Page 57 of Golden Eagle

“Right,” Sasha said.

She stepped back from the table, and folded her arms, mulling it over. “So why go after a human? A defenseless jogger?” She held up a staying hand. “I know they’re feral. But if this other wolf, Hannah, is with them, can’t someone control them? I mean, they were used as bait for you,” she said to Sasha. “So clearly they have handlers of some kind. If they really are mindless, then they aren’t to blame – someone is letting them do this. Or even encouraging it.”

“Hence killing Gustav,” Nik said; he started pacing again, behind her, hands flexing.

Sasha wanted to take his hands into his own, and still their movements; it looked painful at this point. That kind of agitation.

“I’m on board with that,” Trina said, and Sasha caught Harvey’s small, checked frown. “But I’d really like to know why this is happening.”

Nikita paused, and turned a mild look on her. “Sometimes, you never find out why.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be the case, here.”

“Hm.”

An intercom on the wall buzzed, and startled all of them.

“Shit,” Harvey said, letting the drape fall, and snapping off her gloves.

“We’ll let you get back to work, Christine,” Trina said, moving toward the door.

Harvey breathed an unamused laugh as she moved toward the intercom panel. “I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”

“Thanks.”

They walked out with Trina, to the loading bay again.

Trina paused and rested her forearms on the steel rail overlooking the bay, sighing deeply, shoulders slumping.

Nikita sent a look Sasha’s way, brows flicking upward in question.

Sasha rolled his eyes, and earned a smirk. But Nik dug out his smokes and went about lighting one as he leaned on the rail beside Trina. Sasha went to stand on his other side, in the spirit of giving them space – but also wanting to press his shoulder to Nik’s and enjoy the way his own scent lingered on Nik’s throat like handprints.

“I’ll handle him,” Nikita told Trina, in a voice that probably wouldn’t have sounded all that soothing to a stranger, but which Sasha knew to be one of his gentler tones. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

She sighed again, and half-turned her head, expression pained. “I know. That’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

“This is all just…” She shut her eyes a moment, brows drawing together. When she opened them, she fixed Nikita with a look. “Why now? I’ve spent my whole career chasing down some really sick people, but why now, in the past year, am I chasing down superpowered immortal sick people? If wolves and vampires have existed since Dracula’s time – since before that – then why is that all I see everywhere I look now?”

“They’ve always been there,” Nikita said, still gently, then corrected himself. “We’vealways been there. Here. It’s just, since you met us–”

“No,” Sasha spoke up. “Something’s changed, something that’s affecting all immortals.” His stomach clenched. “It’s the war.”

Nik took a hard drag on his cigarette and huffed on the exhale. “No,” he said, but sounded anxious.

“War,” Trina said, frown deepening. “The one Dracula was talking about? The one Robin Hood’s guys are talking about?”

Nik’s head whipped toward her. “You saw them?”

She winced. “They kinda bought Lanny and me dinner the other night.”

Nikita let slip a tiny growl on his next drag.

Sasha leaned forward so he could peer at Trina around him. “Last night?”

“Yeah.”

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