Eileen Wilks - Mortal Sins

He cupped her face. “I thought I lost you.”

“You didn’t. I’m here. I want you in me.”

He agreed—wordlessly, urgently, freeing himself from his jeans.

She slid down over him, moving as slowly as she could make herself go. Wanting to memorize every sensation. Looking into his eyes the whole time.

He gasped. “Lily—”

“Almost,” she whispered. “Almost . . .” Then she was fully seated. She bent to kiss him slowly, lingeringly. Let their lips separate, just barely, and whispered against his mouth, “Okay. Okay, no more slow.”

“Thank God.”

From that moment on, their loving wasn’t entirely mutual. Lily was strong and agile and quick, but she wasn’t anywhere near as quick as Rule was when he got in a hurry. And he clearly wanted speed. He gripped her hips and pumped fast, then faster, and the raw bolts of feeling tore a cry from her throat, ripping through her so hard and fast she couldn’t keep up, couldn’t—

And then she did, convulsing from the inside out. One blind second later, she felt him empty himself into her. She collapsed on top of him.

After a moment, she felt him stroking her hair. She smiled and considered opening her eyes. “Mmm. That answers one question.”

“What’s that?”

“It wasn’t just the mate bond that had us yanking each other’s clothes off all the time, was it?”

“There was some question about that?”

He’d put just enough offended hauteur into that question to make her smile widen. “I love you.”

“I love you.” He paused. “We’re okay, then?”

The question was flavored with just enough uncertainty to make her prop herself up so she could look at him. “We’re okay. Not dignified,” she added, looking at the jeans and panties still wrapped around her left leg. “But very much okay.”

RULEfound the body in a tiny clearing just before eleven.

Lily could hardly believe he’d done it. He’d coursed in wolf-form, naturally, slowly covering a fifty-yard swath along the route between the bodies and the picnic area where the wraith had appeared last night.

Such an arbitrary number, fifty yards. If the body had been buried another ten yards away, he wouldn’t have found it.

She’d sent for the ERT—and then she’d poured the salt she’d brought on the grave.

Rule had cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re planning to remove the body.”

“The Baron didn’t say to salt the body. He said to salt the grave, and this is it.” Probably. It was worth trying, anyway, and not just because the Baron said to. She remembered that cold . . . Was that how the wraith felt all the time?

And then they waited. If the wraith was around, she never felt it.

Rule was positive a body lay beneath the soil. He couldn’t be sure it had been human. After so long, there was no way to tell by smell alone. It was just possible someone had buried Fido way out here. But not, Lily thought, very likely.

It was also possible they’d found another victim of the wraith, rather than the wraith’s mortal remains. Lily didn’t know how they’d be able to tell. Signs of a violent death wouldn’t be enough. The wraith could be the product of murder. Such a secret grave suggested as much.

When the ERT arrived, she advised them of the salt. She got some looks for that, but no one protested.

Whoever had handled the burial had worked hard. The ERT was nearly four feet down and still digging—slowly, carefully—when Lily appointed herself gofer. She couldn’t help with the excavation. She wasn’t qualified. So she headed back to their vehicle, which was parked as close as they could get it, about half a mile away. They had a cooler with soft drinks there.

When she got back, the chief tech was wiping his arm across his sweaty forehead. He looked up as she approached and accepted the Coke she held out. “Looks like someone, somewhere, gave Fido a really decent burial.”

“You’re kidding.” She put down the cooler and came closer to the grave.

Rule stood at its edge, staring down. “Not a dog,” he said quietly. “A wolf.”

“Don’t see how you can tell.” The man squinted at Rule dubiously. “Sure, there’s some fur left, and it could belong to a wolf. Could belong to a husky, too, or a plain old mutt. We’ll have to send the bones off to be sure.”

“It’s the way he’s buried.” Rule held one arm out and curved it in a half circle. “Nose to tail. That’s the traditional burial position when one of my people dies in wolf-form. We don’t put our dead in boxes.”

Lily touched his arm. “He’s lupus?”

Rule nodded. He was wearing his blank face, the one he donned when there was way too much going on inside. “I think . . .” He drew in a breath suddenly, as if he’d been forgetting about air. “Beneath him you should find some clothing, possibly even identification. When one of us dies as wolf, we include his human side by burying human things with him.” He looked at her. “That’s why the burial was secret, why the death won’t be on your lists. When one of us dies as wolf, he doesn’t end up in a human cemetery.”

“But . . . here?” She gestured at the forest around them. “If he’s Leidolf, wouldn’t he be buried at Leidolf Clanhome?”

“Maybe he loved to run here and requested this as his burial spot. Maybe he’s not Leidolf and was killed by them, so they buried him decently.” He sighed, and what she saw now was sadness. “It might not be your wraith, Lily. We may have disturbed this one’s rest for nothing. I’ll call Alex. He’ll know of any burials here.”

Alex didn’t answer his phone, and it took another forty minutes to remove the bones. Underneath, as Rule had said, were the rotted remains of clothing. Jeans, maybe, though it was hard to say. The boots were filthy, but almost intact.

One thing was entirely intact, because it had been sealed in a plastic bag—the see-through kind with a zipper, like you’d use to save leftovers in the freezer. Lily rubbed dirt off the bag to get a better look. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered as the puzzle pieces suddenly fell in place

It was a baby blanket. Blue and green, faded from pastel to ice colors. Crocheted by loving hands, not bought at some superstore. And sealed up against decay. “Rule.” She showed him the bag. “Is this unusual? Sealing it up this way?”

“It’s not our practice. What we bury with the dead we expect to go to earth with them.”

“But she was human,” Lily murmured, turning the bag over in her gloved hands. “She wasn’t clan. And she loved him so very much.” Only a mother would bury her son with his baby blanket. One she’d made for him. One she refused to allow to decompose gracefully into the earth.

She looked up. “Call Cullen for me.”

“Agent Yu,” one of the techs called. “Got something here you want.”

Oh, yes, he did. A wallet.

The leather was badly rotted, much worse than the boots. Pieces crumbled off despite her care, but she got it open. The driver’s license inside was plastic and intact. She pulled it out and rubbed the dirt off with her thumb to reveal a small photo of a smiling, red-haired young man.

Charles Arthur Kessenblaum.

THEYwere nearly back to town when Rule’s phone chimed. Lily was on her third call, this one from Deacon.

She’d notified Brown and asked Deacon to send someone to pick up Crystal Kessenblaum—not as a suspect, but as a witness. Crystal wasn’t a medium. Her first call had been to Marcia Farquhar, but the blasted woman was in court. But surely the woman who’d been godmother to one of Mrs. Kessenblaum’s children would know about the other. Hadn’t Louise told her best friend the truth about Toby, right from the first?