Chapter 49 – NIKOLAI
Chapter
Forty-Nine
NIKOLAI
I fade in and out, caught between burning heat and bone-deep chills. My back feels like someone's still digging around inside it with a rusty spoon.
Fuck, I hate infections. Give me a clean shot through the shoulder over this shit any day.
Voices drift around me, sometimes clear as a bell, sometimes warped and distant like I'm underwater. Raven's voice is the most constant. Always there, always talking. To Geo, to Cosima, to people on the radio whose voices I can't fully make out.
"...need you to check every outpost between here and the Surhiiran border..."
His voice is sharp. Commanding. Not the flirtatious purr he uses to get his way, but the voice I taught him. The one that makes people listen.
"I don't give a fuck if he hasn't been seen in three months. Find him. The name's Azarel..."
Always fucking Azarel.
The name sends a spike of something ugly through me, even in my half-conscious state. My mate is looking for another alpha. An alpha who's useless enough he let her slip through his fingers. And I'm lying here, nearly as useless, while Raven helps her.
Because apparently, alphas aren't the only ones whose whims he's powerless against.
Cool fingers brush against my forehead. Too delicate to be Raven's. Cosima.
"His fever's getting worse," she says.
"I know. The doctor said to give the antibiotics time to work."
"What if they don't?"
I hear the concern in her voice and want to laugh. Since when does the ice princess give a shit if I live or die? But her fingers linger on my brow, gentle as a whisper, before they're gone.
Darkness pulls me under again. I'm sinking, drowning in heat and memory.
Then I'm back at the compound. Back in a time where my world still made sense and I was in absolute control of it.
All but one thing.
" RAVEN !"
My voice echoes off the metal walls of the hangar as I slam through the door, irritation prickling under my skin.
This is the third time this month he's bailed on a job he was supposed to help coordinate.
I've got seven crates of weapons sitting on the north perimeter without enough men to move them because half my crew is deployed on other jobs.
Lex stumbles out of a side corridor, buttoning her shirt with one hand, hair sticking up like she just rolled out of bed. She smells like cheap whiskey and an even cheaper female beta. Great. Always good to know where my people's priorities lie.
"What's wrong, boss?" she asks, clearing her throat.
"Where the fuck is Raven?"
Lex shifts uncomfortably. "Haven't seen him today."
"He was supposed to help manage the Belvast shipment. Now I'm short-handed and the contact is getting pissy about the delay."
"You want me to round up some bodies? Mikey and Reese should be back from patrol."
I wave her off. "Find them. And when you see that blond pain in my ass, tell him I want to see him. Now."
Lex nods and scurries off, probably grateful to escape my mood. I stalk through the compound, checking all of Raven's usual haunts. Not in the mess hall. Not in the training area. Not flirting with the new recruits like he thinks I don't notice.
He's been different lately. More erratic. Disappearing at odd hours. Blowing off responsibilities. It's not like him, not since the early days when he was still half-petrified and trying to figure out how to exist outside that hellhole of a brothel.
By the time I reach his quarters, my temper's at a slow boil. If he's off blowing some guard in a supply closet, I'm going to be pissed for more than one reason.
But no, they all know better than that. I made it crystal clear the day Raven joined up. If any of them so much as touched him, I'd kill them. Made a rather gruesome example of the one guard who tried, just to be sure the message stuck.
It's not jealousy. It's protection. Raven came to me broken—trained to obey any alpha command, conditioned to offer his body like it was nothing, unable to tell the difference between desire and coercion. Even years later, I don't trust him to protect himself.
Not with his... issues.
I pound on his door. "Raven! Open up!"
Nothing.
I pound harder, rattling the frame. "I know you're in there! Open the fucking door or I'm breaking it down!"
Still nothing. Concern starts to override anger. Raven's never silent. Even when he's pissed at me, he always has some smartass remark ready. The quiet is wrong.
Fuck it.
I drive my shoulder into the door, splintering the lock with a loud crack. The door flies open, and I stumble into the room?—
Then freeze.
The scent hits me first. Rich and sweet, like honey warmed in the sun, but with a soft undercurrent that's unmistakably Raven, but... different. Wrong. Or maybe too right in all the ways it shouldn't be.
He's curled up on his bed, which is now framed in thick, dark swatches of fabric hanging from the ceiling, forming a protective tent around the mattress.
There are blankets tangled around his legs, golden hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.
One of those blankets is mine, but I'm too focused on the state he's in to process that properly.
His chest heaves with each rapid breath, and even from the doorway, I can see the tremor in his hands.
"Fuck," I mutter. "Again?"
Blue eyes snap to mine, fever-bright and furious. "Get. Out." His voice is a ragged hiss.
I should. I know I should. But I can't make myself move. Can't drag my eyes away from the flush spreading down his neck, disappearing beneath his half-unbuttoned shirt.
"What crawled up your ass?" I ask, trying for normal and failing spectacularly as my voice comes out rough.
Raven's laugh is bitter, edged with something dangerously close to a sob. "This is your fucking fault."
"How the hell is it my fault?" I snap, defensive heat rising in my chest.
"You won't touch me," he snarls back, struggling to sit up. "And you've made damn sure no one else will either."
I grunt, irritation mixing with an unwelcome surge of relief. At least the men are obeying my orders. But looking at him now, sweat-soaked and miserable, clearly suffering, I can't bring myself to feel good about that.
I hesitate, then take a cautious step toward the bed. Then another.
"Don't," he warns, but there's a hitch in his voice that contradicts the command. His tone is dangerously close to a whine. A sound he shouldn't even be capable of producing.
Sometimes I'm not sure if this is all the result of that dead bitch's sick conditioning, or if she just exploited what was already there. I'm not sure I want to know. Either way, it's strange magic capable of exerting a control over me it shouldn't have.
Every alpha instinct I possess is screaming at me to either flee or claim. The scent pulls at something primal, making my body respond in ways I don't want to examine too closely.
It's far from the first time I found him like this. It happened just a few months after I pulled him from that brothel. That first time, I thought he'd somehow gotten into a stash of drugs. Wasn't until later that I understood what was happening.
Back then, all I felt was confusion. Concern.
Uncomfortable, sure, but there wasn't any pull to his cloying scent.
He was too fragile, too vulnerable. All I knew was I had to make sure no one ever took advantage of him in that state again, and being the one to do it was the furthest fucking thing from my mind for a myriad of reasons.
Not the least of all being the fact that I've never looked at another man that way. Certainly not another alpha.
Not until…
I don't even know when it started, really.
When these episodes of his started becoming more than just a pain in the ass, because it meant I had to be twice as aggressive about keeping my men from sniffing around him.
And alpha or not, he's pretty enough that I've seen curiosity in the eyes of the most unflinchingly straight among them.
Lex is the only one I can trust to enforce my orders when he's like this, but his episodes freak her out and I don't trust her to watch him closely enough without taking off.
I wish I had the same trouble.
"You just had one of these a couple months ago," I say warily, keeping my distance. "It's getting more frequent."
"You think I don't know that?" he snaps, teeth bared. His pupils are blown so wide the blue is just a thin ring around black. He looks feral. Desperate.
I run a hand through my hair, trying to think past the way my skin feels too tight. "There has to be something we can do."
"Not with you cockblocking me at every turn."
The thought of any of my men touching him—doing what would need to be done to break this fever—makes something dark and possessive curl in my gut. But he's right about one thing. He's suffering, and that's on me.
"Can't you just... go fuck an omega at a brothel or something?" I ask, the words awkward on my tongue.
Irritation and shame flash across his face. "I don't pay to fuck anyone. And it doesn't work that way. I've tried. It has to be an alpha."
"Right," I mumble, flinching at the rueful note in his voice.
As uncomfortable as this is for me, it's worse for him.
I take another step closer, trying to ignore the way my body responds to his scent. This feels so fucked up. He's like a brother to me. Even if I were willing to confront what being attracted to another alpha—to another man —says about me, there are some lines you just don't cross.
I have few enough people in my life who matter. I can't risk this. Can't risk him.
But looking at him now, trembling with need, skin flushed and eyes desperate, I wonder if I'm protecting him or myself.
"You should go," he says, but his voice has lost its edge. There's something pleading in it now, and I can't tell if he's pleading for me to leave or stay.
I should go. I know I should. But instead, I sit cautiously on the edge of the bed, keeping a careful distance between us. "When did it start this time?"