Vampire's Soul (Vampire Queen 14)

Take it serious and realize how fucked up all of this is? How fucked up I am? Facing reality is pressing the red button and going up in a mushroom cloud.

Cai's eyes met his. For a flash, Rand saw it, saw that maelstrom. Then it was locked behind a door again. But hey, you get back, manage to rescue us, I might consider couples' therapy, honey. Long as the therapist has a nice tight ass and includes going down on me as part of the service.

Rand nipped him lightly and Cai strangled on a laugh, one filled with such agony it made Rand immediately chagrined. But it hadn't been the bite. It was the impending dawn.

Go, damn you. His fevered gaze locked on Rand. Only you can save our lives and, if you fail, well, fuck, no guilt, you hear me? You did your best. Don't make me haunt your ass. Go.

Rand felt as if he was being ripped apart by ropes tied to all his limbs, his heart, his soul, his mind. He had to act like a wolf. Had to act like a wolf. He blocked out Dovia's crying, detectable to his sharp ears, the rasping of Cai's breath, the shock waves of pain coming off the vampire. He made himself circle the camp once more, sniffing.

Even though the vampires couldn't go out in the sun, their age made it possible for them to be up longer below ground, monitor things, get suspicious. The wine would hopefully take care of that, but nothing was certain. It was best to take the time to maintain the ruse that he wasn't smart enough to be a real threat.

He passed close by the human females; silent, motionless women with virtually no spirit left to them, no interest in him. Cai had been right. One was too close to death's door. He could smell it upon her.

Rand thought of Lady Lyssa and Jacob, and all the things he'd seen and felt when at Lord Greenwald's home. Yes, Cai had been mistreated, because Greenwald thought he might be part of the same group that had taken his daughter, and Greenwald was obviously not thinking straight. And Voltaire...

Rand's teeth showed briefly as he thought about the traitor. Dovia was the most important thing, but if they lived to see Voltaire brought to justice, that would be gravy on the bone.

But this horrible brutality...he could understand Cai's lack of good feeling toward any vampires, but if a choice had to be made, Rand would gravitate toward the Council vampires. They at least seemed to have a recognizable code of behavior.

He circled and pawed Cai, whined. Cai made a noise as if warding him off, cursing him. After a few more moments of agitation, Rand lifted his head, scenting the air, seeking game. Then he headed into the trees as if he'd caught a trail. Once out of sight of the camp, he started to run, letting the hunter take over.

But not for food. His eyes went cold, teeth sharp and gleaming, ears laid back as he stretched out. He flew straight as an arrow and twice as fast.

Yet when the sun began to climb in the sky, he heard Cai's first screams. Because there was no outrunning what Rand could hear in his head.

Chapter Fifteen

Rand exceeded the fastest speed he'd ever run, his wake flushing deer, rabbits and birds that normally would have caught his attention. Before they'd left Fane's, Rand had called Gideon, told them where the Trads were with Dovia, and that they were going in. The Council's warrior had indicated they would find a discreet approach that would put them near Fane, and use Fane as a communications relay. Fane had been amenable to that.

So Daegan wasn't very far away, hopefully, with reinforcements, but he couldn't come out in the daylight any more than the others. Rand hoped he had a good idea about extracting Dovia. Or maybe Cai did. Cai seemed to do his best thinking on the fly.

Rand skidded to a halt. Things had gone completely silent in his head. Over time, the screaming had become hoarse, then broken, then fallen to groans, but it had still been there, a terrible proof of life in Rand's head.

No. Cai wasn't dead. If he was dead, Rand would be dead. With a stab of feeling, Rand realized what had happened.

Cai had blocked his mind, used up precious energy so Rand wouldn't have to hear him, suffer from that sound. If the vampire would be consistently an asshole, it would be so much easier to know how to feel about him.

Rand resumed his course at the same breakneck pace, but his mind was whirling just as fast. He thought about the magic he'd seen Cai do. Creation magic. While shifters weren't like Fae or other magic users, they had a rudimentary awareness of it, and there was no stronger energy.

Everyone who knew about vampires knew that the biggest challenge to the strength of their race was the fertility problem. Their population was decreasing, and there'd never been many of them. Born vampires were stronger than made ones, for the most part. When they had children, the children were of sturdier stuff than made ones. If it was learned a vampire could help female vampires conceive...

Cai had serious reservations about using that magic, about the right and wrong applications for it. Rand had caught a glimpse of something, about a woman he'd helped conceive, but that had been cloaked in forbidding shadows, as if Cai hadn't wanted to think further about it.

He hadn't wanted vampires to know he could do it for anything but plants. But he'd used it to protect Dovia.

Hell, he was so confusing. Maybe the key was in that nuclear comment he'd made. Facing reality is pressing the red button and going up in a mushroom cloud. Rand had felt dark things from the vampire. Yes, dark as in sad and tragic, brutal and frightening, shadows of his past. But also...darkness. Like a tunnel deep in the earth that led nowhere but to an absence of light. All the treasures were there, but hidden, never to be seen, because it was better that way.

He was getting close to his destination. Exercising an abundance of caution, he hadn't used howling to signal ahead. He redoubled his pace, though his lungs were already burning, muscles aching. He could tell down to the boot size every place he'd been kicked.

Fane was working in the back fields with Stalker and Chad. All three males came to full alert as Rand leaped the furrows of turned earth and slid to a stop in front of them, almost bowling over Fane. He couldn't breathe, had to drop his head, take long, gasping breaths. But he shifted at the same time, since he wouldn't be able to tell Fane what he needed in wolf form. It was time he contributed his own ideas to this half-baked, desperate and doomed-to-fail rescue plan.

"Help," he said. "I need help. And a phone."

London broiling. Londontown, falling down. My fair lady. Hot, hot, hot... Song on the radio. Cai watched the one human woman die. Laying there, her eyes on him, and suddenly, she wasn't there. Life gone. The other woman called her name, weakly, desperately, the first show of life she'd had. Now she'd be alone. Amazing, how anything could still matter when someone had been through so much, and what mattered was usually the connection to someone else.

Lodell, his mother, his father. Rand. Those were his connections in life, over two hundred years. What a pathetically short list. Oh, there'd been a kid...that kid, the one who thought Cai was a shut-in but would play near Cai's cabin. That had been back when Cai had tried having a house in the Tennessee mountains. Seeing what it was like to stay in one place. Had his place been like Rand's home, decades later, with the oh-so-perfect Dylef?

That was a crappy thought, but he was being tortured. He was allowed to be petty. He focused on the kid again. Just a waif, with a mop of greasy hair and brown eyes like a raccoon's. Kid was poor as dirt, with nine brothers and sisters. Parents didn't even notice him being gone. Cai found him things to eat he didn't normally get, stealing them from the general store at night. Kid liked candy. What kid didn't?

When Cai abandoned the idea of being a homeowner, he left the kid the house. That had been, what? Fifty years ago? Probably married with a bunch of kids and had left that place long ago. Time took everything away. No bonds lasted.

Servants, though...that was a bond that was supposed to last into eternity. Nice wishful thinking. Unless you were bonded to

someone who drove you crazy, and then that was like a sentence to Purgatory. But Rand...

Everything hurt, was on fire, screaming, blinding pain. He was in the shade, but it didn't matter. It was like being in an oven, slowly being roasted. His skin blistering and peeling, his throat closing, making him feel like he was suffocating. He knew he wasn't, but he supposed it was the vampire form of waterboarding. The brain was on five-alarm fire alert, screaming for water, air, all engines to report to the scene...nothing, though. No one would come. Not for him. Maybe for Dovia. She deserved it. Nice kid. Didn't deserve this.

Rand. Cai didn't have any particular thoughts associated with that one word. It merely brought him comfort to say it, feel it. Rand had put his head on his chest before he went. Maybe that was just a wolf thing. They did a lot of communicating by rubbing faces, bodies, bumping one another. It could have been a so long, asshole, it's been fun.

Yeah, but no. Dovia. Rand would do whatever he could to rescue Dovia, and that was fine. Dovia deserved that kind of knight in shining armor shit. God, this hurt. Would it never end?

But he'd been through worse, survived worse. It was just getting harder to do it, over and over again. Hell, he was pissed at that human woman for dying. Give up, bitch? Hell, you only knew the tip end of this kind of suffering. Lightweight.

But she'd died staring at him, and that look had crawled into his burning soul. Stop looking at me. Stop.

What time was it? Mid-afternoon, maybe. A few more hours to go. Then Goddard would have proved his point and things would get better. He'd let Cai take care of Dovia, and Cai would wait on his chance, if Rand couldn't find anyone to help. No. Daegan was coming. If they could trust Council vampires, that terrifying son of a bitch with his big-ass sword or the equally terrifying thousand-year-old queen would make something happen. Just a matter of biding time.