Cain was never more grateful for his keen vampire senses than when he smelled Damien's panic mid-bite, barely managing to extract his fangs from the werewolf's shoulder before Damien scrambled dramatically across the bed, then whirled around to stare angrily back at him.
"You tried to enthrall me!" Damien shouted, which was not only a stupid accusation, but also not fair. Cain wouldn't have enthralled him if he'd been able to control that aspect of his undead magic, but that was part and parcel of being a vampire. Complaining that a vampire's bite was enthralling was like complaining that water was wet.
"That's what happens," Cain said, unable to bury the annoyance in his tone, though he did manage to mostly school his expression, "when you ask a vampire to bite you." He still wasn't sure why the werewolf would have expected anything different.
Apparently flummoxed by Cain's directness, the werewolf started and stopped a sentence twice, before seeming to give up on it entirely and settle for saying, "Fine. Just. Don't let it happen again."
Cain wasn't schooling his expression anymore, because what? Had he forgotten that Cain was a vampire? Did he think vampires could control that? Cain had only barely figured out how to channel the healing power of his saliva, he certainly wasn't in a position to restrain something so integral to a vampire's existence as the enthralling power of their bite. Was Damien trying to go back on his word, to refuse feeding? Cain felt like pulling his hair out at the roots. "Wasn't the deal that I feed from you? How do you propose I do that without biting you?"
Damien opened his mouth to reply, paused, and flushed. A look of annoyance crossed his features, and then he sighed, glancing aside for a moment, before returning his gaze to Cain, grumbling a belligerent, "Whatever."
It wasn't whatever, it was a serious issue, at least for Cain, who hadn't fed properly in far too long. It wasn't like he wanted the wolf to be his thrall - especially his first real thrall, since he'd never actively been any other thrall's first vampire. It was one aspect of his existence that made other vampires underestimate him, because refusing to enthrall humans made him seem weak.
"It's your turn now, anyway," Damien said then, a hint of a smirk crossing his features as he crooked his finger in a beckoning motion. "Come on."
Cain blinked, his annoyance disappearing in the wake of utter confusion. "My turn for what?" he asked.
"A mating bite, obviously," Damien said. "Don't worry, you're the alpha, so you don't need to do anything more, but it's important for a reciprocal claim to stabilize the bond."
Cain felt like hitting his head against the wall until he lost consciousness. "I'm not a werewolf," he said. "I don't need a mating bite."
"Maybe not," Damien said, "but I still need to bite you." A malicious gleam sparked in his eyes. "What, are you scared?"
Who wouldn't be afraid of being bitten by a werewolf? Even if he wasn't in his fully transformed state, and therefore not able to turn him (though there was some debate over whether a vampire even could be turned into a werewolf), Cain didn't really like the look of those fangs. The last time he'd been bitten, it had been by a vampire, and clearly that had ended very badly. He wasn't interested in going through that again, and facing another set of fangs did not appeal to him, if for no other reason than for the bad memories he still bore from the previous ones. "Frankly, it doesn't sound at all appealing," Cain said, because he wasn't going to admit to being afraid of the little whelp, even if some part of him did cringe at the thought of being bitten.
"I thought you were going to help," Damien said exasperatedly.
"I thought the alpha was the one who bit the omega," Cain shot back.
"They bite each other, asshole," Damien shot back. "Don't worry, I don't expect you to pop a knot, but I do need to claim you."
Cain hadn't realized that werewolf claiming was a reciprocal sort of situation. Maybe because vampires had a very hierarchical system, he'd assumed that alphas and omegas operated similarly. As the alpha, which was typically thought to be the dominant figure in werewolf bonds, he'd assumed that he would be the only one to do the biting, as the alpha would be the one in control. But it seemed that he'd misinterpreted the function of that role, or perhaps the interplay of those dynamics. The bond wasn't anything like thrall magic, and he should have expected it to require different actions. But he hadn't anticipated the bite would go both ways and now he was grappling with the realization that he really didn't want to be bitten. "I didn't know that," Cain said, allowing some of his discomfort to bleed into his words.
Damien frowned. "Why wouldn't you?" He asked. Then, slowly, a look of dawning realization crossed his features, followed by irritation, and finally, disgust. "Why does everyone keep thinking that werewolf bonds are the same as vampire bonds?!" He shouted, throwing his hands in the air despairingly. "First Dezzy, then Grace, and now you! You of all people should have realized by now!" He pointed accusingly at Cain. "Brinn already interfered with your own vampire magic – bond, whatever – on more than one occasion! And you still think that it's the same as a vampire bond?"
Cain felt a bit defensive as he explained, "I don't have much experience with any other sort."
That seemed to give Damien pause, and the werewolf eyed him with a measure of something resembling sympathy, "I guess you wouldn't have," he mused.
Cain hadn't been trying to earn sympathy from the werewolf (he didn't think he deserved it, in any case), but he didn't deny that it gave him something of an advantage at this stage in the negotiation. "So you understand why I don't want to be bitten," he said, "given the negative association."
"If anything," Damien argued, a stubborn look creasing his brow into a slight frown, "That's more reason for you to accept the bond-mark."
That didn't make any sense to Cain at all. "Explain," he demanded.
"If the only bond you've ever experienced is a vampire bond, wouldn't it be better to have a more positive bond to compare it to?" Damien looked oddly wistful as he made his case, and Cain wasn't certain if it was because the werewolf actually wished for him to experience a better bond, or merely worried that his own bond would remain incomplete unless Cain acquiesced.
"I would rather not have either," Cain pointed out drily. "I didn't exactly choose this path for myself."
Damien wrinkled his nose back at Cain. "Two can play that game," he snarled. "You think I wanted a bond with a killer like you?"
Cain hadn't expected the accusation to pierce him so keenly, especially since he'd ignored far worse from Damien in their past encounters. Perhaps it was because he'd put so much effort into caring for the werewolf recently, he was more… invested. And the bitterness in the wolf's voice rang too true to the disgust Cain harbored against himself, making it harder to shrug off. This was why it was stupid to let himself care about someone; vampires didn't get that luxury.
The silence after Damien's harsh words lingered, the only shift in the room the dancing shadows cast by the candle at the bedside.
Incrementally, Damien's fanged snarl began to ease, smoothing into a look of confusion. "What?" he finally said, "nothing to say?"
Cain shut his eyes, unwilling to meet the werewolf's gaze. "I already told you," he said, haltingly, searching for the right words, "I didn't choose that, either."
"You said it wasn't personal," Damien snarled, "just clan business. That you were assigned the task, and that you should have finished the job!"
Ah, yes, he supposed he had been feeling rather snippy at that point in the witch's cabin, and he supposed it had made him uncharitable with his words. Still, he didn't necessarily disagree with most of it, just… "I shouldn't have said that."
"Right!" Damien folded his arms.
"If I'd finished the job, I would be dead at the hands of Brinn's holy order by now," Cain continued. "I stand by the rest of it, though."
Damien gaped. "You– what? How could you be so selfish–?!"
Hopefully this argument would be enough to make the werewolf forget all about that stupid mating bite he'd been asking about, and he would keep his distance from Cain from this point onward. "I'm a vampire," Cain snarled. "Selfish is all I know how to be."
Damien's mouth opened, closed, then opened again before he finally said, in a low voice, "That's a lie."
Cain frowned. He hadn't expected the wolf to disagree with him on that point. "What?"
"You don't only know how to be selfish," Damien said, grudgingly, as if he hated to admit it. "You… you came for me, when Crowe had me. A selfish vampire wouldn't have bothered."
"Maybe I just wanted your blood," Cain shot back, not sure why he was arguing against his own virtue, but nonetheless persisting.
Damien looked momentarily stymied, but then his eyes widened. "No!" He crowed, pointing at Cain again, the accusatory digit nearly brushing his chest. "You didn't want my blood, because you thought you were dying!"
Cain found himself the one at a loss for words. "What?"
"You told me that you couldn't drink blood anymore," Damien reminded him, "right after you got me out. That's why you need mine. But you didn't know that back when you came for me."
"Maybe I was lying," Cain said.
"Why would you lie to someone when you could just enthrall them and make them believe you?"
"Because I don't want thralls–" Cain cut himself off, the instinctual distaste for enthrallment stronger than his need to win this stupid argument. "Fine. I guess I'm not only selfish. What does that prove?"
"It doesn't prove anything," Damien said, frowning. "It just makes me confused, I guess."
Cain sighed. "Confused about what?"
"Why do you act like you don't care about anyone?" Damien asked. "You were such an asshole that first time we met, but you're not actually as terrible as you pretend to be. I think I'm finally starting to understand why everyone hero-worships you so damn much, and I still don't get it. What's in it for you?"
Cain wasn't sure what he was asking. "Which part?"
Damien frowned. "I don't know… the asshole act, I guess? Why act like a selfish jerk when you're not going to follow through?"
"I don't always spend my time around thralls," Cain said. "And I have powerful enemies." He narrowed his eyes at Damien. "In case you've forgotten, Crowe took you to punish me."
Damien frowned. "I thought he took me because I was a morsel," he said.
"There can be more than one motive," Cain replied.
"I guess," Damien agreed, and they both lapsed into silence for a long moment, before the wolf said, a bit more quietly, "I still need that bite, though."
Cain shut his eyes and sighed loudly. "I'd hoped you'd forgotten about that."