Vampire's Soul

  Rand considered that. "So we succeed or fail together."

  "Pretty much."

  Rand still had his thumb hooked in Cai's waistband, and his fingers curled over the denim on the outside, an absent caress. Cai's shoulder was pressed to his chest, and he realized they'd somehow eased into a fairly intimate position with one another. If that was a wolf thing, he didn't mind it so much. But vampires had a little edgier way of showing affection.

  Rand was thinking, so Cai slid his hair back from his shoulder and put his mouth to his throat, taking a nip and then holding it there, letting the fangs press inward. Not breaking skin, just a clamp, his tongue lazily tasting the caught flesh. Rand's fingers tightened and his deep voice came out satisfyingly more throaty. "What are you doing?"

  "You did say whenever, and however much I liked. Just enjoying the flavor of you, wolf." But Cai lifted his head so their faces were close. "So, do we do something stupid, or do we go to Syria?"

  "You're letting me make the call?"

  "No," Cai said decisively. "But if you prefer Syria, it's going to be way easier for me to talk myself out of the stupidity you just talked me into."

  "So I am making the call."

  "No. Aren't you listening? I'm the vampire, you're the servant. I'm always in charge."

  Rand's lips curved. "Sounds like you've decided we're going to do something stupid."

  "And you're good with that."

  Rand shrugged. "It's a chance to go out doing something worth doing."

  Cai shook his head. "Just like that. 'Hey, let's do a third mark soul-binding, hike into the Appalachians, and find a bunch of psychotic fuckheads. They'll probably torture us to death in ways so creative, Lucifer will award said fuckheads an Exceeds Expectations trophy. Whaddya say?'"

  "Anything that turns out better than that will be gravy." Rand shrugged again.

  Cai grimaced. "Forgot to add the worst part of it. Being saddled with a cheery optimist with dog breath. Kill me now and spare me undue suffering."

  Rand snorted, but he became serious once more. "Why do you kill them?"

  Despite the jump in topics, Cai didn't have to ask what he meant, but he thought he'd covered the ground back when they'd had their last argument about it. Rand didn't seem to agree, though, since he pressed onward.

  "You were human. You were taken from your family. You remember what it is to be human. You know who Harry Potter is, so you spend enough time in their company to connect with them."

  "I like to read," Cai argued. Rand pressed on, ignoring him.

  "You abhor Trads, but your feeding habits are theirs. You kill humans rather than take what you need and leave them alive. I need to understand why."

  "Why?" Cai could feel himself locking up, and told himself not to do it. For one thing, the wolf could sense it, and if it didn't matter much to Cai as he claimed, he wouldn't get defensive about it, would he? "If I give you the wrong answer for your comfort zone, will you let me off the hook for this whole save-the-girl shit?"

  "You made the choice yourself, remember?" Rand arched a brow. "You're the vampire, I'm the servant. All choices and decisions are yours." His expression softened. "I'm just trying to understand."

  "Well don't," Cai said shortly. "Don't try to figure me out like you're going to get to the bottom of it, and find out I'm a nice guy who got permanently mindfucked somewhere along the way. I mean, yeah, that's the story, but who the fuck cares? Not my prey, right? Rabbits don't sit around and try to understand why a wolf decides to chow down on them instead of a rat or a deer."

  "It's a little different. If you can survive without taking a life, but you choose to do so..."

  "It started out as survival, proving I was as much of a psycho as those around me," Cai snapped. "Like smoking to be cool with your so-called friends and then getting hooked. Simple enough."

  Rand's brow furrowed. "I'm pretty sure that's a stupid analogy for what we're discussing."

  "Doesn't make it less true. Just makes it more appalling. Go back to square one. I'm a fucked-up asshole. It's easier." Cai sighed, and turned his gaze to the forest. "Somewhere along the way, Rand, I lost whatever compass guides someone like you. No, not lost it. I smashed it myself. It was a desensitizing thing. They treated me like I was nothing because I was human. Then, when I became a vampire and finally had a measure of power, that was how Lodell, my sire, taught me to feed. He told me I was no longer human, and that was the best way to remember it. He was right. I couldn't go back and, in some weird way, I wanted to make sure of that. Make sure I didn't even look, didn't think of what kind of human I'd be, if things had been different.

  "So I fed the way he fed. Unlike some of them, he was never cruel about it. Said we were actually more honest about it than people who sit down to a hamburger but could never in a million years handle killing the animal themselves."

  Cai shook his head. "One-on-one, sure, there are humans I've connected with, but when it comes to food, going on the hunt, something else entirely happens. Maybe because we don't shift to fur, your kind doesn't see it in a vampire, but it's no different. When you were sitting out on your porch as a human with Dylef or Sheba, how many times did you see a deer come out of the woods and get tickled by it, that I'm-all-connected-to-nature-harmony shit?"

  Cai locked gazes with Rand. The dangerous hardness in his eyes raised the small hairs on Rand's neck. "But later, when you're a wolf, and you're hungry, that deer crosses your path again. When she runs, something else rises in you. Something real and undeniable, and linked to the deeper, darker pulse of nature. The Trads made me a vampire, and there's no going back from that. I don't spend a lot of time bullshitting myself about it, and taking my prey the way I was taught is part of that."

  Rand's thumb slipped over the valley of his spine, a caress of flesh. "Would it hurt too much to try to change?"

  "Change for what? And for who? The only one I have is the one in the mirror and oh, hey, I have no reflection."

  Cai rose, moving away from that distracting touch, and repeated his earlier mantra.

  "Don't make the mistake of thinking there's something better here than what you see, Rand. Some vestiges of that fifteen-year-old kid. I learned a long time ago that soul is long dead."

  Cai left Rand after that. In his usual smartass way, he told Rand to occupy himself for an hour, maybe by begging the kitchen help for those bones. He said he'd rejoin Rand shortly.

  As Rand watched him stride off, he suspected the vampire would leave the grounds entirely. Walk the quiet roads and trails amid horse country, until he could work out in his head whatever he was thinking. Maybe strategy. Maybe trying to talk himself out of this. Maybe taking off entirely. Rand wouldn't realize he'd gone until hours had passed, but he didn't expect that.

  The vampire was a solitary creature. Rand had been surprised the male had responded to physical affection earlier. It had moved him, twisted something in his heart, remembering how easily he and Dylef gave that to one another. He was in no danger of thinking Cai was like Dylef, but it had been welcome, that response to touch that didn't have an immediate sexual drive behind it. But Cai putting his mouth to his throat had reminded Rand vividly of the differences between his relationship with his former mate and...whatever he and the vampire were.

  Even Cai shied from calling Rand his servant, except to goad or tease. Their bond at this juncture was unclassifiable, but if they did this, they would be brothers-in-arms, relying on one another in a situation where having each other's back was necessary. Vital.

  Rand didn't know if Cai could be trusted for that, though his death wish took care of making it a top concern. But there was more at stake here than Cai's trustworthiness or Rand's careless attitude toward his own life. Dovia. It was one thing to go on a suicide mission to exorcise one's demons once and for all; another, when an innocent's life hung in the balance. He and Rand might be her best hope of survival, slim though Cai seemed to think that was.

  It was only about an hour from dawn whe
n Cai reached out to Rand in his mind and told him that he'd given Lyssa his decision. The queen had instructed everyone to go to ground and rise at dusk, with the intent of finishing up the planning phase, getting Cai and Rand on their way as soon as possible.

  Cai didn't ask for company, but Rand chose to meet him at the top of the steps to the lower level. He wanted to see Cai arrive. The male smelled of the outdoors, wet grass, gravel, asphalt, night. Pastureland and horses. His hair was damp, for a drizzle had started about an hour ago and hadn't yet abated, giving the air that autumn rain smell. His shirt clung lightly to his upper body, his jeans freckled with the rain drops.

  Cai met his gaze but didn't say anything. Just jerked his head at him and headed down the stairs. Rand followed the unusually quiet vampire back down the hallway, but when he slowed at Leona's room, Rand stopped with him.

  Lord Greenwald was with Leona, sitting on her bed. He held her hand, had his forehead resting on it, the rest of his powerful body sheltered over it as her other hand rested on his head, an unbroken circle for two broken parents.

  Like Cai, Rand had not been as kindly disposed toward the father as the mother, since until now he hadn't seen evidence of a connection between them, of a fair exchange of comfort. This eased some of his concern about Leona's support from her Master, no matter his ailing state of mind. The slight lessening of tension in Cai's shoulders suggested he felt the same.

  Georg lifted his head at the quiet noise of their passing. The haunted look in his eyes was instantly replaced by guarded aggression, but it was tempered by the unavoidable truth of the evening's events.

  His daughter's fate rested squarely in the hands of the male he'd treated as a surrogate for those who'd taken her. There would be no apology for that. All of Rand's knowledge of vampires before Cai had been secondhand, but it had only taken a short time to realize that their arrogance, sexual volatility, and creative brutality were innate to them. Yet in Greenwald's gaze there was a painful pleading mixed in with those things. Rand wasn't surprised to see Cai turn away from it and continue up the hall. Rand nodded to the vampire and followed.

  Third mark. Cai had said he wanted to do that before they embarked. The soul binding part was a bit disquieting, even if Cai didn't believe in it. If they did survive this, Rand's life would be bound to the vampire's, but Cai wasn't the type who'd turn that into indentured servitude. They'd see where they were at when this was over. He might still join the cantankerous male in Syria.

  The past few days, Rand had had far less time to think about death and the pain of his losses. Cai was a good diversion, if nothing else.

  Rand expected the vampire to counter such thoughts with sarcasm, but he seemed deep in his own head. When he reached the room, Cai stripped off his clothes without any erotic intent and washed his face in the bathroom. He stayed curved over the sink for several long minutes, running dampened hands over his neck, then braced his long, muscular arms against the sink.

  When he lifted his head and stared at the mirror, Rand wondered if that held any pain to a vampire, never being able to see his reflection. Not knowing what his face looked like, except when some artist gave him an interpretation of it.

  It took him back to a morning that seemed no more than a minute ago. He'd woken to find Dylef leaning over him, tracing his face with his long, capable fingers. When Rand opened his eyes and smiled, Dylef had smiled back, but there'd been something deep and full in his gaze. "I don't need a mirror around you. I see everything I need to know about myself in your eyes."

  A quiver went through Cai's shoulders. The sudden wave of distress from him made Rand move into the bathroom, stand behind him. Before he could reach out, Cai shrugged him off and pulled a towel from the rack to mop his face and hair. Tossing it aside, he clipped off the light, leaving Rand standing in darkness, and headed for the king-sized bed.

  "Get in with me and get some sleep. We'll only be able to travel by vehicle to a certain point, then it'll be a deep hike into the mountains. As I said, I know their vicinity, but not their exact location. We might have to talk to some locals who could tip Goddard off we're looking for him."

  Which reminded Rand they still hadn't talked about the shifter pack that might be in the area. He held off on it for now, though, since the vampire didn't look in the mood for conversation. He did ask one question, however. "Won't they ghost if that happens, like you said?"

  "Not if they know it's me looking for Goddard, and not some Council vampire extraction team. If needed, my cover story will be that I need a favor from Goddard. I've pissed off some Region Master who's reported me to Council, so I need a place to lie low. Which will make him laugh his ass off, but he might agree to it." Cai pulled back the covers. "That is, if I agree to lop off a limb to prove my renewed loyalty to him, or some such shit. We'll figure it out. If you don't want to sleep right now, then take a hike and let me get some shut-eye."

  "The third mark thing--"

  "Yeah. In a bit. Not right now." Getting into the bed, Cai turned his back to Rand. He shut off the bedside lamp, putting them in more darkness.

  A curt way to treat someone who'd decided to go to hell with him and watch his back, but Rand didn't take offense. He was starting to understand Cai's patterns. Even if Cai had told the Council to go fuck themselves and left, in several days Rand would have expected to find him on the same path. There was something down deep inside the vampire...

  Indigestion. Shut up or I will fuck you into exhaustion and suck out a couple gallons of your blood to make you unconscious.

  Rand could have taken the spot next to him, but he'd expected Cai to do the third mark first and the thought had him keyed up. He'd shift and take a hard run around the grounds to burn off some energy, then grab a shower and come to bed. The house servants would think the wolf had returned from his hunt, supporting Cai's cover story.

  However, at the door, Rand turned back, studying the motionless vampire. Unease flitted through him about leaving the vampire by himself, but he couldn't figure out why. That thought was derailed, somewhat, by imagining the vampire carrying out the first part of the threat. Hell, they were both males, and it was what it was. They might not see eye to eye on much else, but their sexual compatibility was off the charts.

  Or maybe that was a vampire with anyone he chose, since they were so practiced at sexual arts. Rand didn't particularly care for that thought. Cai with others, exercising those skills without discrimination.

  Damn wolf nature. No matter how unrealistic it was, Rand couldn't keep himself from thinking of sex as a mating act. Shifters didn't take it lightly, couldn't. Fortunately, his human side saved him from being stupid about it. He forced himself to leave the room.

  Things were getting way quiet in the house as the sun crested and hit the front windows on the upper level. He came through the kitchen and found a far more informal atmosphere, where house servants were laying out food for the visiting Council vampire servants who would be coming up soon.

  "Got to tuck in their vampires," the cook observed with a mischievous grin. He was a burly male who looked like he could have been a cook on a naval vessel, the service tattoos on his arms supporting Rand's theory. He wondered how he'd come into the aristocratic Greenwald's service, but with how long they lived, every vampire had to have a colorful past. "Feed them good," the cook continued, "then come here to replenish themselves and let us all catch up on the gossip."

  "Jacob will be the last one up. He's very thorough about feeding his Mistress." That came from one of the maids, punctuated by a giggle as she sampled some of the frosting on a newly made cake. She accepted a swat from the cook's wooden spoon with a saucy swing of her hips, though she danced out of range before he could follow up. He gave her a stern look, though his lips were twitching.

  "Show some respect, girl. Vampires and servants have long ears." The cook glanced toward Rand. While his expression was courteous, Rand was aware that most in the kitchen were studying him with avid curiosity, as would be exp
ected toward the "servant" of the vampire reputed to be a Trad.

  "You're welcome to sit and join us," the cook said. "If you're new to our world, no better way than the breakfast gatherings between servants to figure out how things are done."

  The cook meant it kindly, Rand could tell. While Rand agreed it seemed a great way for a new servant to come up to speed, Cai and he were a different kind of pairing, with way too many secrets. Not the least of which was what their relationship actually was. Most the time, it seemed as much a mystery to the two of them as anyone else.

  Plus, he really needed to run. His decision was made when the first two servants to arrive were Tyra and Chavez's. They might not be as bad as their vampires, but their scrutiny was far too close, and it made him uneasy. He'd spent plenty of quality time with them already.

  Shifters were a clannish species and, unlike the vampires, they didn't have a head Council that imposed rules about secrecy on all their members. Shifters just followed pack rules and good common sense when it came to discretion. Cai's serious warning about shifter blood and vampires had also made an impact. So though Rand lingered enough to eat some bacon and eggs, he ate swiftly and kept his answers vague before he excused himself.

  "Speaking of the wolf, I told Cai I'd find him on my usual morning run. When I send him back here, if you could give him a plate of the sausage, I'm sure he'd appreciate it."

  He directed that toward the maid, and she dimpled at him. "For you, I'll save him a whole plateful, honey. He's a beauty. Just like you."

  He offered a smile, but hastily made his getaway before he could be drawn into her flirting. He was surprised, though, when she turned it up to full wattage on Tyra's servant, indicating they'd been intimate in the past.

  Maybe vampires were okay with their servants having sex with other servants, as long as they were available to them when needed. Cai seemed unfettered in his own sexual preferences. Rand recalled his earlier thought about wolf mating rituals, where sex was supposed to mean something, be done with someone who mattered.

  With Cai, he wouldn't say it was meaningless--that felt wrong--but he knew the vampire hardly considered it heart-and-flowers commitment. Yet how did Rand himself feel about it?