by Eileen Wilks
She was tired, after all. He wasn’t, but he was still too churned up for sleep to sound remotely possible. Lily was probably craving it by now, though. An injured body needed sleep.
He thought of seeing her sprawled on the floor, unconscious, and anger burned through his blood, hot and vivid. He wanted to howl—and then tear out someone’s throat.
“You trying to dig a new grip into that steering wheel?”
“Hmm? Oh.” He flexed his hands on the wheel, forcing them to relax. “How’s your head?”
“Better.” She gave it a little shake. “A lot better. More than makes sense.”
“You may notice some improvement in your shoulder, too. Nettie left you in sleep for a while after the ritual was over.”
Now her head swiveled sharply. “What do you mean?”
“You know what ‘in sleep’ means.”
“More or less. It’s a healing trance, magically induced. I know she said something about that, but I thought she was just using a term I was familiar with to describe something similar.”
“No, she meant just what she said. You were in sleep.”
“But I couldn’t be! That’s magic, and magic doesn’t affect me.”
So that’s what was bothering her. “Normally she wouldn’t be able to put you in sleep, but for this she was backed by spiritual energies, not magic. Which may have given your healing an extra boost, by the way.”
“But that doesn’t make sense! It’s… I can feel Nettie’s Gift when I touch her, so what she does is magic.”
“What does Nettie’s Gift feel like?” he asked, curious.
She made a vague gesture, palm up. “Sort of like crumbly dirt or fern leaves—basic, earthy, intricate. The point is, she uses magic. Even if she gets it through prayer, it’s still the same stuff.”
“Apparently not, since she was able to put you in sleep.”
She frowned at the glittering worm of taillights ahead. “At first I was thinking… wondering… what if my being a sensitive messed things up? She thought I was clean because no one answered, but maybe my Gift kept her ritual from working. But that doesn’t make sense, either, because she did put me in sleep. Only I don’t see how she could.”
He made a soft, wordless exclamation and reached for her hand. “You’re still worried about it. Lily, there’s no trace of the demonic in you.”
“I know. I know that, and yet I feel something. When I touch my shoulder, there’s still a trace of that orangey texture. The demon did something to me, and I don’t see how it could. 1 need to know that, and I need to know what it did.”
What could he say? He knew she wasn’t tainted, but his certainty was intuitive. She wanted rational.
He tried anyway. “Even if a demon could somehow get behind your shields, or whatever it is that makes you a sensitive—”
“One did.”
“Maybe. You don’t know what that orange feeling means. But even if being a sensitive didn’t protect you, the mate bond would. You’re touched by the Lady.”
At first she didn’t say anything. A quick glance told him she was frowning hard, as if he’d presented her with a delicate knot to unravel. “I realize you believe that,” she said at last. “But Karonski said people of faith were protected. I’m not of your faith, so your Lady’s protection wouldn’t extend to me.”
She was being so careful to sound respectful of his beliefs. It annoyed him. “The Lady is real, Lily. As real as her adversary—and I know you believe in Her existence.”
“The one we can’t name. Right. She’s real enough.” Lily’s fingers drummed an impatient tattoo on the crumpled chiffon covering her thigh. “Stipulating that your Lady is real doesn’t mean that what you believe about Her is fact.”
“We don’t claim to know everything about the Lady, but she’s spoken to the clans many times down through the centuries. We can be fairly confident we’ve got the basics right.”
“Hmm.”
She didn’t even ask. She assumed he was talking about some fuzzy business of prophets and faith where logic need not apply, and she didn’t bother to ask what he meant. “Don’t be so bloody dismissive of anything you didn’t read about in school.”
“There’s a difference between myth and documented history.”
“Our oral history isn’t myth. Whether you believe it or not, when the clans are in danger, the Lady speaks to us or gives us aid in other ways.” Maliciously he added, “She uses one of the Chosen.”
She swiveled to stare at him, horrified. “You are not saying what I think you’re saying.”
He smiled. It was not a nice smile.
At the gens amplexi two weeks ago, when Lily had been made officially Nokolai, she’d received a fervent welcome. So many of the clan had been eager to talk to the new Chosen. To touch her. She’d been baffled by the attention, and he hadn’t explained. He’d been pretty sure she’d be appalled.
He’d been right.
She swallowed. “You mean they thought… they think… good God.”
“They’re hoping the Lady will help us through you.”
“You told them different, didn’t you?” It was more demand than question.
“What could I tell them? I don’t know the Lady’s purpose.”
“Well, you can’t possibly think I’m some kind of mouthpiece for your goddess, some prophet or… what’s it called? Avatar.”
“The Lady doesn’t use avatars.”
He could almost hear her teeth grinding. “Pick another word for it, then. Good God. I don’t even have the language to discuss this. It’s obvious I—hey! You missed the turnoff.”
“No, I didn’t.”
For several long heartbeats she didn’t respond. When she did, her voice was tight. “I’m not going to your apartment.”
“They knew enough about you to get to you at your sister’s wedding. They for damned sure know where you live.”
“Rule—”
“For God’s sake, Lily, be reasonable! You’ve got a decent lock on your door, but that won’t stop someone from breaking that nice, big window in the living room and stepping inside. I can protect you from most things, but if that demon—”
“I haven’t asked you to protect me. If you—”
“They tried and failed to possess you. Who’s to say what they’ll try next? If the Azá‘s goddess is behind this—and we’d better assume She is—She is not one to give up on revenge. Killing you would be the easiest of their options. Benedict sent a couple of his men to my place for extra security tonight, and that’s where we’re going.”
“Fine. Great. But if you think I’m going to trail bodyguards around while conducting an investigation, you need a reality check. And I can’t stay at your place tonight. If you’d just—”
“Dammit, Lily, this is not the time to argue about where we live! Or whether we’re living together at all, or just getting together every night. Do you have any idea how strong demons are?” he demanded, swerving around a slow-moving van. “You’re protected from a magical assault, but that doesn’t help much if the demon decides to rip off your head.”
“Would you slow down? Your reflexes may be super-sized, but the drivers you’re passing have to get by with plain old human response times. You could scare one of them off the road or into another car.”
He glanced at the speedometer. His lips tightened as he forced himself to ease off on the accelerator. He’d passed a hundred without noticing.
“You also need to turn around. And listen. I’ve been trying to tell you—”
“What? What kind of lame-ass reason could you possibly have to refuse to make yourself as safe as possible?”
“Dirty Harry.”
Rule swallowed what he’d been about to say and used his breath for cursing her cat—her blasted, be-damned, antisocial, wolf-hating beast of a cat they’d left outside
• because the infernal creature had been off doing stupid cat things when they left for the wedding.
But Lily
had accepted responsibility for the animal, and you didn’t abandon a dependent when there was danger. Rule understood that, however little he liked it at the moment. The neighbor Lily occasionally asked to feed her cat was out of town. No one else had a key, and it was after midnight.
He ran out of ways to describe the beast shortly after they left the interstate.
“Feel better?” she asked dryly.
“No.” He began winding his way back toward her apartment. “Dogs make sense. They understand hierarchy and the need to cooperate. They come when you call them. A cat though—a cat will take your number and get back to you. Maybe. If he’s in a good mood.” Not that he’d ever seen Harry in a good mood. “Why couldn’t you have gotten a dog?”
“At what point do you think I had a choice? Now that I think about it, being claimed by a cat isn’t that different from the mate bond.”
“There’s no similarity at all.”
She just looked at him.
He took a deep breath, trying to get his temper under control. “We’ll feed Harry and take him back to my apartment.”
“You keep forgetting the asking thing.”
“So?” He was being unreasonable. That was all right. He didn’t feel reasonable.
She surprised him. He hadn’t expected her to pout— Lily wasn’t a pouter—but he did think he’d get an argument, maybe an explosion. Instead she sighed, unclicked her safety belt, and levered herself onto the console separating the seats.
Automatically he stretched an arm behind her, steadying her. “What in the—”
“Shut up, Rule.” She leaned against him.
It couldn’t be comfortable for her, perching on the console that way. It wasn’t as high as some, but if she’d been bigger than a bite she wouldn’t have fit.
Her head was level with his. Normally that only happened when they were in bed. He could smell her hair— she’d recently switched to an apple-scented shampoo he liked—and the musky, indescribable scent that was Lily.
His arm relaxed around her. Her upper arm pressed against his, and the calf of her left leg rested along his right leg. She was warm. So warm.
What the hell. He’d give her suggestion a try and shut up.
For several blocks he drove one-handed, in silence and more slowly. His arm was no substitute for a seat belt.
Gradually his thoughts began to slow, too. He found a measure of silence, the inside sort. Like listening to the wind or letting the slow pulse of the earth seep up through his feet, this was a quiet that soothed even as it made him pay attention to things he’d wanted to ignore.
She was so warm and welcome against him, and he could lose her.
Nearby, a dog barked. A couple blocks away someone honked. He passed dark houses, closed businesses, an old Chevy with the bass blasting. There was the purr of the engine, the shush of tires on concrete, and the quiet susurration of her breathing.
Could she hear his breaths? He was never sure how much humans heard. In his other form, he’d have been able to pick out the beating of her heart, but his hearing wasn’t that acute while two-legged.
Of course, in his other form, the sound and scent and feel of her wouldn’t have affected him the way it was now. He was aware of his own pulse now, the sound of it in his ears, the heat and heaviness in his groin. Need brushed him with heavy wings that fluttered between desire and panic.
He could lose her.
When he turned onto the street that dead-ended at her apartment complex, she spoke quietly. “I’m scared for you, too.”
His hand tightened at her waist. “If you’d go to Clan-home—”
“I can’t hunt down Harlowe if I’m locked up somewhere.”
“I know. I know, but that doesn’t make this any easier.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
That she’d quit her job, stay at Clanhome, let him make sure she was safe. That she’d… be someone other than who and what she was: the one for him. The only one, now and for the rest of his life. And a cop.
His instinct was to protect. So was hers. This was going to make their life together interesting. “Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing you need to say. I’ll deal with it.”
He tried not to think about his brother. There was no point in going there, no point in remembering what Benedict’s Chosen had put him through. Lily was nothing like Claire, thank God. But she was human. So easily damaged. He couldn’t help remembering Benedict’s wild grief, the way it had ripped sanity from his brother like skin ripped from the body, leaving the insides exposed, bloody and dripping.
Gods, the sound of Benedict’s howl…
He hadn’t understood. He’d been very young, of course, when Claire died. But even as an adult he hadn’t grasped how deep his brother’s grief had cut, though he’d seen the effects of that wounding.
Now he’d had a glimpse. For an instant, one tiny slice of a second, when he’d seen Lily’s body on that bathroom floor…
“Don’t do that!”
“What?”
“Your eyes have gone all weird. Like you’re about to change or something.”
His breath hitched as he caught himself. Gods, yes, he’d been slipping, sliding toward the beast without noticing. Like some crazed adolescent, losing control through sheer, bloody inattention. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I… don’t worry. I’m not going to lose control.”
“Just don’t turn furry while you’re behind the wheel.” She brought her leg back over the console and slid back into her seat.
He missed her immediately. How absurd.
They’d reached her apartment complex—though that was too grand a name for the U-shaped, stucco huddle. It had begun life in the thirties as a cut-rate motel and hadn’t been improved by the Pepto Bismol paint job inflicted on it by some deranged manager. The exterior was well lit, at least—good from a security standpoint, if not aesthetically.
“How is it that you can always find a parking space?” she asked as he pulled into a spot directly in front of the exterior stairs that led to her unit.
“It’s not hard at this hour.” He climbed out.
The one advantage to Lily’s living quarters was the location—only two blocks from the ocean. The air was heavy with the sea’s complex perfume. Rule filled his lungs with it.
As usual, she got out without waiting for him to get her door, her unholstered automatic in her good hand. “That’s not it. You always… what?” she said crossly as his lips twitched. “What’s so funny?”
“Your weapon makes an interesting fashion accessory.”
She glanced at the gun in her hand, at her wreck of a dress, shrugged, and started for the stairs. Then stopped. “All right, all right,” she told the huge gray beast twining around her ankles as he voiced his opinion of the late hour. “The food’s upstairs, Harry. If you want to eat, you have to let me move.”
“He was worried about you.”
“He was worried about his dinner. Hey!”
Rule had passed her, moving at an easy lope that was roughly as fast as a human could run. He had no intention of allowing her to go in first, but she was likely to argue about that, given a chance. “You’re rearguard tonight.”
Her voice followed him up the stairs. “Just get out of the way if there’s something in there that needs shooting.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” There was no sign of forced entry. And Harry, whose nose was keener than Rule’s at the moment, was impatient to go in, his tail twitching, obviously unalarmed. Rule put his key in the top lock, then the next one, and swung the door open.
A smell that didn’t belong had him dropping into a fighting crouch—then straightening as his brain caught up and identified it. “Bloody hell. What are you doing here?”
SEVEN
LILY’S heartbeat jumped when she saw Rule tense. She rushed up the last few stairs, weapon ready. Then he relaxed and asked someone what they were doing here.
“Good question,” she said, slo
wing to a walk. Dammit, she was too tired for yet another adrenaline cocktail. Her heart was still pounding, but she’d hit shaky soon enough. She just hoped she didn’t fall flat on her face. “There’s also who, how, and why, but I’m tempted to skip them in favor of ‘good night.’”
“I’ll do my best to get to ‘good night’ quickly.” Rule stepped inside, and Lily had one of her questions answered.
There was only one chair in her small, spare living room. Her unexpected visitor wasn’t using it. Instead, he sat on the floor pillow by the coffee table, playing with the air between his fingers. He wore a dark blue shirt, collarless and only half buttoned. His feet were bare, and his cinnamon-colored hair had gone too long without a trim. With his head bent, it concealed a face she knew to be heartbreakingly gorgeous.
Cullen looked up. “Hello, luv. That is one ugly dress. The blood yours?”
Lily sighed. “I know I locked the door, yet here you are. In my living room. Uninvited.”
“Ah, well, I thought you wouldn’t want me to wait out on the cold concrete, and I was sure I didn’t want me to. I’ve been here for…” His fingers paused. “Good Lord, it must be after midnight.” He looked her up and down with brilliant blue eyes she wasn’t entirely used to. Three weeks ago, his eye sockets had been scabbed-over hollows. “Looks like you’ve had quite an evening. Rough sex?”
She growled low in her throat and started for the kitchen. “Come on, Harry.” And almost humiliated herself when Rule scooped her up in his arms, swallowing a startled shriek at the last second. “Don’t do that when I’m armed.”
“She’s got a point,” Cullen said.
Rule deposited her in the oversize armchair. “You can disarm now. I’ll take care of Harry and then get rid of Cullen. And before you blow up at me,” he added, dropping to crouch in front of her, “remember that I’m used to being yelled at for my high-handed behavior.”
Cullen chuckled. “He means the Rho. The old man’s healing, but it takes longer at his age. Makes him great fun to be around. He ripped Rule a new one last week for following Nettie’s instructions about the Council meeting.”