by Joey W. Hill
The personal note of resolve in Jacob's voice told Rand he'd had to do that with his own Mistress. A formidable challenge Rand was sure had been volatile and intriguing to watch.
"I'm not sure if that's what was driving him." Rand sighed. "And he may be right about some of it. I have to think."
"Did you keep the mark?"
Rand nodded. "I did."
Satisfaction flared in Jacob's gaze. "I was pretty sure you would. So go think. You'll be able to find him if you want him. But if you need help, my brother and Daegan won't mind taking a break to track his ass down. They're the best trackers there are."
Rand felt an easing in his chest. It didn't eliminate all the stuff churning in him, but it did give him some breathing room.
"Not the best trackers," he corrected. "But decent for a vampire and a human servant."
Jacob grinned and opened the limo door for him. Rand got in, taking the food and his pack.
When the driver pulled out, Rand dropped his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about how every mile passing under the wheels was taking him farther from Cai.
You'll be able to find him if you want him.
Want wasn't the problem. All the emptiness inside of him was filled with raw, aching want.
Returning to the present, Rand glanced over his shoulder as Fane joined him. The male was back in human form, which was curious, since they often didn't do that until they were close to the house. Fane took a seat next to him, joining Rand in watching the younger shifters feed.
"What do you think you're waiting for?" Fane asked at last.
Rand shot him a surprised look, and Fane shook his head. "Losing Sheba, Dylef and your children that way, it hurt something deep inside. Broke it. No wolf stays alone as long as you did when the hurt isn't grievous. You're a noble male, a strong leader. I don't claim to understand your attachment to the vampire, but maybe...there are so few wolves like you, preferring your same gender..."
Fane shifted uncomfortably. Rand offered a panting grin and sidled closer to him. Fane snorted and shoved at him. "Yeah, yeah. Make fun of the straight guy awkwardness. Have pity." He sobered. "What I'm saying is maybe the two of you were meant to be. You seem to fit together, in some hard-to-explain way. I think...he needs you."
Fane firmed his lips and nodded to himself, reflecting his certainty that he'd chosen the right words. "And you need him. You said he left without saying good-bye in person. That's what someone does when saying good-bye is going to be too hard. Doesn't sound like a guy who doesn't want to be with you, does it?"
Rand huffed a sigh and laid down, putting his head on Fane's thigh. Fane stroked his ruff, wrapping his arms over him and giving him a light bite on the nape. "We are brothers always. Go and find him. No bullshit about him being gone. You're blood-linked, which I know you told me he can shut down to make it harder to find him, but you're not human. You've got a nose and you're the best tracker I've ever met."
Rand said nothing and Fane heaved a sigh. "Fine. Cilya networks with pretty much every female shifter, coast to coast. You wait much longer to deal with this, I'll tell her to send out a blast that you're on the market. With pictures. They'll arrive in droves, bringing their best meat pies and fried chicken. I won't have to worry about feeding my own brood for weeks. Plus, I get to watch you squirm under their attentions and try to be polite."
Fane laughed when Rand wriggled free and tackled him. As they rolled, Fane shifted back to his gray and brown wolf. Rand pinned him then jumped back, letting Fane spring up and pounce, with an impressively ferocious sound that was all show. They continued to wrestle, tumbling down the hill toward the younglings. Having finished their meal, they were more than ready to join in the fun when they saw it happening.
Rand participated in the play, but Fane's thoughts had watered what was already well on its way to being a firmly planted tree. Or, since it was caused by Cai, a weed-like, invasive species. Rand felt a spurt of wry humor.
Either way...Fane was right. And because Rand realized that, the urgency that Brian said could be chemical, and Debra's smile said could be something else, seemed to triple inside of him. It wasn't long before Rand broke off from the play and headed back to the house at a lope. It was time to go find his other pack.
He gathered some things together, hiked back out to civilization, and hitched a ride on the rural highway. It would lead to one of the towns where he kept a cache of human necessities in a storage facility. Riding in the back of the rattling pickup truck gave him time to think about the best strategy for finding Cai.
He'd kept the vial, even after he'd emptied it, so he had that scent. He also still had the pillow case. Slept with it under his own pillow. Since Lynn could ferret out any hidden laundry, Rand had had to tell her to leave it unwashed, and suffer the unmanly flush summoned by her knowing look.
Did Cai know he slept with it? He'd wondered how much of his mind Cai had tapped. Unlike Rand, who could only wonder what the vampire was doing, Cai could check in anytime, until he was a few thousand miles away.
Rand had a bad moment, thinking of that possibility. For two weeks, there'd been nothing but silence in his head. He'd expected Cai to eventually speak to him, just a deceptively casual reaching out, but nothing. Not even a random flash of emotion. Cai had done the vampire equivalent of shutting off his cell phone.
Rand had attempted more than once to reach out himself.
I want to come see you, talk to you.
You promised me a trip to the desert.
Where are you? Are you really going to make me track you?
If you really meant that "we can still be friends" bullshit, you wouldn't be acting like this.
Asshole.
Nothing.
Cai would know Rand hadn't had the mark removed. What had he thought of that?
Yeah, Rand could track him. It would take time. There were about a million acres of forestland where he might be. Like Rand, Cai preferred the wild spaces. Or maybe Cai had planted himself in the middle of a human population somewhere, the way he'd distanced himself from the Trads when he left their ranks. It irritated Rand to think that Cai would use the same tactics to avoid him he'd used to avoid Goddard.
But there were other reasons Cai would do it. He would need human blood. He might go with the camper or hiker routine, but Rand had a feeling--hopefully not wishful thinking--that Cai might not revert to killing on a routine basis again, particularly if he was staying in more populated areas. Which meant he'd need wider and more frequent access to humans, to secure that "milk cow" approach to feeding.
He'd said his compulsion skills weren't highly developed, but with his looks, he wouldn't need magic to attract prey. That thought brought a snarl to Rand's lips, unfortunately timed, since at that point he was in a mini-mart and startled the clerk.
But that was when another idea hit him. Which would work, as long as Cai truly wasn't out of range. A good hunter knew when to track prey, and when to bait a trap. Thinking of all the things he knew about vampires in general, and this specific vampire, one sprang to mind in front of all the others.
Cai had vulnerable moments when he'd let Rand take the upper hand. But his core was vampire, which could make itself known in sudden, dangerous and pleasing ways. Dominance was an integral part of him. Possessiveness. And Rand was his servant. No matter that Cai had presumably let him go, Rand thought the emotions provoked by that bond weren't easily set aside.
A gay bar for a casual-hook up wouldn't be enough. He knew exactly where he was going to go. To a BDSM club. And not just any club. He would head for Atlanta. If he let his mind drift into some interesting areas, revealing some of his plans, though not the underlying strategy... If he could keep his thoughts high level and somewhat vampire proof, he maybe could draw Cai to him. Even if Cai was geographically far off, maybe that would get him headed in Rand's direction. So Rand wouldn't actually have to go all the way through with the plan he was concocting.
But if he had to, h
e would.
After the mini-mart stop for gas, the driver of his hitched ride dropped Rand off near the storage units where Rand kept clothing, a small box of personal memorabilia, and an old Honda motorcycle in running condition. When Rand swung his leg over it and started it up, he liked the humming vibration it sent through his whole body, as if he were a live wire.
It was what he felt like, the whole time he rode to Atlanta. Once close enough to the city, he checked into a hotel that backed up to a forest and used the room phone to call Club Atlantis.
Despite his short stay at the Council's Savannah headquarters, there'd been time to pick up some interesting tidbits of servant talk. Like how Anwyn ran a BDSM club, and that was where she and Gideon lived. Daegan as well, Rand assumed, when he wasn't traveling on Council business.
"May I speak to Anwyn? Yes, ma'am. My name is Rand. She met me recently."
It only took a moment for the phone to transfer and Anwyn to answer. He remembered her sultry voice, the Mistress quality sending a shiver down his spine. Not because he wanted a Mistress, but because it reminded him of Cai when he was in that Dominant mode.
"Rand?" she said, her tone torn between frost and courtesy. His vampire had tried to kill her servant, and though she knew Rand was a different animal--no pun intended--it would still make her wary. "Why are you calling?"
No friendly chitchat. He could handle that. "Yes, ma'am. I have a problem, and I thought you could help me. You heard that we uh, took care of the problem with the girl?"
"I did." Her voice warmed slightly. "Gideon told me that you and Cai worked well with him and Daegan...when it mattered. Which means I should forgive him. I might, sometime in the next several centuries. Is he with you? Can I interest him in a forced demonstration of an anal probe?"
Rand choked on a chuckle, feeling a little more at ease. She was feisty, like Sheba.
"Uh, he's not. But that's why I need help. I...um, I'm new to all this, but here's what I'm trying to do. First, I need some expert advice to know if it's a crazy idea. Second, some more advice, to know how to pull it off."
He explained the details, more than a little relieved that he could do it over the phone rather than face to face.
He wasn't sure how to interpret the long pause until she spoke. "Oh, hell yeah," she said mildly. "He might not be listening in, but if he really didn't want to give up the connection, I'd bet good money he stays tied in to your state of mind. If you go down the road you're laying out, you'll get his attention. But are you willing to take this all the way?"
"I want to take it as far as I need to get an answer, one way or another. So, if I get nothing...I guess I'll have my answer." His gut tightened unpleasantly at the thought. "I can handle seeing it through if that happens. Hell, it won't really matter then, will it? It'll just be sex with a stranger, which is what I'd eventually do anyway, if he's really done with us."
"Men are such idiots." She sighed. "If he'd left you a cell phone number, this wouldn't be necessary."
"Well, doing it this way is kind of like a rom-com," Rand said. "With a bondage twist."
He was channeling Cai again. Anwyn chuckled. "All right. Let's set up a night and time, and I'll put the details in place. I just need to ask you a few more questions..."
She'd asked him a lot more questions, many of which had him blushing even harder than he had with Lynn and his pillow case. Anwyn's Mistress side came through more strongly during the interrogation. It ran even deeper than the vampire part of her, if that was possible. But since she owned and operated a BDSM club, and had apparently identified as a Domme well before she was turned, he guessed that made sense.
The date and time set, he turned to the other things on his to-do list. Over the next couple days, he went out and splurged some of his carefully saved money. He bought a new pair of jeans and a good aftershave. A better quality razor.
The night he was going to go to the club, he donned the silk and cotton maroon shirt he'd worn for the Council meeting. The fabric lay like a thin, soft fur against his flesh. His stressed jeans had the right kind of fit on his lower body. He had the frayed cuffs pulled down over his motorcycle boots.
When he was human, he pretty much always had stubble, even if he shaved twice a day, so he shaved a third time. He'd visited the barber, so his long hair was brushed and trimmed.
It lay in waves on his shoulders, though the wolf in him still gave the texture some coarseness. He didn't want to be taken for a model in one of those girly shiny hair commercials. But looking in the mirror, he admitted it looked thick, touchable, and Cai really liked tangling his fingers in it. That was what mattered.
He took a cab to the club, so he wouldn't mess it up with a motorcycle helmet. He was amused that he had an army of frogs in combat boots marching through his stomach. Thank God Anwyn had handled his follow-up vetting with another phone call last night, bypassing all the orientation stuff. Rand knew what to expect, mostly, and what was expected of him.
As he recalled parts of the conversation, his slightly damp palms curled on his splayed knees.
"When you get to the club, you'll be on the guest list. Go to the bar, order a nonalcoholic drink and hydrate well. You'll know the Dom I've assigned to you when you see him. I decided the best way to do this is with one of my staff."
Her cryptic tone gave him a spurt of anxiety, but not necessarily the bad kind. "Did you tell him I'm trying to bait a vampire?" Rand asked wryly.
She chuckled. "There's only one human staff member here, other than Gideon, who knows what I am, and that's my security head, James. He's second marked. But Wolf..." She paused. "I've told him you want to be pushed kind of hard, that's your thing. But if you say 'sunset,' he's to immediately stop what he's doing, and call off the session."
"Wolf?"
"That's his scene name. Worked out well, didn't it? Gideon appreciated the coincidence." She sounded amused. "And my safe word choice. But seriously, though Wolf's only been with us a short time, he's already one of my best. And if Cai is listening in, Wolf is exactly the kind of red flag you're seeking."
Another little spike, especially since she sounded a little too satisfied with that thought. Rand cleared his throat. "What happens if I don't call off the session?"
"You'll get the workout of your life, and be very pleasurably and thoroughly spent. Wolf's not doing this as a staff member, so though he'll stay as conscious of your intentions as I'd expect him to do with a client, you'll be interacting as member and guest. If you don't call it off, he'll fuck your brains out. He's a plow horse and thoroughbred, all in one."
Rand felt his loins tighten and pushed that down. Damn third mark libido. Or maybe it was too many nights, missing and thinking of Cai. "Why would Wolf do this for nothing? Did he owe you a favor?"
She chuckled. "Not hardly. Even when they're on the clock, they go with their preferences. None of them fake it for money."
Her voice dropped to a purr. "Nothing gets Wolf going like the challenge of an alpha male. So when I told him no holds barred, and primal play accepted, he was all over that. And totally good with it being on his own time."
More dry throat, more clearing. "Great. I don't expect Cai to show in person, because he's probably not anywhere near Atlanta. But my hope is he'll open up in my head."
"Which accomplishes what you want."
"Hope so." Envisioning Cai appearing at the exact right moment was right in line with that rom-com illusion Rand had half-joked about, but the reality was a different matter. Having Cai show up was too much to want. It filled Rand up too hard.
They hadn't been apart more than a couple weeks, so it shouldn't seem so dramatic. However, if Cai came to Rand because of this, it would be a game-changer neither one could deny.
"Okay, unless you have any other questions, I'll see you tomorrow night," Anwyn finished. Rand hoped he hadn't missed something important, caught up in his own head.
"I'm good. But..." Rand paused. "I know Cai will probably never say he's sorry
, but I wanted to say it for him. I think he understands why Gideon did the things he did to vampires. It's just...Lodell was his friend."
"I know. Gideon is my servant, and one half of my heart. Daegan is the other. It doesn't beat without either one of them." Her voice had an intriguing way of being warm, and yet resonating with authority. "So Cai and I will remain amicable enemies for a time. It doesn't mean I don't understand, or support your desire to reunite with your Master. You can trust me."
"I do. I just felt badly about how things were left."
"Ah." He could almost see her dismissive wave. "Vampires. We're never an easy bunch. Throw the Dom factor in with the egos and insane need for control, and a few bumps in the road happen. Don't worry over it, Rand." Her voice softened. "And don't be nervous about this. Wolf will take very good care of you. Or I'll put his superlative ass in a meat grinder."
So here he was. Rand paid the cab driver and entered the club. From the outside, Club Atlantis looked like many of the buildings in an industrial area. Big, box style, painted brick. Only a few scattered windows at the upper corners, all dark tinted glass. But the silver sign over the arched doorway, Club Atlantis, was classy and expensive-looking, and there was a glassed-in viewing room perched on the very top of the multi-storied building. Rand suspected it was a fancy pool area, something rentable for parties. Or maybe it was part of the private residence he assumed was below ground, since Anwyn and possibly Daegan lived on the premises.
Once inside, he was greeted by James, head of security for the club, instead of a hostess. The strong-looking male with short hair and steady eyes had the look of former special-ops or Secret Service. After James gave him a close once-over, he provided him a basic layout to the club and directions to the bar.
As Rand moved deeper into the club, a world of shadows, glitter, and people absorbed by one another in a variety of distracting ways, he had to block a lot of the input. He'd overlooked his lack of fondness for crowded human venues. It wasn't really crowded here, the layout one that provided plenty of opportunities for intimacy, even in the public spaces, but the scent feedback was overwhelming. He focused on the bar, pointing his feet there.
