Page 32 of Golden Eagle

Sasha kept tamping down smiles.Really?he wanted to say.You, too? Do you really?

But he knew. He could sense that the simmer of excitement in his belly tickled at Nik’s ribs, too.

They caught a few vampire scent trails, even followed them, but they weren’t Gustav, and they dead-ended.

Finally, when the shadows lay long across the sidewalks, and Sasha was about to vibrate out of his skin with anticipation, Nik turned to him, cocked a single brow, and said, “Dinner?”

Sasha let his grin break through; it hurt to hold it in any longer. “Wait. Are youofferingto eat?”

The corner of Nikita’s mouth twitched; holding his own smile in check with difficulty. “If you’re not hungry–”

“I want Berger’s,” Sasha said. “Subs. With the vinegar chips.”

Nikita nodded, mouth still twitching. Voice mellow when he said, “Alright. We can do that.”

Sasha beamed.

“Are you going to smile like that the whole way home?”

“Try and stop me.”

“No.” Nikita’s smile finally appeared, smaller and softer than expected, quiet and fond. “I like it when you’re happy.”

His pulse skipped and skittered like a new spring colt.

It was a short walk to Berger’s, and they walked beside one another the whole way, even when it didn’t make sense, even when pedestrians had to veer around them. They broke apart to go around a light pole at one point, and when they veered back together, Nikita caught Sasha’s elbow with two fingers. A gentle touch, towing him back in, close enough the backs of their hands touched. He stared ahead the whole way, but Sasha could see the way the pulse beat rabbit-fast in the side of his throat.

Later, Nik had said that morning. And later lay just ahead now, getting ever closer as they waited in line, and traded money for fat sandwiches and vinegar-soaked, hand-cut chips.

Laterchased them all the way home, and up the steps. It fueled the adrenaline pumping through Sasha’s veins until he had to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. He couldn’t decide if he was eager, or nervous; probably both.

All his wondering and hoping, his amorphous, adolescent yearning that had become a clear and sharp-edged want, and now, here at last…

Nikita paused, their bag of food in one arm, his hand on the key in the deadbolt. He opened his mouth and took a breath through it, gaze pinned on the door. “Sasha,” he said, and all the amused lightness from earlier had bled into a heavy tone.

The bottom dropped out of Sasha’s stomach. “Please,” he whispered.

Nikita turned the key and let them in, going straight to the kitchen to set the bag down while Sasha, hands shaking, shut and relocked the door. “We have to talk, Sasha.” He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over the counter, revealing shoulders drawn up high and tight with stress. “We need to. It’s important.”

Sasha wanted to scream. He bit his lip instead, his fangs growing too long in his mouth, and tasted blood. “Talk,” he said, surprised by the anger in his voice. He felt – felt attacked. To have spent all day withlaterbeating like a second heartbeat behind his ribs, and then…totalk. “If it’s so important, why haven’t we ‘talked’ about this, I don’t know, at any point in the last seventy-seven years?”

Nikita sighed. He turned around, frowning, brows drawn together with unhappiness. Braced his hands back against the counter. “That’s exactlywhywe need to talk. Because we haven’t before – not about this.”

“I don’t want to,” Sasha said around the lump in his throat, not caring if he sounded petulant. Inside, his wolf was howling. He didn’t want words; he wanted kisses, and warm hands, and reassuring embraces.

Nikita sighed again. “We have to–”

“Bratishka.”

Nik’s frown deepened.

“That’s what you call me. Am I a brother to you?” He dreaded the answer.

Nikita stared at him a long, unblinking moment, his chin tipped down so that his face looked narrower and sharper than normal. His nostrils flared. “No.”

“For how long?”

“For how long what?”

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