Vampire's Soul: A Vampire Queen Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Tell me you’re okay, Rand. You know I didn’t know any of this shit. We won’t let them dictate to us. I won’t let them. Okay?

  Rand met his eyes. Cai saw a slight softening of his mouth and he inclined his head, a bare nod. Not exactly a vote of resounding trust and confidence, but at least it was direct communication.

  Brian was finished and typing in some notes on his computer to wind things up. Cai pivoted as he sensed another human coming down the hallway. The place was crawling with house servants, so he should have ignored it, but there was something familiar about this one.

  A blink later, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and something with jagged edges gouged his gut from the inside. When the male stepped into view, entering from the second door to the study, Cai already knew who it was.

  This was no human servant. There could be no reason this male was here, except to deceive and kill vampires.

  Cai was in motion before his brain had to order it. The human was as good as dead.

  Instead, the male managed to twist and duck at the last second, despite Cai’s speed. It was as if he anticipated the movements of a vampire and was ready to counter them, even if he had no chance of repelling them in close quarters.

  No more than what Cai would expect from a fucking vampire hunter, a human who made his kills through cowardly deception, not hand-to-hand combat. He was going to learn what it was like to be torn limb from fucking limb.

  Cai caught him, seizing him by the throat and shirt front. The thundering in his ears was like the white noise after an explosion, muting sound and leaving only a faint ringing, like a toneless bell. It deafened him to everything but the need to do what he was trying his best to do. Kill this human, make this moment his very last.

  Cai swung the male into the wall like a sack of bricks, savagely pleased with the thud, the grunt of pain. He absorbed the hit to the face, the kick, noting the strength was considerable. Guy was built solid, all six feet of muscle. But it wasn’t enough to deter Cai or make him let go. He rammed his fist below the rib cage. Fueled by fury and vampire strength, it punched through flesh, and his lips peeled back in a victorious grimace. Cai was going to rip his fucking heart out. So easy and so quick. Guy wasn’t so tough now, when he didn’t have the element of surprise.

  He saw the flash in the hunter’s midnight blue eyes. He knew he was fucked. No fear, but a great deal of pissed-off. Didn’t matter to Cai. Dead was dead, however you got there, but some fear would have been gratifying.

  Lord Brian grabbed his arm, trying to pull him off the human. Not going to work, since Cai had over a hundred years of strength and speed on him. Rand joined the fray with a snarl that told Cai he’d shifted. Damn it. Brian cursed as the big wolf latched onto his arm.

  Brian fell back, taking Rand with him. Cai had a brief impression of Debra’s wide and startled gaze. Brian shouted an order at her to stay clear of the scuffle, but she was already looking for a weapon to drive Rand back, get him to release her Master.

  Cai knew the wolf was acting in his defense, rather than with an intent to maim or kill. No way in hell he was releasing his death grip on the hunter, but he didn’t want Rand hurt.

  Before he could spare a thought through his killing rage to get Rand to ease off, another barked order penetrated that white noise, powerful enough to vibrate a house on its foundations.

  “Stand clear.”

  Smart fucking idea. He didn’t know who had the thunder god voice, but it would defuse Rand, and Cai didn’t want Brian hurt, either. But nothing was going to stop him…

  White hot pain shot through his core, like something had detonated in his gut and spread up through his diaphragm and chest. Suddenly his lungs were pumping madly, heart jumping.

  More rage filled him, because the pain was so overwhelming it drained his strength and loosened his grip on the vampire hunter’s throat. Looking down, Cai blinked, startled to see a sharp blade sticking out of his stomach and curving up close before his ribs and chest. Someone had jammed a long, curved sword into his lower back and let it emerge from his upper abdomen.

  That would explain why it fucking hurt so much, though if the blade hadn’t been so wicked sharp, he expected it would be hurting like a hundred sons of bitches, instead of ten. Maybe twenty. And it hadn’t severed his spine, because otherwise he would have lost feeling in his legs and crumpled to the floor.

  All sorts of unlikely plans to twist free of that blade shot through his mind, but his assailant was faster even than them.

  A palm clamped onto his shoulder, thumb against his neck, and a hard body, thigh to chest, pressed to his right side, so close it was lover intimate. The menace in the deadly voice that spoke against his ear wasn’t pillow talk, though.

  “Let him go.”

  Cai had his wrist deep in body cavity, his forearm running with blood. The human’s heart was so close to his fingertips he could feel the thud. The vampire hunter should be focused on bleeding out. Instead, his mouth was twisted into a matching sneer, adrenaline and anger overriding pain. With the least opportunity, he’d keep fighting.

  Both of them pinned and wanting to fight; neither able to do so. Life was a bitch.

  “Withdraw your fist from my servant’s chest, slow and easy, or you die right here.”

  That came from the one who’d skewered him, making it clear why the vampire hunter wasn’t well on his way to dying.

  “He’s no servant,” Cai spat. “He’s a vampire hunter. A killer.”

  “He was at one time. Now he serves me. I will not tell you again.” The voice did something with the blade that sent more indescribable pain vibrating through Cai, wresting a cry from his lips. He heard a growl and realized that growl had been growing in volume and strength while he’d been distracted by his impalement.

  A slight movement from the male vampire who held him said he might have spared a glance to his right. “Your wolf is close to attacking again. If he does, my cher and Lord Brian will be forced to break him into pieces. Pick your battles. This isn’t one of them, unless you wish to die, here and now. Do it.”

  Cai curled his lip, but he’d lost his chance to accomplish what he wished. If he twitched his fingers anywhere closer to the heart, the vampire would know because he was there, wasn’t he? Deep in the head, heart and soul of his servant. He’d slice and dice Cai before he got anywhere close, and then Rand…fuck, he’d third marked Rand.

  Shit. Slowly, he pulled his hand out of the vampire hunter. He gave him credit; the human’s eyes never wavered. His face was tight with agony, but he still looked like he’d be happy to go a couple more rounds with Cai, as soon as either one of them was capable.

  But as Cai withdrew, a female vampire with sable brown hair and blue-green eyes was there, easing the human down the side of the wall. She refused to back off even when he seemed to want her to move back from the fray.

  He was protective of her, that was obvious. It was also quite necessary, because the female was even younger than Brian, and a made vampire on top of that. Maybe only a few years as a vampire under her belt, which meant Cai could crush her even more easily than he could have Brian.

  The one at his back was a different matter. He smelled…ancient. He held the power of centuries. Not as old as Lyssa, but raw power and something else made Cai think this vampire would be a match for her, regardless of the difference in ages.

  “Be still. I don’t want to sever your spine,” the male said in a cool, even tone. “You’d heal, but it would take a very unpleasant day or two, and I understand there is a need for your services. I’ve not harmed anything that can’t be sufficiently healed within a couple hours, with some of your servant’s blood. But you must remain still.”

  Cai decided not to tell the vampire what he could do with his instruction. He hated that when the blade slid free, he hissed out another sharp cry. Fuck, that hurt. He didn’t expect Rand to be there to catch him as the beautiful female had his opponent, so he was surprised when Rand was inde
ed there, in human form, easing him down to the floor.

  The older vampire wiped his sword across Cai’s shirt front in a ritual cross movement. It was probably some crazy samurai sign of yeah, I kicked your ass. Rand shot a notably hostile glance his way. The male seemed unaffected by it, but he did straighten and step back, sheathing the katana in a scabbard harnessed to his back.

  He was tall, lean, with unnaturally dark eyes and a loose fall of black hair around his sculpted face. He wore a gi, as if he’d been working out with that deadly blade before joining them in the study.

  He moved to the side of the female vampire and the injured human. Cai’s bloody hand closed into a fist again, feeling how close that beating heart had been.

  “I should have done it,” he muttered. “Why the hell did I mark you like that?”

  “That isn’t what stopped you. Who is he?” Rand asked. He’d pulled on his jeans but he knelt by Cai shirtless, his hand over the sword wound, stanching the blood with his balled-up shirt. Cai swallowed over the sudden wave of weakness, the inevitable result of an injury that severe.

  “He’s a vampire hunter. He killed someone I know…a while back. A friend.”

  Rand glanced over at the other wounded male. “I thought you had no friends or family.”

  “I don’t. Not anymore. There was just the one.”

  “Oh. Just one…ever?”

  “Yeah, I don’t make friends easily. Shocker, I know.”

  Rand pressed his lips together and lifted his wrist toward Cai’s mouth, offering. Cai shoved it away, ungraciously. “Not here. I won’t fucking be nursed like a baby in front of him.”

  Rand laid a hand on the side of his throat. He seemed remarkably unconcerned about anything else happening in the room. “If you’re too stubborn to feed here,” he said steadily, “then we go back to our room where you will. You’re very pale. More corpse-white than usual.”

  “Nice. I can’t die.”

  “Yes. But you also can’t leave until you’re strong enough to do so, and we both wish to leave here sooner than later, correct?”

  Calm logic. Whatever had kept Rand so deep in his head when he first arrived seemed to have been put aside to handle the immediate crisis. That semblance of his normal self relieved Cai, though he felt like a shit for everything suddenly being about him, when Rand had had the far more stressful past few hours.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Cai said gruffly. “You just want to be the hero who saves the girl.”

  Rand gave him a patient look. Cai would have shot off a couple more stupid things, but Lord Brian, who had been examining the injured hunter, now came to Cai’s side. As he squatted next to him, Cai saw he’d shed the lab coat that Rand had bitten through. The sleeve off his dress shirt had likely been punctured, but he had that rolled up high on his arm. The area above the elbow was bound up in a torn piece of the coat, a temporary dressing to handle the blood until the wound knitted.

  “I’m sorry,” Rand said. “My wolf doesn’t always reason the way I do.”

  “I expect you and your wolf are very much on the same page most times. Your Master was under attack. That’s all that matters to a servant, when the bond is true.” Lord Brian slanted him a benign glance. “And a small price to pay to see you shift twice.”

  He turned a more serious gaze back to Cai, pulling the torn shirt up to examine the sword wound. Cai would have protested and shoved him away, but he was taking a break from belligerence in favor of recuperation.

  True to vampire healing abilities, the run-through was already closing, though he would need blood to accelerate the internal healing process, as Rand had pointed out.

  Brian’s expression was far less amiable when he met Cai’s eyes. “You’re alive right now only because you are of use,” he murmured. “And because Lord Daegan was aware of that and would not kill you indiscriminately. You understand?”

  “You understand how little I give a shit?” Cai closed his eyes at Rand’s look. “Did you give us everything you need to give us, so we can get the hell out of here?”

  Brian shot him an inscrutable look when Cai opened his eyes, but offered a tight nod. “Almost. Lord Daegan and his servant, Gideon, were going to discuss other tactical considerations with you.”

  “Gideon Green.” Cai bared his teeth. He’d already known it, but hearing it confirmed, said aloud, provoked his bloodlust once more. “What the fuck is a vampire hunter doing here, bound to a vampire?”

  “Bound to two, actually. Anwyn and Daegan.” Brian glanced toward Daegan and the female bending over Gideon. He’d been coaxed or compelled to stretch out on the floor. Cai noticed Anwyn had opened her wrist and put it to his mouth. Her other hand was on his face, and her profile was worried. Angry.

  “He’s pretty much the most notorious vampire killer there is from the human race, and he’s just part of the gang now?”

  “It is a complicated story, and not mine to tell,” Brian said firmly. “But it’s why he and his lord are here. They have a vast repository of knowledge about confronting vampires in less than ideal circumstances. After you get blood, I suggest you talk to them.”

  “I won’t be talking to Gideon Green, ever,” Cai said bluntly. Lord Daegan, sitting on his heels, cocked his head and looked his way. Yeah, with vampire hearing, nothing of this conversation was going unnoted. Fuck, he was a creepy-looking bastard. Those dark eyes that had seemed almost too dark to be real now had crimson sparks in them and way too little whites.

  Cai blinked, and they were simply dark eyes again, steady and cold upon him. Yeah, he’d resume his slice and dice routine if Cai kept shooting his mouth off. Which changed nothing. “He killed the only friend I ever had. If he comes near me again, I’ll finish the job.”

  “Good luck with that. Bigger dicks than you have tried.”

  With those words and a rasping cough, Gideon struggled to a sitting position, no matter Anwyn’s sharp word to him. The painfilled, midnight dark blue eyes were deep set in a strong face…and familiar. Which was odd, because Cai knew the male by scent more than sight. He’d only ever seen him at a distance, never close enough to recognize eye color.

  The male had dark hair, a lot of muscle and concentrated energy, a honed hunter, thanks to the additional powers being a servant gave him. A servant marked by two vampires, one of them being centuries old.

  “Without your Master, you’d be dead,” Cai sneered at him.

  “I’m alive because you announced yourself with that buffalo charge of yours. You would have done better to get a little closer, give me a friendly handshake instead of going berserker.” Gideon’s gaze locked with his. “Which I expect is the type of thing Brian wanted us to go over with you. Subtlety when strength isn’t enough.”

  Cai laughed. He didn’t care that it hurt, or that it sounded like the bark of a wounded moose. There were things in his gut that hurt worse. With a grunt, he started to get to his feet. Goddamn it, he was going to stand.

  Though Rand had to help, he managed it, and pushed a pace away so he could stand on his own. Rand stayed close enough to be a prop, if Cai needed it. He didn’t. Not for this.

  “I lived a hundred years among Trads, vampire hunter,” he told Gideon. “Every fucking day I spent with them as a human, I had to convince them why they shouldn’t gut me, drain me. I spent my first couple decades being tortured in ways you wouldn’t have survived, as a mortal or a servant. I know, because I saw the humans they brought to the camp die, while I continued to survive. Do you really think there’s anything you can tell me about that environment I don’t already know?”

  He was aware a silence had fallen on the room, but he kept going, didn’t look anywhere but in that male’s face. If he couldn’t kill this asshole, he’d see if there was a scrap of conscience in him that Cai could shred.

  “And when I reached the end of what I could bear, there was only one thing that kept me going. Lodell. He patched me up, taught me how to survive. Eventually, he turned me. I hated him for it, hated his
guts for the longest time.”

  He’d accused Lodell of figuring out the worst way yet to torture him. Making him more indestructible only gave Goddard and his crew a bigger range of ways to hurt him. Lodell had told him, “I’ve given you the way to survive, and win. You’ve proven you’re too goddamn stubborn and mean to die. You were meant to be a vampire. We’re both going to win this fight, boy.”

  “He left the Trads before I did. When I was finally free, I saw him a few times. We had our different paths. But then, not too long ago, I went looking for him again. I was told he’d been decapitated in an alley. He died next to a Dumpster, thanks to you. Sunlight made his ash part of the garbage.”

  Cai paused, his jaw flexing. “I tracked you, got almost close enough to take you. But then you disappeared. Otherwise, you would have been dead. I never thought to look for you here.”

  Gideon was another, like Graham, on his list to kill. Cai’s voice was hoarse, his body shaking. He really needed to time his dramatic monologues better. “He was…a friend, in a place where no one offered friendship, because it would expose you to weakness. But he did. He cared for me. And you killed him like he was an enemy.”

  Some distant part of him understood all the conflicts and hypocrisy in his little speech. He himself hated Trads; would kill them all for what a small group of them had done to him. He didn’t feel much more warmly toward the type of vampires in this room, for the reasons he’d told Lyssa. If he’d somehow found a way to be human again, he might have joined the ranks of those like Gideon Green, to destroy as many of them as he could.

  But he’d met Lodell. And Lodell had showed him that not all vampires, not all Trads, were the same.

  Gideon’s expression had turned to stone. Not in rejection of Cai’s words, but as if he’d needed to hold himself still to absorb the impact of the words. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said at last in a rough voice. “I became a hunter, because a vampire killed my high school sweetheart right in front of me. I got over it and figured out one vampire didn't make all of them bad. But it took me years to get there, and I didn’t get over it until I met her. And him."