Blood Challenge

by Eileen Wilks

  But listening to her voice mail? That riled her. “I also read your e-mail. A Nigerian official has a deal you won’t want to pass up. You can call your aunt.” He handed her his phone.

  “This isn’t my phone.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’ll need it back. I’ll be listening while you speak with your aunt, so you want to be careful with what you say.” He’d be able to hear both sides of that conversation, too, which she probably didn’t realize.

  She gave him a dirty look and touched the screen, then turned around and limped toward her room. “Maybe I’ll read your e-mail.”

  “I’ll have to take the phone away if you try.”

  “It’s intensely annoying when someone who’s stronger than you uses his strength to get his way.”

  “I imagine it is. Are you going to call?” He was close enough to watch over her shoulder and see what number she used.

  She sniffed and used her thumb to tap in the number of the Robin who’d called earlier.

  A man answered. “Hey. You got me. Now what?”

  “Hi, Uncle Clay, it’s Arjenie. I’m using a friend’s phone. Is Aunt Robin there?”

  “Are you okay? Robin’s been having tingles.”

  “I’m fine. Well, I sprained my ankle, but there’s nothing new about that.”

  “What happened? Or what is happening, because—okay, okay.” The last was fainter, as if he’d spoken to someone else. “Hang on. Your aunt is a grabby, greedy woman. I have to pass her the phone.” A second later a woman’s voice took over. “Arjenie? What’s wrong? And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ because I know there’s something.”

  “It’s complicated, but I’m getting things sorted out. Don’t worry.”

  “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “I can’t tell you anything else right now. Oh, but guess what? Part of the sorting out means that I was invited to stay with the Nokolai Rho.” At the door of her room she paused to shoot Benedict a glance gleaming with purpose and a hint of humor. The purpose he understood. She’d made sure her people knew where she was, just in case Isen started talking about bodies again. That was smart. The humor?

  Maybe she didn’t really believe she needed to protect herself that way. Which was not so smart. She had no reason to trust him.

  “You’re what?” her aunt exclaimed.

  “Staying with their Rho for a few days. Reception’s spotty—you know that their clanhome is in the mountains, right?—plus my phone’s acting up. If you have trouble reaching me, don’t worry. I’ll check in with you every day.”

  Another smart move. She’d made sure he knew her aunt would expect a call every day.

  “Why are staying there?” Aunt Robin didn’t sound panicked, but she wasn’t comforted, either. “You don’t know this Rho, do you? Does this have anything to do with—”

  “I really can’t talk about it,” Arjenie said firmly. “Did Serri and Sammy make it down for the weekend?”

  Serri and Sammy were apparently in college, but came home regularly. Serri had a new boyfriend. Sammy had aced his calculus test, but was considering changing his major. After that, the conversation veered to a piece of equipment her uncle had acquired—a swage block. Benedict had heard the term, but couldn’t remember what it was.

  While he listened, Benedict noticed Carl crossing the den and motioned to him. Arjenie needed food. She didn’t seem to notice Carl coming, leaving, then returning. She sat on the bed running that pick thing through her damp hair and chatting with her aunt for fifteen minutes, sounding as relaxed as if she were on vacation. “I’d better go,” she said finally. “Supper’s almost ready, I think. Blessed be.”

  “All right, but don’t think I didn’t notice how little you’ve told me. All that silence is not reassuring. Blessed be, sweetie.”

  Arjenie frowned as she disconnected. “She’ll worry. I can’t keep her from worrying, but at least she won’t get the cops to look for me.”

  She certainly was keen on keeping the police out of her affairs. “Is your aunt a precog?”

  “No, she’s a Finder, which shouldn’t give her the least hint of second sight, but she always knows when one of us is in trouble. She gets tingles.”

  “Your uncle’s a blacksmith.” He’d finally remembered who used swage blocks.

  “Uh-huh. He’s begun to get a name for his sculpture, too, but the blacksmithing is still his bread-and-butter work.”

  “And your aunt’s a Wiccan.” As was she, most likely. She wore the Wiccan star on one hand.

  “We all are. The whole family, I mean, going back forever on my uncle’s side. Though he isn’t my uncle by blood, so I can’t claim that heritage, but on my aunt’s side we’ve been Wiccan for at least five generations. It gets murky if you go back farther, because my great-great-great-grandmother was adopted after a flood killed her parents—the Great Flood in Galveston, have you heard of it? She was quite young when it happened and we don’t know much about her original parents, but we think they must have been Wiccan because her adoptive parents weren’t, yet she was, and that just never happened back then. Converting to Wicca, I mean. Is that a trail bar you’re holding?”

  He smiled. “Two. Here.”

  “Oh, good.” She ripped one open and devoured it in several neat bites. Then she opened the second one. She ate it more slowly, and she asked questions. Did it hurt to Change? How often did he do it? What colors did he see as a wolf? Was his vision different? Why wasn’t he asking her any questions?

  He was leaving that to his father, and so he told her. Then, of course, she wanted to know why. He preferred not to lie to her, but he also preferred not to tell her precisely why he wanted to wait, so he alluded vaguely to the fact that they would be joined at supper by Cullen Seabourne.

  “And his wife?” she’d asked quickly.

  His eyebrows flew up. “You know a great deal about Seabourne.”

  “Never mind that for now. Will his wife be joining us?”

  “I haven’t been told.” Technically true, but he was sure she wouldn’t be. Cynna was staying with the Rhej for a few days. It had something to do with her apprenticeship and the memories, though Benedict knew nothing more than that. No one did, save the Rhej and her apprentice.

  Arjenie bit her lip, then nodded once as if agreeing with herself. “I think I will tell you some things, but not yet. You’re right. I need to speak with your father. He’s the one who decides.”

  NINETEEN

  THE one who decides joined them on the rear deck twenty minutes later. Seabourne hadn’t arrived yet. That wasn’t due to his usual rudeness; he’d warned them that making the charm was tricky and might delay him. But it was a pain. Benedict needed to talk with his Rho, but couldn’t do so privately until Seabourne took over guard duty.

  He wanted to discuss the attack on Lily and the news Rule had passed on about Ruben Brooks’s heart attack. That was the most important. Less important—probably—was another example of Arjenie’s oddly detailed knowledge about them. When she said she needed to speak with the Rho, she’d called him Benedict’s father. She shouldn’t have known that. Few outside the clans did.

  The deck was Benedict’s favorite part of the house. There were two levels. The lower level, next to the house, was roofed; the upper level was smaller and open to the sky. Benedict had helped his father build the stone retaining wall that separated the two. They would eat on the lower deck, where there were lights enough for their human guest, but for now they sat on the upper deck. Isen liked the view.

  Benedict did, too. The sky was putting on a show. Twilight shimmered in the east while the western sky glowed golden, and Venus hung, sparkling, near the top of the old loblolly that lightning hadn’t managed to kill five years ago. The air was dry and calm, perfumed by pine and creosote as well as Carl’s lasagna. It was probably around seventy-five degrees, a comfortable temperature for humans.

  Not that Arjenie was wholly human. How did she experience temperature? Where did she differ from
human? Where was she the same?

  Arjenie loved the deck. She loved the landscaping around it, and the way the tended parts blended into the wildness around them. She didn’t love the cabernet sauvignon Isen poured for her—an elegant vintage, a real treat for the nose—but she pretended politely.

  Pretense turned to curiosity when she learned the wine came from Nokolai’s own vineyard. She and Isen chatted away happily about wine-making. She knew more about that than most laymen—certainly more than he’d expect from someone who didn’t drink the stuff.

  She wasn’t afraid of Isen anymore. Benedict knew that was his Rho’s intention, just as last night he’d meant to terrify her. Today he wanted her to relax her guard, and Isen could be very charming indeed when he wished. But her comfort seemed innate as well. She was like a wolf in that way, Benedict decided as he sipped his wine and listened to his father charm his Chosen. She was good at taking whatever the moment offered. Once she’d determined there was no immediate threat, fear became irrelevant.

  Or else his perceptions were entirely distorted by the mate bond, and she was a supremely confident and powerful actress who hoped to charm Isen into letting his guard down.

  If so, she was out of luck. No one could charm Isen to that degree.

  She smelled so good.

  “I would love to see it,” she said in response to Isen’s invitation to tour Nokolai’s winery. “Which sort of leads into something else I want to talk about. How long do you plan to keep me here?”

  “We aren’t keeping you,” Isen protested mildly. “We are simply—”

  “—planning to call the cops if I leave. Right. I understand why you—no, I take that back. I understand why you’re suspicious. I don’t understand why you haven’t just called the cops. I’m glad you didn’t, because that would create problems for me and could endanger someone else, but I don’t understand why. It makes me think there’s something you know that I don’t.”

  “Hmm.” Isen studied the wine in his glass, gave it a swirl to release the aroma, and sipped. “Yes, you could say that. It isn’t something I’m prepared to talk about now.”

  She nodded solemnly. “And I’m unable to talk about the potions. At least, I did tell Benedict about one of them—the one that removed my scent—but I can’t discuss the other one. Not in any helpful way.” She stopped, tipped her head, and looked at Benedict. “How come you’re so quiet? You’ve hardly said a word since we came outside. Are you deferring to your Rho or just moody?”

  Isen gave a sharp crack of a laugh.

  His father found that amusing, did he? “I’m not very talkative.”

  “You note that he doesn’t deny being moody,” Isen said.

  “Quiet doesn’t necessarily mean moody . . . but I’m getting off-subject.” Yet still she looked at Benedict. In this light, her skin was luminous, so pale it almost glowed. Her eyes were more gray than green or blue, and her expression was pure librarian. A librarian confronted with a book she didn’t know how to shelve. Apparently he didn’t fit the Dewey Decimal System.

  After a moment she gave her head a small shake and spoke to Isen again. “I’d like to make a deal.”

  Isen smiled like the charming wolf he was. “What kind of deal?”

  “You want to know things about me. I want to be free to leave by Monday with no more threats of prosecution or anything like that. “

  “Why Monday?”

  “I’m expected back at work Tuesday.”

  “You would trust me to honor our deal?”

  “We’d be trusting each other, wouldn’t we? That’s how deals work. You’d have to trust me to answer honestly. I’d have to trust you to abandon your coercion. Um . . . I’d have to ask for one more stipulation.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You recall that I said Robert Friar is clairaudient? I’d like your promise not to talk about what I tell you except here at Clanhome, where he can’t Listen. It’s extremely important.”

  “I’m no fan of Friar, yet I can’t promise what you ask. My people consider a promise binding in an absolute sense. There is no wiggle room for changed circumstances, so flexibility must be built into the agreement at the start.”

  “We can build in some wiggle room. What did you have in mind?”

  They haggled. Benedict listened with a certain intellectual interest. His father was very good at this sort of thing, but his Chosen seemed to have a good grasp of it, too. He wondered if her long shower had been a way of buying herself some thinking time. She seemed to have put some thought into this already.

  They’d just about hashed out the wording when Benedict heard someone yip twice out front. He recognized the voice, but still listened intently for a moment. There was no challenge, so he relaxed . . . mostly. Absolute safety was an illusion.

  “One more thing,” Isen added casually. “I don’t think you’ll have a problem with this. I’d like you to wear a little truth charm while you’re here.”

  “Oh.” Her eyebrows drew down. “I don’t object, precisely, but . . . no, I might as well tell you. I doubt very much it will work.”

  “Is that so?” Cullen Seabourne vaulted up onto the deck.

  She jerked around. “Oh, my, you startled me!”

  Seabourne had unusually vivid blue eyes. When he was on the trail of some magical mystery, they almost glowed. They were afire now. “Burning out truth charms—that’s a gnomish trait. You don’t look like you have any gnome blood.”

  “I don’t, but I’m pretty sure I’ll burn it out. I don’t do it on purpose.” Arjenie shrugged. “It just happens. I don’t know how many of them we’ve tried, hoping to figure out what was going on, but we never did.” Her face lit up. “I know! If your truth charm does work on me, we’ll make it part of the deal that you tell me how you made it. That is, assuming you’re the maker?”

  “I am.” Seabourne came closer. “Are you hoping to learn how to block it?”

  “No, I’m hoping to learn more about my Gift. If I found a truth charm I didn’t burn out, I’d want to know why, wouldn’t I? Maybe that would explain why I do burn out the others. It’s only natural I’d want to learn more about how my Gift works.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You don’t know?”

  “I know some things, but there are these huge gaps. I’m the only one with such a Gift in our realm, you see. I understand it’s rare even in the sidhe realms, except for . . . I think I’ll stop talking now. We haven’t agreed on a deal.”

  “If you wish to learn how Cullen makes his charms,” Isen said, “you’ll have to make a separate deal with him. Otherwise, yes, I think we have a deal. While you’re our guest, you’ll answer our questions fully and honestly, save any that impinge on the subject you say you can’t discuss. You won’t lie about those, but you are free of the obligation to answer. You’ll remain our guest until Monday, and you’ll wear the truth charm unless you, ah, burn it out. In return, I and those under my authority won’t report or seek retribution or prosecution for your trespass, and we’ll only speak of what you tell us here at Clanhome unless we have a clear and compelling reason to disregard that stipulation.”

  “I’m not entirely happy about the exemption.” She considered a moment. “Let’s make it unless you learn I lied to or substantially misled you, or there is a clear and compelling danger that might be prevented through disclosure.”

  Was his Chosen a lawyer? Benedict was beginning to wonder.

  “Agreed.” Isen held out his hand.

  “Agreed,” Arjenie said firmly, and took Isen’s hand. They shook.

  “And here,” Seabourne said, pulling something from his pocket, “is your new adornment.” A small silver disk attached to a silver chain dangled from his fingers. Benedict didn’t know much about charms, but he knew silver was magically active. “Shall I do the honors?”

  “No,” Benedict said, and stepped up, holding out his hand. “I will.”

  Seabourne’s eyebrows shot up. For once, though, he didn’t c
omment, allowing the necklace to drop into Benedict’s palm.

  He probably thought Benedict had a good reason to do it himself. He’d be wrong. Sheer insanity wasn’t a good reason. Having begun, though, Benedict followed through, moving behind her. He looped it over her neck and paused. “Hair.”

  Obligingly she gathered her hair in both hands—so much hair, frenetically curling and smelling of almonds from the shampoo—and held it up off her nape. He drew the chain around her neck and bent his head and inhaled slowly. Her scent filled him, settled him, excited him. He thought of moving her shirt aside so he could touch the pale skin of one shoulder. Of running his hands under her shirt and up her back, or just laying them flat on her waist and pulling her close. It was stupid to tease himself like this. Wrong to tease her. But he let the sides of his hands skim the skin at her nape lightly as he fastened the little chain.

  She shivered.

  “Done.” The effort to sound normal flattened his voice. He stepped back.

  The chain was short. The silver disk rested against her skin just below the graceful indention at the base of her throat. As far as Benedict could tell, nothing happened.

  “Damn.” Seabourne shook his head. “Can’t say you didn’t warn me.”

  Isen spoke. “Does that mean it burned out, like she said?”

  “Whiffed out within a couple seconds of touching her skin. If I’d known she had a habit of burning them out . . .” He frowned. “Do you feel anything when it happens?”

  “Warmth. It’s still kind of warm, see?” She held out the charm. Seabourne took in between his fingers, rubbing it. “Hmm. Maybe if we try—”

  “Try later,” Isen said. “Carl has brought out the lasagna. Let’s eat.”

  CARL often ate with the Rho, but he didn’t join them tonight. Not that he’d go hungry. If Arjenie thought it was odd that a large square of lasagna was missing from the pan, she didn’t say so. “That smells desperately delicious,” she said as Isen held her chair for her.

  Carl was the Rho’s houseman. He cooked and cleaned and—once in a long while—he spoke. He’d passed the century mark two decades ago and had been houseman to Is-en’s father as well, and his lasagna was, indeed, desperately delicious.