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Cai blinked. He was on his back, head turned to stare at the main cabin, the biggest pile of electric ash. He didn't want to look at that. His eyes moved to a body. Goddard, dead eyes, stake in his chest, rest of him mostly burnt up. That was a good feeling. But it still wasn't what he wanted to look at. He had one important thing to see before he decided if he needed to puke up some internal organs.
Yeah, there he was. Rand. Pretty much wallpapered with smoke and ash, but still naked enough to give Cai prurient imaginings. Well, if he wasn't worried about why he was lying on the ground. Fane was over him, along with Todd. They were doing something...
Cai winced, feeling a sympathetic stab through his leg as Todd and Fane splinted Rand's. Rand white-knuckled Todd's biceps, another of those harsh cries coming from him, but then it was quiet.
Didn't matter. It still hurt worse than the million pains of his own that Cai knew were hovering just beyond that cloud of limited awareness. He should be over there, his arm the one that Rand should be bruising. He wanted Rand to be up and walking, not hurt. Only guy he knew who could walk with his dick swinging free and make it look sexy, not foolish.
"You're in too bad of shape to think about anyone's dick right now, let alone mine."
Cai opened his eyes. What the fuck? Apparently, he'd zoned out again and woken up like a defenseless baby. Trying to orient himself by the position of the moon above, he realized probably another hour had passed.
"Given the day you've had, you can be forgiven for taking a cat nap."
Cai's lips tried to stretch into a smile, but it just hurt too damn much. Do wolves chase cats like dogs do?
"No, we eat them. Though the meat isn't great. Carnivores don't taste that good."
Rand had a big stick acting as a crutch under his arm, though it was stretched out alongside his leg, because he was sitting on a propped-up stump someone had brought from somewhere so he could sit right next to Cai's recumbent body. The shifter's leg was swollen and he was in obvious pain, but he had a tight, feral grin on his face. Anyone else would have been screaming, but Cai expected the wolf was temporarily anesthetized by adrenaline, like all of them.
"I'd have to be dead not to think about your dick," Cai said, recalling the earlier comment, which he hoped was a few minutes ago, instead of a couple hours. Nothing was clear. He wasn't even sure if the words came out. His throat just didn't seem to be functioning. But he was alive.
Todd was there, helping him up. Rand got up at the same time. As he did, he reached for Cai with his one free arm, a gesture that said he wanted Todd to turn Cai over to him. Todd glanced at Rand's leg, but Rand just gave him an intent look, and Fane's son acquiesced, though he let go of Cai gradually in case Rand was overestimating himself.
He wasn't. As Rand slid an arm around Cai, Cai had an odd compulsion he followed, pressing his face briefly against the male's jaw and temple. He inhaled the scent of smoke and lingering magic from Rand's snarled hair, and found his voice again. "Don't ever do something like that again. If he was strong enough to break me, he could have done worse to you."
"He was not strong enough to break you," Rand said.
There was a lot of weight to those words, and they made things inside Cai even harder to manage, so he ignored them.
"Yeah, he was. He just got distracted by the green fire shooting out of his ass and every other orifice."
He thought of Rand running toward Goddard, stake in clenched fist, that killing light in his eyes, the sheer power of him, as strong as those flames. Yeah, maybe that kind of strength was far easier to break than most realized. But Cai was never underestimating the wolf again. Even as he'd still bust his ass later for doing something that stupid, no matter how capably he'd done it.
He blinked, clearing another hazy recommendation for unconsciousness out of his eyes. "We should find a place to sit for a really long time."
"We will. In a minute. Gideon is coming."
Cai focused enough to see what Rand was seeing. Gideon was striding toward them. Daegan was nearby, too. Sitting on another log, he appeared to be cleaning his sword or sending thanks to the decapitation gods. Cai figured Gideon was his emissary to check on how they were doing.
"Don't be mad at him," Gideon advised, showing he'd heard what Cai had said. "For one thing, that was a truly stellar staking. Second, it's what we servants like to do."
"Stake vampires? How reassuring." Cai realized his voice was really fucked. It was like a frog with smoker's cough.
Gideon grinned. "Help our vampires. Save their asses on occasion." He glanced toward Goddard, the remains of Brutus and all the piles of ash. "We were on our way, you know."
"Yeah, but you were taking such a damn long time about it. I figured you'd stopped off at the general store to get yourself a Coke and a Moon Pie."
Daegan joined them, the sword disappearing into the folds of that movie-prop style duster he wore. It should have seemed melodramatic, but he seemed to live up to the coolness of the coat. Not that Cai was going to tell him that.
Gideon tossed his vampire master an amused look. "Hell, we should have done that. These two and the wolf pack had everything in control. Those double-decker Moon Pies are awesome."
"If you don't annoy me on the way back, maybe we'll stop and get you one," Daegan said.
"Dovia," Cai rasped.
"We came upon Lady Dovia and the shifters protecting her, just before we arrived at this location," Daegan said. "I told them to take her on to a safe place and wait for a signal that all was clear."
"Good," Cai said. How had he gotten back on the ground? Rand was there with him, sitting propped up against the stump, Cai pretty much lying in his wolf's arms. He should do something about that, but it didn't bug him enough, looking up at everything from that vantage point. Whenever he tried to move his head, the world tilted in the wrong direction.
Cai tightened his hand on Rand's, lying loosely on his bare chest. "Danger's past. She can go to Fane's for the night. No reason to bring her back here."
"Except to see he's dead," Gideon said. "Sometimes, that can be important."
Cai met the male's midnight blue gaze. Lot of blue eyes going around--his, Rand's, Gideon's--but all of them different shades.
"Yeah. It is." He shifted his attention to Rand. "Let it be her decision.
"Of course." Rand drew a female shifter over and spoke to her in a low tone. In human form, she was slim as a willow, her curves small but appealing. She had long, dark hair and looked like a Native American. At Rand's direction, she shifted back to a wolf, her coat an interesting-looking golden color. She moved out of the clearing, likely to get a good acoustic point to send up a relay signal. Confirming it, a series of howls and yips kicked off a few minutes later, thankfully from only one or two wolves, because Cai didn't think he was up to a full victory serenade.
Time to be manly and get on his own feet. He struggled up, with Daegan's help. The vampire courteously stepped back once he was vertical. Gideon had assisted Rand, mainly because the splinted leg wouldn't make rising easy, but Cai was mortified that Rand looked steadier, even with his crutch and messed-up knee. Cai swayed alarmingly.
Rand shifted closer, though Cai mostly tried not to prop with his full weight. "Hell." He looked down, blinking to focus. "My legs are still attached, right?"
"All of you is in one piece, but you look like Sybil at the prom." Gideon slid a critical look over him. "A lot of blood on you, and I think most of it's yours."
"A feeding would be in order. For both of you." Daegan was studying him as closely. "What happened there, at the end? The fire."
"Explosives," Rand said. "Gas lines between the cabins. Fane and his boys figured out how to turn it to our advantage. They're handy that way. Respectfully, we need a moment."
Rand said it courteously enough, but was already moving Cai away from the two vampire hunters.
He is totally not going to buy that shit.
"Have him prove differently. Here." Rand kept a bracin
g arm around his waist and back. "Use me to lean. Where are we going?"
How had he known what Cai was wanting, needing? Was his mind that open? Emanating feelings that he couldn't even figure out himself, Cai stopped again, swaying this time from an even more alarming rush of...everything. Rand's arm tightened around him, that strong, muscular arm and big, stable body. Cai had never leaned on anyone, let alone someone he felt he could lean on forever and who wouldn't give an inch.
"You need to lean on me as much as I do you," he said defensively, pretending not to see Rand's knowing look.
"Whatever you say, vampire. This was an incredibly stupid plan, you know," Rand said, studying the carnage.
"That's what usually works. I'm going that way."
"I know."
They limped together to where Goddard lay. Dead eyes staring. Dead. Actually dead. Cai's lips pursed and then the world tilted again as something shifted in his chest, so large, powerful and fierce. He wished he was like Rand and could howl. Howl out all of it.
"Goddard took me from my family." Rand knew it, and Cai could have thought it, but somehow it was important to say it, even in that crazy frog-voice. "All these years, the others are gone, because his freaky-assed sect of Trads have a way of turning on each other and ending up dead, big surprise. All these years..."
Cai's lips firmed. He was wrong. He did feel like he'd been staked, or that the fire he'd used to immolate Goddard was still burning in his own chest. "I need you to step back."
"You'll fall."
