Blood Challenge

FORTY-EIGHT

Two weeks later, in North Carolina

THE first time Lily had seen Leidolf Clanhome, it had been for a funeral. A young Leidolf clansman had died fighting a demon with her and Rule. That occasion had turned into an effort by the clan’s crazy-mean Rho to kill Rule by forcing the heirs’ portion of Leidolf’s mantle into him. That hadn’t worked out the way Victor wanted.

She was here for a funeral again. She and Rule were even in the same bedroom they’d been given that time. He refused to sleep in the former Rho’s room.

“I can’t believe she went into labor today,” Lily said, sliding her arms into the sleeves of the silk tee she’d settled on for the ceremony, then lifting them carefully so it slid over her head.

She could do that now. Get dressed, wash her hair, even wear her shoulder holster. She still had to be careful, but she could do all the normal stuff again.

“I don’t think she planned to,” Rule said. He’d just finished brushing his teeth and was stepping into his jeans. Lupi dressed very casually for this sort of thing. “But I wish we were there.”

“Not that she needs us.” Lily slid her feet into her flats. Lupi might be informal, but she couldn’t bring herself to wear athletic shoes to the firnam. “She’s got Nettie and Cullen.”

The full moon had come and gone without Lily feeling an urge to howl, much less discovering a knack for turning furry. First Cullen, then the Nokolai Rhej, had assured her she wouldn’t. She hadn’t told anyone how she felt about that, not even Rule. She barely admitted it to herself. Babysitting a mantle did not turn her into a lupus.

Turned out there was a precedent for what she’d done, though no one outside of Etorri and the Rhejes had known about it. Three thousand years ago it had been a Rhej, not a Chosen, who’d held the Etorri mantle within her for seventeen days before she found an Etorri lupus to carry it.

Lily might have to wait a lot longer than seventeen days. The only one who definitely carried enough of the Wythe founder’s bloodline was too young to Change, much less assume the mantle and leadership of his clan. Soon, though, Lily would go to Wythe Clanhome and meet the entire clan and give the mantle a chance to go where it was supposed to be.

She rubbed her belly, frowning at the ball of otherness lodged there.

Rule slipped an arm around her. “Still bothering you?”

“It’s like having a piece of spinach stuck between your teeth. Something’s stuck inside me that doesn’t belong.” She had a strong feeling she wasn’t supposed to poke at it the way she would a piece of spinach, however. She shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt, and the bennies are good.”

Like the healing. She didn’t heal as fast as lupi—Isen’s arm was fine now, as was his hard head—and they didn’t know if she’d heal completely. There was a big dent in her biceps where muscle was just gone, and no one knew if her silent passenger would make it grow back. But the wound had closed up really fast, no skin graft needed, and the bone was well on its way to being healed. She hadn’t even needed a cast—partly because of how fast it was healing, but also because of the way the surgeon had nailed things together.

Just the damn sling. Which she still used, at Nettie’s very firm instructions, every time she left the bedroom. Well, almost every time. Any time it started hurting, certainly, and whenever Rule saw her. Or really, since they’d been staying at Clanhome, every time anyone saw her. Nearly healed did not mean healed.

Lily put that arm—her right arm—around Rule and snuggled close. Her body hummed in approval. It was so good to want him again. For a while after the shooting, touch had brought comfort … but nothing more.

Plenty more now. Rule stroked her hair. She closed her eyes and savored the feel of him, and the way her body responded. She stretched up, cupped his head, and pulled it down to sample his toothpaste secondhand.

She kissed him slowly but thoroughly, pressed close enough to feel it when his heartbeat picked up. And pulled away. “I hear the drums.”

For a moment she thought he was going to tell her—as he had last night when they were supposed to go down to dinner with his Lu Nuncio—that he was Rho and could be late if he wanted. But this was nothing as trivial as a meal. He nodded and reached for her sling.

She let him help her into it. She gave her phone a regretful glance as they left. Cynna had called five hours ago, completely jazzed because she was having contractions. Rule had talked to Cullen about an hour ago. Nothing since.

Couldn’t take a phone to the firnam, though. They headed down the stairs, and together they walked outside into dusk.

The air was warm silk. A few trees had begun turning color. A breeze whispered through boughs and leaves, the wind singing softly to accompany the drums.

The drummers, like the rest of those attending the firnam, were in a grassy field a short walk from the house. There were four of them. Like all the lupi, they were shirtless. Lily had seen their drums earlier. All were old, handmade, with hide drumheads. One had been made in Austria over two hundred years ago, though the drumhead had been replaced a couple of times.

LeBron’s second son was one of the drummers. He took his father’s place. In Leidolf, this was a hereditary position. Lily walked slowly beside Rule and thought about a bright smile, a shaved head, and a man who wasn’t with them anymore.

They’d caught the bastard who shot him, though. Lily let that satisfaction ease the sting in her eyes. Sjorensen had kept the local homicide detective filled in on whatever the FBI had because the asshole in charge wouldn’t. Between them, that detective and Sjorensen had tracked him down the old-fashioned way: lots of knocking on doors, lots of interviewing, and finally a break. Adrian Huffstead had lawyered up and wasn’t talking. It wouldn’t help. The friend who’d driven the truck—a truck with vanity plates, for God’s sake—had flipped so fast, Sjorensen said, she never got to practice being the mean cop.

They had not caught the traitor who’d tried to kill Ruben. If Karonski even had a lead, she hadn’t heard about it.

Ruben was doing okay. Not back at work, but okay.

They hadn’t found Friar’s body. Calvin Brewster and a couple of the militia guys were still missing, too.

Lily wanted to believe Friar was dead. There didn’t seem to be any way he could have escaped the destruction of the cave system. But Cynna had tried to Find him—or his body—using hairs from his hairbrush. Her Gift was good up to about a hundred miles, but she got nothing.

Maybe his body was crushed beneath rock with a lot of quartz veining that blocked Cynna’s Gift. Maybe.

Arjenie had put in for a transfer to San Diego. Some of the files she used were not accessible outside the FBI building, but much of her work could be done long-distance. She and Benedict had just finished a visit with her family in Virginia, and she was now able to speak her sister’s name. Sam had removed the binding.

But her sister was gone. Dya had used Earth’s only gate, the one in D.C. It opened in Edge, where she could take another gate to reach her home. The news she had to bring her people couldn’t wait. Their lord was dead. He’d broken Queens’ Law. The repercussions for the Binai could be huge.

The firnam was held in a field much like Nokolai’s meeting field. Many people stood or sat in the grass—observers, not participants. Three dozen men formed a large circle around a generous pile of wood set on bare earth blackened by past fires. Lily and Rule moved to join them.

In front of that bonfire-to-be stood the Leidolf Rhej. She was a tall woman, about forty, with a broad frame and skin a shade lighter than LeBron’s had been. As soon as Rule and Lily took their places, she turned to the pile of wood. The Leidolf Rhej was a healer, not a Fire Gifted like Cullen; she couldn’t call fire directly. But she’d set her spell for fire already, so it took only a word and the clap of her hands to set the wood alight.

The drums picked up their tempo as the Rhej left the circle. In the deepening dusk, the flames spread quickly over the wood. Lily’s heart pounded along with the drums. She wasn’t scared, she told herself. Kind of nervous, maybe, but not scared.

It turned out a firnam was nothing like the other death ceremonies she’d attended. There would be no spoken tribute to LeBron, no remembrances of his living.

A firnam was a dance. A warriors’ dance.

For a moment, all was still except the drums. Then Rule threw his head back, gave a wild yell, took a few running steps and leaped over the bonfire.

Everyone shouted and began to move. First one, then another, jumped the fire, while those on the ground set the circle in motion—stamp, stamp, step—stamp, stamp, step—while others raced at the fire and leaped. This was a far simpler dance than the training dance she’d watched once—but with so many lupi, not all from the same clan, they needed to keep it simple. Lily moved with those on the ground—stamp, stamp, step!—until Rule landed beside her once more. He scooped her into his arms, backed up a few paces, tipped back his head, and let loose a yipping howl that could almost have come from his other form.

Then he ran with her in his arms—and leaped.

A shock of hot air blew her hair back. They landed. He passed her to José.

A firnam was a warriors’ dance. Warriors are not always whole after a battle where one or more of their brethren have fallen. When one is injured, the others carry him … or, in this case, her. Rule had told her that if there were no injured, they would take turns hurling each other through the air. When one was, though …

Lily’s feet didn’t touch the ground again for a long time. Every reliquae dancing the firnam had his turn to carry the wounded over the flames. Lily was passed from one pair of arms to the next. Sweat dripped down her face and itched between her breasts, and at some point she understood what the firnam meant. Understood in her blood and bones, not just her head.

For warriors, it was never just about the one. In battle some lived, some died, some were hurt. Those still whole carried on—carried the injured, mourned the dead—and kept leaping over the flames. Again and again. Together.

It was full-dark when she was passed to Rule once more. He set her gently on the ground in front of him and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned against him. His chest was wet with sweat. Her T-shirt clung to her.

The drums changed their beat, slowing, then letting the bass drum beat alone. A wolf—huge, tawny, his eyes black in the flickering light of the bonfire—stepped out of the shadows and walked up to the fire.

He was the elder of LeBron’s sons.

The bass drum beat slowly five times … in place of the sixth beat they all shouted, “LeBron!” As they did, the wolf tipped back his head and howled.

Silence again. The drum resumed its beat as another wolf stepped out of the shadows. This one was gray, a little smaller than the first … Paul’s brother. Paul had had a son, but the boy was three years old.

Again the drum signaled them with its pause. This time they all—Leidolf and Nokolai—shouted, “Paul!” as Paul’s brother tipped his nose to the moon and howled.

Silence. The drums no longer beat. No one yipped or howled or spoke.

Then a tall, dark-skinned woman stepped through the circle and walked up to the bonfire.

Lily tipped her head, looking a question at Rule. Was the Rhej going to speak? He hadn’t told her she was part of the firnam. Rule shook his head, looking puzzled.

“Leidolf!” she called. “I bring you word from the Lady.”

That caused a stir. She waited until they were silent once more. “She has spoken to me, and to every Rhej. She tells each clan that we are to offer full and formal alliance with a human man—Ruben Brooks.”

Lily’s jaw dropped. There was a rising roar of questions, comments. Twice the Rhej tried to speak, but had to stop, unable to be heard.

Rule stepped away and bellowed, “Silence!” Silence fell, sudden and stark. “You will hear your Rhej.”

The Rhej gave him a single nod of acknowledgment. “I don’t know why she wants you to ally with Ruben Brooks. I have told you what she said. I must also tell you something she said three thousand years ago, something from the memories. You know most of this story well. You do not know the part of it I will tell you tonight.”

Rule moved up behind Lily again, wrapping his arms around her, as the Rhej’s voice fell into a storyteller’s cadence. She spoke of the Etorri Rho who’d sacrificed his entire clan and who, in return, had been granted two boons: his Lady spoke to him directly, and she promised that his clan would never die out. “But they spoke of more than this. He asked many questions which she, from her love and pain for him, answered as clearly as she was able. Some of those questions were personal. I do not share them with you.”

She paused and continued more softly. “Though this is an Etorri memory, I carry it, too. Every Rhej carries this memory, for it tells us when the war with our Lady’s enemy will resume.”

Utter silence now. No one moved. Lily’s heart was beating hard. So, she realized, was Rule’s.

“These are the words she spoke over three thousand years ago: When the two-mantled calls, you will come together. When a lupus daughter is born to one of you”—she had to raise her voice again, though this time no one grew loud enough for Rule to step in—“to one of you who carries more than moon-magic in his veins, war begins again. Tonight a daughter was born to Cullen Seabourne, sorcerer and lupus, and to Cynna Weaver, the apprentice to the Nokolai Rhej. She is lupus.”