Mortal Sins

EIGHTEEN

IT was ten o’clock and full dark when Lily pulled into the driveway at Toby’s home.

The yard was empty once more. Rule would still be able to smell the blood, she thought as she climbed out of the car. She couldn’t. In the yellow glow from the porch light, the grass looked trampled and weary.

About the way she felt. Lily dragged her tote out of the car, closed the door, and clicked it to lock.

The front door opened before she could knock—but it wasn’t Rule who stood there.

“I saw the headlights,” Toby’s grandmother said. She wore a long cotton robe in cheerful green stripes. “Come on in. You must be exhausted.”

“It’s been a long day,” Lily agreed. And not just for her. She stopped in the foyer, studying a face that seemed to have aged ten years in a day. Oh—Mrs. Asteglio wasn’t wearing makeup. Lily had never seen her without it. “Are you all right, Mrs. Asteglio?”

“Not yet, but I will be. And do call me Louise. It’s time, past time . . .” She glanced behind her. The kitchen lights were on; in the den the television was on. She sighed. “I’ve never asked him to use my first name. I wanted to keep him at a distance, but it hasn’t helped, has it?”

It took Lily a second to realize what she meant. “This is happening sooner than you’d expected, but you knew Toby would have to go to his father eventually.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted his father on a last-name basis. Foolish, but I’m not in the mood to be reasonable now, dear. I will be later, but not tonight. Have you eaten? I saved you a plate. Chicken and rice with broccoli.” She turned and headed for the kitchen. She was limping slightly.

“I haven’t, and bless you. But I can get it.”

“I don’t want you to get it.” She paused, looking over her shoulder. “I don’t know what happened to make Rule turn around and come back. He won’t tell me. Oh, he says he got sick suddenly, but they don’t get sick, do they? And Toby had that look he gets when he isn’t supposed to tell me something.” Her lips tightened. “They are so fond of secrets.”

“They have reason,” Lily said quietly, knowing that “they” meant lupi. She’d noticed that Mrs. Asteglio—whom she was now supposed to call Louise—seldom used the word. She’d thought it was lingering prejudice, but maybe not. Maybe the woman had trouble putting a name to something that would inevitably take Toby away from her. “That doesn’t mean we have to like it, though, does it?”

“I don’t expect he has many secrets from you. But never mind me—I’m gloomy tonight. Whatever is wrong, I think he needs you. He’s watching those stupid news reports.” She shook her head, baffled by such behavior. “Toby’s asleep,” she added, and flipped on the light in the kitchen.

Lily followed instructions and her heart. She went into the den.

Rule sprawled on the couch, staring at the television. A perky brunette anchor with a familiar face was solemnly informing viewers that tragedy had struck a small Southern town.

Lily slipped off her jacket and unbuckled her shoulder holster. It was as much a relief to take that off as it would be later when she removed her bra. She draped jacket and rig on the coffee table and curled up with Rule. He took her hand. Neither of them spoke.

Tension drained from her shoulders, her neck. The headache that had started that morning, which ibuprofen had dented without eliminating, slowly drew its talons out of the base of her skull. Almost dizzy with the sudden easing and exhaustion, she closed her eyes. The television switched to a commercial.

Rule would be feeling much the same things. The mate bond—infernal, even dangerous, as it could be—did pay its way. Most lovers instinctively reach for each other when life bitch-slaps them, but for the mate-bonded the comfort of touch was as heightened as it was inescapable.

Not that Lily wanted escape. At the moment all she wanted was right here—a comfortable couch, no need to move, and the feel of Rule, the subtle scent of him.

She noticed another scent just as the microwave dinged. One that made her stomach growl. A second commercial began, and Mrs. Asteglio—Louise—brought Lily a steaming plate. “I’m going on to bed now. You two don’t stay up too late.”

The older woman headed for the stairs. Lily turned to Rule. “What is it about her that makes me want to mind without tripping any of my mother switches?”

“Years of practice.” His fingers toyed with her hair, but his gaze stayed fixed on the TV.

Lily watched, too, in between bites of chicken and rice.

First there was Rule saying, “You are here because of my son. So am I.” The sheen in his eyes couldn’t have been planned, Lily thought. Then there was a shot of all of them together on the porch swing. The brunette gave a brief voice-over about the child custody hearing of “lupus prince Rule Turner,” then said, “but no one could have foreseen the tragic turn events would take” as the image of Rule sprang to his feet—leaped—and Changed.

The camera caught even less of the process than Lily’s eyes. At the moment of Change, Rule seemed to burst into static, a second’s frozen explosion of colorful confetti hanging in midair. Then he was wolf, landing on his feet and streaking through the crowd.

The cameraman had been blocked by that crowd, thank God. There were no shots of Rule knocking Hodge to the ground and lunging for his throat.

“Had Rule Turner not been present,” the brunette was saying gravely, “and had he not acted with preternatural speed to subdue the shooter, casualties might have been much worse. As it was, two people died and three others were injured in this senseless shooting. One of those injured was Ed Eames, a reporter for the Associated Press.”

The scene switched to a close-up of the AP reporter being questioned by the brunette. Looked like Ed wasn’t going to be just a “treated and released” figure after all, Lily thought, turning her head to look at Rule. “This is the first time the Change has been caught on camera, isn’t it?”

“Yes. They’ve shown that clip several times now.” He didn’t speak for a moment, then his mouth twitched. “My father isn’t thrilled about it, but I think his chief regret is that Nokolai isn’t earning anything from rights to the clip.”

“Uh-oh. Does that mean he’s going to want to film you Changing and sell it?”

He snorted. “He might like to, but no. This . . . allowing ourselves to be revealed so publicly during the Change . . . it’s deeply against our instincts. Even those who live openly as lupi will be disquieted by such exposure.”

Oh, yes, lupi were very fond of secrets. And not without reason. “Are you in trouble?”

He shrugged. “Not personally. With my mate and son in danger, I Changed. I doubt any will argue about such a need. But those who oppose integration with the human world can use this. If I weren’t known to the media as the Nokolai prince, there would have been no press conference and no cameras.”

Were they talking about lupus policies because they were afraid of bringing up the scary stuff, or was that just her? Lily didn’t know how to ask about Toby, what his chances were, what could be done. She wasn’t sure she should ask.

But she didn’t think she could keep stepping around the subject, either. She leaned forward, set her empty plate on the coffee table, and drained half the glass of tea Louise Asteglio had supplied along with dinner. Then she tiptoed closer to the scary stuff. “The mate bond screwed up your plans. You can’t go to Leidolf’s clanhome.”

“No, they’ll have to come to me.”

Her eyes widened. “The whole clan?”

That brought a tired grin. “Mrs. Asteglio’s hospitality would be sorely stretched. No, only the youths participating in the gens compleo need come, though I’m sure some of their families will attend, also. Normally the ritual is conducted at a clanhome because the youths must present themselves to their Rho, not the other way around. In this, I act as their Rho. I can require them to come to me.”

“Can you require them not to bring too many people with them? We’ve got a situation here.”

“I won’t be holding the ritual in the backyard. Not in Halo at all, actually. There are miles of forest nearby. Of course, depending on what the mate bond is allowing, I may need you to attend, but it’s a brief ritual.”

“Damned tricky bond.” She leaned back against his arm, unhappy. The sudden dizziness when he was driving . . . the damned bond could have killed him or Toby. Especially Toby, who didn’t yet heal like a lupus. “How far out were you when it yanked?”

“Just under eight miles from this house.” His fingertips played across her nape. “Don’t fret about Leidolf. You’ve enough worrying you. My duties to that clan needn’t be on your list.”

Less than eight miles. That would really restrict them. Why now? Why had it suddenly tightened? “I’ll take that off my list, then. What about the Leidolf Rhej? Have you summoned her, too?”

His fingers stilled. “No one summons a Rhej, and she can’t leave Victor. Her skill is all that holds him to life. I did speak with her. I also spoke with Cullen.”

“Oh?” She thought she did that well—just the right amount of interest. “What did he say?”

He tugged once—a little too hard—on her hair. “That you ordered him to call me.”

She grimaced. Call Rule re Toby, she’d texted Cullen. Urgent. Use tact. “His notion of tact . . . never mind. I, ah, thought he might know something that would help.” At some point in his checkered career, Cullen had attended medical school. Magic couldn’t help lupi afflicted with the wild cancer; he’d hoped medical science might. He hadn’t learned how to cure it, but maybe he knew something about this supposed connection to a boy’s sensing of the Change.

Rule’s voice softened. “You were right to call. I wasn’t going to. You aren’t aware of the reason Cullen sought so hard for a cure, so you wouldn’t . . . You see, Etorri is much more subject to the cancer than the other clans. It killed his father.”

The muscles in Lily’s stomach clenched. Cullen had tried to save them. The father who’d turned his back on him, the clan that had kicked him out—he had tried to save them. “How old was he when he went to medical school?”

Rule understood what she was asking. “He was pre-med when Etorri made him a lone wolf. For a couple years directly afterward he was, ah . . . somewhat unstable, but after an adjustment period he was able to continue on to medical school. His father died before he completed it.”

“Did he complete it?”

“No.”

She rubbed her tense stomach, her fingers finding the burn scar. “He’d really hate it if he knew I was hurting for him.”

Rule’s smile was small, arriving mainly in his eyes. “That he would. Naturally he was annoyed with me for not calling him immediately about Toby. He disliked the notion that I was, as he put it, tiptoeing around his sensitive feelings, and told me I was panicking unnecessarily. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

She sat straight up. “What?”

Rule shrugged. “I was surprised, too. He wouldn’t explain, but I am to stop listening to old wives’ tales and use my head. Anecdotal evidence is often misleading, and I’m on a false trail. He also wished me to tell you three things. First, it’s fortunate that you have some sense, because I obviously don’t.”

Lily felt a smile starting.

“Second, you’re not to worry about the plane fare. He’ll charge it to my credit card. He considers his previous methods for handling credit inappropriate now that he consults for the FBI.”

That surprised a laugh out of her. It was so typically Cullen. VISA still didn’t understand why its computers insisted on offering unlimited credit to an unemployed stripper. Lily didn’t know how Cullen had done it, either. She’d probably have to arrest him if she ever found out. “And the third thing?”

“Cynna found the boy—frightened and injured, but alive.”

Okay, that was good. Lily relaxed back against Rule’s arm. She loved the feel of him, the leanness and the strength, the sheer maleness of the muscles she leaned against . . . muscles that were relaxed, not taut with worry. “You believe him, even without an explanation.”

“Cullen might twist the truth or withhold it, but he wouldn’t outright lie to me. Not about this.”

But Lily thought he might very well do just that—if he thought it was what Rule needed. And then devote the next three or four years to finding a way to save Toby before First Change.

“Lily.” Rule smiled and tickled the ends of her hair. “He’s coming here. He can’t lie to me in person.”

“Oh, right. I guess you could ask as his Lu Nuncio, couldn’t you?” One of the functions of a Lu Nuncio was to act as a prosecuting attorney within the clan—one to whom witnesses couldn’t lie. Not successfully, anyway. Lupi couldn’t always sniff out a lie, but supposedly the guilt of lying to their Lu Nuncio made it impossible for them to carry it off. “You think he’s flying here to make sure you believe him?”

“No. There’s something he won’t say over the phone.”

Paranoid of him, but Cullen combined normal lupus secrecy with a sorcerer’s suspicion that everyone really was out to get him—or at least to steal his spells. “Maybe he’ll be able to consult on my case while he’s here.”

“If you pay him, he probably will.” He wound a strand of her hair around one finger.

“He’s an approved consult.” Rule kept touching her. That was his way, but those constant, light touches were replacing comfort with other feelings.

“You want to talk about the case?”

She met his eyes . . . and her heart ached at what she saw in his face.

He’d lied. It was his father’s fault, she thought, in so many ways . . . but his own doing, too. Rule had learned early to project confidence, the kind of unworried air people—human or otherwise—crave in a leader. He could make his body lie for him, make it speak of control or power or ease, whatever was needed. And he’d needed to hide how much he still feared for his son. Maybe Cullen’s words had helped, but they hadn’t erased the fear.

But why hide it from her? No, she realized. No, he hadn’t hidden it from her. He’d imposed ease on his body for his own reasons, not to keep her out. He’d left his eyes unshuttered, hadn’t he? Let her see his need, the place that words couldn’t touch.

Other things could, maybe. She’d try.

Lily touched his cheek gently. I see you. I will be careful with the places that hurt. “I don’t think so.”

“No?” He drifted a thumb across the line of her jaw.

“No. We’re not in the driveway now, are we?”

He glanced around, eyebrows tilting in feigned surprise. “I believe you’re right. We’re on a couch, indoors . . .” He switched his attention to her mouth, and all he did was look at it . . . intently. Her lips tingled as if he’d touched them. “But hardly private. And you’ve had little sleep.”

“True.” She sighed, picked up the remote, and turned off the TV, dropping them into darkness. “And you’ve had even less. None, I think, which is a shame, because you’re going to have to pay up anyway.”

“Pay up?” Amusement warmed his voice. There was warmth, too, in the hand that clasped her waist.

“You’re charged with inciting a cop, buddy, and the penalty’s pretty steep.” She moved deliberately to straddle his lap, placing her hands on his shoulders and bringing her mouth close to his. Close enough that he would feel her breath on his lips. “How do you plead?”

The lips she wasn’t quite kissing curved up. Both of his hands now gripped her waist. “I get a chance to plead my case, do I?”

“Oh, yes.” She skimmed her mouth over his. “Though I recommend we go straight to the plea bargain. Judge’s chambers. Upstairs.”

His hands slid lower to cup her ass. Rule had a thing for her ass. “Will the court entertain an insanity plea?”

“Mmm.” She undulated gently against him—breasts, belly, groin. “You saying I make you crazy?”

“Guilty.” His hands smoothed their way up—ass, back, shoulders, head. Which he pulled down, toward his.

She resisted briefly, smiling. “I’m pretty sure there were onions in that chicken and rice.”

“I love onions.” His tongue licked at her smile, asking. She answered by parting her lips and he dived in, his mouth suddenly hungry. His hands went back to her butt. And he stood up.

She made an undignified noise that in someone else she would have called a squeak, quickly hooking her legs around him. Not that she needed to worry. He supported her easily.

Rule leaned his forehead against hers. “Upstairs, I think. Quickly.”

Oh, yeah. Lily agreed with her mouth, but in a way that didn’t use words. Judging by the growl low in his throat, he appreciated her communication skills.

He started up the stairs, dimly illuminated by a night-light at the landing and one in the hall at the top. She stopped what she was doing to say, somewhat breathlessly, “I can walk.”

“It’s more fun if I carry you.” His fingers did interesting things to demonstrate what he meant.

“We’re not alone. Not alone enough. Mrs. Asteglio might wake up.”

“I’d hear her before she . . . Lily, I won’t notice a brass band following us up the stairs if you keep doing that.”

She grinned, bringing her hand back up to his shoulder, and snuggled her nose into the curve of his throat, where she could breathe him in. “Maybe you should put me down, then. I’m not sure I can restrain myself.”

Reluctantly he did. Not, she knew, because he was the least self-conscious about sexual play in public, but from courtesy. To a lupus, it was rude to indulge in front of someone who lacked a sexual partner. And Mrs. Asteglio really could wake up.

So they held hands for the last few steps, and they paused together at the door to Toby’s room, left ajar. Lily had learned during Toby’s visits to always leave his bedroom door cracked—and never to mention it. Like his father, Toby hated small, enclosed spaces. Like his father, he insisted they didn’t bother him at all.

Rule pushed Toby’s door wide open.

Lily glanced at him, puzzled.

In three quick steps Rule was at the twin bed, where a huddled form seemed to lie beneath the covers. One fling of the covers, and even in the darkness Lily could see that the huddled form was a pair of pillows.

After a moment’s stretched silence, he moved to the window. It was open. She joined him, looking out at the slatted beams that covered the porch. It would be an easy exit for an athletic boy.

Rule sighed. “I’ll go outside to Change. Too much of his smell here for me to track him in this form.”

“I’ll get my shoulder holster. Just in case.”

FOR the fourth time in twenty-four hours—the third since the sun rose—Rule prepared to Change into wolf. He stood in the backyard with the dirt under his bare feet and the moon’s lopsided grin over his shoulder. Lily waited, holding the clothes he’d removed.

It took more time than usual, long moments spent spinning through pain. When he finished, he let his head hang, catching his breath, already dreading the Change back to human. He was tired. He’d slept roughly one of those twenty-four hours, curled around his son in the late afternoon. A son who, at the moment, he’d very much like to nip.

Sorting out Toby’s most recent trail wouldn’t be easy, not with his scent everywhere. Rule trotted to the gate first . . . and paused, surprised.

Toby had marked the grass beside the gate—marked it as if he were wolf already, with a few drops of urine.

Alarm spiked. Until that moment, Rule had been annoyed, not worried. Boys will sneak out. Lupus boys in particular feel a need to taste the night, and at Clanhome that wasn’t a problem. They were taught always to mark their trails in case they got in trouble. But why would Toby practice this in the midst of the human world?

Obviously he meant for Rule to follow. As to the why . . . Rule thought he knew, but had to be sure Toby hadn’t been coerced somehow. He checked the grass again, sniffing up along the gate for the touch of hands other than Toby’s.

Toby’s trail was fresh, no more than a couple of hours old, and Rule didn’t find any other traces as recent. He paused and, as he had in the woods something over twenty hours ago, he shifted something in his focus, bringing the mantles into the mix of sensory impressions.

Scents immediately sharpened. And no, Toby hadn’t been afraid when he passed this way. So Toby wanted his father to find him; he wasn’t afraid, yet he hadn’t told Rule. Either he’d been sure Rule would forbid whatever action he’d taken, or he’d given his word not to tell.

Rule was betting on the latter. He lifted onto his rear legs, nosed the latch, and dropped back onto four feet as the gate swung open onto an unpaved alley. He picked up Toby’s scent immediately and started west. Lily followed silently, carrying his clothes.

He’d nearly told her not to come.

The wolf snorted, disgusted. If his motives had been clear, he’d have nothing to condemn himself for. Lily was tired, too, her human system probably as wrung out as his by a day that had started at four a.m. and just kept going, a day spent wading through violence and bureaucracy. But his motives were murky as hell.

Well, to the man they had been. Considered from the vantage of a wolf’s brain, his motives were as obvious as they were foolish. Rule found the next spot Toby had marked, glanced at Lily and nodded to let her know they were on Toby’s trail, and trotted on down the alley.

When Lily said she was coming, Rule had noticed the dirty wash of resentment in time to stifle it. He’d nodded, accepting that of course Lily would go with him. It was practical, of course—there were many places a wolf couldn’t go, and a naked man sometimes alarmed people more than a wolf, which they might take for a large dog. It was also typical of Lily. She’d already made room for Toby in her heart and was busily making room for him in her life.

All of which was what he’d wanted . . . and part of him resented her. Part of him—a thoroughly human part he’d tried to ignore into nonexistence—didn’t want her intruding on his relationship with Toby.

The wolf thought this was very silly. But he supposed it wouldn’t go away just because he had better sense in this form than in the other.

They reached a street empty of traffic and crossed quickly. A quick check confirmed Rule’s first guess—Toby had proceeded down the alley. They did, too.

Rule knew where the resentment came from. Now that he’d recognized it, that was obvious. He’d been raised without a mother, hadn’t he? Technically, at least. In practice he’d been mothered by virtually every woman living at Clanhome, dispersing the feminine ideal through a dozen loving lenses, leaving him with an idealized version of motherhood . . . soft-focus, unreal . . . too unreal, he saw now, to have come between him and his father. Or between him and his son.

Lily was extremely real. He stopped beside another gate and sighed. She would expect him to talk about this, and man and wolf both disliked that notion.

“Something wrong?” Lily whispered.

Nothing they could deal with now. He shook his head . . . and prepared to Change yet again.