Page 4 of Golden Eagle

1

New York City

Present Day

“It’ll be Halloween in two weeks.” It was said hopefully, but Nikita didn’t react right away.

He stared at the street a moment longer; a windy evening, pedestrians clutching the halves of their coats together, exhaust snaking up in streamers from tailpipes. Then he dropped the blinds and turned to face his small living room with a knot that felt like dread lodged in his chest.

Sasha lay on his stomach on the rug, in front of the TV, watchingEntertainment Tonight. They were talking about celebrity costumes from years past, amid a host of other things Nikita didn’t care about, but tolerated for Sasha’s sake.

He turned to look at Nik, tiny spark of hope shining in his eyes, but already visibly braced for a negative answer.

“What?”

“Halloween. In two weeks.”

“I don’t care about Halloween.”

“I know.” Small voice. Sasha turned back to the screen. “But it means Thanksgiving’s close. And then Christmas.”

Nikita studied him a moment, the pale flicker of his lashes in the blue of the TV light, the subtle lines of tension in his shoulders and arms. The drugs were out of his system – he was fully detoxed, according to Dr. Harvey, and what she’d been able to make of werewolf blood biology under her morgue microscope. But he didn’t eat quite enough, still; carried dark bags beneath his eyes; tired easily and early at night.

Nikita hadn’t fed from him. Had been drinking pig and cow blood chilled from the fridge since they’d returned from Virginia.

“We need to leave soon,” Nik said, voice frayed at the edges.

“Yeah.” Sasha lingered a moment, then finally got to his feet.

~*~

Nikita…wasn’t doing well.

He was doing poorly.

He was doing shitty, to be blunt.

Sasha had reached a stage of anxiety over his best friend that reduced him to a clingy, whining mess; like a scolded dog trying desperately to get back into his master’s good graces, he followed Nik around as much as possible, plastering himself to his side on the couch when they watched TV, rooting up under his arm until Nik slung it around his shoulders with a sigh. At first, that sigh had been patient, but that patience was wearing thin. Last night, when Sasha spooned up behind him in bed, Nikita elbowed him back with a muttered, “It’s too hot for that.”

Sasha had curled up at the foot of the bed, shivering a little, because it hadn’t been hot, and he didn’t know how to make things better.

He felt he could be forgiven for his desperation…

But he regretted his plan now that it was sitting across from him drinking cheap bourbon.

The Wet Whistle didn’t have a dress code, per se, but it drew a crowd that tended to dress up for a night out on the town: slinky dresses, tight shirts with the top few buttons undone, artfully styled hair and expensive colognes and perfumes.

Lanny had obviously shown up straight from the gym, his leather jacket thrown over a sweat-stained muscle shirt and ratty old gray joggers.

Sasha had offered him a free drink, and he was now working on his third, scanning the pulsating crowd over his shoulder.

“Did I, uh, interrupt your workout?” Sasha asked. He was trying to be subtle and accommodating. But. Crushing anxiety and all that.

“Nah, I was done.” Lanny drained his glass and set it back on the bar, firing Sasha an expectant look over the top of it.

“I saidonefree drink.”

Lanny tipped his chin down, and his eyes got comically wide. Like he’d been practicing compelling in his bathroom mirror and thought making a face was somehow part of it.

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