Downfall

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Authors: Rob Thurman
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fucking old times’ sake, I guess.” I grinned. “Literally. With the fucking, in case you missed that.”
    Nik, long dark blond braid swaying with the movement, swatted me on the back of the head as he walked by to the kitchen. “Yes, I believe I did ‘get that,’ foulmouthed brat.”
    “And the second time we were fighting something bigger and badder than her and we needed her help.” I stood from my crouch and gave one bag a solid kick. It stayed whole. God bless duct tape. “But now? Puppy love is over. I’d take her out in a second, if . . .” I was fighting the urge not to. As much as I told myself I would take her out for what she’d tried to do to my family, that nothing and no one could stop me, I was lying to myself.
    I couldn’t. Not now. I’d waited too long.
    Investigating a covered plate he’d pulled from the oven set at low heat, Nik caught my gaze. His eyes were the same gray as mine—minus the irregular come-and- go streaks of Auphe red—and I couldn’t wait for that conversation. I’d started physically, fucking
physically
turning into one of the worst monsters that ever lived. Homicidal insanity couldn’t be far behind. How was your day?
    “You would?” He was testing me. He had been my entire life.
    “You know I would and I should have already, back then, screw her help.” I folded my arms and leaned against the back of the couch, my sweatpants and T-shirt threadbare and my mind almost equally so after what I’d seen in the mirror.
    “And I know you caught my ‘if.’ It’s too late,” I added. “Delilah is more than the Kin Alpha. She’s the leader of the All Wolf movement, and the Lupa rebellion.” Lupas were what wolves had come to call the all-female packs. “If I kill her, all her brainwashed flunkies will hunt us down. And from the howl”—which had covered the entirety of New York City and much farther—“there aremore of them than even we could possibly handle.” She must’ve been recruiting on the sly from Kin packs in other major cities. Delilah was buckets of crazy, but she was astounding when it came to strategy.
    Niko reached under the bar and pulled a stool to the kitchen side so he could sit and face me. “That’s true. There are too many, but I’m surprised you thought of the consequences to that extent.” He pointed a fork at the bagged Big Bad Wolves surrounding me. “Especially as she sent you a personal message.” He looked down at his uncovered plate and gave a curious sniff. Niko was only human—“only” meaning “the most dangerous human alive,” a human who had, per a mouthy puck, lived a thousand lives, all of them as warriors, one of them as Achilles himself. And wasn’t that strange? Niko was not only reincarnated from Achilles, but he was also descended from him. He was descended from himself. It made my head hurt thinking about it.
    The result was worth it, though. My brother was a born fighting machine. But that didn’t matter when it came to casseroles. Although Niko had somehow carried lifetimes of fighting, experience compounded into one of the more lethal and deadly men around in this particular existence, his nose was still a plain human nose. Larger than average, yeah, but that didn’t mean it worked any better.
    “Consider it an early breakfast or a late night snack, whichever, but it’s a breakfast casserole,” I explained. Once I heard the Howl, I’d known he’d be home fairly quickly to keep the wolf from our door, so to speak. “One half is Spanish with tomatoes, free-range eggs, chilies, and the usual. The other half, since you’ve been swinging back and forth between vegetarian and vegan lately, is a lot of tofu and soy masquerading as cheese, meat, eggs, and so on.” Killing Wolves and cooking all within an hour, was I talented or what?
    Nonplussed, Niko glanced warily at me and took two bites, one of each side. “It’s . . . good.”
    I should’ve been insulted, but, hell, I’d been known to

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