Chapter 27 #2
The potential answers to those questions made her stomach curl with embarrassment and unease. Well aware that the awkward silence from her unfinished statement was dragging on too long, Nikolett steeled herself to just ask him what happened.
The bedroom door opened.
Eric stood in the doorway, taking up most of the space. All the bedroom lights were on, so he was slightly backlit. It highlighted both his height and the breadth of his shoulders.
Gus went utterly still, but only for a moment. A second later, he was on his feet, stepping away from the seating area so there was nothing but clear floor space between them.
For a moment, they faced off, two equally matched titans.
Eric was a bit taller, blond, and pale. Gus was slightly shorter, but still well above average height, with darker coloring.
Eric had on a collared knit long-sleeve shirt that hugged his shoulders and hinted at the muscles in his chest and arms.
She knew, because she had seen and touched him, exactly how strong he was. Gus, she hadn’t really touched, but in the workout shirt every muscle was on display. Enough for her to definitively decide that they were equally matched when it came to brute strength.
Wait, did she have a type?
She hadn’t thought so, but looking at them…
Looking at them made her blood heat, even as she held her breath. The air grew thick with the odd sense that this was the calm before the storm. The moment before a battle.
Gus was to the side and slightly in front of where she sat and she could see the muscles in his back and shoulders flex and tighten.
She needed to do something, but she had no idea what that something should be.
Eric hadn’t exactly gone against the plan by revealing he was here, because there was no plan.
She’d been so sure that Gus wasn’t who he said he was that she hadn’t bothered to organize a plan with Eric around what they would do if he showed up.
She assumed that Gus would text her back to let her know if he wanted to come over for a drink.
That would in turn give her time to come up with a plan.
Since she didn’t have one, it appeared they would be using Eric’s.
Eric’s plans usually involved violence and chaos.
As Eric would say: Fuck.
The tension was now vicious. Nikolett wasn’t even taking full deep breaths as she waited for one of the titans to move, since she seemed incapable of taking the situation in hand.
Eric moved first.
Stepping forward, he held out a hand, lips curving into that disarming grin he used to put people at ease and pretend he wasn’t the violent control freak that he actually was.
“Hello. I’m Eric.”
Gus stared at Eric’s outstretched hand as the blond man closed the distance between them.
Gus slowly put his hand in Eric’s.
An odd expression flashed across Eric’s face as they shook. Were they squeezing one another’s hands? Nikolett studied the handshake, but it looked normal enough and ended a moment later.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Eric said.
There went normal, right out the window. Nikolett’s mouth dropped open. What was Eric doing?
“You’re her…” Gus turned to look at Nikolett.
She met his gaze, swallowed, then opened her mouth, but again nothing came out.
“Boyfriend,” Eric went on cheerfully, a sparkle appearing in his eyes as he studied Nikolett.
She could only assume she was making a ridiculous fish face and snapped her mouth closed, narrowing her eyes at the man she loved, but at this moment was more than ready to kill.
“We’re poly,” Eric added.
Gus’ head whipped back to Eric.
“You’re…what?”
“Polyamorous. It means—”
“I know what it means.” Gus’ voice shifted, his accent almost seeming to fade.
“Eric, what are you doing?” Nikolett demanded, desperately wishing that she and Eric spoke a language that Gus didn’t know so they could argue in front of him without him knowing what they were saying.
Maybe Danish? She wasn’t good yet, so that probably wouldn’t work.
Plus, Gus apparently spoke bits of many languages.
He clapped Gus on the shoulder. “I thought I’d introduce myself to our potential boyfriend.”
Nikolett leapt to her feet, trying and failing to find words.
Was Eric really soft-launching the idea of their trinity to their potential third right now, without any preparation?
The improv was unnecessary and insane. They had a plan for this. They’d discussed it.
First, she’d connect Gus and Arthur. Then Gus would meet with Arthur, at which time Arthur would assess whether or not Gus was capable of accepting the trinity arranged marriage.
If he was, Gus would become a member of England, and only then would she reenter his life, explain her and Eric’s complicated relationship, and then make sure that Gus would be okay being their third.
A careful, slightly complex plan that went entirely out the window the instant Eric opened his mouth.
If she was shocked, Gus was flabbergasted. He looked utterly dumbfounded.
“You…both? Boyfriend?”
“Eric,” Nikolett said through her teeth. “You can’t just—”
“Yes, I can.”
“Well maybe you shouldn’t. We had a plan.”
“This plan is faster.”
“Wait, you had a plan?” Gus said weakly. “A plan for…”
“Asking you to be in a relationship with us,” Eric went on cheerfully.
Gus fell back a half step. “I can’t have sex with you!” He half shouted the words at Eric, sounding panicked.
Eric studied him with a frown. “Because you’re homophobic, or because you’re a one on the KSOG?”
“I’m not homophobic,” he stammered out.
Nikolett finally jerked herself out of the shock and now mild-horror-induced stasis. She started toward them.
“Eric, stop. You’re—”
Gus’ arm shot out, blocking her path and keeping her from getting to Eric.
She stared down at Gus’ forearm braced across her abdomen, his hand curled back to grip her hip.
Everything about Eric changed. The disarming cheer disappeared, his expression flat and dangerously calm.
“Take your hand off her.”
Gus didn’t let go, instead stepping sideways so he was standing between her and Eric.
“You don’t want to do this,” Eric warned him.
“Don’t I?” Gus almost purred.
Nikolett pinched Gus’ side. Hard.
He grunted and let go of her hip.
Nikolett stepped around Gus, put a hand on each man’s chest, and shoved.
They didn’t move.
Ego deflating, but she didn’t give up.
“Back up,” she snapped.
Eric was the first to listen, taking half a step back while also grabbing her wrist, holding her hand in place on his chest.
Gus stepped back next. He grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together.
Oh good, now they would accidentally rip her arms off if they started fighting.
“You’re with him?” Gus said without taking his grim gaze off Eric.
Shame crept up her neck but she fought it down. “Yes. I wasn’t when we met. I mean, he and I are complicated.” Damn it, there was that word. “We are on again, off again.”
Gus finally looked down at her, and there was hurt, real hurt, in his gaze.
“I would have told you,” she said fiercely. “When we met, and even the other night, I didn’t think I was looking for someone to add to my relationship with him, because I thought he and I were done.”
Gus looked like he didn’t believe her and she knew why.
“We just reconnected,” she said. “After you and I had dinner.”
Gus’ expression shifted to wary.
“There are things about us,” Nikolett said slowly, “that make it hard for us to be together. I didn’t think we could.”
“But I went to therapy,” Eric added.
Gus didn’t look away from Nikolett, but he blinked in surprise. Nikolett tugged on Eric’s hold, intending to slap her hand over his mouth to shut him up. The tugging did nothing, so she gave up.
“Shut up, Eric,” she muttered in Danish.
“If he can’t stand the idea of a trinity, better to know now,” Eric responded in the same language. Nikolett wasn’t entirely confident in her mental translation but she got the gist.
“You want to be with both of us?” Gus asked slowly.
“I want…” Since there was no un-ringing this bell, Nikolett went for it. “I want us all to be together, in a relationship.”
Gus looked from her to Eric and back. He looked almost lost. She wanted to hug him and apologize for the way they’d overwhelmed him.
“You two want to be in a thruple. With me.”
“We use the term trinity,” Eric said slowly, the “we” in his sentence the Masters’ Admiralty, though Gus didn’t know that. Not yet.
“I…I have things I have to…” Gus shook his head, still looking shocked and lost. “I should tell you—”
Both doors burst open at once.
The sound of it was shocking as the connecting door to the other suite and the door into the hotel hallway cracked back against the walls.
Nikolett jumped in shock at the sound, then nearly fell as she was pulled in two directions. Both Eric and Gus were yanking her toward them.
She made a small sound of pain, and Eric released her with a worried look.
That allowed Gus to spin her into his arms as the room flooded with masked, armed men.
Her brain had clicked into crisis mode and calmly catalogued what she was seeing.
Nearly twenty people had spilled into the room. The front line were riot troops, their identities completely obscured by helmets with visors. Half had large shields; the other half had rifles tucked against their shoulders.
Behind the riot troops were…her people. This wasn’t an attack. At least not on her.
A cold, slimy dread slid through Nikolett.
Iacob and Zoran were among the second layer of people, wearing casual clothes but armed, expressions hard. Now that she was looking for it, she was able to pick out Maxim among the riot troops based on the distinctive way he cocked his head.
She identified the other non-riot gear people as French knights and security officers. Raphael was toward the back, speaking quietly into the microphone on his headset. She didn’t see Grigoris.
They’d burst in as a coordinated surprise attack, and everyone was looking at, aiming at, her.
Except it wasn’t her, and she knew it. Had known who they were here for the moment the doors burst open, before she was even certain it was allies, not enemies flooding into the room.
Gus’ arm tightened around her waist as he pulled her back flush against his front.
They weren’t aiming at her. They were aiming at Gus.
Nikolett cupped her right fist with her left hand, then slammed her right elbow back into his stomach.
Gus grunted, hold loosening, but before she could get away, he brought his left hand in toward himself in a sharp jerking motion, slamming the side of his fist into her midsection, simultaneously forcing her back against him and knocking the breath out of her.
Nikolett bent forward, gasping as her diaphragm spasmed from the force of the blow.
Her gaze sought, and found, Eric. Regina and Keanu were trying to hold him, but Eric shrugged them both off. Yet he didn’t rush her and Gus. His gaze was locked on something in Gus’ right hand.
Eric’s hard stare was enough warning that she wasn’t surprised when Gus forced her upright, then nudged her chin up with the flat of a knife.
He pressed the cold, sharp edge against her throat.
Everyone tensed. It was the last thing she saw before he forced her chin even higher and she was looking at the ceiling.
Gus bent his head, lips brushing her hair, her ear.
Eric’s snarl of rage made her heart lurch, and she realized she could just barely see him in her peripheral vision. Eric didn’t move, gaze still fastened to the knife, which was now running up and down her throat.
“I’m sorry, Nikolett,” Gus murmured, all traces of Scottish accent gone. Instead, his English was colored by a lovely Spanish accent.
The fact that she’d been right was cold comfort.
“Why?” she asked so low only he could hear.
She needed to know why he hated her enough to torture and torment her for months.
The information could not remain private, she knew that.
Nikolett only hoped to get an answer either before she died, or in time to process the answer on her own before it became the topic of meetings and post-action briefings.
He whispered something in what she thought was Catalan rather than Spanish, but his words were cut off by the sound of glass shattering behind them, then a pop.
That answered her unspoken question of where Grigoris was.
A second later, Gus went limp behind her, his knife dragging against her throat as he fell.