Vampire's Soul: A Vampire Queen Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  He glanced toward Anwyn and Daegan. Anwyn might have appreciated the sentiment, but she was occupied, leveling a murderous glare at Cai. If he twitched wrong, he was pretty sure she’d do her best to disembowel him. Daegan looked a little less murderous. He was far more capable of killing Cai, but vampires who’d been around a long time tended to get past shit like this faster. Probably because they had a lot of the same experiences to weigh them against.

  Cai wasn’t there yet. He still felt as homicidal as Anwyn looked.

  “Perhaps I should have stated that not killing other guests is a house rule.”

  Lyssa stood in the doorway with Jacob. The displeasure in her tone was obvious. Jacob touched his lady’s arm and moved past her to drop to Gideon’s side. As he did, Cai realized why Gideon’s eyes had seemed so familiar.

  “Fuck, they’re related,” Cai muttered. “Great.”

  Jacob glanced toward him, but brought his attention back to Gideon. “Here I was, thinking you’d make it a whole week without someone trying to kill you, brother,” he said lightly.

  Gideon grunted. Jacob put his hand on his shoulder, his other moving to cover Anwyn’s on Gideon’s chest, a gesture obviously intended to reassure the female vampire.

  “He’s taken some of my blood,” Anwyn said. “But he needs to lie down awhile and have some of Daegan’s. His is more potent.”

  “Don’t be making him fuller of himself than he already is,” Gideon advised, looking toward the impassive Daegan. Then he looked back up at her, a faint teasing expression on his face. “See? This is why I told you I always conceal-carry wooden stakes.”

  Anwyn shook her head. “Which you didn’t have time or opportunity to use.”

  “I had time and opportunity,” Gideon rejoined. “I showed self-restraint, something you never give me credit for doing. Daegan had a dagger strapped to his calf, but did he use that? No, he whipped out the big-ass sword. He sleeps with that thing more often than with us. He’s going to slice off his dick one night.”

  Gideon’s words were laced with tiredness, though. He was no vampire and Cai had done him some damage. But when Daegan’s eerily empty gaze remained on Cai, an unspoken but undeniable threat, Gideon put his hand on Daegan’s arm and squeezed, drawing the male’s attention. “If someone had killed one of my friends, I’d feel the same way,” Gideon said.

  The sardonic humor dropped, his tone weighted with the kind of memory Cai knew too well. “I did, right? For a long time. And every vampire I’ve killed was probably someone’s friend or family member. It is what it is. Take it as another check on my long list of karma debts.”

  Daegan’s jaw flexed. Cai suspected he was still debating whether to sever him into three pieces. But at last his attention shifted back to his servant. “I think you will need the nine lives of a cat to survive that list.”

  “Good thing I’m so indestructible.”

  “Not indestructible enough,” his Master replied. Then he and Jacob were helping Gideon up, supporting his considerable bulk.

  Rand closed the gap between him and Cai, and this time Cai had to accept the prop or let his knees buckle. Cai was impressed he didn’t whimper like one of the wolf’s pups. Fuck, that sword had hurt. Worse, it had messed up the expensive shirt he’d been given to wear. That sucked.

  Anwyn stepped forward, meeting Cai’s gaze with her own hostile one, drawing his mind from fashion regrets.

  “You will not touch him again.” Despite her youth, the steel in her countenance was impressively intimidating. “He’s ours. You have a problem with him, you bring it to us. That’s what a vampire does.”

  He was going to say something unwise like “oh, so I can ask you to kill him for me?” But the pressure of Rand’s hand on his arm kept the snappy and stupid retort between his lips.

  That, and the truth of the hunter’s words, were something Cai couldn’t ignore. Gideon had become a hunter because of someone who’d killed his girl. Cai had killed a lot of humans while with the Trads and even beyond. So how many family members felt the same way about him? He wanted to care, but often didn’t, as if somehow the Trads had managed to excise his human conscience.

  Moments like this suggested maybe, just maybe, it was still there. It could be restored. He just wasn’t sure he wanted it to be, because he couldn’t handle hurting, regretting, missing, wanting, and needing something else in his life.

  Now Lady Lyssa was looking his way. Great. He knew when he was about to be raked over the coals. He braced for it, but she merely asked a question.

  “Are the terms of our agreement still in place? Do you intend to honor them? If you do not, I need to know now, for we’ll have to send someone else after her.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause in the room, or maybe it was just uncomfortable for him, feeling all those eyes on him. Most of them probably expecting he was going to bail. Well, he didn’t give a fuck what they thought.

  “I’ll bring her back if it’s possible.”

  It was that simple. No embellishment, no grand, noble speeches, just he’d do it. Damn if he knew why.

  She blinked once. Those eyes were like a green vale, containing too much for him to decipher. “Very well.” She shifted her gaze to Rand. “Take your Master to your room and tend to him. Then, if Lord Brian is done with you, and you don’t wish to avail yourself of the knowledge Gideon and Daegan can offer, I expect you can be on your way.”

  Translation: You’ve overstayed your welcome. Or she wanted him gone before he fucked up something else and/or got himself killed. Fine by him. He didn’t want to spend another moment in this mindfuck hole than he had to.

  “Blessings on your journey, Cai,” she said, that unsettling look resting on him once more. “We’ll all pray your efforts are successful. Jacob will give you further details on transportation.”

  She turned and left the room. She was big on silent departures. Cai couldn’t even detect her footfalls once she left his view. It wasn’t exactly a pep talk, but it also hadn’t been a vote of no-confidence. Good that someone had confidence in this trip, because he wasn’t feeling much of that himself.

  Jacob stepped closer. Cai knew he should be on guard in case Gideon’s brother wanted to retaliate in some way, but Jacob’s expression was neutral.

  “The van that brought you here is yours to use as far as it will take you,” he said. “It has a false floor and is reinforced with certain materials to allow you to handle sunrise. Not comfortably, but it’ll provide protection and speed your journey. And speed is important,” he added, as if anticipating Cai rejecting Greenwald’s vehicle.

  “Fine.” Cai didn’t assume a thank you would be expected. “Since my blood’s already been shed in it, it’ll feel like home sweet home.”

  Jacob nodded, another stoic response. Cai realized he really wasn’t feeling any ill will from Lyssa’s servant. Tapping into Rand’s instinct-driven mind, Cai found the wolf wasn’t, either. Maybe it was as simple and straightforward as Gideon had stated it. A warrior understood every life he took came with a cost to bear.

  Even shining that same light on himself, Cai wasn’t sure he could control himself if he had to look at the vampire hunter much longer. Fortunately, Jacob had turned to the other three and they were moving toward the door, Daegan and Anwyn still supporting Gideon.

  Cai stared after them, but his mind was in the past.

  Lodell. He’d been a skinny vampire, tough as three-hundred-year-old beef jerky. Bright eyes the color of red clay, long, lanky dark hair he kept wrapped in strips of leather made from human skin. He wore bracelets he claimed were strung with human baby finger bones. Though he’d told Cai later they were from the carcasses of a few racoons he’d found after predators were done with them.

  It’s all about appearing badass and being willing to back it up, boy. Don’t matter how scared you are. How much pain you have to take. Make them believe you’re tougher than they are. Don’t show them any weakness…

  But Lodell had shown him me
rcy. Sometimes in the daylight hours, he’d take Cai to bed with him in the tunnels where they’d had the Trad camp. He’d wrap his arms around Cai as he shook, sure he couldn’t survive another day. But as a result of Lodell, he had.

  The male had never touched him sexually, but every touch was intimate, a connection Cai hadn’t had since Lodell had turned him. Because following that, Lodell was exiled to a nearby Trad camp where Cai saw him rarely. Well, he was exiled after Goddard had the male’s leg cut off, making it permanent the same way they’d done Cai’s missing fang. Fire and blood.

  Lodell had fucking survived that, had eventually gotten away. But then died in an alley at the hands of the male Cai had just done his best to kill. A fucking human had brought down Lodell.

  “We don’t belong here,” he said aloud, his voice strange to his own ears. “Go. We need to just go.”

  “All right.” Rand tucked himself under Cai’s arm, his own around his waist. “You’ll feed and we’ll go. Okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.” Cai didn’t want anyone’s help to walk, but right now he needed it. Fortunately, Rand didn’t make a big deal of it, but before they passed through the door, Cai looked back into the study. Brian had stripped off his shirt and was sitting on a stool, studying his closing wound as if he was cataloging data even faster than the healing rate. Debra was setting aside the cleaning solution and cloth she’d used to clear off the blood. Her fingertips lingered on Brian’s bare shoulder, and it was a nice shoulder. Cai had been right about the scientist’s physique. He had a good-looking upper torso, layered with toned muscle.

  “Very efficient and powerful,” the scientist observed. Lifting his gaze from the wound to focus on Rand, he added, “I suspect your jaw pressure is significantly more than that of a standard wolf.”

  “A wolf can crush an elk’s leg bone,” Rand said thoughtfully. “I’ve never hunted anything bigger than that, so I couldn’t say. Sorry, though, for using any of that pressure on you.”

  Brian shook his head, a light smile crossing his features. “Such things are part of our world. A day without blood and violence is a rarity. At least this time it was educational.”

  Yeah. Fucking educational. Cai didn’t feel in the mood for conversation, so he was good with letting Rand make the good-byes.

  They traversed the hall and stairway to the lower level without meeting anyone. With it being nighttime, all the vampires might be upstairs. Even Daegan, Gideon and Anwyn might have chosen an upstairs room to help the hunter recuperate.

  When they reached the bedroom, Rand found a towel in the bathroom, spread it on the bed, then eased Cai down on it to protect the linens. Cai wouldn’t have thought of it. The wolf was more civilized than he was. Though Cai had picked up the night table and chairs, set them where he thought they had been, before he left to meet Brian.

  “I still want to kill him. Don’t think I could stay here and see him, and not do that.”

  “I get that. That’s why we’ll go, soon as you’re ready.” Rand slid onto the bed next to him, over him, curling his arm around Cai’s shoulders to lift him more securely into the cradle of his burly arms. It put Cai’s head on his chest, an unsettlingly nurturing pose, but Rand acted matter-of-fact about it. At Cai’s look, Rand shrugged. “Throat’s the strongest source, close to the heart, right? Better than the wrist?”

  “That’s not what I’m concerned about. Far as I know, the side effect of a fucked-up third marking is not warm and fuzzy feelings toward the vampire. Unless you’re one of those whacked personality types that gets all forgiving and gooey when the guy you’re pissed at is suddenly weak and needy. Not that that’s what I am at the moment. But it might appear that way…”

  He trailed off at the light in Rand’s eye. “You’re laughing at me. I’m going to punch you in the nuts.”

  “No.” Rand shook his head, and that light disappeared, but it settled into a rueful twist of his firm lips. “It’s not that. And if you punch me in the nuts, I’ll twist yours off.”

  “Yeah, right.” But Cai gave him a closer scrutiny. Rand was still holding him, the hand curved around Cai’s back moving in an absent up and down caress of his upper arm. Well, hell. He could just reach into Rand’s head, right? Figure out what was happening. Was he too chickenshit to do that?

  Lyssa had told him a vampire could tear a servant’s soul in half by delving too deep, in the wrong way. Rape Rand’s soul, strip his mind. So yeah, maybe after the fucked marking, Cai was a little gun shy.

  He didn’t want to hurt Rand, more than life already had. As Rand stayed lost in his own thoughts, Cai’s attention dropped to Rand’s other forearm, lying loosely on Cai’s abdomen. Cai reached for it, gripped and turned it over to look at the scar on Rand’s wrist.

  He’d intended to use it as a validation of his own thoughts. Instead he stilled, staring down at an indelible mark that had changed.

  Well, not exactly. The disturbing scar the shifter carried was still present—the third mark hadn’t made it disappear as Cai had wondered if it would—but now there was something over it. Something that looked a lot like a figure eight brand, a raised, precise design.

  “There’s one here, too.” Rand lifted the other hand from Cai’s arm so he could see Rand’s left wrist. The new mark was also over the old scar, and looked like a tongue of flame, with some discoloration of the skin that enhanced the effect.

  “Son of a bitch. That’s the third mark.” At Rand’s quizzical look, Cai explained. “Along with the internal effects of the third mark, there’s a permanent mark that comes up on the servant’s skin. Never fades.” He colored a little under Rand’s amused look, realizing he sounded like he was reading from a book. “Lyssa gave me some Servant 101. She said it usually has some symbolism to it. The number eight have any meaning to you? Or something that looks like fire?”

  Rand’s brow furrowed, but he shook his head.

  “It could be bullshit,” Cai said. “Just a mark that doesn’t mean anything.”

  But it did odd things to him, seeing evidence that the third mark was true…and permanent. He needed blood. He was getting weird and maudlin.

  “Drink,” Rand said.

  Cai’s head lifted. He and the wolf were nearly eye to eye. “That’s what it is,” he said abruptly, stiffening. He pushed up straight, made himself sit up and face Rand. “You’re in my head. You can read my mind, same as I can read yours.”

  He was sure of it, even though all his vampire senses said his mind was closed to Rand, that he was only letting him hear what he wanted him to hear. And the expression on Rand’s face confirmed it.

  “Yes and no,” Rand said. “You’re not reading mine right now. You think you’ll do something wrong again and break my brain.”

  Cai blinked. Rand’s lips twitched, and the shifter lifted a shoulder. “Shifters read emotions, body language…energy. We can pull it together and pretty closely translate it into what someone’s thinking. Almost as accurate as having a link to someone’s mind. So I’m not in your mind,” he corrected Cai. “I’m reading everything about you, basically, and translating it into thought. Difference between your mark and my abilities is I have to be close to you to do it. Have to have your scent first and foremost, and then sight and hearing help feed the intuition sensors, so to speak.”

  “Ah.” Cai digested that. “How does that factor into you being okay with me now, instead of pissed off?”

  “I wasn’t angry with you. I was freaked out. I had to run, to clear my head. I did. And I heard everything you thought at me. That’s a nice perk to your ability. I can’t telegraph to you with mine.” Rand sighed. “I realized it’s all just a kick in the ass from fate, you know. Losing my family, getting shot by the hunter, you and me crossing paths, this girl needing us. I realized I can’t figure any of it out. I can only follow what I know is right. And trying to get Dovia back to her family is right. Might not fix anything inside me, but it’s better than running around the forest by myself, wallowing in self-pity. She
ba and Dylef would have been ashamed of me.”

  “No.” Cai’s reaction to that was instantaneous. “I mean, okay, fuck it, what do I know about family? But my guess is they loved you, much as you loved them. You’re allowed to grieve.”

  “Maybe.” Rand shrugged, and there were shadows in his gaze, that grief still there, but mixed with other things. “But I think you were my wakeup call to do something better with my life.”

  “Wow. Pretty sure I’ve never inspired anyone to that. Think I was just hitching a ride on your bitch slap wakeup call.”

  Rand’s brow quirked and he looked down. Cai realized he’d reached out, rested his hand on Rand’s thigh. He’d wanted some kind of contact, apparently, and his mind hadn’t even asked what he thought about it. Just done it.

  Cai took his hand away. “Break your brain? It’s already broken. Dumbass wolf.”

  Rand smiled, and it was a sweet gesture, irresistible because the shifter had no idea how it made Cai feel, seeing him smile with ease again. It also made Cai want to be in the shifter’s head, see what was happening.

  “Then do it. You’re not going to break me, vampire. I’m way tougher than your kind.”

  “I’m sorry; who found who, shot by a hunter?”

  “Who practically carried you to this bed?”

  “You did not carry me,” Cai contested, but they were both grinning like loons. “Ah fuck it.”

  It was like taking a jump into a swimming hole on a hot day, something he wanted to do, but there was that hesitation for fuck-knew-why reason, before you committed yourself to gravity.

  There. He was in Rand’s mind, and all the words that Rand had spoken, they were there. Truths, a mix of shadows and light, so many pathways, and all of them ones Cai could follow, explore. Bound. They were soul bound.