by Joey W. Hill
Greenwald seemed to be regaining control of his faculties. He rubbed a hand over his face, a brief gesture of vulnerability and helpless fury that had Lyssa’s hand resting on him in comfort this time, instead of to admonish restraint.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I know stress makes it worse. But you’re all right. You’re with us again. Just try to stay as calm as you can. That’s what Dovia needs right now, isn’t it?”
His gaze lifted to her. He had light brown eyes, a bisque complexion and a short crop of black hair. He was tall and lean, a male who, when he straightened and took a breath, showed the command that had landed him the role of overlord, before the illness had taken him. “Yes, my lady. I’ll… I’ll go check on Leona.”
Clearing his throat, he strode back up onto the front stoop and disappeared into the house. Lyssa leveled her gaze on Voltaire. The jade green eyes were abruptly as sharp as Rand’s teeth. “Overlords are appointed by Region Masters and confirmed by Council members. Keep that in mind, Voltaire. To some, taking advantage of your lord’s illness might seem like initiative. To others, it seems cruelly opportunistic, especially if your actions are designed to take advantage of a terrible situation, and push him further toward the inevitable conclusion of his state.”
She took a step forward. Whatever Voltaire saw in her expression had him stepping back, Tyra and Chavez likewise shrinking away.
Cai noticed that Jacob had gone from the casual stance he’d adopted during their conversation to a far more alert and hard-eyed look, as had Torrence and the female vampire Lyssa had called Lady Helga. Ditto on the death-look from the copper-haired vampire. His servant managed somber well enough, but unlike the others, she fell short of menacing. From the glint in her eye and set of her chin, she could be tough, though.
“If you wish to explore the depths of cruelty and how far it can take you in this world,” Lady Lyssa continued, “I am happy to show you that personally, until you will beg for Hell. Re-evaluate your tactics.”
“Yes, my lady,” Voltaire said, wisely not choosing to argue the point. He bowed, his eyes lowered, his jaw tight.
“Good. Be gone from my sight. You’d do best to stay that way awhile.”
The three vanished like smoke. Cai didn’t blame them. He cleared his throat.
“If I’m a guest, does that mean I can say thanks but no thanks and hitch a ride out of here?”
When Lyssa’s frosty eyes landed on him, he knew for sure he was an idiot. But what else was new? “Do you go by Mordecai?” she said, after a moment heavy with tension.
“Cai,” he said.
“Cai, then. There is a reason you’ve been brought here. A very important one. We’re hoping you will be able to advise us on the best course of action. Lord Greenwald’s daughter is twenty-two years old and she has been taken by an Appalachian sect of Trads. I expect you’re familiar with them, since you grew up among them. Yes?”
The world grew black for a second. Black, dark, and it turned upside down. Cai fought out of that mental oaken barrel ride, swearing if he did something mortifying like faint he’d just kill himself when he woke up. He shoved back a million images, most of them populated with screams, blood and other things that belonged to horror shows, and blinked once, twice, three times. Slow. Then he spoke.
“Yes, my lady.”
He didn’t know how she knew his origins, let alone how they’d decided he was a “Trad unsympathetic to their ways,” but he wondered how much else she knew.
Rand’s gaze snapped to him when he made the honorific.
Yeah, I do know how to be polite. Don’t die of shock.
Lyssa was continuing. “While he had you brought you here in a brutal and unsanctioned manner, Lord Greenwald loves his daughter and is not thinking quite clearly. I’m sure he might tender an apology to you, especially if you have information that can help us.”
“Don’t know how much help I’ll be, and don’t want an apology from him.” Cai couldn’t inject too much venom into the comment, though. Now that the puzzle pieces were in place, he saw the desperate, enraged father beneath the savagery. Not that he wouldn’t punch him in the mouth if he got the chance. “I’ll tell you what I can. Like to be headed back the way I came before the night gets too late.”
“Good. Go with Giles and refresh yourself, clean up. Join us in the study as quickly as possible.” She nodded in a noncommittal way and gestured to Giles. The servant took the lead and Cai followed, though he paused at the front stoop. Waiting for Rand.
With another baleful stare around him, the wolf trotted through their ranks and joined Cai, so they mounted the stairs together.
Under far too many prying, expectant and overly curious eyes.
The house was what Cai expected. Reeking of money and comfort. From a couple quick questions to Giles, he learned Lord Greenwald had been overlord of the territory for nearly twenty years.
When they reached the underground level, they passed an open door where a small shape was curled on a king-sized bed, covers pulled up high. The room looked like it belonged to a young woman. A girly teenage décor, including a graduation cap, stuffed animals and a couple posters of beefcake, were mixed with touches brought to it by the older version of the same female. Vase of flowers, a few pictures. College school books rested on the desk.
A worried look crossed Giles’ face and he drew the door to a small crack. “Leona, Lord Greenwald’s full servant,” he said quietly. “Dovia’s mother.”
In Dovia’s room, no doubt. When they moved on, Cai realized Rand wasn’t following. Looking back, he saw him nudge open the cracked door to stare inside. Giles came to a full halt when he realized it, his expression tightening in a way that said he knew he couldn’t protect the woman, but he wasn’t going to do nothing. Cai appreciated the guy’s protectiveness enough to give him a heads up.
“Believe me, the last thing that wolf will ever do is harm an innocent. Or a grieving mother. He’s cool.”
Giles studied the wolf’s quiet posture. After a moment, Rand turned and padded toward them. Cai resumed their trek, Giles breaking into a trot to take the lead again. He showed them to a guest room and turned on the bathroom light. “Towels, soap and other toiletries. If you tell me your sizes and preferences, I’ll find you some clothes.”
Cai glanced at Rand. You want him to bring some in your size?
Rand blinked, flattened his ears.
That’d be a no. Regardless, Cai told Giles to bring two sets of clothes, and ignored the servant’s puzzled look when he provided two different sets of sizes. He and Rand wouldn’t be completely off on pants length, but otherwise, yeah, it needed to be two sizes. As broad-shouldered as Cai was, Rand had him beat by another hand span, and his chest…
“If you have anyone in the house with the upper body build of a male gorilla, you’ll be in the right ballpark,” he instructed Giles.
On that issue Giles didn’t miss a beat. “Torrence, Lady Helga’s servant, should have something. Um…do you have a servant that will be joining you? Is that why you want the second set of clothes?”
“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. He might or might not need them. So Helga’s the blond vampire with the monster-sized servant. Which means the vampire with the fashion-model hair is…”
Giles blinked, obviously nonplused. “That would be Lord Mason. His servant is Jessica.”
“Great. Not a lot of time for introductions when I was being kicked in the teeth. If you’re wanting to feel useful, a bowl of water and a good raw steak wouldn’t be amiss for him.” Cai nodded to Rand. “I’d be happy with ice water and a stiff tumbler of Gentleman Jack.”
A variety of expressions crossed Giles’s face. Cai was sure he didn’t fit the mold of anything with fangs that had crossed the servant’s path before, but he provided a courteous response. “I’ll attend to it.”
The servant headed toward the door, but came up short at the threshold, turning as if he might say something. His dark brown eyes under a
n unruly mop of blond hair revealed a sudden depth of worry that even world leaders didn’t carry.
Then all that was swiftly squelched. Giles did another pivot, apparently changing his mind and executing a nice three-sixty twirl to head back toward the hallway.
“What?” Cai asked before he could get away.
Giles stopped as if yanked to a halt with a fish hook. “I’m so sorry, sir,” he stammered. He didn’t look toward Cai. “It’s not my place to speed you along, sir. Or even to suggest it. But…Dovia is a beloved member of this household, sir. And Lord Georg and his servant are sick with worry.”
He hadn’t suggested anything, so it took Cai a second to catch up, but then he realized Giles was concerned about Cai kicking back with his Jack and taking his sweet time about showing his ass topside again. Like Lyssa would tolerate that.
“That’s why I want you to get me the stuff, so we can eat it here while we’re getting cleaned up. Makes us ready that much faster.”
Giles was surprised enough at the reasonable response that his gaze snapped up and met Cai’s. Cai should probably remind him that not all vampires were as touchy-feely as him.
Hearing the wolf equivalent of a snort in his mind, he sent Rand a look, then spoke. “How long have you been here, Giles?”
“Six months, sir.”
“Six whole months?” Poor bastard, stepping into all this shit where Georg’s power was being contested and his daughter taken. “I’m sure you’ve been told not to question vampires. Or, in your case, even cryptically hint that you’re about to.”
“Yes sir.” The male’s expression whitened. Kid wasn’t much older than Georg’s daughter, which made Cai put together another few pieces.
“You her full servant?”
Giles shook his head. “Second marked to her father, but here for her blood needs. And to tutor her in languages.”
“She doesn’t have a second mark or full servant?”
Giles expression tightened. “No full servant. Her second mark, Petra, was killed when she was taken.” Another flash, this of grief. They’d obviously been friends.
Would have been too helpful to have someone who was in her head, Cai thought with a mental sigh. Her father would be linked to her mind, but with the advanced Ennui, he likely wasn’t able to get through the way he would normally. Adding to his rage and frustration. Her mother’s connection would be through the vampire parent’s mind. Same issue. Another reason Cai was here. He wondered if the kidnappers had figured out how to block that connection, or if they’d known about Greenwald’s state. Or some of both.
“Okay. Just remember you’re lucky I’m not interested in proving how goddamn superior I am by ripping your tongue out of your throat and watching it flop on the ground like a trout. You might not get so lucky with the next vampire. Now go grab me some clothes.”
“Yes. Yes, sir.” Giles disappeared out the door
Cai ran a hand over his face. Just because he’d been brought here to provide information, didn’t mean he would actually be of any assistance. Any hopes Giles had for him might be wasted.
Cai didn’t give it much further thought, though, since he was used to falling far below expectations. But a shower followed by a drink was going to feel hellishly good.
Cai moved toward the bathroom, already stripping off his ruined shirt and the bloody jeans. Next came footwear.
Rand had accurately realized his faded old clothing was Cai’s version of pajamas. But thank the stars Cai had learned to keep his shoes on when resting in the earth. Picking his way daintily across Greenwald’s asphalt driveway because Cai had tender soles would have been demoralizing. He was pissed at the loss of his pack, even though he didn’t ever carry much, and nothing that he couldn’t replace. It was the principle of the thing.
He was most annoyed at the state of his clothing. He’d had the T-shirt and jeans broken in to the right level of slumber softness. Thanks to those barbs, pretty much everything but his hiking shoes were a loss, and they had some rusty brown blood stains on them, damn it.
Cai stepped into the shower, letting the water stream over him. He moved his palms with brisk precision over his bruises and gashes, ignoring the tenderness. Soon as he had some blood, they’d disappear entirely.
Hearing the clicking of toenails, he saw the dark wolf lie down on the tile outside the wavy texture of the shower door. He thought about Rand earlier in the evening, and the different ways the wolf had acted since then. If this was quid pro quo, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, then it was damn appreciated. When he’d licked the blood off Cai’s chest, it was the first time in quite a while that Cai had been anyone’s random act of kindness.
Stepping out of the shower, he saw Giles was as good as his word. There were two sets of folded clothes on the king-sized bed, and a nearly empty water bowl. Water had been slopped over the sides, leaving dark drops on the carpet. A licked clean second metal bowl still smelled faintly of steak.
“Messy eater. Didn’t leave me a bite, did you?” He grinned and tossed the towel over the wolf’s head. Rand dodged it, showing teeth. “Shift for me, Rand. It’s just you and me alone, and I need to talk to you.”
He didn’t respond immediately. Cai repeated it, a couple times. Unease touched him when he realized Rand wasn’t ignoring him. He’d gone somewhere so deep in his wolf that human speech sounded like gibberish. Cai sharpened his tone and Rand’s head came up. Using intuition, since he didn’t have a how-to-talk-to-your-second-mark-when-he-shifts-into-a-wolf manual, Cai tugged on that bond. What do you know? Rand felt it. His eyes darted back and forth, muscles tightening as he fought an internal battle.
There. He’d started to shift. As before, Cai was amazed at what an amazingly clean process it was. Not even a thread of hair left on the white tile, not even what Rand might have shed when he lay down outside the shower. A nifty bit of forensic magic.
The male pushed himself up and onto his heels, all grace and no self-consciousness in his magnificent nudity. As they regarded one another, Rand was the one who broke the silence. And amusingly to Cai, he skipped over everything that had happened in the past few hours and went right back to twilight, before Cai had woken to meet the Three Stooges. Interesting, since his own mind was dwelling on the same timeframe.
“If I’d known you buried yourself in the earth,” Rand said, “I’d have dug you up at noon so you could get some sun on that pasty skin of yours. Would have saved us all the road trip.”
Cai grinned. “A very good point. But only one of us is allowed to have suicidal urges at a time. And you’ve used up your quota, by the way. Come into the bedroom. I need to eat so I can be as badass as usual.”
Cai moved to the nightstand, exploring what was in the top drawer. Yeah, it was a vampire household, all right. He turned his attention to the bed and the stacks of clothes there. Lifting a T-shirt obviously in Rand’s size, with a good amount of stretch in the cotton to accommodate his shoulder span, Cai pursed his lips. “Nice response time. But then, they want something from us. It makes all the difference.”
Rand shook his head, probably at Cai’s cynicism, and reached for the clothes. That was when Cai moved.
He sprang, caught Rand about the waist and shoved him to the bed. He had the element of surprise, but it lasted him about a second. He told himself it was thanks to blood loss that Rand unhorsed him with a counter wrestling move and they hit the floor next to the bed with a jarring thump that probably vibrated through the mansion’s foundations. Shit, he felt that through every bruise.
Rand sat on top of him. He had his hands on Cai’s wrists, his fine, muscular ass on Cai’s cock. With his body canted over Cai, his loose brown hair fell forward and shadowed his frowning face.
Cai pushed against his grip. Rand’s fingers tightened and Cai let a slow smile cross his face. “You want to play rough, wolf? I can do that.”
“You yelped when you hit the ground,” Rand pointed out. “You’re in pain. What are you doing? You
heard what they said. There’s a female at risk.”
“I did not yelp. And she’s a female vampire,” Cai reminded him. “So why do you care? More of the decency and morality thing?”
“A remarkable number of people possess some version of it. You don’t care what happens to her?”
“Didn’t say that.” Cai didn’t let his head go there. He’d much rather focus on what was in front of him, the intriguing pleasure of the shifter’s strong grip on his wrists, the weight of his body.
But at Rand’s penetrating stare, he sighed. “I think if she’s been taken by this particular group of Trads, she’s as good as dead. Because they’ll destroy her trying to get what they want and, even if her father gets her back, this crowd won’t want her because she’ll be too broken. Vampires don’t respect weakness in their own kind. Be torn apart there, torn apart here, what does it matter?”
“Her father loves her.”
“Yeah, sorry. Couldn’t appreciate his loving nature while his minions were whaling on me.”
“Cai.” Rand gave him a severe look and released his wrists, sitting up to cross his arms over his broad chest. “There’s no point lying to a wolf. I can sense your emotions, you know. Her fate does matter to you.”
“Okay, say it does. Get on your hands and knees on the bed so I can fuck you senseless. That way I can give them the benefit of my infinite wisdom about saving the girl sooner rather than later.”
Rand narrowed his gaze. The male was…so adorably stern. Cai found a reserve of energy to prove who was in charge and managed to heave him off. Another few minutes of serious wrestling, and he had Rand beneath him again on the bed, Rand face down, Cai on top, his hand wrapped firmly around Rand’s cock, sandwiched between the press of Rand’s body and the mattress.
Cai wasn’t entirely sure the shifter hadn’t held back because he was more worried than Cai about property damage…or Cai’s physical state. Well, to hell with that. To hell with everything but this very second and what he needed. Or wanted, rather, he corrected himself.
