by Joey W. Hill
Rand half-chuckled. “It’s not a capitulation. Just an acknowledgment of what I’m willing to give.”
Cai’s pulse accelerated as Rand’s capable hands slid over his ass and thighs when he dropped to a kneeling position behind Cai. The shifter was too close for Cai to turn, unless Cai swung a leg over his head. He would have done that, but Rand had reached around him and slipped the button of his jeans, taking them back down off his ass.
“You’re right. A vampire’s body can take a hell of a lot of punishment and still be beautiful,” Rand said. “But in this case, I think that’s because of the male inside.”
Cai’s fingers dug into the rock, a harsh noise breaking from his throat when Rand parted his buttocks and licked his rim, reaching beneath him to caress his testicles.
The vampire could try to change their position. But Rand made sure it felt too damn good for Cai to work on the thought. Let me please you, Master.
Cai stilled at the mental address, his breath rasping. “I’m still going to fuck you through a wall,” he promised, a hoarse threat.
Okay. Rand continued to play with his ass with a heated, wet tongue. Cai’s hips flexed, his cock pressing in a humping rhythm against the rock as that oh-too-fucking-good-to-describe feeling rocketed through him. He opened his mind further, let Rand have the gift of knowing what he was doing to him. In return, Rand’s heart cracked open.
I want to be inside you, Master. Let me fill you. Let me fill up everything.
Yeah, he hadn’t won the war, but Cai was here, and he’d finally said by implication what Rand had suspected was true. Cai had never asked for a family, for a pack, but he wanted, needed one. Everything that Rand had learned about Cai over the past few weeks, and everything that Cai knew about him, had tangled up into a big knotted ball that would likely never get unknotted. Rand was okay with that. They’d continue to fight it out, and that might take a couple decades. Or longer, if Rand stayed with him, as his servant.
Cai went even more still, a clue he was listening in. Good. But Rand didn’t want things to go wrong if Cai got stuck on that, so he renewed his efforts, closing his hand around Cai’s cock to pump it. Hadn’t they just done this, a matter of minutes before? Didn’t seem to matter. The vampire was already stiffening. The same response gripped Rand when Cai lifted his hips, grinding his muscular ass in Rand’s face, wanting more of his tongue. Cai left furrows on the stone with his fingernails.
“Fuck, hell…fuck me, wolf.”
Rand still had the lube within reach, and he one-handed it on himself while he kept after Cai’s ass, using the long fingers of his other hand to keep the vampire open to him.
When Rand rose to his feet and pressed against the vampire’s back, he savored their bodies straining, tight against one another. Cai’s head tilted. His eyes were closed.
“Just drill it. Fuck, it can hurt. I just want you all the way in.”
That last part was exactly what Rand wanted, but he took his time, wanting his Master to feel it the way he did, all the way to the root. Not just the root of his cock. The third marking linked the soul of vampire and servant. Rand wanted that bond. What’s more, he wanted to know the path to the very center of a vampire’s soul. This vampire.
Cai had thought the absence of a finish line meant he could never quit. Whereas Rand had tried to draw his own before it was time. For the first time, he realized he was glad that he’d failed. And that the vampire had never given up.
Rand could feel Cai intertwined with his thoughts, listening, feeling. Having his own reaction, and it wasn’t a bad one.
Rand wrapped his arm around Cai’s chest as he thrust inside him, setting a slow, easy rhythm that gave them an excruciating stroke on each forward and retreat motion. Cai had adjusted his hips toward Rand to make the angle work. While one hand was braced against the rock, the other gripped Rand’s forearm as the feelings built. Rand closed his eyes. He wondered if the vampire realized how much of himself he was giving. Rand didn’t need access to his mind. He could feel, scent, taste and simply know, deep inside, what was happening in the roller coaster of Cai’s emotions and physical response.
Then Cai’s mind opened even more to Rand, so wide he felt like he did when he was running full out in the forest, leaping and twisting through endless passages, open and closed spaces.
Hell, I might as well let you all the way in. You’re already there. Know more about my thoughts than my mind could ever tell you.
Rand smiled against his shoulder, brushing his lips against the flexing muscle. He didn’t stop with that, rubbing his cheek there to enhance the contact, the marking.
Marking could be an act of dominance, of connecting, of recognition. Of ownership. Rand felt some of all of that, and the vampire didn’t seem inclined to argue. At least at this second. That was miracle enough from the contrary male.
“Fuck you,” Cai muttered. Rand slid his palm down Cai’s chest, over the taut bud of his nipple. Along the sectioned stomach muscles, to the iron evidence of his arousal. Curling his fingers around it, Rand began to stroke it in rhythm with his thrusts, his fingers playing, caressing, nails digging in at unexpected moments, thumb rubbing over the slit and spreading the thick fluid gathering there.
Cai groaned at the sensation. They moved together, Cai’s hand slamming against the rock, sending a vibration through them both. Then the vampire was coming, body jerking, beautiful, animal-like sounds breaking from his lips.
Come for me, wolf.
Rand was already hovering on that precipice. His movements became stronger, more forceful, a growl meeting Cai’s snarl as he thrust deeper, harder, into his ass. He let his release fill the vampire, wet heat. His teeth were set to Cai’s shoulder, fingers digging into his chest as he took them to the end of it.
Or to the beginning.
As they finished, they slowly slid down so they were kneeling together. When Rand pulled out, they were nested hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder. So much of the wolf was with Rand, even in human form. Rand proved it when he slid an arm across Cai’s chest and laid his cheek in between his shoulder blades. It was a sheltering, protective move that also drew comfort. A balance. Rand was good at balance. Cai wasn't.
Even so, Cai turned his head to meet the shifter’s mouth with his own. The annoyance and anger about Rand’s stunt, his irritability and confusion about the things he didn’t understand, had receded. The kiss wasn’t edgy and angry. It was soft, tender, long and heart-altering. When Cai finally raised his head, he realized he’d turned, was framing the shifter’s face to hold him still and savor his mouth. Rand was gripping his forearms.
Rand had called him Master. More than once. Cai liked that, way too much.
“Don’t get used to it,” Rand said, in a voice laden with that sexy, post-coital thickness. “Asshole fits you a lot better.”
Cai tried for a smile, failed. He couldn’t get used to it, because he still hadn’t agreed to this. And Rand damn well knew it, even if he was pretending otherwise. "How about the kid thing?”
At Rand's bland expression, Cai shot him a don't-bullshit-me look. "I know you want them."
“There’s a lot of ways to do that. If we decide to expand our pack, we can.”
Before Cai could point out just having a servant was freaking him out, Rand pushed onward. “Dovia's father is ill and the wrong kind of wolves are circling the door, right? Leona is a servant. Brian thinks Greenwald has less than a couple more years to live, because he's having less success controlling his disease. When he dies, so will Leona. Before Dovia is thirty years old, a fledgling among born vampires, she'll be alone.”
Cai narrowed his gaze at Rand. “When did you have this discussion with Brian?”
“When I met with him to discuss the marking, I also asked him about that.” Rand’s eyes sparked with a pointed complaint about Cai’s note and taking off, but he continued, leaving that alone. “Sounds like she'll need a vampire willing to mentor her, protect her. Why not us? You live a long time a
nd, as your servant, I'll be around quite a while. I bet Lyssa would support that, because unlike Tyra and Chavez, we don’t have any designs on Dovia’s wealth.”
Cai drew back and sat down, rubbing his forehead. “You have us adopting a vampire and taking on the cadre of opportunistic sycophants around her. Even before we pick out curtains.”
A slight smile touched Rand’s firm mouth. “I don’t have us doing anything. I’m just pointing out the possibility. We can be a big or small family, but it starts here, you and me, the two pillars holding up whatever we decide to put under its roof.”
He curled his hand around Cai’s forearm. Cai had drawn up his knees and linked his arms around them. Rand was totally missing that this conversation had turned Cai into a vertical fetal ball.
Noticing it, vampire. Just not mentioning it, to spare an insult to your manhood.
Cai coughed over a half laugh. That explosion in his chest still hurt, but it was hurting less. He found that even scarier, because it meant he was listening to Rand.
“We have time to decide,” the wolf said. “We’ll go to the desert a few months, think it through. Hell, I’m still working through shit, too. This whole vampire-servant thing, it messes up my head sometimes. You’ve seen it.”
Rand took a breath. For the first time, his gaze skittered away from Cai’s, which sharpened Cai’s attention on him. “When I was there at Fane’s, late at night, and then here in Atlanta, the few days in the hotel… That despair…the grief. When I realized you might be gone for good, and that feeling came back, I knew—”
Cai was out of his curl in a blink. He had Rand by the throat and on his back, his body pressed to him and fuck, he felt so good. But Cai didn’t let that detract from the red haze covering his vision. “Never,” Cai snarled. “You got it? I don’t care whether we’re a family or not. That thought’s never crossing your mind again. If it does, I will put a flagpole up your ass to give you something else to think about.”
Rand blinked up at him, and slowly a smile tugged his lips in a sensuous curve. “There’s my Master,” he said.
“Fuck. Fudge. Darn.” Cai sat back on his heels and rubbed his hand across his face once more.
“If you’d let me finish before you had your caveman moment,” Rand said, earning that narrow look again, “I was going to say I realized those feelings wouldn’t ever push me down that road again. And that’s because of you.”
Rand sat up and touched his arm, but his face remained resolute. “I’m more than capable of deciding where I want to be, and who with. You told the Council not to take that from me. You don’t get to do it, either. You don’t want me, I’m gone. But you’ll have to make me believe it.”
“Fuck me.” Cai sighed. “Well, in those touchy-feely animal movies, they do it by throwing rocks at the wild creature and screaming, ‘Go! I don’t want you anymore!’ And the wolf or deer or water buffalo or whatever goes away, looking back like he’s really hurt. Though he usually comes back at just the right moment to save the day.”
“You tried that tactic once before. Not falling for it again. And you throw a rock at me, I’ll feed it to you,” Rand promised.
“I throw a rock at you, and you’ll be knocked unconscious. Or have a great big through-and-through hole through your head.”
Rand adjusted so they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. “Have you watched any TV since Lassie?”
“That kind of scene has been in plenty of dog movies,” Cai said defensively. “And Lassie’s been in syndication forever. Some of the people I’ve taken…I’ve stayed at their houses a few days. Watched their TV, that kind of thing.”
“Oh.” Rand sobered, making Cai wish he hadn’t brought it up. But then Rand nudged him. “Did you mean it, about not killing humans anymore?”
“I’m considering some changes in my diet. You know, only criminal assholes from here forward. Got to expend my rage against life somewhere.”
At Rand’s look, Cai sighed again. “You wondered why I didn’t razz you about not knowing how to arouse a woman. I was told I could have sex with a human before I killed them. I thought that meant rape, and I had no stomach for that.”
He shook his head. “Lodell pointed out that if I could make it pleasurable, make them think something else was about to happen, then they wouldn’t suffer. And since I still killed my prey, the Trads would feel I was being ruthless like I was supposed to be. That's why I learned how to pleasure a woman. As a way to make her death more humane. I actually envy you your innocence, because it’s for the right reasons.”
He didn’t look toward Rand. He didn’t need to do so, the feeling from the shifter complicated and painful. Cai didn’t want to unravel that to see what was inside. “So, see? On top of not knowing how to be a family, I’m not a good man, Rand.”
“I think you want to be. You’ve just never had anyone who appreciated the effort before, who could tell you that it matters. Every step you take back toward who you want to be matters, no matter how slow, or if you get knocked back some.”
“Very inspirational.”
“Shut up.” Rand sighed and touched Cai’s face, bringing his eyes to him. “For once, just shut up, and feel. Feel what I believe about you. Feel what I feel for you.”
Cai immediately wanted to take off, but Rand had his arm curled around his thigh, his other hand around his nape. “Climb inside my head, vampire, and stay there. Stay as long as you like, until you figure it out. Drop down all the way to my soul, and you’ll find a lot of things there. Dylef, Fane, Sheba, the pups. But you’ll also find you. Solid, permanent and big as life right in the middle of them. A part I want to keep there, and right here. Figure it out, and I’ll work on doing the same.”
Cai made a frustrated noise and pushed away, but only to flop down on his back. “You are such a pain in my ass.”
But Rand followed him down, amusing Cai in a despairing sort of way by putting his head on Cai’s chest, his arm loosely around Cai’s waist. Cai realized if he imagined Rand as a wolf, this was how he’d laid upon Cai days ago, only Cai had been on his stomach and the wolf’s head had been resting above his hips.
Cai ran a hand over the strong back that was pleasantly accessible to him in this position. “How can you be so sure of this shit?”
Rand’s lips pulled in a smile. “I’m not sure about any of it. But I’m willing to take it on faith, figure it out as we go. You remember that T-shirt Jacob was wearing in Savannah? If you love something, set it free. If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it. That's a very wolf sentiment, you know.”
Cai snorted. “Not too far off from vampires, either.” He went still, though. The night seemed to close in, become colder. Despite the words and feelings shared, the shadows of the past were never very far away, the darkness too close. Maybe what he feared most was losing his willingness to be lonely. Knowing it, that darkness would rise to take him, and take Rand down with it.
For decades, a fifteen-year-old kid had lurked in his subconscious. Whether he’d experienced a bloodcurdling victory or deep despair, or anywhere in between, the question was always the same.
Am I lost or found?
Rand held him even closer, speaking in Cai’s ear as he brushed it with his lips. “Perhaps both. And that’s okay, too.”
They lay together a long time. Murmured, stroked. Listened to the night. Cai never said yes, not with his lips. But Rand didn’t listen to his words. Take it on faith. The wolf saw something in Cai he couldn’t see for himself. And somewhere in the past two weeks, the past few minutes, that faith had set up a small camp inside of Cai. When he realized it, the significance of it hit him hard.
He had a permanent servant. A family. Rand considered him his pack.
Lust had brought Cai back here to chase Rand down. That’s what he told himself. But Rand had brought heart and soul into it, and here they were.
Cai swept his gaze over his servant. His servant. Hell, he was going to be like a girl with an engagement ring, capti
vated by the sparkle of the two words.
All that furred, tanned, muscled chest, bare flexing haunch. His servant’s cock was looking decidedly interested in something again…
Or someone. Rand sat up and stretched, cracking his back and tilting his head to gaze down at Cai. His brown hair slipped over one broad shoulder. Cai reached up and tangled his fingers in it.
“You thinking about that big-dick Dom at Club Atlantis?” Cai asked. “That why you’re getting hard again? Can’t blame you. Let’s go back. I’ll put him down hard and we’ll both fuck him.”
Rand’s lips curved, his eyes showing a feral light. “I don’t want you anywhere near him. You’ll decide to keep him.”
“Sorry, I’ve got all the family I can handle now. And it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth.”
Rand’s blue eyes warmed, and damn if it didn’t tilt Cai’s heart over, just a little. He found his own lips curving.
“I’m worth it, vampire,” Rand responded. “So are you. Catch me if you can.”
Rand was off at a run, one long stride, two strides. In a bound of motion, full of sinuous power, he shifted in mid-air and hit the ground as a wolf, running full out.
Show off.
Cai waited all of three heartbeats, maybe two. Then he was after him. He caught up fast, but they didn’t lock in sensual combat, not yet. He melded with Rand’s mind, immersed himself in the wolf’s love of running with a pack, of play, the nipping at heels or flanks or ruff as they ran. He bumped Cai’s shoulder once and almost sent him tumbling over a log. He huffed a snort and caught up to tug the wolf’s tail, sending him in a comical spin to nip at Cai’s hand, before they were off again. Just running for the joy of it.
Eventually, he’d grab him, send him tumbling, hold that warm, furry body close. He’d whisper in his mind, tell him to shift so Cai could take him again, take it deep, have Rand at every physical and mental level, because that was what a servant could offer. Cai would also really kick his ass over the Atlantis Dom thing and enjoy every damn minute of it. There’d be restraints, blunt objects. Cai’s fist was going to be up his ass and bring Rand to a climax, so Rand would know the true knife edge between arousal and not necessarily unbearable pain, but a wise anxiety about the limits of his anatomy.