Tempting Danger (15 page)

As the clan that should have been his had cast him out.

Cullen drew a shaky breath. Enough. Rule had never shunned him for doing what he had to do. For that, Cullen owed him friendship. And a phone call.

When the eggs were done, he lifted them onto a plate, carrying it and the loaf of bread over to the table. He got a can of Coke from the ice chest and refueled quickly, hardly noticing what he ate, his mind teeming with symbols, structures, and relationships that had no direct physical analogue.

Thirty minutes later, the plate with its bits of congealed egg sat forgotten on the floor, where he’d moved it when he noticed it was in his way. The table was littered with scraps of paper, and he was frowning at a row of glowing symbols that hung in midair. After a moment, two of the symbols slid to the right, and another sequence took their place.

Yes, that was it. That’s what he’d been missing. If the congruence between the object and the illusion was to hold, he had to—

A red energy ribbon snapped across his field of vision. He jolted. One of his wards had been breached. Not tampered with, not finessed. Something had powered right through as if the ward wasn’t there.

Which should not have been possible.

Cullen lacked the usual lupus aversion for guns. With a quick wave of his hand, the glowing symbols vanished, even as he dashed for the corner where his shotgun waited, loaded and ready. He grabbed it, paused. A second’s concentration, and the scraps of paper burst into flame. And he headed for the exit, moving fast.

Not the front door or the impromptu exit he’d added when he went through the wall yesterday. A trapdoor at the back of the shack. It opened on a cramped tunnel that led to a cave—one he’d long ago explored thoroughly. Cullen didn’t like small, enclosed spaces any better than the next wolf, but he liked even the less the prospect of meeting whoever or whatever could brush through his wards that way.

Call him paranoid. Friendly visitors knocked, dammit.

He tossed back the throw rug, grabbed the edge of the trapdoor, and yanked. It was heavier than it looked, being made of solid steel.

And was hit by pure, burning agony. His back arched as his fingers released the shotgun. His knees buckled. He fell to the floor.

Cullen had a high tolerance for pain. Most lupi did. But this was like nothing he’d ever experienced, as if he were being burned alive from the inside out. He heard himself screaming and tried to clamp his jaws together, but his body twitched and spasmed and wouldn’t obey. Instinctively, he tried to Change. And couldn’t. Terror, as primitive and consuming as the physical agony, seized him.

Like flipping a switch, it ended.

As sex leaves an afterglow, so does intense pain. He lay there twitching and panting, his mind dimmed, his entire body aching like a bad tooth.

The gun
.

It lay inches from his out-flung hand. He reached for it—or tried to. His arm didn’t move. Frantic, he gathered his focus and tried again. His muscles gave a single obedient twitch—and sent a wave of fresh pain rolling through him.

He gritted his teeth, riding that wave.
Okay, so the attack was physical, not psychic
.
It did some damage. I can heal it. Lady, grant me time to
—

Several black-clad forms burst through the door. Three—four—and another two erupted from the hole in his wall. They wore what looked like black
gi
s belted by long strips of red cloth tied with deliberate intricacy. Black scarves wrapped, Bedouin-like, around their heads hid the lower parts of their faces.

And they had rifles. Every damned one of them.

Ninja wanna-bes with guns?

“You,” barked one of them—short guy, pale skin, smelled of seru—excited and aggressive. “Where are the others?”

“He can’t answer, Second.” Whisper-soft, that voice came from behind the knot of black-clad bodies near the hole in his wall. It sounded childish . . . if you could imagine a computer having a childhood, for there was no life, no feeling in that voice. “I’m surprised he’s conscious. Speech will be beyond him for several hours.”

The black-clad forms parted. A woman in a long red robe picked her way daintily through the bits of broken boards.

She was small, not much over five feet, and looked barely adolescent. Her hair was long, jet black, and hanging loose. A narrow silver band circled her head. The opal it held was large and black, and covered the brow chakra. She carried a staff of black wood banded in silver that was as tall as she was. It reeked of magic.

He wanted to find her ridiculous, a child dressed up like a B-movie extra. Instead, the hair on the back of his neck lifted. A wave of hatred—instinctive, unreasoning—curled his lips back from his teeth.

The tiny movement hurt like blazes. Damn, damn, damn, there were tears in his eyes as she sauntered over to him. “Look for them,” she said crisply, a queen addressing her minions.

Them? Michael and Molly,
he realized. These escapees from a costume drama wanted the other sorcerer, not him.
All this, and they aren’t even after me. That’s a pisser.

“Madonna,” the man who’d spoken before said hesitantly. “Stay back, please. Let us protect you.”

“Fool,” she said in that baby-computer voice. “He can’t move. See where that—” she gestured with her staff at the tunnel—“leads. And who might be in it.”

The short ninja barked out orders. Three of them hurried to obey, lowering themselves one at a time into Cullen’s escape route. Shortie moved closer to Cullen, watching him suspiciously.

She paid him no attention, her gaze fixed on Cullen. Her eyes were uncannily dark, so black he couldn’t separate pupils from irises. There was something odd about her scent, too, but the smell of magic from her staff was so strong he couldn’t tease out much else.

Her staff . . .

“I wonder why you’re conscious,” she said.

The staff. That’s where his hatred focused. The need to destroy it rose fiercely in him. He wanted to Change, to take it in his teeth and splinter it, but—wait a minute. He hadn’t been able to Change earlier, but the assault had ended. He’d been damaged, but maybe—

“All right,” she whispered, “let’s see what you’re thinking. Where are they?”

He met her eyes—and crossed his own as her probe slid harmlessly off. He’d have stuck out his tongue if his jaws had cooperated.

“You’re shielded!” she cried, high and astonished. Her face puckered, and she jabbed him in the ribs with her staff.

I will not be touched by that abomination
. The power of hatred sent him surging to his feet, aware of pain but consumed by the need to crush the unclean thing.

But pain disregarded isn’t pain defeated. He was slow, clumsy. He staggered and missed when he grabbed for the staff. And when the rifle butt descended, he caught a glimpse of it—too late to keep it from slamming into his skull.

ELEVEN

TWENTY
minutes outside the city and climbing, Lily looked out the window at chaparral, scrub oak, and rock. The road was steep, the sky overhead so clear and intense it seemed she had only to put the window down to be able to breathe in the blue as well as see it. Compared to the Rockies to the northeast, they were runts, these mountains, but she loved them. They made her think of old cowboys, worn down to spit and sinew by hard living.

Rule’s father owned a fair slice of these mountains.

That wasn’t all Isen Turner owned, according to the dossier the FBI had given her. There were vineyards in Napa Valley. Chunks of real estate in San Diego and L.A. Stocks, bonds, and more land in a remote part of Canada. The FBI estimated his holdings at three hundred million, and Rule managed them.

Not that the Feds knew everything. They didn’t know who Rule’s mother had been, or how old his father was. They weren’t even sure how old Rule was.

In his thirties, she thought. Though he could have passed for a twenty-something, his bearing spoke of someone older. Of course, being semiroyal might have that effect, too.

She glanced at him, then looked out the window again. The view was more interesting than a pouting werewolf.

His car, however, woke lust in her heart. A shiny new Mercedes convertible—silver outside, dark leather inside, on-board navigation system. She hadn’t wanted to suggest he put the top down, given the prevailing atmosphere of snit, but it was easier to hear the incredible stereo with the top up . . . not that there was much worth listening to.

He’d been playing Dvořák when he picked her up.

Mostly she tolerated classical music pretty well. But not that one, not one of the quartets. Maybe she should have gritted her teeth until it ended, but she hadn’t. She’d asked politely if he could play something else. Equally polite, he’d switched at once to an oldies station. Which may have been a backhanded slap at her musical taste. She didn’t care.

She’d apologized last night. What more did he want? And dammit, was she really wishing he’d go back to flirting with her? She couldn’t be that dumb.

All right, she admitted silently. Maybe she could be. She’d work on it. But he didn’t have to be so—so blasted
polite
. She’d tried. Hadn’t she tried to start a civil conversation? Amazing how quelling a simple yes or no could be. He’d managed to freeze her courteously into silence, too.

He reminded her of her mother.

That thought was absurd enough to make her smile. She was taking herself—and him—far too seriously. And this was an investigation, not a pleasure drive.

She’d cleared it with the captain this morning. He’d agreed to her omitting all irrelevant details from her official report; he liked the idea of keeping the Feds in the dark. Then she’d gone to talk to Fuentes’s neighbors, and caught two of them at home.

The one on the floor below hadn’t known the couple at all. No help there. She’d struck pay dirt with 41-C, though. Erica Jensen was a young single woman who was Rachel’s friend. She’d agreed that Carlos had had a wandering eye—also wandering hands and other body parts. He’d persuaded Rachel to try the scene at Club Hell and had been pleased when she attracted the attention of a lupus prince.

“Whole thing’s weird, you know?” Erica had shrugged. “Carlos talked about how possessiveness is wrong, but I dunno. If you ask me, he liked it that other men wanted his wife. Made him feel important, because she was his. Just a different way of making like he owned her. But she seemed okay with it.”

“Did Rachel tell you this, or did you talk to Carlos about it?” Lily had asked.

“Mostly Rachel, but Carlos talked about that weird church of his to anyone who’d listen.” She’d looked sad. “I’m making it sound like he was a real lowlife, and he wasn’t. He worked hard, and he was sweet with Rachel most of the time. You ask me, he had some wires crossed, was all. Rachel loved him like crazy. The deal with Turner . . . well, she loved that, too. She says the sex was incredible, but I think he made her feel special, too. And it made Carlos appreciate her more.”

All in all, she’d made it sound as if Rule Turner was being a Good Samaritan by diddling Rachel Fuentes. Lily didn’t buy that, but lupus mores
were
different. They didn’t believe in marriage, for one thing.

Lily glanced at the Good Samaritan behind the wheel.

He’d forgotten to mention that this was casual day. He was wearing his usual black, but the jeans were worn at the stress points and his T-shirt was old and faded. He wore tennis shoes, no socks, and mirrored sunglasses. And he hadn’t shaved.

So why did he look so blasted elegant? She broke the silence. “Clanhome is owned by your father, I understand.”

“Technically, yes,” he said in that cool, polite voice he’d used ever since picking her up. “He holds it in trust for the clan.”

“A corporation could do the same thing.”

“There’s been some discussion of that, now that it’s legal to be lupi. But corporate law and lupus custom don’t mesh well.”

“I suppose not. Stockholders are allowed to vote.”

The mirrored lenses tipped her way briefly, then faced the road again. “No doubt you believe clan members are being deprived of their rights and would be happier if they were allowed to vote.”

“Wouldn’t they?”

“No.”

Just that, no explanation. Lily clamped down on her irritation. He was hardly the first uncooperative witness she’d dealt with. “Tell me about your father. Will I meet him today?”

“He’s a canny old bastard. I mean that literally, of course.” Now there was something other than courtesy in his voice. Mockery. “We’re all bastards, by your standards.”

“You don’t know what my standards are. Is there anything I should know about today’s ceremony?”

“No. You won’t be attending.”

Temper was bubbling up under the lid she’d put on it. “So that business of requiring my word was, what—window dressing?”

“All visitors to Clanhome are asked to promise not to talk about what they see. You can’t attend the alliance ceremony because another clan is involved, and their Rho didn’t want an outsider present.”

Another clan—a new ally? Lupus politics, Grandmother had said, were played according to the rules—lupus rules. Which included ritual combat, sometimes to the death. “Which one? What’s going on?”