by Joey W. Hill
Cai didn’t ask for company, but Rand chose to meet him at the top of the steps to the lower level. He wanted to see Cai arrive. The male smelled of the outdoors, wet grass, gravel, asphalt, night. Pastureland and horses. His hair was damp, for a drizzle had started about an hour ago and hadn’t yet abated, giving the air that autumn rain smell. His shirt clung lightly to his upper body, his jeans freckled with the rain drops.
Cai met his gaze but didn’t say anything. Just jerked his head at him and headed down the stairs. Rand followed the unusually quiet vampire back down the hallway, but when he slowed at Leona’s room, Rand stopped with him.
Lord Greenwald was with Leona, sitting on her bed. He held her hand, had his forehead resting on it, the rest of his powerful body sheltered over it as her other hand rested on his head, an unbroken circle for two broken parents.
Like Cai, Rand had not been as kindly disposed toward the father as the mother, since until now he hadn’t seen evidence of a connection between them, of a fair exchange of comfort. This eased some of his concern about Leona’s support from her Master, no matter his ailing state of mind. The slight lessening of tension in Cai’s shoulders suggested he felt the same.
Georg lifted his head at the quiet noise of their passing. The haunted look in his eyes was instantly replaced by guarded aggression, but it was tempered by the unavoidable truth of the evening’s events.
His daughter’s fate rested squarely in the hands of the male he’d treated as a surrogate for those who’d taken her. There would be no apology for that. All of Rand’s knowledge of vampires before Cai had been secondhand, but it had only taken a short time to realize that their arrogance, sexual volatility, and creative brutality were innate to them. Yet in Greenwald’s gaze there was a painful pleading mixed in with those things. Rand wasn’t surprised to see Cai turn away from it and continue up the hall. Rand nodded to the vampire and followed.
Third mark. Cai had said he wanted to do that before they embarked. The soul binding part was a bit disquieting, even if Cai didn’t believe in it. If they did survive this, Rand’s life would be bound to the vampire’s, but Cai wasn’t the type who’d turn that into indentured servitude. They’d see where they were at when this was over. He might still join the cantankerous male in Syria.
The past few days, Rand had had far less time to think about death and the pain of his losses. Cai was a good diversion, if nothing else.
Rand expected the vampire to counter such thoughts with sarcasm, but he seemed deep in his own head. When he reached the room, Cai stripped off his clothes without any erotic intent and washed his face in the bathroom. He stayed curved over the sink for several long minutes, running dampened hands over his neck, then braced his long, muscular arms against the sink.
When he lifted his head and stared at the mirror, Rand wondered if that held any pain to a vampire, never being able to see his reflection. Not knowing what his face looked like, except when some artist gave him an interpretation of it.
It took him back to a morning that seemed no more than a minute ago. He’d woken to find Dylef leaning over him, tracing his face with his long, capable fingers. When Rand opened his eyes and smiled, Dylef had smiled back, but there’d been something deep and full in his gaze. “I don’t need a mirror around you. I see everything I need to know about myself in your eyes.”
A quiver went through Cai’s shoulders. The sudden wave of distress from him made Rand move into the bathroom, stand behind him. Before he could reach out, Cai shrugged him off and pulled a towel from the rack to mop his face and hair. Tossing it aside, he clipped off the light, leaving Rand standing in darkness, and headed for the king-sized bed.
“Get in with me and get some sleep. We’ll only be able to travel by vehicle to a certain point, then it’ll be a deep hike into the mountains. As I said, I know their vicinity, but not their exact location. We might have to talk to some locals who could tip Goddard off we’re looking for him.”
Which reminded Rand they still hadn’t talked about the shifter pack that might be in the area. He held off on it for now, though, since the vampire didn’t look in the mood for conversation. He did ask one question, however. “Won’t they ghost if that happens, like you said?”
“Not if they know it’s me looking for Goddard, and not some Council vampire extraction team. If needed, my cover story will be that I need a favor from Goddard. I’ve pissed off some Region Master who’s reported me to Council, so I need a place to lie low. Which will make him laugh his ass off, but he might agree to it.” Cai pulled back the covers. “That is, if I agree to lop off a limb to prove my renewed loyalty to him, or some such shit. We’ll figure it out. If you don’t want to sleep right now, then take a hike and let me get some shut-eye.”
“The third mark thing—”
“Yeah. In a bit. Not right now.” Getting into the bed, Cai turned his back to Rand. He shut off the bedside lamp, putting them in more darkness.
A curt way to treat someone who’d decided to go to hell with him and watch his back, but Rand didn’t take offense. He was starting to understand Cai’s patterns. Even if Cai had told the Council to go fuck themselves and left, in several days Rand would have expected to find him on the same path. There was something down deep inside the vampire…
Indigestion. Shut up or I will fuck you into exhaustion and suck out a couple gallons of your blood to make you unconscious.
Rand could have taken the spot next to him, but he’d expected Cai to do the third mark first and the thought had him keyed up. He’d shift and take a hard run around the grounds to burn off some energy, then grab a shower and come to bed. The house servants would think the wolf had returned from his hunt, supporting Cai’s cover story.
However, at the door, Rand turned back, studying the motionless vampire. Unease flitted through him about leaving the vampire by himself, but he couldn’t figure out why. That thought was derailed, somewhat, by imagining the vampire carrying out the first part of the threat. Hell, they were both males, and it was what it was. They might not see eye to eye on much else, but their sexual compatibility was off the charts.
Or maybe that was a vampire with anyone he chose, since they were so practiced at sexual arts. Rand didn’t particularly care for that thought. Cai with others, exercising those skills without discrimination.
Damn wolf nature. No matter how unrealistic it was, Rand couldn’t keep himself from thinking of sex as a mating act. Shifters didn’t take it lightly, couldn’t. Fortunately, his human side saved him from being stupid about it. He forced himself to leave the room.
Things were getting way quiet in the house as the sun crested and hit the front windows on the upper level. He came through the kitchen and found a far more informal atmosphere, where house servants were laying out food for the visiting Council vampire servants who would be coming up soon.
“Got to tuck in their vampires,” the cook observed with a mischievous grin. He was a burly male who looked like he could have been a cook on a naval vessel, the service tattoos on his arms supporting Rand’s theory. He wondered how he’d come into the aristocratic Greenwald’s service, but with how long they lived, every vampire had to have a colorful past. “Feed them good,” the cook continued, “then come here to replenish themselves and let us all catch up on the gossip.”
“Jacob will be the last one up. He’s very thorough about feeding his Mistress.” That came from one of the maids, punctuated by a giggle as she sampled some of the frosting on a newly made cake. She accepted a swat from the cook’s wooden spoon with a saucy swing of her hips, though she danced out of range before he could follow up. He gave her a stern look, though his lips were twitching.
“Show some respect, girl. Vampires and servants have long ears.” The cook glanced toward Rand. While his expression was courteous, Rand was aware that most in the kitchen were studying him with avid curiosity, as would be expected toward the “servant” of the vampire reputed to be a Trad.
“You’re welcome to
sit and join us,” the cook said. “If you’re new to our world, no better way than the breakfast gatherings between servants to figure out how things are done.”
The cook meant it kindly, Rand could tell. While Rand agreed it seemed a great way for a new servant to come up to speed, Cai and he were a different kind of pairing, with way too many secrets. Not the least of which was what their relationship actually was. Most the time, it seemed as much a mystery to the two of them as anyone else.
Plus, he really needed to run. His decision was made when the first two servants to arrive were Tyra and Chavez’s. They might not be as bad as their vampires, but their scrutiny was far too close, and it made him uneasy. He’d spent plenty of quality time with them already.
Shifters were a clannish species and, unlike the vampires, they didn’t have a head Council that imposed rules about secrecy on all their members. Shifters just followed pack rules and good common sense when it came to discretion. Cai’s serious warning about shifter blood and vampires had also made an impact. So though Rand lingered enough to eat some bacon and eggs, he ate swiftly and kept his answers vague before he excused himself.
“Speaking of the wolf, I told Cai I’d find him on my usual morning run. When I send him back here, if you could give him a plate of the sausage, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
He directed that toward the maid, and she dimpled at him. “For you, I’ll save him a whole plateful, honey. He’s a beauty. Just like you.”
He offered a smile, but hastily made his getaway before he could be drawn into her flirting. He was surprised, though, when she turned it up to full wattage on Tyra’s servant, indicating they’d been intimate in the past.
Maybe vampires were okay with their servants having sex with other servants, as long as they were available to them when needed. Cai seemed unfettered in his own sexual preferences. Rand recalled his earlier thought about wolf mating rituals, where sex was supposed to mean something, be done with someone who mattered.
With Cai, he wouldn’t say it was meaningless—that felt wrong—but he knew the vampire hardly considered it heart-and-flowers commitment. Yet how did Rand himself feel about it?
Conflicted. Confused. And wanting to do way the hell more of it, enough he’d played with the idea of annoying the vampire into carrying out his threat. With the additional hope maybe it would make Cai feel better. Because now that the decision to rescue Dovia had been made, it had stirred up some bad debris in the vampire’s subconscious. Rand could feel it, scent it.
He considered how he would feel if someone said: “Hey, let’s go back to the night your family was murdered. No, nothing will change. They’ll still be dead, and all that horror will still be there, but maybe you can save one pup. Just one, mind you. And not one of yours. Or Sylvan’s.”
If Rand had been given the opportunity to snatch even a stranger’s pup away from that brutal death, he’d have taken the opportunity. Earth and stone, why was he even going down that road?
Because he’d put Cai on this track toward his past, and he was concerned about Cai’s state of mind.
Rand ran a few miles under the cover of mist-filled patches of forest backing up to the farms. It kept him out of view of the early morning risers caring for their horses. But then he cut the run short and circled back. He bypassed the chance to catch a couple rabbits he flushed, deciding he’d get the second helping of meat from the servant. He just wanted to be back. Every stride was fueled by more urgency, until he was at a full run, favoring the lingering ache of his injuries as little as possible.
As Rand closed in on that last mile, images swam into his mind that weren’t his own. A darkness came with them, with a power so thick and heavy it was like a smothering blanket. Words erupted in his mind, screamed into a void. He startled, an animal fight-or-flight instinct that knocked him off his path. But he recovered fast, leaped forward, his stride covering over three times his length with every bound.
No. Stop… Mama…
If he’d been human, the hairs would have risen on the back of his neck, because the last word was screamed in the voice of a teenage boy whose voice was just beginning to break toward manhood. It held all the desolation and desperation of a mind pushed toward an edge where the fall would break it irreparably. In the blink between one terrified heartbeat and the next, the boy had become a broken, scarred man.
Rand barged through the kitchen door as a maid was coming out of it. He ignored her shriek of surprise, his nails scrabbling for purchase on the tile floor. He hit the butcher block island hard enough to jar his shoulder and tip the fruit bowl on it, sending oranges and apples over the edge. He ignored that, too, and the startled looks of more servants, as he shot past them and ran through the house.
When he reached the top of the stairs to the lower bedrooms, there were a couple servants set as a posted watch. However, they could hear a muffled version of what he’d heard in his mind, echoing up the stairs, and let him through.
By the time he reached their guest room door, he’d shifted to human and turned the latch without a pause. To hell with who saw him, though fortunately the hall seemed deserted and all doors firmly shut. He’d forgotten his clothes, where he’d hidden them on the periphery of the garden.
When he lunged into the room, he realized what was causing the smothering sensation. Cai was used to sleeping beneath the loosely packed earth where he could move as needed. He’d somehow wrapped himself in the blankets so tightly it was almost like he’d been shrouded, the covers over his head.
Rand shoved him out of the bed, unrolling and shaking him loose rather than trying to touch or hold him. Cai exploded into a standing position, chest heaving, fangs bared, fists clenched. Rand backed into the corner, dropping to his heels. He was breathing hard himself, a combination of his long-distance run and the sudden sprint to get here. He spoke aloud and in his mind, hoping one or both methods would get through. He said what came to mind, no analyzing the meaning of the words. That didn’t matter.
“You’re here, vampire. With your wolf. Not with them. Take a breath. Be easy.”
During the short time Rand had known Cai, the vampire had handled both Rand’s dangerous animal and pissed-off human side with a sort of unflappable control. Even when the vampires had been beating on him, his attitude had been virtually unassailable. But that initial panic attack when bound, and the explosion of rage in the study, had opened the vampire up to Rand’s ability to reach far deeper into him.
Lyssa had called it right. Cai’s behavior was a full, adhered-to-the-skin armor, containing what was within as much as it was to defend himself from what was without.
As Cai stood there, swaying, fangs bared, eyes wild but unfocused, part of him was in the here and now, while another part was still in the dream. Rand saw a two-hundred-year old male who looked far younger, and yet ancient beyond the expression of time. The look the young had in the middle of war zones.
Maybe the primary reason he was still here didn’t have to do with a kidnapped female, though that was important enough. Since Dylef, Sheba and the pups, no one had needed him. Or rather, Rand hadn’t let himself be put in a position to be needed, because he couldn’t handle the responsibility without getting the shakes, just thinking about the chance of losing someone again.
But this situation, this male, had saved his life and linked their paths. Cai was strong and capable, a good fighter and a dangerous vampire. He wasn’t helpless, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need help.
This was where Rand was meant to be. Cai needed Rand, and so did a young female vampire. If the danger to her had not been evident before, seeing it drive Cai out of this bed and stand, ready to fight, with a look of terror and desperation on his face, was a full broadcast of it.
Rand shifted back to wolf and left his corner, padding across the floor. He pressed his body against the side of Cai’s, giving him a literal reminder of his presence that backed up his words. It startled him when the vampire’s knees buckled. He adjusted fast
so he broke Cai’s fall. Cai clutched his thick ruff, his face buried there, the rest of him shaking. He was ice cold.
Rand made as much of his body available to him as possible, to share warmth. Cai was gasping, and vampires didn’t have to breathe, not like that. But the vampire was trying to slow it down, reassuring Rand that he was heading in the right direction. He just needed to be here, quiet and patient. He’d shifted for the same reason he’d gone to Leona as a wolf. Sometimes there was nothing so comforting as a dumb beast, something living, warm and affectionate who required no exchange of words, merely the physical contact that could offer so much more.
Rand’s heart lurched at the words he heard murmured into his fur.
“So fucking scared…hate it. Just fucking hate it.”
Be with you. Scared…together.
It took a while, but at length a sigh lifted Cai’s shoulders. His chest flattened against Rand’s massive torso.
“Okay,” the vampire murmured at last. “Okay.”
He rose. Rand stayed close to his side. When Cai slid back into the bed, Rand leaped onto it. Cai tugged on him so Rand lay down before him, and the vampire laid an arm over his barrel chest, his face pressed into Rand’s thickly furred nape.
“This is nice,” the vampire murmured. “But when I wake up with a hard-on, you better be the human version of you.”
Rand dropped his head back to bump Cai’s nose with the flat of his skull and earned a muttered oath. “Asshole.”
As things settled, Rand felt the male’s body temperature returning to a more normal heat level, his occasional shudders getting further apart. Finally, Cai’s breath evened out and stilled as he trusted himself to fall back into dreams. Or the pull of the daylight sun above became too strong. But he continued to hold onto Rand as if the wolf could keep him from sliding into nightmares. Rand hoped so.
