by Joey W. Hill
He hurled himself at the male vampire attacking Cai.
Chapter Six
“No…fuck…” Cai spat out. He was trying to get words past the choke hold the berserker vampire had on him when Rand landed on them both and sank his teeth into the attacking vampire’s shoulder, same as he’d done with Chavez.
Since the fucking wolf was a tank and pure muscle, Cai could only imagine the pressure of his jaws. The other male communicated the information graphically.
This vampire was stronger than Chavez. He managed to throw Rand, but Rand was back on him like the duck on the proverbial June bug. Necessity had the vampire releasing Cai to grapple with the wolf. Their three captors moved in, shouting in alarm, eyes wide and worried. Cai would have been grimly satisfied by their troubles, but Rand was all wolf now, his mind in full attack, offense and defense mode. Both eyes were that lava gold color. Cai couldn’t reach him with normal modes of logic. Fuck, they really were going to kill him this time.
The idea filled him with such helpless rage, things connected to old pains, that he couldn’t fucking bear it. He didn’t care that the barbed wire had his nerve endings screaming in agony, and his head hurt from landing on it twice now—once when he was thrown from the van and second when this guy dropped him. He summoned all his energy and thundered out his reminder, because he was pretty sure it hadn’t been memo’ed out to the Council delegation standing here.
“Hurt the goddamn wolf, and you get nothing from me, you psychotic, bloodsucking, arrogant, shit-for-brains, assholes.” He ran out of air to fuel the words, but not descriptive expletives. He finished them up in his head and took another breath. “Stop it. Stop hurting him. He doesn’t understand, goddamn it.”
He’ll keep fighting you, because the closer to death he is, the better he feels. Cai didn’t question the tight feeling in his gut that came with the thought, but if they did irreparable harm to the wolf, he was going to take his own pound of flesh in retribution. If he could get out of this damned wire.
He’d succeeded in drawing attention to himself. An order was barked and miraculously, Tyra, Voltaire and Chavez jumped back as if that hot stick had been used on them. They were replaced by the Viking-servant and the one with Lady Lyssa, the broad-shouldered male who’d been standing by Lady Lyssa.
The Lady Lyssa. Even Trads and vampires who lived in the remote corners of the world knew who she was. If they didn’t, her power signature alone would warn she was top of the psycho vampire pyramid. Last of the royal line of the Far East clan, over a thousand years old. Reputedly carrying Fae blood as well as vampire.
He’d expected her to be taller. But even at five-foot nothing, the slim, elegant woman emanated power like a convoy of Mac trucks screaming down an interstate at a hundred miles per hour.
Her servant was no lightweight, either. However, he and the other servant were having a hell of a time containing Rand. They’d thrown some of the rope back and forth to each other and used it to snug his head down, tie his feet. Unlike Voltaire and his two cronies, however, their entire goal seemed to be quelling the wolf’s attack, not to harm or enrage him to the point the fight became uglier. Lady Lyssa’s servant was even speaking quietly to Rand, as if to soothe him.
That wouldn’t work. Cai’s lips twisted in grim satisfaction when the wolf snapped at the male’s hand, latching on and tearing out a hunk of flesh. Cai tensed as the male swore creatively. But he didn’t retaliate, instead muttering, “Yeah, if I didn’t see that coming, I deserved it.”
The other servant shot him a grin which he quickly lost as Rand almost nailed his forearm. The men left off their banter and concentrated harder on keeping the big wolf pinned down. Even tied, he was fighting like Godzilla taking Tokyo. Admiration surged inside Cai for his determination, but he’d better not let it get too far. Or the wolf might kill the two servants and they’d be back into execution-by-vampire territory. But Rand was still in there, because he seemed to recognize the difference between psychos like Chavez and the manage-and-contain strategies of the two servants. He was fighting, but not necessarily with lethal force.
Which suggested though Rand had retreated back into his wolf, the second mark bond might have some pull. A leash the wolf might heed.
Easy, Rand. They’re not hurting me anymore. It’s okay. Just relax. I have a feeling this is about to become a more manageable situation.
“If you’ll take this fucking thing off me and let me stand up, he’ll be much better,” Cai grated, tossing the comment to the vampire queen. “What, I’m going to bolt and cleverly conceal myself in acres of open field and horse shit? Or single-handedly attack your army of vampire thugs?”
“Your wolf seems to embrace the idea,” she observed. She had a voice that put sultry tags on every syllable. There was no apparent urgency to her, but she was an emotional wall. She could be having a panic attack and no one would be the wiser.
“Yeah, well. Dumb animal. What can I say? He’s all about foolhardy acts of honor. I’m about living to stab you in the back another day when the odds are all in my favor.”
He heard gasps from Tyra and a couple of the others, but really? He had anything to gain from sucking up when they were already kicking the shit out of him?
“Take off the wire,” Lady Lyssa instructed Chavez.
She’d given Cai’s thrown-out threat the weight he knew it carried. He could come on that female in bright daylight, with her in a full vampire sleep, and she’d still kill him before he was within ten feet of her. With or without the help of her servant, who was doing a pretty damn good job of sparring with the shifter.
Lyssa’s gaze went frigid when it was pointed toward Tyra and Voltaire. “This was not how the sorcerer’s tool was to be utilized. He will not be pleased to hear the power was abused. And I do not know how you’ve bound our guest, but I won’t repeat myself again. Free him.”
Chavez scampered to Cai’s side to do as he’d been bidden. His obvious terror of the female vampire was delightful, but Cai would have an easier time reveling in it once the fucking barbed wire was off. Staving off another of those stupid panic spurts about that, he tried to focus on what was happening around them. Knowledge was power, yeah. But he’d still prefer an Uzi and a bolt-action wooden stake launcher.
Lady Lyssa turned her attention to the vampire who’d attacked Cai. He was currently being held by the other two Council vampires. He’d struggled at first, but was now limp, seemingly dazed.
She moved to him, laying a hand on his arm to command his attention. “Lord Greenwald, I understand the pain you are feeling right now, but you must control yourself so we can make the most of this opportunity. If you can’t, I will have you taken back to your bedroom and held there until we can formulate a plan of action. I suspect you’d much rather be part of those plans. Correct?”
The male nodded, though his gaze on Cai was still feral and desperate. It held so much rage, if he could have taken Cai down with it alone, he would have. That didn’t really bug Cai. It was the uncontrolled look behind it which gave him an uneasy feeling. Not that the whole situation wasn’t fucked, but there was a wrongness to the male that made him wonder about Lyssa placing that hand on him. It was as if she thought simple words wouldn’t be enough.
“I swear, I didn’t know my latest kill was your tailor.” Cai swept a scornful gaze over the male. “But I expect you can find someone else to measure your inseams for you.”
With a scream of pure, killing wrath, Greenwald tried to burst out of the vampires’ hold. Which set off Rand again, such that the Viking and Lyssa’s servant had to renew their efforts to keep the wolf from breaking his bonds.
Fuck it. Cai shut his mouth while Chavez started to remove the barbed wire. Lyssa had freaked the Goth out. He was muttering a chant to help with the removal, but he went too fast, because he cursed and had to start over, taking the words more slowly.
In the meantime, with a chastising look at Cai, Lady Lyssa moved toward Rand. Cai stiffened, but she knel
t gracefully and put her hand on his broad, dark head. She’d smoothed the skirt modestly beneath her as she dropped to her heels, and it only made her look sexier. Her servant began to speak, probably to warn her, but she shook her head. Her small, slim fingers curled into the thick fur.
The power-radiating vampire queen and the large black wolf gazing up at her, created the type of picture displayed on glossy fantasy novel covers. Cai noted that Rand must have heard him and started to settle some, for though his gaze was hostile, the hellfire gold had retreated, so he had one blue and one gold eye again.
Rand was huffing through the hold of the ropes on his muzzle. He needed to breathe, to pant, damn them. Cai glared at Chavez, as if that would speed him up.
“You are more than you seem, beautiful wolf,” Lyssa murmured. Her gaze lifted and met Cai’s. “Is he what I believe he is?”
“A pain in my ass? A noble idiot? Yes, on both counts.”
She kept looking at him with that eerie-ass, unblinking stare. Cai swallowed.
Stop being a fucking smartass and answer the lady’s question before she rips Rand’s head off to prove she can, he told himself.
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened slightly, her servant’s face reflecting the same surprise. Cai should have lied. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t. He had a terrible vision of them tossing his ass on the street and keeping Rand imprisoned as a circus act for the rest of his life. Why didn’t you just run, damn you?
He received a mixed bag of response, all in wolf speak. He thought of how Rand had touched his muzzle to his arm, an unexpected intimacy. Yeah, it was just the way wolves talked, no need to get mushy over it, but it had been a steadying connection. A new experience for Cai when he was in a jam. Usually his allies numbered one—the guy he looked at in the mirror but couldn’t see.
“Demons,” Lord Greenwald said, his voice cracking. “Demons come to take my girl. Kill them, and they will release her. Make them feel pain. My pain.”
Cai noted a significant look pass between Lady Lyssa and the other two Council members. He also observed a less-hard-to-decipher communication happening between Voltaire, Chavez and Tyra. Anticipation, competition, and something unpleasantly on the edge of bloodlust. There was more happening here than the guy’s daughter being gone. Lord Greenwald wasn’t well.
He’d seen it happen to at least a couple of vampires, though there hadn’t been a lot of time to register the symptoms, since where Cai grew up, such weakness resulted in an immediate death sentence. Ennui. The only hundred percent incurable disease that seemed to affect vampires, usually those over five hundred, which Greenwald clearly was.
From the cues being dropped all over the place like marbles, Cai concluded that Greenwald was probably an overlord. Lyssa calling him Lord Greenwald wasn’t a guarantee of that, since born vampires immediately earned the title by birth. But Chavez, Tyra and Voltaire were acting like underlings vying to take his spot. When they didn’t immediately correct their lord, it suggested they weren’t averse to letting him believe his daughter had been taken by demons, which would goad his unstable impulses.
All just speculation, but Cai was good at putting together a puzzle with only a handful of pieces.
Lady Lyssa’s gaze had passed over Greenwald’s people, and though she was still as readable as a blank page, Cai figured she knew the lay of the land. He just couldn’t tell whether she was for or against their machinations.
She stroked Rand once more and rose to her feet, gesturing to the Viking and her own servant. “Torrence, return to Lady Helga’s side. Jacob, let Cai release the wolf from his bonds. I believe it will work better that way.”
“There’s no time for this,” Lord Greenwald snapped.
“You’re correct,” she said, and her tone cooled. “If your vampires had brought him to us as instructed, instead of torturing him and working his wolf into this state, I expect we would right now be sitting down to discuss how Mr. Mordecai Wallace can assist us. But since—”
“He’s a demon,” Greenwald raged. “He’s—”
“Georg.” Lyssa spoke firmly, but with an uncontestable authority that apparently penetrated the fog capturing Greenwald’s mind. She stepped to his side again so she dominated his field of vision. “We are not dealing with demons. You collected valuable intel that there was a Trad who had left their ranks within the last hundred years, who was unsympathetic to their ways. Our sorcerer helped you pinpoint his location. You sent three of your people to retrieve him and bring him here to help us.”
“I’m not a fucking Trad,” Cai said sharply. Lyssa lifted an imperious and quelling hand without looking his way. Her servant, the one she’d called Jacob, shifted to Cai’s side.
“Let her talk him down,” he murmured. “So you can get to your wolf.”
Cai glanced at him, surprised. Jacob was the first to speak to him as if he was more ally than enemy. The queen’s servant was neither to him, but there was a self-preservation benefit to acknowledging courtesy. He just wasn’t usually smart enough to do it.
“Okay,” he muttered. “But the next person who calls me a Trad is going to get fucked up the ass by my steel-toed hiking shoe.”
Jacob’s lips quirked, but he nodded gravely. “I might just tell Torrence to call you that, so you can carry out that threat. It would be endlessly entertaining.”
Cai was glad the servant was amused, because he fucking wanted out of these bindings now, and he wanted to be at the wolf’s side even sooner. Jacob hadn’t sounded mocking, though. His eyes remained serious, his gaze sweeping over everyone as if gauging what would happen next so he could get ahead of it.
His legs were free. Cai was instantly on his feet, quivering with impatience as the Goth finished releasing him from the barbed wire. The relief from the pain and suppressed panic of being immobilized was so immediate and overwhelming he wanted to bolt. Or tear out Chavez’s abundance of nose rings.
Cai did neither. He did stiffen when Jacob reached out courteously to steady him. The servant took the hint, abandoning the gesture in mid-motion. Lyssa gave Cai a slight nod, communicating that Greenwald had settled enough for him to approach and release Rand. Not that he’d been waiting for that. Soon as he was steady on his feet, he was headed toward the wolf.
When he knelt by Rand’s side, Cai saw the wolf’s gaze sweep him, all the blood and torn clothes. His panting increased. Cai felt his anger, the desire to bite and tear flesh. His patience at being held down was at an end.
He laid his hand on the wolf’s shoulder and began to loosen the bonds, starting with the muzzle. Stay with me there, wolf. Easy. They’ve released me. We’ll figure this out together. Don’t run off, okay? The local horse farmers will freak the fuck out if they see a wolf the size of a cow running around. You with me? Give me something so I know you’re on an even keel again. I don’t want you to die here. Let’s calm down and figure it out together.
Rand’s gaze slid up to his, held. Cai pressed his lips together, his hand resting briefly on Rand’s head after he removed the snug tie that had pulled it down and attached it to his front feet. He wasn’t sure why he took a second to do that, but he did.
When he lifted his palm, Rand stretched his head back, loosening the neck muscles. Cai automatically moved his hand there to massage. While Rand didn’t reply in his mind, he arched under Cai’s touch, accepting the cosseting. His bi-colored gaze focused on Cai’s upper body. Abruptly, he shifted into an upright position, extended his long nose and began to lick the blood off Cai’s chest, where the shirt was torn open. He was tending him, the sleek fur on his head rubbing Cai’s jaw.
Some weird emotional reaction set up camp in Cai’s chest, making him want to tighten both hands in the wolf’s ruff and…do what? He had no idea except holding on. And this was so not the moment to explore that reaction.
He murmured to the wolf, nothing coherent, just a reassurance, and rose. He rested his hand on Rand’s shoulder to hopefully keep him at his side. No such luck.
The wolf apparently recalled himself, whatever wolf-insanity that had made him be so affectionate probably replaced by more human-Rand sanity. He stalked away, flattening his ears and baring his teeth at the vampires, but he took an alert stance about fifteen feet away from all of them, staying watchful.
It was a smart idea, since it gave him a vantage of anything coming up behind Cai, but Cai didn’t know if that was why Rand had done it. He couldn’t parse Rand’s thoughts from the wolf’s, and the wolf’s were still sometimes a little too cryptic for him to translate perfectly, especially when Rand was worked up.
Have back. Want horse meat.
Okay, clear enough. Hopefully he’d sit on that last urge, at least right now.
“Good.” Lyssa had been watching the two of them shed their respective bonds and make it to their feet. Now she turned at the appearance of another human, this one a slim male whose wary look toward Lord Greenwald suggested he was a house servant used to his Master’s erratic nature. But Lyssa took charge of things. “Giles, escort Mordecai and…” she glanced at Cai, then significantly to Rand.
“Just Wolf,” Cai said. “I’m not sentimental enough to name him.”
A lie, but he couldn’t believe he’d confirmed what he thought he’d confirmed to her. Maybe if he played dumb she’d think he’d meant something else. No need to make it worse.
Her gaze flickered. “In a moment, Giles, I wish you to escort Mordecai and his wolf to a room where they can clean up. Provide a change of clothes in the appropriate sizes. Mordecai is here as a Council guest.”
Her attention cut to Greenwald’s underlings, and then to Greenwald himself. “From this moment forward, any who treat either him or his wolf otherwise will answer personally to me. Do you understand, Georg? You are an overlord. Do you doubt my ability to handle this situation properly?”
