by Eileen Wilks
Working with Isen was different from working with Rule. Efficient as hell, but different. For one thing, Lily had never seen Isen in wolf form until today—an omission that surprised her once she noticed it. Was that a courtesy on his part, to always meet her in the form she best understood? Or did he just not Change all that often? If so, was that a matter of age or personal inclination, or connected to his position as Rho?
She banked those questions for now.
Isen made a gorgeous wolf. Smaller than Rule, though still larger than a normal wolf, and very strong through the chest and shoulders. His coat was a reddish brown, almost foxy, which struck her as appropriate. But he was very much a wolf.
When Rule was wolf, Lily was so conscious of who he was that what he was seemed secondary. With Isen, she was aware every second that a large, strong wolf stood beside her. She wasn’t frightened. Just really aware.
The witnesses were uniformly courteous and responsive. And—as Isen had said they would—they told the truth.
The truth as they knew it.
Lily had two witnesses—Mike Hemmings and Sandra Metlock—who had seen Rule stab his best friend with a poisoned blade. She had a witness who’d seen Cynna do it. Three others had seen three different attackers—Mike Hemmings, Piers, and “some stranger. Never saw the guy before.” And yet another wit was convinced the knife had been thrown because no one had been standing behind Cullen when he collapsed. He was sure of that.
No one had seen an Asian man anywhere near Cullen.
The knife itself was still missing.
The grass and ground where the perp must have stood gave off the kind of furry tingles she associated with lupi. Normally lupi didn’t leave traces of magic on objects, not unless they Changed, but strong emotion sometimes made them leak a bit, maybe because they pushed the lupus toward Change. There was a very faint trace of the dancing tickle she associated with sorcery, but that wasn’t surprising. Cullen was a sorcerer.
Shannon brought the next witness to her. This one didn’t come solo, but hand in hand with another wit. Lily sighed. “Jason, I’ll speak with you separately.”
“I’d like him to stay with me,” Beth said. Her chin had a defiant tilt.
“Sorry, that’s not possible—not unless he has a law degree and you’re wanting a lawyer present.”
“Maybe I do want a lawyer.”
Lily looked at her sister for a long moment, then gestured at Jason. “Go back and wait. Shannon, escort him, please.”
Jason started to protest. The big, reddish wolf standing beside Lily gave him a single glance. He left, Shannon trailing him.
Lily moved close to Beth and spoke quietly, though Isen would hear every word anyway. “All right. What’s going on?”
“I just . . . I don’t want to say, that’s all.”
“Did you see what happened?”
Beth didn’t answer out loud, but the wincing around her eyes said “yes” pretty clearly.
Lily took her arm, running her hand up and down in a light, soothing way. “Beth. You know you have to tell me.”
Beth swallowed and looked away. “It was Freddie,” she whispered. “I told you he was here. F-Freddie stabbed Cullen. I saw him. I know it doesn’t make sense, because why . . . But he did.”
“Never mind about that now. You’re sure? Where were you standing?” Lily took Beth through the same questions she’d used with the other wits, getting her sister to place everyone she remembered in a diagram. “Okay. Okay, that’s good. Listen, Beth.” She gripped her sister’s shoulder. “You’ve helped. You’ve helped a lot. Don’t worry about Freddie. He wasn’t here.”
“But I saw—”
“I know, but trust me, okay?” She glanced at her watch. “Shit. I need to call Ruben.”
Benedict came up. “You wanted to know when the sheriff’s department showed up. They just passed the gate.”
Thirty-eight minutes. Thirty-eight damned minutes it had taken them to respond to an attempted homicide. Never mind that their absence made things smoother for her. “Thanks. Ah—Isen, I’ll need to talk to the deputies before I question anyone else, so if you want to . . .” She made the little circular motion she’d seen lupi use to refer to the Change.
He did. By the time she’d pulled her phone out of her bag, a two-legged and entirely naked Isen Turner stood beside her. He was less hairy in this form, but not by a lot.
Lily pretended she was fine with people standing around naked. She pressed seven on her speed dial.
Cynna picked up right away. “We’re not there yet. We’re about six blocks away.”
“I hear a siren.”
“We’ve got an escort. Police escort. I called Ida before we left Clanhome and she arranged it. They caught up with us on the highway and Rule wasn’t crazy about it because he had to slow down some—either their cars aren’t as fast as his or they just won’t drive that fast—but it helped once we got off the highway.”
“You’re holding up. You’re okay.”
“He’s not dead. I made Nettie promise to call if he—if he got worse. She hasn’t called, so I know he’s not dead.” Lily heard Rule speaking in the background, then Cynna added with a thread of humor in her voice, “Rule says Cullen would almost have to try to die for him to kick off at this point.”
If a lupus lived through the first thirty minutes after an injury, he usually made it—especially if he had Nettie watching over him. The problem was, Cullen’s healing was being affected by an unknown poison. The thirty-minute deal might not apply.
Lily forced a smile so Cynna would hear it in her voice. “I’m not going to worry. Cullen’s too ornery to die.”
A single sheriff’s car pulled into the parking area along the east side of the field. She told Cynna to hold on a sec, then asked Benedict to have one of his people bring the officers to her. Normally she’d have met them halfway—but not when it had taken them nearly forty minutes to show up. And they’d sent a single car?
She bit back her anger. For now. “Listen, the locals have finally arrived, so I don’t have time to explain, but there’s reason to suspect the perp is capable of changing his or her appearance radically. I know illusion isn’t supposed to be possible—”
“Not in this century. Not unless we’ve got a killer elf hanging around. One with a grudge against Cullen—which, admittedly, is possible. The grudge part, I mean.”
“I don’t know what we’ve got. It isn’t making sense yet. But for now, I want you to be paranoid. Stay with Cullen and . . . is there some way you can check out everyone who comes in contact with him? Use those spell patterns of yours somehow to make sure they’re who they seem to be?”
Cynna was the best Finder in North America. Her Gift allowed her to track what she sought, but for most things she first had to create a pattern. She did that with a spell.
“Hmm. Maybe. It would help if I knew something about the perp—his age, whether or not he’s human. Something specific to check for.”
“I don’t have anything for you. I can’t even say ‘he’ for certain. But . . .” Lily hesitated, then tossed the dice. “The perp may be an Asian male. Does that help?”
“Asian?” Cynna’s surprise was supplanted by haste. “I didn’t see—okay,” she said, possibly to Rule. “Listen, we’re there. I’ve got to go. I’ll stick with Cullen—well, except for surgery. I don’t think they’ll let me in there. But I’ve got to go.”
The line went dead. Lily put up her phone, frowning. Had she helped, or added a ridiculous complication?
Why had Cullen been attacked in the first place? He had enemies, sure. But why this enemy, at this time and place? Why come after him in the middle of a few hundred lupi?
The deputies were headed across the field toward her. She frowned. She needed to interview the people Rule said he’d been speaking with when Cynna cried out. She knew he was telling the truth, but she had to confirm it.
Not yet, though. She had to go be diplomatic with the uniformed ass
holes headed her way.
“Lily,” Isen said.
“What?” she snapped.
“Don’t bite the nice officers.” Someone had brought him a pair of jeans, which he’d pulled on while she was talking to Cynna. He zipped them now. “We haven’t encouraged the sheriff’s department to come calling.”
“You have some kind of understanding with them so they won’t rush out to investigate?”
“Of course not.” He was bland. “That would be wrong.”
She snorted and returned her attention to the two men crossing the field.
She couldn’t see faces. There wasn’t enough light. But she could see that both deputies were male; one was white, the other black. Both looked fit. The white guy was tall, maybe six-two, and slim; the black guy was shorter and wider. Not fat, not a bit of it, but built husky, like a smaller version of Benedict. He moved like a big cat, smooth and effortless.
Lily’s body caught on before her mind did. She was still wondering why the black guy looked familiar when her breath hitched. A second later, she knew.
From ten feet away she could see that the taller deputy had sandy hair, a rookie’s spit and polish, and the stiff expression of someone who hopes he looks tough. The other man had a wide nose, deep-set eyes, no hat, and hair buzzed close to the skull. He didn’t have to try to look tough. He was the real deal . . . even if he did have a butterfly tattooed on his left cheek.
Not the cheek on his face. The one currently covered by his crisp khakis.
Lily waited until they stopped in front of her. She didn’t bother wishing Isen away, but she did wish—fleetingly but fervently—that her sister wasn’t here. “Hello, Cody. It’s been a while.”
NINE
HOSPITALS were tricky places for a lupus. The smells of blood and sickness are exciting to a wolf on a fundamental level; the injured and ill are the easiest kills. Not that Rule’s wolf would wrench free to wreak havoc. His control was excellent, and besides, his wolf was no crazed adolescent, too easily excited to understand the risks or forget that humans are not prey.
But the scents kept Rule’s wolf edgy in spite of three of the most god-awful tuna sandwiches he’d ever eaten. And the man . . . the man did not like waiting. It gave him too much time to think. To remember.
The first time Rule set foot in a hospital, he’d been only a little older than his son was now. Before First Change, a lupus was almost human. With his wolf still sleeping, the smells hadn’t been as acute, or affected him the same way. He’d waited in a room much like this one, waited with his father and brother and a few other clan while Benedict’s Chosen struggled for life.
She hadn’t made it.
Some memories were better than that one, yet not restful. He thought of a time he and Cullen had gone for a hunt, just the two of them, below the border, and had gotten into a bit of trouble. That memory made him smile, but pricked his heart. He thought of the time—much more recent—when Cullen had literally gone to hell for him. To hell and back . . .
He also remembered a time or two when Cullen, still a lone wolf, had damn near spun out of control—yet hadn’t. He’d endured so much for so long, and now . . . now he had everything he’d ever wanted. A clan. A son on the way. A woman who loved him wholly . . . and wasn’t that odd? Rule hadn’t known Cullen wanted that. He didn’t think Cullen had, either.
Rule glanced at the messy blond head of his friend’s love, currently pillowed on his thigh.
The chairs made Cynna’s back ache, so about thirty minutes ago they’d moved to the floor. This had garnered them a few odd looks from the room’s other occupants, a small Pakistani family. Pregnancy exhausted the body; stress made it worse. Rule had encouraged her drowsiness with a back rub, and eventually she’d dozed off.
Problem was, with her asleep, he no longer had the distraction of focusing on someone else’s needs. He was alone with his thoughts and memories.
He’d seen Cynna’s head on his pillow a few times, many years ago. But it wasn’t those moments he remembered now. It was the first time he saw Cynna, standing straight and strong and pissed when a man she’d been involved with at the time insulted her publicly.
Rule had taken pleasure in making it clear that a real man appreciated a strong woman. Later, he’d taken even more pleasure in tossing the man and two of his friends up against the side of a building when they decided to teach Cynna a lesson for “talking back.”
He’d been attracted from the first, of course. She had a beautiful body, and she smelled good. But more, he’d just plain liked her. He still did. How strange that two of the people he cared for most had found each other.
Had married each other.
Rule’s muscles tightened. His hands clenched. Cynna stirred without quite waking. He swallowed and forced ease on a body that wanted to move—or to hit something. Someone.
Cullen’s surgery had gone on so long. Too long.
Most lupi never went into surgery, which was problematic for them. Set a bone, sure. Cut into them with a knife? Not such a good idea. Anesthesia didn’t work on lupi—and a conscious but badly wounded lupus might try to kill someone who cut him open.
Nokolai, however, had Nettie—shaman, doctor, healer. The combination of her healing Gift with her shamanic training let her put a lupus patient in sleep so they could be operated on. She’d done so to Rule twice—once after a spectacular motorcycle crash when he was young and foolish. Once when a demon gutted him during his sojourn in hell.
Neither of his surgeries had lasted much more than an hour.
Rule checked his watch. Four hours and twenty-one minutes. He and Cynna had been waiting almost four and a half bloody hours. What was taking so long?
Nettie’s a fighter, he reminded himself. She hasn’t given up.
Why did people think of medicine as a gentle profession, anyway? Doctors were vicious, bloody warriors, and their bat tleground was the patient’s body. They brought terrible weapons onto that field. They cut people open and poisoned them.
Not that they called their drugs poisons, but what else were they? Mild poisons usually, poisons administered in small enough doses that the body could endure their assault while they killed bacteria or cancer cells or rendered the patient comatose so the surgeon could cut him open.
Drugs didn’t work on lupi, but something had worked on Cullen, hadn’t it? Whoever stabbed Cullen had known enough to find one of the few poisons that affected a lupus. Wolfsbane? Gado?
Whoever stabbed Cullen . . .
Deliberately, he turned his mind away from that thought. He couldn’t afford to speculate, not if he was to stay in control throughout this bloody, bedamned, interminable wait.
Cynna made a small sound and jolted. Her eyes popped open.
He touched her shoulder. “Bad dreams?”
“Uh-huh.” She sat up. “I keep seeing him fall. He just went down, you know? No warning. I wish I had your trick of knowing. You and Lily always know that the other one’s okay.”
No, they didn’t—but they knew the other one wasn’t dead. That’s what she meant, and right now Rule would define okay as “not dead,” too. He studied Cynna’s face. She talked strong—she was strong—but she had a bruised look around the eyes that worried him. He kneaded her shoulder lightly. “Maybe you should eat.”
She gave him a wry glance. “Cullen’s always trying to feed me, too. I promise you, it won’t help right now.”
“Hmm.” Humans did benefit from regular meals, if not as dramatically as lupi, but Rule didn’t argue. “I don’t know if it will help you, but I remind myself frequently that we would have already heard if he’d died. The waiting is hard, but bad news would arrive quickly.”
“True. And he’s going to be okay. I know that in my gut. It’s just that my head knows other stuff—like that it shouldn’t take this long. I don’t know a whole lot about healing, but I know it doesn’t take this long, so whatever Nettie’s doing isn’t working right.”
Hard to argue with her
when she was right. He did his best. “Her healing may not be working normally against this poison, but he isn’t dead, so it is working.”
“Right.” She gave a firm nod, grimaced, and said, “Give me a hand up, okay? I’m stiff.”
He stood and helped her rise. He wasn’t sure how much she really needed the help—her center of balance was disrupted, but she was extremely fit.
Once on her feet she ran both hands through her hair, glanced at the room’s other occupants, and said quietly, “Guilt always makes the other feelings worse, doesn’t it?”
Startled, he blurted, “You don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”
“Of course I do. I didn’t say the guilt was accurate, just that I feel that way. This wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t gotten married. My choices led to him being attacked. His choices, too,” she added, “not to mention the bastard with the knife. But that doesn’t eliminate my guilt-o-meter.”
Now he truly didn’t know what to say.
She nodded as if he’d spoken. “Yeah, I hate it, too, but who could attack him at Nokolai Clanhome except clan? And why would they? Cullen makes people mad all the time, but mad enough to stick a knife in him at his baby party . . .” She shook her head. “It’s the marriage thing. It sent someone round the bend.”
“We don’t know that for fact, but if it was someone in Nokolai, my father will find him. He declared the attack an offense against the clan.”
Her brow wrinkled. “He did? Oh, yeah, I sort of heard that, I just wasn’t paying attention at the time. That’s . . . shit, could that mean clan war? I mean, if it wasn’t a Nokolai who did it.”
He’d meant to reassure her. It sure as hell reassured him, since it meant his father hadn’t been involved in the attack, however indirectly. “No. You’re thinking of the clan wars of the 1600s.” Cynna was learning clan history from the Rhej, he knew. “This isn’t the same situation. Ah—put roughly, back then, several of the dominant clans were too even in power, which encouraged excesses. The only clan that is equal in power to Nokolai today is Leidolf.” Several others were strong enough to be a problem if they acted together, but he decided not to go into that possibility.
