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If he had to do it, he'd give Rand the third mark. Unless a third mark didn't lock into a shifter the way it did a human, it would save Rand's life. Nothing could kill him then, short of a metal stake through the heart or something irreversible, like a decapitation.
Cai wasn't sure if he believed the eternal soul-binding bullshit about vampires and fully marked servants, but there was enough about it out there he'd shied from doing it. Yeah, the wolf might not intrude on his solitude the way a human did, but hooking up souls for all eternity? Cai couldn't tolerate anyone more than a few hours, so a third mark might not prolong the wolf's life.
His lips twisted wryly, but then Rand called out hoarsely, hands reaching, grasping at something he seemed to miss catching, because they clutched and all his muscles spasmed. He arched his head back and let loose a chillingly real wolf howl, a cry of pain and need whose haunting poignancy and roller coaster volume made Cai back up a few paces.
"Okay, no," he said decidedly. "We're not doing that."
He dropped to his heels beside Rand, intending to stroke, soothe, do a few things like that to calm him down. Or shake him awake with a sharp command if necessary. Yet his skin was like ice. Rand's eyes opened, but they were seeing something beyond Cai and the camp. They were filled with an anguish that speared Cai through the chest.
"No...no..." Light died out of them and Cai's gut clutched. His one fang started to lengthen, instinctive response to his decision to third mark the guy if he came too close to that edge. But then he realized the dullness of Rand's gaze was an emotional response.
The shifter was doing something with his hands. Looking down, Cai noticed he was rubbing one hand in a scraping motion against the wrist of the other arm. Closer inspection showed it was a deliberate motion, not a convulsive tic, and the hand was curled as if holding something. Something that could cut.
Cai's eyes narrowed. He'd cleaned the male's wounds, but he was still in need of a bath to get all the blood and dirt off him the night's efforts had incurred. As a result, Cai hadn't catalogued the older scars the wolf shifter had. Suddenly, two were far more noticeable.
He gripped the male's wrists, tugging the moving hand with firm insistence away from the other arm. He stared at the thin vertical scar. Lifting the other captured wrist, he saw there was a matching one there, beneath the curl of his fingers.
Like most things, it pissed him off. But this bugged him more than usual, and he wasn't entirely sure why. People couldn't hack it and offed themselves. It happened. Life could suck too much sometimes and they didn't have it in them to push past it, strike out instead of self-destruct.
"Didn't let me." Rand's sudden coherent words and harsh chuckle startled Cai. Looking up, he met the shifter's eyes. Fever made the already vibrant color deeper, the gold like sparks of sunlight in the ocean. "Wolf took over...shifted. Somehow...pinched off the arteries. Wouldn't let me bleed out."
"So your wolf isn't the pussy that you are."
Rand didn't acknowledge the caustic comment. His muscles were all tight, sheened with sweat again even though he was shaking from cold. Yet his fingers were reaching, touching Cai's face, tracing it. Cai gripped his wrist, holding him. Feeling the ridge of the scar beneath his palm, he wondered if the scars would disappear if Rand was third marked. He didn't have a lot of experience with servants, but he'd heard that some old scars didn't go away, and no one knew why. Or maybe they did know why, and they just didn't want to talk about it.
Their clasped hands fell on Cai's chest and Rand's fingers curled against it. He'd removed his shirt again, giving the heavy weight cotton more time to dry from the earlier rain. Vampires didn't have hair below the neck, so Cai's chest was smooth, a contrast to Rand's, with its gleaming brown curls that Cai had been threading his fingers through as often as he pleased.
Another shudder passed through Rand and his eyes rolled up into his head. His jaw was twitching, teeth chattering. "Fuck it," Cai muttered.
Stretching out beside the shifter on the blanket, he wrapped it up around the two of them. He put his body flush against Rand's, arms around his massive frame, adjusting Rand so his head was tucked under Cai's jaw. It bemused him when the male's unconscious reaction was to wind his powerful arms tight around Cai, one around his waist and the other over his hips.
"Hang in there," he found himself murmuring. "Don't die. Soon as you're all right, I'm going to kick your ass for even trying."
He didn't know the guy. If he died, he died. But he still said it, meant it. Maybe because with his arms around Cai it was impossible to ignore that touch was the most basic of needs for almost every species on the planet. A need sometimes more important than any other.
Rand grunted, but it wasn't an acknowledgment. He kept muttering, saying very little that was understandable. Some of it sounded like wolf speak, coming rough and awkward out of human lips. He'd stayed in that form over two years. That was what Cai had read from the male's mind. Was that normal for a wolf shifter? He expected it wasn't. From how much Rand seemed to want to flee back into his animal self, Cai also suspected it wasn't the best thing for his long-term recuperation.
He had a couple ideas of how to handle that. But for now, he stroked the male's snarled hair, flattening his palm against the broad back and tracing his shoulder blades. When Rand pressed his bare hip into Cai's groin, his cock responded with a healthy push back under the denim, his ass tightening to help it along.
"Fuck you," Rand muttered.
Cai had no idea if it was a plea or a curse, and if it was aimed toward him, the universe or an unknown enemy, but he'd take it as a raincheck invitation. He cupped his hand over the male's jaw and face, his warm palm against clammy flesh as Rand shook some more. "It's okay," Cai said. "I've got you. You're all right."
No idea where the hell that came from, because he didn't do the nurture thing, but he kept saying it. It seemed to help the wolf shifter settle deeper into his embrace, his breath evening out, his turbulent energy easier.
"There you go. We can fight or fuck later. Just get better."
Cai had been alone a long time. He'd be alone again. But maybe, for just a little while, he'd enjoy what not being alone felt like, even if it was with someone who wished Cai had never come into his life.
Well, that wouldn't make Rand different from almost anyone else who'd ever known Cai, would it?
His lips twisted, but Cai found himself brushing them against Rand's brow. When the male tipped his face up, Cai thought what the hell, and kissed him again, a long, slow swim in fevered waters, where Rand's hands wandered over his body in unconscious response. He dug into Cai's back when Cai deepened the kiss, so Cai cupped Rand's muscular ass, holding him tighter against his groin.
Rand groaned into his mouth, his shuddering increasing, such that Cai made himself ease back. No good if he pushed the guy into the Reaper's hands by overtaxing him. But even injured, unconscious, the shifter's response was mesmerizing. Cai wanted him now. Only the desire to have him more than once reined him back. He wasn't above fucking his prey before they expired, sending them to the other side with a last good memory, heavily helped by the pheromones vampires could release with their bite. But he wanted more than a single memory with this one.
Yeah, Rand had admonished him about consent. The guy seemed to know more specifics about vampires than Cai would have expected, but that rebuke told Cai the shifter's knowledge was surface stuff. Because anyone inside the vampire circle knew the word "consent" wasn't in their vocabulary.
Cai had learned that the hard way.
Chapter Three
"Open up. Here you go."
Rand tried to avert his face, but the hand and cup followed, and the broth was pushed up against his nose. Realizing what it was, he followed it down to the ground and drank greedily. He needed meat. Not just meat-flavored water. His wish was granted, half a rabbit dropped next to the cup. It was cooked, not fresh and bloody, but he tore into it.
"Take it slow so you don't make yoursel
f sick. I thought you were getting better today. You've been in and out on me for three days." The vampire's voice sounded pleased. "Wounds are closed, no infection. No fever." His hand passed over Rand's head and shoulder.
Rand twitched away. Not pack. No touch. He showed his teeth, warning the male away from his food, never mind that he'd given it to him.
"It's intriguing to listen to your thoughts in this form. Far more basic, but understandable. Yeah, it's another reason I knew you were getting better. You shifted in your damn sleep, and were strong enough, even in that state, to keep me from overriding you. But the man's still in there. Which I think will turn out to be useful."
