by Joey W. Hill
No.
Cai coughed over a harsh half-chuckle that had no humor in it. Stubborn-ass shifter.
Lyssa had given him a curious look at the laugh. Cai subsided, falling silent and staring a hole in the side of the desk. The vampire queen clasped her hands in a loose knot on the desk.
“You are correct,” she said abruptly. “You were brought here against your will, Mordecai. While that isn’t always an inappropriate thing in the vampire world, I’ll offer you something for your total honesty. Whatever things you wish protected about yourself will not leave this room. I won’t tell the others how you come by the knowledge you have, unless it is pertinent to finding her.”
Now Cai looked surprised. Lyssa’s expression didn’t change. Rand thought she must practice being a statue, but whatever Cai read from her face seemed to work. Rand tended to use senses other than vision to pick up what was really happening. Even as human, his sense of smell was far more developed. What he detected from Lyssa, after exercising whatever power had allowed her to manacle Cai’s mind that brief moment, was a sliver of sympathy. She’d seen something in Cai’s reaction that had made her realize a different tactic was needed, a different type of sincerity. Rand had no idea what it was until Cai spoke.
“I was taken by a Trad from that Appalachian group when I was fifteen. And human.”
Rand’s gaze snapped to Cai. He was standing where he could see the male’s profile, and Cai’s expression looked brittle as glass.
“Why would the Trads take a young male?” Jacob asked.
Cai’s voice took on a bitter edge. “I met the choosing guidelines. I had some abilities they thought would be useful.”
“Which would be?” Lyssa asked.
Cai said nothing for a long moment. Then he reached toward the desk and the potted plant there, which had a variety of purple blooms. Plucking one off its stem, he closed it in his hand. After another pause, he lifted his gaze and met Lyssa’s eyes.
Magic warmed the air around Cai. Different from what he’d used to reinforce the chains or heal Rand, but similar. Closer to this.
Perhaps twenty seconds had ticked by when Cai opened his hand. Rand and Jacob pressed forward to see what he had revealed to Lyssa.
A newborn flower was breaking through the seed that had been fertilized inside the cup of the blossom. Before their eyes, it kept growing until it bloomed, a newer, vibrant version of the mature flower. The threadlike roots overlapped the split sides of the seed and spread out over the lines of Cai’s palm.
Creation magic. That was why it hadn’t felt exactly like healing energy to Rand. Creation magic could be used to heal, though in a different way from healing magic itself. Creation magic could not only spawn life, but it could change the nature of things, accelerate their process, like healing a wound, or making chain far stronger than expected.
Rand hadn’t expected a vampire like Cai to possess the talent for it, or the head of the Vampire Council to recognize it. But the flicker in Lyssa’s eyes said she did. Cai had said she was part-Fae, after all.
Sorcerers, the Fae, shifters. While all of those knew of creation magic, few could use it as Cai had just done. And he was implying he’d had the ability as a young human, perhaps even since birth. But to what extent?
The exercise or presence of such magic would leave a detectable signature to a shifter, and possibly even other vampires. Though Rand had detected those traces of power from the vampire, when not in use, their presence was so faint as to be overlooked or mistaken for the latent power Cai had as a vampire. Was that natural or practiced? Had Cai intentionally learned to mask it so completely? If so, why?
Lyssa and Jacob had their gazes locked on the vampire, and Rand could only imagine the ricochet of thoughts passing between them. With an odd self-consciousness, Cai worked the new flower into the plant’s soil, tamping it down around the roots with gentle fingers before he sat back. “I expect you understand why the Trads would be interested in a guy who could make a seed germinate.”
“Any seed.” Lyssa said it as a statement.
“Yeah, that’s what they thought.” Cai’s lips twisted. “I’d be king of the world if we ever get hit by famine, because it only works on plants. Fortunately, I have the survival skills of a cockroach, so when they realized I couldn’t make a human woman fertile from their seed, those skills helped me figure out how to stay alive. They never caught a female vampire while I was with them, but eventually they believed I couldn’t do it with any type of female mammal. By that time, I was making my mark as a useful member of their fucked-up little society. Another vampire in the group turned me. Not the one who took me from my family.”
He lifted a shoulder. “A made vamp can leave if he kills at least one other member of the clan, proving he’s no longer the bottom of the totem pole. It took a hundred years, but I did it.”
“That’s an extraordinary amount of determination,” Lyssa said.
“I don’t like anyone to take choices out of my hands.” He met her gaze. “Don’t do what you just did to me, ever again.”
Her lips curved. “Can you stop me?”
“No. Not right now. But I figured out how to kill a Trad after a hundred years. I’m willing to put in the time to figure out how to set you back on your heels if you fuck with me.”
Jacob shifted and Lyssa’s gaze slid to him. He stilled, a muscle flexing in his jaw. Rand had moved with him, though, and the midnight blue eyes cut to him. “Going to take us both on?” the servant asked the wolf, with deceptive mildness.
“He gets stupidly protective in that form,” Cai advised. “Logic won’t have anything to do with it.”
“Hard to figure out how to stop me if you’re dead,” Lyssa pointed out to Cai, ignoring Rand and Jacob as if the servants’ exchange hadn’t happened.
“Trads tried their best to kill me. If you succeed where they failed, then that’s that. But otherwise…just don’t.”
Rand’s gaze slid back to Cai. The note in his voice was unclassifiable, but it came out close to a proper petition to a vampire queen. Well, as close as someone like Cai could manage. But the emotion behind it was one soul speaking to another.
Cai liked this queen, Rand realized. Respected her, as much as the vampire could respect anyone. He had obviously picked up in a short time what Rand had drawn from her, too. She wasn’t set against him, against anyone. She would act in the best interest of the vampire girl, and of the vampires as a whole.
Before Rand could get used to Cai’s shift in attitude, he went right back to being confrontational.
“Some years after I was taken, I found out my human mother went above and beyond to try to find me. When she started babbling crazy shit about vampires, my father was afraid for the rest of my siblings and had her put in an asylum.” Cai stared at Lyssa. “You know how awful most of those were in the early 1800s? But before that happened, she discovered who the local vampire in charge was and went, a lowly human, to seek an audience. Graham. Think he’s an overlord in California now. Not that I give a flying fuck about your attempt at a government, but I’ve tried to keep track of him.”
Cai’s jaw tightened. “He told her that the fate of humans fallen into vampire hands, particularly Trads, was not their concern. Unless she had something to trade worth having, she wouldn’t leave an audience with him alive. So she was shared with him and several other visiting vampires for a couple days. She would have died there, but his servant risked Graham’s wrath, and dropped her off at a city hospital during daylight hours. That was when the babbling about vampires landed her in an institution. Her mind was probably broken from those few days with them, so she couldn’t pretend not to know about vampires. She died a few years later.”
He rose. Jacob drew closer, but Lyssa lifted a hand, stilling him. “Let him say his peace,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, let me say my peace.” Cai’s lip curled. “So, when you want me to care about fucking vampires, you are barking up the wrong fucking tree. I ow
e no one my allegiance, and any one of you can do your best to kill me, but it won’t change that. I’ll be dead and gone before I’ll pay a tithe, bow down, suck the dick or follow whatever the hell protocols that overlords, Region Masters or the head of the goddamn Vampire Council lay out.”
He took a breath, and Rand heard that unsettling note in his voice, felt the intensity of it. “I’m a vampire now, and I’m cool with that. Thanks to the seed magic stuff, I was already something different from most humans. That was why I was taken. But she was my mother. I remembered her.”
Cai paused, realizing he was letting his need to strike out take over his emotions. But God, he did remember her. Two hundred years, and he still remembered her smell, the touch of her hand, her eyes. Her smile. “I remember enough of her that, one day, when I’m strong enough, Graham will die at my hands. I’ve already taken two of the others who were at that audience. It’s not my main reason for eating and sleeping, but I know our paths will cross when the time is right.”
Silence ruled the room. When Lyssa did speak, it was in an unexpectedly mild tone. “Since you don’t walk in our circles, you may not be aware. This Council bears no love for Graham. Because he has violated our restrictions one too many times, he was recently stripped of his overlord title and is on a probation that will end in his death if one more violation reaches our ears.”
She unlaced her hands and placed the palms flat on the desk. “If that happens, his servant will be separated from him, if she doesn’t wish to follow him into death.”
Cai blinked. “You can do that? Separate a fully marked servant from the vampire?”
“We have had some limited success, for special situations.” Lyssa waved a hand, indicating she wasn’t going to be deviated from the topic. “She’s not responsible for her Master’s crimes. However, she is not the same one who helped your mother, I am certain, for he goes through servants at a distasteful rate. He’s a disgrace to our society. But Lord Georg is not. He has been a good overlord before this happened.”
“Before the Ennui got to him?”
Her expression closed. “You are aware of the condition.”
“I know a few things about your world. It’s also affected some Trads.”
“Then you have shown more discretion and kindness than I anticipated from your attitude.” She inclined her head. “Georg is an overwrought father and vampire seeking a target for his helpless rage, his fear for his daughter. But I expect you know that, which is why you requested a private audience, isn’t it? So you could speak frankly without causing him more distress.”
Rand’s gaze slid to Cai, surprised when his face shuttered. Thanks to Cai’s explanation of his background, most the ire he’d felt at the vampire’s callousness had evaporated. He was still acting like an asshole, but Rand now understood better why. Though, because he could be an asshole, Rand wasn’t entirely sure why Cai hadn’t wanted him here.
Did he think finding out he’d been a victim would change—
Not a fucking victim.
Jacob started, and even Lyssa stiffened in surprise as Cai erupted from the chair, so violently it thudded to its side. In one step, he was facing off with Rand like he intended to attack. His fists were clenched, eyes like living flame.
It happened so fast, Rand reacted exactly as a wolf would. Flat ears, curled lip, hackles raised, tail out straight and feet braced. Ready for a fight, knowing he was standing right on the threshold on one. Cai met his gaze in unmistakable challenge, his mouth set in a flat line.
If that’s what you think, then I mean it. Get the fuck out of here and don’t you fucking come back.
He wanted Rand to attack. Rand had pressed the trigger that would let Cai act out, wreak havoc. Anything but having to sit here, talking in this absurdly civilized study about something wild and hellish unearthed from a place deep inside of him he didn’t touch.
Rand had told Cai a shifter was a virtually foolproof lie detector. He hadn’t explained that an extension of that was the ability to use animal intuition and human insight together to translate a language just as illuminating. His emotions.
Slowly, Rand’s flattened ears lifted to a pricked-up position, his tail lowering from the pre-battle stiffness. He moved forward, watching the vampire’s expression turn confused as Rand stopped next to him. Rand lowered his haunches to the carpet, the rest of him following as he settled into an alert, heads-up but lying-down pose on the carpet. His shoulder was against Cai’s leg.
The vampire was facing away from Lyssa and Jacob, so they didn’t see what Rand did, the easing of tension from his features, the bitterly rueful look. Cai closed his eyes, and his fist opened, his fingertips brushing Rand’s face as Rand dipped his head to the contact, a dignified acknowledgment.
You’re in my personal space, wolf.
Have your back. You piss off all.
It’s my superpower.
Cai’s shoulders lifted in a sigh, and Rand watched his face rearrange into a more neutral expression before he turned to face the desk again. “Sorry about that,” Cai said politely. “Domestic issue. Where were we?”
Lyssa studied him. Rand could feel the current of tension through Cai. He wanted to get this done. Really wanted to be out of here.
Fortunately, Lyssa seemed to understand and didn’t linger on the unexpected episode. “So you can lead us to where these Trads are,” Lyssa said. “Do you think a single assassin could do an extraction? Or would an armed party have better success?”
Cai shook his head.
“I said I could draw you a map. But it won’t help, whether you send one or a hundred. They’ll hear you coming a mile off, because you don’t move in their world. They’ll take off with her as soon as they detect you’re in the area tracking them. Which they will. If by some miracle, you corner them, they’ll kill her just to spite you. Unless she’s already conceived, which isn’t likely unless some miracle happens that hasn’t been pulled off to date. And when they kill her, they’ll do it in the ugliest way possible, so her father gets back only a pile of meat, bone and blood.”
As Lyssa’s expression tightened, Cai tipped his head toward Rand. “If you want tactful, talk to him. Even when he’s in the drool and fur state, he’s subtler than I am.”
“No doubt,” Lyssa said. “I expect him to curb his drooling. Hard to clean out of the carpets.”
See? Told you about the carpets.
“Would they trust you, Mordecai?” Lyssa continued. “To infiltrate their ranks and retrieve her, get her to safety and give us time to send you backup for the extraction?”
He blinked at her. “Don’t know, because there’s no way in hell I’m doing that.”
She tapped a nail on the desk. “It has been my experience there is always something someone wants, enough to compel them to attempt something unwise or impossible.”
“Both apply to that scenario.”
“I can’t compel you to do it,” she said. “But I will ask you, is it possible?”
“No. Not if you’re asking an amoral bastard like me to do it. Now, if you had someone who’d lived with the Trads who had his moral sensibilities,” he jerked his thumb at Rand, “you might get a needle through that hell-tight sphincter.”
“So if both of you went—”
“No.” Cai’s voice went flat with menace, right on the brink of the fury he’d displayed moments earlier. Rand noted Jacob tracking that aggression, but he stayed where he was. From Lyssa’s still gaze, her deceptive relaxed state, she had things in hand, even if Cai came over the desk at her, which Rand sincerely hoped didn’t happen.
“If I had an insane inclination to drop in on the colony that has her, he wouldn’t be part of that. He’s not my full servant, Lady Lyssa. He’s second marked, but that was to help him heal from serious injury. He has no commitment to me and I place no bond on him. He’s not human, so he’s not going to out the damn vampire secrecy code.”
“Indeed.” She pursed her attractive lips. “Well, since yo
u have no bond on him, I can ask him directly what his feelings about it are.” She turned her gaze to Rand. Cai moved in front of him, just as fast.
“I said fucking no. You supposedly know a dozen languages. You have trouble understanding that word, bitch?”
Aw, hell. Rand was glad his wolf expression concealed his inner cringe. Damn it, Cai…
Lyssa had proven she’d tolerate a certain lack of manners from someone unused to her world. The wave of coldness, all amiability wiped from her expression, said she’d reached her threshold. Cai had just stepped in it.
But from the set of his shoulders, Rand expected Cai knew that. Fuck, had he done it to protect Rand, just like he’d done before? But whatever the reason, a distraction was needed. Now.
Going to need those clothes.
He could shift in a matter of seconds when needed, though fluidity had to be sacrificed to speed. Fortunately, he managed it without it becoming too much of a bone-breaking, skin-splitting horror show.
Jacob’s set expression, reflecting his lady’s displeasure with Cai, transformed to fascination, and then a slow smile. It was the reaction shifters appreciated the most, somewhere between a kid realizing dragons did exist and always knowing they had been there, just out of sight. Lyssa, on the other hand…
Rand guessed he should have anticipated a vampire’s reaction would be well-flavored by strong sexual interest. He was alive because of Cai’s, after all.
The vampire queen’s appraisal started at the feet and went up with lingering thoroughness. When she reached Rand’s face, he thought he might be blushing.
“If all shifters looked like you, Rand, I expect vampires would have dug them out of the mountains long ago.”
Cai was looking between them like he wasn’t sure if he needed to fight the vampire queen or smack Rand in the head. Putting his hand on Cai’s shoulder to hopefully prevent either option, Rand executed a short bow.
“My lady,” he said courteously, “Cai was trying to protect me. I expect you have those in your life you’d take similar, inadvisable steps to shield.”
