Tempting Danger

by Eileen Wilks

  That wasn’t all Isen Turner owned, according to the dossier the FBI had given her. There were vineyards in Napa Valley. Chunks of real estate in San Diego and L.A. Stocks, bonds, and more land in a remote part of Canada. The FBI estimated his holdings at three hundred million, and Rule managed them.

  Not that the Feds knew everything. They didn’t know who Rule’s mother had been, or how old his father was. They weren’t even sure how old Rule was.

  In his thirties, she thought. Though he could have passed for a twenty-something, his bearing spoke of someone older. Of course, being semiroyal might have that effect, too.

  She glanced at him, then looked out the window again. The view was more interesting than a pouting werewolf.

  His car, however, woke lust in her heart. A shiny new Mercedes convertible—silver outside, dark leather inside, on-board navigation system. She hadn’t wanted to suggest he put the top down, given the prevailing atmosphere of snit, but it was easier to hear the incredible stereo with the top up . . . not that there was much worth listening to.

  He’d been playing Dvořák when he picked her up.

  Mostly she tolerated classical music pretty well. But not that one, not one of the quartets. Maybe she should have gritted her teeth until it ended, but she hadn’t. She’d asked politely if he could play something else. Equally polite, he’d switched at once to an oldies station. Which may have been a backhanded slap at her musical taste. She didn’t care.

  She’d apologized last night. What more did he want? And dammit, was she really wishing he’d go back to flirting with her? She couldn’t be that dumb.

  All right, she admitted silently. Maybe she could be. She’d work on it. But he didn’t have to be so—so blasted polite. She’d tried. Hadn’t she tried to start a civil conversation? Amazing how quelling a simple yes or no could be. He’d managed to freeze her courteously into silence, too.

  He reminded her of her mother.

  That thought was absurd enough to make her smile. She was taking herself—and him—far too seriously. And this was an investigation, not a pleasure drive.

  She’d cleared it with the captain this morning. He’d agreed to her omitting all irrelevant details from her official report; he liked the idea of keeping the Feds in the dark. Then she’d gone to talk to Fuentes’s neighbors, and caught two of them at home.

  The one on the floor below hadn’t known the couple at all. No help there. She’d struck pay dirt with 41-C, though. Erica Jensen was a young single woman who was Rachel’s friend. She’d agreed that Carlos had had a wandering eye—also wandering hands and other body parts. He’d persuaded Rachel to try the scene at Club Hell and had been pleased when she attracted the attention of a lupus prince.

  “Whole thing’s weird, you know?” Erica had shrugged. “Carlos talked about how possessiveness is wrong, but I dunno. If you ask me, he liked it that other men wanted his wife. Made him feel important, because she was his. Just a different way of making like he owned her. But she seemed okay with it.”

  “Did Rachel tell you this, or did you talk to Carlos about it?” Lily had asked.

  “Mostly Rachel, but Carlos talked about that weird church of his to anyone who’d listen.” She’d looked sad. “I’m making it sound like he was a real lowlife, and he wasn’t. He worked hard, and he was sweet with Rachel most of the time. You ask me, he had some wires crossed, was all. Rachel loved him like crazy. The deal with Turner . . . well, she loved that, too. She says the sex was incredible, but I think he made her feel special, too. And it made Carlos appreciate her more.”

  All in all, she’d made it sound as if Rule Turner was being a Good Samaritan by diddling Rachel Fuentes. Lily didn’t buy that, but lupus mores were different. They didn’t believe in marriage, for one thing.

  Lily glanced at the Good Samaritan behind the wheel.

  He’d forgotten to mention that this was casual day. He was wearing his usual black, but the jeans were worn at the stress points and his T-shirt was old and faded. He wore tennis shoes, no socks, and mirrored sunglasses. And he hadn’t shaved.

  So why did he look so blasted elegant? She broke the silence. “Clanhome is owned by your father, I understand.”

  “Technically, yes,” he said in that cool, polite voice he’d used ever since picking her up. “He holds it in trust for the clan.”

  “A corporation could do the same thing.”

  “There’s been some discussion of that, now that it’s legal to be lupi. But corporate law and lupus custom don’t mesh well.”

  “I suppose not. Stockholders are allowed to vote.”

  The mirrored lenses tipped her way briefly, then faced the road again. “No doubt you believe clan members are being deprived of their rights and would be happier if they were allowed to vote.”

  “Wouldn’t they?”

  “No.”

  Just that, no explanation. Lily clamped down on her irritation. He was hardly the first uncooperative witness she’d dealt with. “Tell me about your father. Will I meet him today?”

  “He’s a canny old bastard. I mean that literally, of course.” Now there was something other than courtesy in his voice. Mockery. “We’re all bastards, by your standards.”

  “You don’t know what my standards are. Is there anything I should know about today’s ceremony?”

  “No. You won’t be attending.”

  Temper was bubbling up under the lid she’d put on it. “So that business of requiring my word was, what—window dressing?”

  “All visitors to Clanhome are asked to promise not to talk about what they see. You can’t attend the alliance ceremony because another clan is involved, and their Rho didn’t want an outsider present.”

  Another clan—a new ally? Lupus politics, Grandmother had said, were played according to the rules—lupus rules. Which included ritual combat, sometimes to the death. “Which one? What’s going on?”

  “This isn’t part of your investigation, Detective.”

  “It’s wonderful how you can make ‘Detective’ sound like an insult.”

  “I’m doing what you wanted. Keeping things impersonal.”

  “Are you?” She turned to study him, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. If things weren’t personal, you wouldn’t be pouting.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Pouting. That’s certainly in line with your other notions of my character. But you’re right, of course.” The car slowed. “Things are personal between us. I’m not the one in denial about that.”

  “I meant that you keep making things personal. Or trying to. Which your present snit proves is a big—what are you doing?”

  “Behaving like a fool, most likely.” He’d pulled to a stop, dead center in the road.

  “You aren’t going to suggest I get out and walk.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He tossed his sunglasses on the dash, then unfastened his seat belt.

  The sudden jump in her heartbeat said she knew what he intended. She refused to listen to it. He wouldn’t. Not when there was so much at stake, not while he thought he was still a suspect—not in the middle of the road, for heaven’s sake. “There’s a blind corner just ahead. You’d better move this car, unless you want to get hit.”

  “You may hit me,” he said, and seized her left arm. “In a moment.”

  Her right hand flew out—not to slap, but to punch. He snagged it in midblow and struck back. Not with his hands, but with his mouth. On hers.

  She bit him.

  His breath sucked in, but he didn’t pull back. No, the bastard chuckled. He rubbed his bloody lip over hers, slowly. Gently. Then he licked her lower lip.

  And she . . . didn’t move. Couldn’t move. As if he’d shot a bolt of some strange metal through her body, she was pinned and quivering, her entire being vibrating to a new, soundless music.

  He let go of her hand to cradle her head, deepening the kiss. And once freed, she didn’t push him away. She touched him. His ear, and the hair that curled over it. His shoulde
r, firm and flawlessly male. His fingers stirred the hair at her nape, and God help her, but the music took on a familiar beat, the pounding rhythm of need. She made a small noise and chased his mouth with hers.

  He answered with a masculine purr of approval. His hand settled over her breast, teasing the nipple. His mouth stopped coaxing and took.

  She met his greed with her own. His shirt was thin, yet still in her way. She needed his body, needed it bare so she could touch and claim every plane and hollow. She knew him—no, she needed to know him, would know him, now, always, every part of him—

  Lily heard herself moaning. The sound shocked her back into her right mind—or whatever was left of it. She jerked her head back.

  He bent to her exposed throat, kissing, sucking.

  “No—no, you can’t. We can’t—” The frantic sound of her voice frightened her. She pushed at him.

  He lifted his head and looked at her out of eyes gone blind with desire, the pupils so large they nearly swallowed the irises. “No, of course . . . not here. I shouldn’t have . . . come here, querida, you need to be held. Come, I need this, too,” he said, and unfastened her seat belt.

  His hand was shaking.

  Like her. As if she’d been plunged into an icy pool, tiny shudders chased up her spine and shivered along her thighs. Her jaw tightened, and it was hard to get words out. “Don’t touch me. You can’t help. You did this. You did this to me.”

  “I kissed you. The rest is not my choice, either. This console is damnably in the way,” he added, but it didn’t seem to be giving him much trouble.

  Nor was she. She let him arrange her, her mind overturned by confusion . . . her body still craving his.

  His arm around her shoulders urged her as close as the console would allow. His chest heaved with breath as ragged as hers. “I’m sorry, nadia. I was angry, but I’d no right to be. You didn’t know why you upset me. It’s hard for you. So much you don’t understand.”

  She understood that this was wrong. She told herself that, but didn’t move. “You’re using some kind of spell. You must be, even though I can’t feel it.”

  “I’m not. You and I . . . you’re right that this is no ordinary attraction. We are bound. Neither of us chose it, neither controls it.”

  “No!” She forced herself to straighten, pulling away. “There’s always choice. Sometimes limited by—by circumstance . . .” Such as developing an incredible case of the hots for a man she had no business getting involved with. A man who lacked even a nodding acquaintance with fidelity. A man who wasn’t entirely human.

  “We can’t always control our emotions,” she finished more quietly. “But we choose whether to act on them.”

  “Why do I think I know what your choice will be?” He rubbed his neck, sighed. “Lily, it won’t work. No amount of common sense or willpower will cut the connection between us. You can’t turn your back on this as you might an infatuation.”

  “Amazing. We agree on something. I am not infatuated with you. I’m not altogether sure I like you.”

  “I’m aware of that. At the moment, I’m not too thrilled with you, either. You’re stubborn, infuriating, prejudiced—”

  “I am not prejudiced!”

  “Then you have no problem with my nature?”

  “It’s your sexual habits I’m not crazy about.”

  His crooked smile was less than happy. “You’ll be pleased to know that you’ve changed my habits. Permanently.”

  “Sure, and you’ve got a bridge you’d like to sell me, too.” She looked straight ahead, tucked her hair behind her ears, and hoped she didn’t look as all-to-pieces as she felt. Dammit, she was still shaky. “Don’t you have a ceremony to attend?”

  He just sat there, looking at her. She refused to look at him, but his gaze seemed to have weight. And heat. Her heartbeat wouldn’t behave.

  Finally he put the car back in gear. “There’s a great deal you need to know, and no point in telling you any of it. Not when you’re determined to disbelieve me. When you’re ready to listen, let me know.”

  For the rest of the drive, she was as silent as he.

  CLANHOME was a long, winding strip of land that bordered BLM land in places, and a wilderness preserve elsewhere. Maps indicated it was accessible by only two roads—this one, and a private road to the north that led to the tiny community of Rio Bravo. The stretch of Clanhome that met this road was fenced and gated.

  Rule pulled to a stop at the closed gate. A young man in shorts—and nothing else—was waiting to open it for them. He looked fit and friendly, barefoot and freckled, a regular Jimmy Olsen of a werewolf. There was a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.

  After opening the gate, he didn’t move aside for them to pass, but came up to the window. Rule put it down. “Sammy.”

  “Hey, Rule. Benedict says for you to take your guest to the Rho’s house before you go to the Grounds.”

  Rule flicked a glance at her. “You can tell him you gave me his message.”

  The young man grimaced. “I said it wrong. It’s the Rho who wants to see her, not Benedict.” He peered into the car, obviously curious about Rule’s passenger.

  Rule didn’t introduce her. His fingers drummed once on the steering wheel, then he nodded. The young man stepped back, and they drove through the gate.

  “Apparently,” Rule said, “you’ll be meeting my father after all.”

  “Good.”

  “You’re speaking as the detective with a murder to solve, I assume. Not as the woman I’m involved with.”

  She wanted to tell him they weren’t involved, but the words stuck in her throat. She’d all but inhaled him a few minutes ago. Whatever they were, uninvolved didn’t fit. So she said nothing.

  Past the gate, the gravel road wound around the rocky shoulder of an aging mountain, then headed down into a long, shallow valley. Nestled in that valley was what amounted to a village. Two dogs—a terrier of some sort and a shaggy collie mix—raced along the shoulder with them as they neared the village.

  She hadn’t expected dogs. It didn’t seem to fit with the wolf thing.

  There was no clear line between wilderness and town. No tidy blocks or fences. The modest stucco, timber-frame, or adobe houses seemed to have been plopped down at random, with some on the main street, others peering out from the pines and oaks covering the slopes on each side. They passed a gas station, a small produce market, a café, a laundry, and a general store.

  There were people, too. The road split to circle a grassy area a little larger than a football field where several dozen people were gathered. The location for the ceremony she wouldn’t see? Like the guard at the gate, the men she saw mostly wore shorts, period. The women—why hadn’t she expected to see women?—wore shorts, too, though they added shoes and a T-shirt or halter. A couple of them waved; several others simply stared as they drove past.

  Farther up the street, a teenage girl sat on the porch steps of a small stucco home, drinking a canned soda. She wore a gauzy dress . . . and had one arm looped casually over the huge, silver-coated wolf panting cheerfully in the heat beside her.

  The wolf turned his head to watch as the Mercedes went by.

  The Rho’s home was set partway up the slope at the end of the street. It was a sprawling stucco home with a red tile roof—lovely, but hardly a mansion. Not what she expected of a man worth three hundred million. Rule pulled into the curving drive, and she saw the man standing at one corner of the house. He was middle-aged and as nearly naked as everyone else she’d seen.

  The blade in his hand was entirely naked. All two or three feet of it. “Good God. What’s he, the palace guard?”

  “Something like that.”

  Rule pulled to a stop in front of the house. The guard watched them. He didn’t look nearly as friendly as the one at the gate had. “This doesn’t say much for your claim that everyone’s happy not having a vote.”

  “You’re unacquainted with the situation.”

  “You co
uld fill me in.”

  “I don’t know what the Rho wants you to know.”

  “And you don’t make decisions like that without consulting him?”

  “Not when I’m speaking to the police.” He opened his door.

  She started to reach for him. She had no idea what she was going to say, and didn’t have the chance to learn. The door of the house flew open, and a young boy burst out. “Dad! Dad!”

  Rule shot out of the car almost as precipitously. He was rounding the hood before Lily got her seat belt undone, his face filled with such a fierce joy that she felt embarrassed, as if she’d intruded.

  She climbed out slowly as the two connected, the man grabbing the boy and lifting him off his feet to swing him in a dizzy circle, then settling him on one shoulder as easily as she might sling her purse on a shoulder. The boy had short, straight hair a shade darker than Rule’s, a softer chin, and no beard, but otherwise was a miniature of his father.

  Though maybe the resemblance was exaggerated by their identical, beaming expressions.

  “So what are you doing out here?” Rule demanded. “What about your lessons?”

  “It’s lunch!” he cried, indignant. “Anyway, I finished the spelling, and I know all the states, and Nettie says we’ll do math after.” He grimaced. “I am not looking forward to math, you know.”

  “I know. But you’re doing better with division all the time, and you’ve got multiplication dicked. What’s seven times seven?”

  “Forty-nine! And you’re not supposed to say dicked.”

  “I forgot. There’s someone I’d like you to meet, ma animi.”

  “Yeah?” He looked away from his father’s face, ignoring the guard, and saw Lily. “It’s a girl.” He was surprised.

  “A lady,” Rule corrected. “Lily, this is my son, Toby Asteglio. Toby, this is Lily Yu.”

  “You?”

  “It’s a Chinese name,” she said. “It sounds like the English pronoun, as if I’m always talking about someone else, doesn’t it? But in Chinese it can mean lots of things, depending on how it’s written.”

  “Do you talk in Chinese?”