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Rio cleared his throat, feeling awkward for the nearly unanimous welcome from his brethren. Across the lab, the glass doors whisked open as Nikolai, Brock, and Kade strode in from the corridor outside. The three of them were talking animatedly, giving off an air of easy camaraderie as they swept into the lab.
"Hey," Niko said, a greeting tossed out to no one in particular. His ice-blue gaze lit on Rio for half a second before he looked to Lucan and began relaying the details of the trio's night patrol. "Smoked a Rogue down by the river about an hour ago. Bastard was sleeping off a kill inside a Dumpster when we found him."
"Think it was one of Marek's hounds?" Lucan asked, referring to the army of Rogue vampires his own brother had been amassing until the Order stepped in. Marek was dead at the hands of the Order, but the remnants of his army were still vermin in need of extermination.
Nikolai gave a shake of his head. "This suckhead wasn't a fighter, just an addict scratching his permanent itch for blood. I figure he was only a few nights out of the Darkhaven based on how easy he went down." The Russian-born vampire looked past Rio to crack a crooked grin at Dante and Chase. "Any action over on the South Side?"
"Not a damn thing," Chase muttered. "Too busy running errands out at the airport."
Nikolai grunted, acknowledging the comment with a glance in Rio's direction. "Long fucking time, man. Good to see you in one piece."
Rio knew the male too well to think the reply was friendly. Of all the warriors in the Order, it was Nikolai that Rio expected to be first in line to defend him - whether or not Rio deserved it. Niko was the brother Rio never had, both of them born in the past century, both having joined the Order in Boston around the same time.
Odd that Niko had been absent for Rio's arrival at the compound, although knowing the vampire and his love for combat, he probably was pissed off that his patrol was cut short with still a couple of hours to go until dawn.
Before Rio could say anything to his old friend, Nikolai's attention swung back to Lucan. "The Rogue we found tonight was young, but the kill he left behind looked like the work of more than one vampire. I'd like to head back tomorrow night and sniff around, see if we turn up anything more."
Lucan nodded. "Sounds good."
With that out of the way, Niko turned to Kade and Brock. "Got enough time before sunrise to do a little hunting of our own. Anyone else feeling thirsty all of a sudden?"
Kade's wolflike eyes glittered like quicksilver. "There's an after-hours place in the North End that's probably just getting interesting. Plenty of sweet young things just ripe for the plucking."
"Count me in," Chase drawled, coming out of his chair next to Dante to join the three other unmated males as they started heading for the lab's exit.
For a moment, Rio watched them go. But as Nikolai stepped out to the corridor behind the rest of the pack, Rio hissed a curse and shot after him.
"Niko, wait."
The warrior kept walking like he couldn't hear him.
"Hold up, man. Goddamn it, Nikolai. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
As Chase, Brock, and Kade paused to look back, Niko waved them on ahead. They continued moving, rounding a corner in the corridor and disappearing from view. After a long few seconds, finally, Nikolai pivoted around.
The face staring back at Rio in the stark white tunnel was hard and unreadable. "Yeah. Here I am. What do you want?"
Rio didn't know how to answer that. Hostility rolled off his old friend like a winter chill. "Have I done something to piss you off?"
Nikolai's sharp bark of laughter scraped against the polished marble walls. "Fuck you, man."
He wheeled around and began stalking away.
Rio caught up to him in a blink. He was about to grab the warrior's shoulder and force him to stop, but Niko moved faster. He spun back and plowed into Rio broadside with his forearm against Rio's sternum, driving his spine into the hard wall on the other side of the corridor.
"You want to die, you son of a bitch?" Niko's eyes were narrowed, amber firing into the blue as a result of his anger. "You want to fucking kill yourself, that's your business. Don't ever use me to help you do it. We clear?"
Rio's muscles were tensed and ready for a fight, his combat instincts rising even though he was facing a long-trusted ally. But as Nikolai spoke, Rio's swiftly igniting battle rage ebbed a crucial fraction. Suddenly Niko's fury toward him made sense. Because Nikolai knew that Rio had stayed behind on that Bohemian mountain intending to end his life. If he hadn't known it those five months ago, he sure as hell knew it now.
"You lied to me," Niko seethed. "You looked me right in the eye and you lied to me, man. You were never going back to Spain. What were you going to do with that supply of C-4 I gave you? Strap it on and detonate the shit for some private jihadist fun, or maybe you just planned on sealing yourself inside that godforsaken tomb for the rest of eternity? What was it going to be, amigo? Which way did you plan on checking out?"
Rio didn't answer. There was no need. Of all the warriors in the Order, Nikolai knew him best. He saw him for the weak coward that he truly was. He alone knew how close Rio had been to ending the whole damn thing - even before his arrival on that Czech mountain.
It had been Niko who refused to let Rio wallow in self-loathing, making it his personal mission to pull Rio out of his dark tailspin last summer. Niko who took Rio topside with him in the weeks that followed, hunting for him when Rio had been too weak to look after himself. Nikolai, the brother Rio had never had.
"Yeah," Niko scoffed. "Like I said. Fuck you."
He dropped his arm away from Rio's chest and backed off with a growled curse. Rio watched him go, Niko's boots chewing up the polished marble as he stormed off to meet the other warriors already on their way topside.
