Page 30 of Golden Eagle

“An immortaldive. And yeah, I can smell that. But why?”

He shrugged. Older though he might have been, he felt young, suddenly. Perhaps foolish. Perhaps more than a little resentful, even rebellious. “It’s nice. Being around others like us.”

Jamie executed a slow turn on his stool. “There’s no one in here.”

“You know what I mean,” Alexei snapped. “Being around immortals who don’t think our own kind are awful.”

Silence a beat. “You’re talking about Nik,” Jamie said, his voice low, and flat. Disbelieving.

Where the hell was Carey with the new bottle? “Christ, he isn’t God,” Alexei said, spinning his empty glass in little circles. “You can say something bad about him and the world won’t end. Yes, I’m talking about Nik.”

Another pause. “I never said he was God,” Jamie said, with infuriating calm. “Why are you so worked up about this, anyway? Why now?”

Before Alexei could respond – and a good thing, too, because he wasn’t sure how to put his feelings into words yet – Carey returned, unhurried, cracking the cap on a fresh bottle of Smirnoff. “Talked to Gustav,” he said, still disinterested, as he refilled Alexei’s glass.

Beside him, Jamie went very still. And then said, “Gustav?”

Carey’s brows lifted the slightest fraction.

Alexei tossed back the vodka and slid to his feet. “On second thought, we’ll come back again another time.”

“Did you say–” Jamie started, but Alexei grabbed him, pulled him off his stool – “Hey!” – and dragged him to the door.

It paid to be stronger, sometimes.

A lot of the time.

When they were back out on the sidewalk, amid the brightness of sun, which they squinted against, and the barrage of sounds and scents and whirling colors, early autumn wind snatching on their clothes, Jamie shook loose and rounded on him. But not, as Alexei had expected, with fury. With a wide-eyed startlement instead.

“This guy Gustav we’re looking for. You know him?”

“I’ve met him,” Alexei hedged. “That’s his bar.”

“And you didn’t say anything at breakfast?”

“Why? So Nikita could kill him?”

Jamie opened his mouth to respond…and then closed it.

Pedestrians streamed past on either side of them; a man elbowed Jamie with a quick, vicious “get the fuck outta the way.”

“Alexei,” Jamie finally said, his gaze the most serious Alexei had ever seen it. “Someonekilledandatea part of a man. And Nik and Sasha say this Gustav guy is involved. Please don’t tell me you don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“If you tell them–”

“Threatening me? Classy.”

Alexei ground his molars. “I want to figure out what’s going on first. Something is happening, yes, but if Nik finds Gustav first, he’ll only kill. He never cares about the why.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”

“And I’m warning you.”

Jamie stared at him, still not frightened, only disappointed, which was worse, in a way. Then he sighed, shook his head, and turned away.

Whatever, Alexei thought with an inward snarl, and set off in the opposite direction.

But, if he’d been able to admit it then, he would have recoiled from his own aggression. He was very angry, and not completely sure why, and this was one of those moments when he wondered if Grisha’s siring of him had left him with such a taint…

Or if it had been there all along.

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