Eileen Wilks - Mortal Danger

Lily jerked her good shoulder in a shrug. “Bad dreams. They’ll pass. Are you going to eat that or make love to it?”

Beth licked more of the chocolate off the strawberry. “The two are not mutually exclusive. Considering what happened to you, bad dreams aren’t surprising. Not that I know exactly what happened. I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?”

“I’m not much for talky-talky.”

“No kidding.” At last Beth popped the strawberry in her mouth.

With Beth’s mouth temporarily occupied, Lily’s attention slipped back to the argument she and Rule had tripped over last night. He wanted her to move in with him. He’d been patient, by his lights, but she wasn’t . ready. She needed time to adjust to all the changes in her life. And she needed to spend some of that time alone.

He didn’t get that. Nettie had told her that individual lupi, like individual humans, fell in different places along the introvert-extrovert scale. But on the whole, they needed more touch, more contact, more sheer time spent with others than the average human. The wolf was a pack animal, after all.

Strawberry disposed of, Beth asked, “Since you won’t do the talky-talky thing, have you been digging?”

“Waging war on weeds. I can’t use a shovel with one arm.” Rule had offered to dig a bed for her at Clanhome, but that would have changed everything. She did her gardening at Grandmother’s because she didn’t have any land of her own, but that didn’t mean…

“Hey!” Beth’s hand passed in front of Lily’s face. “Where’d you go? You’re pale as a ghost.”

“That’s appropriate,” Lily muttered.

“What?‘

She shook her head. “Never mind. I saw… I thought I saw someone I used to know.” Someone who couldn’t be here.

The woman Lily knew only as Helen didn’t know

Lily’s family, for one thing. For another, she was dead.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t someone you liked.”

“No.” Lily stared in the direction the woman had gone, vanished now behind a cluster of chattering teens. She’d looked exactly like Helen: tiny build, long blond hair, baby face, eyes as cold and empty as a doll’s.

There she was again, heading for the exit that led to the restrooms. Lily’s heart began throwing itself against the wall of her chest as if desperately seeking escape.

It was crazy to think that she’d seen Helen. Crazy. And yet… “I’m going to freshen up,” she told her sister, moving to follow a woman who couldn’t exist.

Three weeks ago, Lily had killed her.

Nancy Chen obviously enjoyed dancing, and she was good at it. She was tall enough that her steps matched Rule’s well, too. She smelled of tobacco, which he didn’t care for, and baby powder, which he liked. She had a lively sense of humor.

All in all, Rule would have been enjoying their dance if only she’d stop trying to grope him. “Uh-uh.” he said, moving her hand back to his waist. Again.

She grinned. “Can’t blame me for trying. It’s not as if that pretty thing you’re dating would object.”

“I think you don’t know Lily.”

“She can’t be such a fool she doesn’t know about your kind. More power to her, I say, for having the guts to take you on anyway. I hear you can give a lady quite a ride.” She slid him a coquettish glance… and slid her hand down again.

Torn between exasperation and amusement, he reclaimed the wandering hand. This time he kept a grip on it. “I suspect you’ve given quite a ride in your day, too,” he said dryly.

Nancy Chen was eighty-two years old, the great-aunt of the groom.

She laughed. “My day isn’t over. It just doesn’t come as often as it used to. Get it? Doesn’t come .” She laughed again, enjoying herself.

Rule enjoyed her, too, for the remainder of the dance, because he kept her hands pinned. Nancy didn’t expect him to take her propositions seriously—though he suspected that, given an ounce of encouragement, she’d have happily hunted up a closet for them to duck into. Mostly, though, she was getting a kick out of being outrageous.

Some women reacted that way. They went a little giddy over the chance to step outside the normal bonds of society with someone who lived outside them. He was used to that, as he was used to the whiff of fear-scent most people gave off when they met him. But both could be wearying.

He wanted Lily. And she was avoiding him.

Rule made his way around the edges of the banquet room, exerting all his tact to avoid dancing with yet another woman who wasn’t Lily. The air was ripe with scent—food, flowers, candles, humanity, and a faint note of ocean. But he didn’t pick up Lily’s scent, or the tug that would tell him where she was.

The directional aspect of the mate bond wasn’t as obvious for him as it was for her—another of the mysteries that so plagued her. When they’d discovered this during her little test last week, he’d suggested that she was simply more attuned to the immaterial than he was because of her Gift.

Lily had shaken her head in disgust. “That’s not an explanation. That’s substituting one question mark for another.”

A smile twitched at Rule’s mouth as he headed for the other room. His nadia did not approve of the inexplicable.

He wove through the crowd, looking for a small, slender woman with hair the color of night, skin like cream poured over apricots… and a dress the color of mold. His smile widened. Truer love hath no sister than to wear such a gown.

Still no Lily. Rule paused. She wasn’t happy with him right now. Tough. He wasn’t too happy with her, either. She had no business being back on full duty. She wasn’t healed yet, dammit, and why her superiors couldn’t see that, he couldn’t fathom. But she wouldn’t have—

“Rule.” The smooth, feminine voice was newly familiar. He turned to see Lily’s mother beckoning him.

Julia Yu was a tall, elegant woman with beautiful hands, very little chin, and Lily’s eyes set beneath eyebrows plucked to crispness. She stood with two women about her age—one Anglo, one Chinese, both intensely curious about him and trying not to show it.

Rule repressed a sigh. He’d been glad of the chance this wedding offered to become acquainted with Lily’s people. They were part of her, after all, and he was endlessly curious about her. Last night he’d met her parents at the rehearsal dinner, with mixed results. They’d both been very polite, but neither of them approved of him. Her father was reserving judgment, he thought. Her mother liked him, didn’t want to, and wished he would go away.

It was Lily he wanted now, though. He was tired of the curiosity, the fear, the speculation. He might be used to being on exhibit, but it was different this time. Personal. Look, everyone, see what followed Lily home. It walks and talks just like a real person .

But after the briefest of introductions, Julia Yu excused herself to the others and took Rule aside. She’d tucked a frown between those crisp eyebrows. “Have you seen Lily?”

His own brows lifted in surprise. “I was just looking for her.”

“Teh! I’m being silly.” She shook her head. “It’s Beth’s fault, putting ideas in my head, and I’ve been so busy… you have no idea what it is to put on a wedding like this.”

Worry bit down low in his stomach. He replied with automatic courtesy. “You’ve done a magnificent job. The wedding was beautiful, as is the reception. But what ideas did Beth put in your head?”

“Such a silly story! Of course she was imagining things. Beth is very imaginative.” It was impossible to tell if she meant that as a compliment or criticism of her youngest daughter. The frown hadn’t budged. “I paid it no heed at all.”