Chapter 15
The darkness surrounding the monster in front of them seemed to follow it as it paced just out of reach.
Mark didn’t know what kept it from attacking them, but he thanked the Goddess for it.
Once again, his inability to access his wolf had made him a liability.
He glanced at Caster, whose full attention was on the creature, and shame flooded his system.
He’d saved his life. That was an inescapable fact.
If he hadn’t, Mark would not be here to exact vengeance on the witch.
“Thank you.” He hadn’t intended to say it, and his hope his whispered moment of vulnerability had gone unheard died when Caster turned to face him.
They stared at each other for a moment, Caster’s eyes swimming with questions Mark couldn’t answer, didn’t want to answer. He shifted his eyes to the ground, giving in to a sudden desire to remain unseen by a vampire who didn’t seem to miss much.
“We are safe for now. But we can’t leave.”
Mark turned his gaze toward the creature holding them captive. “Why won’t it attack?”
“You don’t feel it?” Caster’s skepticism colored every word.
“Feel what?” Mark dared to look him in the eye, expecting to find the familiar smirk, shocked to see genuine concern and a bit of curiosity.
“The magic here. It’s protecting us from that thing.” He moved to the closest tree, leaning against it, studying Mark with too much interest. “It’s not as strong as Riley’s magic, but you should be able to feel it.”
Mark shrugged. He didn’t owe him or anyone any explanations.
Caster nodded toward his hand. “Why aren’t you healing?”
His tone held no command, and Mark stamped down on the wish that it had.
Until now, he hadn’t realized how much he wanted to talk about it.
He looked at his hands, studying them for an answer to Caster’s question.
Blood continued to seep through tiny cuts all over his body.
They would heal, but with his wolf further out of reach than should be, healing took longer for him.
He heard Caster’s sharp intake of breath, and he looked up to catch his eyes glide over the blood on his hands. He frowned, too aware of his companion’s natural tendency to gravitate towards blood.
“You smell good, that’s all.” The casual shrug accompanying the words did nothing to ease Mark’s discomfort.
Mark wiped away the blood onto his clothes, realizing his mistake when Caster laughed.
“You’re just spreading it around.” He pushed away from the tree he leaned against, and Mark had to strain to hold his ground. “Relax, you have nothing to fear from me.”
The attack he’d fortified himself for didn’t come. Caster guided his body to the forest floor with more grace than Mark expected.
Still, he couldn’t relax. “Right…”
Caster rested against the tree with a drawn-out sigh, raising his head toward the canopy. “You interrupted my meal earlier. The least you can do is offer a replacement.”
Mark took an inadvertent step back, only to be stopped by another large tree behind him. He kept a close eye on the predator in front of him, all too aware of the other monster to his left.
“You might want to sit. We may be here a while.” The smirk was back even though Caster’s eyes were closed.
How could he be so relaxed with a monster still growling its intent right next to them, with nothing between them but a magical barrier Mark didn’t believe was even there?
Caster looked at him, his eyes roaming his body in a way that made him a different kind of uncomfortable. “There is a barrier. Why you can’t feel it, I don’t understand.”
“I told you to stop reading my thoughts.” The words came out with too much defensiveness for his liking.
Caster’s full smile intensified his discomfort. “Protect them from me. You do know how to do that, don’t you?”
Of course, he did. It was the first thing he’d learned soon after…
. He stopped, unwilling to share that particular moment with the vampire who seemed to exert zero effort in bypassing every one of his defenses.
When he was around, Mark lost the ability to focus on the mental barrier that kept vampires out of his head.
He took in a slow, fortifying breath, reaching for that mental block.
There, he had it back. Now he needed to hold on to it.
Exhaustion called to him, and he sank to the ground, allowing the tree at his back to take his weight.
They faced each other, although Mark was careful to look everywhere but at Caster’s intense gaze.
He turned to the left, and the creature whose low growls had softened but not stopped snarled at him, its murderous intent clear.
“Why do you think we’ll be here a while?”
“I can’t reach Riley.” Caster nodded towards their jailer. “And something tells me our friend here likes the night. Let’s hope whatever this magic is, it will keep us out of its reach until morning.”
“You can’t reach Riley?”
“His protection spell means I can call to him and he’d find me wherever I am.” He frowned. “I can’t seem to find the connection now.”
Mark nodded even if he understood very little of what Caster had said. Witches had long allied themselves with vampires and therefore had little contact with wolves. He knew little of witchcraft and had even less desire to learn.
“Feel free to ignore me, but are you trained?”
The question startled him, bringing his defensiveness about his submissive nature to the fore. “You could make me tell you.”
“Is that what you want?”
He hadn’t considered it, having suppressed this side of himself for so long. Caster was the first dominant he’d responded to for too long. He studied his hands to keep from nodding.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
He looked up too fast. “Haven’t you already?”
“I haven’t used my influence to make you do what I want, have I?” He shook his head when Mark leaned forward, ready to argue his case. “You couldn’t catch your breath, and I didn’t want you to pass out.”
Mark dared a look at his face. The smirk was gone, replaced with an earnest look that prodded him to understand.
He relaxed against the tree once more, but looking at Caster for too long brought sensations he’d never hoped to experience again, so he glanced at his hands.
His wounds closed much slower than they should, but he couldn’t do anything about that. The pain he could endure, even use.
“I would never use my dominance to get answers from you. Unless you want me to.”
He didn’t look at him. “I don’t.”
Caster sighed, and the monster growled. The wolf in Mark could sense dawn beyond the horizon. Perhaps one or two hours away. It would be morning soon, and if Caster was right, perhaps they would be safe enough to move.
“Do you think the others are OK?” He asked without looking at Caster.
“I have no way of knowing. But they must be faring much better than us.”
“This creature belongs to the witch, doesn’t it?”
“You’ll have to look at me at some point, you know. It’s hard to talk to you if I can’t see your face.”
He could make him look at him as he’d done earlier. The events in that room seemed a lifetime ago, although he was certain that memory would not go anywhere anytime soon. Mark forced himself to look at him.
“That’s better.” He turned towards the creature who’d gone silent for the last few minutes. “We may have found the outer edge of her property.”
“And that thing is her security system?”
Caster smiled. “You could say that.”
His joy made Mark uneasy in ways he didn’t want to explore.
“Yes. Yes, I am trained.” He didn’t know why he needed him to know.
The acknowledgment thrust him to the past, back to a time when everything made sense, when everything was simpler.
He fortified his body against the surge of pain threatening to break free.
“What is it?” Before he could snap at him for reading his mind, Caster moved, his unnatural speed reducing the distance between them to mere millimeters in half a moment. He knelt in front of him, within touching distance. “I didn’t read your mind. I heard the subtle change in your heartbeat.”
Mark closed his eyes, shaking his head to deny it all, deny the pain and this moment.
“Will you look at me?” The unique scent he’d come to associate with Caster wafted through the small space between them to awaken his wolf.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Make me.”
A second passed, followed by a sharp intake of breath. “Open your eyes.”
There was no mistaking the command, and his body responded as expected.
Part of him, a tiny part of his human side, rejoiced that he could still hand over control.
His wolf sought to please its new master and awoke with a start, prancing around behind the barrier that kept him at bay.
With every knock at the barrier, the resurgence of his wolf’s power grew more apparent, and the wounds on his body closed faster.
Startled by the new development, he stared at Caster and then at his healing wounds. This had never happened before. He’d lost the expedited healing that characterized his species as his wolf had retreated further into his mind. How was this possible?
“You’re healing…” There was pride in Caster’s voice, even though he couldn’t understand the effect he had on Mark’s wolf.
Caster raised his hand towards his face, slow enough to give him time to reject him.
Mark wanted his touch, even if his rational mind told him to run and never look back.
Caster’s fingers on his brow stole his breath again.
It was a hair of a caress, a tease of a touch, and Mark had to grab onto the forest floor to keep from swaying into it and clamp his jaw shut to keep from begging for more.
“Breathe…”
His chest ached with the next intake of breath, only for him to choke on it when Caster’s hand touched the edges of his hair. His fingers were cold against his too-hot skin, and he sighed, his eyes drifting shut.
“If I tell you to breathe again, I will be very disappointed.” His hand went through Mark’s hair with little effort. “What’s wrong, hmm?”
The way he phrased it and the tone of his voice said he didn’t require an answer. Mark tried to find an answer that would satisfy him. It was taking everything he had to focus on his next breath, the desire to keep from disappointing him overriding everything else.
The second pass of his hand in his hair tore a moan from him, and this time he lacked the strength to keep from swaying into Caster’s solid form.
He was so far beyond aroused, a single touch, a word, was all it would take to send him hurtling over the edge.
It had been so long since he’d crossed that line.
Every time he’d approached it in the last decade had felt like a betrayal of the only person who’d guided him past it.
Caster sucked in a breath. “No! That’s not what’s happening here.”
Mark looked at him, begging him for something, anything.
Caster shook his head, but his continued easy touches, his hand now at the base of Mark’s skull, confused him. “Believe me, I want you. I haven’t wanted someone like this in a long time. But no.”
Caster leaned forward so there was almost no space between their faces.
His lips were so close, all Mark had to do was take what he wanted.
But he couldn’t, not without his permission.
It was the only time in his life that Mark ever hated his submissiveness.
Most people didn’t understand his need to be controlled, but he wouldn’t trade the freedom it brought him for anything.
Except maybe a single taste of Caster’s lips.
The caress at the base of his skull drew another moan from him, and he closed his eyes, begging for strength to pull away from whatever spell he was under.
“You don’t want to tell me?”
Unable to find the words, he shook his head, keeping his eyes closed and thanking the Goddess that Caster hadn’t required an answer.
He doubted he would ever find the courage to talk to anyone about what plagued him.
Even Dean and Mikey only knew a small part of the worst moment of his life.
He wasn’t about to tell a stranger. The pain was his penance until he couldn’t bear it any longer, then he’d let it consume him.
The disappointment in Caster’s sigh caused his wolf to whine, a painful sound that reverberated across their shared mind space and through his body. The discomfort came full circle when Caster dropped his hand and moved to his side.
He missed the contact with a ferocity that scared him, and part of him wanted to tell the vampire everything if he promised to touch him again.
But the more rational side reminded him of the danger the appealing body beside him concealed.
He was a vampire, and because of what his kind had cost him, there was no way Mark would ever trust him enough to let him in.
He was unsure he would ever trust anyone enough to share the burden of his pain.