Lover Beware

by Christine Feehan

  AS SHE AND Rule passed from the hall to the entryway, Paul raced past. “Bye, Dad! See you at lunch!” He yanked open the door, stopped, turned around, and added in a polite rush, “It was very nice to meet you, Lily. I’ll see you at lunch, too. We’re eating with Aunt Nettie and Uncle Conrad.” Then he sped outside, leaving the door open.

  A gnome trotted out of the atrium. No, not a gnome, just a tiny old man made of wrinkles stretched over bony angles. He had a little potbelly and a round, smiling face, and wore yellow biking shorts. “There you are!” he exclaimed, as if amazed to see Rule, and added apologetically, “Is it lunchtime? I lose track. The laundry, you know.”

  “That’s fine, Louvel. We’re eating with my aunt and uncle, I’m told. This is Lily Yu.”

  “Oh! Lily?” The old man trotted up, lifted Lily’s hand, and, in a curiously graceful gesture, raised it to his face. He smelled it thoroughly, then dropped a kiss on it before releasing it. “Charming. Charming. Do you like chocolate, Lily? So many humans do.”

  “Louvel is my father’s cook and housekeeper,” Rule said.

  “His chocolate torte is legendary.”

  “I love chocolate,” she said honestly.

  “Good! I’ll make you a torte.” He beamed at her, then trotted off down another hall.

  “Louvel is a little beyond taking care of the house on his own, but his baking is still not to be missed.” Rule put a hand on her back. “I could use some coffee. You?”

  She nodded.

  A few minutes later she was seated in a sunny kitchen while Rule poured them each a cup of coffee. The back door stood open. They tended to leave doors open, she’d noticed. Perhaps because there wasn’t any air conditioning. Or maybe they just liked things open.

  Rule handed her a steaming mug and sat at the table beside her.

  “What your father said about running out of sons…does that mean someone might do that challenge thing?”

  He sipped his coffee. “It depends. If he says you will be allowed to ask questions, that may annoy people but is unlikely to seriously upset anyone. It wouldn’t be the first time police or other law enforcement agencies poked around in clan business.”

  “This isn’t just clan business.”

  “Most people here will see it that way, though. We haven’t exactly been on friendly terms with the authorities—any authorities. If, on the other hand, the Lupois rules that you are to be answered honestly and completely—”

  “You mean that’s an option?” She shook her head, baffled.

  “And if their Lupois tells them to be truthful and complete, they will be? Even if they disagree with him?”

  “They will, or they’ll challenge. If he does so rule,” he added calmly, “I’ll go with you as Lu Nuntius when you ask your questions.”

  “Lu Nuntius? What does that mean?”

  “It’s my title. My presence will be official, representing the will of the Lupois. In practical terms, it means I’ll be in wolf form.”

  “To answer any challenges,” she said flatly.

  “And because my sense of smell is more acute in that form. It’s almost impossible for a lupus to lie in the presence of his Lu Nuntius. Rather like a devout Catholic trying to lie to a priest while hooked up to a lie detector.”

  She considered that in silence, sipping the truly excellent coffee. “Do you think he’ll tell everyone to answer me honestly?”

  “You said you don’t try to predict your grandmother. I don’t make predictions about my father, either. But I hope he does as you wish.” His mouth tightened to a grim line. “He was betrayed by one of his own people. I want the traitor named.”

  Lily was only startled for a second. Her mind skipped through possibilities, sorting her few facts into a new shape. “You think someone here—someone from his own clan—set him up.”

  “It was an ambush. Carefully planned, and requiring knowledge that Leidolf shouldn’t have had.”

  “Someone told them where he would be.”

  “Yes. And who would be with him. I’m hoping you’ll be able to arrest the bastard so I don’t have to kill him.”

  Chapter 11

  DID SHE TRULY want what Rule thought she did?

  Off and on for the rest of the day, Lily tried to answer that question. She knew what she needed—to stop a killer. Make an arrest. Turn up proof that would stand up in court. She’d play by the Lupois’s rules for now and ask none of the questions burning in her, and hope he cooperated in turn.

  But how far did she want his cooperation to go? Was she willing to let Rule put his life on the line in order to get to the truth? Because that’s what that whole Lu Nuntius business amounted to.

  In the normal course of things she didn’t have a lupus lie detector along on interviews, and she did okay. So what if she had to handle things the hard way here? Cops dealt with lying or reluctant witnesses all the time.

  But if she didn’t find out who had betrayed the Lupois to the other clan, Rule’s father would. Once he was well enough, he would look for the traitor himself, and his justice would be final—and administered by his son. There wasn’t a thing Lily could do to stop it, either, if she couldn’t find the guilty party first. Not if they fought in wolf form. Killing a lupus in wolf form wasn’t murder.

  Lily was really growing to hate that law.

  After they finished their coffee, Rule changed clothes. He wore blue for her, as he’d promised—denim blue. A ragged pair of cutoffs. He looked magnificent in them, especially since he didn’t wear a shirt. Or shoes, for that matter, but neither did most of the people she met that day. Lily felt seriously overdressed, but wasn’t about to leave her gun behind. Since most people found a gun out in plain view distracting, she kept the jacket on.

  Clanhome was a shock of toppled preconceptions.

  Lily had pictured a patriarchal, heavily masculine society. Everyone knew lupi were always male and didn’t marry. She’d expected to see a few women who were kept around to have babies, tend the children, cook, and clean. That’s how men all over the world arranged things when they could, wasn’t it?

  By lunch, she’d met Rule’s uncle and one of his brothers, his first grade teacher, three of Paul’s friends, several dogs, and an assortment of lupi…and Nokolai. That was a surprise, though it shouldn’t have been: they were all Nokolai, but only some were lupi. Because only about two-thirds of the clan was male.

  When she made a rather foolish comment on the number of girls and women she saw, Rule said, “What did you think we did with our girl children? Drown them? Expose them at birth on a hillside?”

  She learned that between 350 and 450 people lived at Clanhome at any given time. There wasn’t enough work here to support everyone, so some officially lived here but had jobs that kept them away a lot. Others lived and worked on the clan’s ranch to the north, and the rest were scattered all over—how many that might be, she didn’t find out. Most Nokolai came, when they could, to the gatherings held on the winter and summer solstices. And many of those who didn’t live here themselves sent their children to stay for part of the summer…and their adolescent boys for much longer. To learn to control the beast.

  Lily saw a lot of children that day. The only wolf she saw was the one that had been sitting with the teenage girl when she and Rule first arrived.

  She visited the daycare center, which was attached to the clubhouse. The center was run by an older woman in a wheelchair named Oralie Fortier, and staffed by volunteers—which meant pretty much every adult at Clanhome. These people were nuts about kids. While Lily was there Ms. Fortier had to settle an argument about whose turn it was to work in the baby room—three people wanted to, and there were only two babies there at the time.

  Two of the three insisting it was their turn with the babies were men.

  The clubhouse had pool tables, a weight room, a smaller room where dance and gymnastics were taught, a kitchen, and a library. It was the only place on the grounds with television. When they left it, head
ing for the school across a lightly wooded section, Lily quit fighting herself and tucked her hand into Rule’s.

  He gave her a smile of such startling sweetness that her heart turned over. A second later, the panic hit.

  She was in love with him.

  No. No, this wasn’t love, it was some kind of physical obsession created by incredible sex. Or magic. Whatever it was, though, it couldn’t be love. She’d known him less than a week. He wasn’t human, for God’s sake. Besides, she’d been in love before, and this—this whatever she felt was different.

  Deeper. Stronger.

  Lily was thoroughly shaken when they reached the school, a U-shaped building with a courtyard in the center. There Rule excused himself, saying he needed to talk to his uncle. He dropped a kiss on her lips and left her with his first grade teacher.

  Arthur Madoc was another surprise—a tall, narrow man with a gentle smile and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. He’d taught first grade for forty-seven years. The school itself reminded her of country schoolhouses she’d read about, with kindergarten in one room, grades one and two in another, and third and fourth graders sharing the third room. After fourth grade, Mr. Madoc told her, the children had to go into town.

  Classes in various subjects were offered during the summer. Today twelve kids aged six to nine were there for art lessons. The wilderness studies group, she was told, had already left the building.

  Lily joined the budding artists, who were experimenting with print-making. She dipped leaves, twigs, and sponges in paint and dabbed them on paper. She helped other artists dip things and admired the results. And she asked questions.

  After her shock had worn off, she’d realized she had more than one investigation to make.

  One of the little girls wanted to be an airline pilot like her mother when she grew up. One wanted to be a doctor. Another thought she’d do something with computers, while a third couldn’t decide between building houses like her uncle or being a movie star.

  More of Lily’s preconceptions toppled quietly. “What about babies?” she asked casually, daubing her sponge in canary yellow paint. “Or getting married? Do you think about doing that, too?”

  “That shade of yellow won’t work with purple,” the budding actress said critically. More patiently, the would-be physician told her, “Not everyone gets to be a mommy, so you can’t plan on having babies. Unless you want to marry out,” she added, and her expression made it clear she considered that a poor choice.

  “Not always,” the computer enthusiast said with the air of correcting a small logic error. “Sophie Duquesne mated with a man from Rachmanov Clan.”

  The future pilot rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to happen. We were talking about plans. You can’t plan to mate. That’s like planning to win the lottery. My dad says—”

  “Time to finish up,” Mr. Madoc said pleasantly. “It’s past noon.”

  The builder’s niece had been right about the yellow. It didn’t look good with the purple.

  When Nettie came to get her, Lily wasn’t surprised to learn that Rule’s uncle, not his aunt, had cooked lunch. She was surprised, though, when those she sat down to lunch with included Rule’s five-year-old son, Johnny. And Johnny’s mother.

  “I’M NOT UPSET with him for not telling me,” Lily said, handing the bright blue plate she’d just washed to Nettie, then plunging her hands back in the soapy water. “Not exactly. He doesn’t owe me his life story, and besides, I knew he had children. I’d dug into his background in the course of my investigation.”

  “But you are upset.” Nettie stacked the dried plate on top of the others in the oak cabinet. “I suppose it’s one thing to know something professionally, another to unexpectedly sit down to lunch with the mother of your lover’s child.”

  That was putting things bluntly. “It’s the way he did it. Just like the way he let me arrive at his grandfather’s house without telling me Paul would be there. He’s putting me through some kind of tests, and I don’t like it.”

  Nettie didn’t answer.

  The two of them were alone in Nettie’s small, cheerful kitchen. Lily had offered to help clean up after lunch. Somewhat to her surprise, Nettie had accepted right away and delegated the washing to her. Everyone else had left after they ate, with Johnny and his mother going home with her friend, Paul to his grandfather’s, and Rule’s uncle back to work at the vineyard.

  Rule had said he needed to talk to a few people. “You can’t come with me,” he’d told her. “I’m sorry, but they won’t speak freely if you’re there. I’ll tell you what I learn.”

  “Will you?” She’d studied him gravely. “People hold things back. They want to protect those they care about, and tell themselves whatever they’re hiding couldn’t really matter.” Instinct, culture, history—all would shriek at him not to reveal too much to an outsider. To human authority.

  He’d hesitated. She’d had the idea he was weighing his response, making sure he could speak the truth. “I’ll tell you,” he’d repeated.

  Nettie stacked the last of the plates. “I take it Rule hasn’t told you a lot about Johnny and Paul.”

  “He hasn’t told me anything.” Lily scrubbed hard on the pot in her hand. “I didn’t know they lived here. I didn’t know Johnny’s mother was Nokolai.”

  “Johnny and Belinda do live here, but Paul is just staying for the summer. In August he’ll return to his mother in Washington. She’s a reporter for CNN.”

  Good grief. Rule’s former lover, the mother of one of his sons, was a reporter? “That’s almost as tricky for him as having a relationship with a cop.”

  “Almost,” Nettie agreed cheerfully. “Has it been difficult for you, balancing your professional duties with your feelings for Rule?”

  Lily took a moment to think about her answer, rinsing the pot thoroughly. Nettie should have been a cop. She was alarmingly good at getting people to talk. “He and I haven’t known each other long, and for most of that time our relationship was professional. It turned personal very suddenly.”

  “Did it? Still, I can understand if you were uncomfortable today. Our customs are different from what you’re used to.”

  That was certainly true. Lily grinned. “I think I would have been a lot more uncomfortable if Belinda hadn’t been accompanied by the gorgeous Dede.” The two women had, quite obviously, been a couple.

  Nettie smiled. “I’m glad you’re tolerant. Not everyone is.”

  “Really?” She rinsed the lid, handed it to Nettie, and opened the drain. “I had the impression this was an accepted and long-standing relationship.”

  Nettie shrugged. “Long-standing, yes. And lupi don’t consider much about sex truly sinful. But relationships such as Belinda and Dede have are discouraged.”

  “Why?”

  “Customs usually evolve for a reason,” she said vaguely, turning to put away the last of the silverware. “Dede and Belinda are good together, though, so most accept them. It’s not like having a true mate, of course—but then, few are that lucky.”

  “True mate.” Lily thought of the little girls she’d met. “Is that like true love?”

  “Something like that. You seemed to enjoy yourself at the school. I thought you might like to join the group learning woodcraft for a while this afternoon. Nick is leading them. He’s our woodsman.”

  “Sure.” Lily dried her hands. She knew when she was being herded out of the way. For now, she didn’t mind. It wouldn’t stop her from seeking answers. “Do you mind if I ask you something personal?”

  “Will it stop you if I do?”

  Probably not. “I wondered how you felt about—well, the way your husband turns furry sometimes. Does it bother you?”

  “Not in the way you mean. I’m a little envious. It would be wonderful to experience the world as vividly as they do.” She shrugged. “But it’s a guy thing, isn’t it?”

  A guy thing. Lily grinned and dried her hands, but her grin soon faded. “Nettie…what happens if a L
u Nuntius doesn’t do what he’s told by his Lupois?”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing occurring.” Nettie smoothed lotion over her hands and held out the bottle. “Want some?”

  Sometimes you let a subject get away with evading the question. Sometimes you didn’t. “What would happen if one did?”

  Nettie sighed. “At best, he would be banished. Not allowed at Clanhome. He would cease to exist to other Nokolai.”

  Lily didn’t have to ask what the worst would be. She could guess.

  The lupi had such final concepts of discipline.

  Chapter 12

  ONE LAST SLIVER of sun clung to the rounded shoulder of Bole’s Peak like an incandescent fingernail clipping. The moon hung low on the opposite side of the sky, looking more shadow than substance, her solidity drained by the presence of her fiery sister. Rule hurried toward his aunt and uncle’s house, buzzing inside as if his skin were but a coat slipped on over a teeming hive of choices, chances, fears, and dreams.

  When the moon rose tomorrow, it would be full. But the buzzing came from more than the proximity of the full moon. He was returning to Lily.

  Night came earlier in the mountains than down in the city, but it was still later than he’d planned to return. There had been so much to arrange, and discussion had taken longer than he’d expected. So had the congratulations. But his plans had gone well, he thought. Extremely well.

  It remained to be seen how well his other plans had worked, and whether Lily would be angry. No, he thought ruefully as he reached the front door, the real question was how angry she would be. Lily was not going to like learning she’d been deceived.

  The second he crossed the threshold, she looked up. She’d been playing chess with his uncle. Nettie wasn’t there, of course. She’d remained at his father’s to make sure he hadn’t set back his healing too much.