Page 79 of Golden Eagle

Alexei sighed. “Youknowthinking’s not your strong suit.”

Lanny bared his fangs and hissed at him.

“You’re angry, at least. I’ll give you that.”

“Shut up and go place the bets.”

“Fine, fine.” He and his friend – and since when did he have friends? – walked off toward the table, and Lanny bent down to lace up his shoes.

Hefeltit when the other vampire walked into the courtyard. Scented him, and had an immediate physical reaction, adrenaline flooding his veins, his fangs pressing long against his lip, a growl building in his throat.Rival.Enemy. Instinctual labels that came from his gut and not his mind. He had the prehistoric urge to bite, claw, maim, kill.

He lifted his head, and his gaze went straight toward him. As hulking as Lanny remembered, ugly and mean-faced. Without question, he’d been turned because of his size and no doubt an urge to violence. A vampire soldier. But whose? And why had he been made in the first place?

Alexei returned. “Well, there he is,” he said glumly, and dug the tape out of Lanny’s bag. “I hope you’re happy.”

“I’ll be happy when I’m picking bits of him out of my teeth.”

“That’s the spirit,” Alexei deadpanned, and started wrapping his hands.

The new guy, Dante, sat down beside Lanny, fair to bursting with outward curiosity. “You’re not what I was expecting.”

Lanny said, “The fuck?”

“Tone it down a notch,” Alexei said, and Lanny didn’t know which one of them he meant.

“It’s only,” Dante said, and his accent did something funny; went more formal, and less modern.

Alexei cleared his throat, loudly.

“It’s just,” Dante started again, “when Alexei said he’d sired someone, I didn’t think it would be…someone like you.”

“Again:the fuck? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think what he’s trying to say – and not well,” Alexei said, “is that you’re very large, and strong, and brutish, and I’m very not, and he’s having a hard time understanding why I turned you.”

Before Lanny could respond with appropriate outrage, Alexei said, “I did it because he was dying.” He secured the tape and moved to Lanny’s other hand. “And because I thought saving his life would be a good peace offering to Nikita. He’s dating Nikita’s great-granddaughter, you see.”

“You just gonna tell him all our business?”

Alexei paused, his hands cool on the back of Lanny’s, and glanced up through his lashes with his cold, light eyes, no longer the vagabond brat, but the prince he’d once been. The sort of person used to being bowed to. “Sometimes I do wonder why I turned you. You can be insufferably stupid.”

“Lex,” Dante said, chiding.

Alexei ignored him. “If you’re stupid enough to go in the ring tonight, then you’d better win.”

~*~

“How charming,” Trina said, looking up at the façade of the building Jamie had led them to.

He made a face. “Yeah, I know. Come on.” He led them through a rank ground-floor apartment full of milling people carrying red plastic cups. There was a line for what was apparently a bathroom, though she dreaded the thought of going in it. Through an open rear down, down some steps, into a moldy old courtyard lit up with construction lights.

There was a crowd, cheering.

And a ring, full of two fighters.

One of them was Lanny.

Cage matches, Jamie had told them, gaze downcast from guilt, face red with shame.Against humans. It was one thing for Lanny to use his new strength and speed against violent criminals they were chasing down; using his abilities to tackle or restrain an uncooperative suspect. Quite another to cheat his way into winning matches against humans who thought they actually had a chance to win.

---