Blood Challenge

by Eileen Wilks

  “These tears are an addictive substance.”

  She goes crazy without them. Brain damage that can’t be healed and that’s how Friar controls her but she thinks he’s broken contract which is a very big deal to the Binai but Queens’ Law even bigger I don’t know . . .

  Little by little, Lily pulled together the story. Arjenie was thinking in sentences more often this time, aware that Lily was “hearing” her and trying to be clear, but it was still nothing like the crisp mindspeech Sam used. Plus Lily’s ability faded in and out, and she had to go back and ask again. And again.

  “But you believe Dya could have crafted such a potion. One that would cause a heart attack.”

  Oh, yes, humans are easy to . . . Binai make incredibly sophisticated potions that can’t be detected . . . why they’re feared and coveted says her people couldn’t survive without . . . but her lord holds her contract don’t know what realm he’s in but sure not here don’t see how Friar got hold of it. Of her.

  “I have an idea about that.” Lily was vaguely aware of her head throbbing and wished she could rub her neck, but she needed her one useable hand to . . . oh. Shit.

  She looked at Arjenie, who was thinking about a complex jumble of rules called Queens’ Laws, then at Rule. And sighed. “I’m getting the beginning of a headache. It feels like a normal headache, nothing spooky, but I promised.” She let go of Arjenie’s hand.

  The sudden silence in her head was wonderful. Did Sam pick up everyone’s mental chatter all the time? Surely not. She’d ask, though.

  “Lily?” Rule looked worried.

  “It’s a tension headache.” She could feel the tightness all across her shoulders and neck and scalp. “I’m okay. Now,” she said, looking around at the others. “You probably picked up some ideas from what I asked, but with lots of gaps. Plus we jumped around some. I’ll see if I can put it in order.

  “The binding is all about Dya. Dya is Arjenie’s half sister, and the result of a contract job for Eledan. Her other half is Binai, a non-sidhe race who live in one of the sidhe realms. When Arjenie was fourteen, Eledan showed up suddenly with Arjenie’s half sister in tow. She’s small enough for him to take with him when he crosses, apparently. He wanted Arjenie’s family to keep Dya for a while.

  “Eledan explained that Dya’s people—her elders—wanted to start her on something called the tears. Eledan thought she was too young for that. Ah . . . I didn’t understand all of this, but there was something about a contract that allowed him to negotiate for Dya. Or maybe he could do that because he was her father. Anyway, when Arjenie’s aunt and uncle learned what the tears were like, they agreed. Dya stayed with them for over a year. She learned our language and other Earthly things—like how to use a phone.

  “That’s how she contacted Arjenie about a week ago. Friar is keeping her at a little guest cottage behind his house. She’s sort of on loan to him—there’s a big-deal sidhe lord who holds her contract.”

  “What does this contract cover?” Isen asked.

  Lily shrugged. “Arjenie doesn’t know specifics. She believes the Binai hold contracts as sacred, inviolable. Um, when I asked, she thought that the closest analogue we have would be the kind of contracts signed by indentured servants back when we were a colony, only a lot more important. Anyway, Dya managed to make a phone call to Arjenie, who flew out here to see her, but secretly. Arjenie’s afraid of what Friar would do to Dya if he found out. The night Benedict ran into Arjenie at Friar’s was the first time she’d seen her sister since she was sixteen. They talked. Dya gave Arjenie the two potions and told her what to do with them.”

  “And these potions were supposed to do—what?” Isen asked

  “One was to nullify Arjenie’s scent, so she wouldn’t leave a scent trail. The other . . . Dya called it an undoer. Supposedly it would undo any other potion she’d made—and one of her potions had already been dumped into Nokolai’s water supply.”

  Benedict made a small sound. Lily paused, giving him a chance to speak, but he waved for her to continue. “I wondered about that. If Friar is one of her agents, he couldn’t come into Clanhome without the Rho and the Rhej being aware of it. Or something like that. Or so I’ve been told?”

  Isen answered. “You were told correctly. If Friar has been touched—changed—by her, the mantle would react to his presence on Clanhome. But he could send someone who didn’t bear her taint. Most or all of his people probably don’t.”

  Arjenie spoke for the first time in quite awhile. “Mantle? What’s a—”

  “Later,” Benedict told her.

  Mantles were not to be spoken of around out-clan . . . but a Chosen was clan, even if she didn’t know it yet. Lily felt a pang for all Arjenie had yet to learn, but went on. “It seems that Dya’s people, the Binai, are famous for their potions. I get the idea there aren’t many Binai, and the ones who can make top-grade potions are rare. They don’t make them in the usual way, though. The women—only the women—manufacture them in their bodies. They can do this because of the tears. The Binai have this gland that makes a nasty poison like a snake’s venom. The tears change them, body and brain, so they can control what kind of substance they excrete, tailor it and give it magical properties. But they also render the Binai permanently dependent. Dya has to receive the tears daily. Friar controls her supply.

  “These potions are special. Highly targeted. They—the Binai—are used as healers sometimes, and for other things, but most of all—well, the potions are undetectable once they’ve done their work. That makes them the best damn poisoners in the business.”

  “Ruben’s heart attack,” Cynna said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Though proving it was going to be one helluva challenge.

  “And the first potion someone emptied into our water?” Isen said, his voice dropping to a growl. “What was it?”

  “Dya wouldn’t tell Arjenie what that one was supposed to do, just that it would be very bad. She—Arjenie—thinks it had to reach critical mass before it took effect. People had to drink the tainted water for several days for enough of the ‘very bad’ potion to build up in their bodies before anything happened. Arjenie emptied the undoer into the well nearest the road before the bad potion took effect. She’s certain there’s no danger from the original potion now.”

  Lily glanced at Arjenie, who was silent and tense. “Arjenie wanted me to tell you that her sister isn’t evil. She’s constrained by her contract to do what Friar wants. She’s been taught from infancy that contracts are inviolable. She’s also been taught that providing a weapon is not the same, morally, as using a weapon. If wrong is done by Friar, that’s on his head, not hers. Plus, of course, Friar has the tears.”

  Silence. Rule broke it to say, “You believe what she’s told you. Or thought at you, I suppose I should say.”

  Lily hesitated. “I don’t know if it’s possible to lie in this kind of mindspeech. It isn’t like when Sam talks to us. Arjenie’s thoughts trail all this—this stuff along with them. Not feelings—I don’t pick up those. More like snatches of memory and meaning. I think if she tried to lie with her thoughts, the trailing stuff would tip me off.”

  “That’s a yes, then,” Cullen said. “Next question. How do we get Dya away from Friar?”

  “Oh,” Arjenie said. Her eyes filled. “Oh.”

  Lily didn’t want Arjenie thinking it would be that simple. “We can’t just rush in and grab her. We don’t have cause for a warrant yet.”

  Isen smiled. “You would need a warrant. We do not.”

  “Don’t say stuff like that.” Lily dropped her head and ran her hand through her hair. “Look, Arjenie isn’t sure Dya would even come with us if we tried to smuggle her out. Even if we got the tears, too—and we’d have to—Arjenie doesn’t know if Dya would leave because of the contract. She’s got a different set of ethics and imperatives than we do, and we can’t assume she’d do what looks logical to us. Plus Dya doesn’t think she’s in danger, so we’ve got time to do this right. Righ
t means more than getting Dya away from Friar. It means stopping him. To do that, we need evidence. I’ve got some ideas about that.”

  “Yet Dya acted against her contract already, didn’t she?” Rule said. “When she sent Arjenie with the, ah, undoer, surely that was a contract violation.”

  “Dya thinks Friar’s broken something called Queens’ Law, which would invalidate the contract. It’s complicated, and no, I don’t know what this Queens’ Law is.”

  “I can talk about that,” Arjenie said, leaning forward. “Not that I know much, but Eledan did teach me the basics. The sidhe have lots of rulers, but the two Queens are over them all. The Queens outlaw the seriously bad magical stuff: death magic, binders—um, that doesn’t mean regular binding spells, but something much worse—genocide, the two banned Names and the three banned Words . . . not that I know those names or those words. I don’t know what the last one means, either: interfering with the dead. Eledan shuddered when I asked and told me to wait until I was older.”

  Isen and Rule exchanged a look. “Genocide,” Isen said thoughtfully.

  “Very likely,” Rule agreed. “If Friar is working for her. She wants us dead.”

  Arjenie shivered. “All of you? That’s . . . hugely bad.”

  Lily agreed, but they needed to get back on topic. “The first thing we have to do is figure out how to get word of this to Croft or Karonski. Karonski’s heading the investigation into the attack on Ruben. He and Croft both need to know what we’ve learned, but we can’t call them. Not if Friar can potentially listen at their end. I’m not sure if e-mail is safe. If whoever tried for Ruben can—”

  “No,” Benedict said, “the first thing we need to do is to make sure Dya is still there and okay. Then we can ask her if she’d come away with us once we secure her supply of these tears.” He looked at Isen. “I’m thinking Seabourne.”

  Isen nodded. “Give him Danny for backup. He’s almost as fast and he knows the terrain well.”

  Benedict turned to Arjenie. “Dya will need some reason to listen to Seabourne. Please give me your ring.”

  Arjenie rolled her eyes. “That’s an order with ‘please’ tacked on, but at least you’re trying.” She pulled the ring off and handed it to him.

  “Lily.” While Benedict gave Cullen instructions, Rule leaned close, his voice low. “I’m thinking of Raymond Cobb.”

  “What? Oh. Oh, shit.” She rubbed her neck. She should have thought of that. “It’s possible, isn’t it? He was at a public party, drinking a Coke or something. It would have been simple enough for someone to dose him with a potion.”

  “It would explain why he suddenly went insane. Why it looked and felt much like falling into the fury, but wasn’t.” His voice even softer, he added, “I’m wondering if Cobb was a test. A test of the dose and effectiveness.”

  “Jesus.” She shivered. “If that’s what the potion Arjenie countered was supposed to do to every lupus at Clanhome . . . but how did they know he was lupus?”

  “Friar keeps files on us. It’s one of the things he uses Humans First for—to assemble files on known and suspected lupi. Cobb only had to slip up once in front of the wrong person to give himself away.”

  It made a horrible sort of sense. Friar would have wanted to try out his potion, see what it did. Why Cobb, out of all the lupi in the country? Maybe he was simply convenient. Maybe Friar had an agent in place in the city—like whoever had shot her—and Cobb hung out with humans often enough to make it easy to dose him.

  Cullen shoved back from the table. “Got it,” he told Benedict and bent to give Cynna a quick kiss. “Don’t go into labor.”

  “Yet,” she said. “You need to put ‘yet’ on the end of that sentence. I have every intention of going into labor, just not tonight.”

  He grinned, ruffled her hair, and left.

  “Now that the first thing’s been dealt with,” Lily said dryly, “let’s move on to the second thing. How do we let Croft know about Friar’s guest and her capabilities? E-mail’s safer than phone, but I’m not sure it’s safe enough. We don’t know who at the Bureau is a traitor. We don’t know if Friar has a means of hacking into the system, either. We may need to send someone to report in person.”

  “Someone from the local FBI office?” Rule asked. “Or someone from Nokolai?”

  Arjenie jumped in, her face lighting up. “I could do it. It wouldn’t look odd if I cut my vacation short by a couple days, not with everything that’s going on. It would have to be a written report, of course, but if you gave me a written report, I could deliver it.”

  Lily hesitated. If she said no, Arjenie would think they were back to distrusting her. But she couldn’t go jetting across the country. Not without Benedict. Lily met the young woman’s eyes. “I’m not sure a written report is the best way to go.” And Benedict needs to tell you about the mate bond really, really soon.

  Arjenie’s eyes widened. “Ohmygosh. That was so weird. What’s a mate bond?”

  THIRTY-TWO

  “I’M sorry,” Lily said helplessly. “Benedict, I didn’t mean to . . . I don’t know how I did that.”

  “What’s going on?’ Arjenie looked from Lily to Benedict, then on to every other face at the table. Then back at Benedict again. His face was smoothed out, blank, but his eyes . . . storms swirled there. Her heart began to pound. “Everyone’s upset. Why is everyone upset?”

  Benedict shoved to his feet. “Arjenie, will you come into the kitchen with me?”

  “Now?” She blinked. “The kitchen?”

  “Or we could go outside.”

  He meant that they should be alone to talk about this. Her stomach turned queasy. She didn’t know why. “You’re scaring me.”

  “That’s appropriate. I’m terrified.”

  CARL’S kitchen was not going to need much cleaning, Arjenie thought as she looked around. There was a pot on the stove that probably held what was left of the chicken and dumplings. The two cookie sheets in the sink must have been for the scones.

  She headed there. “Okay,” she said, turning on the water to get it hot. “Start talking.”

  “You’re washing dishes?”

  “I’m nervous. It’s easier to be nervous if I’m busy.”

  “Arjenie.” He turned off the water and put his hands on her arms and turned her to face him. “I don’t think I can do this while you wash dishes.”

  His face wasn’t all smoothed out anymore. She still couldn’t read it. He’d said he was terrified, but what she saw was urgency. She licked her lips. “Lily thinks you need to tell me about the mate bond really soon. Soon would be now.”

  “You know that my people do not believe in marriage or monogamy.”

  This was not the lead-in she’d expected. She nodded.

  “There is one exception. Rarely—very rarely—our Lady gifts one of us with a Chosen. We call her that because she is chosen for us. A lupus gifted with a Chosen will be faithful to her unto death.”

  Disappointment swamped her. “Is that why Rule and Lily are getting married? Not because they love each other, but because they’ve got this mate bond thing? And Cullen and Cynna, too—”

  “Cullen and Cynna don’t share a mate bond. Rule and Lily do. They also love each other. I don’t understand why they’re marrying. It’s a meaningless flourish when they are irrevocably bound together. It will cause no end of problems.”

  Irrevocably? Her heart was pounding harder. “I don’t understand. I don’t see why Lily wanted you to tell me this. If she was worried that . . . well, I guess it’s obvious I’m attracted to you, but if she or you are thinking I don’t understand how lupi are about sex, that I’m going to get my feelings hurt because you aren’t going to make a commitment—”

  “That isn’t what anyone is thinking.” His hands tightened on her arms. “Arjenie, I will be faithful to you unto death.”

  Her heart leaped into her throat. Her hand flew there, trying to keep it from jumping right out of her body. “No. No, you’re mist
aken.”

  “The mate bond snapped into place the moment our eyes met. I was wolf at the time, but it didn’t matter.”

  “You can’t be right.” She tugged at one of his hands. “Let go. Let go of me.”

  His hands dropped. “It’s why your Gift doesn’t work on me. It’s why we take comfort from touching each other, why we know where the other is at all times.”

  “I don’t know that. I had to ask Cullen where you were this morning. I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t you? I knew where you were. I felt it. That sense will grow stronger after we cement the bond. It’s why we want each other so badly. I think about your skin, your scent. I want to feel your hair against my skin. I want inside you. I don’t know how I managed to stop when I kissed you this afternoon.”

  Her stomach churned. “My mother was beguiled into sex. She never got over it. She never—”

  “This isn’t anything like faerie glamour. There’s no illusion involved. The connection is real and physical. Lily wanted me to tell you so you would understand why you can’t fly back to D.C.”

  “I live in D.C.! My career is there. My family’s in Virginia. I’m not going to—”

  “We’ll have to work that out. I don’t know how yet, but we can’t live on opposite coasts. We can’t put that much distance between us. The mate bond won’t allow it, especially now when—”

  “I don’t believe you! This can’t be true. You have to be mistaken. Or—or there’s some way to make it go away. To remove it.”

  “Arjenie.” His eyes were frantic. His hands were clenched fists at his sides. “The bond can’t be removed. You have to believe me. Don’t fight the bond. Please. I beg you not to fight it.”

  He begged her? This man didn’t beg. He didn’t. She wanted to hold him, soothe him. She wanted to do other things, too, that wouldn’t be at all soothing. Was this ache, this need, not really hers? Had it been imposed on her? “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I don’t understand any of this.” She took a step back. Another. “Do you want it? Did you want this mate bond?”