by Eileen Wilks
“We have to hope MCD has witches on the payroll who can confirm the existence of the spell. A coven would be good. Solo practitioners can’t summon as much power or perform the more intricate spells.”
“I’d assume they don’t have a sorcerer,” he said wryly, “given that sorcery’s illegal. Dammit, I wish we could find Cullen.”
“So do I.” Though not, she suspected, for the same reasons. “Um . . . I hate to sound ignorant, but why would a sorcerer be better than a coven? A first-rate coven can draw a lot of power.”
“According to Cullen, sorcerers see magic. That’s how they’re able to work directly with the forces involved, unlike shamans and witches. I’m guessing that a sorcerer would be able to look at Karonski and Croft and see the spell binding them—a great aid in removing it, I would think.”
“That would be handy,” she admitted. If they could trust the sorcerer in question. Rule had a great deal of confidence in his friend. Lily didn’t.
“I can think of one more reason Harlowe took the risk of bespelling Karonski and Croft,” Rule said slowly.
“What?”
“They’ve got something big planned for the very near future, and it was more important to get the Feds out of the way than to maintain his cover.”
A chill ghosted up her spine, the ripple of possibilities she’d rather not contemplate. What would a group like this consider big?
They lapsed into silence. Outside, the city was waking to its nighttime self, stringing lights along its streets and spires like a lady donning a gaudy abundance of jewelry.
Was it the growing darkness that made her so aware of Rule? Not that she’d been unaware of him before. All day she’d felt him near, known where he was without needing to see him. But the nature of it had shifted. Now it prickled along her skin, gathered in a hot ball in her belly. She could almost feel his breath, as if some part of her was leaning toward him, even though she sat perfectly still.
She shook her head. This was not the time, dammit. She needed a clear head, not the fog of lust. She was missing something. Something important.
All at once she had it. “Shit. Ginger.”
“You think they did to her what they did to Karonski and Croft?”
Lily shook her head. “She touched my face when she made that dig about my makeup, and all I felt was annoyed. No, what hit me right now is that she decoyed us. Kept me from going to the meet with Harlowe, didn’t she? They didn’t want me there. I couldn’t be spelled and would have tumbled to them.”
He checked the mirror—and made a sudden left turn across two lanes.
Lily grabbed the dash. “What the—”
“They’ve used her twice,” he said grimly. “First to implicate me, then to draw you away from the meeting with Harlowe. But we know about her. She’s pure liability to them now.”
Fifteen minutes later they were back at Ginger’s apartment. She didn’t answer her door. “What do you know,” Rule said as he reached for the knob. “I don’t think it’s locked.”
“Wait a minute.” She grabbed his arm with both hands—and wouldn’t have been able to stop him if he hadn’t let her. “Breaking in will make enough noise to get the neighbors all excited, and it won’t help her. If they’ve killed her, she’s just as dead with you on this side of the door as on the other. If she’s there and not answering, she’ll call the cops on you. Don’t think she wouldn’t.”
He nodded. “You’re right. It’s the back door she forgot to lock.”
“Hey! That isn’t what I . . .” Too late. The door to the stairwell was already closing behind him.
The only back door to the apartment was to Ginger’s balcony, three floors off the ground. Lily didn’t suppose that would stop him. Muttering under her breath about stupid, stubborn, arrogant werewolves, she drew her weapon and waited.
Seven sweaty minutes later, the door opened. “She’s not here,” Rule said.
Neither, it turned out, were some of her clothes. “Either she packed in a hurry and cleared out, or they want us to think that,” Lily said as they got back in his car.
“Is police work always this frustrating?”
“Sometimes it’s worse. At least we have some leads. You want to pick up a pizza? Lunch was a long time ago.”
“If we went to my place instead of yours, I could fix you a real meal.”
“You cook?” she said, astonished.
“I eat, therefore I cook. Quite well, too. How can you not cook?”
“Takeout. And my uncle owns a restaurant.” She considered the offer, then shook her head. “I have to let Harry in. Besides, so far the reporters haven’t linked the two of us. It would only take one busybody hanging around your place to change that.”
“Your place, then.”
Lily lapsed into silence, thinking about their list of suspects, some of them certainly involved, some with a big, fat question mark after their names.
Ginger. The Most Reverend Patrick Harlowe. Mech. Captain Randall. Cullen Seabourne, though he was only on her list, not Rule’s. Someone in Nokolai, from what he’d told her of his father’s attack, who might or might not be the lupus who’d killed Carlos Fuentes . . .
“You know what’s missing?” she said suddenly. “Motive. There are a lot of people involved. Can they all really be nuts about stopping the Citizenship Bill? There are a lot of ways to keep a bill from passing that don’t involve murder.”
“The Old One the Azá worship doesn’t think as a human would.”
“And lupi don’t either, I guess. But it’s mostly humans we’re dealing with, humans who are either carrying out Her instructions or making things up themselves. Western, twenty-first-century humans. Why? What do they get out of it?”
“I see your point, but fanaticism isn’t reserved to certain portions of the globe.”
“So you think it’s religious fervor? It’s more fun to kill the nonbelievers than just to defeat a bill they don’t like?”
“Fanatics have been known to see things that way.”
“But they’re risking so much. This church of theirs is just getting started here, but according to the FBI, they’re picking up members at a fair clip. Donations, too. They cultivate a mainstream look, as if they plan to settle in for the long haul. Look at that house of Harlowe’s. Money and position matter to him. Why would he risk everything this way?”
“Maybe he has no choice. We saw what they could do to federal agents who believed themselves protected.” He turned off on her street. “I’m not suggesting everyone involved is under a compulsion spell. But some of the bad guys may have been influenced in ways they couldn’t guard against.”
“Mech,” she said, startled by the thought. “Or Randall, or whoever it was . . . that’s possible. I don’t pick up anything through clothing usually, and I don’t go around touching other officers. But compulsion spells are supposed to be very limited. The victim is compelled to one particular act, and it has to happen quickly, or the spell loses its power.”
“That’s the problem with dealing with an Old One, even at one remove. We don’t know what’s possible and what isn’t.”
“What if it wasn’t a spell? There are mind Gifts that, being innate, don’t rely on spells. Karonski said something about Howell being charismatic.”
“Hmm.” He considered that a moment, then shook his head. “A charisma Gift boosted by power from Her might be irresistibly persuasive, but it wouldn’t wipe out memory. Croft and Karonski lost more than an hour.”
“Drugs could do that. But why did they need to wipe out that hour?” She brooded over that as he pulled up in front of her apartment. Dammit, she was missing something. “Speaking of that lost hour—at least we know it takes them awhile to do whatever they did. It isn’t just, zap! You’re possessed.”
“Or it took an hour to question them and learn everything they know about the case.”
“You’re not lifting my spirits.”
They got out and were met by an irritated cat.
Harry led the way upstairs, tail twitching, reproving them loudly for having made him wait. “He’s not attacking you,” Lily observed, fitting her key in the door.
“Harry and I understand each other. He’ll tolerate my presence in your bed as long as I recognize his right to be there, too.”
She swung the door open and flipped on the single light, a floor lamp by her chair. Harry streaked past her, heading for the kitchen and the food dish Rule had filled that morning. “You make it sound kinky. Two males in my bed at the same time.”
“You could have that, you know.”
“What?” She turned. His expression was closed as solidly as the door behind him. Her mouth twisted as something inside her soured. “If you’re offering to get together a threesome, don’t.”
“I’m saying that you aren’t bound only to me. Not sexually. If you choose to have others in your bed, you can.”
She turned her back on him, setting Croft’s briefcase on the table. “Maybe by your standards that’s a polite offer. By mine, it rates about a nine on the yuck scale. And I’m not extending the same privilege to you.”
“You don’t have to. I will never be with another woman again.”
She stiffened. “Lupi don’t believe in fidelity.”
“It has nothing to do with beliefs. You’re my Chosen.”
Slowly she faced him again, feeling so tense a sudden move might shatter something. “You mean that you can’t be with another woman? It isn’t possible?”
He grimaced. “Physically, it might be possible. But to the lupus half of a bonded pair it would feel filthy, a violation. Like rape or incest.”
Lily realized her hands were clenched and forced them to relax. Her palms felt clammy. “What about the human half?”
“The woman, being human, reacts as a human. She behaves as her nature and beliefs dictate.”
“You mean I could be unfaithful, and you couldn’t?”
“I wouldn’t put it in those terms, but yes.”
Her heart was pounding. “Why are you telling me this?”
He didn’t respond right away. The shadows cast by the single lamp made a mystery of his expression, and his body was utterly still. Finally he said, “Earlier you trusted me with a very tender place inside you. I wished to return the gift.”
She took a step toward him. He was making himself vulnerable to her, but she didn’t understand. What did he fear—or hope? “How would you feel if I took another lover?”
“I . . . wouldn’t like it.”
Another step. “Rule, what’s the difference between the mate bond and falling in love? Aside from the fact that the bond is imposed on us, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Lupi don’t fall in love. I . . . don’t know if you experience the bond the same way I do.”
One last step, and she stood close to him, looking up at that beautiful, exotic face—the slashes of eyebrows, sculpted cheeks and eyes so dark. . . . “How do you experience it?”
His mouth crooked up on one side. He lifted his hand and laid the tips of his fingers on her cheek. “As bliss. And pain.”
Her breathing wasn’t working right. “To a human, that sounds a lot like love.”
“Does it?” He skimmed his knuckles down her cheek, her throat, leaving a tingling wake. “For me, love is what I feel for my brothers, my father, my son.”
“Not your mother?” she asked softly.
He shook his head. “That’s a story for another time. You and I don’t know each other well enough to love yet, do we? I hope . . .” His voice trailed off wistfully. “It would be good if we grew to be friends.”
Lily swallowed. “Yes. That would be good.” Then she went up on tiptoe and kissed him. Not the hungry kiss she’d thought of, off and on, all day. A gentle kiss. One that spoke of . . . hope.
Almost hesitantly, his lips answered hers.
Slowly she eased up against him, lifting her hands to his face, cradling it as she deepened the kiss. His cheeks were rough with beard stubble, his body firm and angular. His mouth tasted of last night’s passion and today’s discoveries, of coffee and man. But it was his skin that fascinated her. The texture of it, the warmth . . . the sheer intimacy of pressing her hand along the skin of his throat made her breath catch.
He rested his hands on her shoulders. Just rested them there, neither urging nor seducing, though his heart beat fast, like hers. Letting her set the pace.
She ran her hands along his sides. The man liked silk. Feeling his shirt slide over his flesh beneath the stroke of her hands, she decided she did, too. He was lean enough that she could find the jut of ribs beneath the muscle, tall enough that her nose didn’t quite reach the hollow of his throat.
Too tall, standing up. In bed he was very much the right size.
“Am I supposed to want you this much?” she whispered. “I should be working. I need to . . .” Something. There was undoubtedly something she ought to be doing instead of playing with the dip of his spine.
He bent his head. “Nadia.” His voice was low, the word a warm breath against her cheek. “You are supposed to have me anytime, anywhere, any way you wish. Work will still be there afterward.”
Could she take a few minutes for herself? Would it be right? She eased back slightly and looked in his eyes. Yes, she decided. And she could give those minutes to him, too.
She took his hand. “In that case, I want you slowly. Very slowly.”
They didn’t turn on the bedroom light. In dusk and shadows they undressed each other, pausing to kiss, to touch.
Naked, he pulled back the covers and pulled her down with him onto the bed. Skin brushed skin as lips met, tested, parted. Need mounted, sweetened by delay. They played with each other, but it was serious play: light touches, indrawn breaths, the air turning thick as hearts pounded, pounded.
His hands were fisted loosely in her hair when he pulled back from a thorough kiss. He leaned his forehead against hers. “Your breath makes me dizzy.”
Yes, that’s how it was—a sublime vertigo she inhaled with every breath, as if she were falling, every second falling toward a steady, burning center. She rubbed her cheek against his, then urged him onto his back. For a moment she just looked at him—at an elegant body, lean and powerful. Long legs, strong shoulders. His penis, hard and ready. And his face, watching her. Waiting for her to tell him what she wanted. What she needed.
“Now?” she whispered, and he smiled.
She slid on top, using her hand to guide him inside as she sank down, filling herself with him. He gripped her hips and began to move—adagio, not fortissimo. She gripped his shoulders and matched him.
The slow, aching tempo let her catch and hold each sensation, glut herself on them, pay attention to the shift of muscles beneath his skin and the subtleties of shadow on his face. She drifted ever closer to that burning center, reluctant to reach it, willing herself to stay here—here with the delicious fullness, the friction. Here with his eyes on her, watching her, strain cutting grooves in his cheeks as he prolonged their pleasure, thrusting slowly. Slowly.
Climax, when it hit, was a surprise. She bucked and cried out—and it hit again. And again. Dimly she heard him call out something and felt his seed pump into her. Her world whited out.
She came back to find herself sprawled over him, with his chest heaving and tears in her eyes. And knew herself changed. Quietly and forever changed.
He ran a hand down her back. “You’re trembling.”
“Sensory overload,” she muttered into his chest. Which could bring on strange fancies . . . that’s all it was, the odd fancy of an overwhelmed nervous system. People don’t change in any fundamental way between one blink of the eye and the next. She was still herself.
But her arm shook slightly when she propped herself up to look at him. “Hey. Something wrong?”
He shook his head slightly, his expression bemused. “You pack a punch.”
Had he felt it, too? Stop that, she told herself. Nothing had happened—n
othing except incredible sex, that is. “So do you. And now that I’ve had my way with you, we’d better—”
The weight that landed on the bed made them both jump. Lily looked over her shoulder into a pair of glaring yellow eyes.
“Feed the cat?” Rule suggested.
“Right. And then we’d better get back to work.”
BUT they accomplished very little more that evening. They were going through the papers in Croft’s briefcase and recent files on the laptop they’d brought from the agents’ room when Nettie called. Her patients were installed in her guest bedroom, still asleep and under guard. It would take time to discover what had been done to them—if she could do it at all.
They did at least find the connection Karonski had mentioned so briefly when he called Lily. The elders of Mech’s church—a fundamentalist Christian denomination—had secretly raised and donated a substantial amount to the Church of the Faithful.
“Strange bedfellows,” Rule murmured.
“You’d think. But they found a common cause.” Lily passed him a printout.
It seemed that both churches believed fervently in the need to safeguard “the purity of the human race.” Both opposed the Citizenship Bill and spoke of the destruction of decency and civilization. Though they defined decency very differently, they agreed that the lupi were creatures of the devil who should be exterminated, not enfranchised.
Lily shook her head. “How could an African American buy into this drivel after what’s been done to his people?”
“How does anyone buy into it? No one is racially exempt from bigotry.”
“What about lupi?”
“Certainly not us.” He grimaced. “Not all of the tales of lupus savagery are fabrications. There have been those of us who preyed on humans. For some, lupi or humans, honor extends only as far as the line they’ve drawn between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ What’s done to ‘them’ doesn’t count.”
It was late when they gave up and went to bed. Rule was tired, but not so weary he wouldn’t have welcomed another loving. But Lily was distracted, her eyes shadowed, her body language saying plainly she wanted sleep, not sex.