Gods, he wanted it, with a fervor nearly as all-consuming as his desire for Katerina. But, no. For one thing, the crowd was not responsible for their prince’s choices. For another, at least a quarter of the Druzhina Guard stood in this arena. If he let them live, they would kill him. But if he killed them, he would be contributing to the doom of the very kingdom he was sworn to save—for they were among Iriska’s strongest defenses against the Darkness.
Most importantly, though, he and Katerina had until tomorrow at sunset to escape—and this was a job for stealth, not for blunt attack. Tonight, he would use his shades to open his cell door and Katerina’s. He would unshackle them both, and if he had to go down fighting, still his Dimi would walk free.
But Alexei…
There was a reason his second was here, and it wasn’t to bear witness to the spectacle of his demise. He couldn’t imagine Baba sparing the pack’s alpha for such a thing, not in times like these. So then why?—
He had no time to ruminate on this. The crowd had risen to their feet, bellowing their approbation, and Berezin’s blade was at it again, the point sinking into Niko’s skin as if in punctuation. What a fool. If Niko intended him harm, did the man think the threat of a little bloodshed would be a deterrent? Or perhaps he truly believed his dominance over Niko was so powerful that the blade was a mere reinforcement, a reminder of Niko’s unspoken vow to obey.
Niko would go along with it, until tonight. And then Saints help Berezin if the man got in his way, because nothing on this earth would be enough to save him.
“Move, nezhit.” The words were a growl, Berezin’s lips close enough that Niko could feel the man’s breath on his cheek.
For one burning, rage-filled moment, he contemplated letting the shades have Berezin here and now. It would be so simple to let go, to wrap tendrils of Darkness around the alpha’s limbs like ivy and watch as they dragged him into the shadows to devour him whole. He could taste the cold pleasure of it, down to his soul.
But then his gaze fell on Katerina: his conscience, his gauge, his Light. She was looking at him with an expression akin to horror, as if she didn’t recognize what he’d become. As if she was trying, with every fiber in her body, to bring him back to her.
He had a horrible, sneaking suspicion that she was all that was keeping him here. Just as the Dark bond Elena had woven into his soul after he died kept him belowground, so the bargain Katerina had struck in the Underworld kept him aboveground, with her. The farther away from her he got, the less corporeal he felt and the more like a hollowed-out vessel that, at any moment, might sink through the earth, reclaimed by Sammael’s kingdom. As if, in Katerina’s absence, all there was room for inside of him was the weighty Dark.
But here, standing mere feet from her, he felt stronger than he had since the Druzhina had parted them. Through the haze of numbness that separated him from the grief and rage that roiled inside him, he felt her agony. Her terror. Her belief in him, as unshakable as his in her.
Bond or no bond, he was hers, to the dregs of his shattered soul. And she could not honestly believe that he would let her die tomorrow.
No, their story would not end this way.
Have faith, he told her, and willed her to hear him.
But she wasn’t looking his way anymore. Now, her gaze was fixed on Ana, at Alexei’s side, mouthing Wait for me.
Katerina didn’t understand; Niko could see it in her knitted brows, the way she tilted her head in incomprehension. Her gaze fell to Sofia, Damien’s Dimi, sitting right behind the prince’s box, and Niko’s followed. The other Dimi’s graceful fingers were forming the same word again and again, concealed from most of the arena by the dark fabric pooling in her lap: Tonight.
His heart gave an uneven thump, and, hearing it, Berezin’s blade pressed harder. “Planning to keel over before the hangman gets his noose around your neck?” he said, all honeyed malice. “Do us a favor and don’t deny us the pleasure.”
Resisting the urge to seize the man’s blade and plunge it through his throat, Niko said, “Of course not, alpha.” He hadn’t even spoken to his own alpha with such blatant subservience, back when he’d been a common member of Kalach’s pack; Alpha Sidorov hadn’t demanded it. He had a feeling, though, that this was exactly the type of boot-licking that Berezin preferred.
On Berezin’s left, guarding his alpha’s weaker side as he was trained to do, Morozov snorted. “Not so tough now, are you? I like you far better this way, knowing your place.”
“Don’t talk to it,” Berezin said, prodding Niko out of the arena.
Giving Katerina one last glance, he went willingly enough, his mind churning with the effort of putting the puzzle pieces together. Ana and Alexei’s presence here; Ana’s Wait for me; Sofi’s insistent Tonight—what did it mean?
He had plans of his own. He didn’t want to work at cross-purposes to theirs.
But without more knowledge about what they had in mind, he would have to act, and hope for the best.
As soon as the door to his cell clicked shut behind him, Niko began to plot his escape.
Without the benefit of windows, he was dependent on the change of shift to determine the passage of time. There had been one set of guards on duty when Berezin and Morozov had dragged him out of the prison this morning; a different set when they’d returned him; and now, after several hours spent pacing the confines of his cell, the third shift came on.
Night shift.
This meant little belowground, where the only illumination came from torchlight. It would mean a good deal more aboveground, where his shades could move without the benefit of detection.
He accepted his disgusting dinner, which, even shackled, his black dog informed him smelled of spoiled meat. To reject it would mean drawing attention. Ah, well; he’d be gone soon enough, and it would make a fine feast for the rats.
The guard retreated, giving him a wary look, for which Niko couldn’t blame him. He was no Shadow, but a simple mercenary, trained in the art of killing. Berezin would never debase one of his Druzhina by having them deliver food and empty waste buckets, nor would he risk Niko’s shades draining one of them dry. This man was no more than one of the canaries that the miners used in the caverns outside Povorino: a human warning system. If he fell, the Druzhina would have time to arm themselves against a threat.
That was what they thought, at least. While Niko did not wish to kill the guard, he had no vested interest in keeping him alive, either. If the man went for the bell-alarm that his shades had informed him existed in every tower of this prison, Niko would have to end him.
