She felt weak. Shaky. Slightly sick to her stomach. Adrenaline aftermath, she told herself. Keep moving and it will go away. She looked at Deacon. “Would you call the hospital, have someone talk to Louise, let her know Toby’s okay? I don’t have that number in my phone.”
Cullen was standing in the middle of the room, turning in a slow circle, his gaze slowly lowering to the floor.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Her grimoire. I need it to figure out how to stop the wraith. I need to find the spell she used.”
The wraith. Unbelievably, she’d almost forgotten about it. She put a hand to her temple, rubbing it and wishing she could sit down for a minute. The nausea kept trying to rise. “Charley. His name is Charley.”
“Right.” He stopped. “Root cellar! Of course. But where’s the entrance?” He frowned at the floor.
Brown stumped up to her. “Why the hell aren’t you out there with that boy and your man?”
“You think I can’t keep an eye on a crime scene until the techs get here?” He shook his head, disgusted as ever. “Go out there. Hug your man. Hug that boy you saved. It’ll make some of this”—he nodded at the body on the bed—“go away. Not all of it, but enough.”
Gratitude caught her by the throat and squeezed. For one terrible second she thought she might cry—which would have horrified Brown even more than her. “Thanks,” she managed.
“You’ll go with him to the hospital,” he told her. “Don’t give me any shit about that.”
She found she could smile. Not very big, but that’s what it was. “I will,” she said, and headed for the door.
Deacon spoke as she was leaving, but not to her. “There’s a cellar entrance outside, if that’s what you’re looking for. It’s by the back door if you want to . . .”
He didn’t bother to finish; Cullen was already dashing for the back door.
Rule sat at a picnic table several paces away, cradling Toby, whose legs dangled to the ground, his head bent as he watched his son breathe.
“His color’s good,” Lily said as she approached.
Rule looked up. He had a smile for her. “So are his breathing and his heartbeat. He’s pretty deeply sedated, though. Hasn’t stirred at all. I can’t help wondering if there’s a magical component to that tea she gave him.”
“Bet I can answer that.” She came close, bent, and put her hand on Toby’s cheek. “No magic,” she said softly, knowing Rule was remembering another time when his son had slept, unable to wake. That had been due to demon magic.
He sighed hugely in relief. “Nadia . . .” He broke off, unhappiness crossing his face.
“Perhaps not. Are you all right?”
She took a moment, checking her insides. “I will be. Brown sent me out here.” She grimaced. “He pulled the trigger, but I’m the one with the shakes.”
“You gave the order. I understand the need, and the price, for such orders. When it troubles you—and it will, at times—ask yourself if Mandy Ann would have been better off alive. She would have been ruled insane, surely. What if doctors had somehow been able to return her to reality, and she knew she’d electrocuted her daughter and condemned her son to an endless, living death?”
“Yeah.” Lily gusted out a breath. “Yeah.” She looked past him at the road, where an ambulance was bumping its way along the ruts. “Good. Here they come.”
They were loading Toby into the ambulance when Cullen came hurrying around the corner of the house, carrying a plain spiral notebook in one hand and a Mason jar in the other. “I found it.”
“That’s a grimoire?” Lily shook her head. “Never mind. What’s in the jar?”
“Charley’s blood,” he said grimly. “And to hell with the evidence chain. We’re going to need it.”
Cullen buckled up and spoke not a word for the first ten minutes of the drive into Halo, studying Mandy Ann’s spiral grimoire. The word he used to break the silence was “Shit.”
“I do, but I don’t like it. You’re not going to like it. And Rule is going to hate it.”
Already he was right about her reaction, and he hadn’t told her anything. “And the answer is—?”
“Toby’s okay,” he told them. “They want to keep him here for a couple hours for observation, but he’s fine. The doctor managed to rouse him briefly, so this isn’t like the other time.” He smiled ruefully at Lily. “I know you already checked, and I believed you, but . . . it was good to see his eyes open for a moment.”
Lily’s face softened. She walked to the bed where Toby lay, covered by one of those paltry blankets the ER used, and touched his cheek. “He looks fine. He looks wonderful. Have you had time to see Louise?”
“She came down here after we arrived. Someone let her know we were here. She says Alicia has a concussion and a fractured shoulder blade. They think she’ll be okay, though they’re keeping her overnight for observation. But she’s woken, too. She was . . . When she first woke, she was frantic about Toby.”
He stopped, remembering how sure he’d been that Alicia didn’t really care about her son. Yet she’d fought for him.
“Does she remember the attack?” Lily asked.
“Most of it. She’d stopped for gas. It was one of those automated places, with no attendants. A friendly woman dressed like an aging hippie was the only other customer. She asked Alicia for help. She was having car trouble. She thought it was the battery.”
“Yes. Alicia remembers peering into the rear-mounted engine of the woman’s old VW bug when something struck her hard on her shoulders. She fell to the pavement—her shoulder blade was broken by the blow, though she didn’t know it—and saw that harmless old hippie woman with a baseball bat in her hands. The woman grabbed Toby’s arm and yanked him toward her car, and Alicia got up and fought for her son.”
Rule swallowed. He’d seen the scratches on Mandy Ann’s face, hadn’t he? “She doesn’t remember being hit a second time, but Mandy Ann must have swung that bat again, this time giving her a concussion.”
Lily put her arm around Rule and leaned into him. His arm naturally circled her. “Weird, isn’t it?” she said. “I guess people love the way that they love. It isn’t always the best way, or the way we want them to, but love happens.”
Love happens. He smiled. “It does.” They stood for a moment in silence. This is still comfort, he thought. Still necessary, even without the mate bond.
Cullen sighed. “The good news isn’t universal. We still have a wraith to deal with, you know. Can we talk about it outside?”
Rule shook his head. “I don’t want to leave Toby. He could wake again at any time and be confused.”
“All right, then. First, you need to know what she did to Charley, in the name of love. She took the still-living blood from his body before he’d finished cooling. She’d been experimenting with blood magic for some time.”
“Blood magic isn’t always necessarily evil,” Rule said. “You told me that yourself.”
“Some of it’s neutral, some’s gray, and some . . .” Cullen’s mouth twisted. “I saw what she’d been dabbling in, and she’d left gray behind.”
Lily cocked an eyebrow. “You’re saying she’d already gone over to the Dark Side when her son died?”
“Charley died suddenly,” Rule said. “There was a ghost?”
“Good guess. Yes, he’d been on his way to see her, but only his ghost arrived. Came as quite a shock.” Cullen shifted as if wanting to pace, but there was no room for it in the tiny room where Rule’s son slept. “She was brilliant, really. She had an old runic spell, very old, that she’d been studying. She’d worked out some possible variations already. The amount of improvisation she did on the spot . . . brilliant. Pity she was batty.”
Cullen nodded. “She raced to the crash site and collected his blood, then used it to write the runes. The power wind was still blowing—you remember how long that final wind lasted. She used it, too. She ripped his spirit apart. He lost his name, his past, the memory of having been lupus, even his memory of her. She sank the memories into his blood, which she enspelled against decay. Ever since, she’s used that blood to call him back to her, over and over, and feed what’s left of him on death.”
“Sweet Lady.” Rule shook his head, shaken. “Did she understand what she did to him? How could she do that to her son?”
“She convinced herself she was saving him,” Lily said quietly.
He looked at her, and thought of Alicia and of what Mandy Ann had planned for Toby. And shuddered.
Lily’s arm tightened around him. “She thought she could get him a new body, didn’t she?”
“At first she expected him to take care of that himself. When he didn’t, she decided to help him out by making his sister, ah, susceptible to his possession.”
Rule felt sick. Sick and unbearably sad. “Crystal didn’t know what her mother had done, did she?”
“No. We have to stop the wraith, Rule.”
Then Cullen told him what they had to do to stop the wraith.
Rule heard him out, fury gathering in his belly. When he finished, Rule had two words for the idea. “Absolutely not.”
“Rule.” Lily looked sad—and, damn her, determined. If he hadn’t known for a fact there was no blood bond between her and Toby, he’d have sworn he recognized the tilt to her chin. “Only part of it is up to you. The part that’s mine, I’ll do. Whether you agree or not.”
“I’ll stop you.” He said that as certainly as if it were possible.
“How?” She held his gaze steadily. “If it’s the only way to keep the wraith from killing again and again, then it has to be done. And if it’s the only way to . . . to free Charley, then that needs doing, too.”
He couldn’t stop her. He knew that, in spite of his foolish words. All he could do was fall in with his friend’s damnable plan—and make it work. He looked at Cullen, the mantles stirring uneasily in his gut. “The wraith must be compelled, you said.”
“You’ve got the mantles. That’s compulsion—or will be, after you do the first part.”
“I have the heirs’ portions. This will require a Rho’s authority.”
Cullen caught on quickly. “Shit. Oh, shit.”
Rule smiled coldly. “You advised me to become Leidolf Rho, didn’t you? It seems I’ll be assuming the position ahead of schedule.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked. “If you plan to go to Leidolf Clanhome and kill Victor—”
“I don’t have to go there to do it.” Cullen knew. He’d carried a bit of mantle. He knew what the answer was.
Cullen sighed and looked at Lily. “He’s going to take the mantle from Victor. He’s got a larger than usual heir’s portion already, and a mantle . . . uh, usually it wants to be with the strongest, most capable leader. Victor’s in a coma. Rule’s betting the mantle won’t resist much. If Rule pulls it away from Victor, Victor dies.”
“No,” she said. “No, Rule. It isn’t necessary. Leidolf will never forgive you, and the other clans . . . God, it might technically be murder. No.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” His lips still curved up, but he wasn’t smiling. “Only part of this is up to you. The part that’s mine,” he said, giving her back her own words, “I’ll do.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
THEY took Toby home late in the afternoon. He was still very sleepy and didn’t object to going up to bed—though he did get the ban on television in the bedroom lifted temporarily. Grammy brought in what she called the “sick set,” an old TV that she hooked up when Toby was ill.
Alicia had continued to improve, and her husband was with her. Louise planned to go back to the hospital tomorrow, but she, too, needed a rest. When Toby fell asleep watching cartoons, she decided to lie down and “rest my eyes a minute.”
She dozed off almost as fast as her grandson.
It was twilight when Rule, Lily, and Cullen went into the backyard with the jar of blood. Twilight, the between time, with dusky air flooding the senses with honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass, with hints and possibilities.
A good time to deal with the unnamed place that lies between life and death, Cullen said.
The first part was simple enough, no magic or ritual required. All Lily had to do was remember.
She settled cross-legged in the grass, closed her eyes, and thought about running. Running all-out for the edge of a cliff, the acrid air of Dis burning her lungs, everything she loved left behind.
No cold stole into her.
She tried other memories . . . bicycles. She remembered how delighted part of her, the hidden part, had been when she remembered riding a bike as a child, and the other-her shared that memory. The other-Lily had had no memories to sustain her in hell. Like the wraith, she thought. Like Charley.
But she’d had Rule. She hadn’t had her name, but she’d remembered grass and sunlight and stars. She hadn’t known if she’d ever ridden a bicycle, but she’d remembered bikes. She’d had her body, and she’d had Rule. He’d been wolf . . .
“That’s funny,” she said, sniffing. “Do you smell cigar smoke?” And just like that, she fell into ice.
Or was shoved.
It was, impossibly, even colder than the first time, or maybe it was impossible to recall such cold, a fierce cold that stole her breath, shutting down her muscles so that she swayed and would have toppled over. But Rule was there. His face was a mask of intensity as he steadied her and looked into her eyes.
“I know you,” he said, his voice seeming to resonate from deep within. “Leidolf’s mantle knows you.”
And the icy voice spoke, painful shards cutting and shifting in a way that was almost hope. Leidolf?
“Use . . . my mouth,” she told it, barely able to breathe the words. “I give . . . permission.”
It flooded into the warmth, almost all the way in this time! It didn’t have the use of the legs, but it didn’t need legs. It had words still. It had hung on to words, waiting and waiting, and that had been hard, but now it could ask the man . . . It couldn’t quite remember. “So hungry,” it whispered with those strange lips. “Feed me. Feed me so I can remember.” It felt its warmth’s face twisting, and didn’t know which of them did that. “Hurts. Hurts.”
But it was the other warmth who acted, not the man, unfastening something . . . a jar . . . and dipping his finger in. He held out a wet, glistening finger. It closed those borrowed lips around the finger . . .
Warmth? Yes. No. A different kind of not-cold than it felt from its warmth. Just a flicker of it, but sweet. So sweet. “More.”
“Listen,” the man said. “Listen to me, Charles.”
Charles . . . ?
Another glistening fingertip. It fastened on that finger eagerly, feeling its pieces shifting, scraping . . .
“Take your name, Charles Arthur Kessenblaum.”
The heat! It hurt, it hurt—its pieces were whirling too fast, too much! Panting, it tried to shove the man away, but these arms didn’t listen to it. “Hurts!” it screamed.
The man gripped the warmth’s face and stared into the eyes. “Charles Arthur Kessenblaum, you will heed me. Leidolf knows you.”
Leidolf, it panted. It almost remembered Leidolf, and the word was so dear it needed to say it over and over. Leidolf, Leidolf, Leidolf.
“You will kneel. Today is your gens compleo, Charles. You will kneel.”
It trembled with a feeling it had no word for—a terrible, wonderful feeling. But the legs, the legs didn’t listen . . . “Use the legs,” its warmth said. “Use my arms, and kneel. I give permission.”
And then it could move. Eagerly, clumsily, it knelt, staring at the man, the man it didn’t know, yet the man knew it. The man held everything it needed.
The man looked him in the eyes and said, “Charley.”
It screamed as the world broke. The world broke and broke, and with it all his pieces, but they broke perfectly—a sweet, perfect fracturing, as if they danced instead of clashing, a beautiful explosion that made the pieces . . . fall . . . back . . . together.
“I,” he whispered. “I. Am. Charley.”
The man agreed. He said it again. “Charley.”
Suddenly he knew. He knew everything he needed to know. This was it, his gens compleo, and he was staring at—good Lord, could he get it any more wrong? Quickly he ducked his head, baring his nape.
“Charley,” the man said one more time.
Eagerly he prostrated himself in the grass. It smelled wonderful. He hadn’t smelled anything so wonderful in . . . But there was something terrible at the end of that thought, so he shut it away.
A hand, warm and male, rested on his neck. He trembled with readiness.
But nothing pierced his skin. Puzzled, he waited . . . Then he felt wetness there, and he smelled blood, but it was as if someone had painted it on instead of finding it beneath his skin.
And then it didn’t matter. He felt the mantle race through him. Joy beyond words shook his body. I will never be alone again.
But that thought, too, made him tremble, as if it pulled on the other thought he didn’t dare finish. He was confused. The dizzy rush of the mantle retreated, a tide from an ocean that wasn’t his—but the ocean held him now. He both was and wasn’t with the mantle, and it was right.
“Charley,” the man’s voice said, and it was different this time. Sad. “You died seven months ago.”
Died? But no, that was foolish. He lay here in this wonderful grass, smelling it, feeling the soothing pleasure of the mantle connecting him.
“Sit up.”
All right. He sat, but he was oddly clumsy.
“Look at the body you’re in.”
No. No, he wouldn’t. Fear so vast it could swallow him whole froze him. He couldn’t look.
But that left him looking into the man’s eyes, and they were dark and almost as terrible as the fear. “Bad things happened to you after you died, very bad things. They weren’t your fault, Charley, but they caused you to take things that you should never have touched. Now you have to give everything back. Give back all that you’ve taken wrongly.”
He licked his lips. They felt . . . strange. Wrong. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Give me your hands.”
When he did, the man did a very odd thing. He rubbed something into them. Something gritty that smelled like . . . salt? It . . . it burned. Burned, and ripped at him—he was in pieces again. Pieces, shards, horrible memories slashing him everywhere—his car smashing into a tree, the pain! The steering wheel crushed him, crushed his chest, oh, God, Mommy . . . and his mother, weeping and weeping, doing something with his body—dear God, his wolf body, he’d Changed and he’d died, but his mother . . .
Cold. Vast, unstoppable, horrible cold.
Fast now the fragments flew through him. He was in a dog’s body, not a wolf’s. He caught and killed, but he didn’t eat the flesh of the raccoon. He ate . . .
Charley retched, but this body—whatever body he was in—didn’t bring anything up. The man held him, his hands gentle, while he tried to purge himself of things this body had never done.
“There was a gun,” Charley whispered. “I remember . . . an old man and a gun. He cried.”
“That wasn’t you,” the man said. “That was the wraith.”
“But I remember . . .” Then he understood. “The wraith didn’t have self.” It had never thought “I,” denied even that much of a center, its fragments held together by the darkest of magic. And by suffering. The wraith hadn’t known it was an “I,” but it had known it suffered.
“Now you know what you must give back. And you can, Charley. You attacked me once. When you realized I held part of a mantle—part of Leidolf—you pulled back every bit of the death magic you’d used. Even in your sundered state, you knew how to do that.”
Charley remembered that—and quickly shoved the memory away. “I won’t do those things anymore,” he said, pleading. What he’d taken—what he’d eaten—that was wrong, so horribly wrong. But if he gave it all back, he would be dead. He didn’t want to be dead. “I know better now. I remember. I won’t do those things.”
The man gripped Charley’s face in both hands. “Give it back.”
“I won’t!” he screamed.
The dark eyes closed. The man’s face—who was he?—went still, as if he were thinking hard, or praying. But his fingers tightened on Charley’s face. His breath started coming faster—fast like Charley’s now. And Charley’s heart was pounding hard, but oh, it was so good to have a heartbeat again! He wanted to keep it. He would keep it.
Suddenly the man gasped. He swayed, but his hands never left Charley’s face. His eyes opened, and it seemed they were even darker than before. He said Charley’s name once more, then spoke slowly, as one who must be obeyed. “You will give it all back. You will release everything you took.”
Oh, Charley thought, staring into those eyes. This wasn’t some man. This was his Rho. His Rho commanded him.
So Charley wept. Tears poured down, but he wasn’t ashamed. His Rho was asking him to give his life, and there was honor in that. “Yes,” he whispered. “I will do . . . as you say. But please . . . the fire? If this is my gens compleo . . . please may I have the joining fire first?”
The other man—the one Charley had thought of as a warmth, something to be used or killed—made a fire. Right in the middle of the green grass that smelled so sweet, he tossed a fire down as easily as someone else might sprinkle fertilizer. It was small, but that was all right. It was also green, a lighter, brighter green than the grass. And when Charley put his hand into it, it scampered up his arm. It rolled all over him, tickling.
It was while the fire played with him that he began to let go. It was easy, really. Just as the wraith had instinctively known how to eat, Charley knew how to let go of what he’d taken. It was only energy now.
When he was finished, though, there was still something left. Something very powerful, and . . . shaped. Not just energy. Something incredibly lovely.
“Ready to go?” someone asked.
He looked up as the last of the green fire flickered on his hands and died. A black dude with a paper white face and a top hat stood a few feet away, grinning. He looked odd, but right. Somehow he looked right.
“Who are you?”
The black dude doffed his hat with a little bow. “Think of me as the taxi driver. I’m here to pick you up.”
“But what do I do with this?” He indicated in a way he couldn’t describe the shaped power that still rested inside him. “Everything else is gone, but this didn’t leave.”
“It’s not going anywhere. You are. Just leave it where you found it.” The man held out his hand.
Charley took it.
Lily felt him leave. And she felt what he’d left behind—right where he found it. “Rule,” she said, flooded with wonder. “Rule, the mate bond is—”
But she couldn’t say anything more, because her lover, her mate, her Rule was holding her too tightly for words, and laughing. Laughing as he covered her mouth with his.
THE day after Charley died for the second and final time, Rule sat in the porch swing with his son. No reporters today, thank God. The grass was wet from a shower last night and the sky was a solid sheet of gray, promising more rain to come. This time, the rain had managed to dial down the thermometer; it was twenty degrees cooler than it had been this time yesterday.
Nettie and Cynna had arrived at Charlotte’s airport late last night. Cullen had picked them up and brought them to Halo, going straight to the hospital, where a grouchy Lily was being kept while experts argued about whether she should be released. Her MRI scan didn’t show any problems—but everyone who’d been possessed by the wraith had ended up suffering brain damage.
Ruben had given Nettie a security clearance that allowed her full access to all test results from both Meacham and Hodge. She’d studied those as well as Lily’s test results. She’d also examined Lily directly, using whatever means healers used to sense the body. In the end, she’d arrived at a theory that the other experts agreed with: possession triggered changes in the brain’s chemistry—changes that initially were minor, but which caused a cascade effect if left unchecked, resulting in irreversible damage.
But Lily hadn’t reached that point. There were signs of what Nettie called instabilities, but the mate bond seemed to have put a stop to the chemical cascade. Nettie had still ordered Lily to bed—an edict Lily tried to appeal, but no one, not even Rule’s father, won that sort of argument with Nettie. Lily was upstairs in bed now, probably asleep.
Nettie’s healing Gift couldn’t work on Lily directly. A sensitive could not be affected by magic, even if she wanted to be. Yet Nettie could put Lily in sleep, a trancelike state that heightened her body’s innate healing. Nettie said this was because, as a shaman, she could call on spiritual aid, and Lily’s Gift wasn’t proof against the spiritual.
The wraith had certainly proven that.
The whole business annoyed Lily no end—for the same reason, Rule suspected, that she was unsettled by the mate bond, the same reason she was baffled by religion. None of them were quantifiable. None offered clear, consistent answers to her questions.
A pale green sedan cruised past. On the sidewalk, a middle-aged woman and her large, happy Labrador retriever trotted past, ignoring the imminent rain. The woman smiled and nodded. The Lab looked astonished.
Caught a whiff of Rule’s scent, probably. “What about a Lab?” he said. “They’re athletic dogs and are happy with low status as long as they’re fed and loved.” Since every lupus the dog met would outrank him or her, this was a factor. A few breeds were too innately dominant to thrive at Clanhome.
“Maybe.” Toby watched the dog, which stopped twice to look over his shoulder at them. He giggled. “Can’t believe his nose, can he?”
Alicia was still hospitalized. She’d done something to her shoulder—Rule was unclear on the specifics—that made her doctor decide to keep her an extra day. Tomorrow she and James would drive up to D.C. Rule had offered to move to a hotel with Lily so Alicia could recuperate at her mother’s home, but Alicia hadn’t wanted to.
Perhaps that was for the best. Toby had become upset at the idea of his father staying elsewhere. Rule should stay here, “to protect Grammy.”
Clearly Grammy wasn’t the only one Toby felt needed protection. He didn’t feel safe anymore in the house where he’d grown up, not unless his father was present. It ached Rule’s heart.
Not that Toby clung in an obvious way. Once he’d thrown off the effects of the drug last night, he’d asked a lot of questions. Was his mother okay? Why had that woman stolen him? What happened to her? What happened to the wraith she made? Was it okay to kill a woman if she wanted to kill you?
That last question had stalled Rule out. He could discuss killing with his son, but killing a woman . . . Lily had been there, though, and she hadn’t hesitated. “Killing someone is never a good choice,” she’d said. “But sometimes we don’t have any good choices. Is it okay to kill a dog?”
“No!” Toby had exclaimed, frowning in disbelief at the question.
“I had to shoot two dogs that attacked me. They were sick and possessed by the wraith, but even though that wasn’t their fault, I had to kill them so they wouldn’t kill me. I didn’t have time to find another choice. They attacked too fast. Was that okay?”
Toby had thought that over. “Maybe it’s a little okay, but mostly it’s sad.” He thought some more, then asked, “Was the woman who stole me sick like the dogs?”
“Not the same sickness, but yes, she was ill. She’d made some bad choices, and by the time she took you, she didn’t know what she was doing anymore.”
“Then I guess that’s mostly just sad, too.”
There on the porch swing, Rule smiled. His nadia was wise. His son was, too. They both asked good questions.
The green sedan went by a second time.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Did you know that someone stole Lily, too, when she was about my age?”
Rule looked at Toby, startled. “Yes, I did. She told you about it?”
“Uh-huh. She said a man stole her an’ her friend, and the police came and saved her, but they were too late to save her friend. She said sometimes bad stuff happens that isn’t our fault, but we can’t help thinking about how maybe we could have made it not happen, and I should talk to you when I get to thinking like that.”
“Are you thinking like that now?”
“Sorta.” Toby fidgeted, then said, “I keep thinking that if I hadn’t wanted to play miniature golf, Mom wouldn’t have been at that gas station and then she wouldn’t have been hurt and I wouldn’t have gotten stolen and Lily wouldn’t have had to kill the sick woman.”
“Maybe. Or maybe the sick woman would have tried to steal you somewhere else, and even more people would have been hurt.” Rule squeezed Toby’s shoulder. “There’s a difference between learning from our mistakes and thinking that everything depends on our choices, as if other people’s choices don’t count, too. You aren’t responsible for what other people did.”
“Yes, but . . . but then it seems like we can’t ever be sure. We can’t know how to act or what to do so we’re safe.”
“Life isn’t safe.” It was a hard lesson, but one that lupi believed children must learn. “The best we can get is ‘safe enough for now.’”
“I know, but . . .” Toby’s voice trailed off unhappily.
“But knowing that in your head is different from knowing it in your gut.”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.” It wasn’t quite raining. It wasn’t not raining, either. The air was filling with a fine mizzle that turned it as gray as the sky.
Children weren’t good with shades of gray. Rule hunted for a way to make Toby understand “safe enough.” “Your wolf is probably too deeply asleep to counsel you, but perhaps you could imagine what he would say about fear and safety.”
“If I could Change,” Toby began, then stopped, scowling. “I was gonna say that my wolf wouldn’t be afraid, but wolves can get hurt, too, so that doesn’t make sense. Does your wolf know he can be hurt?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But he isn’t afraid about it?”
Rule bit back the need to tell Toby the answer he wanted the boy to find. Some answers had to come from inside. “Wolves feel fear. What do you imagine your wolf would be afraid of?”
“Guns, maybe. Bigger wolves, especially if they’re mad at him. Things that could blow him up.” Toby thought a moment, his eyes unfocused, as if he might be consulting the sleeping wolf. “Oh. That’s all now stuff, isn’t it? Not maybe stuff.”
Rule smiled. “That’s right. Wolves fear immediate threats, not the possible threats the mind conjures.”
“So is the wolf right? We shouldn’t be afraid of stuff that isn’t happening now?”
“Mostly right. The world is complex, and wolves aren’t good at abstract risks or multiple contingencies, so the wolf may counsel the man on the present, but the man must counsel the wolf on the future. The wolf needs the man just as the man needs the wolf.”
Toby said glumly, “I’m not a man yet, and my wolf is asleep. I don’t know what’s a real threat and what isn’t.”
“Your job is to learn. My job is to protect you . . .” Rule’s voice drifted off as the green sedan approached again. “To protect you while you learn.”
Toby looked at the car, too, this time. “That’s Alex. How come he isn’t stopping? Is he a threat now, because of you taking the whole Leidolf mantle and all?”
Rule knew his body had announced his alertness, and Toby had noticed. “He may be angry, but he won’t hurt me or attempt to. I’m his Rho. However, he could be a future threat to me or mine or to plans I’ve made.” He stood, glancing at his son. “I need you to go inside now. Not because there’s danger, but because Alex is waiting for that. It’s a matter of respect.” He paused and smiled in spite of himself. “And tell Lily she may as well come out. As a Chosen, her presence won’t signal disrespect.”
“Okay, but Nettie’s not gonna like it if Lily gets out of bed.”
“She’s already up, I’m afraid.”
The front door opened. “I may not have your hearing, but I’m not deaf,” Lily said.
“Also, you opened the window earlier.”
“Well, yes. I saw Alex circling the block.” She came out on the porch—barefoot, wearing an old T-shirt and jeans . . . with nothing beneath the shirt. She hadn’t taken time for a bra. His body signaled strong approval for her haste.
She looked good. She looked wonderful, but then she always did. More important, she smelled healthy. But she wasn’t supposed to be up.
“So how come she doesn’t show disrespect and I do?” Toby asked as he moved reluctantly toward the door.
“Later.” Alex had pulled up to the curb. Rule heard the silence when the engine shut off. “I’ll explain later, but basically it’s because she’s a Chosen. Lily, you should sit down.”
Toby sighed and closed the door behind him. Lily moved up beside Rule. “I’m so rested I could scream,” she said. “That won’t keep Nettie from putting me back in sleep once she finishes yelling at me for getting up, but I’m okay. You can prop me up if you want to,” she added in the way of one making a concession.
A wave of feeling rose up, cresting tsunami-high and breaking over him in a wash of love. It had never and would never occur to her to obey him. She did what she did out of choice, and his Chosen chose him over and over.
He accepted her suggestion, sliding an arm around her waist to support her as much as she’d allow . . . while she supported him.
Equals. It wasn’t a concept that came readily to a lupus, but with her, he dealt always with a sovereign power, one that would neither bow to him nor insist on his submission. She was a gift freely given.
A thought floated in as he watched Alex start across the lawn. It wasn’t the first time this thought had come to him, though originally it had been so alien he’d given it little heed. But more and more the idea compelled him, drawing him with its rightness. So strange, yet so right.
So difficult, too, he acknowledged wryly, brushing lips across Lily’s hair. He strongly suspected his nadia would be among the difficulties. But what was life without difficulties?
He turned his full attention to the one who approached.
In the gray drizzle, Alex’s damp skin gleamed like melted chocolate. He wasn’t a tall man—Rule had three inches on him—but he was broad, and every bit of that breadth was muscle.
Rule had seen Alex fight. He was trained, strong, and quick, a formidable opponent in either form. Rule had spoken truly when he told Toby that Benedict thought highly of Alex’s skill.
Rule was trained, strong, and quick too, however. And he had one advantage Alex lacked: he’d been trained by Benedict.
“What are we expecting?” Lily murmured very low.
“To learn in what manner he acknowledges his Rho.” A Challenge, most likely. There were other ways to formally recognize a new Rho, but Rule accepted that he’d forfeited the more peaceable options when he killed Victor Frey.
From this man, at least. Rule wouldn’t tolerate Challenges from other Leidolf. But Alex had been Frey’s Lu Nuncio, and was entitled to express his outrage, so Rule would accept without using the mantle. Better to allow the man to express his anger honorably . . . though Rule had best win the Challenge.
Alex stopped at the foot of the porch steps. He tilted his head the exact fraction necessary to meet Rule’s eyes. Leidolf’s mantle stirred in Rule’s gut, edgy, wanting to answer the implicit challenge in that steady gaze.
Rule restrained it. Neither man spoke.
Alex broke the silence with four terse words. “I greet my Rho.” Abruptly he dropped to his knees—then lowered himself awkwardly to his stomach. He lay flat, fully prostrated, on the damp grass.
Astonishment gripped Rule so hard it took him a moment to respond. He stepped off the porch, bent, and touched Alex’s nape. “Rise,” he said softly.
Alex rose to his feet more gracefully than he’d lowered himself. His mouth moved the fraction that stood for a smile with this deeply taciturn man. “Your face looks funny.”
“I am . . .” Flabbergasted. “Seldom as wrong as I was about this. You don’t object to my being Rho? Or to the way I assumed the mantle?”
Alex snorted. “Took you long enough.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
EVENING dawdled in the summer in North Carolina. At seven thirty, sunshine still slanted brightly through the banked clouds Lily saw out the bedroom window. Those mounds of bruise-colored clouds suggested the rain wasn’t through with them yet, but for now the air was clear and almost cool.
Lily had looked up from her laptop, appreciating that dramatic sky, when a female voice said, “That doesn’t look like bed rest to me.”
“I’m in bed, aren’t I?” Lily turned her head, pleased by the company. “And Ruben needs my report. Two birds, one stone.”
Cynna Weaver leaned against the doorway frame, arms crossed. She was a tall woman with a butch-crop of blond hair, highly decorated skin, and—at the moment—a sly smile. “I don’t think Nettie would see it that way.”
“She’s not here. She checked me over and didn’t, for once, put me back in sleep, so . . .” Lily’s voice trailed off. She frowned. “Why are you looking so sneaky and smug?”
“Me? You’re imagining things.” Cynna straightened, still looking like she ought to have canary feathers on her face. “Pretty nice work clothes.”
Lily smiled. “Rule’s notion of a bribe. I, uh, got up for a bit earlier, so he shows up with a silk nightgown. I think he thinks I won’t go wandering around if I’m wearing it. So are you joining us for supper?”
“Not you. Cullen and I are taking Toby and his grandmother out for pizza.”
“Oh. Good. It will be good for him to get out of the house.” But that was not what had Cynna smiling that way. Lily couldn’t find a clue to the mystery on her friend’s face, but maybe that was a clue coming up the stairs. “Sounds like Rule and I are eating by ourselves.”
Cynna nodded, trying to keep her face solemn, but whatever secret she was sitting on had her all but wiggling like an excited puppy. She turned her head, grinning. “Hey, Rule,” she said to the man coming up behind her. “My, you do clean up pretty.”
She shoved away from the door. “Guess I’d better be going.” She slid Lily a last wicked grin, waved, and moved aside, letting Lily see that Rule had, indeed, cleaned up. Into a tux.
Every man alive looked better in a tuxedo than just about anything else. Rule in a tux . . . a little curl of lust tightened down low. Sex and danger, Lily thought, sleeked over with a civilized gloss. A really gorgeous civilized gloss. And under that . . . Lily knew the lean body beneath the beautiful clothing. She knew the sharp, clean bones of his face and the drowning black of his eyes when the wolf wanted out. She knew the strength and the taste of him.
She wanted a taste now. Her eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t pack a tuxedo.”
“Rented, I’m afraid.” He cast one perfectly tailored sleeve a disparaging glance.
“I’m feeling underdressed. I guess we aren’t having pizza?”
“Good guess. I hope you’ve saved whatever you were working on, in defiance of orders.”
“Nettie said I should stay in bed, not that—hey!”
He’d set her computer aside and scooped her up in his arms. “Hungry?” he asked softly, nuzzling her ear.
“Getting that way.” She traced the quick arch line of his eyebrow with her finger. He was fond of toting her around. At the moment she was inclined to let him get away with that. There were things to do in a bed that didn’t involve a laptop, things that might not strike some as restful, but she was sure she’d rest much better afterward. Her current position made it easier to argue her point. “Have I mentioned that you have the sexiest eyebrows I’ve ever seen?”
The brow in question lifted slightly. “Ah . . . you like my eyebrows?”
“They’re one of the first things I noticed about you.”
“Pickles and eyebrows,” he said obscurely, but he smiled as if whatever connection he’d made pleased him. He started for the hall. “We’re dining al fresco.”
“Outside? Rule, I’m wearing a nightgown!”
“It’s silk. One can’t be underdressed in silk, and the others have left.” He paused at the top of the stairs, aiming a smile at her. “Indulge me?”
“You’re in a funny mood,” she murmured. But why not? She was sure sick of the bedroom. “Okay. Dining al fresco in my nightgown. I can handle that. So what,” she said as he started down the stairs, “did Alex say when I left you two to your clan talk?”
“Clan secrets,” he said promptly.
“Rule—”
He chuckled. “Most of it involved the logistics of bringing as many Leidolf as possible to their clanhome as soon as possible. We’ll hold the gens subicio next week. Not all will be able to attend, but most will.”
“This gens subicio—it’s when the clan acknowledges you as Rho?”
“The other way around, actually. I hold the mantle. I must recognize them.” He cast her an apologetic glance as he started down the stairs. “I realize you hadn’t arranged to be away for so long. If necessary, we can fly back to San Diego and wait there until the clan is assembled.”
“A week won’t matter. I’ve been put on sick leave.” Lily heard the pout in her voice, but couldn’t seem to get rid of it. “No one listens to me. I’m fine. If Nettie didn’t keep putting me in sleep, I probably wouldn’t even be tired.” She didn’t stay in sleep long, but she stayed sleepy, dammit.
“I listen to Nettie, who says you don’t have to stay in bed after today, but you do need to rest and sleep much more than usual.”
Ruben listened to Nettie, too, dammit. That’s why she was on sick leave. “She also said I’m healing just fine.”
“I wonder . . . could that be because she keeps putting you in sleep and making you rest?”
Lily frowned. “I’m better at sarcasm than you are. Did Alex explain why he was okay with you being Rho?”
“After chiding me for being dense enough to believe he’d disapprove, he pointed out that a live Rho—even one who still smells halfway of Nokolai—is better than an all-but-dead Rho. Especially one who was crazy before he went into coma. He couldn’t indicate that to me before, of course. He’s an honorable man.”
Lily picked out the significant part. “Halfway?”
“Apparently I smell about half Nokolai now and half Leidolf.”
“You okay with that?”
He was silent a moment. “Historically, women were sometimes wed to their families’ enemies to foster peace. They gave up their names and their homes, yet some of them remained close to their original family. It’s possible to find a balance.”
He meant he wasn’t one hundred percent okay, but he intended to get there. How like him, she thought, to find the example he needed in women’s lives. She touched his cheek. “You don’t have a problem using a feminine role model?”
“My people have always revered the strength of women.”
“Not Leidolf.”
“I am Rho now. Leidolf will change.” He said that with a certainty verging on arrogance. “Now, if you’d get the door?”
They’d reached the glass sliders. She reached for the handle and pulled. “I want them to change, too, but I don’t want you to get yourself killed trying to . . . oh. Oh, wow.”
The little gazebo in the center of the yard had been draped with tied-back white sheers and about a thousand twinkle lights. The dusty lawn furniture was gone; instead a round table wearing floor-length white and two chairs occupied the concrete floor . . . which had been covered with a plush white rug.
There were candles. Flowers floating in a shallow white bowl. China so delicate it was almost transparent. And everything was white, a white brightened by the brilliance of blade and leaf, bush and tree surrounding the little gazebo. Even the towering clouds gleamed white at their crests before tumbling down through silver, gray, rose, and lavender.
“It’s so perfect,” she whispered. “How could you make it so perfect?”
“God helped. The background was Her idea.”
She shot him a startled look, then laughed. “Okay, so what are we celebrating? You can put me down now.”
He didn’t, crossing the lawn with her still in his arms. “We might be celebrating your managing to stay in bed for nearly the entire day.”
“Almost worth it,” she decided as he at last set her on her feet next to one of the glossy white chairs.
There was champagne chilling in a bucket. Rule reached beneath the draped table and pulled out an ordinary ice chest—but the contents were anything but ordinary. Grapes, three kinds of cheese, apple blini with sour cream—who in Halo knew how to make blini?—and cold roast duck.
Also pickles. Five kinds of pickles. Lily nearly teared up over the pickles.
“In memory of our first meal together,” he murmured. “You piled half a jar’s worth of pickles on your burger.”
“And you piled half a cow’s worth of patties on yours. Rare.” She smiled—and, dammit, she was tearing up. “Now look what you’ve done. I . . . What, there’s more?”
He’d bent to retrieve one more thing from beneath the table—a lily. Or rather a cluster of lilies on a single long stem, lilies the color of flame, with big brown freckles like sunspots on their tightly curled petals.
Lilium lancifolium. The Oriental tiger lily.
“How in the world did you find tiger lilies? I’ve tried—for Grandmother, you know—but florists never carry them. They fade too quickly.”
“It . . .” Rule stopped. Swallowed. “Toby. He went around on his bike, found someone who grew them. I . . .” Mutely he held out the bright flowers.
She took the stalk, but her attention was for Rule, not his offering. He was . . . tongue-tied? Nervous, definitely, and she’s never seen that in him.
“The ribbon,” he said, his voice tight, as if his throat were closing up on him. “The ribbon.”
Oh. She hadn’t noticed, but yes, there was a green ribbon tied in an awkward bow at the center of the stalk, half-hidden by one of the blooms. Did he want her to untie it? Puzzled, she moved the bloom aside . . .
And shoved to her feet, her heart pounding like a mad thing, her eyes wide and fixed on the orange flowers she’d dropped, such a bright orange against the white china plate. Flowers tied with a green ribbon. A ribbon threaded through a ring.
A ring with a single diamond.
“It’s not a snake,” Rule said dryly.
“It’s a ring. An engagement ring.” Now she looked at him, her voice rising. “You can’t give me that. You can’t.”
“I can. I have. The question is whether you’ll accept it.” He pushed back his chair, stood, and ran a hand over his hair. “I had this speech worked out. I thought it was good, but I can’t remember it. I can’t remember a single word. I got everything else right, but the words . . . I wanted it to be right.”
She spoke slowly, as if he might need time to absorb each word. “You can’t get married. You can’t marry, so you can’t give me an engagement ring.”
“Marry me.”
That’s when she lost words.
He’d found them again. “I’m pretty sure that was part of the speech, though I hope I worked it in more gracefully. Marry me, Lily.”
“You think I’d do that?” she demanded, suddenly fierce. “You think I’d agree to cut you off from your people, force you into something you believe is wrong, in order to please myself or to satisfy some—some bunch of whoevers who know nothing about us?”
“No. Marry me because I ask.” He rounded the table and gripped her arms just above the elbows. “Not to satisfy anyone else, though other people do matter, Lily. Your family matters. All the people who deride you for associating with me—their barbs can hurt. And they make trouble for you. You know they do.”
“No biggie. I can handle that sort—who wouldn’t stop being assholes if I wore a ring, you know.”
“They aren’t all assholes. Take Sheriff Deacon. He made your job harder because of me. He’s not a bad person—bigoted, or he was, but that’s ignorance. He’s basically an honorable man, and he couldn’t see you clearly because of me. Because he believed I treated you dishonorably.”
“So to make my life a little easier I’m supposed to ruin yours? Rule, I may not have grown up in the clans, but I know how they’d react. How your father would react.”
“I can handle it. Handle him.”
“Some of them are shunning Cullen. Did you know that? You must. He shrugs it off, but he’s used to being an outsider. You—”
“He was right. He said I was jealous, and he was right. I want this for me. You’ll have to decide if it’s right for you, but . . .” His expression hardened. “I warn you, if you say no, I won’t give up. I’ll keep asking.”
Reality had turned fizzy. Or maybe that was her blood bubbling in her veins. Her head felt light, floaty, as if she’d already downed that bottle of champagne. “That’s not exactly fair, is it? I can’t leave if you—if you keep bugging me.”
“You’ll have to deal with that.”
Oh, there was that arrogance again, but with it, beneath it, he was grim. Her heart fluttered. “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you want this? I love you. We’re bonded for life. Marriage won’t . . .” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed. “Why?”
“I want to plight you my troth.” His voice was soft now. Quiet. “It’s a lovely old word, isn’t it? Troth. It means loyalty, the pledge of fidelity. It comes from an Old English word meaning truth. You are my truth, Lily.”
This man, she thought. This was the man, the only man, her Rule, her mate, the one she loved in both his selves, wolf and human . . . Loved his mysteries, his beauty, his quirks, and his arrogance. Loved his slanted eyebrows and the way he listened and the way he gave and gave and gave. She loved him. Loved him.
And he said it again. “Marry me.”
Like suddenly starred ice, she cracked—the fissures spreading, breaking up into giggling shots of fizz—a cork-popping, fiercely bubbling, frost-and-fire effervescence that had her laughing, throwing her arms around him and laughing as she held on, held on to him as she said it: “Yes.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed Mortal Sins. If you’ve been following the series, you know that sometimes worlds collide literally in my books. In Blood Lines, the worlds involved were more personal. Every time two people fall in love, there’s a collision—the need to blend furniture, jobs, beliefs . . . and families. A permanent bond between a couple means their families are joined, too, for better or worse.
If you’re new to the series, you may have questions about the history of these people and their world. There’s a list of previous books in the front pages of this one, but I’ll add a few details here. In Blood Lines, worlds collided literally—the realms shifted, bumping together, and magic leaked back into our world. After a centuries long exile, dragons returned to Earth. This time, they were welcome. Magic and technology don’t play well together, and the increased level of magic since the Turning has played havoc with computers and other technology. Dragons are natural magic sponges—they soak it up like kitty litter absorbs liquid.
Lily Yu played a part in that. But before the Turning and the return of dragons, she’d encountered them in Dis, a realm also known as hell. That’s when her soul was ripped in two, leaving her vulnerable to the wraith in Mortal Sins. If you want to know more, I hope you’ll check out Mortal Danger.
Before
Mortal Danger came
Tempting Danger, where the orignal head-on collision—the mate bond—occurred.
Tempting Danger also introduced Cullen, who suffered his own world-twisting bump when Cynna turned up in
Mortal Danger. Cullen and Cynna fought and eventually fit; their story is told most fully in
Night Season. There’s also a free short story about them on my website:
www.eileenwilks.com. You’ll find a link to the story on the
Night Season page.
Collisions continue in the next book in the series, Blood Magic. Lily is coming to terms with the consequences of saying “yes” to marriage when the past smashes into the present. An old enemy of the family will stop at nothing to achieve revenge, littering San Diego with nightmares and death.
Turn the page for a preview
of the next lupi novel
BLOOD MAGIC
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
THE mountains east of San Diego were almost always hotter than the city. Their higher elevation didn’t make up for losing the cooling power of the ocean. But the sun was down now, and in the small valley that held the village at the heart of Nokolai Clanhome, the temperature had dropped to a balmy seventy-six.
The moon wasn’t yet up, but Lily kept track of that sort of thing these days. She knew it would rise half-full in about two hours. The clan’s meeting field was alive with song, laughter, and people—far more people than actually lived there—and Lily was relieved bordering on smug.
The baby shower had gone off without a hitch, and the meeting ground was so full she had to thread her way through the crowd. Many of them didn’t live at Clanhome, so she didn’t know them. They all knew who she was, though—a bit disconcerting, that, but she smiled and nodded when strangers greeted her.
There were a lot of kids. They raced through the crowd in shoals like minnows swimming a living current. Toby was one of them, but she hadn’t seen him since he finished bolting his food.
So far, becoming a parent to Rule’s son was almost too easy. The only hard part was prying the boy loose from the rest of the clan. Lupi adored babies and children of all ages, and they saw no reason Toby shouldn’t spend all his time at Clanhome.
Most of the adults were male, and most of them weren’t wearing much. Among adults, male clan outnumbered female about three to one, and lupi possessed no body modesty whatsoever. Every man in Lily’s sight was bare-chested, barefoot, and barely covered between the navel and the knees. Cut-offs were the most popular choice.
Lily enjoyed the view. What woman wouldn’t? Even the chests with grizzled gray hair were worth a second glance. There was no such thing as a fat, sloppy, out-of-shape lupi. Everyone knew that. Just like everyone knew that the lupus ability to turn furry was inherited, not contagious. And that they were always male. And that they didn’t marry. Ever.
Lily rubbed her thumb over the ring she’d slipped onto her finger for the party. Everyone could be wrong, it seemed. Including her.
Rule was beside her, talking investments with her brother-in-law, Paul—not a subject that held much interest for her. Lily let her attention drift away, looking for Benedict or Cullen. She wanted a word with the former, and she needed to give Cullen the . . . Wait. Was that who Beth had seen earlier?
But how could Beth have mistaken that man for their cousin? The man she’d glimpsed was certainly Asian, but he didn’t look like Freddie. About the same height, maybe, but his nose was different, and she thought he was older. Plus he’d been wearing a T-shirt and ball cap. Stuffy Freddie didn’t own a ball cap. She wasn’t sure he owned a T-shirt.
She touched Rule’s arm. “I need to find Cullen and give him his present.”
He gave her the kind of smile he ought to reserve for when they were alone, brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “You’ll save me a dance.”
“Maybe two.” One dance here. One when they were alone. Lily smiled at that thought and went looking—and not just for Cullen.
The fiddlers launched into a lively song and people were making room for dancing . . . square dancing, maybe, from the sound of the music. So far no one was calling, though, so maybe it would be Western swing this time.
That was another thing about lupus gatherings—there was always music and usually dancing, but you never knew what kind. It depended on who showed up and what they wanted to play.
Lily knew one of the men fiddling for them tonight. In his other life, he was first violinist at the San Diego Symphony—and no one he worked with knew he was lupus, which was reason enough to track down Benedict. Nokolai might have gone public, but some of its members hadn’t. With the Species Citizenship Bill still bogged down in committee, some couldn’t afford to. It was legal to fire a lupus for being a lupus, and plenty of places would do just that.
Ten minutes later she gave up on finding the Asian man. She couldn’t even find anyone who’d seen him. In this sea of Caucasian faces and bare chests, he ought to stand out, dammit. Any human male ought to stand out here, but the few who’d noticed an Asian man apparently meant Paul, based on what they remembered about height and clothing. No one remembered seeing anyone in a ball cap.
Of course, that proved nothing. Lily had interviewed too many witnesses to have much confidence in human memory and attention to detail, and she had no reason to think lupi did any better.
But some of them did. Some, she realized, would have been paying attention. She nodded to herself and started looking for a man no one would overlook.
Sure enough, Benedict was easy to find.
Benedict was at the north end of the field near the tubs of drinks, talking to a man she didn’t know. They spoke briefly, then Benedict moved on. Lily raised her voice slightly. “Benedict.”
He turned and waited, giving her a nod when she reached him. Benedict was in charge of Clanhome’s security. Now that the training dance was over, he’d added some of his usual accessories to his cut-offs—a large sword sheathed on his back, a holstered .357 at his hip, and an ear bud. His phone was fastened to his belt opposite the .357.
The combination of low-tech and high-tech weaponry, bare skin, and impressive musculature gave him the look of an animated gaming character, with a whiff of Secret Service from the ear bud. She had to smile. “No machine gun?”
“No. I’m not expecting trouble.”
He was serious. At least she thought he was—with Benedict it was hard to tell. “That dance was really something. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He nodded, agreeing. Maybe pleased.
“Does it mean—”
“I won’t discuss my relationship with my brother with you.”
Her eyebrows climbed. Good guess, even if he was wrong about the outcome. Sooner or later, they would discuss that. “I’ll table that for now. I have a security concern.”
He didn’t move. His expression didn’t change. Yet everything about him sharpened. “Yes?”
“I’ve seen an Asian man here I can’t account for. Not Paul—you’ve seen Paul Liu, my brother-in-law? This man is shorter than Paul and possibly older. I only got one glimpse, so I can’t give much of a description, but he was wearing a dark ball cap and a pale shirt with short sleeves. Probably a T-shirt.”
“I haven’t seen him or received a report of him, and my people are tracking all the ospi currently at Clanhome.”
Lily blinked. Ospi meant out-clan guest. “My sisters? You’re tracking my sisters?”
His smiled slightly. “I keep track of any out-clan who enter Clanhome.”
Had she been mistaken? Lily drummed her fingers on her thigh. No, she decided. She hadn’t. “There aren’t any Asian Nokolai, are there?”
“Two,” Benedict said promptly. “Half-Asian, of course. One has a Korean mother and lives in Los Angeles. He’s ten years old. The other is an adult whose mother was Japaense. John Ino is fifty-seven and lives in Seattle, and I doubt he’s here today. But it’s possible.”
“Find out. I saw an Asian man in a ball cap. He’s not a guest, and it sounds like he isn’t Nokolai.” Maybe he’d only worn the cap for a short time. Maybe he’d seen her looking for him and faded away from the crowd. Maybe he’d left altogether, in which case they were too late, but it was worth finding out. “This party would be one hell of an opportunity for a paparazzi, and they make cameras really small these days.”
Benedict considered her for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Whoever he is, this man didn’t come in either of the gates. It’s possible to enter elsewhere, but only on foot. Which means he’s left a scent trail.” He pulled out his phone and hit a number. “Saul. I need you. I’m by the soft drinks.”
He put up the phone. “Saul’s got the best nose of any of my people. He’ll Change and you’ll show him where you saw the man. With so many trampling over the ground, he may not be able to pick up the scent there, but it’s a place to start.”
“Good. Why did you participate in the dance tonight?”
“To impress the youngsters so they’ll try harder.”
“That’s not the only reason. Rule danced, too, and neither of you usually does.”
His mouth curved up a fraction. “You’re perceptive. It’s annoying at times. Very well. I also sent a message. I’m not speaking to my brother, but I fully support my Lu Nuncio. It was best that everyone understand that.”
So his problem with Rule was personal, not a “good of the clan” thing. “You think they’ll get that message from the dance?”
His eyebrows lifted about a millimeter. “Of course.”
Hmm. “Well, it made for a fantastic show. But how in the world did you end it that way? Even if you’re strong enough to just stop him one-handed, it seems like you’d break a few bones—his, yours, both.”
“Seabourne’s good. Quick. When he—” His head whipped up. Without a gesture or word or a single damned clue what was wrong, he took off running.
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MORTAL SINS
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
printing history
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / February 2009
Copyright © 2009 by Eileen Wilks.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-00042-7
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