Page 64 of Red Rooster

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Nikita got within five feet of Colette’s front steps and froze. He smelled the feral wolves, and Sasha. Which he’d expected. Trina stood at the top of the steps, though, expression one of careful control; the face of a police officer about to deliver unfortunate news.

“What?” he asked, heart hammering.

Trina took a deep breath. “Okay. I need you to promise that you’re not going to do something incredibly stupid.”

He growled, and her brows shot up.

“Nikita.”

“Tell me.” He could already predict what she’d say, though. That was the beauty of being a chronic pessimist: you were so rarely proven wrong.

She was brave enough to look him in the eyes when she said, “Sasha wandered off about an hour again, and he hasn’t come back.”

Nikita let the words hit him, took them in, interpreted them. And spun away from her, following the fading scent trail on the sidewalk. Already an hour old; where was he now? How far had he gotten? Had he found the wolves? And had they–

“Nikita,” she snapped. “This counts as something stupid!”

He ground to a halt, almost staggering. It felt like someone was sitting on his shoulders, pressing down on his lungs, constricting his breathing, driving him right down through the sidewalk. He opened and closed his hands, fists so tight his nails scored his palms. The pain was good; it grounded him.

He half-turned, speaking over his shoulder, voice jagged and full of glass. “Why did you let him leave? You were all supposed to stay here.”

“Let him? I’m not his keeper, and he sure as shit didn’t ask for permission.”

It wasn’t her fault. He took a deep breath and tried to tell himself that. “Stay here. I have to go and find him.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“No.”

“I’ll go,” Alexei said. When Nikita turned all the way around, he saw that the tsarevich had joined her on the porch. “I know you don’t care if anything happens to me.” He gave a small, rueful smile as he loped elegantly down the stairs and came to stand beside Nikita. “Two is always better than one, yes?”

Nikita sighed. “Yes. Thank you.” He glared at Trina and jabbed his finger toward the building. “Go back inside.”

“Don’t disappear,” she shot back, and, thankfully, slipped back through the door.

Nikita set off down the sidewalk, following Sasha’s scent, not caring if Alexei had any trouble keeping up.

“He seemed restless,” Alexei said, and though his voice was pleasant, comforting even, Nikita didn’t want to hear anything he had to say about Sasha. “I don’t think he likes being cooped up.”

Nikita growled at him, which startled a group of teenagers passing the other way. “Freak,” one of them accused.

“Ididn’t chase him outside,” Alexei said in his own defense, snorting. “It was your order he disobeyed.”

“I don’t give himorders. He isn’t mypet.”

“He’s your Familiar.”

“No, he…” Nikita choked on another growl and it hurt to swallow. “We are friends. Brothers.Equals.”

Alexei murmured something disagreeing to himself.

“What?”

“I hope that he’s alright, I said.”

Nikita hated him…but not in the cold, all-consuming way that he hated these feral wolves. Their scents lay like toxic waste beneath the fresh pine-and-earth scent of Sasha, unnatural and twisted.