloppy!” Val called, dancing into the next sequence of strikes and parries. “This is how I was taught.”

“Well, it’s sloppy.”

“You’re doubting the skill of Janissary swordsmanship, my dear?”

“I’m suggesting you’ve been lying around in cells too long, and you’ve gone to pot.”

Val laughed, and beamed, and pushed Kolya back three steps on his next attack.

“They tried to teach me,” Nikita said to the other Kolya –hisKolya, he supposed. “It’s not an easy thing to pick up.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Kolya agreed.

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