by Joey W. Hill
Rand’s knees pressed into the backs of Cai’s, his chest against his shoulder blades. Cai swallowed, his eyes closing. A part of him just wanted to go, to pull loose. Perhaps Rand registered his conflict, because his breath was a caress on his neck that matched the light stroke over Cai’s chest, both soothing.
“What?” the wolf asked.
“Nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing. It was a nothing thing to most people that was so far from nothing for Cai, he couldn’t bear to face it. He didn’t think of these things, hadn’t had to think of them. It was easier to ignore what you’d never had when it was never offered to you. But when it was offered, it could open this whole damn empty chest of nothing that could jump out, pin you to the ground and strangle you. Christ, how could he be strangling?
“Hey. Hey, easy.” Rand started to move, but Cai grabbed his hand on his chest, kept him there, pushed back into him so he had to stay where he was, as long as he could. Without looking at Cai’s face. He couldn’t bear looking at anyone right now.
“Okay,” the wolf murmured. “It’s all right. I’m right here.”
“Fucking spooning. I’ve never…hell.” Cai tried to laugh, and it came out in that weird, strangled, hysterical note.
Rand simply kept stroking him. He was rocking him, too, a very subtle motion, but it helped as Cai tried to level out. His heart had a jumpy pace that hurt. Would have hurt more if Rand hadn’t fanned out his hand and pressed it there, absorbing it, somehow bringing it back down to normal.
“Rest a few minutes,” the shifter urged. “We’ll head back in a bit, but it’s a nice night. Nice to be out here, just the two of us, like this.”
“Yeah.” Cai swallowed again, adjusted his head down and back and found Rand’s bent arm there waiting, the massive biceps the perfect pillow. Cai closed his eyes and tried to relax his death grip on the guy’s other hand. If Rand hadn’t been a shifter and a third mark, Cai could have broken the fingers. “We got her. She’s safe.”
“Yeah. She is. Queen Lyssa might even pin a medal on you. She’ll stab you with it first, but you’d have that coming. You did call her a bitch.”
Cai snorted, the ground under his mental feet becoming less tentative. “A reward from Council vampires probably isn’t a big step up from Trads. ‘Hey, adequate job. We won’t kill you this time.’”
“Well, what more precious gift could you give someone than their life?”
Cai turned his head enough that he was rubbing himself against the male’s face. One of those wolf gestures. Rand made a pleased sound, crowding closer to him. If he’d been in wolf form, Cai thought he’d hear a tail thumping. Big puppy. But the momentary humor faded as he thought of Rand’s words, the wolf’s memories behind them.
“I’m really sorry, Rand. About your family.” His grip on Rand’s half-closed hand adjusted to his wrist, his thumb sliding over the scar from that time of dark despair in Rand’s life. And Cai didn’t question the fierce satisfaction of feeling his third mark overlaying it. “I can’t imagine how hard it was to go on after that.”
Rand said nothing at first, but he was still holding Cai, so he was okay. Just thinking. “Yeah, you can,” he said at last. “Because the same thing happened to you. Just in a different way. Did you ever see them again, your family?”
He’d never spoken of it to anyone, not even Lodell. Hell, what he’d told Lyssa had been rote, the carefully structured bare facts that he could get through without opening deeper things that he always told himself he didn’t feel anymore. But Rand saw the locked rooms, knew the lock on it was rusty and could be busted loose with one good kick of memory.
“No. It took me a hundred years to get away, and my parents were dead by then. My brothers and sisters may have had kids, and their kids had kids, et cetera, but I didn’t look. Goddard told me if I ever tried to escape, he’d have the males killed and take the females in as potential breeders, regardless of their age. Even after I won my freedom, I couldn’t…the idea of putting them at any risk… It didn’t make sense, anyway. Not after so many years, you know.”
“Yeah.” Rand’s breath was a caress against his neck. His chest expanded against Cai’s back in a sigh. “I’m really sorry about your family, too.”
Silence reigned for a while, their minds drifting, touching, moving away. No words exchanged, just images. When Cai saw Rand’s children, overlaid with Fane’s, his thoughts went in a different direction.
He didn’t have to voice the thought. Why torture himself? Because he was a damned pro at it, that was why. “So, you want kids again someday, I’ll bet. You’re great with Fane’s.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. Got all I can handle right now with one annoying vampire. Shut up and let’s sleep a bit. Don’t know how long I’ll have to stay up once we get to the house. Fane may want to crack open a keg and celebrate. Unlike you vamps, we don’t have a mandatory bedtime.”
“Sure, send me to bed so you can drink all the beer. What an asshole.”
Rand chuckled. “Speaking of drinking, while you’re holding onto that wrist, you could take some more. I’m feeling stronger, thanks to you. It’s nice, that rejuvenation thing. Works fast.”
Lyssa had mentioned that back-and-forth blood feeding between vampire and servant could be a surprisingly quick-acting spiral, making strength and healing go in the right direction for both. And the thought of drinking from Rand was a nice one, but it also reminded Cai of that annoying empty gap in his mouth. He wanted to sink two fangs into Rand, even if one was fake. He pushed that aside. There were way more important considerations right now. Like his wolf’s well-being.
The leg had been a bad break, yes, and he agreed with Rand a good twelve-hour sleep would help the healing process, but Cai had a bad feeling about what was going on with it. So he went with his gut.
“Since we agreed our rabbit-hunting skills are at an all-time low, we’ll go back to Fane’s and get you something to eat first. Like another bucket of venison or something. I’ll be fine until then.”
When Rand’s chest expanded again, a hint that he was about to argue, Cai increased his grip and the force of his resolve.
Not until you’ve eaten.
Rand went quiet, but stayed close. Maybe even adjusted closer. Master and servant. It was having a lot more meanings in Cai’s head than it ever had before, which was just opening himself up to getting kicked in the face. But that had been done to him plenty. For now, he’d sit here and let himself marinate in those feelings he couldn’t explain, running the words through his head. Master and servant.
They drifted back into that somnolent haze together, but Cai kept his grip on Rand’s wrist, thumb sliding across the layered scar and third mark. He held the male to him while the night watched, waiting for two predators to decide what they were going to do next.
Cai wished like hell he knew.
When they rose, they took another dip in the creek to wash. Rand donned the shorts again, and they found a change of clothes for Cai on the ATV Fane had left on the nearest accessible deer trail. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt, clothes that Cai expected belonged to one of Fane’s family. They were a decent but loose fit. Good thing he could rely on the charity of Rand’s friends. He’d been losing a lot of backpacks lately.
He was glad Fane had left the ATV. While on a normal day the running distance wouldn’t be much of anything to him or to Rand, it had been a long-assed night, and they would have had to hoof it to get in close to dawn. He could stay out, burrowed in the earth, but they both wanted to check on Dovia, no matter how effective her protection detail.
Rand was still limping, but when he used a sturdy branch Cai found for him, he employed it more like a cane than a crutch. Still, Cai unapologetically searched his mind to find out if Rand was masking pain, acting like he was doing better than he was.
He was.
Muttering a curse, Cai slid himself under Rand’s shoulder, told him to shut up when he said he didn’t need the help, and lent him extra leverage to get
to the ATV. He’d never driven one before. Rand walked him through it while sitting on the back-facing seat, leg stretched out and propped on a short platform. He teased Cai about running them off a cliff or crashing them into a tree, until Cai threatened to do it for real. In time, with careful navigation of the deer trails, they came out behind Fane’s home.
He’d seen Fane and Lynn’s house through Rand’s eyes, but in person it was even more comfortably chaotic and homey. The Wolf Waltons. Okay, not his best material, so he kept that observation to himself. Mostly. Rand sent him a wry look as Cai helped him up the stairs where Todd and Fane waited. He and Todd examined Rand’s leg on the porch.
“It probably would be in better shape if you’d left the split in place,” Todd said, a firm rebuke. “Stubborn wolves. But swelling’s gone down some.”
Yeah, it had. Even Cai could see that. Maybe he was just being impatient, too worried, his head too messed up about today. He needed to shut it off for a while.
Before someone accuses you of acting like a fussy old woman.
Before Cai could retort with some mature response like takes one to know one, they were in the kitchen.
Lynn and Darcy provided Rand what Cai would consider the equivalent of a bucket of deer meat. Though the shifter consumed over half of it quickly, the kind of day they had had overtook him. Cai had to save him from falling asleep and doing a face plant in the remains of the meal.
“Good enough. Time to go to bed.”
“Dovia first,” Rand insisted. Cai didn’t disagree.
Lynn went with them, guiding them down the steps to the cellar. Rand held onto the railing, but managed it capably enough. Cai just needed to be patient, give it time.
Patience was so not his strong suit.
You waited decades for the right moment to kill a Trad and free yourself from them, Rand observed. You have patience. It’s just selective.
Rand’s ability to read his emotions aside, Cai knew he should at least try to close his mind to Rand. If for no other reason than to prove he could. Honor the bullshit elitist vampire code. Yeah. That was so him.
But for some reason, he just hadn’t felt like it since the whole rescue and magic bonfire thing. Having an open door to Rand in his mind kept Cai from being in there all by himself, weird as that sounded.
Maybe it gave Rand reassurance, too. Cai knew it made him feel better, dipping into the wolf’s mind and seeing that Rand sincerely wasn’t worried about his leg. And that concern grew even more distant when the shifter had the satisfaction of seeing Dovia in far better surroundings than when they’d seen her last.
Fane’s mate and daughters had turned the girl’s corner of the cellar as much into a bedroom as they could, transporting a double-sized bed down there, outfitting it with comfortable linens and pillows. A soft, stuffed animal, a bunny with long, velvety ears, was on the pillow next to Dovia’s head, mostly submerged under the covers. It reminded Cai of her mother.
Cilya sat on the foot of the bed, her hand resting on Dovia’s leg, hidden underneath the same blankets. She was humming a soft, formless tune that was nevertheless soothing, her dark eyes concerned and focused on the sleeping young woman.
Cai had listened in on some of Rand’s visit with the family before they approached Goddard’s camp, so he knew Cilya worked at a school. Seeing her in person, Cai could easily imagine it. She had the kind of female energy that broadcast firm authority, gentle care and competent experience, things that could figure out what a young, hurting soul most needed. They’d chosen the right one of Fane’s children to be sitting with Dovia.
“I know she’s probably too old for the rabbit,” Lynn whispered to Rand. She stood on the bottom stair, Cai standing behind her, Rand at ground level. All three watching the female vampire sleep. “But when we were cleaning her up, she was a child in need of mothering. Cilya thought it would bring her comfort. She’d bought it for a teacher friend’s baby shower. Plenty of time to pick up something different if Dovia wants to keep it.”
“Good thought,” Rand said. “She’s in good hands.”
“Cilya and I have been taking turns watching her. Sangra gave her the sedatives in the dosage you instructed, so she’s out, but whenever one of us isn’t sitting on the bed, she becomes restless.” Lynn paused. “She asked for you and Cai last thing before she fell asleep. I made you up a cot down here with the others. I figured you’d want to stay close to her anyway and…” Her gaze strayed briefly to Cai and skittered away. “And him.”
“If you think she’s better with the two of you, with females, I can bunk down elsewhere,” Rand said, concerned.
“No. She asked for you. Sangra says one of the best things she could have around her right now is male energy she trusts.” A shadow crossed Lynn’s expression, a deep anger on Dovia’s behalf. “A reminder that there are good males. If you decide she needs one of us down here, just come get us, but…
Lynn’s brow creased, as if the woman was having difficulty comprehending whatever she’d intuited from Dovia, but her words were sincere. “I have a feeling you’re what she needs right now.”
She patted Rand’s arm and said her goodnights. A low word to her daughter had Cilya rising. The younger woman came to the stairs. She didn’t speak, but she squeezed Rand’s arm before she went up the stairs. Cai adjusted out of the way. She nodded to him, her pensive expression saying having a bunch of vampires in the cellar wasn’t her uppermost concern. However, Lynn skirted around him on the way up with an awkward but courteous nod. As the door above closed behind her, Cai raised a brow.
It’s safe to say the matriarch of the house will be happy when the vampire guests are gone.
He shifted his attention to the other side of the cellar. Daegan sat on a cot against the wall at watchful attention, but he was in the farthest, shadowed corner, perhaps so he wouldn’t be conspicuous to Dovia if she woke.
Lynn had been right. Only a couple moments had passed since Cilya had left her side, but Dovia was already showing signs of distress. Her lips parted as little whimpers escaped her. One arm emerged, fingers fisting on the covers.
Daegan’s gaze shifted to Rand. He’d figured it out, too. It wasn’t likely a vampire she barely knew could bring her much comfort. Cai might be a passable second, but he suspected Lynn had said Dovia had asked about both of them just to be courteous.
Not likely. You underestimate what the girl feels toward you, vampire. Rand moved toward the bed.
Cai let it lie, but stayed at the stairs, watching him. Good thing they went with a full-sized bed. You wouldn’t fit on a twin by yourself, let alone with her, no matter how petite she is.
No twin beds in the house, Rand responded. Shifters rarely sleep alone. Giving wolves from the same litter separate beds while they’re growing up is a waste of money.
Rand slid in behind Dovia. He wore the shorts but nothing else. She immediately turned toward him, flattening herself against his broad chest, fingers curling in his chest hair.
Cai noted the two cots near Daegan’s. Lynn might not be comfortable having him here, but she was a good hostess. However, she might have saved the effort with Daegan, since Cai was pretty sure the Council’s pit bull was genetically engineered not to sleep, ever. If he did, it would be long after Cai had to succumb to the pull of the oncoming daylight. Damn age difference. He wondered where Gideon was, and then realized the obvious; the male would be the topside lookout during daylight hours.
He moved toward one of the empty cots, but Rand’s thought stopped him.
There’s plenty of room over here, if we stay close together. Wolves don’t often have nightmares. Another benefit of sleeping together as a pack. I think it works on other species as well.
Cai turned back toward his servant. Do I look like the type that gets nightmares?
Stupid thing to say since yes, Rand had seen him have nightmares, but Cai had had a long day.
I think it has been a very long day and night. I would like you to be closer. If y
ou are willing to indulge me.
A clingy and needy wolf. Great.
But as a smile touched Rand’s lips, his steady eyes serious and knowing, Cai came to the bed. There was enough room for three, if they were as close as Rand and Dovia were now. I don’t want to upset her.
You won’t. You didn’t see the two of you enter the water together, or the way she looked at you after you helped return her babe to the heavens. From that moment forward, she knew your heart. She’ll recognize it as she rests. The two of us will make sure she can sleep peacefully. Take off your shirt. She’ll need the heat.
Cai met Rand’s gaze. The wolf was merely stating the truth, but the slight twitch to his lips said he wouldn’t mind the view. Cai found that gratifying and arousing, though he squelched the latter since…well, obviously inappropriate timing.
Asshole.
Rand’s lips stretched into a deeper grin, but his eyes fell shut. Cai climbed into the bed on the other side and slid in close to Dovia’s back. He wondered if they should have told Daegan what they were about. If he thought Cai was taking advantage of her vulnerable state, he’d likely skewer him. But Daegan hadn’t moved.
He understands what we’re doing and is pleased with how much we care for her welfare.
You can get all that from his scent?
Rand nodded. “Pretty much.” He had his arms around Dovia’s lower back and shoulders, so Cai draped one of his own over her, resting his hand on Rand’s hip, the other tucked under his own head as he considered the male. He thought of how Rand had chased him down in the forest. Then he saw the shifter’s expression tighten, the lingering smile gone. He was thinking of Cai wounded again, nearly baked by the sun.
“Hey,” Cai said quietly, making the male open his eyes. "You did what you were supposed to do. You got her out of there. And you came back for me. Plus, none of the wolves were hurt.”
“Thanks to you and your plan to divert attention. Though we didn’t anticipate you'd turn it into a match of honor with your old nemesis." Rand had his hand on Cai's leg. The touch was welcome, though he’d never thought of himself as a touchy-feely person.