Page 33 of The Gods of Chaos and Chance

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Chapter Seventeen

On the way home, Radulf on the passenger seat alongside him, PB allowed to sit on the backseat for once, Ben felt again that bird-like flutter of his thoughts.

They felt ready to soar.

His friends saw it too: Nikolas was healing.

Mind, heart, soul, and body were beginning to reform.

The shattered fractals of the man.

But when Ben thought back to his epiphany in the mineshaft, one hundred and sixty-two days before, he realised that fractals and shattering were all things of bones, sharp shards and projectiles that could kill you.

That wasn’t how it was now. There seemed nothing edged or cutting in Nikolas,Aleksey, now at all. It was more like…rebirth. The jagged armour he had formed around himself, his carapace, was gone. Ben felt it in every physical touch and sensed it in every interaction with this new man. ThisAleksey.

Aleksey was not at all like Ben had always feared he would be.

For of course, he wasn’t Aleksey Primakov, but AlekseyMikkelsen, and that, Ben truly understood for the first time, was a very different man indeed. Living with Nikolas had been exhausting most of the time, good fatigue, but still a life that needed Ben to be on the alert, cautious what he said or did.

Now he appeared to be living with the man he would have created for himself had he been given some clay and Godlike powers to bring that creature to life.

He chuckled and ruffled Radulf’s topknot. Perhaps this is exactly what he’d done. Because it wasn’t Aleksey Mikkelsen either, when he thought about it. It was AlekseyRider-Mikkelsen. So Alekseywashis creation. He’dbirthedhim.

Which was why he wasn’t sharp and cutting, why they fit together so well, why he seemed so newly amenable. ‘Squidgy.’

Radulf thumped his tail in agreement.

Ben mulled over Squeezy’s final offering to the Op briefing. Occasionally, Ben thought Nikolas’s nickname for their friend was entirely justified.

As if that was what Nikolas was plotting.

Ben frowned and glanced at Radulf. ‘You probably know already, don’t you?’

Radulf replied with a wheezy chuckle which slightly alarmed Ben until he realised that PB was nipping at the thumping tail through the gap in seats, and Radulf was only commenting on his entirely unsuccessful attempts to catch it in his snapping jaws.

Ben began to sing along to the radio once more.

Living with Nikolas Mikkelsen had always been a roller coaster ride.

Now it more resembled flight: less churn and more soaring.

That thought made him grin widely and he bellowed his tuneless rendition of the chorus.

Flight. And he would be the pilot.

He returned his hand to the passing wind and practised his aileron motions again.

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Chapter Eighteen

As far as Aleksey could see, his life circled around like a little car on Molly’s racetrack toy. A Formula One vehicle, obviously, but doing endless identical loops nevertheless. Here he was in the hot tub—again. Ben on him in more ways than straddling his lapagain, and things were very pleasant indeed. Some laps were clearly victory ones. No crashing or burning so far.

He’d even been allowed to bring a bottle of wine in with them, and they were sharing it between them.

Wine kissed between mouths was a messy business.

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