by Eileen Wilks
Wedding guests filled both banquet rooms at the Bali Hai and spilled out onto the the patio, where the ceremony had been held. Here, the curving walls framed a splendid view of the ocean, which lent its faint note to the medley of smells in the room—food, flowers, candles, and humanity.
Buffet tables were artfully piled with fruits and crudités, shrimp, smoked salmon, and other edibles. The remains of a towering wedding cake occupied a place of honor at a separate table. Beneath the babble of conversation drifted the hum of music from the other room where couples were dancing.
Rule had danced with Lily exactly once. He wanted another one. Several more. She could at least dance with him, dammit.
Lily wasn’t pleased with him just now. The feeling was mutual. Rule hadn’t liked her insistence on staying in her own apartment, but he’d accepted that she needed time to come to terms with the changes in her life. Then he’d learned that she was having nightmares—and she still wouldn’t move in with him. And instead of talking to him, she’d pulled back inside her shell.
He wove through the crowd, looking for a small, slender woman with hair the color of night, skin like cream poured over apricots . . . and a dress the color of mold. A smile twitched at his mouth. Truer love hath no sister than to wear such a gown.
As it turned out, it was the mother, not the daughter, he found. Julia Yu was speaking with two women about her age—one Anglo, one Chinese—when she saw him. She motioned for him to join them.
Rule repressed a sigh. He’d been glad of the chance this wedding offered to become acquainted with Lily’s people. They were part of her, after all, and he was endlessly curious about her. Last night he’d met her parents at the rehearsal dinner. Neither of them approved of him, but that was no surprise. Her father was at least reserving judgment. Her mother liked him, didn’t want to, and was baffled by Madame Yu’s approval of him.
But it was Lily he wanted now.
So, apparently, did her mother. After the briefest of introductions, she excused herself to the others and took Rule aside.
Julia Yu was a tall, elegant woman with beautiful hands, very little chin, and Lily’s eyes set beneath eyebrows plucked to crispness. At the moment she’d tucked a frown between those eyebrows. “Have you seen Lily?”
His own brows lifted in surprise. “I was just looking for her, actually.”
“Tch! I’m being silly.” She shook her head. “It’s Beth’s fault, putting ideas in my head, and then I’ve been so busy . . . you have no idea what it is to put on a wedding like this.”
He replied automatically, gripped by worry as sudden as it was formless. “You’ve done a magnificent job. The wedding was magnificent, as is the reception. But what ideas did Beth put in your head?”
“Such a silly story! Of course she was imagining things. Beth is very imaginative.” It was impossible to tell if she meant that as a compliment or criticism of her youngest daughter. The frown hadn’t budged. “I paid it no heed at all.”
“What kind of story?”
“She said she saw Lily go into the ladies’ room and followed her. They haven’t had much opportunity to talk lately, you know, so I suppose . . . but Lily wasn’t there.” Julia’s lips pursed. “Beth swears Lily could not have left without her seeing, but of course that’s nonsense.”
It had to be. Didn’t it?
Rule stood stock still for a moment. Lily wasn’t far. He knew that. But he hadn’t been able to find her, and the world wasn’t as sane and orderly a place as it appeared. The realms were shifting.
Then there was the fact that Lily had recently pissed off a goddess.
“I’ll find her.” He turned away, moving quickly, propelled by a wordless and possibly foolish urgency.
The last place she’d been seen was the ladies’ room, so that’s where he headed. The restrooms lay off the hall that connected the banquet rooms to the main dining room. A knot of unhappy women had collected outside the ladies’ room. He picked up snatches of conversation.
“. . . sent for the manager?”
“Is there another one?”
“Plenty of stalls, no need to lock the door.”
“. . . some kind of sadist, if you ask me!”
His heartbeat kicked up and his mouth went dry. He eased his way through them, using his size, his smile, and—after a moment—their recognition to part them. “Excuse me, ladies. Pardon me. No, I’m not the manager, but if you’ll step aside . . .”
“Shannon,” one of them whispered to another, “you dummy! That’s the Nokolai prince!”
He pretended he didn’t notice the sudden hush. “I think I can fix this, so if you’ll . . . thank you,” he said as the last one moved away and he reached the door.
Lily was on the other side. He felt her nearness as a slow stir beneath his breastbone. He tried the knob. Locked, and stoutly.
Something was very wrong.
Rule put his hand through the door.
A couple of the women cried out. He ignored them and the pain in his hand, reaching through to unlock the door. His blood made the mechanism slippery, but he managed it. He shoved the door open.
Lily lay on the floor by the sinks. She wasn’t moving.