Lover Beware (14 page)

"Something like that. Fera said you made good tea and would be welcome to return—from her, that counts as approval. She also said that something you haven't told me is going to come as a big surprise. She seemed amused, so I gather whatever it is won't be too much of a shock."

"Ah. Well..."

"You don't have to tell me right this second." He sounded amused himself.

Her heart was beating a little too fast and her mind jittered along the surface of her thoughts like a water bug. "I'm more than a little surprised that Nettie is a councillor. I thought they would all be Nokolai."

"Nettie is Nokolai."

"Is she?" They were facing each other now, their hands clasped. "Did she become part of the clan when she married your uncle? Or does mating mean something more than marriage?"

He touched her cheek. "I should have known you would turn up a clue or two. You heard about mates."

She nodded. Hope and guesses tangled in her throat, keeping her from speaking. So much depended on the accuracy of those guesses....

"There is something about my people you don't know. Something no one outside the clans knows." He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Over half of all lupi never father a child. And fertility is ... limited ... in the rest of us."

It wasn't what she'd expected to hear. "But—you have two children—"

"By two different mothers. Few women conceive by us, and of those who do, none has ever borne more than a single child."

"It's the magic in you. It screws with the results in DNA tests, too."

"You see why only a lupus who has sired sons is able to become Lu Nuntius?"

She nodded slowly.

"The outside world considers us promiscuous. In your terms, this is true. The need for children shapes us, defines us. We are seldom fertile with women of our own people, so we seek bed partners wherever we can. Not indiscriminately. We don't want our children birthed or raised by a chance-met stranger in a bar. But our survival as a people depends on those of us who are fertile siring as many children as possible."

"And you're fertile." Lily was dazed, as she'd heard gunshot victims sometimes were in the first seconds—the blow registers, but isn't real yet. Not real enough to hurt. She remembered the men at the childcare center arguing over who got to stay with the babies. The swarms of children everywhere.

Not everyone gets to be a mommy, the little girl had told her. Not everyone—relatively few—got to be a daddy, either. "That's why lupi don't marry," she whispered. "Because to be faithful to one woman would be to betray the needs of your people."

"Yes."

Abruptly the numbness was ripped away. Pain wrenched her around to face the water, hugging herself as if something vital was leaking out, like blood from a gut wound. "I can't... I can't do it, Rule. It wasn't long ago I said you were going too fast, and maybe I'm doing that now. You haven't... but for me, this has gone too far. I can't share you."

"No!" He grabbed her shoulders, spun her around. "Lily, I didn't mean—I thought you knew about mates!"

"I thought so, too. At least, I'd made some guesses." Her voice shook and her legs weren't too steady, either. She held

on to his arms. "But no one came right out and said what—"

One second she was holding him and being held. The next she was rolling on the ground where he'd thrown her.

Rule howled. The eerie, ululating cry had goose bumps popping out on her flesh even as she threw her arms out, stopping her skid toward the lake. She pushed up onto her hands and knees—and stared.

He was Changing. Flickering—no, it was as if reality itself flickered, time bending in and out of itself like a Mobius strip on speed. Impossible not to watch. Impossible to say what she saw—a shoulder, furred, or was it bare? A paw; a muzzle that was also Rule's face—a stretching, snapping disfocus, magic strobing its fancy over reality.

And then there was a wolf. Huge, black and silver furred, snarling.

And three other wolves racing at them from fifty feet up the shoreline.

Lily's gun was in her hand, though she didn't remember drawing it. The wolves moved like streaks of pure speed, impossibly fast. She pushed to her knees, aimed, and fired—just as the black and silver wolf beside her launched himself at the one in the lead.

She hit the one on the left in the haunches. It didn't stop him—he still threw himself at the snarling tangle the other two wolves made. The third wolf veered toward her and leaped— huge, beautiful, and terrifying, jaws open.

Lily shot him in that gaping mouth.

The silver-alloy bullet went into the brain. The beast convulsed in midair. Lily scrambled back, but still it fell half on top of her, pinning her, smearing her with blood. And raised that bloody head and lunged for her throat.

She rammed her gun against the wolf's skull and squeezed the trigger. Blood and brains spattered, and the big body collapsed. Lily pushed out from under the wolf and scrambled to her feet.

Ten feet away, three wolves fought. She saw them clearly in the moon-washed night. She knew which one was Rule. Though she'd only seen him in wolf form for a few seconds, she knew him. But they moved too fast, stayed too close. She circled, but couldn't get a clear shot.

Then one of the wolves—the one she'd wounded, she thought—staggered back, whimpering in pain. Blood, black in the moonlight, poured from what was left of its face. And the black and silver wolfs jaws were clamped on the back of the neck of the other attacker. He shook the beast, then flung him away to fall, bloody and broken, one paw twitching.

Then he turned, snarling, on the one left.

"No, Rule!” Lily ran forward. "I need him alive to interrogate!"

She stopped beside the black and silver wolf, who stood with his head lowered, hackles raised, teeth bared. His shoulders reached her hipbone. One of them was gashed and bleeding. More blood dripped from his muzzle, and a deep growl rumbled from his chest.

Lily aimed her weapon at the other wolf. "Silver bullets," she said tersely. "Don't move." Then in a whisper to Rule, "He does understand me, right?"

The growl cut off. The big wolf lifted his head to look at her in what she could have sworn was surprise. Or maybe amusement.

"Oh, yeah," she muttered. "If you understand me, then he does. Okay. You, there—you have the right to remain silent— at least you will, as soon as you're back on two legs. You— oh, shit."

Four more wolves raced toward them along the shore.

A big head nudged her thigh. Rule-wolf pointed his muzzle at those who approached so quickly, then nodded, his mouth opening in a grin a great deal like Worf s.

"Those are the good guys, huh?" When he nodded again she breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. We could use some backup." And went back to informing the suspect of the rights he'd have when he wasn't furry anymore.

THECOUNTYSHERIFF'S office, while it wasn't much like headquarters outwardly, held a comforting familiarity for Lily. Cops were cops, even when they were deputies. She was finishing up a report, using one of the deputy's computers. Unlike her, the deputy had a tiny office to himself. The sounds that came from the bullpen weren't much different from those at the city's cop shop. And the coffee was just as bad.

When the report was done she'd email it to the captain. She'd spoken to him on the phone briefly. He'd told her that

the leak to the press had come from the mayor's office—a secretary interested in helping the mayor's opponent in the next election, it seemed.

Lily frowned at the screen. The text was trying to blur on her. God, she was tired. She paused for another sip of awful coffee.

Of the three wolves who'd attacked them, two were back in human form and being treated for injuries. One was in critical condition; he'd lost more blood than a human could have survived and had gone into shock. The other—the one whose neck Rule had broken—was actually in better shape. Paralyzed, yes, but with lupi that was a temporary condition.

The one she'd shot would never walk on two legs again. Or four. Lily was putting off thinking about that.

She'd been able to question the one with the broken neck before the sheriff arrived and he was taken to the hospital. He'd confirmed that they were Leidolf, and claimed that the one she'd killed had been the killer she was after. According to Rule, he'd told the truth. Lily was hoping for a little hard evidence to back that up, now that they had names and faces for the conspirators.

Some of the conspirators, anyway. The man she'd questioned insisted that the three Leidolf who had attacked her and Rule were the only ones involved in the killings, that they'd acted without their Clan chiefs knowledge or consent. They'd attacked because their Nokolai contact—whom he insisted wasn't involved in the killings—had told them about the Council meeting, thinking it was to be later that night.

The Nokolai traitor turned out to be a woman. No one Lily had met.

Lily was embarrassed. Unconsciously she'd kept right on equating clan interests with lupi, and lupi with male. She 'hadn't considered any of the women of the clan as suspects because they couldn't be the killer. Dumb. Lily had taken the woman into custody immediately, unsure that the lupi's veneration of women would protect her from their notions of justice.

So far, the woman wasn't talking. But she was scared— and not of the police. Lily figured she'd end up with a second witness if she could get the woman into the Witness Protection

Program. Which was what she was recommending to her chief right now.

Her fingers paused on the keyboard. Rule was here. She knew it without turning to look, without his having made a sound. She swiveled her chair.

He stood in the doorway. He wore tattered denim, not black. The last time she'd seen him he'd been furless, naked, and covered in blood—much of it not his, thank God—with Nettie calmly stitching the worst of the wounds. Lily had had to leave with her prisoners and the sheriff.

He looked a lot better now. Except for his eyes. He had the rest of his expression locked down tight, but his eyes told the real story.

She shoved the chair back and went to him.

His arms closed around her, hard. He buried his face in her hair. She knew he was breathing her in, just as she was him.

After a moment she said, "How do you do that thing with your clothes, anyway? They didn't rip when you turned furry. They just weren't on you anymore."

His chuckle was real, if strained. "You never run out of questions. I don't know exactly what happens, except that they aren't part of me so they aren't part of the Change. Lily." He ran both hands over her hair. "I've never been so scared in my life. They were on us so fast, and I couldn't stop them. Not all of them. I didn't think you had a chance."

"I'm pretty fast for a human." She hugged him tightly around the waist, where he didn't have any wounds. "Maybe now you'll relax when I'm driving."

"Maybe I will." A deeply held tension was easing out of him. "I was still scared, afterwards."

She swallowed. "I know what you mean. I am, too."

"I knew you'd let me hold you again. That's the nature of the mate bond. But I didn't know if you would want me to, after what you saw tonight."

She was the one who had killed someone tonight, not him. But Lily didn't have the energy to get off on side issues. Exhaustion was turning her brain to lint. "Speaking of the mate bond... I don't know what the hell that is. We were interrupted, remember?"

"I think you've guessed the important part." He cupped her face and smiled into her eyes. "Some say the mate bond is

nature's way of apologizing for our troubles with fertility. It doesn't happen often, but once in a long while, a lupus finds his mate, the woman who is so supremely right for him that no other will do. His life-mate. I knew you before I saw you, Lily. The moment you walked into the room, your scent reached me and I knew."

She swallowed. "So it's like true love, lupus style?"

He brushed a kiss across her mouth. "Very like that."

"And it doesn't cause problems? With the clan, I mean. If you have to bow out of the fertility business—"

He laughed. "I've been out of the fertility business since I met you. There can be problems, yes, but not that way. If a lupus is lucky enough to find his mate, no one expects him to keep spreading his seed around. It would be ...abomination. Like rape, or the worst form of prostitution."

"But it can cause problems."

He nodded slowly. 'That's the other reason everyone was so curious about you. Just because a lupus finds his mate doesn't mean she'll be able to accept him, his people, and his ways. Sometimes ..." His throat muscles worked. "Sometimes he has to choose between his clan and his mate. But you had no fear-scent." His thumbs stroked along her cheeks. "You have no idea how important that is, how everyone rejoiced for me. Women who are deeply afraid of us often can't adjust. They may try, but they can't become one of the clan."

Happiness swelled inside her, so large and grand she had to tell him. "I love you, Rule." He kissed her, and that was delightful, but after a moment she pointed out, "You're supposed to say it back to me."

His eyebrows lifted slightly. "You know how I feel."

"Wrong answer." Her lips twitched. "This mate bond doesn't make everything perfect, does it?"

"No. It just makes everything possible."

A long time later he was sitting in the visitor's chair, one of those plastic devices supposedly shaped like people but that don't really fit anyone's rump. It couldn't have been comfortable. She was, though, since she was in his lap. "So, are we engaged?"

"If you like. In the eyes of my people, we're already married."

"In the eyes of my people, we aren't. So I think engaged is a good idea. That makes you part of my family. Speaking of which..." She thought about all she still had to tell him. To explain. Things that were known only within the family.

Maybe it was stretching a point to call him family before they married, but he had to know. They might have children. From what he'd said that was far from certain... but with Grandmother involved, matters often fell out quite differently than anyone expected.