Valentin Nikolaev személy

He groaned, the bass sound coming from deep within. “She is never going to forgive me for having witnessed her collapse.”
Beside him, Krychek glanced at his watch, the cardinal Psy’s dark hair gleaming in the overhead light. “Given the current time and the fact Silver keeps to a firm schedule unless she needs to adapt to fit a developing situation, you interrupted her at breakfast, thus saving her life.”
“You think she’ll see it that way?” Valentin asked on an excited burst of hope.
The other man didn’t even pause to consider it. “No. You’re out of luck.”
Valentin narrowed his eyes, wondering if Krychek was laughing at him.
The cardinal was the coldest man he knew—but unlike Valentin, Kaleb Krychek had a woman who adored him. Sahara Kyriakus made no effort to hide her love for her mate. Valentin had seen her kissing Krychek right in the center of Red Square, her joy a bright light. Krychek hadn’t so much as cracked a faint smile the entire time—but a man had to have a heart to win that of a woman who wore hers on her sleeve.
So, yes, his bear decided, it was quite possible Kaleb Krychek was laughing at him under that frigid exterior. “Thank you for nothing,” he grumbled to the other man, before propping himself up against the nearest wall.
“Do you want a return teleport?”
“No, I’ll wait.” Just until Starlight was awake. He needed to see her chest rise and fall, hear the frosty control of her voice, feel the laser focus of her intelligence.
“Don’t let Silver spot you, or any hope you have of her choosing to forget this incident will go up in smoke.”
Now Valentin was certain Krychek was laughing at him.

Valentin unfolded his arms, a smile starting to tug at his lips. “Are you asking me to kidnap your granddaughter?”
“Let’s call it an enforced move out of the field of danger.”
He was fluent in English, thanks to his Canadian polar bear maternal grandmother, but it still took him a second to work out that yes, Ena was in favor of Valentin kidnapping Silver.

“As a Psy, do you understand jokes and teasing?”
“I understand the concept of jokes,” Silver said as she changed out of the half boots and into the canvas sneakers. “I don’t understand teasing. What’s the point?”
“The point is watching Valentin turn red every time I bring up the fact he once wore pink heels and fell on his butt.”
“Pink heels?” Silver said before she could censor her words.
“Well, if I was going to make my already nearly six-foot-tall baby brother wear a pair of heels, I wasn’t going to choose black, was I?” Nova’s eyes danced. “I was also definitely going to get photographic evidence for blackmail purposes in the future.”
“Do you still have it? The blackmail material?”
“Why?”
“Because I may have need of it,”

Kaleb nodded, then glanced at Valentin and Silver. “Sahara,” he said, “has invited you both to dinner next Friday.”
“You look like you’d rather chew nails,” Valentin remarked with a very bearish gleam in his eye.
“My mate, as changelings term her, is insistent I learn to socialize.”
“How’s that going for you?”
Kaleb slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “It makes Sahara happy.”
The simple answer had Valentin holding out a hand. “No further explanation needed.”
Kaleb, who rarely made physical contact with anyone aside from Sahara, shook it.

“What is it?” he asked, aware the other man was on sentry duty.
“I have a very pretty dude here claiming to be your Starlight’s brother. Silver eyes, black hair, supermodel bones, is giving me a death stare.”
Sitting up, his bear at attention, Valentin looked at Silver. “You have a brother?” How had he never unearthed that fact?
A pause, her head angled as if listening. “Arwen is here,” she said. “He says he wasn’t giving anyone the death stare—that’s his normal expression.”
“Must run in the family.”