"Anyway, he's grateful we saved him. Seems pretty nice. And has a lot of catching up to do. We took him shopping today. He handled it well, but it was pretty stressful for him."
"That's insane."
"Yeah." I flopped down on my bed and opened the face mask bottle. "Oh, this smells good."
"Try it."
I did, and soon we were both laying on my bed, enjoying the lavender aroma.
"Okay, so I have to ask. Is he hot?"
"Nikolai?"
"He's the only new he, right? We already know the other three are hot." Victoria giggled.
"You are terrible."
"Well?"
"Yeah, he's pretty hot. Shoulder length dark brown hair. Dark brown eyes. A bit more muscular than Doc, but leaner than Ed and Allan. His hands are interesting. They're long and slender but also calloused. He told us he fought in a lot of wars, so I imagine they're like sword callouses or something."
Victoria turned her head and looked at me. "Girl…"
"What?"
"That's a level of detail I was not expecting."
"Um, well, you asked. I was holding his hand for a large bit of today. He was pretty nervous."
Victoria laughed.
"Anyway, he's half Russian, half Tartar."
"Interesting. Think the guys will adopt him into the pack or just keep him around long enough that he can function on his own?"
"It's going to take a while to get him on his feet. If he doesn't want to stay with us, we may have to find someone else to help."
"Well, I'm looking forward to meeting him. Wait, if he's from fourteen fifty-five Russia, how are you talking to him?"
"Oh, good question." I laughed. "He traded me languages. Apparently, there's a spell where you can do that. I speak his version of Russian now. Badly. Apparently, fully being able to speak the language takes a while."
"No way." She propped herself up on her elbow and stared at me.
"I'm not lying to you," I said in Russian.
"That's so cool." She flopped back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Is he going to teach you magic?"
"Some. We'll see how it goes."
"What's he going to do while everyone is in classes?"
"Doc got him a guest pass, so he'll shadow us this week. We're still trying to figure all that out. I mean, he may just want to hide in the cabin for a while after he spends a week following us around school. I think Doc showed him the internet."
"He's doomed now." Victoria laughed.
I echoed her laugh, though I was very curious to see what Nikolai thought of the modern world once he got somewhat of a handle on the past several centuries. Poor guy.
Chapter 7
Sofia
The next morning Victoria and I stumbled through our morning routine and then headed to the dining hall together. The cool morning air caught my breath and carried it away.
"Won't be long before it snows," Victoria informed me, grinning.
"You're crazy."
"If you don't like snow, you came to the wrong college."
I sighed. "Very true. I think it's more that you all talk about it as if it's a national holiday or something."
"Around here, Sofia, it is. This town survives on ski season. Well, and beef and the college, but ski season is what really brings in the tourists and the money."
The warm air of the dining hall was a bit stifling after the cool crispness of outside. My stomach grumbled, and I hurried to the buffet, Victoria right behind me.
Briefly, I considered trying some coffee, but the thought still turned my stomach, so I got hot water and a tea bag instead.
"It's not going to bite you," Victoria said.
"What?"
"The coffee maker. You're looking at it like you can't decide if you want to blast it out of existence or make sweet love to it." She giggled.
I groaned, trying not to think about the images my brain came up with. "It's too early for that."
"Too early for what?" A familiar Russian accent caressed my ears and caused a few butterflies unrelated to the coffee maker in my stomach.
I turned, eyes wide. Ed and Nikolai had come up behind us. Ed had a tray full of food. Nikolai looked curious, but Ed was looking at the coffee pot as if trying to figure out what it had done to deserve Victoria's comment.
"Nothing. Good morning, Ed, Nikolai. Let's grab a table."
Victoria studied the Russian mage, eyes sparkling with amusement.
We found an empty round table. Victoria sat on one side of me, Ed on the other, and Nikolai across from me. Much of his attention was focused on me, but he looked around quite a bit as well, though he wasn't as wide-eyed as he had been yesterday.
Ed leaned against me for a minute, and I returned the gesture, tilting my head for a quick kiss from my handsome wolf.
Victoria nudged me and nodded toward Nikolai. Oh right, introductions.
"Nikolai, this is my good friend and roommate, Victoria. Victoria, this is Nikolai."
He brought his attention back to the table and focused on Victoria. I saw her eyebrows raise, and I thought she might have blushed a little. It was hard to tell with her darker complexion.
"It is nice to meet you." He smiled warmly at her.
I thought I heard Ed sigh a little and glanced at him, but by the time I looked, he was focused on his food.
I tilted my leg so I could touch his knee with mine. He returned the pressure but kept eating. I understood. Werewolf metabolism. Food was one of the more important things in his life.
"It's nice to meet you, too. I look forward to chatting when we're not around so many other people." Victoria smiled back.
Nikolai glanced at me and tilted and eyebrow. I was pretty sure he was curious to know how much she knew, so I
