by Joey W. Hill
Rand’s mind dissolved into gibberish, and his heavy furred body sank down on Cai. Adding weight to the barbed wire, not that Cai could even feel the pain. Adrenaline and horror rushed in together. She’d killed the wolf. Just killed him.
“Good timing, Tyra,” Gold Hair said.
She sniffed and leveled a look at Chavez. He was sitting on the ground but feeding off the wrist of one of the servants, which would provide a swift patch to the wound Rand had inflicted upon him. Unless the wolf’s saliva contained some kind of flesh-eating parasite. Too fucking much to hope for.
“You weren’t the only one to bring reinforcements,” Tyra told the Goth. “Lord Brian said these tranquilizers would slow a vampire down, but not kill him. I figure it should work on a big-ass wolf.”
Okay, so there was a chance he was okay. Cai calmed enough to register that yes, Rand was breathing. He was alive, and wasn’t giving off the signals Cai would be receiving, both through direct contact and the second mark, if he was badly injured.
Had Rand been trapped in some crazy loop of dog-loyalty thing? It was the only thing that made sense, because Cai hadn’t done anything to deserve the male’s championing like this.
Seeing how pale Chavez was felt good, though. The Goth hadn’t expected a wolf to be such a match for him. Even now he was probably convincing himself Rand wasn’t as strong as he’d seemed. Whereas Cai had no doubt, when Rand took the male down, he could have killed him. He wished he had. Only his defensive move to put himself between Tyra and Cai had likely stopped it.
Not the biggest and baddest things in the universe, are you, shitheads?
But much as he would have liked to see Chavez turned into wolf food, it was probably good Rand hadn’t done it. If he’d killed the vampire, that would have suggested he was something other than just a supersized wolf. Hopefully, though these three didn’t seem shy about using magical tools, they had no actual aptitude or sensitivity to the type of energy Cai could feel around Rand full time, suggesting he was something more than “just a wolf.”
Chavez had struggled to his feet, weak but obviously determined to appear strong in front of his two companions. Not surprising, since Cai’s experience was that vampires were more into cutthroat competition with one another than into becoming beer buddies.
Chavez approached and gave Rand a kick. It was his still healing side, and Rand made a whimpering noise, even while only partially conscious. Cai was going to rip the Goth’s fucking nose rings out, puncture his anus with them, and watch him bleed out. “Good, he’s out. We can leave him behind, Voltaire.”
“No,” Voltaire said. He was apparently Gold Hair. Cai had picked up on Rand’s mental nickname for him. “He’s more cooperative with him, so the beast may provide us leverage.”
Voltaire dropped to his heels by Cai. “But leverage or not, Greenwald will get everything he wants out of you, Trad. Or you will suffer ten times what you’ll suffer on the trip to him. We know what you and your people have done. There’s no mercy for your kind. Not today, tomorrow or any other day. Pray your information wins you a quick death. That’s your best hope now.”
“I don’t pray to gods,” Cai managed. “Gods are just another set of pretentious bastards like you who think it’s okay to fuck with other people’s lives.”
That earned him a kick. Then they were dragging Rand off of him, binding the wolf in a bunch of ropes. He and the shifter were put on separate, crudely put together litters that the servants dragged along through the forest until they reached one of those hiking trails wide enough for an ATV. Several of the vehicles were waiting. The litters were hooked to two of them, and they were pulled through the forest.
Every bump, every twitch of his body made the barbs gouge deeper into his wounds and fuck, it bloody hurt. Cai figured out they had a hold and release cycle. If he stayed still through the worst of the pain, the wires would ease up after about fifteen very long seconds.
He understood and could handle pain. So getting an occasional glimpse of Rand’s inert body bouncing behind another ATV was the only distraction helping Cai keep his mind away from a different issue. But it was a fight he was starting to lose, against an enemy within.
Being restrained, being taken against his will somewhere, experiencing total loss of control, was a problem. He was helpless, and that feeling was what became a full-blown crisis, harder and harder to manage.
When they reached a deserted parking lot cloaked in full darkness and containing two vehicles, including a van, he reached overload. All that was holding him to the litter were ropes. They were letting the barbed wire do all the work. Voltaire’s back was to him as he opened the van side door.
Okay. I’m fine. Okay. Not okay. So totally not okay. Not going to make me do anything, treat me like this. No one. No fucking one, never again. Okay, you want to die, let’s die together, Rand. I’m cool with that. Ready, set, go.
He let out an abrupt roar and rolled, splitting the ropes with a snap. Bouncing off the litter, he landed against Voltaire. The golden-haired bastard fell, and Cai had the satisfaction of tearing his pretty Armani shirt with the barbed wire.
Then Chavez hit him with what felt like a hot stick, sending electrical current through the metal barbed wire bindings. Everything seized up; brain cells, vision. Voltaire snarled, since Chavez hadn’t waited until he thrust Cai off of him to do it. It would make Cai snicker, when he could figure out how to align his top and bottom row of electrified teeth again.
He was kicking at Voltaire, best as he could with his legs bound, and screaming incoherently at Chavez. From the Goth’s wide eyes, Cai was confirming all their theories about Trads, the crazed, live-in-the-woods vampires who refused all trappings of civility, who didn’t take servants, who killed their human prey rather than sipping on them like wine at one of their fancy fucking dinners.
You’re not better than me, fucker. And you’re going to be dead, really soon.
They hit him, hard enough to break bones. No problem. He was a vampire, they’d heal. He could handle this, but he had to get loose. He had to. He couldn’t be helpless again or he would just fucking lose it.
Tyra was getting up and dusting off her taut ass, so he must have taken her down while rolling around with Voltaire.
Then, amid all that, Rand’s mind reached out to him, and it was…calm.
Calm like quiet meadows and dark, starry nights. Cool breezes through thick fur, the soft call of an owl in the distance. He was in hunter mode. Still. Waiting. In control, even when that deadly ferocity waited, just below the surface.
Which reminded Cai he was a goddamned hunter, too. He wasn’t a scared kid, or a frightened victim. His gaze darted to the wolf’s body. It was still inert on the litter, Rand seemingly unconscious. Pull your shit together, he told himself. You’re embarrassing yourself in front of the wolf.
My eyes are closed. Some grim humor, and a touch of seriousness, not just because of their situation but probably because Rand’s wolf senses could tell how thin that layer of calm actually was for Cai. He couldn’t get his mind off the bonds. He had to struggle, fight...
Breathe with me in that world, vampire. The bindings on you don’t mean anything there.
Cai was going to tell him he didn’t go for that New Age meditation bullshit, but truth, he was so spun up over feeling trapped, some part of him grabbed that calm voice and imagery like a life line. Even if Rand’s tranquility were caused by groovy tranquilizer effects, Cai found himself trying to sync his breathing with Rand’s as the male kept thinking that same mantra. Breathe with me. Bindings mean nothing.
It gave him the room he needed. Cai struggled for control and calm. He’d had to contain all of it for so long, so many years, he could find it again. He just needed loose from these bonds, he just…
Breathe. In time they’ll release you. You know they will. Or we’ll figure out a way to escape.
Or you break loose from your bonds, I roll over them like a barbed log, and we go down in a blaze of
glory.
I think we should give Plan A a chance first.
“Why do you assume that’s not Plan A? I give you a great chance to end it all, and you wimp out on me now?
Though wimp was not the word that came to mind, remembering Rand standing over him, a fully pissed wolf with death gleaming in his eyes and off his bared teeth.
Cai could calm down. The wolf made it possible. But before he could prove it to anyone other than himself, he lifted his head to see Chavez holding Tyra’s tranquilizer gun. He shot the rest of the load pointblank into Cai.
They apparently mistook a tranquilizer for truth serum. After he and Cai were loaded into the van and on their way, the vampires took turns kicking and beating on Cai, asking him questions he never answered. Partly because he was in and out of consciousness, and partly because he had far more clever observations.
Like about Chavez’s nose rings, the hair product Voltaire used, or why Tyra shouldn’t wear a push-up bra. No reason to pump up Mount Rushmore, right?
Since Rand still felt like he was swimming in a fog soup, he admired the vampire’s unrelenting smart-assery. He did use the gradual clearing of his mind to do some thinking about their situation, because it kept his mind off what they were doing to Cai that he couldn’t stop. If he dwelled on that, his wolf would start struggling, which would help nothing.
He reminded himself that Cai could handle the chance to talk trash with his captors, better than the vampire could handle the reality of his bindings. The male’s panic and anger had been curious. He’d seemed to do better once they’d started beating on him in the van, as if the distraction kept him from focusing on what seemed to bother him more than the torment—being trapped and unable to call the shots.
So though his human side was no less thrilled with what was happening to Cai, Rand forced himself to consider what options they had. He was sure Cai would have a smartass response to that.
Cai obviously had a gift for pissing others off, but this seemed more than that. He pissed off Rand, but not to the point Rand wanted to tie him up, torture and drag him off to see a top guy who was probably going to do more and worse to him. He’d picked up the gist of that during the first part of the beatings.
Holy God, could they get where they were going soon?
They’d bound Rand in ropes, tying his legs and muzzle, and dumped him toward the rear of the roomy van. They’d run ropes from his bonds to handles embedded in the sides and back so he couldn’t turn over or see what they were doing, which sucked. He had the strength to rip those handles loose, he was sure, but it would serve no purpose right now except maybe getting him darted again.
If he shifted, it was likely he could get free even faster and do some damage. Still, it wouldn’t be enough to give him good odds against three vampires in close quarters and their human servants, two of whom were following in another vehicle while the third one drove this van. Plus, at this point, they thought he was just a wolf. Cai could have told them he was a shifter, and he hadn’t. Maybe because most vampires didn’t believe shifters existed and Cai wanted to keep it that way. Or to leave it as an ace in the hole if it would come in handy for escape. Hard to know.
At some later time, Rand would puzzle over why the vampire had stuck his neck out for him and given him repeated attempts to take off, no help requested.
As for Rand being here, he’d already answered that. The good thing about his wolf side was it didn’t analyze the crap out of things. Instinct had told him not to abandon Cai, so he hadn’t. End of story. No great meaning, no need to analyze his feelings or his relationship with the vampire—and, er, fuckbuddy did not equal relationship. It was what it was. He didn’t care if he himself lived or died, so why not tag along and see what was up with this? And yeah, maybe some of it was guilt, because when he’d gone after the Goth vampire, Cai had agreed to go along reasonably quietly if they didn’t kill Rand.
Rand figured out they’d driven out of the West Virginia mountains, bypassed a few smaller towns and ended up in horse country Virginia. Though his being tied down kept him from seeing anything out the windows except what was straight up—the dark sky—they were cracked and brought him the tempting scent of well-fed horses. He imagined they were traveling through an area filled with nice brick mansions on multi-acre spreads, the glossy horses grazing on lawns enclosed by wide white picket fences.
At last, the sleek dark van bumped up the long driveway of one of the properties that didn’t have horses. The lingering scent was there, but very old. When the van was brought to a halt, Chavez stepped over him and went out the back, leaving the double doors open. Rand saw a barn, which looked like it had been converted to living space, maybe guest quarters.
He heard a muffled grunt as Cai was jerked out of the van and dumped unceremoniously on the asphalt. They did the same to Rand, leaving his legs and muzzle tied, Voltaire shoving his bruised ribs with his foot to flip him over. That was when Rand finally saw Cai.
Ah, hell.
The vampire was a bloody mess. They’d struck his face and body repeatedly, with fists or blunt objects. Pain was a raw, red throbbing heat coming off him. Bastards.
It’s all right. I’m a vampire. We’re the best kind of punching bag. A blood meal and I’ll heal right up. You okay?
Except for tranquilizing and tying him up, they hadn’t done much of anything to Rand. He wanted to say Yeah, good, but he couldn’t verbalize, even in his mind. So he did it in wolf speak. He stretched out his bound muzzle and brushed it briefly against Cai’s upper arm. The vampire turned his gaze to him, lingered there briefly.
You’re pretty impressive in that form, wolf. Try to tone down the gleam, so no one starts thinking about you as a fur coat.
“I told you to get Lord Greenwald,” Voltaire said sharply as Chavez returned from the house. The Goth was still favoring the shoulder and wearing the bloody, torn shirt, but he looked even paler than when Rand had attacked him. He jerked his head like he had a nervous tic, though it apparently was an indication someone was coming behind him.
“The Council delegation arrived,” he hissed in a whisper. “It’s—”
“Lady Lyssa,” Tyra said in a tight tone of fear and respect. She dropped to one knee.
Cai had laid back his head and closed bloody, swollen eyes, as if uncaring who was coming to look at him. But since Rand felt her even before he angled his face to see her, he looked.
Vampires had a certain scent. So did Fae and shifters. She had some of all three scents, which was intriguing enough. But there was also a solid wall of power around this vampire. Chavez’s panic, Tyra’s reaction and Voltaire’s sudden tension telegraphed it.
All vampires were beautiful, and she was no exception. Long, straight dark hair, slightly Asian features, jade green eyes. Deceptively petite and slim-boned. Her head might reach Rand’s chest. He wouldn’t underestimate her based on her size. Not a chance with that power beating against his senses like a “realize she can kick your ass twelve ways to Sunday” wake up call.
She was wearing a fitted skirt that stopped a couple inches above her knees, a silky blouse that clung attractively to small curves, and toothpick heels. She navigated the paved drive in them with as much grace and ease as a basketball player in athletic shoes.
She had a male with her that Rand guessed was her servant. He had midnight blue eyes, russet-brown hair to his broad shoulders, and a muscular physique. He emanated the calm readiness of a veteran fighter.
Two other vampires, one male and one female, accompanied Lady Lyssa. The male had cool, amber eyes and long copper-colored hair tied back. Compared to Lyssa and the other vampire, he seemed to project an old-world style, though his clothes were modern enough. Khakis, dress shirt, shiny shoes. The third vampire, the other female, had German features, a voluptuous body well-displayed in a classy outfit of slacks and blouse, and an equally steady brown gaze. Her blond hair was in a thick twist on top of her head.
Servants accompanied them, too. The woman�
��s was a big Viking-looking guy in a kilt. The copper-haired vampire’s servant was a female with brown hair, delicate features, but who projected a strong will. She also seemed very interested and concerned about Rand, her lovely gray gaze resting on him, her brow furrowed. She had a kind heart and didn’t like to see him bound this way, though she spared very little attention for Cai, seeming to avoid looking at him.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care, Rand realized, taking a deeper scent. Violence and blood distressed her, stirred up some bad things. The copper-haired vampire’s gaze had gone to her, picking it up, but she tightened her jaw and resolutely nodded. An I’m okay message. His expression softened slightly, but when he turned his attention back to their group, it was flat and unreadable.
Like most fully mature adult vampires, all of them looked around thirty years old, but Lyssa felt ancient, and the other two vampires weren’t far behind. None of these were fledglings. Neither were the three who had caught them, but now that Rand had a comparison, he knew Voltaire, Tyra and Chavez were much younger.
Another vampire arrived then, one who didn’t look cool and steady at all. He wore a white shirt, black jacket, and slacks. Despite the tailored elegance, he seemed disheveled. Maybe vampires couldn’t do physically rumpled, so it only manifested internally. The outside said GQ. The inside vibrations said a guy in tatters, likely ripped by his own fists.
At the sight of Cai, he leaped forward, hands curling into claws he set upon Cai to jerk him off the ground. Rand peeled back a lip. He’d kept his wolf contained, but under all the current stresses, that grip was getting more tenuous. Seeing yet another person hurting the vampire, his inner beast said it’d had enough.
And then he got a break. Literally. One of the ropes snapped.
It loosened the hold of the others. Rand thrashed his way out of the bonds, quick as a twisting snake, too fast for the others to react. The helpless anger and banked ferocity of the past few hours boiled forth, his wolf ready to tear something apart.
While normally those tasty horses would take top billing, something else loomed larger in his mind. He had one goal, and he got right to it. He didn’t have to think or plan. That was the beauty of being a wolf fueled up on a hundred percent high octane pissed-off.