Chapter 37 – NIKOLAI
NIKOLAI
The second the door closes behind Cosima, the temperature in the room drops to the point it almost feels like fucking winter in here.
Azarel stands there in his plain black guard clothes, trying to look all regal and shit like he didn't just get his ass handed to him by Knight in the garden. The bruise on his jaw is already turning purple.
Good. Hope it fucking hurts.
"Well," Raven says, pulling out that knife he somehow smuggled past all the guards, twirling it between his fingers.
"Now that the goddess is gone, let's discuss what happens to princes who try to kidnap our omega.
Which has only happened twice, but if you think about it, that's still quite a high rate. "
He's smiling, but it's all teeth and no warmth. The kind of smile that usually precedes someone getting their intestines used as party streamers.
"I'm thinking we start with the fingers," Raven continues conversationally. "Work our way up to the more important bits. I mean, he won't need his cock if Cosima's done with him, right?" He glances at Knight. "I'm sure our giant feral friend here is hungry. He eats people."
Knight's head swivels sharply toward Raven and he lets out a snarl that lifts at the end in an obvious horrified question. I'm so unused to him even being aware of what's going on around him that the sound makes me jolt. So it isn't just my imagination he's seemed more sapient lately.
"I didn't mean I'd feed you his cock," Raven says to Knight, gesturing at Azarel with his knife. "We'd give that part to Geo for his museum. It'd look nice in the glass display case next to all the other trophies."
Yeah. Like my fucking glasses I finally have back.
Azarel's eyes narrow, but the bastard doesn't even flinch. Just stands there like we're not all contemplating the various ways we could dismember him and scatter the pieces across Surhiira.
"You're welcome to try," he says, voice flat. "But I think you haven't for the same reason I haven't tried to kill any of you."
Knight turns back to Azarel with a low growl, this one low and menacing. He rolls his shoulders and pops his spine, straightening to his full impossible height, his damaged metal arm sparking and claws twitching like they're eager to tear something apart.
Preferably Azarel's smug fucking face.
"She'd get over it," Geo says, knowing Cosima is the reason Azarel is referring to, although even he doesn't sound convinced. "Eventually."
"Would she?" Azarel challenges, and there's something in his eyes now. Something that makes me want to put my fist through his teeth. "You've known her for what, a few weeks? I've known her for years. She doesn't forgive. She doesn't forget. And she sure as fuck doesn't 'get over' anything."
"Yeah? And how's that working out for you?" I snap, unable to keep the venom out of my voice. "Considering she looked at you like something she scraped off her shoe."
I wish that were the only way she looked at him, but one glance and it was clear that as furious as she is, there's still a part of her that cares about this smug son of a bitch.
Maybe even loves him.
The comment lands, though. I see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way his fist clenches around those bandages and a drop of flesh blood beads down the side of his thumb. Good. Let him fucking hurt. A fraction of what he did to her.
I can manage the rest.
"You abandoned her," Raven says through his teeth. "Which puts you in the fascinating position of being the stupidest man in the world. So why don't you entertain us all with whatever excuse you've been concocting? And we know damn well you've had the time."
I snort. "Good point."
"I didn't abandon her," Azarel snarls, and finally, finally some emotion breaks through that cold mask. "I've been trying to get to her since—"
"Since when?" I cut him off, stalking closer. "Since you found out the Ghosts had her? Since she was passed off to me like a fucking package? Or maybe since she was wandering the wasteland with Knight, traumatized and exhausted?"
Each word seems to unsettle him more.
"You don't understand," he says through gritted teeth. "Maybrecht had me—"
I'm moving before I realize it, slamming him against the wall hard enough to rattle those expensive fucking paintings. My forearm presses against his throat, not quite cutting off his air but making it clear I could.
"You're pathetic," I snarl in his face. "What kind of alpha lets anything keep him from his omega? What kind of man?"
He doesn't fight back. Doesn't even try to break free. Just stares at me with those cold blue eyes that are so much like his brother's.
I see why Cosima poisoned Plague's drink.
"The kind who doesn't have a choice," he says quietly.
"Bullshit." I press harder, feeling his pulse jump under my arm. "There's always a choice. You just made the wrong fucking one."
"Did I?" His voice is strained but steady. "Tell me, Vlakov, what would you know of Cosima's past? Of the man who controls everything, including her future?"
That makes me pause. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"It means," he says slowly, like he's explaining something to a child, "that sometimes the best way to protect someone is to stay away from them."
"That's the most pathetic excuse I've ever heard." But I ease up slightly. I want to hear what the son of a bitch has to say, even if it's only to satisfy my own curiosity.
"Sounds like the bullshit excuse of a man saving his own ass to me," Geo says, moving closer.
He cracks his knuckles experimentally, shifting off his fucked-up knee like he's gearing up for another round.
"But let's hear him out. Should be entertaining.
What does Maybrecht have on you that's so damning it's worth abandoning your own omega? "
Even Knight leans in, those burning blue eyes fixed on Azarel from behind his impassive silver mask like he's trying to see into his soul. Or maybe just figuring out the best way to rip it out.
Azarel's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is so low I almost miss it.
"Her."
Geo blinks. "Come again?"
"Her," he repeats, louder this time. "The thing Maybrecht was threatening me with. The reason I couldn't get to her sooner. It was her."
The words hang in the air like a fucking grenade with the pin pulled.
"That doesn't make any fucking sense," Raven says, but his knife has stopped twirling. "She wasn't even in his custody."
Azarel's eyes bore into mine, and for the first time since he walked in, I see what might be genuine emotion.
Pain.
"Arthur Maybrecht does not make idle threats," he says deliberately, his voice gravel. "And as long as he is alive, he holds the strings to Cosima's fate."
Before I can respond, Geo throws an uppercut into Azarel's solar plexus that sends the other massive alpha flying across the wall.
Azarel's back on his feet, meeting the violence in kind when Geo lunges for him again.
They crash together like a couple of rabid dogs, and I have to admit, watching Geo finally get to take a swing at this pompous prick is almost as satisfying as doing it myself would be.
Almost.
Is this pack bonding? Always figured it was warm and fuzzy bullshit like fishing trips and golfing, but I could get my head around this. Watching each other beat the shit out of the asshole who hurt our omega.
Geo's fist connects with Azarel's ribs with a meaty thunk. The prince doubles over, but he's not some pampered royal who's never been in a real fight. He comes up swinging, catching Geo across the jaw with enough force to snap his head sideways.
"Fuck," I mutter, settling back against the wall to enjoy the show. "This is better than the fights they used to stage in the wasteland pits."
Raven's practically buzzing with excitement beside me, that knife of his still twirling between his fingers like he's itching to jump in. "Twenty gold coins says Geo drops him in under two minutes."
"You're on," I scoff.
Either way's a win for me.
They're grappling now, crashing into expensive furniture that splinters into scraps of wood.
A vase shatters against the wall, raining ceramic shards across the marble floor.
Geo gets his massive hands around Azarel's throat, slamming him back against an ornate tapestry that depicts some ancient Surhiiran victory.
"You think you can just waltz back in here," Geo snarls, his scarred face twisted with rage, "spouting your poetic bullshit about some noble sacrifice you made like we're supposed to buy it?"
Azarel drives his knee up into Geo's padded gut, breaking the chokehold. "I don't expect you to understand," he chokes as Geo winds up for another punch, wiping blood from his split lip. "The lot of you are nothing more than—"
Geo's fist cuts him off mid-sentence, and I can't help the bark of laughter that escapes me. I've been on the receiving end of that fist enough to know how much of a bitch it really is.
Knight starts forward, those burning blue eyes locked on the fight with predatory interest. I hold out a hand, stopping him at risk of getting my arm cleaved off by those giant claws.
"Two on one isn't sportsmanlike," I say dryly.
"At least not in a fight," Raven quips, and the innuendo in his voice is thick enough to spread on toast.
"Not the mental image I want," I grit out.
Geo's got the upper hand now, landing punch after punch while Azarel tries to block. "Enough of your bullshit," Geo snarls between hits, his bulk pinning Azarel to the wall. "Do you have any fucking idea what you put her through? How often she whispers your fucking name in her sleep?"
"You know nothing," Azarel counters, wrapping a hand around Geo's throat in an attempt to push him off, but as huge as Azarel is, Geo's bigger. Might as well try to shove a brick wall. "Everything I've done, I've done for Cosima."
"Motherfucker, do you say anything that doesn't sound like it came out of a fucking fortune cookie?" Geo snarls, his voice raspy from Azarel's vice grip as he keeps slamming his fists into Azarel's organs.
Blood streams from Azarel's nose, but the fucker's actually smiling.
He catches Geo's next punch, twisting his wrist at an angle that makes Geo snarl in pain.
"My apologies," Azarel says, his voice dripping with aristocratic condescension.
"Would you like me to dumb it down for your gutter rat level of comprehension? Perhaps with pictures?"
Oh yeah. This is definitely Plague's brother.
Geo roars with rage, but Azarel's already moving, using Geo's momentum against him. They spin, and suddenly it's Geo whose back hits the wall, Azarel's forearm pressed hard against his throat.
"Hey!" I bellow, pushing off from my spot against the wall. "Tag me in, old man. I'm tired of watching you beat the shit out of him."
"Fuck off!" Geo snarls. "This is my fight! And I'm not old, you fucking dumbass whelp—"
"Get him, Daddy!" Raven cheers from his perch on the arm of a couch, bouncing slightly with excitement as he fists the air. "Go for the balls!"
Azarel's grip loosens slightly as he looks between Raven and Geo, confusion clear on his bloodied face. "Daddy?"
"Shut up, kid!" Geo snarls, using the distraction to break free and land an elbow to Azarel's solar plexus. Azarel staggers back, winded.
They're both breathing hard now, circling each other like wounded predators.
A grizzly bear and a wolf. Blood drips from various cuts and bruises, staining the pristine marble floor.
Part of me wants to let them keep going until one of them drops, but the rational part—the part that knows Cosima will be pissed if we let them kill each other, or worse, upset—is starting to win out.
The last thing I need is to have to compete with the idealized tragic poet version of Azarel that'll be spun if Geo kills him.
Before I can decide whether to intervene, Knight does something that shocks the shit out of all of us.
He steps forward and slams his metal arm down between them.
The clang of metal on crunching marble echoes through the room like a gunshot. Both Geo and Azarel freeze, and even I take an involuntary step back. We all know what Knight's capable of. We've seen him tear through train cars like tissue paper, rip apart raiders with his bare hands.
If he's decided the fight's over, it's fucking over.
"What the fuck?" I mutter, staring at the massive alpha in disbelief.
Raven tilts his head, studying Knight with that calculating look he gets when he's working something out.
"I think..." He pauses, tapping his finger against his lips.
"I think he's saying he wants them to stop fighting because he wants to know what Azarel meant.
About Arthur Maybrecht controlling Cosima. "
Knight's head whips around so fast I'm surprised he doesn't give himself whiplash. He stares at Raven like we're all staring at Knight.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he nods.
Holy shit. He really is waking up.
"Yes!" Raven pumps his fist in triumph. "Knew it. I'm getting so good at this."
"Since when are you the fucking monster whisperer?" I snap, irritated that Raven of all people seems to have developed some kind of kinship with our eight-foot-plus murder machine.
Raven examines his nails with affected casualness, though I don't miss the smug satisfaction glinting in his eyes. "You're just jealous of my superior emotional intelligence."
I roll my eyes so hard I'm surprised they don't fall out of my skull. "Your emotional intelligence couldn't fill a shot glass."
"At least I have some," he shoots back. "Unlike certain white-haired brutes who think grunting and pissing counts as communication."
"Pissing?" I echo incredulously.
"Children," Geo growls, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "Can we focus on the fucking issue at hand?"
He's right, as much as it pains me to admit it. We're all dancing around the real question here. The one Knight apparently wants answered as much as the rest of us.
"Fine," I say, turning my attention back to Azarel. He's leaning against the wall, one hand pressed to his ribs where Geo clearly did some damage. Good. "While we're on the subject, let's hear it. What the fuck did you mean about Maybrecht controlling Cosima?"
Azarel's whole demeanor shifts. The arrogant prince facade cracks, and something darker bleeds through. He looks older suddenly, worn down by whatever weight he's been carrying.
"I meant what I said," he mutters, not meeting any of our eyes. "If I don't do what he says, and follow his orders… he will kill her."