Eileen Wilks - Blood Lines

It had taken another hour for the locals to accept that Paul hadn't actually violated any laws and let him leave. The soprano who usually gave him a ride home was among those who'd left, so Rule had offered to drop him off.

Rule signaled and pulled into the exit lane. Lily twisted to look at Paul in the backseat. "What do you mean, 'under the circumstances'?"

He shrugged. He was a young man—at least he looked young— with a gangly build, a hooked nose, and straw-colored hair. "Just the obvious. He's the Nokolai Lu Nuncio."

"And you don't care for Nokolai." She'd had a clue about that earlier, but it was hard to read a wolf's emotional reactions.

They'd left the elevated highway for the stop-and-go of regular city streets. Here the late hour was more obvious. There was little traffic. She looked at Rule as he slowed for a light. "Something you want to tell me?"

He was silent a moment. "Paul is Leidolf."

Her jaw dropped. "Leidolf? As in, your clans are hereditary enemies? The Hatfields and McCoys of the lupus world? Leidolf would be the ones who nearly killed your father not long ago. And you offered him your throat?" Unlike Rule, she did get loud when she was mad.

Paul spoke stiffly. "The assassination attempt on your Rho was not sanctioned by our Rho."

"Oh, well, that's all right, then! And if you'd killed Rule, that would have been okay, too, I guess, as long as your Rho didn't order it!"

"No. It would have been greatly dishonorable." He gave the back of Rule's head a puzzled glance. "She does not understand ni culpa, ne defensia?"

"The Lady brought us together only recently. Lily is learning our ways, but the past two months have been… busy."

There was an understatement. "What Paul just said… Isn't that what you said when you invited him to rip out your throat?"

"It is."

"So clue in the ignorant human. What does it mean?"

"Literally, 'if not guilty, don't defend.' To prove innocence, we submit without offering any defense. Guilt has a scent," he added, slowing as he took the off-ramp.

"Your mate did me great honor," Paul told her earnestly. "I'm not alpha, but my blood was up enough that I didn't realize at first that he'd allowed me to pin him."

"Allowed." Her finger began tapping on her thigh again. She looked at Rule. "You jumped him so he could pin you?"

"It was the quickest way to control the situation. Paul wasn't beast-lost, but he was too deeply into the wolf for reason to be effective. Instinct would have been pressing him to find his enemy, the one who'd exposed him by forcing the Change."

She thought of the way the wolf had stayed onstage instead of seeking cover. "He was looking for you."

"But not overhead." Paul sounded sheepish. "With no breeze and everyone's scents jumbled together, I couldn't pick out Rule's clearly enough to locate him. But I should have remembered to look up."

"You were rattled," Rule said. "The Change had been forced on you."

Paul was clearly disgusted. "Forced into Change like a pup."

"You couldn't help it." Rule stopped for a light. "I damned near Changed, myself."

"You? But you're—"

"Too old for such loss of control, normally." Rule's face looked grim in the uneven light of the dash and the traffic light. "What happened tonight wasn't normal. Something hit us both. I'd give a good deal to know what, and who did it."

"Maybe no one," Lily said.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think it was aimed at anyone. It just swept through— something raw and powerful, not like anything I've ever touched before. Like…" She struggled to find words for a sensation others never experienced. "It reminded me of the sorceri Cullen uses. You know, the loose bits of magic that leak from nodes? Unworked stuff. Only this was a zillion times more powerful than any sorceri I've ever felt."

"It didn't have any of Her taint?"

She shook her head.

Rule drummed the steering wheel once. The light turned green and he accelerated quickly. "This was a hell of a time for Cullen to run off."

Looking for dragons. Ever since they came back from hell, Cullen had been obsessed with finding the dragons who'd returned with them. But Sam and the others had vanished so thoroughly that Cullen wasn't having much more luck finding them than the U.S. government was. "Didn't he take a phone with him?"

"Yes, and if he's in an area with coverage and hasn't turned it off, he might even answer… if he wants something."

Cullen's attitude toward phones reminded Lily of her grandmother.

"Take a left at the next light," Paul said. "Who's Cullen?"

"A knowledgeable friend," Rule said.

That was one way to put it. Cullen Seabourne was a lupus, a friend of Rule's who'd been clanless until Nokolai adopted him two months ago. He was also a sorcerer.

Sorcery was illegal. Cullen claimed that was the result of envy and ignorance, that lawmakers had long ago banned sorcery without having a clue what they were writing laws against. People either associated it with death magic or believed it had died out after the Purge. Some claimed it had never been real—that there had never been adepts or sorcerers, just a lot of clever charlatans and a few witches willing to use death magic to augment their inborn Gifts.

Lily turned the conversation away from their friend, the sorcerer. "Can you tell me what it felt like?" she asked Paul. "Was the Change different in any way from usual?"

"It hurt." Paul grimaced. "Hurt like hell, actually. There's always some pain, more if you aren't earthed, but this was like being yanked backward through the proverbial eye of a needle. If there was any other difference, the pain blotted it out."

"I understand that young lupi—adolescents—can't resist the Change at the full moon. Is that what this was like?"

He considered that a moment. "Not exactly. When the moon's full, you hear her calling. Adults can resist the call or go with it, but teenagers are just too enthralled to see it as a choice, you know? But this… I wasn't feeling her call, yet something made me Change."

"So Changing without the call isn't normal?"

"It isn't possible," Rule said. "The moon is never wholly silent. Her call ebbs as she wanes, growing louder as she waxes toward full. That's how we're able to Change at will, rather than only at the full moon. We learn to release ourselves to the call even when it's a whisper."

"I didn't hear her," Paul insisted.

"I did." Rule slowed the car. "And still do. How old are you, Paul?"

"Twenty-six."

Rule nodded as if that proved his point. Lily supposed it did; the clans considered a lupus an adult at twenty-five, so by their standards Paul was barely old enough to live on his own. "Have you learned to hear her call when the moon isn't full or nearly full?"

Paul obviously grudged his answer. "Sometimes I can."

"First you were focused on your performance. Then you were distracted by the pain of the Change. I'm not surprised you didn't notice the moon's call, but it's just as it always is at this point in her cycle."

"If you say so. That's my place on the next block. The Belle-view Arms."

"The one on the other side of the skin flick joint?" Lily asked dryly.

"Rent's cheap, and no one bothers me."

No, lupi generally weren't bothered much, even in the worst neighborhoods. Which this one wasn't. On the seedy side, but she'd seen worse. Patrolled worse, for that matter.

"See if I've got this right," she said. "The door to the Change is always open—wide open at the full moon, barely a crack when the moon's new, but never shut tight. When that blast of magic blew in, it didn't open the door any wider. It just huffed and puffed Paul through the crack, while Rule—"

"Grabbed the frame and held on tight. Good analogy," he added as he pulled to a stop in front of a self-service laundry and shut off the engine. "The Change is rather like stepping through a doorway."