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I'm a shifter, and a third marked servant. Both come with accelerated healing abilities. She can have some of my blood without it endangering me. Long as you aren't planning any more fights to the death today.
Cai's scowl deepened. Fine. But you will get some blood from me before I go to ground tonight, wolf.
Rand's answer was a noncommittal grunt. Fortunately, Cai's attention was sidetracked when Dovia dropped below the surface. She emerged before either of them could worry she'd collapsed or moved to a section over her head. She'd simply wanted to immerse herself.
She stood, stroking water through her hair, over her skin, removing blood and memory. She was a lovely creature, as all vampires were. Her breasts firm and nipples peaked from the water, her skin pale and soft. With her hair wet, it hinted at the waves of shimmering silk it would be when it grew back to its former length and fullness.
Her delicate chin dipped, her profile pensive. Her hands slid just beneath the water's surface to fold over her stomach. Her gaze lifted and met Cai's. The tension that thrummed between them now had a different weight, but Cai didn't back away from it. He drew closer, stood before her.
"I'm sorry," he said. After taking the blood, he'd become easier to understand, though he still spoke low, in a gravelly rasp. "It was the only way I knew to protect you until we could figure out an escape."
Her head bowed again in that posture of deep thought. "It's an amazing gift," she whispered.
"I didn't think so. Not for a long time, since it was what...it was why they took me when I was a kid. But today...yeah. I was glad to have it. Wish I'd known how to use it to roast that bastard's ass a long time ago. If I hadn't fought it for so long..."
A shudder ran through her and her eyes closed tightly, her face folding in on itself. For the first time since they'd arrived at the water, she looked hunched, defeated. Cai shook his head at himself. Putting the self-flagellation aside, he moved closer and put both hands on her shoulders.
His voice dropped so he spoke even more softly.
"I can take it away."
She stilled and lifted her head, staring at him. Cai held her gaze. Her hand lifted between them, as if she was going to touch his face, but it hovered there, and her body started to shake harder. Cai clasped the hand in his larger one, letting them both rest on his chest, over his heart. The rhythm of it seemed to steady her, though her expressive face was gripped by anguish.
"I just need it gone," she whispered. "I can't feel it grow and know...I see their faces...I can't do it. I know it's...innocent, and there are too few of us, but I can't. If my father knew, if any of them knew...it would be too much. My father, he's already..."
This time it was Cai's chest where she pressed her face, her arms folded against her. She convulsed as if she was in greater danger of breaking now than even before. Cai's arms slowly slid around her. He didn't look toward Rand this time. His expression became harder. Starker.
"There's no shame in it," he said. "No wrong. Me doing it, that was the wrong, even if I couldn't think of anything else. I've never considered it a gift, my lady. It's like on some particularly irresponsible day, a god tipped over a wine cup and splashed the gift of creation into the hands of a court jester, born a halfwit."
His sudden harsh chuckle made Rand tense. He didn't worry that Cai would harm the girl. It was more that he didn't seem to know how to deal with people and sometimes said the absolute wrong thing. Which most people and circumstances could absorb, but Dovia couldn't handle right now.
Cai took a breath, his shoulders lifting. When he spoke against her hair, the gravelly tone had evened out. "It was totally random, Goddard discovering my gift. I was out in a hay field one night with a girl. I wasn't supposed to be with her, but we'd snuck out. I made a plant sprout from a seed in my hand. I did it to impress her. Goddard was watching.
"My guess is he'd planned to make us dinner. He killed her...took me. I was human with them for a while, until one night, Lodell...he turned me. Another Trad. The good kind, and there are some good ones out there. Lodell said he turned me to even the odds, and his money was on me. They chopped off one of his legs below the knee and burned it with his own blood so it wouldn't grow back. To punish him."
Dovia tipped her head back, her mouth tight. She can't handle this right now, Rand thought, but then her eyes met the vampire's. In that blink of communication, Rand recognized that there were things the vampire species shared that weren't part of the shifter world. The underlying violent nature of the vampire world, for instance. Dovia understood.
Her slim hands reached up and cupped Cai's jaw. "You risked much, coming back to save me. You'll always have my gratitude. I can't ask any more of you."
"You're not asking anything of me." His much larger hand touched her face, tracing the delicate line of it. "Turn around and lean back against me, little girl."
Warmth and hope filled Rand's vitals when her sad face rearranged into a faintly irritated expression, the kind a young woman might make when a male called her a little girl. But Cai nudged her, and she relented, turning around and putting her back to him. He laid his hands on her shoulders again.
"I'm going to need to press against you. Intimate, but not sexual. I promise. Can you trust me? Or at least trust that if I tried anything inappropriate, Rand would rip off one of my arms?"
That produced a tiny smile. "He's your servant. He'd do no such thing."
"Oh, hell yes he would. He doesn't have a subservient bone in his four-legged body. The two-legged one, either."
Cai folded his arms around her, his hands cupping her belly, over her womb.
Rand worried that Cai didn't have the strength for whatever he was about to do, but the vampire seemed unconcerned about it.
Creation is as easy as breathing, wolf. Part of what makes it so fucking scary.
Rand felt the power building as Cai matched heartbeats with her. Their chests started to rise and fall together when Cai murmured to her to intentionally mimic breathing. An obvious way to center and align their energies.
Sensing movement, Rand saw Daegan appear. He'd arrived silently, despite the dense undergrowth skirting the perimeter of forest. His gaze moved to Rand and Rand shook his head, a reassurance he hoped he didn't have to reinforce by shifting back to human. After all that had happened tonight, it felt far better to be more animal than man right now.
Cai's power floated out over the water, touched Rand like a mist and spread out. Daegan felt it, too, lifting his hand as if to twine it over his fingers. His dark eyes were unfathomable. As Cai had said, the vampire sensed something was up. The question was what he'd do with the knowledge.
With Dovia aware of Cai's creation magic, it was possible a larger audience would know about it soon, anyway. Rand knew Cai would place no obligation upon her, even the holding of his secret. No matter what that might cost him.
Yet after what Rand had seen tonight, and ever since Cai had mentioned his abilities, he had to wonder just how far Cai's creation magic could go if he did pursue it, study it. A question for another time.
Daegan lowered his hand and gave Rand an odd look, but melted back into the woods. A few moments later, Cai's shoul
ders and lower back shuddered, a ripple of power.
"It's all right," he said. "Open your eyes if you like."
She'd closed them during the process, leaning fully back against him. Now Rand saw her head raise. Cai lifted his hands before her, opening them like a bird's wings. Rand, gripped by a sudden sense of awe, watched the mote of energy roll over his fingers and start to rise. It was tiny, like a shard of light caught in a dewdrop. Cai and Dovia's heads tilted upward in sync, watching the soul rise, and rise. Then it was gone, melted into moonlight.
There was a sculpted, severe beauty to Cai's face, sorrow and heartbreak for once uncontained, exposed. His life, horrific as many parts of it had been, hadn't taken away his wish to bring a damaged spirit what ease he could.
The vampire still knew what compassion was, even if he often pretended otherwise.
The girl's control completely broke. Her sobs came in powerful waves. Cai's arms swept around her again, his body curving over her, head tucked down on top of hers. He spoke so softly to her, that this time even Rand's enhanced hearing didn't pick it up, but his mind and senses did.
You'll be all right. You don't think you will be. But you will, because anything else means they win, and you're too damn strong to let that happen. You'll grow into a formidable woman. When you think of this, you'll think of how it helped make you. You're no victim. A soul can't be broken. A body, sure, like kindling. A heart? Into a million pieces. But not the soul. That goddamn thing is industrial strength energy. It's not letting anything break it apart.
"You can be anything you want to be, love anyone you fucking want." Cai spoke louder. "Don't let them take any of that from you."
Maybe she was hearing it, maybe she wasn't. Rand figured she was mostly benefitting from the comforting, non-threatening strength of his arms, the flow of words. That was fine, because he was pretty sure the words weren't just for her.
