by Eileen Wilks
Lily’s muscles had warmed up by now. She ran easily, her body loose. She tried to focus on that, on the sensations in her calves and thighs, on keeping her elbows in and her shoulders back. For a little while, she didn’t think.
The route the concierge had suggested took them past the Capitol building, past the state library, then turned onto James Robertson Parkway, which curved in a large half circle around the buildings. They’d follow it to Fifth Avenue, take a right, and run along past the Nashville Auditorium and on back to Deadrick, which would return them to the hotel.
They swung onto the sidewalk flanking the Parkway, and LeBron dropped back a couple of paces. He didn’t need to—the sidewalk broadened here. Maybe there were lots of pedestrians in the day, when the government offices were open. Not now. They had it to themselves. On the left, headlights flashed and passed, flashed and passed. On the right was a grassy embankment studded by trees that ended in a parking lot. A sparse sprinkling of cars suggested that a few government employees were working really late.
LeBron stayed behind her, but on her left, closer to the highway. If she’d thought there was a real threat, she’d have placed him on her right. With his night vision, he could pick out any lurkers in the deep shadows beneath the trees a lot better than she could.
Was his choice of highway-side instinct? Did cars and the people in them seem more of a danger to a part-time wolf than the darker, unpopulated stretch of grass and trees?
Lupi were human-like or human-plus, but they were not plain old human. Their default settings were different. They doted on babies. They never let themselves get too hungry. They were subject to the Change, the fury, and a nasty form of late-life cancer. They were promiscuous and beautiful and deeply, irrationally protective of women.
They kept secrets.
Rule’s tendency to keep things to himself had tripped them up more than once. He tried, but sometimes he simply didn’t notice he was keeping things from her, no more than she’d notice she hadn’t commented on her menses lately. Was his silence this time merely habit? Had it just not occurred to him to tell her he might be asked to kill his clansman?
How could it not? When you got down to it, Rule had used her to gain access to Cobb, knowing what Cobb was likely to ask of his Rho. Knowing—he had to know!—she could not allow him to kill the man. Maybe she’d used him, too, but he could have said, No, I’m not going to use my position as Rho to get my clansman to confess. She might not have liked it, but she would have understood. He had the right to refuse to help in that way.
He hadn’t given her a chance to refuse. And that was not like him.
Rule insisted the Leidolf mantle didn’t affect him. Lily was growing more and more sure that it did … because if she was wrong, he’d knowingly withheld information so he could use her.
Somewhere to the north and east he was running, too, seeking the surcease of the physical. She knew he’d been pulled by opposing needs—his duty and hers. In the end, he’d backed away from his duty for her sake, and maybe that should make everything okay.
It didn’t. It mattered. It meant a lot, but it wasn’t enough. Not when she felt separated from him by more than eight or nine miles of city.
He needed to see that the mantle was affecting him. She didn’t know how to make that happen, but somehow she had to.
Lily picked up the pace. LeBron kept up easily. She pushed herself, craving the burn, knowing he’d have no trouble with any pace she could set. A less confident person could get a complex, going running with—
With the first sharp crack! something tugged hard at her arm. She didn’t have time to drop. Two hundred and forty pounds of LeBron hit her from behind even as a second and third shot split the air—and he wrapped himself around her, so that she hit the ground helpless but cushioned.
They rolled—another shot, another—and she ended up on top, her arms free, but when she reached for her weapon her right arm barely twitched. Pain rocketed straight to her brain in a hot blur.
Tires screeching, a horn blaring—
She started to roll off LeBron, flatten herself better. And saw his face.
One eye open and staring. The other gone, just gone, vanished in the bloody, jellied wreck the bullet had made on its way out of his skull.
TWELVE
FLASHING lights. Cop lights, strobing their red emergencies into the street, onto the bloody grass. Lily sat on the wet grass, her arm pulsing out of sync with those lights, driven by a frantic heartbeat, each pulse a hot beat of pain too large to think through or around.
“What?” she said. “I didn’t hear … you need to send someone to talk to the concierge.”
“Later,” the officer kneeling beside her said soothingly. He was young, dark-skinned, with a teensy little mustache. “You said you’re FBI. Do you have ID on you?”
“In my holster.” She’d already surrendered her weapon, knowing the officers had to have it. Lily started to reach behind her—and hissed at the fresh blow from her injured arm.
“I’ll get it. Stay still. You aren’t bleeding out, but—”
“I’m okay. Didn’t get the plates, though. First we were tumbling, then I saw … they were gone by the time I looked. Shot us from behind, hit the gas.”
He’d managed to extract her ID. As he shown his flashlight on it, a siren’s mounting wail grew closer. Ambulance, she saw when she glanced at the street. It pulled to a stop, adding its flashing light to the two patrol units.
But they were too late. LeBron was dead. “Could be an opportunistic hit, could be planned. If the concierge talked to someone …” The world did a slow loop. She closed her eyes to see if that made the dizziness go away.
When she opened them, she was flat on her back and someone else was bending over her. A woman, thirty-something, brown and brown, square chin. Not a cop. “Take it easy, ma’am,” the woman said. “We’re going to get you loaded in just a minute. I need to know where you hurt.”
Paramedic. Brown-and-brown was a paramedic. “My arm. That’s it. I need to call people. My phone’s in my armband. Get it for me, okay? Can’t reach it.” She’d tried, but the armband was on her left biceps and she couldn’t contort her left arm enough to reach it.
“You need to be still. You’ve lost some blood.”
Blood loss? Was that why … she’d thought the mate bond had yanked on her, making her pass out. That’s how it felt when she and Rule were too far apart—dizzy as hell, followed by unconsciousness if they didn’t close the distance quickly. But blood loss made sense. “Talking won’t make me lose more blood. I need to call Rule and …” Not Ruben. He’d had a heart attack. God, her brain wasn’t working right. “Croft. I need to tell him. And Rule.”
“We can make a call for you, but first we have to get you loaded. Hold on a minute now, we’re going to—”
Someone did something to her arm that seared her brain to white. When it came back online, someone was saying dammit, dammit, dammit … oh, that was her. Apparently she could curse even without a brain. “Call now.”
“We’ll call soon. We’re going to move you now.”
“O-NEGATIVE.” Lily lay on a gurney in the back of the ambulance. The motor was idling, the siren silent. Up front, a door slammed as the driver got in. “And that’s all you get until you call.”
“Special Agent,” Brown-and-brown said, “no doubt you are used to being in charge. You aren’t in charge now. I said I’d call, and I will—after we reach the hospital. Now you need to answer some questions. Any allergies?”
Lily set her jaw and stared at the ceiling. It was way too close. Everything was too close and cramped in the back of an ambulance. Rule would hate it.
“I need to know if you’re allergic to any drugs.”
They pulled away from the curb. Just as Lily thought maybe they’d spare her the siren, it came on. She winced. It probably wasn’t as loud in here as outside, but that urgent blare made her heartbeat jump back into double time.
They’
d bound her arm. The pressure was necessary to stop the bleeding, but God, it hurt. No more dizziness, though, thanks to the IV now dripping fluid into her vein, so she tried to get her brain working.
It was not, she thought, a professional hit. A pro would have used a rifle or an automatic. It clearly hadn’t been an automatic—she was too alive for that—and it had sounded like a pistol, not a rifle.
Brown-and-brown sighed and surrendered. “All right, I’ll call. What did you say his name was?”
“Rule. Rule Turner.”
VANDERBILT had the closest ER, barely five minutes away. That was irony, not a coincidence; Ida had booked them into the Doubletree precisely because it was close to the hospital.
Brown-and-brown hadn’t been able to reach Rule, but she’d left a message. She’d called Croft, too, just as the ambulance pulled into the emergency bay. She hadn’t let Lily speak to him, but at least she’d called. Lily made sure she told Croft about LeBron.
Not Rule, though. He shouldn’t learn that from voice mail.
Many painful minutes had since passed. Lily’s time sense was too skewed to guess how many. Time enough to cut away her top, though it was obvious her only damage was to her arm. Time enough to steal more of the blood they said she was low on. Time enough to get X-rays, during which she’d passed out again, but not, she thought, for very long. They’d followed that up with a CT scan.
Now she lay flat on a hard treatment table, enveloped in pain. Her own fault, she supposed, for refusing pain meds. But she couldn’t turn loose yet, couldn’t … only she was tired. So tired.
Still, she tried to pay attention to the doctor who was telling her a great many important things involving her tibia. Or was it her fibula?
No, neither of those were right. Her arm, anyway. Her arm was screwed up. Hollow-point bullet, most likely. They really tore things up on their way out. Like LeBron’s eye socket, exploded into obscene red jelly …
“… very fortunate there is no significant vascular damage, so we won’t need a vascular surgeon. The surgery may take awhile, given the shattering of your humerus—bone fragments, you know. Got to chase down as many of them as we can, but we have an excellent orthopedic surgeon. He’ll be here very soon, and he’ll take good care of you,” he told her, hearty in his reassurance. “Do you have any questions?”
“Not going into surgery yet.”
The ER physician was a portly man with twin patches of sandy hair in parentheses around his ears. He had a mole just under his chin and a shiny head. He frowned at her in disapproval. “You need surgery, young lady.”
Lily gritted her teeth at the “young lady.” “I’m not refusing treatment. Just not yet. He’s almost …” No, wait, she wasn’t supposed to say that. “I need to see him first.”
“He? Who do you mean?”
There was no door to her treatment cubby, so she heard the commotion in the hall clearly. First a woman’s voice: “Sir! Sir, you can’t go—”
Then a wonderful voice. “No, now, you’ll have to get out of my way. My nadia is in there.”
“Visitors are not allowed for that patient—sir! Security! Stop him!”
Relief rolled over Lily in a huge wave. “That’s him, and you’ll let him in here or I swear I’ll get up off this goddamned table and go out there to him.”
“The officers left word that you—”
“I am a goddamned officer, and I say … oh. Oh, there you are.”
Rule appeared in the doorway, his hair disheveled, his eyes frantic. “Lily.”
From behind him another man spoke. “All right, you! Hands up and step back. Step away from the door.”
Rule didn’t move, and he didn’t look away from her. “I suggest you put that gun up before you hurt someone.”
“Harvey,” the doctor said, turning, “don’t be waving that gun around. It’s all right. My patient knows this man—whoever he is—and she is not going to cooperate until she sees him.”
Harvey started arguing. The doctor started for the hall. Rule stepped aside for him politely—and came in. Came to her.
“Lily.” He swallowed and touched her cheek so carefully, as if he feared even that might hurt.
She seized his shirt with her good hand and pulled him to her. He let her, and at last, at last she could bury her face in his shoulder, his shirt wrinkled and soft, his scent filling her. At last she could let go. Rule was here.
A shudder hit like a small quake. “LeBron is dead.”
“I know.” He stroked her hair. “I was still four-footed when the mate bond yanked at me—”
It did?
“—so I raced back to the car, Changed, and got that message from the paramedic.”
“But she didn’t say—”
“I called Croft. He told me.”
Her hand clenched in his shirt. “He died for me. He wrapped himself around me and took the bullet. For me.” The first sob shook her, shocked her, sent a white bolt of pain shooting from her damaged arm … but that didn’t stop her.
She wept.
THIRTEEN
THE moon’s lumpy face beamed down on the land in its remote, silvery way, making Arjenie think of that “from a distance” song. Maybe things on Earth looked just fine from 238,857 miles away.
Actually, it was closer to 233,814, though that figure might be imprecise. She’d done the calculation herself a couple years ago because the other figure was the center-to-center distance between Earth and its satellite, and she’d been curious about the surface-to-surface distance. She’d used the equatorial dimensions of both bodies to keep things simple, so …
So she was distracting herself with trivia again. Not that the distance between Earth and the moon was trivial, but it was not relevant.
Arjenie took a deep breath and opened her car door. The dome light did not come on, and she congratulated herself for remembering to remove the bulb. Lights could be seen much farther away than her Gift could operate, which was why she’d driven the last few miles without headlights.
Tonight’s mission would not be nearly as scary as visiting Dya had been, she assured herself. This time the worst-case scenario didn’t involve anyone killing her.
Though it might involve someone seeing her. She hoped—no, she believed, as firmly as she could manage—that last night’s big, beautiful wolf had gotten away unscathed. Which meant he might be around to see her tonight. Which would be bad, but much better than him not being around at all anymore.
All that determined believing contributed to her thudding heart as she grabbed the tool belt she’d bought that afternoon and got out.
The tool belt went around her waist—or her hips, really, since even the smallest size was a bit large for her. She wiggled her hips, making sure nothing clinked or rattled. Then she reached into her left pocket and withdrew the smaller vial.
It held a tablespoon of clear liquid. Arjenie tugged off the stopper and downed that tablespoonful in one gulp. No taste, no scent—it was like thick water.
She didn’t experience a thing. Dya had told her she wouldn’t. Still, she lifted an arm and sniffed her hand, then under her arm. No change that she could tell. She’d just have to trust that the potion did what Dya said it would. Her Gift would let her go unnoticed, but she needed the potion to keep from leaving her scent on things.
Then she reached into the car for one last tool: a cane.
Arjenie hated the cane. She had one at home, but it spent almost all the time in the back of her closet. She’d long since resigned herself to the clunky orthopedic shoes, but the cane felt like an accusation, an exclamation point at the end of Oh, no, I did it to myself again! But her ankle hadn’t stopped aching since she took that tumble last night. She’d kept it elevated, she’d used a healing cantrip, she’d alternated hot and cold packs. Still it complained, even when wrapped snugly in an elastic bandage.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t wait for it to quit fussing. Her life might not be on the line, but other lives were. That’s what
Dya said, and Arjenie trusted her. Not that she thought Dya had been utterly and completely honest. Arjenie suspected Dya’s life was more at risk than she admitted, and there was so much Dya hadn’t told her. But Dya wouldn’t trick her.
Sometimes the best outcome was no noticeable outcome at all. She’d go in, do what she came here for, and nothing would happen.
With that goal firmly in mind, Arjenie and her cane and her complaining ankle set off down the road to Nokolai Clanhome.
The road hadn’t been resurfaced recently, and that was a blessing. The gravel was mostly packed into the ground. She still made some noise as she walked, but hopefully anyone close enough to hear would be within range of her Gift. But lupi hearing was terribly acute. She didn’t know precisely how acute because they’d never let anyone study them that way—and she couldn’t really blame them, given the history between lupi and humans. But it would be interesting to find out.
Only not tonight. Tonight she’d settle for ignorance on her own part as long as it meant ignorance on their part, too.
The air was crisp, the sky cloudless, and her ankle hurt.
Two miles. That’s not so far, she told herself. She might be clumsy, but she was fit. Two miles to the entrance, then another mile or so to her target. If she hadn’t turned her ankle last night, that would be a breeze. It was still doable. Pain was a familiar sparring partner. It might make her cry, but it didn’t stop her.
She was a little worried about the walk back, though.
Nokolai Clanhome covered three hundred forty-nine acres of rough terrain. Fortunately, she didn’t have to hike up and down all that terrain. The road ran right up to her target. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just drive up. Even if her Gift were strong enough to make an entire car impossible to notice, the glass in the windows would blow that plan. Glass impeded magic—Arjenie’s magic, anyway.
Focus Fire, stop Air, seal Water, open Earth. Her feet kept time with the little ditty she’d learned when she was five years old.
