by Joey W. Hill
Apparently, no one had noticed Cai’s crazy moment. Standing at the head of the table, Lyssa was involved in conversation with Mason. At Lord Greenwald’s, Cai had been distracted by having the shit kicked out of him. Taking a closer look at the male vampire now, he realized Mason wasn’t passing as human by anyone’s standards. He had that fixed stillness the really old ones did, and his amber-colored eyes had the focus of a hunting tiger. He wasn’t a vampire Cai would meet at the mall anytime soon. His sleek copper hair, tied back with an elegant pewter clip, was like rippling silk over his shoulder. Different from the thick mane of his wolf shifter, but Cai still liked Rand’s more.
This was all good. He could handle it.
Stop being a chickenshit, Cai told himself, and stepped fully into the room, no matter that he was a little too relieved to have Rand at his back. Lyssa looked up, her reserved smile crossing her face.
“Thank you for joining us, Mordecai. If you will take the empty seat, the house servants will pour you a drink. You can add your servant’s blood to it, if you prefer.”
He noticed each setting came with a sharp curved knife, probably for that purpose. Cai wondered if that was a standard inclusion in flatware for vampires. Ooh, I want the military grade knife with rose print handle, so it matches the rest of my china pattern.
He thought of Jacob’s warning. He wasn’t usually the type to heed warnings, but just this once, maybe he would. Maybe he was mellowing. Or anticipating that he should save it up for when someone deliberately did something to piss him off, which would likely be soon in this group.
Any group. You’re not really a people person.
Aren’t you supposed to be standing against the wall, looking meek and subservient?
Which was a joke, on a couple levels. First, Rand couldn’t look meek and subservient if his life depended on it. Second, every servant in here looked as if he or she could throw down with a ninja and come out on top.
Jacob headed that list. However, as he entered the room and moved to his Mistress, Cai was reminded of what John had said. Their eyes locked and a million things passed between them, the humming energy of a connection with so many threads, it was a rope that would never break. Jacob came to Lyssa, his hand grazing her lower back before he pulled out her chair for her. After she was seated, he caressed a strand of her hair, letting it slide between his fingertips before he stepped back to the wall. A position not of meekness nor subservience, but reflecting what was between them.
It was Mistress and servant, but the brand of power exchange between them said it was also love. Too obvious for even a cynic like him to deny.
“Cai, have you ever attended a social gathering like this?” Lyssa’s question was posed with pleasant courtesy, so he tried not to feel self-conscious. She’d mostly focused on the don’t-rip-your-servant’s-soul-apart stuff in their pre-Goddard heart-to-heart; not so much on what to do at formal occasions. Probably didn’t figure there was any point to giving him that lecture unless he survived. He appreciated her pragmatism, though now he wished he had eavesdropped on Jacob’s impromptu instruction course with Rand.
Regardless, honesty seemed to be the best course, so Cai quelled the “do I look like a vampire you’d find at a social gathering” vein of sarcastic commentary and shook his head.
Wise. And you actually look pretty hot.
Yeah, him and his one fang. But the amused comment from his servant helped him relax a little. Same goes. They should change the arrangement so servants are across from their vampires. That way I could look at you.
“Dinner is a sampling of things for us, along with wine and discussion,” Lyssa said smoothly. “Servants eat a full meal of the same later in the kitchen, but you’re welcome to offer your servant food by hand if that gives you pleasure. After we eat, there are often entertainments with our servants. It’s fortunate yours is male, because we are down one male servant tonight. Lady Carola has both a male and female full servant, but she left Wilhelm at home. Shondra is attending her on this visit.”
With a sudden uneasiness, Cai noticed Carola and Helga perusing his wolf with sexual avarice. Boy, ladies, are you barking up the wrong tree. But Torrence was eyeing him with equally intrigued speculation. Shondra was an Indian-African beauty, and she was also measuring up the new servant in the room with dark, kohl-rimmed eyes.
Jessica, Lord Mason’s servant, had a different expression. More neutral and kind. Perhaps she understood how unsettling this kind of thing could be for people new to it. Which suggested it was still recent enough for her that she could remember how it had felt at first. Now that Cai had more time to get an impression of her, he saw she was a lovely, fragile-looking thing with lots of silky brown hair and a light scattering of freckles across her fair skin. However, noting the set of her jaw and tilt of her head, the sharp, intelligent gray gaze, Cai expected that fragility, while real, covered a core of steel. She looked as ninja-capable as any of them.
Picking up a whiff of danger, he shifted his gaze toward it and met Lord Mason’s tiger-like stare. A clear warning lay in the amber depths. Look but don’t touch, and if you look too hard, I may stab out your eyeballs with my fork.
Cai had made a neutral sound at the information Lyssa provided, so she smoothly moved on to another topic. “Daegan has covered a great deal of what happened in the mountains, but can you give us your accounting, in case there are relevant details that happened before he arrived on scene?”
He wasn’t sure how much she wanted, but he needn’t have worried. As he hit the high spots, the Council asked him questions, a lot of them focused on the capabilities of the Trads, how they lived, what their resources were. It made sense, so they were better prepared for any future female vampire snatchings, but Cai still felt a little unsettled by the depth of the inquiry. The Council members weren’t just a bunch of figureheads.
“Very well,” Lyssa said at last, sweeping her gaze over the table to ensure no other questions remained. “If we’re done, let’s enjoy our dinner now, and we can take our dessert out into the garden.”
There were plenty of things Cai knew he didn’t excel at. Small talk headed that list. Fortunately, with him being the “junior” vampire, no one thought it all that odd for him to stay mostly quiet unless addressed. He was perfectly cool with that and focused on the food. Rand was interested in the meatball things. The rare cooked beef had tomato and spices in them.
Do not throw one of those over your shoulder for me to catch in my mouth like a trick poodle.
Spoilsport. Cai scowled, because he’d thought about doing just that. He was becoming too predictable.
You could kneel at my side and I could handfeed you, he retorted. The meatballs are really good.
His servant’s interest stirred, which provided Cai a hidden smile. Rand couldn’t completely squelch those wolf instincts.
Then Carola spoke, and Cai knew his temporary respite from unwelcome attention was about to end.
“I’m curious about your servant, Mordecai,” she said, as Shondra replenished her Mistress’s wine herself, taking it from the hand of the house servant. “Have you ever enjoyed him in wolf form?”
Before Cai could stiffen in shock, thinking the Council vampires were going in the same direction Goddard had, Helga spoke.
“Like making excellent use of that long tongue?” She purred it with an impish smile. “Perhaps he’ll show us after dinner. I’d be happy to be the first volunteer.”
Fuck, how had he missed that? He’d been so focused on the whole “debrief and honor” bullshit, Cai hadn’t connected the dots, realizing that this would also be considered “that” kind of vampire gathering. But Rand…
What did Jacob tell you about these dinners?
They eat, talk politics, and often indulge in sexual entertainments using their servants.
So why the hell did you follow me in here? Cai demanded. Never mind. He knew the answer to that.
He ignored Rand’s half insulted, half confused respons
e. The only thing that mattered was knowing tension had increased in Rand’s mind as soon as Helga made the nature of her interest known, and Cai was going to deal with it.
Keeping his focus on his meal, Cai responded to Helga with an indifference he didn’t feel.
“That’s very generous of you, my lady, but when he’s a wolf, he’s a wolf. Which means he does what any animal does with his mouth. Licks his ass, eats raw meat, has no dental hygiene. His breath in that form could knock down bowling pins. If you want that near your delicate parts, it’s your business.” He waved a forked meatball at the house servant who was refilling Mason’s wine glass. “These are good. Can I have a few more?”
The house servant darted a look at Lyssa, but then bowed her head and disappeared, he supposed to comply. He tried to ignore the weighted silence and focused on his plate. Go back to talking to each other. Ignore me, ignore us…
He didn’t get his wish.
“I assume it’s because you’re a made vampire that your digestive tract can handle greater quantities of food,” Carola observed.
The born vampire condescension was evident as a wart would be on her pert nose, but Cai expected nothing less. He ignored the anxiety growing legs inside his stomach, an echo of what he’d felt at the doorway. If he succumbed to that pansy-assed behavior in front of them, he’d stake himself.
“Hell, no. I just throw it up later. That’s the key. Eating’s only problematic if you eat too much and wait for it to digest. That’s a train that’s not coming for us vamps, right? I once ate a whole shepherd’s pie because I was missing the damn things so much. That’s how I figured it out.”
Mason was regarding him with fascination. Cai saw his female servant hide a smile. Cai liked her more for that.
Lyssa had an unreadable expression, while Helga and Carola looked less than friendly. Yeah, Jacob had warned him. He needed to tone it down.
You think?
Ssh. Be a good servant. Stay. Play statue.
Rand had such an interesting way of thinking Fuck off at him without actually saying the words. It was more of a feeling, a push.
“Um, thanks,” he told the house servant when she returned and rolled another half dozen of the meat balls onto his plate. She was a neat little bland thing in a white apron and beige-colored dress. Ducking her head quickly in acknowledgement, she disappeared.
“It’s a miracle you survived the Trads as many years as you did,” Lady Helga observed, her voice flat. “Perhaps, Lady Lyssa, we could conclude our business with this male so that he may take his plate of food and go eat in the kitchen, where his lack of manners would be far less disruptive.”
The surge of feeling that flooded him propelled Cai’s head up. His gaze lasered across the table to lock upon the female vampire’s. Even if he’d wanted to, he wasn’t sure he could have pushed down or muted his expression. Suddenly things were a lot more still in the dining room.
It had been a hell of a week, and he had zero experience in political fencing. He shouldn’t have ever come here, and he saw the regret in Rand’s mind for pushing him to do so. But it wasn’t the wolf’s fault.
Rand hadn’t been able to answer why he followed Cai in here, knowing what might happen. But Cai did know why. It was that instinctive loyalty and protectiveness, which he totally did not deserve from the wolf. But Rand deserved it from him.
Yeah, Cai didn’t think a lot before he spoke. The truth had never required much thinking over. With deceptive casualness, he ate another meatball, holding Helga’s gaze an extra second before he shifted his attention to Lyssa.
“My lady, do you consider yourselves Trads?”
The flash in Jacob’s gaze was a clear, “Were you even listening?” reproof. However, at the end of the day, Jacob was a human and a servant, and Cai didn’t answer to him. He didn’t answer to fucking anyone.
“I’m sure you know we do not,” Lyssa said coolly. “Though we are all vampires.”
“Okay. Well, Trads, they take what they want when they want it. The only thing that stops them is someone stronger beating the shit out of them until they realize they can’t have it, or the cost will be too great. I said I hadn’t been to a vampire social gathering. But you told me the high-level version about them, when I third marked Rand. And I’ve heard about them. Hell, all the Trads have.”
He swept his gaze around the table, over the assembly of attractive servants. “It’s the Trad version of Penthouse letters, swapping blown up accounts of what happens at dinners for the ‘civilized’ vampires. My dick sure got hard, hearing about it. And some of it sounded real intriguing to me; can’t deny it.”
Cai broke open a piece of bread, so soft it could be used as a pillow, and put butter on it. When he met Helga’s gaze, she was now wearing a downright hostile look. Yeah, he wasn’t making any headway, but he was just going to say it like it was.
“Rand’s not human. He became my servant to help me extract Dovia. I’m not one of you and I’m not a Trad. If I’m okay with him participating in something tonight, and he thinks he can handle it and wants to do it for the right reasons, then yeah, he will. But under no circumstances will that involve his wolf. Period. He’s not a goddamn circus act. Whatever parts of him I command when he’s human, it doesn’t extend to the wolf. The wolf belongs entirely to him.”
Feeling Rand’s sudden stillness behind him, Cai put more words into that space. You told me. It’s a sanctuary, isn’t it? Everyone should have a sanctuary. It’s the most goddamn precious thing anyone can have.
Cai took a breath. Every vampire here could annihilate him without breaking a sweat. Didn’t matter. “If someone tries to take that away from him, those choices, then they’ll end up just like that bastard Goddard. Or you’ll kill me, and that will be the end of it, too. Same difference. But just as a point of ‘etiquette,’ if this is how you treat somebody who brought home one of your special ‘born’ vampires, then good luck finding someone to do it next time.”
In the next ticking-bomb silence, Cai felt something he rarely felt from Rand. Speechless shock. And it wasn’t the reproving, can’t-believe-you-shot-your-mouth-off-like-that kind.
Lady Helga’s eyes flashed with anger, but Lyssa raised a hand. “Enough,” she said quietly.
All eyes turned toward her, telling Cai who was the head bitch in charge. As if there’d ever been any doubt.
“He’s being rude and deliberately insolent,” Helga pointed out.
“Yes. He is.” Lady Lyssa considered him. Since Cai had just told everyone at the table off, he did his best not to squirm, but hell, she made it hard. “He has never lived among us,” she said slowly. “Never internalized our ways. Nor does he have a desire to do so. Though that in itself does not exonerate his behavior, or give him leave to live outside our society, other factors must be considered.”
Her attention moved to Rand. Cai recognized then the difference between her earlier appraisal of him versus that of Carola and Helga. Cai’s possessiveness had made him want to shield Rand from her view. His need to protect was what provoked the desire with Helga and Carola.
Lyssa meant his wolf no harm. She saw him.
“We were unaware shifters truly exist, and now we know they do,” she observed. “Rand helped bring back one of our own, and, according to Cai, saved his life.”
She leaned forward, folding her hands on the table. Her back straight, chin up, eyes fixed on his shifter. “We are aware of the dangers of pushing our servants’ minds too far beyond what they can handle,” she said. “We’ve recently discussed putting in place measures to protect them from vampires who would destroy their minds simply because they can. Unfortunately, we still have doubts if it is enforceable before the damage is done, since how much a human servant can and wants to take from their Master or Mistress is often a very subjective matter.”
Cai thought of the things he and Rand had faced together, shared together, and knew it for truth.
Lyssa shifted her gaze to Cai. “If it would
be a serious breach of Rand's mental state to explore his sexuality in his wolf form, I feel that must be honored, even if he is a third marked servant. We are learning respect is a two-way street with other species, are we not? Our communications with the Fae over recent months have taught us that.”
The Fae? News to him, but pretty interesting news. Lyssa continued. “Lord Keldwyn, our Fae liaison, would say so, as would Lord Uthe, who is involved in other Council business tonight and could not be here.”
“Which explains why Keldwyn is not,” Carola put in, in a more amused tone. She apparently wasn’t as uptight as Helga. “He can’t do without his weekly chess matches with your right hand, Lady Lyssa.”
Lyssa acknowledged that with a faint smile. “The two of them make a formidable diplomatic team, so I expect Keldwyn’s presence will be helpful to Uthe, much as he might deny it.”
She shifted the subject back toward the topic at hand. “I think we have far more important things to discuss with Mordecai. Up until now, we have had a tolerance toward the Trads, a respect for a different culture and structure existing among those who are still part of our species. However, recent events may very well change that.”
Her green eyes grew colder, and they fixed upon Cai. “As you know, our recent intel has suggested stealing our young females for breeding purposes isn’t just an isolated goal of one or two fringe members. As a result, we’re close to declaring the Trads enemies, and cleaning out their nests. I expect you know where a great many of them are.”
Shit. A servant had brought in a new platter of God-knew-what fancy foods, though the cheese things looked okay. Cai quelled the immediate urge to fork a few on his plate. Having his mouth full would seriously undermine the second line in the sand he was about to draw.
Winning friends and influencing people, that was him.
“I know the general proximity of some of them, yeah,” he said. “But as much as I hate Trads, my lady, I’m not a vengeful and pissed-off kid any more. Most Trads aren’t like Goddard. They’re like deep mountain people, preferring to live rough and in secluded places. They just want to be left the hell alone, as far from human settlements or ‘civilized vampires’ as possible. They won’t stop killing humans for food just because you tell them not to do so. Treating them as deer instead of milk cows is part of who they are. And I can’t say they won’t try to snatch female vampires or humans, but that’s because they’re genuinely desperate about the numbers issue. Just like you are. Fertility is a problem for them, just like it is for you all.”