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Rand chuckled. "We don't have more than three or four in a litter, but that's still a lot. It's why having pack members is critical at that time. When she does the shift, the event is planned. All hands are on deck to help with the transition. There's a celebration. Like a birthday party for the pups, an accolade to the mother and her mate. The pups are communally raised. Which is good. It means everyone gets a chance to be parents, even if they can't conceive or bring a litter to term."
"So when do they shift back to wolves again?" Cai asked. His questions about less personal aspects of Rand's life was giving Rand more space to breathe. Maybe he didn't have to talk about the other stuff. He laid his spinning head back on the tree behind him.
"About five years old. They shift back and forth with no control, which means they're closely monitored until they get a handle on it. That happens around puberty. Most pups are home schooled until they reach their teens. Until then, stress or unpleasant emotion can flip the switch." Rand pushed that thought away, again avoiding the dark chasm that waited beyond it.
"Once they learn control, what's to stop them from doing it to impress their human friends? They're still teenagers."
"Yes, but far more mature than kids at that age. If you think about it, a non-shifter wolf lives to be somewhere between ten and eighteen, depending on how tough life is on them. While we have a human's longevity, there's a certain level of accelerated maturation for pups. A thirteen-year-old shifter is about a decade ahead of their human counterparts, at least in impulse control. The bond with the parents is also extremely strong. They defer to them on all decisions until they're old enough to establish an adult role in the pack."
"Ah." Cai shifted, lacing his fingers behind his head. Bare-chested and bathed by firelight, it increased the distraction effect. Things probably weren't helped by Rand's nakedness, where every reaction he had to the vampire was all the more noticeable. But Cai hadn't offered him clothes, and seemed to prefer him like this, another unsettling message.
Rand's mouth was dryer than it should be. Cai must be hearing Rand's thoughts, but his expression gave nothing away. Holding the upper hand. The vampire was just dominant by nature. He didn't really understand the significance of it, the gravity that attended such dominance. Which was why Rand resented his own reaction to it, the craving it opened in him. He was craving an illusion, and his brain was too fogged by grief and alcohol to care.
"Want to come sit over here?" Cai asked.
Rand shook his head. "Time for you to tell your sob story."
"Let me get a few more details of yours. Mine's boring."
"You're avoiding."
"Maybe. But I find you far more interesting than me. Where were you born?"
Rand gave him a look, but relented. It was an easier question. "Colorado. Lost my parents early, car crash. But the new alpha of the pack, my father's beta Sylvan, did okay for a while. He had Sheba, his alpha female, and she was tough as nails. Dylef was accepted into the pack soon after that. He had left a pack in Washington state when there was a change of leadership. I met him one night on a run in the forest."
Rand paused, remembering it. He liked to run on his own at times, and that had been one of them. When the unfamiliar scent crossed his path, he tracked it. Dylef had shifted to human, and was bathing in a deep-water creek, the noise and wind direction masking Rand's approach.
Dylef had a wolf tattoo that stretched across the broadest part of his back. If Rand closed his eyes, he could almost reach out, trail his fingers along it like he had then, for he'd shifted, too. Come slowly into the water, the two of them staring at one another, knowing. As rare as shifters were, what they were--male wolves who preferred males--was even rarer. It didn't make Rand desperate. He had had hookups with human males to take the edge off, but inhaling the scent of a fellow wolf who looked at him with sexual interest, the way he looked right back at him...
His instincts had led him. He'd drawn closer, stood before Dylef, met his gaze. Dylef had not spoken, but after some long, weighted moments, punctuated by the sounds of the creek, the wind and the birdsong, he'd averted his gray eyes just enough, dipped his head. Rand had leaned in, pressed his nose to his crown, inhaled. Dylef had dark blond hair, a little long, and it tickled Rand's nose. He liked everything he smelled, and he let his mouth drift to his ear, nipped there, nipped the neck. Nudged him so he turned, so Rand could trail his fingers down his back. Over the tattoo.
Then, with a tilt of his head and playful flash of his eye, Dylef bolted from the water, shifting beautifully into a silver and white wolf. Rand had leaped after him, and the chase, the beginning...had begun.
He'd been quiet for a while, he realized. The crickets were chirping, the fire making its soft crackling, popping noise. It had been warm for a fire tonight, but the vampire seemed to like having one and Rand didn't object to the ambient light.
"Then Grey came in." He should have left it there, but something brought forth the words.
"Grey? His parents stretched themselves on that name. I guess Wolfgang was taken."
"Yeah." But Rand didn't smile. He turned the bottle in his hands, watching the firelight get captured and released by the glass.
"Grey came from an urban pack. They're a different, harder breed, less connected to the land, stronger footholds in human culture. He'd been run out of there by a stronger alpha. Well, a stronger alpha and a team of betas that knew he was bad news. He was tossed out with three or four male wolves who became his betas. Big, mean. Street smart. If they were the weaker members of the pack, I'd never want to meet the alpha, though I applaud his decision to kick Grey's ass out. Just wish he'd killed him instead, but I guess even the urbans have a strong code on that. There aren't enough of us to be killing one another over anything less than the gravest offenses. At that time, I guess Grey hadn't crossed that line."
"Too bad you can't kill someone for future crimes, right?"
Rand's gaze shifted to Cai. He wasn't surprised the vampire was already putting it together. It wasn't a hard story to follow, or even all that unique of one. Didn't make the pain any less.
"Grey challenged Sylvan. When he beat him, he didn't accept Sylvan's capitulation." Rand shook his head. "We didn't see it coming. We'd let ourselves become too complacent, expecting all wolves to respect our pack rules, no matter where they came from. He killed Sylvan, and then ordered his betas to take out Sylvan's pups. Four six-year-old kids."
Rand's jaw hardened. "In the wild, wolves, lions, certain pack animals like that, will kill the pups of the dominant female to put her back into heat, after they run off or take out the male. Don't know if he was so messed up he thought that was what he was doing, but nobody was going to stand for that.
"We all fought them, including Sheba. Others in the pack formed a rear guard, helped Sheba and her pups get away. Because of the age of the kids, she needed at least a couple of pack members to escape with her, provide ongoing protection. That ended up being me and Dylef. It was a brutal fight, but we got lucky. None of the pups were harmed, though several of the pack were badly wounded, helping us get free. We heard later the rest of them scattered."
He looked into the darkness of the forest. He could shift and run. Just run and leave all this behind. He didn't know what the alcohol would do in his wolf's system, but he didn't really care.
"Hey." He turned his head. How had the vampire moved next to him without him noticing? Cai slid Rand's hair over his shoulder, his strong hand stroking tense muscles. He nudged beneath Rand's chin, his mouth landing on Rand's pulse to suck and nip. Rand's hand on the empty bottle tightened, his head dropping all the way back. Too late, he realized it would be interpreted as an act of submission. Rand wanted to shove him away, but Cai caught his hand, interlacing their fingers. "Tell the rest of it," the vampire murmured.
"Not like this. Let this...just be this." Ra
nd closed his eyes as Cai's tongue teased him, down to his collar bone. He let go of the bottle to lift his hand, stroke it over the vampire's short hair. His touch drifted to the top point of Cai's spine, his back, over that sunburst set of scars, as Cai worked his way down his chest, his abdomen. Rand eased back to a reclining position, resting his upper body on his elbows.
"Your propensity for being naked when you shift is very useful. And yes, fucking distracting," Cai noted, before his mouth closed over Rand's cock, and went all the way to the root. It was an impressive accomplishment, since Rand was on the way to being fully hard. The vampire's grip moved, one hand resting on the base of Rand's throat, a touch to admonish him to stillness. The other wrapped around his cock as Cai went after it with a singular intensity that had Rand shoving up into his hold, strangling on a gasp.
No time for the thoughts of loss to completely flee before they were drowning in sexual desire, an unsettling mix that tore things open in his chest. "Stop...Cai."
Did the vampire think that it would help, that somehow sex could shove the other out of the way? The loss of love and family, of connection. The only way someone could think that was if that someone had never actually had those things. The thought flitted through Rand's mind, a revelation about the vampire, but too much of his own personal crap was swamping him to hold onto it.
So long, too long since he'd been worked over like this. And Dylef, blessed Dylef, it'd been more of a give and take between them, though Rand was top most of the time.
Cai lifted his head and brushed lips that smelled and tasted like Rand's musk against him. He settled back on an elbow, too, but he was leaning over Rand so he could keep his hand on Rand's chest, playing in the gleaming hair there. Rand guessed Cai liked it so much because vampires were hairless below the neck. The contrast seemed to please him. "So keep going," Cai said, though his eyes slid to Rand's cock, hard and high on his belly. "Tell me all of it and I'll finish what I started."
The arousal had been goaded by Cai's touch, by his looks, by the experience they'd had earlier. But at those words, desire left Rand. The hard fist already squeezing him below the ribs increased its reach, bringing his heart into it. Rand rolled away and rose, staring down at Cai.
