Raw and unedited, as usual!
Golden Eagle, Sons of Rome Book Four
Copyright © 2019 by Lauren Gilley
A stakeout:
Sasha had been turned at nineteen, and he still
looked it. A man, yes, though slender and lanky and very boyish. But still a
man grown. He probably got carded at every bar, but he could have walked into a
nightclub no problem, and doubtless passersby would assume he was a college
student, or the front man of a struggling rock band. Looking nineteen forever
wasn’t exactly a curse.
Much, though…
Will had said he was turned at fifteen, but it
was a young-looking fifteen. He would never have made a strapping adult, but as
a teenager, he’d been nearly ephemeral. How must it feel to look like a child
forever? To have people notice your slender wrists, and narrow shoulders, and
the smoothness of your cheek? To know you would never catch up to your
packmates? To be centuries old, with all the wisdom and experience they’d
granted you, and yet have people want to ruffle your hair and call you “kid?”
No wonder he was prickly as a rosebush. Sullen
and standoffish. She would have been, too.
“What’s happening?” she asked him.
A beat passed before he answered, the line of his
back tense, even through his jacket. “Downloading all the security footage
available on the main cameras. And trying to get into the encrypted files.”
“How quickly will you know if there’s anything
useful?”
He tsked. “Hours. Maybe days. Not
tonight.”
Fair enough. She turned back to Sasha. She
intended to offer some banal scrap of reassurance, but elected not to. There
was nothing she could say to make him feel better. She couldn’t promise to talk
Nikita into binding him. Couldn’t assure him it would happen eventually.
Couldn’t even begin to understand what something as strange as being bound
to a vampire might even feel like.
That sparked an idea.
“Hey, Much?”
“Ugh, what?”
“What’s it feel like being bound? Will said you
and your pack are all Familiars of the same vampire.”
He didn’t respond at first. But she could see the
little download window on his screen, and knew he could spare them a moment.
And, surprisingly, he finally did, twisting around so he faced them, sitting
cross-legged on the floor of the van with his hair falling over one eye. The
other eye sent a glare first at her, then at Sasha, measuring them.
His gaze lingered on Sasha, and though his mouth
was set in an unhappy line, he said, “Rich, yeah. We’re all bound to him.”
“What’s that like?” Trina pressed.
He shrugged, but his tone was sincere. “It’s not
bad. You don’t hear voices are anything. But he’s there.” He tapped his
knuckles against the side of his head.
“You can feel him in your mind?” Sasha asked.
“Yes. Sort of. Yes.” Much made a face,
clearly frustrated with his own inability to explain. “It’s like…” He shook the
hair off his face, and his expression grew thoughtful, pale brows drawing
together. Then epiphany struck, brows going up, line of tension smoothing from
between them. “It’s like you walk into a house, and you know it’s occupied.”
Sasha’s eyes widened.
“When you walk in, and you can’t see anyone, but
you can feel that someone’s there. Someone who’s your family.” Much’s voice
warmed and animated as he spoke, the barest hint of a smile teasing at his
mouth. It lent him a cherubic aura. “You can smell that they’ve passed through
the room, and you can sense their heartbeat on a different floor, and you can
feel that you aren’t alone. Rob calls it ‘the hand on the nape of your neck.’
It’s nice.”
“It sounds nice,” Sasha breathed, his lips
parted, his body very still. “Does he ever command you?”
“No. Not like that. I mean, he directs us,
because he’s our king, and our leader, but he doesn’t force us to do
things.”
“Has he ever been…tempted to.”
“Pffft. No.” Much shifted, and tucked his hair
behind both ears. He’d relaxed; was speaking person-to-person, rather than
quipping. “He’s not one of those vampires. You’re either the kind of
asshole who likes to force people to do things, or you’re not. That’s not even
about vampire: that’s just about being a fucking dickhead. Rich isn’t that way,
and neither is yours, even if he is a miserable prick.”
“Hey,” Sasha protested.
Much rolled his eyes. “He’s a miserable prick for
telling you ‘no.’ Or else just stupid.”
Sasha bared his teeth in a fast snarl. “Stubborn
and honorable,” he corrected.
Much stared at him, unruffled, and finally
snorted a laugh that had Sasha relaxing. “Sure, sure. Whatever. My point is:
being bound is good. And it’s a lot better than being fair game for one of the
vampires that would actually order you around. If Nikita can’t see that, then
he really is stupid.”
Can’t wait!
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