Vampire's Soul: A Vampire Queen Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Lyssa blinked. “It has been said.”

  As Jacob coughed over a chuckle, she sent him an admonishing look.

  “My servant has clothes up in the room,” Cai said shortly. Fancy words work better if your junk isn’t hanging out there, being a distraction.

  Without distraction, you’d probably be a greasy spot on the carpet.

  She likes me. I can tell.

  Lyssa glanced at Jacob. “Send Giles to retrieve Rand’s clothes. He need not be too hasty about it.”

  It was Jacob’s turn to give her a narrow look, but he crossed the room and stepped to the door. He kept it cracked so the house servant couldn’t peer within. While his voice stayed low, Rand detected the last words. “Make haste.”

  The glint in Lyssa’s eyes became like that of a faceted jewel. Jacob returned to her side only a couple moments later, clothes in hand. She gave him an openly amused look. “I was unaware Giles was an Olympic sprinter.”

  Jacob offered an ambivalent grunt.

  As Rand took the clothes and stepped aside to pull them on, she turned her attention back to Cai. “Your convictions need not be brayed like a mule to be truth. I’ve lived long enough to experience loss, betrayal, and know how terribly unfair life can be. It can also be glorious, when the essential elements needed as a balm to those feelings are discovered. I hope your tongue allows you long enough to find them.”

  She switched back to the original topic, ignoring Cai’s bemused reaction. “Are you still accepted as one of them?” Lyssa asked.

  “I said I won’t—”

  “Indulge me in a hypothetical. Are you still accepted as one of them?”

  Cai scowled. “Probably. Yes. No. Maybe. The one who leads them now is the vampire who stole me when I was a kid. Goddard.”

  He should just stop talking, but he’d promised honesty. It was no big deal. Cai could say it out loud. It didn’t mean anything and he’d be out of here soon.

  But saying the male’s name was harder than it should be. He wanted to spit it out a few more times, just to prove it had no hold on him, maybe scream it and add a few expletives to embellish it…but that might make him seem a bit unhinged. Right? More than he’d already proven he was.

  He could feel Rand’s gaze on him. He’s alive, why?

  Cai appreciated the male’s wave of homicidal support. Just as he’d appreciated his reaction of a few moments ago when he’d lost it like a fledgling. It should have made Cai even more unsettled, but the wolf sitting down next to him, leaning against his leg had been…calming. Fuck.

  Rand had donned the jeans and shirt. Rand and Torrence were almost an exact match in size and breadth, though Rand had a slightly narrower ass. Or Torrence preferred to wear his jeans looser. Cai was guessing servant preferences didn’t usually dictate their clothing choices; their Master or Mistress did. Helga would want her servant’s ass to be as nicely defined as possible in his clothes, so Rand’s muscular butt being narrower was likely the correct conclusion.

  “You have a sorcerer who could find me among millions of square miles of parkland,” Cai reminded the vampire queen. “Why don’t you just have him poof her out of there?”

  “Unfortunately, there are strict limits to how he may help us, and we have reached those.” She lifted a shoulder and frowned. “Particularly since Greenwald’s retrieval team used his help inappropriately. But we have a support member of this Council, Lord Brian, who is our scientific research director. He is on his way here and has said he has additional resources for any rescue attempt we are framing.”

  Cai set his jaw. “And I’m the picture you want to put in that frame. Doesn’t matter what ideas he has, we’re still talking slim-to-none chances.”

  “True. But according to your information, our slim window of chance rests on having someone who can get in there without raising alarm. That person would have the resources we could provide. And our gratitude. Which, in our world, goes a very long way. You may not want us to give you anything, Cai, but how very pleasing would it be for us to owe you?”

  Before he could formulate a response to that, Lyssa cocked her head.

  “Why do you have one steel fang?”

  Cai blinked at the sudden change of topic. “Because Trads are elitist assholes,” he said flatly. “A vampire made from one of their captured humans is considered inferior. Citizens of their fucked-up world, yes, but second-class ones.”

  Cai bared his fangs and pointed to the steel one. “They break one off and dig it out from the root, then cauterize it with your blood so it won’t grow back. The ‘one fang’ designation says you were made within the Trad clan, but you’re not a pure vampire. You were once one of their slaves.”

  He could feel Rand’s gaze on him again. Not that it had ever left, but sometimes it felt as if the guy was staring inside his head. The second mark wasn’t an open two-way street, but with Rand, it felt like it was. Cai really should have done a better job of pissing him off so the shifter would have stayed out of this pointless meeting.

  “On the other hand, for all their faults, Trads are pretty self-sufficient.” Cai swept his gaze over the room. “Those made vampires I talked about? I’m betting most leave within a short time, because they’re not prepared for the rustic realities of Trad life, the lack of comforts. A true Trad wouldn’t be caught dead here.”

  Lyssa watched him another unsettling moment. “You’re an interesting mix, Cai. So full of hate for both sides, but you will favor one over the other when it suits your purpose to sneer at the one before you.”

  Cai shrugged. “I’m an asshole. It’s the best thing I know to be.”

  “Hmm. I think that suit of armor has been purposefully dinged and tarnished. I don’t think you want that young female to be harmed, or to die.”

  “I don’t want a lot of things,” Cai said harshly. “But my wants have never meant a damn to anyone but me. So can we get this over with? Go ahead and torture me under the illusion that it will get me to agree to a suicide mission, or kill me.”

  “Neither at the moment, I think.” She ran a fingertip over the surface of the desk, back and forth, a meditative gesture. “I wish to give this matter some thought and talk to the rest of the delegation. Georg exceeded his authority in how he brought you here, but don’t leave until I grant you permission. We may need further information from you. If you exercise patience, you’ll be released without further harm. You have my word.”

  “Patience isn’t my strong suit. Nor trust.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed.” That faint smile again. Her gaze slid to Rand. “I’ve told no one but the Council delegation what Rand is, and it won’t leave that circle at this time. It’s your decision whether to expose his human side to anyone else here.”

  Rand nodded, a courteous albeit cautious appreciation. Cai was less impressed. He lifted a brow.

  “That a threat? I behave or else you’ll tell everyone shifters exist?”

  Lyssa blinked. “You told me very specifically what your terms were for this audience, and chastised me for believing you were angling yourself for greater spoils. I believe you can take my response at similar face value.”

  Well, he hadn’t expected that. Expected to believe her, that is. Unsettled, Cai looked toward Rand. Up to you. You can shift back to wolf before we leave the room. Or, since the only ones we have to fool are Greenwald and his staff, we can build on what Giles has likely already spread around. That you’re my servant, and you just arrived. I’ll tell anyone who asks that the wolf is out hunting in the forest.

  Rand accepted that with an interesting push of agreement that was wordless, much as he’d communicate it in wolf form. Cai managed an awkward half-bow to Lyssa that made him feel like an idiot, but she inclined her head. Probably laughing her ass off behind that neutral expression. Or maybe not. What had been discussed these past few minutes, and what had brought Cai here, weren’t really laughing matters.

  When he left the room, Rand stayed close enough on his heels Cai
felt the heat of his presence. Yet he didn’t draw a deep breath until he heard the double doors close behind them. Even then, it felt as if something was constricting his chest. Holding him back, holding him tied to the words in that room.

  Goddamn it.

  Jacob crossed his arms as he watched the two depart. Rand had followed Cai, but paused at the door, looking back at Lyssa with a hard-to-read expression on his face. Then he left.

  A shifter. I wish Kane could have seen that.

  Yes. Lyssa offered an absent smile as he referred to their son. She meant it, but Jacob knew a lot of far more troubling things were turning over in her head.

  To ensure their privacy, Jacob continued to speak in his Mistress’s mind. You won’t convince him, my lady. His mind and heart are set. The trauma they did to him runs deep. You’re asking a man not just to confront his nightmares, but wade into them up to his neck and risk drowning.

  She lifted a shoulder and turned the desk chair to face him. If there’s any chance of convincing him, it won’t be me who does it. It will be his wolf.

  Jacob lifted a brow. He just said the bond between them is recent and functional. They’re not a true vampire-servant pairing.

  That’s not what I see. Lyssa met his eyes, her own warming as he drew closer. When she rose in his arm span, he put his hands to her waist and dipped his head to kiss her, letting his lips linger on hers. He needed no reason to want to touch her. It simply was there, like breathing.

  Like all vampires, Cai has the Dominant’s drive, but Rand is more like my servant. Service-oriented but not submissive. And I expect in most all his other relationships, Rand has taken the Dominant role.

  Her eyes were half-closed and body relaxed into his, telling him she was fully enjoying the contact, but her clever mind was still calculating. Their bond is new, and they are still working it out. But I sense it has the potential to open something inside Cai, locked beneath all the tarnished armor.

  From your mind to God’s ear, my lady. Because our alternative is sending in an extraction team, and I believe Cai when he says they’ll kill her without a thought if they’re spooked.

  So do I. The humor disappeared from her face. She reached out over the miles, Jacob riding on that pathway, and they touched the soul of their young son, currently safely fortressed at Lyssa’s Atlanta estate.

  If someone took Kane from me as the Trads took Dovia, I would burn down that mountain range in retribution for giving him a moment’s fear, for daring to put their hands upon him. A goddess’s rage flashed through her, and Jacob didn’t doubt it. He’d be right at her side, adding to her destruction.

  And Mason, she added. He thinks of Farida, his own daughter. Who was also in Atlanta, in the same protected surroundings.

  I know, my lady. We’ll get Dovia back. Jacob was troubled by the seemingly insurmountable challenge, but believing it couldn’t be done and they had no options wasn’t going to help them discover a strategy that might work. He hoped Lyssa was right about Rand. There was no doubt the shifter was an honorable male who’d throw himself into the situation without hesitation. But for the slimmest chance of success, they needed Cai.

  They needed him to have a change of heart, risk what no one had a right to ask him to risk. But perhaps, if his conscience was already overburdened with regrets and things he couldn’t change—not an unusual state for a two-hundred-year lifespan—a miracle might happen. Cai would decide he didn’t want one more straw on that camel’s back.

  Chapter Eight

  The house was the size of a mountain, but inside it, Cai felt trapped. Too many fucking people everywhere. Like damn bees in a hive, their energy a damn buzzing along his fucking nerves. He exited out the back and found a landscaped garden area and wide lawn that backed up to the forest. As least he could breathe in the night air.

  He sat down on a bench and studied an assortment of concrete deer arrayed around a shallow gazing pool. Strange, the things people did to adorn their stationary worlds. His feet were already itching to move, cover miles. In two hundred years, how many times had he circled the globe, left to right, top to bottom?

  “When I got free, I decided I was going to explore every square,” he said abruptly. “You know, the longitude/latitude blocks? For a long time, I carried a map, and colored them in as I went. Have hit pretty much all the land masses. Ocean’s a little tougher. I get seasick out of sight of land.”

  Rand sat down next to him. The bench was a decorative thing, though sturdy, so it held their combined weights but required Rand to be close enough to brush shoulders with him.

  “Shifter territories are pretty big, just like non-shifter wolves,” Rand answered. “But we’re still homebodies. I’ve never left the States. Haven’t even explored much of that.”

  “There are a lot of places to see. Maybe you could come on a couple trips with me. If you want.” Cai said it casually. “I was thinking I’d do something desert-like next. There’s this area in Syria that’s cool, and I have contacts there. A real live sorceress. One time I hung out with a special forces guy, tracking WMDs smuggled across the border by the Russians and French before the Iraqi war. Well, he didn’t know we were hanging out, but I saved his ass a few times. He never saw me, but we still made a good hunting team, him for his job, me for my dinner. He carried a couple good paperbacks. Robert Ludlum fan.”

  Rand blinked. “Yeah, because a barren desert in a politically unstable country is everyone’s idea of a tourist hotspot.”

  “I don’t go as a tourist. I live there. Adapt to the environment. It’s a good way to stay on my toes. And stay out of the way of permanent connections, civilization, all that shit.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Rand pursed his lips. “That hot shower and steak was the worst. Don’t get me started on the Egyptian cotton towels.”

  “See how easy it is to succumb? A cushy prison is still a prison. Would you want to be chained to a doghouse just because it’s comfortable and safe? Or do you want to be able to run?”

  “I want to be able to run,” Rand said. “And at the end of the day, I want to be able to come home.”

  Cai shifted his attention to Rand’s profile, which was quiet and contemplative as he considered the garden features. Something with large white blooms climbed up the trellis arched over their bench. Cai reached out and touched one. “Wonder what these trumpet things are?”

  “Trumpet flowers.”

  He glanced at the shifter, assuming he was being a wiseass, but saw Rand was serious. “Hmm. Something with a name that actually reflects what it is. Unique.”

  “Sometimes the answer’s pretty obvious, even if we don’t want to hear it. I might be interested in going to Syria with you. After we go get the girl.”

  Cai blinked. “Come again?”

  Rand turned his head, met him squarely eye to eye. “You know you need to do it. Lady Lyssa’s right. You’re the only one that can. You’ve been where she’s been.”

  Cai suppressed the urge to get up, move. He wasn’t going to lose it again. He had this shit locked down and it was staying down.

  “The Trads have had a lot of victims,” he said. “They’re not exactly forming an army of retaliation. Probably because ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of them are dead. And why the hell would you want to come with me to do something like that?”

  “Because I owe you a debt for my life. And because it’s another chance to get myself killed in an honorable way.”

  Cai curled his lip. “Yeah, because once you’re worm food, how you died really mattered.”

  “It reflects how you lived,” Rand said calmly. “Or wished you’d lived, if it’s an act of redemption for past shortcomings.”

  Deciding to leave that alone, Cai raised a brow. “You didn’t want me to save your life. Cursed me repeatedly for it. And now you think you owe me?”

  “Doesn’t change the code. A wolf owes a favor to the one who saved his life, even if he didn’t want it saved. If I’m going to my death, whi
ch it happily sounds like I am, I don’t want any debts left unpaid when I cross over. Don’t want to be saddled with your ass forever.”

  “Good thing I didn’t give you the third mark, then,” Cai said.

  “So that part is really true? That the vampire and servant are eternally connected, and the servant has to follow the vampire not only into death, but into the afterlife?”

  “It’s absolutely true. Countless vampires and servants have returned from the dead to verify it.” Cai surged up off the bench. “It’s bullshit. All of it. I’m not doing it, Rand. Yeah, my conscience will grow thorns like a damn rose bush for a while and keep me up at night, but it took me a hundred years to get free, and fifty after that to completely cut those ties, which was part of what all the traveling was about. It took a hell of a lot of distance and keeping as far away from wherever Trads were holed up to make it work.”

  Cai shook his head. “Staying clear of Goddard I could do, but I was considered part of the Trad world. Took me years before I could come back to West Virginia without worrying about them messing with me.”

  “That’s where your family was from, wasn’t it?”

  “A different part of it. It’s a big state.”

  “That’s why you’re there, instead of Syria or some far away longitude/latitude block,” Rand realized. “It’s home.”

  “It’s not home. No place is home. It’s just a familiar stomping ground.” Cai made a slicing motion with his hand. “Get back on topic. I’m sorry about it, but I can’t change a damn thing for her.”

  “Even if you get her out of there? You got out.”

  “Did you miss the hundred years part?” He leveled a hard gaze on Rand. Why wasn’t he walking away, telling the guy to give him some fucking space? Why was he still talking? “And yeah, I got out. Look what a waste of cell matter I am. I go where I want, do what I want, take what I want. I don’t feel, I don’t connect, I don’t get close. I choose to be a shallow pond rather than a deep ocean, even if it’s a muddy, nasty bog that nobody wants to be around. I prefer it that way.”