She stiffened a little, the smile sliding away. “Shit. You’re serious.”
He raised his brows. “How could I be? I have no hope of escape.” He tugged at his chains with one arm, the links clanking together.
“Val.” She stuck her legs out straight, and then folded them up, leaning forward to brace her forearms on her thighs. Her eyes flashed, just a second, the sheen of an animal caught in a lantern at night. “What are you scheming?”
“I hate that word,” he spat. “Like I’m some sort of villain.”
She lifted her brows.
“I’m not the slaughterer of thousands. That title goes to the prince you allow to walk free.”
She snorted. “He’s not chained up, but trust me, your brother’s not even a little bit free. Now. Stop avoiding the question. What’s going on?”
He stared at her – glared, really – for a long moment. She didn’t flinch.
Oh, what choice did he have? It was either ask her help, or be unable to assist the New Yorkers in their quest to come retrieve Sasha. If he was even here.
“There’s a new wolf here,” he said, and it wasn’t a question, because he had been able to smell a third wolf presence. Faint, but unfamiliar. He hadn’t known it was Sasha Kashnikov, though. He thought of a little tow-headed boy in the snow, fur hat tied beneath his chin, looking up at Val with awe and asking if he was a prince.
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I haven’t seen him. They’ve got him under lock and key–”
“Aleksander Kashnikov,” Val said, weary suddenly. And strangely, thrillingly electrified at the same time. All this time he’d been kept locked up, but now…things werehappening.
“You know him?”
“I know he’s been abducted. It only seems likely that he’s here, now. Little Sasha,” he said, sighing. “A secret Soviet weapon on the Eastern Front. He woke Rasputin, and then killed him. Used his blood to turn his companion.”
“Rasputin,” she said, and then her eyes flew wide. “That’s what that French bastard wanted with the book! Damn it.” She clapped her fist into the opposite palm. “ItoldFulk not to sell the thing.”
“He takes orders well, obviously.”
“Shut up,” she said, without malice, leaning even farther forward. “Okay, so, this wolf. He’s someone’s Familiar?”
“Unofficially.” He shrugged. “I don’t think Captain Baskin likes the term very much, but more or less, they are bonded. It’s a miracle they aren’t fucking, actually,” he added, under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ve spoken to them – his people. They want to stage a rescue, as unlikely as that is.”
Her eyes widened. “Jeez.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you asked about directions. You…” She smiled, bright and guileless as a child. “You’re trying to help them.”
“Hush. You’ll ruin my bad reputation saying things like that.”
She chuckled. “What do you need from me?”
He gave her a doubtful look.
She rolled her eyes. “Do you honest to God think I want to help these Institute assholes? Come on, Val, you’ve gotta trustsomeone.”
“Well,” he said, “you do have a point.”
~*~
Intellectually, Annabel understood why Fulk would always hate this house. The duke lingered in every ornate bit of woodwork, the intricate metal workings of sconces that once held candles, and now held electric bulbs. Before Fulk had claimed it as his own, put his own name in iron above the gates, it had been his prison, and he wasn’t the sort of man who let things go.
