“Oh, come on…”
“Alex,” Anastasia said firmly. “Work with me on this. I have helped you before. Have I ever lied to you? Threatened you? Have I done anything at all to harm you?”
“Actually, I find everything you say to be vaguely threatening,” Alex admitted warily.
“I’m the only person in Central who is honest with you,” Anastasia said, without a trace of humor. “Are you certain that you wish to alienate me?”
“With friends like these…” Alex muttered, and then he finally gave in, his shoulders slumping. He felt a strange sense of decompression as the shields dissipated, as if he had been keeping his head wedged between invisible blocks of Styrofoam, only becoming aware of it now as they fell away, leaving him feeling sort of naked and vulnerable. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
Renton tapped one finger against Alex’s forehead. Alex knew, thanks to Rebecca’s tutoring, that most telepaths and empaths needed physical contact to work, but it still creeped him out to let Renton touch him. He couldn’t complain about the results, though, as the pain in his arm throbbed once more, weakly, and then disappeared so abruptly that he had to touch his damaged forearm to reassure himself that it was still there.
“Wow,” Alex said quietly and unintentionally.
“Right?” Renton smirked, picking up Alex’s gym bag along with his own.
“Come along, boys,” Anastasia said, heading for the door. “Let’s take a little walk.”
“This whole house is yours?”
“Yes. In a sense. This house is set aside by the Academy for the current scion of the Black Sun, and at the moment, that happens to be me,” Anastasia said modestly, leading him through the dark wood and antique furniture that lined the entry way to the home, back into the office where she conducted the majority of her business. The desk she sat down behind was impressive, carved from a heavy, stained wood and ornately detailed, but all it really did, in Alex’s opinion, was make Anastasia look tiny and ridiculous behind it. He almost tripped over a Weir lying on the floor, before he heard it growling menacingly at him and stopped just short.
“Ah!” Alex yelped involuntarily, jumping back. “What the hell?”
Anastasia gave him a surprised look that he suspected was manufactured, and then a small, apologetic smile.
“Oh, that is Donner. Don’t worry, he won’t bite.”
“That’s not particularly comforting,” Alex said, staring at Donner suspiciously. “Is that a Weir, or a normal wolf?”
“Donner is a Weir, but the collar prevents him from changing.” Alex leaned as close as he was comfortable with, and saw that Donner wore a heavy collar that appeared to be made of a tarnished silver metal. The Weir gave him another warning growl, then stalked away to curl up around Anastasia’s feet, behind the desk. Anastasia nodded to Renton, who moved a chair in front of the desk, and gestured for Alex to take a seat. “Blitzen should be nearby. And, no, before you ask, I did not name them. You can thank my little sisters for that.”
“Okay, whatever,” Alex said, sitting down, clutching his damaged arm protectively, though it didn’t hurt at all. “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until after I got patched up?”
“You must realize, Alex, that I have a great many responsibilities,” Anastasia said broadly, with barely disguised glee. “With so many things for me to worry over, your safety and security can no longer be among those concerns, I’m afraid.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Don’t be obnoxious,” Anastasia scolded. “You have no idea the lengths I have gone to, in order to keep you safe. In any case, I am handing over the responsibility to someone else. As you know, I found myself one bodyguard short of the quota required for me by cartel bylaw.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, still raw from the experience, his voice catching, “I’m sorry about that, you know. About what happened to Edward.”
“It happens,” Anastasia said, shrugging.
“No one is interested in your apologies,” Renton said contemptuously.
“Hey,” Alex objected, turning toward him and glaring. “What does that mean?”
Renton’s expression was unreadable, hidden behind his plastic smile and his permafrost eyes. Alex had known him for months, spoken to him daily, and he still did not understand him at all. Edward hadn’t talked enough while he was alive to make it clear whether he was Renton’s friend or his coworker, so Alex couldn’t tell if he actually resented him, or if he was simply giving him a hard time for the hell of it.
“Enough,” Anastasia said mildly, her eyes snapping over to Renton in an obvious chastisement, and then returning tiredly to Alex. “I am very tired. Let me finish what I have to say, and then you can go to the hospital and I can have some tea before I go to bed. As I was saying, because you are an idiot, taking care of you is a full-time job.”
“Could you lay off, Anastasia? My arm hurts.”
“No, it doesn’t, but it could. Or, I could just kill him and then hide the body,” Renton suggested. “I’m certain no one would care.”
“Since I already have a fulltime job, as does Renton, and as I am currently short one bodyguard, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.” Anastasia stopped, considering. “Or, perhaps it would be simultaneously killing two birds with two stones. It doesn’t matter. One of our subsidiary cartels, Kiev Oblast, paid tribute to the Black Sun years ago, in the form of the two youngest children of the cartel head pledged to our service. I have transferred them over from Mr. Cole’s class. The boy will take Edward’s place. I have no use for his sister at the moment,” Anastasia said frankly. “So she will be looking after you. She is my second-cousin, incidentally, so try to be nice to her.”
“Hold up, just slow the fuck down. What are you talking about, Anastasia? I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“No?” Anastasia asked, looking surprised. “The last time you went on a date you needed a great many, as I recall. Moreover, my dress was ruined in the process. I am being proactive this time around. Besides, I think you will like her. Renton, would you go get Katya for me?”
Renton nodded and left the room, leaving Alex glaring at Anastasia, and Anastasia completely ignoring him. After a while, he gave up. It was like water off a duck’s back, anyway.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” Alex repeated sullenly, crossing his arms, and then flinching when he remembered his painless injury.
“Katya won’t be one, then,” Anastasia reassured him. “Think of her as a caretaker.”
“What does that even mean?” Alex complained. “I think I like that idea even less.”
Anastasia shrugged, scratching the great black wolf behind one of its ears as it lay its head on her lap, its black eyes still locked on Alex with a definite malevolence. He shuddered at a number of memories that he would have preferred to stay suppressed.
“Like it or not, I can’t just let you run around kicking things over to see what happens,” Anastasia said firmly. “Besides, she is multi-talented. I think you will find having her around to be very beneficial. In any number of ways. And I will tell her to be discreet,” Anastasia promised. “She won’t act like Renton does, making puppy-dog eyes and following you around everywhere.”
“Hey,” Renton objected as he walked back into the room, looking hurt.
The girl beside him was almost as tall as Renton, with short auburn hair and lightly tanned skin. She kept her eyes modestly on the ground, and her school uniform was fitted and pressed, but she didn’t seem particularly humble or nervous to Alex.
“This Katya Zharova,” Anastasia said, gesturing for the girl to join them, Renton hurrying over with another chair. The girl bowed her head to Anastasia modestly, and then sat down in the chair next to Alex, giving him a perfunctory smile that he was in no mood to return, even if she was somewhat cute. “Katya, this is Alex Warner. We have already discussed your instructions. You will be looking after Alex for the foreseeable future. Please keep him safe, and try not to let the complaining bother you. It’s a character flaw that must be tolerated, for now.”
Katya gave her a short, serious nod.
“When do I start, Ana?”
Anastasia stood up, and Renton hustled over the door to open it for her.
“Immediately, I think. Mr. Warner here has a rather pressing desire to go to the hospital.”
Alex opened his mouth to argue, to say any of the dozens of things he’d come up with while sitting there,
