Blood Lines

TWENTY-FIVE

THE kitchen smelled of onion, parsley, paprika, and people— people Rule knew and loved, people who mattered. Lily was chopping the potatoes she'd peeled; Benedict leaned against the wall near the door, watching; and Toby sat at the round table, reading. Rain drizzled down outside as it had, off and on, all night.

Rule was happy.

"What did you say this was called again?" Lily asked.

"A frittata." Rule looked over his shoulder. At Lily's insistence, he'd begun teaching her basic kitchen skills. It wasn't that she'd developed an interest in cooking. She just got twitchy if he did all the work.

At the moment she was dicing potatoes… slowly. Meal preparation took longer with her help than without it, though he had hopes she'd pick up speed eventually. "Would you like a measuring tape?" he asked politely as he whisked the eggs.

"That's sarcasm," she observed without looking up. Another careful slice. "You said you wanted a half-inch dice."

"It's okay to be off a millimeter here and there."

Toby looked up from his book. "Is it almost ready?"

"No. You can get out the bread and slice it, however. We'll use the two round loaves in the pantry."

"But I'm—"

"Toby."

His son sighed heavily, turned the book facedown, and went to the pantry.

Lily's contribution to the influx of relatives were in the front room. Lily said that Li Qin would happily help out if asked, but she wouldn't offer. To offer would be rude, implying that her hosts weren't able to handle things without her. She hadn't had to explain that her grandmother was incapable of helping. Madam Yu could take over. She couldn't assist.

The two older women had gone to bed very early iast night, so they'd been up early. Li Qin had come down to the kitchen to prepare tea for the two of them and asked that Lily attend her grandmother. Rule hadn't been present for that conference, but he assumed Lily had told Madam Yu everything.

The exchange hadn't been mutual. Madam Yu wanted a larger audience for her explanations, whatever they might be.

Lily brought the cutting board over, piled high with precisely cubed potatoes. Voice low, she said, "Are you sure he ought to do that? He doesn't have super-duper healing yet."

"He'll do fine. The bread knife is serrated, and he'll saw with it, not slice. It takes a remarkable degree of inattention to saw through your own finger."

"If you say so." She tucked her hair behind one ear and gave Toby a quick glance—checking for blood, probably. "What next?"

"You could grate the cheese."

"How much?"

He had no idea. He cooked by guess, based on experience. But she needed to measure everything, or she wouldn't know if she'd done it right, so he gave her a firm number. "Three cups."

"Okay." She went to the refrigerator.

He carried the potatoes to the range, turned the burner on under the skillet, and added a healthy chunk of butter. He looked at her for the sheer pleasure of being able to do so. Yearning twisted through him.

Ah, hell. Damned, spoilsport wolf.

He'd begun his penance that morning at six a.m. He'd expected Changing back after only ten minutes to be difficult, and not only because of the magical strain. Wolves had little use for clocks. For them, the time was always now. So he'd fixed in his mind an image of the clock reading six ten, and reminded himself of the Lady's wishes.

The Change hurt. It always did, but it hurt more when he wasn't grounded, and he'd chosen to Change in their bedroom on the second floor, where he could see the clock. And Lily. As wolf he'd lain on the wooden floor and watched her sleep. And even as he'd looked at her, breathing in their mingled scents, he'd grieved.

Foolish wolf. He scraped potatoes into the hot skillet. The Lily who had been with him in Dis wasn't gone. She lived on in this Lily… though this Lily didn't remember. She didn't know what the sky looked like in Dis, or the beauty of dragonsong, or what she'd done when she first woke, naked and frightened, sundered from memory and alone in a terrible place… alone but for a demon and a wolf.

She'd reached for him, burying her fingers in his fur. She'd known him. When she hadn't known herself, she'd known him.

Rule shook his head and grabbed the onion he'd gotten out earlier, and a knife. The wolf didn't understand, but he wasn't only wolf. He could remember for both of them, and Lily was here, right here with him. He hadn't lost her.

He began slicing the onion, his knife working a great deal faster than hers had.

He opened the oven and heat rolled out, parching his face.

Rule froze. Then, carefully, he slid the pan onto the rack inside the oven. He straightened, closed the oven door, and set the timer.

It had happened again.

"The bread's all sliced," Toby announced.

He found a smile and turned. "Very good." Had Lily helped the boy? She was getting plates down now, but she might have assisted him earlier. The slices were unnaturally even.

He didn't know. Apparently he'd finished assembling the frit-tata, but he had no memory of it. Better not comment on the bread, or… or she'd know what had happened.

That was when he realized he wasn't going to tell her. Not this time.

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it."

Benedict straightened away from the wall. Rule shot him an annoyed glance and received a bland one in return. He wouldn't be answering the door on his own—or eating, sleeping, or pissing, he thought.

A large, silent, older-brother shadow trailed him through :he dining room. He did his best to ignore that.

He couldn't have lost much time. He'd been slicing the onions; the green peppers would have been next. Five minutes. When the potatoes finished browning he would have…

"Your food arrives slowly," Li Lei Yu announced from her temporary throne in the front room, an armchair that could have held two of her. She wore western clothes today, black slacks with a severe gold shirt buttoned firmly at the throat. Both were silk.

"I've had help."

Li Qin looked up from the magazine she was reading and smiled. Harry was sprawled across her lap, purring. "Good morning again."

Benedict gave her a nod and a smile. Rule smiled, too. One couldn't help smiling at Li Qin. Even the bloody cat liked her. "Excuse me a moment, ladies. I need to get the door."

"Your well-armed brother will answer the door," Madam Yu told him, and, to his surprise, slid off the chair and stood. "You will come here."

Rule kept his voice polite. "Madam, I adore you, but sometimes I'm at a loss to know why."

"You do not like being—what is it? Ah—bossed around." Her rare smile flashed, and for a moment a much younger woman peeped out. "I do not like it, either. But I am much older, so you will indulge me."

"I think a great many people have indulged you over the years." But he gave Benedict a nod, and while his brother went to the door, he crossed to the old woman. He lifted his eyebrows: Here I am. Now what?

She wasn't smiling anymore, but neither did she wear the imperious mask she so enjoyed. Solemn and assured, she stretched up both hands and placed them on his cheeks.

"Li Lei!"

Li Qin's startled exclamation had Rule turning his head. The other woman had dropped her magazine and looked distressed.

"Hush," Madam said, but her voice was gentle. Firmly she turned Rule's face back toward her.

He frowned. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing that can hurt you." Her eyes were that extraordinary dark brown that looks black, the whites almost invisible. He found himself staring at that darkness, fascinated.

Her palms grew warm. Very warm. He heard Cullen's voice, and Cynna's, and the timer going off. None of it seemed to matter. He floated…

Her hands fell away. He blinked.

"Madam." Li Qin's voice reproached her.

"What did you do?" Cullen demanded. He stood a few feet away, glaring at the old woman. Cynna was beside him, a frown tucked between her eyebrows.

"I cannot fix it." Her voice was crisp on top, but underneath he heard sadness.

Rule shook his head, dispelling the traces of whatever she'd done to him—but not the anger. He'd been taken over in some fashion, and he didn't like it. "If you're talking about the demon poison, neither can a Wiccan high priestess nor a Catholic archbishop, among others."

"Bishops, monks, priestesses—bah. They are good with questions, not so good with doing." With that opaque comment, she reseated herself. "You may introduce me. Cullen, I know. This other—"

Li Qin, amazingly, interrupted her. "You risked much."

The old woman gave a small shrug. "Some secrets will not remain secret so much longer, I think."

"That is not what I meant."

"I want to know what you did," Cullen said. "And what you tried to do."

"So do I," Lily said from the arched entry to the dining room, her face pale. Rule couldn't tell what had drained her color— anger or fear.

Madam Yu's eyebrows rose imperiously. "We do not always get what we want."

Li Qin folded her hands in her lap, placid once more. "I am sorry. In my distress, I brought confusion. The risk was not to Rule, but to Madam. She attempted—"

"Li Qin," Grandmother snapped.

"—to absorb the poison into herself," Li Qin finished, untroubled by the scowl directed at her. "At times, she mistakes herself for indestructible."

"Bah." Madam Yu rose. "I am hungry. We will eat now."

LI LEI YU didn't often indulge in sentimentality, but as she looked around the dining table she felt quite tender. Her granddaughter and namesake had assembled an interesting family for herself. Rule Turner sat at the head of the table, as was proper. Me wasn't entirely over his anger, of course. Cage a wolf—or a strong man—and you could expect snapping teeth. He owed none of his current cage to her, but she had suppressed his will, however briefly and benevolently. He was wary of her.

She didn't object. It was well for the strong to respect the strong.

Li Lei approved of Rule Turner. Her daughter-in-law did not. While bewailing Lily's choice of mate, Julia Yu had shown enough sense not to harp on the man's ability to turn wolf, since shapeshift-ing was hardly a flaw in Li Lei's eyes. Instead she'd made much of the fact that the man wasn't Chinese.

Julia was prone to shallow thinking. Li Lei had pointed out tartly that if she'd wanted her children and grandchildren to marry only Chinese, she would not have left China.

Cullen Seabourne looked up from his plate, which he'd cleaned without, she suspected, at all noticing what he ate. He saw her looking and winked.

Cheeky. She shook her head at him, but he would know she was not offended. She had a soft spot in her heart for a beautiful rogue. What woman did not? She did not allow this to blind her. Cullen was a dangerous man. He possessed both power and obsession, and if those had helped preserve him during his years as a lone wolf, that existence had also driven great cracks through him.

She liked him very much. Li Lei took another bite of the frit-tata, which was excellent. She was glad her granddaughter's lover was teaching her how to cook. Her mother had certainly failed in the attempt.

Cullen was flanked by two she did not know. Lupus bodyguards. They would eat quickly, then replace the other two guards, who were still outside, so they could eat. It was sensible for Rule Turner to be guarded, though she knew he experienced their presence as part of his cage.

At the moment, Rule Turner was more dangerous than his sor-cerous friend because his own danger was so much greater. Li Lei wished her attempt to help him had not failed.

She frowned. Li Qin should not have spoken as she had. The risk had not been great. Li Lei's body would have thrown off the poison. Probably.

Of course, Li Qin also disapproved of her using her gaze as she had. It had been years since she had done so, at least to that extent. But she did not regret using it today. Why ask for what you knew would be denied? Rule Turner would not have agreed to let her try to take his poison into herself.

On Rule's right, his warrior brother ate quickly and efficiently. She had great respect for Benedict. He'd made of tragedy a forge, attaining the purity of a weapon. Not that she knew the nature of his tragedy—one did not poke into the painful places of a man one respected—but she recognized its effects.

She knew tragedy. And survival.

Benedict turned to smile at Toby, seated on his other side and chattering away. Li Lei's heart filled. Children were life's greatest gift. They were not, as many silly people claimed, the hope for the future. True, they carried the future around as if it held everything yet weighed nothing, but that was their own gift from the Creator, not one they could share. Nor was it the easy love they offered that made them precious; like most sweets, that was a keen but fleeting pleasure. Their true blessing lay in the way they opened numb or embattled hearts.

This boy shone brightly. It spoke well for Rule Turner that his son possessed both courtesy and curiosity, along with a fierce and brimming well of intention, as yet largely unrealized.

A pang stroked through her. She missed her own son. Edward's passion for the ordinary had been a frustration, even a disappointment at times, but she understood that it arose from his own disappointment. The magic in her blood had passed him by, choosing instead to alight in his middle daughter.

Who sat now on Rule Turner's other side, doing an excellent job of hiding her fear. She'd eaten very little, but aside from that was carrying on well.

Lily hadn't asked her grandmother to help her lover. She hadn't fluttered over her, either, after Li Qin's ill-judged revelation. Lily did not flutter. She'd offered neither reproaches nor questions, a restraint that earned her many points. She'd simply kissed her grandmother on the cheek and looked into her eyes.

Spoken thank-yous were all very well, but Li Lei preferred the unspoken sort. She was very proud of her granddaughter. If the fear was great, also… ah, well. She had yet to learn the trick of living without fear.

Li Lei's gaze moved to the last person at the table. Cynnai Weaver sat at the foot, which was not proper, but Lily needed to be near Rule. Her hair was absurd: a stiff, bleached mane cropped too short for any grace or beauty. Her skin was extraordinary. Quite beautiful, if considered without bias. But to wear one's isolation so flagrantly… that spoke of great strength, great anger, or great pain.

Not that the three didn't often travel together. Cynna's accent and clothes—she wore a hideous gray suit—spoke of her origins from the lowest rung of society. Li Lei did not hold that against her, but she was not an egalitarian. The poor were not the same as the rich—for which one should thank God, since the rich were often boring, their minds and souls stultified by privilege. But poverty was more likely to birth meanness of spirit than nobility.

Lily had told her that Cynna Weaver went to Dis with her and Cullen to save Rule. Lily trusted the woman. Li Lei reserved judgment but thought that, of all those present, Cynna was most like Benedict. But Benedict had passed through his fire. The flames still licked at Cynna; many of her choices still lay ahead.

Cynna was stiff and worried now, watching the others or her plate, speaking little. She'd shown them the new mark on her hand, which she believed came from her old teacher. None of them—not even the sorcerer—could tell what the mark was meant to do, but Cynna was certain she would know if the spell became active.

Li Lei was extremely curious about Cynna Weaver.

Some of what Lily had disclosed earlier had come as a shock. A blow, even, she thought, sipping her cooling tea. Her granddaughter had been in acute peril, her soul sundered, half of her trapped in a hostile realm. And Li Lei hadn't known, being on the other side of the world, seeking ghosts.

She should have known better. She did know better. Ghosts were never the least help to anyone.

Oh, her son had called to inform her of the externals, the parts of the story visible to everyone. Edward was not so foolish as to try to keep such things from her. But neither he nor Julia knew exactly what had happened to Lily—only that she'd been wounded, that her Gift and her lover had been missing for a time… and that she had somehow brought dragons back to the world.

Emotion clutched her so tight and fierce it tore her breath jway for a moment. But only for a moment. So much had cfianged…

So much was changing, and would continue to change. She looked at Li Qin seated next to her and obeyed a rare impulse. She reached for the other woman's hand and squeezed it.

Li Qin looked up, surprised. Her cheeks flushed faintly with pleasure. She gave Li Lei that sweet, serene smile.

Love arrived in so many guises. Though it had taken her years, Li Lei had learned not to spurn any of them. She nodded at Li Qin and released her hand.

It was time. "I will speak now."