She glanced back down at Cai, encompassing Rand in the look, since the wolf-shifter was dressed and standing at his side. Her gaze was no less appreciative of his form in the snug denim. Cai might not be pleased, but he couldn't argue with it. He wanted to ogle the guy himself, but he forced himself to keep his gaze on the vampire queen.
"I'll look forward to seeing you at our next rising," Lyssa said. "Job well done, all of you." Then she was gone. Not much of a chatter box. He liked that about her. He was starting to like a lot of things about her, despite his strong wish not to do so.
"If you'll follow me, sirs," John said courteously, pushing open the door. A glance around showed Cai that Daegan and Gideon were headed off in a different direction, apparently satisfied that John would come to no harm. Was that a communication from Lyssa, or something else? Regardless, Cai was glad not to have the watchdogging detail.
He ascended the stairs to follow John, Rand at his heels. Rand's hand brushed his hip, probably an inadvertent thing, but he liked the casual intimacy. As he'd suspected, Cai noticed the wolf had paid for that dramatic entrance, because his limp as they moved up the stairs was more pronounced, though Rand shrugged off Cai's offer of a shoulder to grab.
Inside the house, a wide foyer with lots of marble and mahogany led into an almost equally wide hallway. At the end of it, a ten-foot-tall stained-glass window provided the focus feature of an atrium decorated with palm trees and comfortable wicker furniture. Lots of windows for nighttime viewing of the stars. Or for servants to enjoy during the day, maybe.
The slim boy led them down a winding staircase from there to the underground levels. More marble, polished wood, torch lamps set in the wall, and fancy art. But it was warm stuff, not the type of pieces that made Cai wonder why anyone spent loads of money for crap. This was Council headquarters, but from what Cai had gleaned, Lyssa had to spend a lot of time here. She obviously wanted it to be a home, not just a monument to Council power, though he expected there were chambers here that made that part of things clear to anyone stupid enough not to pick up on it.
Though Cai could still see all the ideas bouncing around behind his steady, intelligent brown eyes, John remained obedient to Lyssa's order. He kept his questions relevant to their stay as he escorted them toward the quarters that would be theirs. "It's normally assumed that a visiting vampire wants his servant to be given a separate room in the servants' quarters," he said. "Close, where he can quickly respond to your call. Is that what you wish?"
"If that's the normal thing, why are you asking me?" Cai said.
The boy's dark skin flushed. "Lady Lyssa said you were raised among the Trad and your servant"--his gaze shifted to Rand--"is a wolf shifter, so it didn't seem courteous to assume you'd follow the normal protocol for vampires. I wanted you to be aware of all the options."
The way his attention lingered on Rand showed a boy's eager hope that the male would morph into a wolf again, right before his eyes. Cai could feel Rand's amusement and a tenderness toward the kid that was tempting him to do just that.
Hold off for just a bit. We don't know Lyssa's policy toward animals in this part of the house. And she just talked Bran and his pack out of tearing you apart.
Rand shot him a look as Cai tossed him a grin, then answered the boy. "We'll share a room. He's not entirely housebroken."
"Says the vampire who called Lady Lyssa names and attacked another vampire's servant," Rand said dryly.
John's eyes popped open even wider than they had when Rand shifted. "You called Lady Lyssa names? And who did you attack?"
"Someone who deserved it. Aren't servants supposed to be seen and not heard?" Cai asked John. "I expect you know the protocol better than we do."
He surprised a shy smile out of John. "It depends on the vampire and the servant, sir," he said with deliberate graveness. "Like Lady Lyssa and Jacob. He may not say a lot out loud, but there's plenty of talk going on between them. They don't always agree on things. You can kind of tell because he gets this look--Lady Lyssa calls it his stubborn Irishman look--or her eyes get a bit sharper, like icicles. But he won't have said a word, and she won't say anything to him. Most of the time the disagreements are about stuff to keep her safe. Or him safe. They love each other, see, so they have to fight about that kind of thing."
If the boy had said that Lyssa turned into one of the front porch gargoyles and flew around on full moon nights, he couldn't have startled Cai more. Yeah, he'd already put together that some of the vampire and servant pairings weren't what he'd expected, but to hear it said so matter-of-factly, and by a kid, as if it was no big secret, was another level of WTF. Cai masked his reaction with a tone of forced casualness. "I thought Council vampires were anal about saying that shit out loud."
John looked discomfited, as if he realized he was saying too much, but after reflection, he nodded. "A lot of them are. But she's not. I guess because she's the biggest and strongest of all of them. Nobody's going to say she's wrong."
"Well, strongest maybe. I'm a lot bigger. You're almost taller than her yourself."
John beamed. "Almost. Another inch or two. She measures me against the door of my room and marks it. Says when I'm taller she'll let me do more to help my grand-dad. If he's okay with it."
Picturing Lady Lyssa as a maternal aunt-type, one openly in love with her servant, was kind of freaking Cai out. Especially after the fish wife/gardener routine, calling down her dogs and having dirt smudges. So he wasn't unhappy when John took his leave with a courteous encouragement to use the house phone if they needed anything else.
"Better than a fucking Hilton," Cai muttered, looking around at the posh appointments. Cushioned chairs, deep couch and a wide bed with lots of pillows. Though they were below ground, it didn't feel like any basement he'd ever experienced. Even nicer than at Greenwald's, and that had been pretty nice. There were lots of green plants, kept alive God-knew-how. A wide screen TV was set up to show different views of the outside grounds. Good as having a window.
Rand was moving around, examining the bric-a-brac at the writing desk and night stand. His hair was still loose. It was in need of a brushing, which didn't detract from his good looks in the slightest. It did give Cai an odd desire to brush his hair. He saw one, with a variety of other toiletry items, set out in silver containers on the spacious bathroom counter.
He was fucking losing it. He needed air, but dawn was too close. Fuck it. He and Rand needed the forest. They didn't belong here. He should have gone to run with Rand, the way Rand had wanted him to. Fucking idiocy. All of it.
He noticed a mental wince from Rand and cocked his head.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Not nothing. When I said fuck it, you winced. You don't agree."
"I do agree. I just wish you wouldn't curse so much."
Cai was able to read his mind, but that was so outside what he'd expect to hear from Rand, he realized he would have overlooked the thought as no more than wind in the trees if the wolf hadn't said anything. "Seriously?"
Rand shrugged. He was standing in front of the mounted flat screen. As he studied a garden view, he lifted his arms, combing his fingers with brisk practicality through his hair. With a distracting display of bunched biceps, he started to braid it. Maybe he'd heard what Cai thought about his hair.
"You talk the way you want to talk. It's okay," Rand added. "The profanity just gets a little heavy for me, sometimes."
"Oh." Cai thought he'd never noticed it, but now, thinking back, he realized that little wince had happened more than once. The Goddard thing had merely pushed it far down the things-to-notice list.
Rand had moved into the bathroom to check it out. After a moment, Cai followed. He laid a hand on Rand's forearm, drawing his attention, and touched the braid. He'd bound it with the tie he'd apparently retrieved at the convenience store and tucked back into his pocket. "You're supposed to brush this before you braid it."
"Women do that," Rand responded.
 
; "Well, yeah. But excess profanity seems to bother women more than men, too."
Cai laughed and fended off Rand's punch, though it took effort and skill. The male never did anything without focus and intent, his finger on the trigger always intended to shoot. Cai pressed him against the sink, arm folded up behind his back, and stared at him in the mirror. The strong face, mildly annoyed eyes, but with a slight curve to his mouth and a touch of heat in his expression. Cai rubbed his hardening groin against his tight ass and felt the surge of answering response go through Rand.
"Take off your clothes. I prefer you naked."
"Yeah? Same goes."
Cai put his mouth to the joining point of broad shoulder and corded neck, and slid his one functional fang along it. "Glad to hear it. But right now, I want you naked for me, while I stand here fully clothed and enjoy...
What's mine.
"...you."
From the look in Rand's gaze, Cai knew the shifter had picked up the meaning. Cai pressed past it, keeping it physical. Just fun and games. Mostly.
"I'm going to have that ass, and that surly mouth," he murmured. "But first I'm going to brush your hair. Take off your clothes."
Okay, hair brushing really didn't fall under fun and games. It brought some confusion into the situation, but Cai couldn't bring himself to take it back. After a brief hesitation, Rand removed his shirt with that appealing upper torso stretch, then toed off his shoes and opened the jeans, working them off his hips.
Cai had stepped back to watch. He savored each inch of skin revealed; lingered on every movement of Rand's body. It was like time had slowed down and he was caught up in some kind of weird romance novel moment, where all of it mattered to him.
He pulled his attention away from Rand's body to the brush. A sturdy wooden back and stiff bristles. "I may have other uses for this, too. Like..." An idea dawned.
"A profanity jar."
"What?" When Rand turned his head, he noticed the vampire's eyes had lit up in an unsettling way. "What do you mean?"
Cai twirled the brush. "Whenever you think my cursing is getting too excessive, I'll keep a count of those reproofs. And then," he twirled it again, "I'll paddle your ass with this for that number of strokes."
Before Rand could part his lips to say what the hell, Cai gave him a demonstration, hitting his buttock with enough strength and accuracy to damn near elicit a yelp. Rand started to whirl, but Cai caught him, turned him to face the sink again. Rand gripped the sink edge in both hands. He could fight him, knock him back on his ass. But...
"How," Rand said between his teeth, "is that a way to help you with your profanity?"
"Don't know if it fucking will. But I think it will change your attitude toward it."
"If you think a little spanking is going to change my mind," Rand muttered and then bit back a curse as Cai administered another three thwacks, one perilously close to the joining point of his balls, because Cai knocked his legs out wider with a forceful maneuver that put Rand off balance a second. Mainly because the whole situation had him off balance. While the pain sang through him, it was eliciting another reaction, crazily enough. In a weird way, Rand wanted him to do it again.
"My fucking pleasure," Cai said. "Making your dick hard, isn't it?"
"Would it do the same to you?" Rand retorted, and earned another hard whack.
"Nope. And we won't find out, because I'd rip your fucking head off if you tried. I don't have what you have inside you, Rand. Deep inside. Yeah, you're a pack leader"--two more whacks, and Rand was pretty sure the sensation sang through his bones like a hammer strike--"but you got that thing in you, that if someone can prove they have a bigger dick, it's not so bad to let them win, take control from you."
Some of the amusement had dropped from Cai's voice. What lay beneath it took Rand back to the convenience store, when Cai's nature as a Master had taken them both over.
"Just so you realize I'm letting you win," Rand managed. He could feel the vampire so close. It was erotic, having the male's scent and heat, but not seeing him reflected in the mirror, while Cai was obviously drinking his fill of Rand's reflected image and the real thing.
"It's not your nature, not bone deep," the vampire said, "but because of the way you and I come together, you've figured out when you're in that zone, you're not grieving. You're not worrying about the next step. You're just letting your Master use you, and that fucking turns you on. Which is convenient, because seeing your dick get hard because I'm paddling your ass, makes mine get even harder."
"Didn't we just...do this?" Rand didn't know how to address the other part.
"Yeah. Awesome, isn't it? Never ends. This is the easy part."
Rand went quiet. Well, one part of his mind did. The other part spiked each time Cai hit him with the brush, making his ass red, the muscles flex and tighten in his buttocks, his shoulders and thighs.
How far could he push his wolf? Cai let go of Rand's nape, trailing his fingers down the slope of his back toward his raised ass. Rand stayed where he was, still as a pack of dynamite about to go off. "Yeah," Cai growled. "Stay just like that."
He hit him three more times, reveling in the meaty smack between wood and flesh, the shudder that went through Rand's body, the arousal Cai could fucking inhale, it was getting so thick and heavy.
He tossed the paddle aside and strode out of the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he did. Sensing it when Rand straightened and turned, Cai stretched out on that cushy, wide bed. It was framed on a high platform. Even had steps up to it which Cai didn't need, but someone like Dovia would have used.
Lacing his fingers behind his head, he looked, biting back a hungry groan at the sight of Rand standing in the bathroom doorway, cock brushing his belly. All of his muscles were deliciously tight.
He moved to the end of the bed and braced his hands on the foot board. Those wolf eyes narrowed, drinking in Cai's full length just as deeply.
"Time for my servant to get his ass up here and suck me off," Cai said, an unmistakable order. "Or do I need to find a belt and drive the lesson in a little harder?"
Rand showed teeth, but then he moved. Like a wolf.
One leap, and he was over the foot board and poised above Cai, balanced on his heels and tented fingers. He eased forward so he was staring down into Cai's face, the two of them inches apart.
"Bet that hurt the leg."
"Nothing hurts right now."
Cai reached up and curled his hands in the male's hair, tightened hard. "Don't test me," he said gruffly. "Turn your ass around and get to work."
But despite Rand's words, Cai saw the conflicting thoughts and feelings in his wolf's head. Responding to Cai like this was something Rand wanted, but he still didn't quite understand it. So Cai tugged on his hair again, with a different kind of pressure. "Don't think so much. It doesn't have to mean anything." Even when it feels like it means everything. "Put your mouth on me, wolf," he murmured. "Trust me."
Then, he took a risk with no calculation, just something he wanted, needed to say. "Trust your Master."
Rand waited another long moment, but he turned, adjusting so his knees were pressed into the bed over either of Cai's shoulders. Cai was rewarded with a close-up view of that fabulous ass, the heavy testicles hanging free between his thighs as Rand bent his elbows and gripped Cai's cock. He fed it into his lips, down, down, all the way to the sensitive base.
Cai was more than willing to just feel that for a few hundred years, but he was greedy enough to want more. He wanted to drive his wolf crazy. He parted his buttocks and lifted his head, using his tongue on Rand's rim, making his servant groan against his cock. Rand had to work to stay focused on going down on him, doing all the necessary things to bring Cai to climax. Cai repeatedly chastised him for losing rhythm as he worked his tongue in him, replaced it with his fingers, gripped and tugged his balls. He threatened to strap them up in rope, hogtie and leash the male to keep him at his mercy.
Which stirred Rand up even more,
until he was growling against Cai's cock. All while he was desperately sucking and licking him with an incredible driving need that made Cai lose his own fucking mind.
Cai adjusted so he could put his mouth on Rand's cock, suck it into his mouth. It became a duel then, to see who could get who off first, but he already had a head start. Rand's thighs were trembling under his caressing hands, and when Cai started giving those flexing buttocks an occasional hard slap, leaving a hand print there, or tugging and twisting on his balls to hold him back, he felt that moment when Rand's mind let go and was all his. Everything his Master wanted to do to him, he would follow and succumb, because all of it felt too damn good. And with Cai's mind open to him, he knew how good it felt to Cai, too.
His alpha pack leader, service sub, total badass, beautiful wolf...
Every brushing contact was like fire across Cai's skin, inside his loins, his balls boiling, ready to let go. But he wanted to drive this ride all the way to the end, let Rand feel what he could give him. A complete free fall, with a safety net at the bottom, all of it Cai's doing. Why he wanted to show him that, give him that, he didn't care to analyze, but he was damn ruthless at wanting to prove he could do it.
When Rand started to come with a startled protest, an attempt to tighten up, hold back, Cai was having none of it. You're mine, and you fucking come when I demand it. Right now.
The male groaned, a sound that became harsh and close to a howl as his hips worked. He acted as if he would pull away, but Cai wrapped his arms around his hips and held him, pushing him even deeper into his mouth, letting him gush into his throat. Rand's big fists bunched in the comforter, hips pistoning hard against Cai's face as he sucked and nipped, and sucked harder. Rand's howl turned into something close to a hoarse shout as Cai added to it by shoving three slickened fingers into his rectum. The male's power was awe-inspiring. Cai was having to do everything he could to hold onto him. Gloriously strong son of a bitch. All his.
Maybe just for right now, but Cai was determined to make now everything.