Page 98 of Golden Eagle

21

The racket at the front door woke Nik. Someone was knocking – was pounding – with the side of a closed fist, it sounded like. A frantic rhythm.

“Guys!” A muffled shout. Lanny.

Nikita groaned and buried his face in Sasha’s hair. It was silky soft, even tangled, and smelled like both of them. “Hasn’t he ever heard of a phone?” he grumbled.

Sasha chuckled, his ribs jumping under the arm Nik had around his waist. “You complain when they call, too.” He shifted, and Nik tightened his arm with a low growl. Sasha laughed, and sat up. Nik cracked an eye and saw him beaming down at him, face still puffy and pillow-creased from sleep, his hair wild on his shoulders. Fading bite mark bruise on his throat. Stunning. “Come on, we have to go see what he wants.”

Nikita growled again.

Sasha leaned down and kissed him, then went springing out of bed like the nineteen-year-old he still looked, and shimmied into sweatpants.

Nikita rolled slowly onto his back and blinked up at the ceiling. “Let’s run away,” he suggested, only half joking. “We can go back home, to Russia.”

Sasha came to lean on the edge of the bed, his expression going momentarily serious. “Darling,” he said, and Nik shivered. “Wherever you are is home. But we have a new pack, now, and they’re very young. And sometimes stupid. We should look after them.” He softened it with a smile afterward, and Nikita was helpless but to smile back.

“You’re probably right. Damn it.”

Sasha grabbed his outstretched hand and tugged. “Get up.”

He did get up, and pulled on clothes, and answered the door himself, because some backward part of his hindbrain said that he should shield his mate from any intruder, even one who was pack. So he only opened the door halfway, and blocked the entrance with his body.

Lanny froze, fist suspended in mid-air. He reeked of panic.

“What?” Nikita asked.

Lanny’s eyes swept over him, taking in his rumpled shirt, and even more rumpled sweatpants. But they returned to his face, and all he said was, “I just got a call from the precinct. It’s Trina.”

~*~

Lanny managed to stammer out the main gist of the story as they walked. It was a cold morning, the air biting, the sky a silver-gray scented with approaching rain. Trina had been pursued by a man, chased up a fire escape, and, finally, when cornered, had shot him. Killed him.

The three of them picked up the scent of wolf a block from the crime scene. Even Lanny stopped his frantic, bouncing walk, pulling up short like he’d walked into a wall, inhaling deeply.

Sasha sneezed loudly, and shook his head, grimacing. “Ugh. It was them. Both of them.” The ferals.

Nikita met his gaze, his pulse leaping. “And she killed one of them.” No mean feat. He didn’t think Lanny would understand the magnitude of it.

“Come on,” Lanny growled impatiently, and set off again.

Sasha’s expression went worried, and they followed.

It would have been impossible to miss the alley. It was all roped off, squad cars lining the sidewalk, cops milling. As they approached, Dr. Harvey alighted from the coroner van, kit in her hand, white coat fluttering beneath a windbreaker. She noticed them, and paused.

“Lanny, you can’t–” she started.

“Where is she? Is she still here? Is she okay?”

Harvey sighed and glanced to Nikita. “Restrain him if you have to. He can’t be on the scene.”

Nik put a hand on Lanny’s shoulder, just in case. Lanny ignored it, and went right up to the fluttering yellow tape that sealed off the alley.

“Delgado!” he called. “What’s happening?”

A suit-clad detective stood from his crouch at the base of a fire escape, and ambled over, his face heavy with exhaustion. Nik could related; he thought modern detectives had even less sleep than he had as a Chekist captain.

“Webb,” Delgado said as he approached, expression grim, shaking his head. “You can’t be here.”

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