by Joey W. Hill
He knew Rand was wondering what was happening in his head. He could hardly blame him for wondering if Cai would abandon the girl to save his own skin. But it was better for things to seem hopeless right now. Cai kept his blue eyes as reflective and flat as mirrors under Goddard's relentless stare.
When Hector deposited Dovia practically in Cai's lap, Cai caught her before she could topple. She sucked in another breath. Pain. Since she was naked, every bruise and cut showed. She wasn't healing, which meant she was hungry. Really hungry.
"Christ, Goddard. Have you not let her feed since she got here?"
"She refused to feed from any of us, or the humans out in the yard. Said she'd rather die. Until she conceives, her life or death is of no consequence to us, and if she conceives, we will force blood into her, by injection if necessary."
She'd automatically flinched from his touch, and Cai loosened his grip enough to hopefully help her feel a little less trapped. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said gruffly. "All you have to do is be still.
He had to say it in a neutral, I-don't-really-give-a-shit tone, but he couldn't imagine she would have felt any better or more trusting if he said it in a tone as soothing and nurturing as her own mother would have used. She stared up at him. No matter how wretched and beaten down she seemed, how frightened she was, he saw the stubbornness in the chin that explained why she'd refused their blood. She was a fighter.
But she was also young, scared, in pain, and her soul was quivering, screaming at the violation to her body and mind that had been visited upon her, over and over.
"Okay," he said. "If this works, they won't touch you again. Understand?"
"What?" Goddard said. "Her cunt isn't--"
"For the first couple weeks the rooting, for lack of a better word, is fragile. No stress, no abuse, and regular infusions of blood daily. If she won't take it direct--and I can't blame her, because I wouldn't put my mouth on a single one of you filthy bastards--put it in a cup." Cai met her gaze. "You'd drink it then, wouldn't you? To stay alive."
She stared at him, so hard it was as if she was trying to see words on a blank surface. But at length she nodded.
"Yes."
She was hoarse. He didn't know if that was from screaming or other things he didn't want to think about. Fuck. She needed blood. Really good, energized blood.
He looked across the room at Rand. They were about to lose one hell of an advantage in favor of the slim possibility of another. But Cai would let it be Rand's call. Not that he doubted his decision, the noble bastard. Fuck.
Hell, Goddard already suspected. And maybe there'd be another way to deal with this where Rand being in human form would be advantageous, much as Cai despised the idea of him being made more vulnerable. He couldn't think about what they might do to Rand as human. He had to hope everything came together before that happened. Or else Cai would have incurred yet another reason to hate himself.
He gestured toward Rand. "Let him go so he can shift to human. What I'm going to do has a better chance if she's fed, and the best blood for her to drink is his."
"So he is a shifter," Goddard said, vicious satisfaction in his voice. "And your servant."
"Yeah, yeah. You're really smart. I'm so impressed. Untie him."
Malvin grunted. "Leave him tied. He can shift a portion of his body, like his arm. Right?"
Cai sent Malvin a censorious look. "Seriously? Are you in charge of the stupidest question division of this conglomeration of fuck ups?"
He swiftly curled his arm around Dovia, tucking her upper body into a ball against his chest. He took Hector's punch to the face without defending himself. Spitting blood, he glared at him, then at Goddard. "You want this to happen or not? For the next half hour, let's all work on our anger management skills so I can get this the fuck done."
"You better be able to do this, Cai, or it will go far worse for you," Goddard said, eyes glittering.
"Yeah, because right now it's all peaches and honey. Untie the wolf," he repeated. "Let him come to me. I need to keep my hands on her, monitor the changes in her temperature and temperament."
Goddard frowned, but he jerked a short nod at Brutus. "Do it. Guard the door."
Brutus bent and untied the ropes, shoving Rand back so he was off balance as they fell away. Rand leaped to his feet, hackles raised like a porcupine and feet braced. His bared teeth looked three feet long. If their situation wasn't so fucked, Cai would have gotten a serious hard-on from how dangerous the male looked. The vampires tensed.
Rand, shift to human. Remember, I need you to act reluctant toward me, like you hate me. But we need to feed her. She's starving and afraid, and I know how your blood rejuvenated me. She's not down and out, and more strength will help her keep fighting.
The wolf's head turned in his direction. Cai kept his gaze trained on Rand's, not allowing anything to interfere with the connection. The wolf's mind was a violent thicket, but Rand was in there. Suspicion emanated from those bi-colored eyes.
I'm not going to sell either of you out. But if I don't remind these assholes I'm as much of a selfish bastard as they are, they won't let up and give us any opportunities to turn the tide. You're going to have to trust me, when I know we haven't known each other long enough for that. But really, what other fabulous options are presenting themselves? Trust a soulless bastard who might be on your side or...?
Chapter Fourteen
Rand's hackles slowly lowered. Cai bit back a sigh of relief, because Goddard was already getting antsy. If they suspected a long conversation happening between them, things could get worse quickly.
Rand shifted with a reluctance that was convincing because it wasn't feigned. Cai didn't blame him. The vampires murmured, their eyes widening, the universal reaction to watching animal turn human or vice versa. Rand did it smoothly, ending up in a crouch on his heels, his gaze shifting balefully around the room. When they landed on Cai, they were filled with resentment. Hate. Cai wondered what he was channeling and decided not to look inside his mind to find out.
"Magnificent," Goddard breathed, in a way that made Cai want to rip out his lungs and pitch them into a meat grinder. Rand ignored him, which Cai found even more magnificent. But he made his tone sharp, impatient.
"Get your ass over here, or you'll be sorry."
Rand's lip curled, but he obeyed and moved to their side. The shifter dropped to a squat again next to Dovia. Whereas his expression toward Cai remained hostile, he put a hand on the girl's back. She'd stayed curled against Cai's chest after Hector hit him, her fingers dug into his shirt and chest. Cai found it difficult not to put his arms around her in a gesture of comfort. But he could do it now, under the guise of something else, and with a surrogate.
"We're going to change positions," he told Rand. "Put her in your lap, your back against the wall. I need to be where I can put one palm on her stomach, another on her lower back."
Rand held out his arms. Dovia resisted being moved at first, but then her senses took in Rand. Heat, and that special something he had. After what she'd been through, a large naked male should have been the last thing she wanted near her. Yet suddenly she was moving, reaching for him.
Rand adjusted into the position Cai had dictated, settling Dovia into his lap, holding her secure in his arms. Since both of them were naked, when her ass pressed into his lap, she tensed, but Rand murmured a reassurance to her. Fortunately, he integrated it with a hostile look toward Cai that said he held him as much to blame for their situation as the Trads, which nicely reinforced the idea that the wolf had no love for his Master. Truth was the easiest lie to pass off, right?
Yet Cai caught a fleeting thought from him, unexpected. Rand had to quell an urge to reach up and wipe the blood from Cai's mouth. Cai kept his gaze on the girl, focused on what he was doing, so he wouldn't betray any reaction to that. In this environment, an act of kindness might completely unravel him. He made his mind-voice brusque.
See if you can seem kind of thick, more animal than
human. That shouldn't be too tough.
Cai almost grinned at the colorful response to that, devoid of any unsettling tenderness from his wolf. Cai laid a palm gently on Dovia's bare stomach, his other on her lower and upper back. His hand was large, and she was a little thing, so the coverage worked. Her gaze shot to him, wary.
"Feed from Rand," he said. "Let him nourish you. What I'm going to do, as I said, it won't hurt." And it would offer her the only protection she'd get in this place.
He didn't think she'd put together what he was doing, or perhaps the idea was so ludicrous and her mind so exhausted from fear and stress, she had nothing to lend to resist it. Rand was stroking her hair. When Cai reached up to put his fingers against Rand's jaw, expose his neck to her, Rand curled his lip back again, his eyes flashing.
Cai seized his hair in a harsh grip, and banged his head none too gently against the cabin wall. It made Dovia cringe, which he hated, but he kept his gaze locked on Rand's. "We've been round and round on this, wolf. I'll touch you however and whenever the fuck I want. You're bound to me. You can't run from me, and every time you try, I leave scars on you that take days to heal. You resist me one more time, I'm going to break the same leg every night for a week until it refuses to heal up. Tone down the attitude."
Rand's eyes were blue and gold fire, but as Cai held the gaze with a threatening one of his own, the fire died back. His wolf's expression became sullen rather than defiant. He turned his attention to the girl in his arms, though the rest of his body where Cai brushed it remained rigid.
"You'll have to tell us how you captured a shifter, Cai," Goddard said. "It appears there is a story to be told."
"Pretty much what I already told you. Saved him from a hunter, marked him, and it's been a battle of wills ever since. He's more wild animal than man most days. Easier to handle as a wolf." Cai tossed out a harsh chuckle. "He's actually protective of me in that form, like any dog is of his Master, which pisses him off. I'd sleep with one eye open if I couldn't kick his ass any day of the week. He's a little stronger than your average human, but not by much."
Rand's body stiffened further at the insult, but he kept his head down. If they lived through this, Cai expected he'd have a serious ass-kicking coming.
Count on it.
Fuck, he really couldn't afford the repartee, because it did something to him, knowing he wasn't in this all by himself. Rand's life depended on his hardness, so Cai pushed away all the soft feelings and went radio silent.
When he heard the scraping of a chair, he saw that Goddard had taken a seat only a few feet away. The others were positioned in a half circle, though on their feet. He guessed that was in case he or Rand tried some foolish attempt to bolt.
"I liked your fur," Dovia whispered shyly against Rand's chest. "It's pretty."
Rand dipped his head and blinked. The quiet comment surprised Cai as well. Perhaps the girl's mind was already broken, or in the first instance of safety she'd had, deceptive though it was, she'd simply spoken what came to mind.
Rand's most recent experience with vampires had been those at Greenwald's, their sexual sophistication out front and overwhelming. Even a twenty-two-year-old vampire, being a sexually mature young woman, would have some level of it, when healthy and not terrified for her life. But vampires her age could be innocents in other ways. Impulse control for bloodlust was so poor that they could kill a human if not taught and monitored by someone. She seemed to have been taught well, for her fangs unsheathed instantly at proximity to Rand's throat, but she didn't leap on him like a mountain lion on fresh game.
"Would you prefer a cup, my lady?" Cai asked quietly.
"There's none of that my lady, my lord bullshit here," Goddard said irritably. Dovia flinched. As Cai kept his back to him, ignoring him, she met his eyes and shook her head.
Putting her slim fingers on Rand's throat, she stretched up slowly, brought her fangs to his artery. A tiny growl came from her, a desperate noise, and a shudder went through her. It was as if she was fighting her own urges, maybe because her body was sending a lot of conflicting messages about male contact. No fucking kidding. But Rand's arm tightened around her, a gentle encouragement, not a restraint, and she bit. The relief from her was palpable as blood flooded her mouth, feeding her hunger.
Cai was startled by an unexpected reaction. For an absurd second, he wanted to growl himself, pull her away from Rand's throat. Rand was his servant, and no other vampire had the right to touch him, feed from him. Feeding wasn't functional for vampires. It was intimate, sexual...
Yeah, he'd lost his fucking mind. For Dovia, it was functional and all about survival, and he was being an idiot. Hell, if the intimacy, the involuntary sexual response all vampires felt from feeding, brought her the fleeting illusion of safety or control, he wasn't begrudging it to her. Plus, he had other things to handle.
There were a lot of things wrong about what he was going to do. And dangerous. And part of the reason he'd stayed so fucking far away from vampires for as long as he could. He hadn't told Lyssa the whole truth. No one knew the whole truth.
He'd never actually successfully done it to a female vampire. But that wasn't because he couldn't do it. It was because he'd never tried.
The bitch he'd killed by turning her into a hydroponic, he'd done that deliberately. He'd no more have tried to plant a baby in Megan's belly than he would have dropped a toddler into a vat of acid.
Yet the ability had been in him for so long. To create life, in many different forms. Not just plants. The first time he'd felt it, Cai had known he could do it the way a baby knew it would be able to walk even before he did, which was why the child tried.
But this ability was different from that. Not unnatural, not exactly. It was creation magic, after all. It was simply wrong on a fundamental level. Because he had the power didn't necessarily mean he should use it. Power without judgment was just a fuck-up waiting to happen. If he knew one thing for certain about himself, it was that he and good judgment were not on the same page, book, or planet.
Here he was, ready to prove it. Right or wrong, her life would depend on the life he could put inside her, a life that wouldn't be something she'd want or was meant to be.
He'd indulge in moral mastication later when their lives weren't in the balance. He started slowing everything down in his mind. He had to open everything within him, get a full energy flow going, and he knew that opened his mind to Rand. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe his subconscious could reassure the wolf in a way Cai couldn't afford to do otherwise.
Rand was holding her, stroking her, his gaze fixed on Cai, eyes widening as he started getting the feed.
Cai couldn't describe it. He'd figured out a long time ago that saying God works in mysterious ways wasn't a copout; there simply weren't words for how Creation worked. It was a feeling, a force. The flow of water and wind, the breaking open of a seedpod, the stem pushing up through the earth toward sunlight. It was a spark. It pulled from something inside him he didn't understand, that he'd never known where it came from.
Hell, his father had been a farmer; his mother the baker's daughter he married. Faithful and loyal to one another. Though he'd heard stories about changelings, Cai was pretty sure he wasn't Fae, especially when Lodell was able to turn him into a vampire.
People like Lyssa's sorcerer were human, but drew their talent for magic from something inside them, right? So maybe he was someone like that, born with the gift.
He didn't linger on the theories, and especially not on the images of his parents. Nothing could exist when he was doing this, except this. Trads disappeared, the girl's distress, the slim-to-none chance they would survive. Everything disappeared.
Everything but Rand, curiously. His presence was still there, like a heartbeat inside Cai. He inhaled his warmth and, though he was in human form, Cai could smell the wolf, the sun-drenched fur, the musky oil of him. The moonlight when he ran at night, forming lightning bolts of gleaming color on his coat. He was
creation, too, in a sense. Every time he shifted.
There it was. The energy was like being lowered into heated water, everything silent, slow moving, rich and powerful. The first time it had happened, he'd been four or five. He might have even done it before then and not remembered.
His mother had been sharing a cup of tea with her friend Olive, who was crying because she couldn't conceive. She was afraid her husband, a merchant, would get a bastard on a mistress so he could have a son to take over his business. She talked in a low voice to Cai's mother about having "tried again" last night, hoping against hope.
Cai laid down his toys and went to her. His mother was about to shoo him away when he reached out with both small hands and laid them on Olive's stomach. He felt it quicken within him, that energy. In the simple terms of a child, he took two ends of rope, her husband's seed still in her body, and one of her eggs, and brought them together in that dark, safe triangle of space in her body. There was something not quite right, but he fixed it, with a thought, a good wish, a little flare of heat from his palms. They were planted together, snug in that soft bed of tissue. And the light was there, and it was good.
He'd pulled back, smiled a child's smile and said "baby."
Olive had tried to answer the smile through her tears. She thought he'd heard their talk of a child and assumed she was pregnant. Hugging him, she said, "I hope so, Mordecai. I really hope so."
Shortly thereafter, she skipped her courses. Even though the early nineteenth century was mostly past the witch hunt days, it was probably a good thing that the timing didn't point to him causing it. But his mother had given him some odd looks, that day and then when Olive rushed in to give the good news several weeks later.
But mothers kind of guessed when there was something freaky about their sons, even if they didn't want to acknowledge it.
There it was. Cai found those tendrils of magic, pushed away the thought of whose hated seed he was marrying to that innocent, unknowing egg, and put the two together. Vampire biology was different when it came to fertility, so things were not as welcoming as when he'd done it for Olive, but his will could overcome physiology.