Vampire's Soul: A Vampire Queen Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Lyssa sat quietly in a basket swing, her feet swaying an inch or two above the ground. Jacob stood behind her. Close, because she had her hand behind her back. From the rhythmic movement of her arm, Cai was pretty sure she had threaded her hand through the open spaces of the swing and was working him with a healthy grip. Jacob had his palm molded on the top of the swing, the fingers of his other hand curled in a near fist around the chain holding it.

  That fist said he wanted to touch her, to take her down. When Lyssa tipped her head back to look at him, his hot eyes said the same. His mind was probably being even more insistent about it.

  Yeah, having an alpha servant was like a constant drug.

  Cai hadn’t intended to linger, but he rested on his heels in his hidden position, all his vampire carnality on full, appreciative alert. He was sure the others were aware of him, but it was apparently okay to watch.

  He really might get into this, in time. And Rand? Rand was a guy like any other. He’d said it himself. He wanted to please Cai. It turned him on, which was the key to all of this, wasn’t it? It was the lack of choice which had caused Cai a problem, but if they both were into it, it might be all right. Cai just didn’t want anyone telling him what to do, with his servant or anything else.

  Torrence joined the action now. After unwrapping the kilt he wore, he shrugged out of the shirt. He looked as virile and powerful as Rand, which Cai sure as hell could appreciate. Reaching down, he grasped Shondra’s hips and pulled her up into a near head stand. Flexible minx, because her mouth remained on Jessica’s cunt, though a cry broke from her lips as Torrence shoved his cock inside her obviously slippery pussy. Her bent knees pressed against his forearms, pointed toes past his elbows, swaying as Torrence thrust into her, pushing her face deeper into Jessica’s core.

  Penthouse letters had nothing on this. Cai put his hand on his cock and idly stroked it over his slacks. He wanted Rand here, fiercely, but he kept that thought to himself. Let the guy eat, hang out in the kitchen, do normal things.

  Mason rose. He squatted above Jessica’s head and put two fingers in between her lips, hooking there to hold her head tipped back. He removed the blindfold so her eyes could be upon him, as his thumb stroked her full bottom lip. “Now,” he said.

  Jessica’s body shuddered violently, and she screamed against his hand as the climax grabbed her. Her head arched back further, her neck offered to her Master. Her skin flushed like a rose in the garden.

  The command to come had likewise been given to the other two, so Cai had the pleasure of seeing that accrued energy surge into an explosive release. Shondra’s nails raked Jessica’s thighs. Torrence’s head fell back on his shoulders, animal grunts coming from his throat. His ass and thighs flexed as he pounded into Shondra.

  The circle was complete. The vampires had commanded their servants to satisfy them with a riveting erotic choreography that held Cai. But that wasn’t the end of it.

  Torrence lifted Shondra in his arms and returned her to her Mistress, sitting her on Carola’s lap. Shondra’s vampire mistress cuddled her like a child. Except her legs parted so that Carola could slide two fingers into her to play, make her whimper with need. Torrence returned to kneel at Helga’s feet, lay his head on her thighs. His face was turned toward her, as if his Mistress was rewarding him with the scent of her pussy. Letting him know how much he’d aroused her, and what she might let him taste before too much longer.

  And Mason and Jessica… As the young woman finished her climax, she lifted a trembling arm to his face, curling her fingers in the thick tail of hair that had fallen forward over his broad shoulder. He cradled her under her shoulders, brought her up to him so their mouths met, and then she dropped her head back again, so he could sink his fangs into her throat.

  This was the vampire form of a pack, Cai realized. That total, immutable bond between Master and servant.

  Something deeper and harder than Cai’s cock was being affected by the scene. It was…intimate. He thought of the time he’d woken from his daylight sleep and Rand had been curled up on top of the mounded earth. Guarding him. Watching over him. Or maybe simply staying close.

  Fuck. Cai adjusted his unthinking dick into a more comfortable position, blanked his mind and exited the gardens. He cornered the first house servant he encountered, and figured out where Lord Brian was.

  It was a brief, cursory visit, where he annoyed the vampire by cutting off most his questions about shifters, but he was older than Brian, so screw him. Rand could handle his Q&A.

  Brian gave him the item that Lyssa had mentioned. His new fang. Brian had put it in a small, flat box, but when he offered to open it, do a fitting, Cai offered a short thanks and pocketed it without looking at it. Instead, he asked Brian to tell him about the separation process between Master and servant. After Brian complied, Cai donated the blood needed to make it happen, and took off. He’d kept it as short as possible, but by the time he left the scientist’s lab, just that short conversation about breaking the bond had something about to explode in his chest.

  He stopped in the hallway, staring sightlessly at the wall. Why had he done all that without Rand? But even as he asked himself the question, he knew why, with a sinking feeling attended by the same spiraling anxiety as his earlier near panic attack. Which he refused to call a panic attack.

  Some part of him had intended to go back to their rooms, wait for Rand. They’d leave together, maybe find the nearest quiet stretch of woods and fuck. Even before seeing that little display of the Council servants, Cai had wanted his wolf. Hell, he felt that way all the time.

  They’d go to the desert, or just go back to West Virginia, hang for a while. That’d be the easy way, wouldn’t it? Let it run its course, and Cai could enjoy it as long as it lasted. No decisions.

  But maybe for the first time in his life, he needed to be an asshole for the right reasons. Rand cared about him, considered him part of “his pack,” because that was how wolves were wired and they’d been through life-and-death shit together. He’d seen inside Cai’s soul, knew he was fucked up. He needed Rand, and Rand had picked up on it.

  But Cai had more perspective on this. About a couple centuries of it. Just because Cai needed the shifter didn’t mean he should have him. Or that Rand should be sentenced to him. And the longer they stayed together, the more chances he could fuck up Rand’s head over it so the shifter would end up back in that desolate, isolated space. There was nothing desolate or isolated about Fane’s family, the pack of warm and loving shifters. Cai didn’t even think it caustically. Family was what every soul not damaged beyond repair longed to have.

  Time to shit or get off the pot. It was abrupt and rude, but he had to go. Go now. It might be chickenshit, but he’d leave Rand a note. Not because Cai wanted to be cruel, but because…in person, he wouldn’t have the courage to do it. He was glad Rand couldn’t put together his feeling-thought stuff when Cai out of his sight. At least that was what he told himself.

  Just as Rand had given Cai a different way of seeing things again, Cai knew—though mostly by luck rather than intent—he’d helped Rand find his way to a better place in his head. A place that would want to be part of a pack again. Without Cai, Rand would go back to Fane and his family. Rebuild his life with them. Find a home.

  Cai would go back to his forest haunts, though right now it was the desert calling to him. He didn’t want to be on forest trails where he could imagine wolves padding along in the dark of night, blue-gold eyes glowing…

  He’d learned a long time ago that when something crappy had to be done, he made the decision and did it, no thinking further about it.

  So he procured paper and pen from yet another oh-so-helpful servant, and scribbled out what he needed to say. Didn’t think about it, make it mushy or sentimental or any of that shit. Leastwise, he tried to do it that way. The more he wrote, the harder it got to draw a breath.

  Why was it vampires didn’t need to breathe except when they were feeling shit, and then it wa
s like they were strangling? Just like that night Rand freaking spooned with him. How many times had Cai had that gorgeous ass, and yet that was what stuck in his head now? It was messed up.

  Cai finished the note, handed it off to the same servant and told her where to deliver it. This was Council headquarters. If a vampire told a human to do something, it would be done. Just in case, he gave her a hard look, squeezed her hand holding the note. Her startled expression and proportionate increase in deference, which had already been gratingly excessive, said Rand would get the note.

  That was that. He had the clothes on his back. He could have requested a new pack of basics from the house staff, he was sure, but he’d rather just pick up his own stuff. He even left the jeans and shirt Fane’s family had provided, so Rand could return those. But he did keep the pocket knife.

  Cai headed out of the mansion. As he reached the forest edge, those feelings started to grow stronger again. Lust, need, loneliness, regret, guilt…Rand. Just Rand. Rand was a bunch of feelings, all wrapped up in one word.

  Fuck it. Cai abandoned his cool, nonchalant stride and took off, running for the shelter the trees and darkness provided. And kept running.

  Long past when he thought he’d slow down, something in him said no. He’d just run and run and run, until he was too tired to do otherwise. Or until the sun broke over the horizon and the earth called him into its embrace.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Two Weeks Later

  Rand paused, scenting the wind. He looked down the slope of the hill, to where the younger wolves were currently pulling apart and devouring the deer that he, Fane and Stalker had brought down. They had a second one, untouched, they’d bring home, to store the meat the way a human would. Another of the many ways they smoothly straddled two different worlds.

  They had a good setup here. A good life.

  He was miserable.

  He shouldn’t be, damn it. Cai’s note had been clear. They were friends, brothers-in-arms, if ever he had need of him, he’d be there for him. It was similar to what Cai had said when he’d figured out the infinity mark on Rand’s wrist. He’d even drawn a simple replica at the top of the note, a reminder to Rand.

  The vampire had finished up the note with some stuff like how maybe their paths would cross again soon. Blah blah blah. If all that was true, the bastard would have told him that in person, clapped him on the back, indulged one more intense fuck and been on his way. He’d literally fled after that dinner. A dinner where the guy who was as emotionally repressed as a brick wall had put everything out there for all to see. For Rand.

  Rand had wanted to go after him, soon as he received the note, but he’d thought it through and hadn’t. Because everything Cai had said, whether it was bullshit on his side of things or not, could very likely be true for Rand.

  These were his people. No question. The ache over Sheba and Dylef and the pups would never be gone. It would hit him hard when he least expected it, and those nightmares would come and go, forcing him to relive it. But during his time with Cai, it had lessened enough that his self-destructive urges couldn’t take the upper hand, and he could feel good things about life again. Thanks to Cai, Rand could be part of a pack again.

  His leg was still giving him trouble. Which meant him hunting in a pack wasn’t a bad thing, since he doubted he could have caught the deer on his own over open ground. Fane and Stalker had handled the running and directing. Rand had trailed behind—just behind, but still behind—until the kill point, and then Rand had jumped in.

  He’d agreed to the X-rays Sangra recommended and meeting with her alternative healing contacts, but he’d anticipated the outcome. None of them had direct experience with what they diagnosed as the problem. An injury infected with strong magic needed to be healed by a magical healer who understood that specific kind of magic

  The limp wasn’t bad, and he managed to pull his weight just fine in the pack, so he asked Sangra to let it be, for now. Even with the handicap, he was considered the next beta in line behind Stalker. At full strength, he would have stepped into the role of Fane’s top beta with no objections from Fane’s son. They all knew he was really an alpha being a polite pack member.

  But this worked. He had no problem deferring to Fane or Stalker. He trusted their judgment. Rand didn’t have to be chief, but he could be if needed, his injury notwithstanding. That knowledge brought Fane peace. Though they’d crafted a pretty safe world here, and were growing a strong pack, Fane only had to look as far as Rand’s experience to know it was important to be prepared for the worst to happen.

  With Rand present, Fane’s pack now had backup if something happened to Fane, and Stalker needed the mature guidance of an older male. Or even during the times that were more mundane, like Fane being gone on temporary trips with Chad, who worked together with him on his lucrative carpentry business.

  But in his heart, Rand knew he was padding. Overall, their world was decently secure, well connected to the human one where those threads were needed. Stalker was almost equal to Fane in strength. Todd, Cilya and Sangra more than pulled their weight, and the teenagers were only a few years out from being able to contribute in their own way to the pack’s overall strength.

  But function wasn’t all that a pack was about. It was also about family, and wolves loved a big family. He was accepted with no qualms. They knew girls weren’t his thing and no one commented on it. Not ignored, like they didn’t want to talk about it. It simply was, and nothing needed to be said.

  He wasn’t a monk. He would need male company in time, but he could drive to the nearest town, where there were plenty of opportunities for hook-ups.

  An idea which made him nauseous. He needed that male company now, but he didn’t want “male company.” He wanted one particular male. One excessively foul-mouthed, cynical, sarcastic, strangely honorable, foolishly brave and touchingly vulnerable at unexpected moments, male. A male whose commanding touch he craved, even as he felt the desire to hunt him down to stay close, protect him from his worst enemy—himself. They had that in common, didn’t they? They both needed the occasional reminder to pull their heads out of their asses.

  Ever since Cai had left, Rand had to tamp down an anxious pulling in his gut, like Rand wasn’t where he needed to be, with the person he needed to be with.

  That could easily be explained by biology. In his note, Cai had told him he’d left Brian what was needed to end the marking. After Rand read the note, he sat there for a while, quelling the desire to search the grounds—as Cai might say—like Lassie frantically trying to figure out where Timmy had fallen down the well. After a time, he’d left his room with its smell of Cai in the bed linens, and gone to find Lord Brian.

  Rand’s mind went back to that last night at the mansion, to that conversation and his decision. Which would have been unexpected, except…it really wasn’t, was it?

  “We still don’t have many of these requests, but it must be requested by the vampire,” Lord Brian said. He frowned. “Cai left direction that it would be done, if it was your wish. That he was indifferent to the decision. Which is rather unorthodox and suggests the exact opposite to me. While the nature of that lies between the two of you, a bond remaining between a separated vampire and servant can be problematic, especially where the servant’s memory of the bond is not going to be blocked. It requires Council approval. I spoke to Lady Lyssa.”

  That caused a spurt of uneasiness in Rand, especially when Brian paused, as if considering what was appropriate to say to a servant.

  “She told me that due to Cai’s youth and his relative unimportance, requiring the separation is not as critical to the Council as it would be normally.” Brian shook his head as Rand scowled. “I’m not insulting your Master. She meant he isn’t a highly placed overlord or one whose servant’s unsupervised connection could make the vampire world more vulnerable. The memory block is not required for you because you’re not human. You understand the gravity of revealing the nature of beings that hum
ans convince themselves don’t exist.”

  Translation: If you rat on us, we rat on you. It wasn’t said that explicitly or unkindly. More a sensible practicality Rand understood. Unwittingly, Brian had also confirmed that they didn’t suspect Cai’s magical abilities. If they had known about that, particularly the fertility angle, Rand expected Cai’s political importance would have skyrocketed.

  “So the decision remains with you,” Brian continued. “There are complications, if you’re not having the mark removed and you and your Master won’t be together. The mark creates a magnetism, if you will, between the vampire and servant. When separated, you’ll experience an anxiety, in greater or lesser amounts, depending on your personality or environmental stressors. Over time, you can learn to manage it, but it will be uncomfortable at first.”

  Rand considered. “Does he experience it?”

  Brian hesitated. Debra’s head lifted from her microscope at the question, her gaze on her Master unfathomable. “Vampires experience it to a lesser degree, for the most part,” Brian said. “Particularly if they view the bond as more functional. But if they have grown attached to their servant, yes, they will experience it.”

  Rand frowned. “How can you tell what’s from the marking, and what’s simply missing each other?”

  Debra suppressed a smile. Brian cast her a wry but fond look and lifted a shoulder. “I deal in science. The realm of the heart is a powerful but completely unquantifiable measurement. I leave that answer to your own speculation. But thank you for the reminder that science can never cover all the variables.”

  “One day, with the right brilliant mind, it just might,” Debra pointed out, letting her smile show. Brian snorted.

  “Time will tell,” he said. “But if I had to guess which scientist here would figure out the universal equation, I would have to defer to my servant’s intelligence…and female intuition. It has often progressed our work in ways I didn’t expect.”