Page 98 of Thirst
“Oh, yeah.” I gave a humorless chuckle. “But if anyone’s vampire royalty, it’s you, Mr. Maritime Syndicate Lieutenant. You and Talon are next in line to be primus.”
“So? Brien’s not going anywhere. The man will probably be primus for the next few hundred centuries at least.”
I glanced up. “Does that bother you?”
He shook his head. “I like my place in the hierarchy just fine—me and Talon both. Brien respects our opinion, treats us like brothers.”
“Vampire royalty.”
“Nah. I’m so far from being a prince it’s funny.” His laugh rasped out of him, like it was scraped from somewhere old. “I was the island fuckup.”
I stopped drawing. “Seriously?”
Cain, a fuckup? I couldn’t make the pieces line up. All I saw was the man in front of me, all coiled control and lethal competence.
“Baker sure thought I was.” Something flickered across Cain’s face, quick and raw. “Kept telling me I’d end up in prison. He wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help me, either.”
“He sounds like an ass.”
I didn’t say cruel. I didn’t say the kind of man who leaves marks you can’t see. But Cain’s jaw tightened like he heard it anyway.
“He was, but he wasn’t wrong. Me and Talon were one bad decision from doing something that would’ve gotten us permanently banished from the island when we got lucky. Prima Lenore offered us a shot—bodyguard detail for Brien.”
“Lucky?” I frowned. Didn’t he see it? The distance between that kid and the man he was now? The power he’d accrued, the respect—and not because of his bloodline, but because he’d earned it. “Luck’s only half it. You took that shot and made something of it. You couldn’t have done that if you were such a fuckup.”
He shook his head. Then a slow smile spread over his face.
“Brien was only sixteen himself, then. But I think that’s why we hit it off—we were both just twenty ourselves. We were supposed to be protecting him, but we were nearly as wild as him.”
I resumed drawing. “Maybe his mother knew he needed that. Because he’s still here, isn’t he? He survived until he got old enough to take care of himself.”
“He was born with a lot of power, but yeah. We were damned if he was gonna get hurt on our watch. And now we’re like brothers.”
Something lodged in my throat. I swallowed over it. “You’re…that’s good. Having people like that.”
His gaze met mine, and his face softened. Somehow I knew he was thinking of my family—or lack of one. Of how I had no one like Brien and Talon in my life. No one who’d bleed for me, no questions asked.
“I am,” he said quietly.
27
Cain
“So,” Talon asked, “make any headway with Nyx?”
It was early the next evening, and we were sipping whiskey on his battered leather couch. Talon had handed Jude off to me so he could kick back on the couch, and the little guy had fallen asleep on my shoulder, gumming my collarbone. My white button-up shirt had a damp spot from his drool, but whatever. It would wash out.
I wasn’t wired for families, for fatherly love. That had been burned out of me at a young age. But when Jude snuffled and resumed gnawing like I was his favorite chew toy, something a lot like love smacked me in the heart. The last, jagged edges I’d carried since his birth—loss, jealousy, the dull ache of being on the outside—smoothed out.
I cupped Jude’s small round head and met Talon’s eyes.
“She’s good. We’re talking.”
My mouth tugged up before I could stop it. Last night we’d talked for hours, broken up by her drawing a version of me in velvet and a crown, then sending the poor bastard into battle against murderous pixies.
“Talking?” Talon smirked. “S’that what the kids call it these days?”
My eyes narrowed a fraction. “Yeah, talking.”
