Blood Lines

THIRTY-FOUR

THERE were no chairs in CCU. Lily stood by Toby's bed, holding his hand and wishing she believed in prayer.

Death wasn't the end. Souls existed. She knew that beyond any doubt, but she didn't know if anyone was in charge—but if so, He or She wasn't doing a very good job. The inmates were running the asylum and had been for a long time.

But it couldn't hurt to ask. Even if she wasn't sure who or what she prayed to, it couldn't hurt to ask. Please. Please help him. Help us.

"He looks okay, doesn't he?"

She turned. Cynna stood in the open entry, sipping from a steaming cup. Lily smelled coffee. "You don't like coffee."

"Tastes like crap," she agreed, stepping into the glass-walled cubicle. "Where's Rule?"

"Getting some fight therapy, I think. He…" She chewed on her lip, uncertain how much to say. "I thought he was dealing. I didn't look closely enough. I guess a psychologist would say he was repressing, or in denial, or something like that. Benedict said he needed to hit someone. He and Cullen took him outside to talk, lupus style."

"Fight therapy. Huh. I could use some of that."

Beneath the inky filigree, Cynna's face was tight. No, Lily realized, she was tight all over, as if she were made of over wound springs ready to snap. "I guess I'm more like Timms. I'd rather shoot than punch."

"You know how to fight, though."

"I'm too mad to fight well right now." Lily hadn't known that was true until she said it, but she was aware of the anger now—a hot, hard knot of it in her belly. "You make mistakes when the anger's in charge."

"Guess that's why you're black belt and I'm just brown. When I'm mad, I like to fight. When I'm not mad, I don't see the point, so I don't practice." Cynna sipped from her cup, grimaced. "Here. You might as well drink this."

Lily accepted the cup. Milk had turned it to a paler shade of sludge she wasn't desperate enough to drink. "How much did that mess you up?" she asked softly. "What Jiri did, I mean. Making you ride again, having to witness everything."

"Witness." Cynna's voice was ripe with bitterness. "Riding's not like that. It isn't just watching."

"You've never talked about it."

"Not going to now, either."

"You didn't do this, you know. You didn't attack the others or do this to Toby."

Cynna took two steps as if she wanted to pace, but there was no room for it. "She kicked me out before I could see what she did to Toby. Didn't want me getting a clue about how to undo it. But for the rest… I might as well have done it. It didn't feel like the demon's hands reached in and dragged Brown out of the car. It was our hands that killed him. We broke down that door. We were pissed when the tiger attacked and…" She swallowed and raised miserable eyes to Lily's. "A rider doesn't just get the physical stuff. You get the feelings, too. Not thoughts, but I felt what the demon felt."

"It wasn't your will, your intent, in charge."

"Yeah, intent matters. I know that, but…" Her gaze jumped from Toby to the IV stand to the heart monitor. "Why did she do it that way? Why force me to ride? That's what I don't get. It didn't give her any advantage. Hell, it took some of her advantage away. I've got her pattern now, a current pattern."

"Vengeance. Threat. I—" Lily broke off. She felt Rule approaching. A moment later the doors to CCU opened and Rule, Cullen, and Benedict came in.

They were a bit worse for wear.

Cullen was limping. Benedict had a cut over one eye. Rule was the worst mess, though, with his jacket gone, his shirt torn, and a doozy of a black eye. It had already aged to the greenish yellow phase, but was still swollen.

He came straight to Lily. One of the nurses darted out from their central station, telling them they had to leave—they couldn't have this many in CCU at one time. Rule didn't seem to notice, but Benedict spoke politely to her.

Rule stopped in front of Lily. For a long moment they just looked at each other, each seeking something too large to fit neatly into words. Then the corner of his mouth kicked up and she reached for him, or he reached for her, and they were holding on. Holding on tight.

Benedict told her the rest of them would be in the CCU waiting room. She nodded without stirring. Rule loosened his grip just as the CCU doors opened. Cynna had paused in the doorway, looking back at them. And for a second Lily saw too much in her face. A hard sorrow. Longing. Envy.

Then Cynna turned. The door closed, and Rule went to Toby's bed and took his son's hand.

THEY stayed at the hospital another three hours. Toby was moved from CCU to a room in pediatrics. He didn't stir. Timms was upgraded from serious to stable. Cynna told them about her interview in Chicago and Jiri's other apprentice, Tommy Cordoba; they filled her in on events at Leidolf Clanhome.

Jiri didn't call.

Ruben did. The Bureau's computers were still wonky, so they couldn't run a trace on Cordoba, but Ruben promised he'd put a priority on it.

After some discussion, they settled that Benedict would take the night shift with Toby. Or rather, Benedict settled it—he told Rule and Lily to go away and get some rest. To Cynna's amazement, they listened. Then they had to almost drag Cullen out. He seemed to feel responsible for Timms.

They adjourned to a hotel near the hospital, where Rule got a two-bedroom suite for him, Lily, and Cullen, with an adjoining single for Cynna, and ordered room service hamburgers.

Not that anyone seemed hungry. When the food arrived, all of them except Cullen sat at the round table and tried to eat. Cullen slouched in the big armchair in front of the TV with his plate, absorbed in CNN or his own thoughts.

"But what does it mean?" Cynna asked Rule, dragging a fat home fry through ketchup. "You've got two mantles, or part of two mantles. What does that do to you?"

His expression was odd. Baffled. "I can't describe it, but… I'm okay."

Lily grimaced. "The mate bond didn't do us any good, after all. I guess with the power wind—"

"No," he said. "It did help. It's still helping. I don't know how to explain, but it helped the two mantles settle in together."

"Two-mantled," Cullen murmured.

Cynna looked at him, surprised he'd followed their conversation. He was frowning at the TV.

"The Rhej used that phrase," Lily said. "She made it sound like some sort of title."

Cullen didn't look at them. "It's from a legend. A very old legend."

"I never heard of it," Rule said.

"It's an Etorri tale."

"What's Etorri?" Cynna asked.

There was one of those silences, like when someone farts and everyone pretends not to notice. At last Cullen answered. "My former clan. The one that kicked me out."

Oh.

"Power's back on up North," he said in an obvious change of subject. "And some asshole's decided to let commercial flights resume."

"You don't think it's safe?"

He snorted. "More like an extreme solution to overpopulation. There's too much loose magic for computerized systems to be dependable."

Lily and Rule joined him in front of the television. Cynna paced but listened. Fire still raged in Houston. An earthquake in Italy had left thousands homeless. The nuclear meltdown in Poland had been confirmed, but details were sketchy. Wall Street expected to reopen in the morning. And phone service remained problematical, but landlines worked better than cellular.

Jiri had Lily's cell number.

Cynna couldn't sit. She paced, swerving by the table that held her food every so often to grab a fry. Her skin felt as if she'd washed it in hot water and it had shrunk. Or like the last-year's clothes she used to start school in. As if she might bend or move wrong and rip something open.

At last Lily clicked the remote and the TV went dead. "We've heard from the world. Now we need to deal with our corner of it—sort out what we know, what we guess." She looked at Cynna. "We never got the whole story on the attack."

"You want details? Like who bled where?" She reached the wall. Turned. Kept moving.

"Tell us about the demon. It wasn't a red-eye, like the others. Li Qin said it was male."

"That's right." Cynna made an effort to strangle her jitters so she didn't jump down anyone's throat. "They don't settle on a sex when they're young. This one isn't all that bright, but he's old, strong, powerful. We… he wasn't bothered by the bullets. They hurt, but it was like being poked with a pin over and over. Infuriating, but no biggie. Of course, he didn't have all his mass pulled out of dashtu. If he had, he'd have busted those stairs instead of climbing 'em. The older ones are heavy. Dense."

"You mean their mass is dense? Not their heads?"

Her mouth turned up in an attempt at a smile. "Sometimes their heads are pretty dense, too. But I meant mass."

"So she's riding a powerful demon. What does that tell us?"

"Not exactly riding. She's a demon master, not a rider. It's… a different level of control." And defilement.

"But what does it mean?"

"That she's got mega-oomphs of power and an old, not-too-bright demon who'll do whatever she wants."

"What can you tell us about her?" Rule asked.

"I've already told Lily—"

"You've given her facts, what few you have. You haven't said what makes Jiri tick. What she wants. She wants something, wants it bad."

"I don't know! God, if it were that easy… When I first knew her, she was okay. No," she corrected herself. "She. was good. A good person. She started out wanting to change things, make them better for people who needed change. That's what the movement was, at first. Sure, we talked tough. We were street kids—that's what we knew. But we pulled together to make things work for people who needed hope."

"What happened?"

"Demons happened." Cynna made a noise between laughter and tears. "You ride 'em, you feel what they do. She warned us, all of the ones she brought into her… I guess you'd call us the inner circle. She warned us to be careful, or we'd lose track of the line between us and them. And that's what happened, exactly what happened, with her. I watched as those lines got erased in her. That's why I left. I could see what I'd end up like."

"Then you must be able to guess what she's after," Rule said.

"You," Lily said.

"She missed, then, didn't she?" Bitterness coated his voice. He pushed to his feet and then stood there, looking like he needed to hit something again.

Lily stayed in her chair. "You weren't there, so she enspelled Toby. It's a way to get to you."

"Goddamn her. It could be. It could be true. Cynna, there must be something—"

"Rule." Cullen uncoiled from his chair. "Enough. She's had enough."

"It's okay," Cynna said. "It's his son in danger, his men she killed."

"And if you could do anything to change that, you'd have already done it." He walked up to her, no particular expression on his face… and that was odd. Cullen was always something— smiling, teasing, angry, laughing—some emotion always seemed to be burbling up in him. "Just cut it out, will you?"

"What?" She tried a laugh. "Cut what out?"

He gave his head a half shake, just to one side and back, his lips thinning as if she were the slowest student in the class. "Never mind." He grabbed her face in his two hands and kissed her. And kissed her. And went on kissing her.

Stars collided. Whole universes. Neurons burst in her brain, dying a violent but beautiful death. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and bit it.

Eventually that luscious, lovely, talented mouth left hers. She noticed that her eyes were closed and considered opening them. Her body was held tight against his. It was very happy about that.

"Cullen," Lily said sharply, "I don't think—"

"Glad to hear it, since this isn't any of your business." His eyes were hot, and some of that heat was temper. "She needs this. And by God, so do I." He ran one hand down Cynna's arm to take her hand, and tugged. "Come on."

She did, though it was hard to say who led who to the connecting door to her room.

"Cynna?" That was Lily again, worrying.

"It's okay," she said without looking back. "He's a jerk, but he's right. After all, I didn't get any fight therapy, did I?"

He pulled her through the door, closed it behind them.

The room was small, the walls a neutral green, the bed a tidy rectangle a few feet away. Her heart pounded madly in her throat. Why didn't he just grab her? She was expecting that—the quick heat, a rough climb, maybe some ripped clothes. She wanted it.

Instead he put his hands on her arms. "They don't get it," he said softly. "You hit your biggest fear today, didn't you? This time the demon swallowed you."

"Hey." She jerked away. "If I'd wanted talk, I'd have stayed in the other room."

He ignored that. "Blood, sex, power. That's the price demons ask of a rider, isn't it, shetanni rakibul One or all of those things."

He knew too much. That's why she wasn't going to do this. She remembered that now. She didn't want anyone knowing those things about her. She fumbled for the door.

"Cynna." His hand on her arm stopped her. "You didn't pay for the ride, so it wasn't yours. You couldn't have stopped him from doing what he did. You didn't pay. You are not responsible."

She shuddered, rounding on him. "You don't get it, either! It wasn't him smashing Freddie up against the wall, it was us't We slurped his blood until she—the master—made us stop. I felt it all; not just the physical parts, but everything he felt—and he liked doing that. It was—it felt good!"

"You felt what the demon felt." His hands on her cheeks weren't gentle or soothing. They trapped her, making her look at him. "But you felt other things, too. Horror—fear—"

God. Oh, God. She squeezed her eyes closed. "I tried. I tried so hard."

"You didn't pay. You weren't in charge, so you couldn't change things." His hands left her face—and closed over her breasts. "You won't be in charge now, either."

"What?" Her eyes popped open. "I don't need some macho bullshit—"

"Yes. You do." He ran his thumbs over the tips of her breasts.

"What you called fight therapy… We didn't take Rule outside because we like bruises, his or ours. We took him out there to lose it. He has formidable control, but control is a two-edged blade. He was bleeding inside from holding on to it too tightly."

His thumbs were making her dizzy. Or maybe his words were. She shook her head, certain there was a flaw in his logic.

"Sometimes you have to lose control to get it back. And it's okay to turn loose with me. You can't hurt me."

Memories squeezed inside her, so tight it was hard to breathe. "You can be hurt. You'd heal, but you can be hurt."

He shook his head. "Not by you, not here and now. I'm too much stronger. Faster. You won't hurt me, and God knows you won't shock me. Want to go for a little bondage?"

Quick as a thought, he gathered her hands and pinned them behind her with one hand. His other hand was busy with her breast. She sucked in a breath. "No." Her voice came out harsh. "I just want to fuck. Hard and fast."

At last he quit talking.

His mouth was full of demands. He scooped her up and carried her to the bed, his mouth making those demands the whole way. Then he dropped her. She hit the bed, bounced, and was reaching for the buttons on her shirt before she finished bouncing.

He stripped quickly, efficiently—and she had one pang of regret, because she'd love to see him take his time with that.

But not tonight. Tonight she didn't want to think. She wanted to—was desperate to—feel human, to forget what she'd experienced as a silent rider in a demon's body.

He came to her naked and fully aroused, which was a major distraction, because then she needed to get her hands all over that stunning body. She needed to taste the skin he brought to her.

He needed her clothes off. And he was right. He was a lot stronger, and she wasn't in charge.

Buttons popped as he yanked her shirt off. He shoved her bra up out of his way and lowered his head to suck. And that was good, that was incredible, the slow liquid tugs in her belly making her moan.

She put her hands in his hair to hold him there, but the perverse man immediately decided to wander across to her other breast, then down the center of her body to her navel, where the band of her trousers stopped him.

"Damn," he muttered. "You've still got clothes on."

She laughed. It just struck her as terribly funny, and she laughed when she would have sworn she couldn't—but he caught the laugh with his mouth, his hands busy now with her bra, unfastening it. "Get the rest of it off," he told her. "I want to see. You smell fantastic, but I want to see, too."

So she wiggled out of slacks and panties, and he looked and smiled, dazzling her. "You've got an incredible body, Wonder Woman, but I'm not a patient man." He crawled on top of her and kissed her, put his hand between her legs. And was still kissing her when he thrust inside.

She felt that all the way to her scalp. It had been a long, long time since a man came inside her naked like this, but with a lupus lover she didn't need a condom. She was on the pill, and he couldn't catch or transmit a disease.

She was safe, he was safe. It felt wonderful.

She dug her fingers into his shoulders and pushed back with her hips, and he gave her the fast and furious ride she'd asked for. They found each other's rhythm quickly, as if they'd done this a dozen times, and lust shot off skyrockets in her belly. Her body burned with it, the wonderful living heat of passion. When she felt her climax coming, she almost wanted to stop, to wait, to make it last—

Too late. She bucked once and smashed through a blinding orgasm.

He was still going. "Not… patient," he panted, and he even grinned. "But I've been… practicing…" He punctuated that with a rolling thrust that made her gasp. "… awhile."

Over the next several minutes he showed her how good an impatient but well-practiced man could be. When he finally came, she was on her third climax and he was on his knees with her legs hooked over his shoulders. She damn near melted.

He did collapse, right on top of her, his chest heaving. And that was lovely, she thought once a few of those destroyed neurons regenerated enough to rub up a thought. Lovely to know he was wrecked, too. Lovely to lie close like this, all sweaty and limp, their legs tangled together, her hand free to stroke his back…

A jolt went through his body. He jerked his head up, staring at her with—what? Shock? Horror? Something awful, because… God, those were tears. Tears filling his eyes.

"What is it?" she whispered, terrified without knowing what could possibly be so wrong.

Slowly his expression changed, though she still couldn't read it. He raised up on one elbow and ran his hand down her body, his gaze following it, until hand and gaze both rested on her belly. "Lady," he whispered. "Oh, Lady. Thank you."

This was getting weird. She'd had men thank her for sex, but not like this. "You're freaking me out here, Cullen."

"I'm… pretty freaked myself." He raised his head, looked her in the eyes. His were all shiny and wet. "You're carrying my baby."

She heard the words, but for a long moment they stayed stuck on the surface of her brain. She couldn't attach any meaning to them.

All at once they sank in. "Get off." She shoved at him.

Obligingly he rolled off and just lay there, grinning at her. Blissed. The asshole was blissed out, and she was—"You're nuts," she told him, getting off the bed. Grabbing up clothes with hands that shook. "I'm on the pill. I'm not pregnant, and even if I were, you wouldn't know. Not—"

"It's given to us to know." He sat up, and Lord, he made her breath catch in her throat with that simple movement. And he was happy, damn him. So happy.

It terrified her, that happiness of his.

"I'd given up," he said. "Years ago, I gave up thinking I'd ever… But you're carrying my baby."

The knock on the door made her jump. "What?" she called. "We're a little busy here."

Rule's voice: "Jiri called. We have to go. Now."