Chapter 36

I appreciate StoneWater settling the bill for damages so quickly.

Thank you also for the crew of hungover bears you sent to clean up the mess. I almost felt sorry for the lot of them, especially after they were on their best behavior and didn’t leave until they’d swept up the last bit of debris.

At least they enjoyed one hell of a New Year’s Eve party.

—Email to Anastasia Nikolaev from Nina Rodchenko, manager and owner of Club Moscow (1 January 2083)

YAKOV KNEW HE should take Theo to one of the more refined clubs in Moscow, the ones where people sat and conversed over cocktails and only occasionally danced rather than all crowding onto the dance floor in a mass of bodies and heat. But he didn’t want to go to one of those fancy clubs with their muted music and delicate furniture—tonight, he wanted a bear kind of club.

Which was why they ended up at Club Moscow. It wasn’t the least bit disreputable—it had, in fact, recently been voted “the” club in Moscow by Wild Woman magazine—but it was built for hard use. Including by bears who forgot their strength and got carried away.

Rather than a small and cramped space, Nina Rodchenko’s prize project was housed in a sprawling warehouse in the middle of an even bigger piece of land. All sides of the warehouse featured accordion-style doors that could be folded back in good weather to leave the space wide open to the outside.

Bad weather? No problem. Nina’s staff would pull the doors ninety percent shut. Never was the club totally enclosed while in operation—because while her more rambunctious bear and wolf guests might occasionally earn Nina’s ire, she understood the needs of changelings.

It was all the more extraordinary because Nina wasn’t changeling. She was, as she’d once told Yakov, “a full-blooded and proud-of-it human.” Some might take that as an insult against the other races, but Yakov had understood the context of her comment—changelings weren’t like how the Psy had been for so long, looking down their noses at the rest of the world, but his race, too, had a way of underestimating humans simply because humans tended to be less physically strong.

Petite Nina’d had to fight for respect when she first took over as the manager of the then-ailing Club Moscow. The place had been all but on life support. Which was probably why the owner had sold it to her for a song when she’d made him an offer. At which point, Nina had shut the entire place down for a month before opening it with a “free beer and vodka night” that had turned into the party to end all parties and firmly established the club as the hottest destination in town.

Club Moscow reflected her in every facet—including the efficiency with which she sent out invoices to StoneWater for bear-related damage to the glossy black décor. The walls of the club were painted that shade inside and out, as were the noise-canceling fences that surrounded it.

Any impression of a warehouse, however, was obliterated the instant you walked inside—and into a space accented by lights that changed with the mood of the club. Early on in the evening, most of it emanated from fairy lights, a sweetly romantic setting for folks who came to slow dance and grab dinner at the excellent restaurant that took up one-quarter of the floor area inside the warehouse.

With him and Theo having stopped at a food cart to grab a bite, it was past ten by the time he parked and they began to walk the couple of blocks to the club. This time of night, the lights would be a dazzling array of blades, blue and purple and pink and red, and every other color you could imagine. The restaurant would’ve also closed its tables, the kitchen switching over to quick and tasty bar snacks.

He felt the vibration of the music under his feet the instant he pushed through the gate in the fence. It swung shut automatically behind them, containing the noise within once more. Nina had to have spent an enormous amount on the soundproofing—but now she didn’t have to pay fines to the city for breaching noise ordinances. Especially important in a city full of changelings with acute hearing.

Leaning in close to Theo as the two of them walked up to the door manned by two bouncers, both in slick black-on-black suits, he said, “Stasya figures Nina has to be in debt up to her neck with all the work she’s done to modernize the club. But damn she got results. Place is never empty. Even doubles as an event venue in the daytime.”

“Then any debt was a considered and smart risk.”

“Yeah, but none of us can figure out who would’ve given her the financing. Won’t have been the bank, not when all she had as collateral was a run-down club. I know she didn’t come to StoneWater, and I’ve never heard any hint of the wolves being involved. And she wasn’t born into money; nor does she have any shady connections.”

StoneWater had done a background check as a matter of course once Nina began to rise in the city’s entertainment district—a security measure to ensure she didn’t have any unsavory ties that could lead to criminal activity. “Pasha and Stasya even dug through her public business filings. No hint of her backer in any of those records.”

Theo gave him a look so affectionate that his bear was immediately her adoring slave. “It’s driving all you nosy bears nuts, isn’t it? The not knowing?”

Not even thinking about it, he nipped lightly at her ear, making her squeak. “It’s not nice to laugh at people.”

Eyes alight in the way they’d been in his dreams, she didn’t tell him off for assuming he could just nip at her. His bear took note.

And adored her even more when she said, “Won’t this be too loud for you?”

Lifting his hand to his ear, he removed one low-profile earplug to show her. “Created for changelings out of SnowDancer Labs. I put them in right after we got out of the car. Brings the sound below the pain threshold.” Still much louder than normal life, but that was the point of a club.

“If we forget our own,” he said after slipping it back in, “Nina’s people are delighted to sell us a disposable set at an exorbitant markup.”

Theo leaned in closer to his ear, the warmth of her breath a caress that made him want to be bad and lean in further and accidentally-on-purpose steal a kiss.

“All but invisible once in,” she murmured. “Brilliant design.”

Placing his hand on her lower back as they began walking again, he was struck by the slenderness of her body, the lightness of her being, this woman of steel and fury. “You still okay with hitting the club?” It came out rough with tenderness. “No foul if you want to back out of it. Drive calmed me down a bit.” And he wasn’t about to push her into a situation she found uncomfortable.

“From what I know of such venues, I’m not dressed correctly” was her response right as they reached the entrance.

About to tell her that it didn’t matter, that she fucking blazed with magnetic energy regardless of her attempt to hide her fire, he was interrupted by a familiar female voice. Nina Rodchenko herself had appeared at the door. Tiny, dark-eyed, and dark-haired, her skin a self-described shade of “vampire white,” she’d caused many a bear to quake in fear.

Tonight, she wore a dress with a high neckline that came to midthigh, had long sleeves, and hugged her body as if it had been painted on. The hue? A dark scarlet. The same shade as her lipstick.

Her shoes were skyscraper ankle boots in glossy black with laces that wrapped all the way up her calf.

“I can help you with clothes, honey,” she said in the sultry tones that had beguiled admirers from one end of Moscow to the other. Nina, however, didn’t date. She was too busy taking over Moscow’s entertainment industry.

Yakov was grateful he wasn’t susceptible to the Nina effect. It was just sad to watch her admirers make puppy eyes at her that she never noticed. He did, however, respect her economic and political nous. “Theo”—he made a gentle circle on her back—“this is Nina.”

“I own the club and a number of other enterprises,” Nina said. “Including a boutique down the road. Strange as it might seem, more than one individual has found their way to my club right after work. Which is why I keep an array of the boutique’s offerings here for purchase.”

“A shrewd business decision.”

Theo’s cool words seemed to please Nina; she smiled with more warmth than Yakov had ever before seen her display. “Exactly. Come, darling, I’ve got a dress or two in your size.” A cool glance at Yakov. “Hmm, are you the one I banned for two weeks?”

Yakov gave her his best choirboy smile. “Ban finished three days ago, remember? Also, in my defense, I was breaking up a fight when I accidentally fell on the jukebox.” In bear form.

He was a big bear.

The jukebox had been toast. Really flat toast.

“I know,” Nina said with a gimlet stare. “That’s why I only banned you for two weeks. The fighting idiots who shifted into their fur to fight are not welcome for the next six months. Amuse yourself. We’ll be back when Theo is good and ready.”

As Nina turned to walk away, Theo glanced back at Yakov with a question in her eyes. A sudden and bright tenderness bloomed inside him at the realization that she was checking with him that it was safe to follow Nina. He gave her a quick nod.

Not saying anything further, Theo left with the club owner.

Instead of going inside with her, Yakov shot the shit with the two bouncers. One the stereotypical hulking man, the other an average-sized woman with a real mean look to her. Both were, of course, bears. Who else was Nina going to hire to keep the riffraff out of her club when the majority of said riffraff was stronger than any human, Psy, or even wolf?

Within StoneWater, the rules were clear: while on the job, Vadim and Calina were bouncers, not clanmates. They might be your best friend in the clan, but they’d boot you on your furry ass if your ass needed to be so booted.

Now, Vadim waggled his eyebrows. “The blonde is hot.”

“I think you mean icy,” his partner murmured, relaxing what she called her “resting assassin face.” “That one’s not for you to play with, little boy.”

Vadim growled. “Are you insulting me?”

Calina rolled her eyes. Friendlier expression or not, she remained the more deadly of the two bouncers, her body ripped under the uniform black. “I’m protecting you, you big idiot. She’s Yasha’s. And even I can’t put our pretty Yashmina here on the ground.”

Her partner shaped his mouth into an O and looked carefully at Yakov. “Sorry, Yasha. Didn’t mean to step into your territory.”

“Maybe don’t say that in front of Theo,” he suggested, though secretly he liked the idea of thinking of her as his territory. And secretly was exactly how he’d keep it. There were some things you just did not say to strong women. “She might kill you dead, then flay me alive.”

“Now you’re just bragging.” Vadim’s shoulders drooped, his expression morose. “I want a dangerous girlfriend.”

“You’re only twenty-four, gorgeous.” Calina patted him on one meaty shoulder. “Plenty of time to get yourself lassoed by a badass.”

Vadim perked up. “Talking of which . . .” He beamed like the sun at the woman now walking up to the club.

Yakov had scented her before he saw her: Anastasia “Stasya” Nikolaev, Valya’s sister and second-in-command of StoneWater. Tall, with eyes of greenish gray, and dramatic cheekbones under strikingly short hair she’d colored a vivid purple two weeks back, she was about as badass as they got.

Now, she patted Vadim on the cheek and had him blushing. “Nina tells me that you’re doing an amazing job.” She nodded at Calina, too, including her in the compliment. “Making the clan proud.”

Both younger members of the clan shuffled their feet a little, but they also squared their shoulders. Then Anastasia turned to Yakov, her expression altering in the most subtle way—because where the other two were subordinates, Yakov stood in the senior ranks right beside Stasya.

It wasn’t about dominance. There was so much more to it. The acknowledgment that Stasya didn’t need to protect him, as both of them would do with Vadim and Calina, the acceptance that she could lean on him as he could on her, and beneath it all, the deep bond of friendship forged by years working side by side with Valya.

“I thought you were babysitting a Psy today.”

“I asked her if she wanted to go dancing.”

Stasya rolled her eyes. “Funny, Yasha.” Then she walked into the club.

Vadim waited until after their clanmate was out of earshot to grin. “I don’t think Stasya believed you,” he whispered.

“She will soon enough.” His bear stretched, more than ready to party with Theodora Marshall, the woman of his dreams.

His smile faded on the thought, his mind flashing wet scarlet. Because Theo had died in his dreams last night, the reason why he’d shifted into bear form in the twilight hours. He’d needed to escape his human skin, his frenetic mind. But that didn’t alter the truth of what he’d seen.

Theo’s fatal future remained unchanged.