by Eileen Wilks
"That's his counterpart," Cullen explained while the guards consulted some more. "Head of their security, and their best fighter. He'd have to accept a Challenge if Benedict issued one."
"The others wouldn't?"
Rule took up the explanation. "Benedict's reputation makes it unlikely that anyone but a young fool would accept a Challenge from him. It would be an embarrassment to refuse a Challenge, but no real loss of status in this case. Everyone knows Benedict would win. But Alex's position makes him a sort of placeholder for the Lu Nuncio the clan currently lacks. His refusal of a Challenge would reflect upon the entire clan. If Benedict Challenged, Alex would have to accept."
"So they aren't just being pissy with their conditions."
Cullen snorted. "Oh, they're being pissy. If Benedict gave up his Challenge right, they'd feel free to offer insult."
"Our notion of insult," Rule added dryly, "might strike you as a trifle violent."
The guards came back, having obtained agreement from someone to Benedict's terms, which he then had to state for the record. There was one more brief delay. They wanted to search the car and remove all guns. Apparently Benedict's blades were acceptable; firearms were not.
Lily was fed up. "There are several weapons in the trunk," she said coolly, addressing the guards herself for the first time. "They're mine. I'm an FBI agent, as I imagine you know, investigating the demon attacks on lupus heirs. I'm not handing them over."
They didn't believe her. In their world, little bitty women didn't shoot AK-47s. Lily got out, marched around to the back of the car, pulled out the weapon, set her feet, and shouldered it. "Anyone in those trees?" She nodded at a thick stand of oak.
"I—no," the tallest guard said.
She fired a blast, decimating several innocent branches. "Good stopping power, even on demons," she announced, unable to hear herself speak. Served her right, she supposed, for showing off. She knew from experience her hearing would return in a moment.
They let her keep the guns.
When they pulled away from the checkpoint at last, she asked Rule to tell her about Leidolf.
"What do you want to know?" Rule asked.
"You said I wouldn't like some of their ways. Do their ways have anything to do with what Cynna told us? Their Rho apparently thought it was okay to hump the barely legal mother of his late son's child in the hall of his home."
"Nokolai and some of the other clans don't like the way Leidolf treats its female clan. They haven't exactly come into this century where women are concerned."
Cullen snorted. "They had to be dragged, screaming and kicking, into the last century, and I'm not sure they ever made it. Victor and his merry band believe women really do only have one purpose, and that's what they teach their female clan."
Lily's lip curled. "They want them barefoot and pregnant?"
"Or on their knees, their backs—whatever. Which is why Rule's great-granny extricated herself and ten others from the clan."
"What?" She swiveled, staring first at Cullen, then at Rule. "Your great-grandmother was Leidolf?"
He nodded but didn't answer right away. Rain plus all the recent traffic hadn't been good for the dirt road; the ruts were deep, the potholes deeper. "You should know the story," he said at last. "It's a large part of the reason for Leidolf's hatred of Nokolai. Iselda sought out my great-grandfather at an All-Clan. That's not unusual—a lot of trysting goes on at an All-Clan, and Rhos are— ah, an attractive partner to many women. This was especially true when the mores of the external culture were so repressive. When clan of either sex had the chance—"
"They snuck off into the bushes with like-minded souls. I can see how that would happen, but weren't your clans enemies?"
"Nokolai and Leidolf have never been friends, but there wasn't open enmity back then. More like residual distrust. Some of that came from events very long ago, but those might have been forgotten if not for a regrettable nationalism. Before the clans emigrated, Leidolf was German, Nokolai French."
"So you had a history of not getting along, but you weren't yet the Hatfields and McCoys. Did Leidolf get mad because Iselda snuck off with a Nokolai man?"
"No, that sort of thing was expected. But Iselda conceived."
"That must have been a shock."
A small smile touched his lips. "I'm told she claimed she'd planned it—though how anyone can plan conception, when it's so rare—"
"Not as rare with interclan couplings," Cullen put in, "as within a clan."
"Still, it would be like walking through the desert counting on rain for your water supply. We might say Iselda took her stroll during the rainy season, but the odds were against her. At any rate, her tryst shocked no one, and her pregnancy would have been a matter for rejoicing throughout her clan—if she'd remained Leidolf."
"But she didn't."
"No. She chose to leave the All-Clan with my greatgrandfather and be adopted into Nokolai, making her child Noko-lai. Leidolf's Rho—the whole clan, really—was furious. Still, had matters stopped there, Leidolf might have forgiven."
"What happened?"
"She bore my great-grandfather a son. My grandfather. As a boon, she asked him to free ten women of her former clan. He agreed."
"Free them? But—they weren't slaves. They could have left if they wanted to. Even back then—"
"Actually," Rule said, "they were slaves."
"What?"
"This happened in 1848. Slavery was still legal in the South."
Right. She'd tripped over assumptions based on human life spans. Rule's father looked a hale sixty, but he'd been born nearly a century ago. "But Leidolf was German. Though I guess if they got slave women pregnant—"
"That happened, too, but Leidolf took it a step further. In most of the old South, possessing any trace of African blood legally rendered you black. Leidolf…" Rule's lips tightened. So did his hands on the steering wheel. "Leidolf arranged to have some of its female clan declared black whether or not they had African blood. Legal trickery, arranged through a corrupt judge, that allowed them to own their women outright."
"Sick. That is…" She didn't have words for it. "Sick. But why go to such extremes? Women were pretty much chattel anyway back then."
"Compared to slaves, women had many rights. Slaves couldn't own anything. They had no rights to their children or their bodies, and they couldn't marry. That was Leidolf's main goal, according to Iselda. Leidolf didn't simply disapprove of marriage—they considered it an abomination."
"Your great-grandmother left. She wasn't forcibly returned to her owners."
"Not all of their female clan were declared slaves, only those whose ancestry could be sufficiently muddled. Those with brothers near their age were usually safe, since they couldn't take a chance on the males being suspected of having African blood. Iselda had a younger brother. Victor Frey."
"It's a family name?" she asked.
Rule just looked at her.
"It's not the same man. It… he…" Oh, Lord. Rule's expression made it clear that the Victor Frey she would soon meet really was the younger brother of a woman who'd lived in 1848. Lily did the math, did it again—and still couldn't believe it. "You're saying that Victor Frey is your great-uncle, and he's—"
"About to hit the big one-six-oh," Cullen said cheerfully.
TWENTY-NINE
THEY didn't meet Victor Frey that day, after all.
Leidolf Clanhome was bursting at the seams. The large, dormitory-style building across the clearing from Frey's frame house was full, and the ground had sprouted tents everywhere except the central field. Nokolai Clanhome had a similar field, used for important ceremonies.
Not that the entire clan was present. Though Leidolf was concentrated in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina, it had members in other parts of the country, too. And some clan were staying at hotels in Harrisonburg, but the vast majority of those who would attend tomorrow's ceremonies had crammed themselves onto their clanhome however they could.<
br />
Benedict's counterpart, Alex, met them at the house. He and Benedict stared at each other for a moment, then each gave a small nod, and Alex vanished into the house. He was replaced by a middle-aged woman in a brown dress—Sabra Ewings, Victor's daughter.
Sabra invited them in, told them their car would be moved to a parking area once they'd gotten their things from it, and apologized for having only a single room for the four of them. "We weren't expecting to need more, you see, and with the memorial and the naming, we have no empty rooms." She managed a strained smile. "Victor isn't up to leaving his room yet, I'm afraid, but he bids you welcome."
Lily thought they should turn around and head for Harrison-burg, where there were hotels. That, apparently, would be a major insult. "They can try to kill your father, but you're not supposed to insult them?" Lily said dryly when they reached the privacy of their single, cramped room.
Rule set their suitcase on the bed. "From this point on, it's wise to assume that anything we say is overheard."
Lupus hearing. Great. They had to be diplomatic in private, too. Pity she didn't have his hearing. They could have insulted their hosts by subvocalizing—speaking under the tongue, they called it. They did it without moving their lips, speaking so softly only another nearby lupus could hear.
At one point, she'd been able to hear it. The mate bond had briefly blurred the lines between his Gifts and hers, but it hadn't lasted. Nor had it happened again. Rule thought it might have been a one-time deal; the bond had been brand-new, and a new mate bond was powerful.
Lily looked around the room. They lacked privacy visually as well. The single window had lace curtains, no shades. The bed was a four-poster covered by a faded chenille spread; there was a small chest of drawers but no nightstand. Though the furniture was minimal, so was the room. There was barely enough floor space on either side of the bed for a pair of sleeping bags.
If they'd had them. "You didn't bring sleeping bags, did you?"
"Lily." Cullen's voice was reproachful. "Are you saying you won't share? And after I spent most of the day in your bed, too."
"What the hell are you—" But he was grinning, pleased with himself for having gotten a rise out her. So she stopped talking and threw a pillow at him.
He fended it off and plopped down on the bed, still grinning.
"Get your feet off the bed," she told him.
Rule was more direct, swiping Cullen's feet to one side. "Don't get comfortable yet. We still have to unload Lily's arsenal."
"I feel sure the rest of you can…" Cullen's voice trailed off.
Everyone but Lily looked at the door. A few seconds later, someone knocked on it. Rule gave Benedict a nod, and he opened it.
"I came to see him. I'm Roland Miller, Paul's father, and I came to see him."
Benedict stood aside.
The man who entered was smaller than anyone in the room except Lily. His hair was black, his eyes dark brown; he wore the ubiquitous lupus uniform of jeans, but he'd dressed them up with a faded blue work shirt. He held himself stiffly.
He looked very much like Paul—older and weary with his grief, but much like Paul. Impulsively, Lily moved forward. "Mr. Miller, I'm so sorry. Paul was very brave. I don't know if that's any consolation, but…" Her voice trailed away.
He was looking right past her. She might have been a mosquito buzzing in his ear for all he noticed. No, he might have swatted at a mosquito. His attention was all for Rule. "You submitted to my son."
"I did, to save him from being shot by an overly zealous police officer."
"Didn't save him for long, did you?" He looked Rule up and down. "I'll accept a son's duty from you tomorrow. Eight o'clock, in the meeting field, north end." With that he turned and left, closing the door behind him.
"Did he ignore me because he's grieving?" Lily asked the room in general. "Or because I'm female?"
"Got it in two, luv," Cullen said from his sprawl on the bed. "You'll find that most male Leidolf ignore you unless you badge 'em. Or unless they're propositioning you."
"They'll be polite," Benedict said. He'd taken off his suit jacket and was hanging it in the tiny closet. "I'll be there. Rule will be there. They'll be polite."
But they wouldn't see anything wrong in hitting on her with Rule standing right beside her, and they'd ignore her otherwise. "Paul wasn't like that."
"You met Paul in the outside world. You're in their clanhome now," Rule said. "Consciously or not, many of them will fall into the old ways." .
"Are they going to expect me to eat in the kitchen with the womenfolk?"
The total silence that met her made her jaw drop. "You're kidding," she said. "Tell me you're kidding."
"You won't have to accept," Rule said. "But Sabra will invite you to join her and a few of the women… ah, in the kitchen."
Oh, this was going to be fun. She could hardly wait to see what tomorrow would bring.
* * *
DAWN broke cold and clear. Lily learned that by twitching aside the bedspread Rule had draped over the curtain rod for privacy. The window was cold to the touch; the sky was wiped clean of the clouds that had drizzled on them for days.
It was also quiet, for which she thanked any gods who might be listening.
They'd ended up eating in their room. If that offended Sabra, Lily figured she could live with it. She'd had this irrational certainty that she shouldn't let Rule out of her sight, and maybe he'd felt the same way, because he hadn't argued. After dinner, Cullen had taken off—planning to listen to gossip, he said. Needing to get rid of the fidgets, she thought.
The rest of them had played poker. Neither of the men had been concentrating on the game. She was up $10.75 and Cullen was still gone when they turned out the lights.
She hadn't slept well. Cuddling with Rule generally soothed her, but generally they cuddled after making love. That hadn't been an option with his brother sleeping on the floor beside the bed, and her body hadn't appreciated the neglect.
Funny how fast her body had turned greedy on her. Not long ago it was entirely used to that sort of neglect. She'd given it a stern lecture and done her best to relax.
The lupi camped outside had other ideas about how to relax. For them it was party time.
Oh, not with alcohol. It was possible, Rule said, for a lupus to get drunk if he really worked at it, but since the effects wouldn't last more than ten or fifteen minutes, it wasn't worth the effort. But the clan had been glad to get together, and they'd expressed that loudly—fighting, singing, yelling, laughing, dancing around a huge bonfire…
Yipping. Howling.
Cullen had returned about two a.m. She'd still been awake.
Hygiene got a bit of a pass that morning; people, people, everywhere, and only two bathrooms in the house. She and Rule dressed first. Beneath jacket and shirt, he wore the charm Cullen had made for him. It may have been working. He hadn't had a blackout since putting it on.
She went into the hall so Benedict and Cullen could dress. Not that any of the men would object to her remaining, but she felt better not knowing what Rule's brother looked like naked. Rule chose to wait out there with her, mostly so he could offer an opinion on whether she should leave her weapon in the room.
It was a short discussion. No way in hell was she stirring out of their room unarmed. She slid her phone in her jacket pocket and changed the subject. "Is that charm Cullen made helping?"
He gave her a sharp look. "I didn't tell you about the charm."
"You didn't tell me about your other blackouts, either, but I'm a detective. I detected them. And you don't usually wear a chicken feather around your neck, so I deduced that it came from Cullen."
He was silent a moment. "No memory gaps. Not since I put on the charm. I, ah, expected you to be angry that I didn't tell you about the blackouts."
"It was stupid, but I understood. You need to protect me just like I need to protect you."
"You make me feel better and worse at the same time."
/> She smiled. "Good."
Benedict came out, looking like a well-dressed mountain in new jeans and a midnight blue shirt with a gray sports jacket. Then Cullen emerged.
She'd been surprised to learn that Cullen owned a suit. She'd never seen him make any effort with clothes, and God knew he didn't have to—he was eye candy in his usual ratty jeans and T-shirts. Even so, once she knew he was going to dress like an adult, she should have been prepared.
Or maybe not. Maybe the sight of Cullen Seabourne in a black, custom-tailored suit with a black tuxedo shirt was more than any woman with a functioning heartbeat could prepare herself for.
It was just as well Cynna wasn't here to see him. She'd trip him and beat him to the ground, and Lily was far from sure the tangle those two were headed for would end well.
He grinned. "What do you think?"
Her dumbfounded stare had already told him, which she thought was more than enough ego food for the man. She opted for damning with faint praise. "Nice. Sort of Johnny Depp meets Johnny Cash."
"Johnny who? Cash I've heard of, but the other guy…"
She rolled her eyes, put on her coat, and they set off for the field.
The sky was pinking up in the east. Dawn looked different on this side of the continent, less prone to the vivid hues she was used to. Pretty in its way, but she preferred the desert. There, beauty wore barbs so you'd know where to step.
Their destination was obvious. No one else seemed to be awake yet, save for the small cluster of people—all male—at the north end of the field. They headed that way. The grass was wet, the dampness promising to soak through the thin leather of her shoes. The air was cold enough to make her glad she wore a coat… she just wished it wasn't this one.
They weren't quite the only ones up. As they started across the field, so did a woman in a long white dress. She came from the south end, where the chimney of a small stone house leaked a thin plume of smoke. White meant that was the Rhej, the only one who would wear the moon's color today.
Not a dress, Lily realized after a second look—a long white robe that seemed to glow in the early light. "The Rhej is part of the ritual?" she asked. Her breath puffed white in the still air.