Page 50 of Golden Eagle

“You don’t ever call to chat, only when something’s wrong.”

“Probably because you don’t know how to chat,” Sasha said with a chuckle.

He had him there.

“Trina?”

“Actually.” She breathed out in a rush. “I’m sorry. I’m being dumb. I won’t bother you guys.” And she hung up.

Nikita looked at Sasha, who gazed steadily back, without expression. “What do you think it was?”

“Lanny,” Sasha guessed.

“Yeah.” He frowned at the idea. “That’d be my guess.”

~*~

“Dumbass,” Trina muttered to herself, setting her phone aside. She’d known not to call, but she had anyway. A moment of weakness.

Lanny hadn’t come home last night.

Which was fine. He was grown. She wasn’t his keeper. She wasn’t interested in keeping tabs on him in that way.

But.

The last time he’d gone missing without a call or a text, she’d found him behind a dumpster, turned into a vampire, so…

A little worry seemed justified. And she’d called Nik because…well, she wasn’t sure she wanted to examine that. It had less to do, she feared, with his level-headed vampire experience, and more to do with the fact that he was, like Lanny was always calling him, hergramps.

But it was, after all, eight-thirty on a Sunday morning. Calling hadn’t been the best idea.

She’d decided to have breakfast and stop worrying so much when her phone rang. It was Harvey.

“I’ve got another one,” she said when Trina answered, and beneath her usual no-nonsense tone, Trina detected a hint of nerves.

“Want me to come take a look?”

“If you think it might help.”

“On my way.”

~*~

Lanny frowned at his reflection. He didn’t look like a guy who’d had his face caved in last night…but he didn’t look like a guy whohadn’t, either.

Dark purple-fading-green bruises mottled one eye and the cheek below it. His split lip had healed already, but a pink line still bisected it, marking the place where his flesh had been sliced by his own fang. By this evening, the damage would only resemble shadows; casual passersby would be able to convince themselves it was a trick of the light. But right now, he looked like he’d taken a wallop of a punch to the face.

Because he had.

“Fuck,” he murmured, and opened his top drawer to root around in the back. In his fighting days, he’d kept a few bottles of concealer, and he might have one left, though it was likely gummy and crusted with age. His fingers closed on smooth, cool glass, and he pulled out the bottle, triumphant – only to frown when he held it up to the light and found it little more than gritty brown sludge. Welp, there went that idea.

Jamie stood behind him in the hall just outside the open bathroom door; he’d been there for a while, staring. He might have startled Lanny pre-turning, when he finally spoke, but Lanny had felt his presence the moment he’d appeared. Felt it and ignored it.

“What are you going to tell her?” he asked.

Lanny looked at him via the mirror, and found – worse than the smug expression he’d expected – a little frown, brows tucked together. Superiority he could have mocked, but Jamie looked just as worried and guilty as he had last night.

“Shut up,” Lanny said, chucking the concealer into the trash and slamming the drawer shut.

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