Page 5 of Golden Eagle

“Don’t even try it,” Sasha huffed.

“I wasn’t gonna! Man, you’re wound tight tonight.”

Sasha gave him a look.

“Yeah, yeah.” Lanny pulled out his wallet and slid his card over, gaze drifting back to the dance floor. “Where’s your man?”

Sasha’s stomach did a little flip. Lanny talked about them like…well, he was still so freshly human. He dismissed the supernatural elements of immortal relationships, looking at it instead with human frankness. When he referenced Nikita and Sasha, he didn’t speak about them as vampire and Familiar; didn’t revere the ancient kinship of wolves and vamps born on the banks of the Tiber when the she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus. No, he acted like they were just friends…or something more. A teasing light glinting deep in his eyes, a suggestive edge to his smirk. It wasn’t mocking, not really, but it wassomething. And it made Sasha’s palms sweat.

As if he could sense Sasha’s sudden discomfort – and hecouldnow, since his turning – Lanny shifted back toward the bar, smile smug. “Uh-huh.”

Sasha drew up to his full height, jutting his chin out stubbornly. “This is important. If you’re just going to make jokes about us, you might as well go back to the gym.”

“Homegym,” Lanny corrected. “And no, no, I know.” He let out a breath and sobered. Cocked his head and fixed Sasha with the kind of gaze that reminded Sasha that Lanny was a detective, after all. And a good one, according to Trina. “You didn’t see him after you got snatched. Dude wasfreaked out.” He lifted his brows for emphasis.

Sasha sighed. “I know.” Nik was still freaked out; Sasha could feel the guilt and fear buzzing under his skin when they touched.

“No,” Lanny said. “I don’t think you actually do.”

Sasha bristled. “What–”

“Nik hated being a Chekist, right?” Lanny pressed on. “That’s what Trina said. That he was just pretending, and he felt shitty about all the awful things he did, and he hated Stalin, and all that?”

Sasha snorted. “More or less.”

“Well, he didn’t seem like he hated it when he was shooting everything that moved and choking little kids to death and being a walking nightmare in general.”

A low buzzing started up in Sasha’s ears. “What?” he asked, voice faint and cracked.

“You were pretty out of it when we got you back, but you saw the jacket, right?” Lanny shook his head. “All his lecturing about drinking from humans, and then he did it himself. Heinitiatedit. Because he needed to be strong enough to get you back. He compelled people, and killed people, and drank from people – to get you back. Dude, we went all the way to Buffalo and he met his whole entire family, and all he cared about was getting you back, even if he got himself killed in the process. However he’s acting now, whatever kind of upset you’re seeing? It’s not even close to how fucked up he was before.”

Sasha whimpered in the back of his throat before he could catch himself, then tried to cover it with a cough. “I…I know he feels…guilty…”

“Hey, look.” Lanny’s tone softened. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But I thought you ought to know that he was pretty bad off…seeing as how you guys are co-dependent soulmates or whatever.”

Co-dependent. Yes, they were that. But it felt one-sided lately.

Suddenly, all the fretting and the stilted conversations and the avoidance caught up with him. He felt his eyes burn and looked down at the bar top, blinking away the shameful evidence of emotion. He was a pack animal, and he hadn’t been able to act like one lately, his packmate holding him at arm’s length when he most needed to reestablish bonds and intimacy.

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t confide in Lanny – in anyone else – but he’d reached a breaking point. “I,” he started again, halting, and then the dam burst. “I’m soworriedabout him. I can’t get him to feed, and he doesn’t want to eat, and he doesn’t laugh anymore, and he pushes me away, and I just…” He gasped a few times and then pulled himself forcibly together, looked up at Lanny miserably through a screen of hair that had fallen over his face.

Lanny said, “You mean he actuallylaughs?”

“He laughs a lot.”

“I don’t believe that for a hot second.”

“Sometimes,” Sasha amended. “He laughs sometimes.” When it was just the two of them.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Lanny asked.

“Please.” It hurt to say, but he was desperate.

And Lanny, thick as a slab of beef most of the time, seemed to know it. He offered a crooked little smile. “First time for everything, huh?” Because it was the first time in their seventy-seven years of cohabitation that Sasha didn’t know how to reach his best friend. “Sit tight. Where is he?”

“Table duty, up on the mezzanine.”

Lanny threw back the last of his fourth drink and slid off the stool, melted into the crowd.

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