37
A PACK OF TWO
Nikita’s last concrete memory of the night before was of dropping down into their piece-of-shit corduroy chair out in the living room and lighting a cigarette. The TV had been on, one of those awful reality shows Sasha loved because they “showed him how to be an American,” the scent of cheap, greasy food wafting up from the brown paper bags Sasha thumped down on the coffee table. Nikita remembered being hungry, a little, but not wanting to eat. And then he remembered…
Ekaterina.
He stared up at the blades of the slow-turning ceiling fan and let the ache wash through him. He’d gotten only one distinct look at her, in the white-washed void between their minds, one quick glimpse of her startled face. She looked so much like his Katya – her great-grandmother. He didn’t think of her often, and when he did, it brought with it a physical pain, the grief – all his pent-up grief – flowering red and deadly behind his breastbone.
He rubbed at his chest with the heel of his hand and found it bare. He craned his neck and a quick look revealed that Sasha had put him to bed, taken off his shirt, and jeans and socks, left him in his underwear, covers pulled up over his waist, a fresh pack of smokes, a lighter, and a glass of water waiting for him on the nightstand.
God, he’d had her inside his mind. Had shown her things, all the bloody, horrible things that happened in ’42. Her family history, he guessed, and maybe she had a right to it, but he felt like the sort of shithead who told ghost stories to children before bed.
He had no idea what time it was, but early light came in through the windows, lazy stripes of it through the blinds and across the bed. Nikita hitched himself up higher against the pillows with a groan – he was weak, shaking, dizzy – and reached for the cigarettes, noting as he did so that he could smell some sort of meat sizzling on the stove, and hear singing – that bad falsetto Sasha used on all the club songs he loved.
The singing – and Nikita was embarrassed he recognized a Rihanna tune – cut off the moment he had his cigarette lit, and a few seconds later Sasha pushed through the half-open door, smiling and eager like a puppy.
“You’re awake. Good!” He flopped down on the end of the bed and grabbed hold of Nikita’s foot, cradling it in his palm the way he would hold someone’s hand. He’d been worried, then, always most tactile when Nikita spooked him. “I’m making breakfast.”
Nikita grunted and exhaled smoke. “Not hungry.”
Sasha gave him The Look.
“What? I’m not.”
Sasha snorted, unimpressed. He reached with his free hand to push his hair back off his face, so The Look would have maximum impact. “You’ve been sleeping for almost twelve hours. You had no dinner, and your brain got hijacked.” He tapped his own temple for emphasis. “You’re hungry. For food, and you need to feed.”
Nikita rolled his eyes.
“You feel like shit, I can tell. I can always tell.”
Obnoxious little shit.
“It took a lot out of you, showing her.”
Nikita choked on his next inhale, coughing smoke. Sasha patted his foot until he’d got his breath back. “That…it really happened, didn’t it? She was here.”
Sasha crawled up the bed so he could sit beside him, leaning back against the headboard. He was still smiling, eyes touched with sympathetic sadness. “Yes, she was really here.” He reached over and touched Nikita’s temple. “In there.” He perked up, grin widening. “I sent her a text message.”
“Ah, Sasha…” Nikita groaned and took another drag.
“She’s family!” Sasha insisted. “You have to. She has all these questions now. And besides, she gave me her phone number – or, well, technically you did, or she did through you, I don’t know – but that means she wants to meet us.” He grinned his toothiest, most manipulative grin, eyebrows waggling.
Nikita sighed. “When?”
“Oh, yay! Hold on, let me get your breakfast.” He bounded up off the bed and out the door.
“Still not hungry,” Nikita called after him.
“I don’t care, you’re eating!”
His stomach growled a feeble protest, but his hand shook badly when he brought the cigarette to his lips. Yeah, it was time to eat. And feed.
Sasha returned bearing a plate heaped with bacon, scrambled eggs, and heavily-buttered English muffins. Though the sight and smell left him faintly nauseas – low blood sugar, someone had suggested to him once, and it made sense – he had to admit that the food, plentiful and tasty, was one of the best things about this new century.
Sasha climbed back onto the bed and put the plate in his sheet-covered lap. “Here.” All proud, like someone’s mother.
He was pretty good at being Nikita’s mother, when he needed to be.
“I won’t eat all of this.”
“Try,” Sasha urged, and then stole a piece of bacon.
Nikita hated the sound of his own chewing, and Sasha knew that, so he launched into an entertaining story about this morning’s trip to the bodega while Nikita ate. The man behind the counter knew their names now – potentially dangerous – not because Nikita had ever bothered to introduce himself, but because Sasha was the sort of person who could make friends everywhere. Nikita teased him that he was more dog than wolf, but it was true. At least as far as friendliness went. The people he smiled to in shops and on the street had never been on the receiving end of one of his angry snarls.
By the time Sasha had talked him through his new favorite drink at Starbucks, and the new couple that had moved in on the first floor, Nikita had managed to work his way through both halves of the English muffin, most of the bacon, and some of the eggs. The food filled the middle of his stomach, but the edges remained sharp and bright, a hunger that buzzed restlessly under his skin, made his teeth rattle in his head. Blood hunger. The fierce kind that, if left unchecked, could lead to disastrous happenings out in public.
He tried, as a rule, not to think about the slip-ups he’d had in the past. He hadn’t had one in a very long time.
Something in his face showed it, because Sasha stopped talking and eased the plate away from him, braced a hand on the mattress and leaned across him to set it on the nightstand. Almost in his lap. Close enough for Nikita to hear the steady thumping of his heart; close enough for the scents of wolf, and shampoo, and dryer sheets, and soft human skin to bloom inside Nikita’s sinuses, saliva filling his mouth in response.
Blood.
Yes, blood.
He hated this; hated every part of it. Hated what he’d become.
He took a shaky, shallow breath, and then another, hands clenching tight on the sheet.
“Shh, I know, I know,” Sasha murmured as he sat back on his heels. “It’s alright. It’s only natural.”
Nikita closed his eyes and fought it a moment, like always, the awful craving. Then swallowed again, and again, panting. This must be what junkies felt like, he thought. Or maybe it was worse; this was stealing.
Sasha stroked his hair, rubbed the back of his neck. “Come on,” he said, sweetly. “You’ll be better after. You have to. It’s alright. I’ve got you.”
The pressure inside him was a vacuum, pulling hard, hard at his insides, an emptiness that no food or drink could ever fill. He’d tried before, eaten until he was sick, but it didn’t matter. The ungodly strong cells of his body wanted blood, too, needed it. Demanded it of him until he was no longer a man at all, but a monster.
With a hand resting on the back of his neck, Sasha leaned in close, the smell of him perfect, sweet. “It’s alright, Nik,” he whispered in Russian. “There’s no one here but us animals.”
The pressure snapped, like it always did.
And though he always wanted to be gentle, he wasn’t.
He lunged, grabbed Sasha roughly by the shoulders, and pressed him flat to the bed. He went willingly, turning his head to the side, baring his throat. He’d worn an old, stretched-out shirt just for this purpose, one that exposed him from jaw to clavicle. He held Nikita’s arms and urged him down with quiet, soothing words.
Nikita saw and understood all of this, on some plane of his mind capable of thought. But it was instinct that brought the growl up out of his throat, low and deep like a panther’s; that bent his head, and bared his fangs. Sasha neck was very pale, and very vulnerable, the shapes of tendons and blue tracks of veins visible just beneath the skin.
Nikita breathed in – blood, blood, blood – and then sank his fangs deep. The skin gave, and then the blood was in his mouth, hot, salty, thick. Wolf blood wasn’t quite like human blood – it was better, rich and strong, metal and chocolate, wine and opium.
Cars slipped past on the street below, muted honks and engine sounds through the window. A vendor across the street hawked bagels and coffee. A tumble of children’s voices, squeal of industrial brakes: a school bus loading. Someone in the unit down the hall slammed a door, and a baby started crying. The world was waking up.
And in the fat bars of sunlight that striped his bed, Nikita drank.
The worst part was that though he hated it, he loved it, too. When the first swallow went down his throat, a violent chemical reaction kicked off inside his too-strong, immortal body. All the hollow, dark corners of his insides lit up like Christmas day. Every sense sharpened. Strength surged in tides through his veins. When he drank, he felt ten-feet-tall and unstoppable. And he got hard. It was the best he’d ever felt in his life – and that was what always told him that it was wrong. Nothing that perfect could really exist.
He took seven deep gulps, and then pulled back, his lips and the inside of his mouth slick and warm with blood, bright pearls of it sliding down Sasha’s throat and landing on the pillow. He stared at the wound – already closing – and hovered a long moment, braced on his hands, dizzy, his whole body throbbing. It took every ounce of self-control not to move his hips, not to grind his cock into Sasha’s hip. No doubt Sasha felt it, but he never said anything, never moved away, either. There had been once, early on, in Siberia…and Nikita said no…and that had been that. He couldn’t control his own body, and they didn’t talk about it.
“It’s alright,” Sasha said, voice strong and soft at once. He wasn’t hurt, his eyes still bright and full of warmth. He was strong, could stand to lose a little blood. “Come here, brother.”
He cupped the back of Nikita’s head and pulled him down so they lay overlapping. “It’ll be alright in a minute,” he soothed, fingers sifting through Nikita’s hair. “It’ll pass.”
Nikita closed his eyes and pressed his face into the worn cotton of Sasha’s shirt, smearing blood all over it.
The clock out in the living room ticked, and his heart eventually slowed to match it. The morning continued to unfold around them, and it did indeed pass. For a little while, a few days at least, he could fight the craving, until he was weak and shaking, and it started all over again, and Sasha offered his clean, white throat, a sacrifice he didn’t deserve…but could never refuse.