by Joey W. Hill
He couldn't believe how hard it was to push the next words out, but he did it. They were for Rand alone. "Probably the best thing. You know my mouth is going to get me killed, and you don't want to die because I'm an incurable smartass."
Rand's blue and gold eyes were fixed on his with an intent look. When the wolf spoke in his head, the words lodged in Cai's chest, like a thrown spear.
Gotta die of something.
Cai swallowed. He offered a bare nod of acknowledgment and turned to face Lyssa, though he executed a credible bow to all of them. Pretty well, if the surprise on Helga's face was any indication.
"I'm sorry if I was rude to anyone here. I'm willing to help improve relations between you and the Trads, the way I described it. I'll hang around tonight if you want to talk about that with me, but I'll be gone before dawn. Back to the world where I belong." He straightened. "Though if we could have a doggy bag of those meatball things, Rand would appreciate it. So...um. Good night."
He'd almost made it to the door when Lyssa spoke, bringing him to a halt.
"Mordecai."
Hell, he'd known it wasn't going to be that easy. He turned, subtly--or maybe blatantly--positioning himself in front of Rand. When the wolf began to move, intending to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, Cai warned him against it.
Protocol, remember? You don't stand next to or in front of your vampire. Jacob said so.
Rand stayed where he was, but it was a tenuous leash that might snap at the least provocation from the table. It was what Sheba had known, and Cai did, too. Rand was a pack leader. No one was threatening his pack, and Cai...Cai was his pack. Thanks to Cai's big mouth, Rand was obviously feeling that even more strongly now.
But it was sloppy seconds, falling so short of the kind of pack Rand should be leading. One that would want to be led, for one thing, rather than one constantly doing his own thing and dragging Rand into this kind of trouble.
Lyssa rose and came to stand before Cai. She had a graceful, gliding kind of movement that Cai expected spawned the lore about vampires floating just above the ground rather than striding like a human.
"This Council and I are deeply grateful for what you and your servant did for Dovia and Lord Greenwald," she said with quiet formality, though her gaze said a lot more. "You have our leave to depart whenever you wish, but you have friends on the Council now. Please do not hesitate to come to us if you have need of that friendship. If you are willing to approach Trad colonies you think would be amicable to meeting with a delegation from this Council, to discuss ways to resolve some of our deeper conflicts, then see Ingram before you leave. He'll provide you my contact information."
Her gaze shifted to Rand. "Just as we are learning more about the Fae culture, thanks to the liaison role of Lord Keldwyn with our Council, I think it would be beneficial to learn more of your kind, Rand. I understand you are a private people, and you may not wish this. We'll leave it to you and them to decide if you wish to initiate those dialogues.
"If you do, then Cai will have the contact information so you may seek informal or formal audience with me about it. Vampires are learning, slowly, painfully, that we benefit more from friendships than conflict or isolationism. I know trust of our kind has not always been warranted, but we are working on that."
Isolationism is a hell of a lot easier than that other stuff, Cai observed to Rand. And you don't have to dress up for dinner.
Cai...
Rand's warning kept the words inside, but Cai was just yanking the wolf's chain. He gave Lyssa a slight bow.
"Thank you, my lady. I would also ask...what you promised, or implied you'd do, earlier. Can you not speak of what Rand is outside this room? As I said, water finds a way past a dam, but no reason to help it." A tight smile touched his lips. "Sometimes it's better for some things to remain a fantasy."
Lyssa looked to the others, meeting each vampire's eyes in turn, finishing with Mason. Whatever was communicated between them had her offering Cai a nod.
"If the time comes when the rest of the Council must know, I will speak of it, but as long as there is no pressing issue related to shifters, I see no reason for the information to go further than the Council in this room and the staff here, whom you may trust to keep the information to themselves."
"Thank you." And he meant it. Which felt awkward. "In return, I'll never reveal to any vampire I was here, or what we did for you. Even if I meet one of those absent Council members. Wouldn't want it to get around that you guys owe a favor to a bastard like me."
Her eyes glinted with amusement. Beneath that was something more serious, unsettling. "I think there are far worse favors to owe. Before you go, see Lord Brian. He has something for you. It will please you. Also, Rand may visit the kitchen and request any leftovers either of you desires."
She'd let him off the hook. Her lips twitched, acknowledging his barely masked relief and Rand's doggy bag needs, before she turned away, a clear dismissal.
Cai didn't need to be told twice.
Cai didn't slow his strides until he was deep into one of the gardens, where the forest was only a few hundred feet away. Tempting. Way too tempting. He was under an archway of a big vine thing that formed a cave. He'd told Rand to go to the kitchen and get some food. Had insisted on it, making it clear he needed some alone time. The wolf complied, especially when Cai shut down any mind communication and ignored Rand's silent questions.
He stayed in the garden for a while, trying to sort through his thoughts. Removing the third mark... Yeah, he should deal with that. He didn't really care what Brian had for him, but maybe the servant's vampire had to sanction the separation in person, or there were forms to sign. Who the fuck knew.
He thought of being with Rand without the bond the mark provided. He didn't like it, but it wasn't about what he liked or disliked. It was what made the most sense. Which was why he was sitting in the middle of a Council-vampire garden, brooding over it. Shit.
He tried not to think of anything. Trying not to think of what was behind all of it, and what had been reinforced with a big highlighter tonight, after seeing Rand around the Council vampires. A huge, Grand Canyon contrast to him being with Fane's family.
Shit and double shit. Cai rose and wandered into a different section of the garden. It was then that another scent came to him, one that a vampire found hard to resist. Especially a vampire looking for a much-needed distraction.
Following the path with quiet stealth, Cai discovered exactly why those "servant entertainments" had sounded so intriguing. And why wouldn't they be, with so many hot looking servants close to hand?
The Council delegation had retired to a large open pavilion to enjoy after dinner coffee and the tableau currently on display before them.
Jessica, Mason's servant, was stretched out in pale, silky nudity upon a patch of soft green grass, populated by lavender flowers. Shondra, a lovely woman with hazelnut skin and a million dark ringlets of soft cottony hair, had her mouth buried between Jessica's legs. Mason's servant was writhing, her arms stretched out to either side, mouth open and neck arched back, so close to release. But it seemed Carola kept Shondra curbing her pace, so she took Jessica up and up, then brought her back from the edge, intensifying the experience.
"Master..." Jessica's self-restraint broke with the plea. Mason had pulled his chair close enough to her that her fingers coiled and uncoiled on the hem of his slacks. His gaze remained fixed upon her, his mouth set in a stern, waiting line, though his eyes had fire in them. Before the night was over, Cai expected his servant would be fucked past the ability to walk. Mason looked like he put the D in Dominant. Whenever his servant was touched by another, even a woman, he was probably quick to reinforce his own claim on her. Repeatedly.
Cai thought of Rand and Dovia. Yeah, he got that.
He imagined Rand in the same position, the female servant working him in her mouth. Rand would be blindfolded, so he wouldn't know if the mouth was male or female, except by guessing. Since a cock could care
less when it came to the tactile stuff, it would be ramrod straight, the knob slick and gleaming as she sucked and polished, went all the way down, earning a strangled groan from him.
Would the words come from his lips the way they did Jessica's now, a whispered supplication?
"Master...let me please you."
Jessica was blindfolded, too, so her Master's gaze was on her mouth, her parted lips, tongue touching them. Did the movement show that she wanted her Master's cock, even more than she wanted the orgasm she was so perilously close to experiencing? Cai expected it did. What Master could resist that?
Lyssa sat quietly in a basket swing, her feet swaying an inch or two above the ground. Jacob stood behind her. Close, because she had her hand behind her back. From the rhythmic movement of her arm, Cai was pretty sure she had threaded her hand through the open spaces of the swing and was working him with a healthy grip. Jacob had his palm molded on the top of the swing, the fingers of his other hand curled in a near fist around the chain holding it.
That fist said he wanted to touch her, to take her down. When Lyssa tipped her head back to look at him, his hot eyes said the same. His mind was probably being even more insistent about it.
Yeah, having an alpha servant was like a constant drug.
Cai hadn't intended to linger, but he rested on his heels in his hidden position, all his vampire carnality on full, appreciative alert. He was sure the others were aware of him, but it was apparently okay to watch.
He really might get into this, in time. And Rand? Rand was a guy like any other. He'd said it himself. He wanted to please Cai. It turned him on, which was the key to all of this, wasn't it? It was the lack of choice which had caused Cai a problem, but if they both were into it, it might be all right. Cai just didn't want anyone telling him what to do, with his servant or anything else.
Torrence joined the action now. After unwrapping the kilt he wore, he shrugged out of the shirt. He looked as virile and powerful as Rand, which Cai sure as hell could appreciate. Reaching down, he grasped Shondra's hips and pulled her up into a near head stand. Flexible minx, because her mouth remained on Jessica's cunt, though a cry broke from her lips as Torrence shoved his cock inside her obviously slippery pussy. Her bent knees pressed against his forearms, pointed toes past his elbows, swaying as Torrence thrust into her, pushing her face deeper into Jessica's core.
Penthouse letters had nothing on this. Cai put his hand on his cock and idly stroked it over his slacks. He wanted Rand here, fiercely, but he kept that thought to himself. Let the guy eat, hang out in the kitchen, do normal things.
Mason rose. He squatted above Jessica's head and put two fingers in between her lips, hooking there to hold her head tipped back. He removed the blindfold so her eyes could be upon him, as his thumb stroked her full bottom lip. "Now," he said.
Jessica's body shuddered violently, and she screamed against his hand as the climax grabbed her. Her head arched back further, her neck offered to her Master. Her skin flushed like a rose in the garden.
The command to come had likewise been given to the other two, so Cai had the pleasure of seeing that accrued energy surge into an explosive release. Shondra's nails raked Jessica's thighs. Torrence's head fell back on his shoulders, animal grunts coming from his throat. His ass and thighs flexed as he pounded into Shondra.
The circle was complete. The vampires had commanded their servants to satisfy them with a riveting erotic choreography that held Cai. But that wasn't the end of it.
Torrence lifted Shondra in his arms and returned her to her Mistress, sitting her on Carola's lap. Shondra's vampire mistress cuddled her like a child. Except her legs parted so that Carola could slide two fingers into her to play, make her whimper with need. Torrence returned to kneel at Helga's feet, lay his head on her thighs. His face was turned toward her, as if his Mistress was rewarding him with the scent of her pussy. Letting him know how much he'd aroused her, and what she might let him taste before too much longer.
And Mason and Jessica... As the young woman finished her climax, she lifted a trembling arm to his face, curling her fingers in the thick tail of hair that had fallen forward over his broad shoulder. He cradled her under her shoulders, brought her up to him so their mouths met, and then she dropped her head back again, so he could sink his fangs into her throat.
This was the vampire form of a pack, Cai realized. That total, immutable bond between Master and servant.
Something deeper and harder than Cai's cock was being affected by the scene. It was...intimate. He thought of the time he'd woken from his daylight sleep and Rand had been curled up on top of the mounded earth. Guarding him. Watching over him. Or maybe simply staying close.
Fuck. Cai adjusted his unthinking dick into a more comfortable position, blanked his mind and exited the gardens. He cornered the first house servant he encountered, and figured out where Lord Brian was.
It was a brief, cursory visit, where he annoyed the vampire by cutting off most his questions about shifters, but he was older than Brian, so screw him. Rand could handle his Q&A.
Brian gave him the item that Lyssa had mentioned. His new fang. Brian had put it in a small, flat box, but when he offered to open it, do a fitting, Cai offered a short thanks and pocketed it without looking at it. Instead, he asked Brian to tell him about the separation process between Master and servant. After Brian complied, Cai donated the blood needed to make it happen, and took off. He'd kept it as short as possible, but by the time he left the scientist's lab, just that short conversation about breaking the bond had something about to explode in his chest.
He stopped in the hallway, staring sightlessly at the wall. Why had he done all that without Rand? But even as he asked himself the question, he knew why, with a sinking feeling attended by the same spiraling anxiety as his earlier near panic attack. Which he refused to call a panic attack.
Some part of him had intended to go back to their rooms, wait for Rand. They'd leave together, maybe find the nearest quiet stretch of woods and fuck. Even before seeing that little display of the Council servants, Cai had wanted his wolf. Hell, he felt that way all the time.
They'd go to the desert, or just go back to West Virginia, hang for a while. That'd be the easy way, wouldn't it? Let it run its course, and Cai could enjoy it as long as it lasted. No decisions.
But maybe for the first time in his life, he needed to be an asshole for the right reasons. Rand cared about him, considered him part of "his pack," because that was how wolves were wired and they'd been through life-and-death shit together. He'd seen inside Cai's soul, knew he was fucked up. He needed Rand, and Rand had picked up on it.
But Cai had more perspective on this. About a couple centuries of it. Just because Cai needed the shifter didn't mean he should have him. Or that Rand should be sentenced to him. And the longer they stayed together, the more chances he could fuck up Rand's head over it so the shifter would end up back in that desolate, isolated space. There was nothing desolate or isolated about Fane's family, the pack of warm and loving shifters. Cai didn't even think it caustically. Family was what every soul not damaged beyond repair longed to have.
Time to shit or get off the pot. It was abrupt and rude, but he had to go. Go now. It might be chickenshit, but he'd leave Rand a note. Not because Cai wanted to be cruel, but because...in person, he wouldn't have the courage to do it. He was glad Rand couldn't put together his feeling-thought stuff when Cai out of his sight. At least that was what he told himself.
Just as Rand had given Cai a different way of seeing things again, Cai knew--though mostly by luck rather than intent--he'd helped Rand find his way to a better place in his head. A place that would want to be part of a pack again. Without Cai, Rand would go back to Fane and his family. Rebuild his life with them. Find a home.
Cai would go back to his forest haunts, though right now it was the desert calling to him. He didn't want to be on forest trails where he could imagine wolves padding along in the dark of night, blue-gold eyes g
lowing...
He'd learned a long time ago that when something crappy had to be done, he made the decision and did it, no thinking further about it.
So he procured paper and pen from yet another oh-so-helpful servant, and scribbled out what he needed to say. Didn't think about it, make it mushy or sentimental or any of that shit. Leastwise, he tried to do it that way. The more he wrote, the harder it got to draw a breath.
Why was it vampires didn't need to breathe except when they were feeling shit, and then it was like they were strangling? Just like that night Rand freaking spooned with him. How many times had Cai had that gorgeous ass, and yet that was what stuck in his head now? It was messed up.
Cai finished the note, handed it off to the same servant and told her where to deliver it. This was Council headquarters. If a vampire told a human to do something, it would be done. Just in case, he gave her a hard look, squeezed her hand holding the note. Her startled expression and proportionate increase in deference, which had already been gratingly excessive, said Rand would get the note.
That was that. He had the clothes on his back. He could have requested a new pack of basics from the house staff, he was sure, but he'd rather just pick up his own stuff. He even left the jeans and shirt Fane's family had provided, so Rand could return those. But he did keep the pocket knife.
Cai headed out of the mansion. As he reached the forest edge, those feelings started to grow stronger again. Lust, need, loneliness, regret, guilt...Rand. Just Rand. Rand was a bunch of feelings, all wrapped up in one word.
Fuck it. Cai abandoned his cool, nonchalant stride and took off, running for the shelter the trees and darkness provided. And kept running.
Long past when he thought he'd slow down, something in him said no. He'd just run and run and run, until he was too tired to do otherwise. Or until the sun broke over the horizon and the earth called him into its embrace.
Chapter Twenty-Two