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"Cai," Rand began, his expression ominous, but Cai was already moving into the wood. He was aware when Rand shifted, to try and chase after him, but he defeated that with the clear message sent by a blast of vampire swiftness. Leave it alone for tonight.
He'd only intended it to be a sprint, but as Cai ran, he lengthened his stride and kept running. Accumulating more and more speed, and he didn't question why it felt so damn good, like ripping off a scab and letting the blood run. He stretched out, ran as hard and fast as he could, taxing every part of his system.
From a practical standpoint, it was a good thing to do, to make sure the skill sets he might need over the next couple days were in order. When he at last slowed, he'd covered at least twenty miles. The nearest town was another ten miles, but there was a sufficient dotting of scattered cabins and family homes populated by generations of those who'd grown up in the rural area. They were loath to part with their independent lifestyle, even if members of the family had to drive into town to work to supplement the income.
Cai sat in the woods, listened, waited and watched, deciding on his quarry. A full measure of human blood could carry him for several weeks, as long as he wasn't injured. That way he wouldn't be dependent on Rand or anyone else, if Fane successfully talked Rand out of joining Cai.
He didn't want to think about doing this without Rand. But if he didn't have to take the shifter down with him, that would be a check on the good karma side of his scorecard. If he believed in that shit.
There. Three sons lived in the sprawling farmhouse with the parents. Adult sons, strapping boys with strong muscles and blood that would practically fizz with health. As Cai closed in on the site and watched his quarry move toward the barn, Cai regretted that this one emanated straight vibes, because being served by all those nice manual labor farm muscles, the chapped mouth and probably nicely shaped cock, would have been a good pre-dinner appetizer.
A strong shot of pheromones in his bite, plus some serious seduction skills, would undoubtedly overcome those inhibitions, but Cai wasn't in the mood to work that hard.
The young man's hair was short, not long. The hair on his arms and chest, visible through the neck of his shirt, was a light covering. No dark fur on him, no bulked muscles that would smell of earth and wolf...
Cai put that aside and thought through the best approach to take his quarry down with minimal fuss and noise. He glided along, stealthy as a snake. The male unconcernedly whistled his way out to his pre-dawn chores, probably intending to milk the cows Cai could hear lowing in the barn.
Yet as he closed in, Cai found himself hesitating. He thought of Rand, and the vision of his boy against his hip. That male could have grown up to be a young man like this, his father proud simply to look upon him. A young version of Rand.
Fuck. Do not let that fucking wolf fuck with your head and your meal. He needed the blood strength if he was going to stay sharp for Dovia.
Cai took the male when he had circled to the back of the barn to retrieve a couple buckets. Cai was an efficient hunter, no wasted movement, no chance for the quarry to make a sound. Usually in this kind of circumstance, he snapped the neck and fed swiftly before the blood could get that death tang to it he disliked.
This time he went with pressure on the windpipe, rendering his prey unconscious. As the man slumped in his arms, Cai pulled him into the shelter of the woods and ripped open the shirt, fanning his palms out on nice farm boy flesh. Tight nipple buds, but yeah, only a baby fine covering of hair on the chest. Plus, his scent was wrong. No, not wrong. It was fine enough, apples and pine wood. Just not wolf.
He struck at the male's throat. He drank and drank, taking that nourishment, but found himself stopping short of the fatal amount. Just. When he sat back on his heels, wiping his mouth with his hand, he studied the unconscious man. He could finish it, drink the rest. But he wouldn't.
He carried the male back to the barn and left him there. Before he took off, he fired a rock through the front window of the house. It made a large crash, and resulted in lights popping on in three windows. Then he disappeared into the woods. They'd get him medical help, a blood transfusion, and he'd be fine. He'd taken as much as he could without killing him, and he'd make do with that. Didn't know why the hell he hadn't taken the amount he normally would. Not efficient.
But he felt better for it, when he thought of Rand and his kids. For about a minute, before he called himself an idiot. Then he simply missed Rand.
When Fane and Lynn had come through Colorado years before, their two litters were aged nine and sixteen, a total of seven pups. Now the first litter was in their twenties and the others in their teens. Lynn could still bear children, and since shifter females had a stronger constitution for later pregnancies than human women, it was possible she and Fane might decide to have one more litter to further strengthen the pack. Or, since they also had a handful of daughters, the honor might go to one or more of them.
However, it was fortunate no one was currently pregnant, because if that had been the case, Rand knew Fane wouldn't have invited him home, no matter how much he believed Rand's story about Grey. Male shifters became more aggressively protective when one of the pack females was pregnant, and even more so when it was the alpha female. When she was no longer able to hunt, the male alpha would bring back and present the day's kill to her. Once she accepted it, it would be prepared and eaten by all, but the male alpha would bring her plate to her, not allowing anyone else the honor.
During her pregnancy was also the one time when she would take lead role in the pack, calling the shots on hunting schedule, location, and where they'd "den," so to speak, when it was time to have the pups.
Even when not pregnant, Lynn was still a strong-willed woman and wolf, though the bond between her and Fane was a loving one. She respected him as the head of their pack, a lead the others followed both from her example and because he'd earned it.
Because Fane's birthday had been mid-week, Rand had the pleasure of meeting pretty much the whole family, who'd come to stay for the weekend and celebrate their alpha's birth date. The young adult shifters--Stalker, Sangra, Todd and Cilya--viewed Rand with some wariness, but when his welcome was confirmed by Fane, that was all it took for them to relax. The teenagers--Darcy, Windrunner and Chad--were even more accepting, despite the odd vampire scent upon him. Fane told Rand he'd wait to explain that after dinner, along with the reason for him being in their area.
No matter the late hour, wolf hospitality demanded that a guest be fed a meal. In a house of wolves, especially growing teenaged ones, there was no lack of enthusiasm for a "second dinner." Rand was amused by the mix of pajamas and daily wear he saw around the table. Pajamas for the teens, mostly day wear for the adults.
They had a spacious two-level cabin. It had been built by the hands of everyone at the table, and they were excited to share what each had contributed to their home, laughing and speaking over one another, but in that amicable way that siblings did. The energy of it soaked into Rand's body, putting him at ease.
There were several at the table who were not Fane and Lynn's offspring. Idris was the mate of their daughter, Sangra. They'd met while she was away at school. Sangra was a nurse, which complemented her brother Todd's specialty of veterinarian medicine. He was part of a practice in the town fifty miles away and had an apartment there, though he came to the woods to be with his family most weekends. His wife was human, something that obviously concerned Lynn, though she was friendly enough to Zelda.
Mated to a shifter, Zelda could apply to be bitten according to ritual, and become one of the pack. Perhaps Lynn's concern was that Zelda didn't want to do that.
It wasn't unusual for shifters to choose human professions and blend into that life. It was what had kept them mostly invisible to the world for so long, not just vampires. And yes, some did mate with humans, though the relationships often didn't work out long term. Partly because shifters were as paranoid as vampires about hiding their existence from hu
mans. Which meant many shifters who mated humans never told them, instead figuring out how to live a double life.
Fane's other adult daughter, Cilya, was divorced. Though the reasons for that weren't discussed, Rand wondered if that was part of the cause. She had only arrived an hour before he had, having had a work commitment in the city that had run late.
While Todd had revealed his identity to his wife, the other challenge to a shifter-human relationship was children. As difficult as healthy births were for shifters who were born wolves, the percentages were even lower for a transformed human female. And a human female who didn't want to become a shifter couldn't conceive with one.
That issue didn't seem to concern Todd and Zelda presently. The two were obviously still in a honeymoon phase. And Todd seemed comfortable with the human life he led.
Whereas during his grieving period Rand had rarely wanted to shift out of being a wolf, there were shifters who stayed in human form most of the time. Some eventually embraced their human side and only ran as wolves...well, once in a blue moon.
Unlike the wolf shifting side, there seemed to be no permanent effects to a shifter staying human for long periods of time. They could become wolf anytime they wished, though Todd joked that, when he did have time to shift and run in some of the more wooded parks near his home, sometimes his joints felt like they needed WD-40.
Wolf shifters didn't have many of the limitations vampires did to blending into society, Rand realized. They could be out night or day; when they were human, they looked human. No oddness to their eyes, or a preternatural stillness or deliberation to their movements like Cai had. That eerie yet compelling scrutiny that made someone want to get closer to him.
On that note, he'd noticed Cilya watching him more closely than the others. She was attractive and well put together, with straight hair to her shoulders in a soft bob, large dark eyes that seemed to miss little, and a pleasant mouth. Because she'd run late from work, she still wore her work clothes; slacks and a sleeveless blouse that complimented her curves. A pretty necklace of thin wire and sparkling stones was tucked into the V-neckline.
Polite conversation revealed she was a dean at a middle school. There was an insightful intelligence and firm directness to her that reminded Rand of Sheba. None of the pups had been able to get a lie past her, or would even try. She valued integrity and had instilled that in them. Cilya seemed to exercise the same code toward her charges. Rand liked the entertaining stories she told about mentoring her at-risk kids, and when he chuckled a couple times, she looked his way and seemed pleased that she'd made him laugh.
She sat beside him at the table, and the relaxed contact of wolves, her hand touching his when the food was passed, or the brush of her hip, was not unwelcome or overly forward. Just wolfish.
