EIGHTEEN
I stayed awake for a long time last night replaying Nik’s question in my head. Go with him? Go where? I’m not sure what he has in mind, but judging from the seriousness in his eyes, he meant it. And he wants me to go with him. I couldn’t respond, Christ, I’m not sure I even blinked. There we stood in my apartment hallway where Nikolai Vostik once again managed to leave me speechless. I can’t go with him. What am I going to do? Pack up and run off with someone I barely know? My life is here. Yes, while it may be a less than comfortable one, it’s still my home.
My phone buzzes again on the nightstand, adding message number five to the string of texts I’ve received so far. I don’t have to look to know who it is. Courtney. Her first text: Are you alive? was quickly followed with scolding, asking how big his dick is, and more scolding for leaving. In Courtney’s long list of unwritten rules to follow while dating in Los Angeles, I committed the first, second, and third cardinal sins.
One: Never go with a potential partner without sharing your location.
Two: Always text when you get there and when you leave.
Three: Call the moment you get home. The last one isn’t for safety as much as letting the other in on how great or mediocre the sex was. It’s something we’ve always done, and while my late-night encounters are few and far between, she’s never once left me guessing whether or not she was lying in a ditch somewhere.
I do feel guilty for ditching her, and even worse, not showing any signs of life afterward. Can I blame her for being concerned? No. Christ, I wasn’t sure I’d survive the evening with Nikolai Vostik either and to be quite honest, I almost didn’t. Do coroners consider suffocation induced by continuous orgasms a proper cause of death? I’m not sure, but I know deep down Courtney has every right to be upset. I left. I jumped on Nik’s bike, rode off to god knows where, and didn’t respond until hours later. My best shot at fixing this besides spamming her with apology texts? Telling her in person how skilled Nik is with his tongue.
The last text she sends, after a slew of eye-rolling emojis, is the address to her nephew’s birthday party. They needed a photographer. I needed another sixty dollars to cover the rent this month. Plus, the added benefit of getting off Courtney’s shit list doesn’t hurt either. Snap a few pictures of the kiddos having fun. Eating cake. Opening presents. Easy enough. How hard could it be?
*
Chaos. Utter. Fucking. Chaos. I try and bring my lens into focus to get at least one half-decent shot of Jonathan before he disappears back into the bouncy castle, but the little monster is too fast, his cake-coated hands smearing a blue frosting trail on the rubber entrance. If I had known the only noise I’d hear for two straight hours was the symphony of six-year-old screams, I might’ve brought my headphones to drown out some of it. I’ve been pushed, sneezed on, bitten, hit with two water balloons, and we haven’t even made it to present time yet.
“The birth control working?” Courtney asks, nudging my arm.
Heat rises up my cheeks. I haven’t had sex with Nik. Not that I don’t want to. And if we did … it might be perfectly reasonable to ask if his family curse can be transmitted sexually, but I’d never admit that outright. I stiffen, my hands on the dial of my lens. Keeping my face indifferent, I finally ask, “What do you mean?”
Courtney waves her arm to the feral pack of children, and as if on cue, one little boy begins throwing chips into the castle like he’s trying to knock over bottles to win a carnival prize. “They’re birth control. I’ve thought about having kids from time to time. A lot, actually. But when my uterus starts acting up, begging me to get a bun in this oven, I spend the day at my sister’s house. Abra Cadabra , the sensation is gone!”
I laugh and take a few more pictures of the kids too distracted by the chips now bouncing for the ceiling. “I’m sorry I bailed, Court.”
She shakes her head. “I know. But it sounds like you had a way better time than I did. While you were off having a life-altering orgasm, I listened to Roman and Landon talk about the Persichetti case their firm is representing.” Courtney sticks her index finger in her open mouth and pretends to gag.
I laugh again, my cheeks straining. “I don’t deserve you.”
Courtney flips her long black hair behind her shoulder and scoffs. “I know. So, are you going to see Nik again tonight? Maybe … return the favor he so graciously left in your lap?” A devious smirk plays on her lips.
Smacking her in the arm, I glance around for anyone listening. “Are you serious? There’s little kids everywhere.”
“So what? These little semen demons are too busy destroying my sister’s backyard to notice.”
She isn’t wrong. By the time this party ends, I imagine the grass will be decorated with food, crumpled napkins, and a trail of tiny footprints from the porch to the middle of the yard. I also wonder if she’s right about seeing Nik again. I want to, of course. But he didn’t say much after he asked me to run off with him, and I couldn’t muster a single freaking reply. He only kissed me on my forehead and gave a solemn good night . What am I gonna do? Show up at the club? Use the password I shouldn’t know and walk right up to his loft?
I chew on my lower lip. “You think I should?”
Courtney rolls her eyes. “Whatever Nikolai Vostik did to you has you fucking glowing. If he could do that with just his mouth, imagine what the rest of him will do.”
*
I step out of the Uber, my camera bag falling around my waist. The winds in the city seem to pick up, gusting my hair in every direction. I’ve never seen Volk in the daytime. It’s odd how something so intimidating at night with hundreds of people fighting to get inside could look so plain and uninteresting under the warm LA sun. You’d never guess this is the hottest club on the scene, nor would you think it is run by Russian werewolves. Well, no one would ever assume that last part.
Before I cross the street, two black SUVs pull up to the front of Volk. Someone impossibly large steps out of the passenger seat, and the entire vehicle teeters to one side until it settles. Viktor. Recognizing him from fifty feet away is as easy as seeing a mountain in the distance. Kind of hard to miss. He hasn’t noticed me yet, at least I don’t think he has, and there’s not a chance in hell I’m going out of my way to let him know I’m here.
Wearing an expensive suit straining around his terrifying physic, Viktor struts to the back doors and opens them, waving those inside to the sidewalk. People exit both vehicles, each dressed to the nines in outfits sure to cost thousands. Upscale clients if I had to guess. Maybe some private party the rest of us peasants aren’t privy to. I suppress a scoff and pull out my camera for a better look at who gets an invitation to Volk after hours. Zooming in on the lens, I focus on the large group making their way to the doors. Some of them stagger the way clubgoers might when leaving Volk at closing time. It seems the party isn’t starting here, but this is simply the coup de grace to their afternoon.
None in the group are familiar at first glance. Nik can’t be counted amongst the unruly bros pushing into each other or the women squealing like it’s their bachelorette party. Viktor is the only one I see, holding the front door against his large back and gesturing them inside. I take a picture of them, and when a young woman strokes Viktor’s arm with a flirty giggle, I take another.
For the first time since meeting him, the Russian behemoth doesn’t have some lifeless, cold expression. He kind of looks like he’s enjoying himself. I don’t buy it. Everything about Viktor Vostik screams narcissistic sociopath, and I wish I could say those were his worst qualities. Little do they know, his casual appearance is nothing but a mask to hide the real animal itching to break free. Viktor apparently mastered the art of pretending to be something he’s not. Human for one. There is nothing human about the way he watches the men and women enter Club Volk. No, despite the charming grin, there’s still a hint of viciousness my camera doesn’t fail to capture.
Once they are out of sight, I make my way to the doors, hoping if they are locked, Nik didn’t change the password I committed to memory. I don’t see why he would. Sure, having unlimited access to a club of werewolves might be hazardous to my health, but Nik won’t let anything happen to me. At least, I don’t think he will.
I pull open the front door and take an apprehensive step inside. Music and shouts from the bar area pour out into the forgotten streets. None of them notice me come in, thankfully enough, and I slip past the group, traverse up the stairs, and stop outside Nik’s loft.
What are you doing? I ask myself, standing yet again on his doorstep, ready to use a code I shouldn’t know to get in. Of course, it’s sealed. Well, if I had a brother I thought might try and kill me at some point to become the next alpha of my werewolf pack, I’d probably lock my door too. After a quick combination of numbers, the green light flashes, and the gears begin cranking.
“Nik?” I ask into the silence of his loft, barely audible over the music downstairs. “Are you in here?”
Chains rattle and thump.
No. No, no, no.
My once steady heartbeat throbs in my chest. It isn’t possible. There’s no full moon, and it’s fucking daytime. He can’t be changing right now. If I come face-to-face with a wolfed-out Nik again, I swear to Christ, I’m changing the damn password of this club myself. I take a deep breath, ignoring the warning alarms blaring in my head. Why do I keep doing this? Why am I incapable of making a rational fucking decision, like, I don’t know, knocking ?
“Natalia?” His low gravelly voice breaks the silence.
Oh, thank god. Human Nik. I turn toward the kitchen and my eyes gape in an instant. The blood drains from my face, but somehow my cheeks remain on fire. He’s human alright. A very human, very naked Nik stares back at me, his arms bound by chains connected to the floor of his loft. Although I shy away from him, and even block my wide eyes, there isn’t a whole lot of Nik I don’t see. Courtney, I have a fucking answer. Big.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his tone unnaturally calm.
“I—uh, was just in the neighborhood,” I say, my hand still shielding my eyes. Never mind the thirty-minute Uber, how I had to duck his brother and sneak past the party downstairs. I was in the neighborhood. Stupid, Natalie.
“Why are you chained up? There’s no full moon tonight?”
I notice Nik lean over out of the corner of my eye and pick up some clothes off the floor. Once he is, well, clothed enough, I remove my hand and peer at him. Sweat rolls down his shoulders and over the claw marks on his bare chest. Long, unkempt hair drapes down each side of his face. He looks tired. Exhausted, actually.
“I was training,” he says, a slight grin forming on his lips.
“For the werewolf Olympics?” An embarrassed laugh escapes my tightened throat. Stupid. Why must everything I say in the presence of this man be more idiotic than the last? It’s as if my thoughts are on a teleprompter and I’m the lead anchor for Natalie Seven News . Tonight, a local woman died from humiliation. More to follow at eleven.
Nik smiles fully now, his polished teeth gleaming in the dim lights of the loft. He gives a small chuckle. “You should see my javelin throw.”
Relief washes over the mortification reddening my cheeks. At least he has a sense of humor.
He grabs the bottle of water next to the pile of clothes. “I’m training my body to change without a full moon.”
“You … you can do that?” My jaw hangs low, and it isn’t just because of the way his sculpted body glistens in the room. This wasn’t covered in Lenny’s book, The Mark of the Beast , and certainly wasn’t mentioned in the small amount of credible information I found online. While most of the websites argued over the effects of silver on lycanthropy, all of them agreed on one thing. A werewolf needs the full moon to shift.
It’s bad enough I’m going to have to mark my calendar with every lunar cycle to know when to avoid him, but if he can change at will, what would that mean? He’ll be able to wolf out anytime? Anywhere? If a server takes too long to bring us a basket of bread, will I have ringside tickets to a werewolf cage match?
Nik caps the water bottle and scratches the back of his head. The chains continue to rattle like car keys, breaking me from my thoughts.
“No. And I’m not even sure it’s possible. But there are rumors within my pack. Stories of the strongest wolves being able to transform at will. I’ve never seen it done before, but I figured it can’t hurt to try.”
I take a careful step forward, closing the distance between us. “Can I—” I pause and swallow the gravel in my throat. “Can I watch?”