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Cai sighed and tossed him a look. "You really didn't just use a canine metaphor."
Rand's mouth quirked. "It happens. Those lamb chops smelled really good. I was wondering if they kept any bones."
"Well, before you get yelled at for going through the trash, let me ask you this." Cai pivoted and crossed his arms over his chest. "Have you lost your fucking mind? Fate doesn't throw anything at anyone. Life just sucks for some, doesn't for others, and the wind changes direction for fuck-knows-why. That's life. You start reading signs and meaning into things and--"
"Life might just start to have more meaning again."
"Ugh." Cai spat in disgust. "Fine, okay, I get it. You lost your family and you're trying to deal with that pain. But sorry, getting me killed isn't going to make me feel better."
"What about having the vampire queen owe you a favor?" Rand suggested shrewdly. "The whole Council? She knew how to aim that arrow."
"Yeah, she did. Doesn't mean I have to prove her right. I prefer to be contrary even if it's against my own best interests."
"You don't say," Rand said dryly. He glanced at the bench next to him. "Why don't you come sit next to me again? I want to show you something."
"Saw that earlier. Wouldn't mind seeing it again, but timing's a little off, wolf."
"Bite me. That's one that works for wolves or vampires. Come sit down."
"Careful. That almost sounded like an order. I'm the only one who gives those around here."
"In your dreams." Rand's gaze had stilled, become steadier. Cai sighed and grimaced.
"Fine." He sat down next to the wolf. He couldn't deny that the press of the broad shoulder and hip against his own was welcome, but he stilled as Rand ran a caressing hand along his back to his waist, hooking his thumb in the waistband of the jeans to tug.
Affection. Wolves were into physical affection. With no other motive than that, Cai could relax into it, even though most of his body felt rigid as a tent pole. Rand kept his gaze on the flowers, rather than looking at the vampire. But after a moment, he bumped Cai with his elbow.
"Tell you what. If you do this, I'll keep having all the sex with you that you could want. And provide you meals."
"You're a terrific lay, wolf, and your blood's incomparable. But getting my appetites met doesn't balance with happily walking back into the bowels of hell."
"What would? Killing this Lord Graham asshole? Taking out the Trad that took you from your family?"
"Yeah to the first, no to the second."
He felt Rand's puzzlement. "Why are you dead set to take out Graham, but not the Trad that took you?"
Cai shifted his attention back to the gazing pool. "Goddard was too powerful. I didn't stand a chance against him. Maybe one day."
It was more than that. It was a deep-seated feeling of revulsion, a terribly strong and overwhelming need to avoid the world that had held him for so long. That compulsion was far stronger than needing to take out Goddard. So Cai had told himself, for years and years and years. But Graham...Graham had hurt his mother.
"Besides, none of it would change anything."
"Exactly." Rand's tone of satisfaction suggested Cai had made his point. Rand's gold-flecked blue ones met his. "Nothing will change any of it. Because nothing can give you back what you really wanted. Your life, before it all happened. The only thing you can do is try to help her."
Rand dug into the back pocket of the jeans. "I snagged this from a small stack of them on the hallway table. Leona was holding one. She's way messed up. If Sheba had lived, she would have been the same. No way she would have survived losing two litters like she did."
He handed the small portrait to Cai. Vampires couldn't be photographed or reflect in a mirror, so those who wished to have their image captured did it the way that it was done prior to the invention of the camera. A painting. Only modern technology could now turn the portrait into prints, so proud vampire-servant parents like Georg and Leona could be just as annoying as the family who went to the mall portrait studio. Provide the picture to all friends, family members and Christmas card recipients in handy-dandy wallet size. Christ.
Cai guessed the stack of them was to spread hardcopies to other vampires and servants in the area, in case they'd seen something helpful. Vampires watched crime shows too, apparently.
Yet when Rand placed the picture in his hand, and Cai looked upon it, his iron-clad hold on his cynicism slipped a notch. He'd have to be heartless not to feel something as he looked at the young female. Dovia had red hair, a soft smile and the glowing beauty of a young vampire. But her eyes were what caught Cai's attention. Direct and intelligent, with a hint of laughter in them, as if the portrait painter had said something to amuse her.
The smile possessed that genuine quality that occurred when laughter and smiles didn't have to be manufactured by cynical bullshit and one-liner comebacks designed specifically to keep actual emotion at bay. Her expression also reflected a trace of poignancy. Since this was a recent picture, Cai guessed that had taken root while watching her father's illness advance.
He handed the photo back to Rand. "How strong do you think she is?"
Kudos to the shifter, he picked up on what Cai was asking immediately. "I see what you see in that picture. I also got some further hints from Leona. She talked to herself while I was with her."
Or she talked to the wolf, Cai surmised. An animal who required nothing from her and was a nonjudgmental, listening ear.
"Growing up, Dovia wouldn't play with female servants or vampires. She always wanted to play with the boys. Even now, she competes with them in sparring, running, strength. A bit of a tomboy, in vampire terms. But one who still likes all the perks of being a girl."
"Okay."
"Okay?" Rand raised a brow. "Meaning?"
Cai leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely between his knees. "Do that thing to my back again. What you were doing before."
"Petting you?"
"Not if you're going to call it that. Fucking asshole." But as Cai rubbed his hand hard over his face and the back of his neck, fighting a hundred different things inside him, Rand complied. His strong hand swept over the curve of his spine, palm pressed firmly against Cai, so he felt the warmth through his shirt. Rand hooked h
is fingers in Cai's waistband again, stroking and teasing the top of Cai's buttocks, thumb sweeping over the dip in his spine just above.
Maybe if Rand hadn't been here to ask the questions that unlocked that memory box, Cai could have kept it closed and moved on, just as he'd described. But he had a full list in his head of the despicable things he was and wasn't, and coward wasn't one of them. He'd put aside personal vengeance for the same reason anyone stayed away from the most horrible nightmare of their life; to try and keep their head above it, not be sucked into who and what they'd been in that nightmare. As long as he could keep Goddard a figment of his past, he could move along in his life without going back there.
But now Dovia was in that nightmare. Cai had no reflection in a mirror, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to look someone like Rand or Lyssa, or even the earnest Giles, in the face and see the reflection of what he'd be if he didn't do something. Something he had no chance of surviving.
Well, fuck. Two hundred years was a good run, right? Way more than he would have had as a human.
"I have a condition," he said abruptly. "You become my third mark servant."
When he turned his head toward Rand, the male's blue eyes were puzzled, wary. "You want to link our souls."
"I don't believe that shit. The only verifiable thing about the third mark is that it links your life to mine. They kill me, you die."
Rand blinked. "That's kind of you."
"Yeah. It is." Cai set his jaw. "I won't go in there knowing if they kill me, which is a pretty damn certainty, that you'll be left to their mercy. A fucking shifter? Might as well call it Christmas. There are legends about your blood, and what it can do for a vampire's strength and mental acuity. It's probably just mythical bullshit, but I don't deny it's like a high-octane energy drink next to human blood. However, the guy that leads this little sect of Trads has pursued every damn wives' tale, no matter how unlikely, to figure out how to conceive upon vampire females."
Cai put his hand on Rand's thigh, gripped. "Apart from being staked through the heart with steel or the obvious stuff, like decapitation, you're also pretty indestructible. My blood and our bond can bring you back from almost anything."
