by Joey W. Hill
It was logical, but knowing she was so close was maddening. Rand wondered if Fane had known that and tried to ease the burden on him by doing the verification reconnaissance with Stalker instead.
Rand communicated his thanks with a wolfish rub against Fane's leg and hip. When Fane brushed his body against him in response, dropping to a squat to affectionately butt heads, Rand tried not to let his heart twist into knots at the double-edged sword of welcome, long-overdue contact, the rich body language of another wolf.
"When your task is done, you come and run with us, Rand," Fane murmured. "You have had your grieving period. You now need to heal fully, and for that, you need your own kind."
Fane paused, his hand resting on Rand's back. Human eyes met wolf ones. "Lynn remembers Sheba's strength and kindness," he said. "She told my mate that you were one of the strongest and most noble wolves she'd ever met. If you get into trouble, you may turn to us for help. I don't know what response I'll be able to muster, but I don't wish you to come to harm."
Rand was moved, and transmitted it with another head butt that had Fane chuckling, though his expression remained serious. But as Fane himself had pointed out, this wasn't about wolf kind, nor wolf kind's fight. Rand wouldn't risk a single member of Fane's family, no matter that he, Stalker and Idris were all formidable-looking men, which usually translated into a similar-sized wolf. Todd and Chad had a slimmer build, but that didn't mean they couldn't fight just as well. Same for Cilya and Sangra. Fane was a good fighter and he'd have taught those skills to all his young.
Rand's response was easy enough for Fane to read. The male set his jaw. "You call for aid if needed. Grey's pack spread their lies and, in your absence, I didn't trust what Lynn and I knew of you. I owe you a debt for that. Cilya's already taken me to task. She told me that your integrity was as obvious to her as one of her students declaring he hadn't eaten candy, while chocolate was still on his face."
Rand cocked a head, his eyes glinting, and Fane smiled. "She doesn't mince words." Putting his hand on Rand's massive shoulder, he rubbed his jaw along Rand's muzzle, a quick solidarity. "Though I have no love or trust of vampires, I respect your regard for him. But the vampire can't give you what a wolf's heart and soul needs. I think you know that. You're a strong, valuable pack member. Don't take that away from all of us."
Fane nodded at Rand's sudden, intent look. "Yes, I'm offering what you think I'm offering. We all agreed. If you want to be part of our pack, we will find a place for you."
To be wanted, included. Yes, he'd gone out of his way to avoid it, but in the perverse, self-destructive nature of grief, he'd also longed for that feeling again. Rand swallowed, struggling with his emotions. He would think on it. But regardless of his decision, he rubbed himself once more against Fane, knocking him back with his enthusiasm and winning a smile. He wanted to be sure the male knew his gratitude. Fane was the first to offer Rand acceptance and kindness since he'd lost his family. Well, the first wolf to do so.
Despite what Cai said to the contrary, he'd been the first.
Fane straightened and stepped back. As if reading Rand's thoughts, he added, "Perhaps, one day, we'll allow your vampire friend to join us at dinner. If only for the company, since I expect what we offer won't be his preference."
Depends on if a certain wolf I know is sitting at the table. Cai distracted Rand considerably with follow up images to that. Rand wondered what Cai thought of the other things Fane had said, but the vampire was silent on that issue.
Rand bid Fane farewell. He didn't immediately return to Cai, but instead decided to go hunting. Not so much because he was hungry; Lynn had fed them exceptionally well. Too well. He probably needed to run some of it off so he was fight-ready. He needed to hunt, stalk, trap. Exercise his full range of skills in his wolf form, since that was how Cai needed his backup.
He disappeared in the woods with just a brief mind touch that Cai answered with a neutral acknowledgment. Maybe the vampire was going to sleep some more.
Rand was able to use his skills, several times. He pinned a rabbit, releasing her before her fragile heart could hammer its way through her chest. Soon after, he caught a fat quail mid-air as he flushed him from the bushes.
Then he came upon a true challenge. The four-point stag foraging on his own detected him immediately and bolted, but Rand was already in motion. He ran a zig zag track through the trees after the deer, exulting in high leaps over logs and roots. As they emerged into a clearing, the deer leveled out.
Here was another way a shifter differed from a non-shifter wolf. One-on-one, a healthy deer like this one could outrun a wolf on open ground. Whereas Rand closed the distance between them.
If he'd been with a pack, the females, lighter and quicker when it came to darting maneuvers, would have been snapping at the deer's legs, weaving in front of him. They'd stay a safe distance from the dangerous antlers or hooves, but cause as much panic and confusion as possible to slow him down.
Hunting in a pack had an energy he had always relished, but it wasn't necessary for him to make the kill. The power of the chase fueled every powerful muscle as he gathered himself to leap.
The stag dodged but Rand twisted in mid-air and landed where he intended, on his back, teeth set to the neck. He could end it there. Instead he avoided being bucked off and gored by launching himself, hitting the ground in a roll and letting the stag continue its flight. Standing there panting, Rand watched him disappear into the woods on the far side of the meadow. A noble opponent, free to live and run another day. As a lone wolf, he chased deer regularly to stay in practice for hunting them, but he rarely took one down. Far more meat than needed for one wolf.
Then he saw Cai.
The vampire had been running with him, he realized, a shadow on his peripheral vision. Cai opened his mind to him, purely in pictures and feeling, letting him see how he'd watched Rand leap onto the stag's back, the gleaming fur over rippling muscle, the sharp teeth that could take life...but hadn't.
The vampire moved forward, dropped to his heels, and bared his fangs. A challenge. You need a work out before we go into the lion's den? I feel like doing a bit of hunting myself before dawn, wolf. And you're who I'm after.
Rand stalked forward, and Cai's feral smile widened. They circled one another, and then Rand charged. Cai braced, and Rand sailed over him, landing on the opposite side and bulleting into the woods. He knew forest terrain, but so did Cai. In and out of trees, over branches and roots, fallen logs, rocks. Through a creek, water splashing up, birds sending alarm calls from their nighttime roosts as the two of them wound through the woods in a chase that was part hunt, part mating ritual, part something else that had Rand's heart hammering in his chest.
He wanted to turn and fight. He wanted to run and see if Cai could catch him. He wanted to run Cai to ground himself. He wanted to run with the male for miles, because running with a pack was a place of peace for the mind, even as the body was strained to its maximum limits.
Cai got close enough to leap, and managed it with power and grace, landing on Rand's back and rolling them both across the forest floor. Rand snapped at him and Cai wrapped his arms around Rand's chest and the narrow part of stomach and hips. His four legs thrashed as Rand writhed, tossing his head back into Cai's with a resounding thwack. Cai let out an oath and loosened his hold. Rand flipped, making a getaway. Cai tackled him again, burying his face in Rand's fur over his ribs, his arms once again wrapped around him, holding them both sprawled on the ground, the vampire lying against Rand's scrabbling back legs.
Shift for me, wolf. I want my mouth on your skin. Cai nuzzled the thick fur, and the heat of his breath teased the flesh beneath, penetrating the four-legged animal's instincts to the two-legged one.
Rand resisted it, as he always did, but as Cai's fingertips stroked his fur deep, firm, letting him feel the commanding touch, his body listened. He shifted in the vampire's arms. Cai adjusted to accommodate him so that when the shift was complete, he was lying upon R
and, arms around hips and waist, body sprawled between his spread thighs.
Cai was as good as his word. He began to press his mouth against the valley between Rand's pectorals, over them, tongue flicking his nipples, teeth nipping at his shoulders. His hands stroked the arrow of hair down Rand's abdomen, fanning out to tease every muscle until he gripped Rand's hips. Cai's chest pressed Rand's aroused cock hard into his pelvis.
Rand's hands fell naturally on Cai's head and shoulder, fingers digging, curling...caressing. He explored that sunburst scar, all the different textures of uneven skin. He thought of how Cai had killed another vampire to win his freedom from the Trads. Into how many pieces had Cai broken to survive? Was the cynical, hard-to-understand male simply a patchwork of all those pieces, stitched together? Did he remember his mother? His father? His life, before his life was stolen?
Cai didn't pause in his ministrations, and Rand didn't know if that was because he didn't wish to acknowledge the thoughts, or if he was completely immersing himself in what he was doing. The latter was an overwhelming thought.
Cai moved down, his intent clear, and he wrapped his hand around Rand's wrist, holding it to his thigh in a firm pin when he moved to put his mouth over Rand's cock. He slid down, sucked on it, from root to tip. Up and down, slow glides that had Rand gasping and pushing up into his mouth. Cai took his balls one by one into that same heated cavern, playing, teasing, making Rand curse and writhe, before Cai lifted his head to flash him a quick grin and went down on him again, occasionally letting Rand feel the slide of a fang.
Stay still, wolf, or you'll get punctured. Feel everything I'm doing to you. Did I take you down because I caught you and overpowered you, or because you wanted to be taken down? Which idea turns you on more?
He had no words as Cai did something else with his tongue and God...he slid slickened fingers into Rand's ass, probing deep, playing, stroking. Rand groaned, and tugged on him with his one free hand. Cai's grip only tightened on the other wrist.
Watching you run...fuck, I had this perverse desire to chain you up, keep you in a cage and only let you run on my command, so I could see it, every moment of it, every time. You'd have to rely on me to let you do that. I'd be the gateway to get what you want and need. I wouldn't let you feel sad or lonely, or grieve. You can be the animal with me, Rand. It's okay. I don't ask for more than that.
Rand's hand trembled in the grip of his. Cai meant business now, his mouth and fingers insistent.
Want to feel you release in my mouth. Do it now. Do it hard.
That he could do. Rand's hips jacked up and his groan deepened as the release started jetting, bathing the back of Cai's throat. Cai gave him the full measure of satisfaction, even as he worked Rand's seed over his palm and clasped it around his own cock, lubing himself up with Rand's release. He lifted himself up between Rand's thighs, gazing down at him.
Rand pressed his lips together, knowing how Cai was about to take him. Face to face. No, too intimate. His mind was too full of the past tonight, the touch of--
Cai moved so quickly, it startled Rand, froze thought and word. He had his fingers wrapped around Rand's throat, his knee pressed against his cock, still semi-hard. "This," the vampire squeezed his hand around his neck, hard enough for Rand to feel the constriction, "tells you who has you right now. You even think another male's name, and I will make you very, very sorry. Who are you with right now?"
"You," Rand whispered. The things in the vampire's expression, in his mind, held him. Made him want to touch and take, too. Possessiveness, dominance, sexual heat, yes. Rand was feeling all of that. Also a fierce, deep well of emotions that hit him straight in the heart and found an answer.
He knew what Cai was feeling, because all those feelings were as close to him as breathing. Loneliness, a need so sharp it could cut, and being lost in a dark wood with nothing to grasp but this, the heat and warmth of another. But the craving was more specific than that. Specific to a someone, not a something.
Cai nodded, his eyes dark and intent, and echoed Rand's answer. "You're with me. You bet your fine, accessible ass you are." He began to guide himself in, pressing Rand's thighs up, knees to his chest, and settling in lower, bringing their faces closer as he slid in deep, deeper, all the way. He adjusted, cupping Rand's ass in both hands to keep him at the right angle and still stay in intimate proximity to his face. Chests almost touching as Cai's body curved to accommodate the position, then his mouth was on Rand's throat. An approving sound came from the vampire as Rand automatically tipped his head to the side, offering him the vein if he wanted it.
In wolf speak, showing the belly or throat was a concession to another's dominance. Rand was giving Cai that, at least in this moment. Whereas in a pack, such a sign of submission was to serve function and order, here it was about that deeper, darker thing inside the vampire, that found an answer inside a lone wolf.
"You don't close your eyes," Cai ordered, his voice harsh, eyes glittering.
Rand reached up to him, not surprised when Cai intercepted the motion and grasped his wrist in a restraining hand. "You either," Rand murmured.
Cai stroked, pressed, thrust. Rand met him, motion for motion. What started as an impact point, a testosterone match to see who could come together with greater force, evolved into something different. The wind whispered around them, but otherwise the two predators commanded silence from the night except for what came from their own voices, the friction of their flesh moving against one another and the earth. Cai's touch on Rand's wrist became less of a hold, more of a caress, slipping up so their fingers ultimately were twined together.
Their bodies moved in rhythm, and Rand drank in Cai's aroused expression. The vampire's other hand was threaded in Rand's hair, spread on the ground, tangling, tugging. Rand slid his free arm up under Cai's, around, palm to his lower back and then to his buttock to bring him closer, deeper.
Cai adjusted, rolling Rand's hips up some more and sliding his own arm under Rand's shoulders, taking advantage of their preternatural flexibility to curl Rand up into more of U-shape and bring his mouth to his. A hot, deep, yet slow kiss as they rocked together, gripping one another to maintain the connection.
Cai came first, groaning against Rand's mouth, breaking the kiss in involuntary reaction. His mouth brushed the side of Rand's jaw, landing on his shoulder. Cai put his face there and Rand curled his arm over the vampire's head as both of Cai's arms wrapped around him, holding him even tighter in that folded position as he released, knees driving furrows into the ground.
Having come so soon before, Rand didn't expect to come, and especially without some additional friction, but he did, Cai's jet of seed inside him hitting just the right place. Though Rand thought it might be the whole situation itself, the emotional as well as physical stimulation, tipping him over that cliff. He dropped his head back and let it have him, savoring the scrape of Cai's fangs as he made the move.
He started as Cai sank them into his flesh, not because he was surprised the vampire had bitten him at the height of his climax, but because of where. Cai had bitten his pectoral, right over his heart, his fangs driven deep in the flesh above where that organ beat with a strong and sure rhythm, pumping fast as a result of their mutual pleasure. His tongue played over Rand's nipple, circled the heated skin, and Rand's cock jumped, a small spurt of additional response.
Cai apparently registered it, because he put his hand down between them, rubbing his fingertips over the sensitive tip. He brought what he collected back to his own mouth, smearing it on Rand's skin where he was biting him and adding it to the blood he was sampling.
I could stay inside you like this for days.
Rand pressed his forehead to Cai's crown. He didn't have words for that. He could just be in this moment, which worked, since he was pretty sure that meshed with Cai's thought.
At length, the vampire eased back, licking the wound until it closed, and released his hold enough to let Rand uncurl, lay back on the ground. The vampire had
to pull out, but he didn't go away. He lay full upon Rand, damp cocks pressed into still heated skin, the give and take of flesh and muscle as Rand recovered his breath and their fingertips glided over each other. It reinforced the intimacy Cai had demanded earlier.
Rand felt an answering clutch in his gut and loins that said he wasn't entirely against it. Just not sure what any of it meant.
"It means it's a nice feeling until Goddard figures out a way to dismember or disembowel me," Cai said. "Then you can move on and look elsewhere in the afterlife. Or in your next life."
A wolf's howl, not too far distant, split the air. Rand lifted his head from the ground, listening, and a deep surge of pleasure went through him.
Fane's family were out running. He hadn't even thought to ask if they'd already run tonight, though it was a favored evening pastime for most wolf packs. Maybe Fane had been dropping a hint earlier about coming to run with them. Or maybe after he'd returned home, they'd decided to give Rand a taste of what he was missing. It sounded like something the savvy Lynn would think to do. Or maybe even her daughter Cilya, with her knowing eyes and intuition that shepherded so many young souls. Rand wasn't a young soul, but the needs of the heart didn't change all that much from childhood, did they? They just gained different shape and forms of expression.
With a smile, Rand turned his attention to Cai, parting his lips to explain. Cai's expression had done that shuttering thing, and when Rand reached up to touch his shoulder, the vampire was already up on his knees and then standing, pulling his jeans back up.
The contrast was a little too symbolic. Rand, completely naked and lying before the vampire, exposed, while Cai hadn't taken off all his clothes or even his shoes for their coupling.
It didn't fit with what they'd just shared and experienced together, but neither did Cai's closed expression now. It wasn't unfriendly. Just...removed. Cai squatted before him, putting a hand on his calf. "You going to run some more?"
"Maybe." Rand stared at him. There were a lot of things he could say, but he realized none of them felt right. They shared intense things, intense feelings, but, especially facing what they were facing, there was no room for permanence, growth...