Page 69 of Golden Eagle

Sasha glanced at Nik, worried, wondering, but got to his feet. “Sure.” When Nikita nodded, he set off on his errand.

Colette waited until his footsteps had receded, Nik tensed and waiting for whatever she wanted to say, and then pinned him with a look. “What are you doing?”

He said, “I just told you–”

“No.” Her eyes flashed, her jaw set. She looked nothing like the palm-reader now, and every inch the ferocious warrior Nikita knew she’d once been. “Do you think I can’t smell it on you?”

Nikita stilled. He felt his face blank, and dread shivered deep in his belly.

“Nik,” she said, head tilted, tone softening a fraction. “It isn’t a bad thing.”

“I know.”

“You’ve always loved him,” she said, a true smile breaking through. “And I know it’s always been reciprocated. I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah, well…” He felt a blush come up in his cheeks, and ducked his head.

“Nikita.” Earnest. Pressing. When he glanced up again, she was staring at him with eyes wide and imploring. “I’ve never steered you wrong before, so trust me now when I tell you that Gustav is bigger and more powerful than you know, and that it’ll only get one of you or yours hurt if you go after him. Random human civilians are not your problem.”

He frowned at her. “If he’s killing–”

“People get killed every goddamn day in this city. It’s not your job to make sure vampires behave. You aren’t a detective, and one day, that massive guilt complex of yours is going to getyoukilled. Is that what you want? To leave him alone?” She gestured toward the door Sasha had gone through.

He growled, softly.

“If Gustav isn’t coming after you, then don’t go after him. Love your boy, mind your business.”

~*~

The case turned out to be a regular homicide.

Regular homicide.Trina hated herself for that callous thought. But a gangbanger shot, and rumors milling on the street meant it wasn’t the sort of case to occupy too much of their time. They had a lead on a suspect, and they’d talked to a woman who twisted her hands together in her lap, and cried freely, and told them what they needed to know about the vic. Open and shut. All over but slapping bracelets on their perp.

They sat at their desks. Lanny tossed his stress ball into the air and caught it, over and over, his movements reflexive and deft. He’d always been athletic, but there was a new ease and quickness to everything he did now that was the result of vampirism; Trina felt sure that no one else noticed. Only her, who’d spent years staring at him.

His bruises had all but faded, just faint shadows beneath the skin, now.

But someone had put them there, and she didn’t buy the mugging story for a second.

“Well, that was–” he started.

“Don’t say boring.”

“’Kay.” He didn’t say anything else, still tossing and catching the ball, gaze flicking over to hers across their pushed-together desks.

“This is our job,” she said. “We solve murders. No matter how interesting.”

“Yeah. I know.”

She bit her lip, and held back what she wanted to say. What she maybe wanted to scream. They hadn’t had a chance to say anything that wasn’t professional all day; work jargon, careful interview questions, reports to Abbot and a quick call to Harvey about their vic, who wouldn’t be autopsied until the morning. There’d been no time for vampires, or rogue werewolves, or family stuff, or whatever the hell that text he’d gotten last night had been about – the one that was undoubtedly related to the marks on his face.

Mugging herass.

“What?” he asked. She’d been staring.

She swallowed her frustration with difficulty; it scraped her throat on the way down.Wanna grab an early dinner?she intended to ask.

Instead, she said, “You called your mom yet?”

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