by Joey W. Hill
He’d opened his mouth to spout out just that when he felt Rand’s approach. The wolf was coming in according to his suggestion. It distracted him enough that he turned to John, gave him a wink and said, “Look over there, kid.”
Rand emerged from the woods on the right side of the house, clearing a log as he did. He appeared to sail into the clearing, landing with powerful grace. Cai wasn’t sure what the demo had cost the leg, but he did notice Rand slowed down quite a bit after only a couple loping strides.
But that was before the pack of Irish wolfhounds came around the house at a full run.
There were six of them, one giant male in the lead, his teeth bared and eyes lit. Daegan had realized they were coming even sooner, because he was already on his feet. But for the first time since Cai had met the male, he looked at a loss about what to do. Well, fuck that. Cai knew exactly what to do. He could break a few dogs’ necks before they set one tooth into Rand. Rand was bigger and broader than any of them, but it was six to one, and the leader was no pampered poodle. He looked like he knew his way around a fight.
Cai heard John and Gideon shouting, trying to call the dogs back. Standing on the porch steps, they were too far away to affect the dogs’ course. They obviously didn’t answer to any of the men present.
Rand had spun toward the threat. Even before the male’s eyes went full gold, Cai felt the wolf take over. He braced himself, a menacing growl in his throat, lips peeled back.
It served the purpose of slowing the ongoing pack, but only so they could strategize. They split into a circle around him. Cai was already headed that way, vampire speed propelling him, his first target picked out, the tall gray male in charge.
The upper window of the house slammed open and Lyssa leaned out. “Bran!” she snapped, strident as a fish wife who would gut anyone who didn’t mind her. “Maggie! Down. Go to John. Go to John now.”
The pack leader hesitated, territorial aggression warring with something else. Lyssa kept those jade green eyes fixed on him like a laser. The rest of the pack milled, uncertain.
Rand stayed in his impending attack pose, and now Cai knew what he could do. He reached for the human part of Rand. Shift, Rand. Let them see you’re not a wolf. That will confuse the shit out of them and ramp everyone down a few notches.
Fight…kill…threat.
No. They live here. The dogs are protecting their home. It’s okay. Lyssa’s dogs. Shift, Rand. Shift for me.
The wolf backed up, moved forward, shaking his head, fighting whatever compulsion he was handling. But Cai kept pushing. Relief swept him as Rand let out a frustrated snarl and his body shimmered with that energy that passed over him before the bones started to stretch and alter. His head bowed and then came back, twisting in the quick, startling way that gave Cai a sympathetic twinge in his own neck. Another couple blinks and Rand stood there. Impressively naked, but very much not a wolf.
The wolfhounds whined, started back. All but that lead dog, the one who still had wolf smell in his nose. Cai guessed he was Bran. He kept his steady gaze fixed on Rand, his posture remaining stiff and combative. With a huff of frustration, Lyssa disappeared. Less than a blink later, she was next to John, pressing a brief hand on his shoulder before she marched down the rest of the steps.
“Males,” she was muttering. “Testosterone-driven idiots, the lot of you.” Her hair was caught in a tail on her nape and she wore a dress that had dirt on it, suggesting she’d been…gardening? There was a smudge of soil on her nose. Cai wondered if she knew it, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to point it out.
She’d reached the dogs and put her hand on Bran, tugging at his collar. Noting the eye contact between them, Cai wondered if she’d marked the wolfhound. Geographical mark would be like microchipping, so that would make sense, but would she have done a second mark on the canine? He’d never heard of a vampire doing that to an animal.
There were rumors that if a vampire second marked a human who didn’t speak the same language as the vampire, they might not be able to understand one another when speaking aloud, but the mark translated it into the proper language inside each brain. Did it work that way for animals?
Had hearing Lyssa’s thoughts freaked the dog out at first, both getting a glimpse into a language neither one could speak fluently? Cai guessed he was in a position to sort of answer that question, since he and Rand didn’t have too much problem figuring one another out, even when Rand retreated fully into the head of his wolf side.
Bran stood down reluctantly. He followed Lyssa’s insistent command and imperious finger to plod up the stairs to John, disappointment emanating from every stiff stride. The other dogs followed. When they were assembled around John as she’d required, Lyssa nodded, satisfied. “Kitchen,” she said briskly.
Canine eyes that had been filled with menace brightened, tails came up. The pack clattered down the marble stairs and took off around the corner, though Bran cast Rand one more speculative look on his way.
“Well, I did say make a dramatic entrance. Nice of you to arrange for that,” Cai said, meeting the shifter halfway to the stairs. Rand rolled his eyes.
“Got my clothes?”
“Yeah. So?”
Rand gave him a searing look. Cai grinned and returned to the limo, pulling them out and tossing them to Rand, who’d followed him. Lyssa sent Rand her appraising look, the very thorough one that tempted Cai to block her view. He managed to quell the embarrassing compulsion. Barely.
“I would have made him leave them off,” the queen said. “It’s good to have you back safe and sound. All of you.” Her gaze encompassed Gideon and Daegan. “Lord Greenwald has already called to express his deepest thanks. Cai, he said if there is anything you ever need, you have won a favor from him.”
“Tell him to kill Chavez and stake himself. Then we’ll call it even.” Cai said it without much malice, though.
“Not Tyra?”
“She had a decent rack. Be a shame to let that go to waste, and she wasn’t as much of a sadist. Think she pulled one or two of her punches, and she only kicked me about half as much as the other two.”
He could literally feel Rand’s wince, and Gideon choked back a snort of laughter. Cai straightened, trying to look like he knew how to behave. Lyssa’s eyebrow lifted in dubious acknowledgment.
“I’ll let you think that message through before I pass it on,” the female vampire said neutrally. She turned her attention to Gideon, who still appeared amused, but no longer about Cai’s comment. “What?” she said testily.
To Cai’s bemusement, Gideon closed the distance between himself and the Council head before rubbing his thumb over her nose, removing the dirt. Lyssa blinked at it, then smiled.
“I was adding new plants to the pots in the upstairs sun room.”
“Don’t you have a servant to help with that? Or is he lying on his ass somewhere? Hard to find good help these days.”
“Yes, it is. Daegan and I were just talking about that.” She nudged him. “Jacob had errands in town, but will be back soon. John, please show Cai and Rand to their rooms. Do not assault Rand with too many questions. Give him and Cai time to rest, and then he may answer some of them for you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” John said. His calculating expression suggested he was already contemplating creative ways around the mandate. But Lyssa put a firm hand on his shoulder until he met her gaze and repeated his response, this time with honest intent. “I will, my lady. It’s just so hard not to ask questions.”
“I know. You’ll be giving Lord Brian a run for his money before you’re in high school.” She smiled at him and brushed his cheek with her long-nailed fingers. “Take good care of my guests.”
She glanced back down at Cai, encompassing Rand in the look, since the wolf-shifter was dressed and standing at his side. Her gaze was no less appreciative of his form in the snug denim. Cai might not be pleased, but he couldn’t argue with it. He wanted to ogle the guy himself, but he forced himself to keep his gaze on
the vampire queen.
“I’ll look forward to seeing you at our next rising,” Lyssa said. “Job well done, all of you.” Then she was gone. Not much of a chatter box. He liked that about her. He was starting to like a lot of things about her, despite his strong wish not to do so.
“If you’ll follow me, sirs,” John said courteously, pushing open the door. A glance around showed Cai that Daegan and Gideon were headed off in a different direction, apparently satisfied that John would come to no harm. Was that a communication from Lyssa, or something else? Regardless, Cai was glad not to have the watchdogging detail.
He ascended the stairs to follow John, Rand at his heels. Rand’s hand brushed his hip, probably an inadvertent thing, but he liked the casual intimacy. As he’d suspected, Cai noticed the wolf had paid for that dramatic entrance, because his limp as they moved up the stairs was more pronounced, though Rand shrugged off Cai’s offer of a shoulder to grab.
Inside the house, a wide foyer with lots of marble and mahogany led into an almost equally wide hallway. At the end of it, a ten-foot-tall stained-glass window provided the focus feature of an atrium decorated with palm trees and comfortable wicker furniture. Lots of windows for nighttime viewing of the stars. Or for servants to enjoy during the day, maybe.
The slim boy led them down a winding staircase from there to the underground levels. More marble, polished wood, torch lamps set in the wall, and fancy art. But it was warm stuff, not the type of pieces that made Cai wonder why anyone spent loads of money for crap. This was Council headquarters, but from what Cai had gleaned, Lyssa had to spend a lot of time here. She obviously wanted it to be a home, not just a monument to Council power, though he expected there were chambers here that made that part of things clear to anyone stupid enough not to pick up on it.
Though Cai could still see all the ideas bouncing around behind his steady, intelligent brown eyes, John remained obedient to Lyssa’s order. He kept his questions relevant to their stay as he escorted them toward the quarters that would be theirs. “It’s normally assumed that a visiting vampire wants his servant to be given a separate room in the servants’ quarters,” he said. “Close, where he can quickly respond to your call. Is that what you wish?”
“If that’s the normal thing, why are you asking me?” Cai said.
The boy’s dark skin flushed. “Lady Lyssa said you were raised among the Trad and your servant”—his gaze shifted to Rand—“is a wolf shifter, so it didn’t seem courteous to assume you’d follow the normal protocol for vampires. I wanted you to be aware of all the options.”
The way his attention lingered on Rand showed a boy’s eager hope that the male would morph into a wolf again, right before his eyes. Cai could feel Rand’s amusement and a tenderness toward the kid that was tempting him to do just that.
Hold off for just a bit. We don’t know Lyssa’s policy toward animals in this part of the house. And she just talked Bran and his pack out of tearing you apart.
Rand shot him a look as Cai tossed him a grin, then answered the boy. “We’ll share a room. He’s not entirely housebroken.”
“Says the vampire who called Lady Lyssa names and attacked another vampire’s servant,” Rand said dryly.
John’s eyes popped open even wider than they had when Rand shifted. “You called Lady Lyssa names? And who did you attack?”
“Someone who deserved it. Aren’t servants supposed to be seen and not heard?” Cai asked John. “I expect you know the protocol better than we do.”
He surprised a shy smile out of John. “It depends on the vampire and the servant, sir,” he said with deliberate graveness. “Like Lady Lyssa and Jacob. He may not say a lot out loud, but there’s plenty of talk going on between them. They don’t always agree on things. You can kind of tell because he gets this look—Lady Lyssa calls it his stubborn Irishman look—or her eyes get a bit sharper, like icicles. But he won’t have said a word, and she won’t say anything to him. Most of the time the disagreements are about stuff to keep her safe. Or him safe. They love each other, see, so they have to fight about that kind of thing.”
If the boy had said that Lyssa turned into one of the front porch gargoyles and flew around on full moon nights, he couldn’t have startled Cai more. Yeah, he’d already put together that some of the vampire and servant pairings weren’t what he’d expected, but to hear it said so matter-of-factly, and by a kid, as if it was no big secret, was another level of WTF. Cai masked his reaction with a tone of forced casualness. “I thought Council vampires were anal about saying that shit out loud.”
John looked discomfited, as if he realized he was saying too much, but after reflection, he nodded. “A lot of them are. But she’s not. I guess because she’s the biggest and strongest of all of them. Nobody’s going to say she’s wrong.”
“Well, strongest maybe. I’m a lot bigger. You’re almost taller than her yourself.”
John beamed. “Almost. Another inch or two. She measures me against the door of my room and marks it. Says when I’m taller she’ll let me do more to help my grand-dad. If he’s okay with it.”
Picturing Lady Lyssa as a maternal aunt-type, one openly in love with her servant, was kind of freaking Cai out. Especially after the fish wife/gardener routine, calling down her dogs and having dirt smudges. So he wasn’t unhappy when John took his leave with a courteous encouragement to use the house phone if they needed anything else.
“Better than a fucking Hilton,” Cai muttered, looking around at the posh appointments. Cushioned chairs, deep couch and a wide bed with lots of pillows. Though they were below ground, it didn’t feel like any basement he’d ever experienced. Even nicer than at Greenwald’s, and that had been pretty nice. There were lots of green plants, kept alive God-knew-how. A wide screen TV was set up to show different views of the outside grounds. Good as having a window.
Rand was moving around, examining the bric-a-brac at the writing desk and night stand. His hair was still loose. It was in need of a brushing, which didn’t detract from his good looks in the slightest. It did give Cai an odd desire to brush his hair. He saw one, with a variety of other toiletry items, set out in silver containers on the spacious bathroom counter.
He was fucking losing it. He needed air, but dawn was too close. Fuck it. He and Rand needed the forest. They didn’t belong here. He should have gone to run with Rand, the way Rand had wanted him to. Fucking idiocy. All of it.
He noticed a mental wince from Rand and cocked his head.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Not nothing. When I said fuck it, you winced. You don't agree."
"I do agree. I just wish you wouldn't curse so much."
Cai was able to read his mind, but that was so outside what he'd expect to hear from Rand, he realized he would have overlooked the thought as no more than wind in the trees if the wolf hadn’t said anything. "Seriously?"
Rand shrugged. He was standing in front of the mounted flat screen. As he studied a garden view, he lifted his arms, combing his fingers with brisk practicality through his hair. With a distracting display of bunched biceps, he started to braid it. Maybe he’d heard what Cai thought about his hair.
"You talk the way you want to talk. It's okay,” Rand added. “The profanity just gets a little heavy for me, sometimes."
"Oh." Cai thought he’d never noticed it, but now, thinking back, he realized that little wince had happened more than once. The Goddard thing had merely pushed it far down the things-to-notice list.
Rand had moved into the bathroom to check it out. After a moment, Cai followed. He laid a hand on Rand’s forearm, drawing his attention, and touched the braid. He’d bound it with the tie he’d apparently retrieved at the convenience store and tucked back into his pocket. "You're supposed to brush this before you braid it."
“Women do that,” Rand responded.
“Well, yeah. But excess profanity seems to bother women more than men, too.”
Cai laughed and fended off Rand's punch, though
it took effort and skill. The male never did anything without focus and intent, his finger on the trigger always intended to shoot. Cai pressed him against the sink, arm folded up behind his back, and stared at him in the mirror. The strong face, mildly annoyed eyes, but with a slight curve to his mouth and a touch of heat in his expression. Cai rubbed his hardening groin against his tight ass and felt the surge of answering response go through Rand.
“Take off your clothes. I prefer you naked.”
“Yeah? Same goes.”
Cai put his mouth to the joining point of broad shoulder and corded neck, and slid his one functional fang along it. “Glad to hear it. But right now, I want you naked for me, while I stand here fully clothed and enjoy…
What’s mine.
“…you.”
From the look in Rand’s gaze, Cai knew the shifter had picked up the meaning. Cai pressed past it, keeping it physical. Just fun and games. Mostly.
"I'm going to have that ass, and that surly mouth,” he murmured. “But first I'm going to brush your hair. Take off your clothes."
Okay, hair brushing really didn’t fall under fun and games. It brought some confusion into the situation, but Cai couldn’t bring himself to take it back. After a brief hesitation, Rand removed his shirt with that appealing upper torso stretch, then toed off his shoes and opened the jeans, working them off his hips.
Cai had stepped back to watch. He savored each inch of skin revealed; lingered on every movement of Rand’s body. It was like time had slowed down and he was caught up in some kind of weird romance novel moment, where all of it mattered to him.
He pulled his attention away from Rand’s body to the brush. A sturdy wooden back and stiff bristles. "I may have other uses for this, too. Like…" An idea dawned.
"A profanity jar."
"What?" When Rand turned his head, he noticed the vampire’s eyes had lit up in an unsettling way. “What do you mean?”
Cai twirled the brush. “Whenever you think my cursing is getting too excessive, I'll keep a count of those reproofs. And then," he twirled it again, "I'll paddle your ass with this for that number of strokes."