Page 74 of Golden Eagle

Sasha let that sink in. “There’s…a bar?”

“Apparently.”

“Why haven’t we ever heard of it?”

Nik tipped his head, and smiled faintly. “We aren’t exactly a part of the immortal community.”

“No,” Sasha agreed. “And what sorts of important connections?”

“I’ve got no idea.” He frowned, but thoughtfully this time, and took a sip of his drink. “That’s what I can’t figure out.”

“It isn’t like there’s any sort of – secret vampire society.”

“Not that we know of.”

A disturbing thought.

“Still,” Sasha said, “powerful or not, we’re–” He flexed one arm dramatically, and Nikita smothered a laugh into his hand, playing it off as a cough. “You don’t back down,” he said more seriously. “It might be smart to leave Trina and the others out of it, but I’m surprised you want to stop.” When Nik didn’t respond right away, he said, “Nik, what did Colette say to you?”

“That I needed to leave this alone. ‘Mind my own business,’ she said.”

Sasha felt his brows go up. “She thinks he’s that powerful?”

“She thinks I’m going to get myself killed. And – and she’s right that I have more important things to worry about.”

“Like what?” Sasha said, stupidly, and earned the quirk of a single brow in answer. “Oh,” he said, face heating. “Me?” he guessed, hopefully.

“Yes, you.” Small, but wonderful smile. “You. Always you. Maybe…” He contemplated his knuckles. “Maybe it’s time I stopped trying to look after the whole damn world.” His gaze lifted again, bold, intense through the dark screen of his lashes. “And just look after my own world.”

Sasha sucked in a breath. “Oh.” His cheeks started to tingle, he was blushing so hard. “Should we, um.” He gestured to the food between them. “Take this to go.”

“Yeah.” He swore Nik started purring. “We should.”

~*~

When Trina got back from her walk – because she was taking one, by God – Lanny was long gone, and she sank down into her chair just before her shaking legs gave out.

She wasn’t afraid of him. Shewasn’t. Except she’d felt fear, out on the steps, as his pupils had narrowed to slits, and his fangs had shown, and he’d growled on every breath. He’d barred her path, and told her she couldn’t leave. The fuckingaudacity.

But some part of her had believed that he might use force. She would have never believed that of Human Lanny. And just thinking that phrase – Human Lanny – revealed that, despite her insistence to the contrary, she didn’t think of him the way she had before his turning. He was a vampire now, and something about that had sent her hand to the butt of her gun.

She wasn’t proud of herself.

But she was furious with him. How dare he?

(How dare he spook her like that?)

So deep in her thoughts, she startled hard when Delgado stopped beside her desk and asked her a question.

“Whoa,” he said, when she slapped her hands down on her desk and sucked in a breath. God knew what her eyes looking like. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

He frowned.

“I’m fine.I’m fine.”

His brows jumped.Whatever you say. “I asked where Webb is. Thought I saw him here earlier.”

---