Mortal Sins (30 page)

A pale green sedan cruised past. On the sidewalk, a middle-aged woman and her large, happy Labrador retriever trotted past, ignoring the imminent rain. The woman smiled and nodded. The Lab looked astonished.

Caught a whiff of Rule’s scent, probably. “What about a Lab?” he said. “They’re athletic dogs and are happy with low status as long as they’re fed and loved.” Since every lupus the dog met would outrank him or her, this was a factor. A few breeds were too innately dominant to thrive at Clanhome.

“Maybe.” Toby watched the dog, which stopped twice to look over his shoulder at them. He giggled. “Can’t believe his nose, can he?”

Alicia was still hospitalized. She’d done something to her shoulder—Rule was unclear on the specifics—that made her doctor decide to keep her an extra day. Tomorrow she and James would drive up to D.C. Rule had offered to move to a hotel with Lily so Alicia could recuperate at her mother’s home, but Alicia hadn’t wanted to.

Perhaps that was for the best. Toby had become upset at the idea of his father staying elsewhere. Rule should stay here, “to protect Grammy.”

Clearly Grammy wasn’t the only one Toby felt needed protection. He didn’t feel safe anymore in the house where he’d grown up, not unless his father was present. It ached Rule’s heart.

Not that Toby clung in an obvious way. Once he’d thrown off the effects of the drug last night, he’d asked a lot of questions. Was his mother okay? Why had that woman stolen him? What happened to her? What happened to the wraith she made? Was it okay to kill a woman if she wanted to kill you?

That last question had stalled Rule out. He could discuss killing with his son, but killing a woman . . . Lily had been there, though, and she hadn’t hesitated. “Killing someone is never a good choice,” she’d said. “But sometimes we don’t have any good choices. Is it okay to kill a dog?”

“No!” Toby had exclaimed, frowning in disbelief at the question.

“I had to shoot two dogs that attacked me. They were sick and possessed by the wraith, but even though that wasn’t their fault, I had to kill them so they wouldn’t kill me. I didn’t have time to find another choice. They attacked too fast. Was that okay?”

Toby had thought that over. “Maybe it’s a little okay, but mostly it’s sad.” He thought some more, then asked, “Was the woman who stole me sick like the dogs?”

“Not the same sickness, but yes, she was ill. She’d made some bad choices, and by the time she took you, she didn’t know what she was doing anymore.”

“Then I guess that’s mostly just sad, too.”

There on the porch swing, Rule smiled. His
nadia
was wise. His son was, too. They both asked good questions.

The green sedan went by a second time.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Did you know that someone stole Lily, too, when she was about my age?”

Rule looked at Toby, startled. “Yes, I did. She told you about it?”

“Uh-huh. She said a man stole her an’ her friend, and the police came and saved her, but they were too late to save her friend. She said sometimes bad stuff happens that isn’t our fault, but we can’t help thinking about how maybe we could have made it not happen, and I should talk to you when I get to thinking like that.”

“Are you thinking like that now?”

“Sorta.” Toby fidgeted, then said, “I keep thinking that if I hadn’t wanted to play miniature golf, Mom wouldn’t have been at that gas station and then she wouldn’t have been hurt and I wouldn’t have gotten stolen and Lily wouldn’t have had to kill the sick woman.”

“Maybe. Or maybe the sick woman would have tried to steal you somewhere else, and even more people would have been hurt.” Rule squeezed Toby’s shoulder. “There’s a difference between learning from our mistakes and thinking that everything depends on our choices, as if other people’s choices don’t count, too. You aren’t responsible for what other people did.”

“Yes, but . . . but then it seems like we can’t ever be sure. We can’t know how to act or what to do so we’re safe.”

“Life isn’t safe.” It was a hard lesson, but one that lupi believed children must learn. “The best we can get is ‘safe enough for now.’”

“I know, but . . .” Toby’s voice trailed off unhappily.

“But knowing that in your head is different from knowing it in your gut.”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” It wasn’t quite raining. It wasn’t not raining, either. The air was filling with a fine mizzle that turned it as gray as the sky.

Children weren’t good with shades of gray. Rule hunted for a way to make Toby understand “safe enough.” “Your wolf is probably too deeply asleep to counsel you, but perhaps you could imagine what he would say about fear and safety.”

“If I could Change,” Toby began, then stopped, scowling. “I was gonna say that my wolf wouldn’t be afraid, but wolves can get hurt, too, so that doesn’t make sense. Does your wolf know he can be hurt?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But he isn’t afraid about it?”

Rule bit back the need to tell Toby the answer he wanted the boy to find. Some answers had to come from inside. “Wolves feel fear. What do you imagine your wolf would be afraid of?”

“Guns, maybe. Bigger wolves, especially if they’re mad at him. Things that could blow him up.” Toby thought a moment, his eyes unfocused, as if he might be consulting the sleeping wolf. “Oh. That’s all
now
stuff, isn’t it? Not maybe stuff.”

Rule smiled. “That’s right. Wolves fear immediate threats, not the possible threats the mind conjures.”

“So is the wolf right? We shouldn’t be afraid of stuff that isn’t happening now?”

“Mostly right. The world is complex, and wolves aren’t good at abstract risks or multiple contingencies, so the wolf may counsel the man on the present, but the man must counsel the wolf on the future. The wolf needs the man just as the man needs the wolf.”

Toby said glumly, “I’m not a man yet, and my wolf is asleep. I don’t know what’s a real threat and what isn’t
.”

“Your job is to learn. My job is to protect you . . .” Rule’s voice drifted off as the green sedan approached again. “To protect you while you learn.”

Toby looked at the car, too, this time. “That’s Alex. How come he isn’t stopping? Is he a threat now, because of you taking the whole Leidolf mantle and all?”

Rule knew his body had announced his alertness, and Toby had noticed. “He may be angry, but he won’t hurt me or attempt to. I’m his Rho. However, he could be a future threat to me or mine or to plans I’ve made.” He stood, glancing at his son. “I need you to go inside now. Not because there’s danger, but because Alex is waiting for that. It’s a matter of respect.” He paused and smiled in spite of himself. “And tell Lily she may as well come out. As a Chosen, her presence won’t signal disrespect.”

“Okay, but Nettie’s not gonna like it if Lily gets out of bed.”

“She’s already up, I’m afraid.”

The front door opened. “I may not have your hearing, but I’m not deaf,” Lily said.

“Also, you opened the window earlier.”

“Well, yes. I saw Alex circling the block.” She came out on the porch—barefoot, wearing an old T-shirt and jeans . . . with nothing beneath the shirt. She hadn’t taken time for a bra. His body signaled strong approval for her haste.

She looked good. She looked wonderful, but then she always did. More important, she smelled healthy. But she wasn’t supposed to be up.

“So how come she doesn’t show disrespect and I do?” Toby asked as he moved reluctantly toward the door.

“Later.” Alex had pulled up to the curb. Rule heard the silence when the engine shut off. “I’ll explain later, but basically it’s because she’s a Chosen. Lily, you should sit down.”

Toby sighed and closed the door behind him. Lily moved up beside Rule. “I’m so rested I could scream,” she said. “That won’t keep Nettie from putting me back in sleep once she finishes yelling at me for getting up, but I’m okay. You can prop me up if you want to,” she added in the way of one making a concession.

A wave of feeling rose up, cresting tsunami-high and breaking over him in a wash of love. It had never and would never occur to her to obey him. She did what she did out of choice, and his Chosen chose him over and over.

He accepted her suggestion, sliding an arm around her waist to support her as much as she’d allow . . . while she supported him.

Equals. It wasn’t a concept that came readily to a lupus, but with her, he dealt always with a sovereign power, one that would neither bow to him nor insist on his submission. She was a gift freely given.

A thought floated in as he watched Alex start across the lawn. It wasn’t the first time this thought had come to him, though originally it had been so alien he’d given it little heed. But more and more the idea compelled him, drawing him with its rightness. So strange, yet so right.

So difficult, too, he acknowledged wryly, brushing lips across Lily’s hair. He strongly suspected his
nadia
would be among the difficulties. But what was life without difficulties?

He turned his full attention to the one who approached.

In the gray drizzle, Alex’s damp skin gleamed like melted chocolate. He wasn’t a tall man—Rule had three inches on him—but he was broad, and every bit of that breadth was muscle.

Rule had seen Alex fight. He was trained, strong, and quick, a formidable opponent in either form. Rule had spoken truly when he told Toby that Benedict thought highly of Alex’s skill.

Rule was trained, strong, and quick too, however. And he had one advantage Alex lacked: he’d been trained by Benedict.

“What are we expecting?” Lily murmured very low.

“To learn in what manner he acknowledges his Rho.” A Challenge, most likely. There were other ways to formally recognize a new Rho, but Rule accepted that he’d forfeited the more peaceable options when he killed Victor Frey.

From this man, at least. Rule wouldn’t tolerate Challenges from other Leidolf. But Alex had been Frey’s Lu Nuncio, and was entitled to express his outrage, so Rule would accept without using the mantle. Better to allow the man to express his anger honorably . . . though Rule had best win the Challenge.

Alex stopped at the foot of the porch steps. He tilted his head the exact fraction necessary to meet Rule’s eyes. Leidolf’s mantle stirred in Rule’s gut, edgy, wanting to answer the implicit challenge in that steady gaze.

Rule restrained it. Neither man spoke.

Alex broke the silence with four terse words. “I greet my Rho.” Abruptly he dropped to his knees—then lowered himself awkwardly to his stomach. He lay flat, fully prostrated, on the damp grass.

Astonishment gripped Rule so hard it took him a moment to respond. He stepped off the porch, bent, and touched Alex’s nape. “Rise,” he said softly.

Alex rose to his feet more gracefully than he’d lowered himself. His mouth moved the fraction that stood for a smile with this deeply taciturn man. “Your face looks funny.”

“I am . . .” Flabbergasted. “Seldom as wrong as I was about this. You don’t object to my being Rho? Or to the way I assumed the mantle?”

Alex snorted. “Took you long enough.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

EVENING
dawdled in the summer in North Carolina. At seven thirty, sunshine still slanted brightly through the banked clouds Lily saw out the bedroom window. Those mounds of bruise-colored clouds suggested the rain wasn’t through with them yet, but for now the air was clear and almost cool.

Lily had looked up from her laptop, appreciating that dramatic sky, when a female voice said, “That doesn’t look like bed rest to me.”

“I’m in bed, aren’t I?” Lily turned her head, pleased by the company. “And Ruben needs my report. Two birds, one stone.”

Cynna Weaver leaned against the doorway frame, arms crossed. She was a tall woman with a butch-crop of blond hair, highly decorated skin, and—at the moment—a sly smile. “I don’t think Nettie would see it that way.”

“She’s not here. She checked me over and didn’t, for once, put me back in sleep, so . . .” Lily’s voice trailed off. She frowned. “Why are you looking so sneaky and smug?”

“Me? You’re imagining things.” Cynna straightened, still looking like she ought to have canary feathers on her face. “Pretty nice work clothes.”

Lily smiled. “Rule’s notion of a bribe. I, uh, got up for a bit earlier, so he shows up with a silk nightgown. I think he thinks I won’t go wandering around if I’m wearing it. So are you joining us for supper?”

“Not you. Cullen and I are taking Toby and his grandmother out for pizza.”

“Oh. Good. It will be good for him to get out of the house.” But that was not what had Cynna smiling that way. Lily couldn’t find a clue to the mystery on her friend’s face, but maybe that was a clue coming up the stairs. “Sounds like Rule and I are eating by ourselves.”

Cynna nodded, trying to keep her face solemn, but whatever secret she was sitting on had her all but wiggling like an excited puppy. She turned her head, grinning. “Hey, Rule,” she said to the man coming up behind her. “My, you do clean up pretty.”

She shoved away from the door. “Guess I’d better be going.” She slid Lily a last wicked grin, waved, and moved aside, letting Lily see that Rule had, indeed, cleaned up. Into a tux.

Every man alive looked better in a tuxedo than just about anything else. Rule in a tux . . . a little curl of lust tightened down low.
Sex and danger,
Lily thought,
sleeked over with a civilized gloss.
A really gorgeous civilized gloss. And under that . . . Lily knew the lean body beneath the beautiful clothing. She knew the sharp, clean bones of his face and the drowning black of his eyes when the wolf wanted out. She knew the strength and the taste of him.

She wanted a taste now. Her eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t pack a tuxedo.”

“Rented, I’m afraid.” He cast one perfectly tailored sleeve a disparaging glance.

“I’m feeling underdressed. I guess we aren’t having pizza?”

“Good guess. I hope you’ve saved whatever you were working on, in defiance of orders.”

“Nettie said I should stay in bed, not that—hey!”

He’d set her computer aside and scooped her up in his arms. “Hungry?” he asked softly, nuzzling her ear.

“Getting that way.” She traced the quick arch line of his eyebrow with her finger. He was fond of toting her around. At the moment she was inclined to let him get away with that. There were things to do in a bed that didn’t involve a laptop, things that might not strike some as restful, but she was sure she’d rest much better afterward. Her current position made it easier to argue her point. “Have I mentioned that you have the sexiest eyebrows I’ve ever seen?”

The brow in question lifted slightly. “Ah . . . you like my eyebrows?”

“They’re one of the first things I noticed about you.”

“Pickles and eyebrows,” he said obscurely, but he smiled as if whatever connection he’d made pleased him. He started for the hall. “We’re dining al fresco.”

“Outside? Rule, I’m wearing a nightgown!”

“It’s silk. One can’t be underdressed in silk, and the others have left.” He paused at the top of the stairs, aiming a smile at her. “Indulge me?”

“You’re in a funny mood,” she murmured. But why not? She was sure sick of the bedroom. “Okay. Dining al fresco in my nightgown. I can handle that. So what,” she said as he started down the stairs, “did Alex say when I left you two to your clan talk?”

“Clan secrets,” he said promptly.

“Rule—”

He chuckled. “Most of it involved the logistics of bringing as many Leidolf as possible to their clanhome as soon as possible. We’ll hold the
gens subicio
next week. Not all will be able to attend, but most will.”

“This
gens subicio
—it’s when the clan acknowledges you as Rho?”

“The other way around, actually. I hold the mantle. I must recognize them.” He cast her an apologetic glance as he started down the stairs. “I realize you hadn’t arranged to be away for so long. If necessary, we can fly back to San Diego and wait there until the clan is assembled.”

“A week won’t matter. I’ve been put on sick leave.” Lily heard the pout in her voice, but couldn’t seem to get rid of it. “No one listens to me. I’m fine. If Nettie didn’t keep putting me in sleep, I probably wouldn’t even be tired.” She didn’t stay in sleep long, but she stayed sleepy, dammit.

“I listen to Nettie, who says you don’t have to stay in bed after today, but you do need to rest and sleep much more than usual.”

Ruben listened to Nettie, too, dammit. That’s why she was on sick leave. “She also said I’m healing just fine.”

“I wonder . . . could that be because she keeps putting you in sleep and making you rest?”

Lily frowned. “I’m better at sarcasm than you are. Did Alex explain why he was okay with you being Rho?”

“After chiding me for being dense enough to believe he’d disapprove, he pointed out that a live Rho—even one who still smells halfway of Nokolai—is better than an all-but-dead Rho. Especially one who was crazy before he went into coma. He couldn’t indicate that to me before, of course. He’s an honorable man.”

Lily picked out the significant part. “Halfway?”

“Apparently I smell about half Nokolai now and half Leidolf.”

“You okay with that?”

He was silent a moment. “Historically, women were sometimes wed to their families’ enemies to foster peace. They gave up their names and their homes, yet some of them remained close to their original family. It’s possible to find a balance.”

He meant he wasn’t one hundred percent okay, but he intended to get there. How like him, she thought, to find the example he needed in women’s lives. She touched his cheek. “You don’t have a problem using a feminine role model?”

“My people have always revered the strength of women.”

“Not Leidolf.”

“I am Rho now. Leidolf will change.” He said that with a certainty verging on arrogance. “Now, if you’d get the door?”

They’d reached the glass sliders. She reached for the handle and pulled. “I want them to change, too, but I don’t want you to get yourself killed trying to . . . oh. Oh, wow.”

The little gazebo in the center of the yard had been draped with tied-back white sheers and about a thousand twinkle lights. The dusty lawn furniture was gone; instead a round table wearing floor-length white and two chairs occupied the concrete floor . . . which had been covered with a plush white rug.

There were candles. Flowers floating in a shallow white bowl. China so delicate it was almost transparent. And everything was white, a white brightened by the brilliance of blade and leaf, bush and tree surrounding the little gazebo. Even the towering clouds gleamed white at their crests before tumbling down through silver, gray, rose, and lavender.

“It’s so perfect,” she whispered. “How could you make it so perfect?”

“God helped. The background was Her idea.”

She shot him a startled look, then laughed. “Okay, so what are we celebrating? You can put me down now.”

He didn’t, crossing the lawn with her still in his arms. “We might be celebrating your managing to stay in bed for nearly the entire day.”

“Almost worth it,” she decided as he at last set her on her feet next to one of the glossy white chairs.

There was champagne chilling in a bucket. Rule reached beneath the draped table and pulled out an ordinary ice chest—but the contents were anything but ordinary. Grapes, three kinds of cheese, apple blini with sour cream—who in Halo knew how to make blini?—and cold roast duck.

Also pickles. Five kinds of pickles. Lily nearly teared up over the pickles.

“In memory of our first meal together,” he murmured. “You piled half a jar’s worth of pickles on your burger.”

“And you piled half a cow’s worth of patties on yours. Rare.” She smiled—and, dammit, she was tearing up. “Now look what you’ve done. I . . . What, there’s more?”

He’d bent to retrieve one more thing from beneath the table—a lily. Or rather a cluster of lilies on a single long stem, lilies the color of flame, with big brown freckles like sunspots on their tightly curled petals.

Lilium lancifolium.
The Oriental tiger lily.

“How in the world did you find tiger lilies? I’ve tried—for Grandmother, you know—but florists never carry them. They fade too quickly.”

“It . . .” Rule stopped. Swallowed. “Toby. He went around on his bike, found someone who grew them. I . . .” Mutely he held out the bright flowers.

She took the stalk, but her attention was for Rule, not his offering. He was . . . tongue-tied? Nervous, definitely, and she’s never seen that in him.

“The ribbon,” he said, his voice tight, as if his throat were closing up on him. “The ribbon.”

Oh. She hadn’t noticed, but yes, there was a green ribbon tied in an awkward bow at the center of the stalk, half-hidden by one of the blooms. Did he want her to untie it? Puzzled, she moved the bloom aside . . .

And shoved to her feet, her heart pounding like a mad thing, her eyes wide and fixed on the orange flowers she’d dropped, such a bright orange against the white china plate. Flowers tied with a green ribbon. A ribbon threaded through a ring.

A ring with a single diamond.

“It’s not a snake,” Rule said dryly.

“It’s a ring. An engagement ring.” Now she looked at him, her voice rising. “You can’t give me that. You can’t.”

“I can. I have. The question is whether you’ll accept it.” He pushed back his chair, stood, and ran a hand over his hair. “I had this speech worked out. I thought it was good, but I can’t remember it. I can’t remember a single word. I got everything else right, but the words . . . I wanted it to be right.”

She spoke slowly, as if he might need time to absorb each word. “You can’t get married. You can’t marry, so you can’t give me an engagement ring.”

“Marry me.”

That’s when she lost words.

He’d found them again. “I’m pretty sure that was part of the speech, though I hope I worked it in more gracefully. Marry me, Lily.”

“You think I’d do that?” she demanded, suddenly fierce. “You think I’d agree to cut you off from your people, force you into something you believe is wrong, in order to please myself or to satisfy some—some bunch of whoevers who know nothing about us?”

“No. Marry me because I ask.” He rounded the table and gripped her arms just above the elbows. “Not to satisfy anyone else, though other people
do
matter, Lily. Your family matters. All the people who deride you for associating with me—their barbs can hurt. And they make trouble for you. You know they do.”

“No biggie. I can handle that sort—who wouldn’t stop being assholes if I wore a ring, you know.”

“They aren’t all assholes. Take Sheriff Deacon. He made your job harder because of me. He’s not a bad person—bigoted, or he was, but that’s ignorance. He’s basically an honorable man, and he couldn’t see you clearly because of me. Because he believed I treated you dishonorably.”

“So to make my life a little easier I’m supposed to ruin yours? Rule, I may not have grown up in the clans, but I
know
how they’d react. How your father would react.”

“I can handle it. Handle him.”

“Some of them are shunning Cullen. Did you know that? You must. He shrugs it off, but he’s used to being an outsider. You—”

“He was right. He said I was jealous, and he was right. I want this for
me
. You’ll have to decide if it’s right for you, but . . .” His expression hardened. “I warn you, if you say no, I won’t give up. I’ll keep asking.”

Reality had turned fizzy. Or maybe that was her blood bubbling in her veins. Her head felt light, floaty, as if she’d already downed that bottle of champagne. “That’s not exactly fair, is it? I can’t leave if you—if you keep bugging me.”

“You’ll have to deal with that.”

Oh, there was that arrogance again, but with it, beneath it, he was grim. Her heart fluttered. “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you want this? I love you. We’re bonded for life. Marriage won’t . . .” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed. “Why?”

“I want to plight you my troth.” His voice was soft now. Quiet. “It’s a lovely old word, isn’t it? Troth. It means loyalty, the pledge of fidelity. It comes from an Old English word meaning truth. You are my truth, Lily.”

This man,
she thought. This was the man, the only man, her Rule, her mate, the one she loved in both his selves, wolf and human . . . Loved his mysteries, his beauty, his quirks, and his arrogance. Loved his slanted eyebrows and the way he listened and the way he gave and gave and gave. She loved him.
Loved
him.

And he said it again. “Marry me.”

Like suddenly starred ice, she cracked—the fissures spreading, breaking up into giggling shots of fizz—a cork-popping, fiercely bubbling, frost-and-fire effervescence that had her laughing, throwing her arms around him and laughing as she held on, held on to him as she said it: “Yes.”