Mortal Danger

NINE

Every now and then the crowd roared, a many-throated beast always muttering, muttering, when it wasn’t screaming at itself. Far below, the ballplayers stood out vivid and tiny in their white uniforms against the light-flooded green.

It all looked so tidy down there. Safe. But she was up here, in the midst of the crowd-beast. And she wasn’t safe.

Lily’s heart pounded and pounded. She darted between the tall adult figures, looking for the way back. She’d gotten lost from her mother and sisters when she went looking for Grandmother.

Mother was going to be so angry. Lily’s stomach clenched unhappily. Don’t wander off, she always said. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t whine, sit still and be a good girl, and don’t wander off.

Being a good girl was very, very boring. But maybe better than being lost.

The crowd beast roared again, many of its parts leaping to their feet. Popcorn spewed, fists waved, and loudspeakers pumped music into the tinny air. Lily gulped and tried to get around a really fat man who smelled bad, like bourbon. Lily hated the smell of bourbon. It made her think of when Uncle Chen got mean and started yelling. Mostly he yelled at his sons, not her, but she still didn’t like it.

Mother hadn’t even noticed that Grandmother was missing. Lily had tried to tell her, but she hadn’t listened. She never listened. So it was up to Lily to find Grandmother, wasn’t it?

She had to be here somewhere. That’s why they came to the stupid ball games—because Grandmother liked them. So she was here. Lily just had to find her and then everything would be okay.

Maybe the crowd-beast had swallowed her. Grandmother wasn’t very big. Not as little as Lily, but not big like the other grown-ups, either.

No, Lily told herself. No, that was stupid. Nothing could eat Grandmother. If the crowd-beast tried, she’d just tell it to back off. And it would. Grandmother was little, but only in her body. She was very big otherwise.

So was her secret. They weren’t supposed to talk about it, not ever, not even to each other. It wasn’t the same as Lily’s secret, except sort of, because they were both about magic. People didn’t like magic, so good girls didn’t do it. And if they couldn’t help doing it, like Lily couldn’t help knowing when she touched something that had magic on it, then they weren’t supposed to tell anyone.

Lily sniffed. Grown-ups were always making stupid rules. Especially her mother. Her mother was stuffed with rules, and most of them were dumb. Right now Lily wished she had a great big magic, one that would make everyone else go away so she could find Grandmother.

Unease stirred inside her. Something wasn’t right. This whole setup wasn’t right. Why was she thinking about adults as grown-ups? She was…

Suddenly the crowd-beast swelled up tight around her, like she was a splinter it meant to squeeze out. It was hard to breathe. Lily shoved with arms and body against all those legs and big, suffocating bodies. She managed to pop out, a tender little grape squeezed from its skin, into a small, clear space.

She stood there panting, looking for Grandmother. Or Mother. Looking for someone, anyone, who could—

“Do you need help, little girl?” The hand, coming from behind to rest on Lily’s shoulder, made her jump. The voice, for all its friendly words, terrified her. It was high and sweet and cold, so cold… “Are you lost?”

The hand tightened, hurting-hard. Lily yelped and tried to wrench away, but another hand gripped her and slowly turned her around. Lily fought it. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want—

That face—that smiling, pretty woman’s face framed by soft blond hair, and those eyes, empty like a doll’s— Lily knew that face. Those eyes. “No!” she screamed. “No, you’re dead, I know you are. I made you dead!”

“I’m going to eat you,” the smiling woman said. “Then you’ll be dead, too. We’ll be together.”

“No!”

“Together forever…” She was bending down, bending close.

“No, no, no! Be dead. I want you dead all the way— dead, dead, dead!” As the woman’s hands dug in harder and her face came closer, Lily shut her eyes, wishing for the biggest magic ever, one that would kill the smiling woman forever.

And all of a sudden she was sitting on top of the other woman, who was on her back. She wasn’t little anymore. And she was pounding the woman’s head against the cold, stony floor, pounding it and pounding it. Blood and gray stuff leaked from the shattered skull she cupped in her two hands, and glistening white bone shards penetrated the hair. And that was wrong. That hadn’t happened before. But it was happening now, and the woman wasn’t smiling anymore, and her hair—it wasn’t blond like it was supposed to be. It was… it was…

Lily stopped, horror welling up in her.

The woman’s eyes blinked once. And it was her mother looking up at her, her mother’s skull in her hands, her mother’s black hair shiny with blood and sticky with brains.

“You killed me,” she said.

Lily woke trying to scream.

“Shh… there, Lily, there, honey. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Rule. It was Rule looking down at her, and Rule’s hand, warm and not hurting, on her right shoulder, while her bad shoulder throbbed as if Helen really had dug her fingers into it. She was an adult, not a child, and Helen was dead. Truly and forever dead.

Lily’s breath shuddered in her chest. “That was a bad one,” she whispered.

His voice was quiet, deep, the sheer masculinity of it soothing to her. “Maybe you should talk about it.”

She shook her head, unable to put words to the horror. What good would talk do? She just wanted the smothering guilt to go away. It never troubled her in the daylight hours. When she was awake, she knew she’d done what she had to do.

So why the nightmares?

Go away, she told the lingering taint from the dream. And burrowed into Rule.

“Careful—your shoulder—”

“It doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t, although it was throbbing like a bad tooth. But that meant nothing compared to the hard, physical reality of him. He closed himself around her, and his body was warm, warm enough to melt away fear and horror. She breathed in his scent and felt clean.

He was naked. She wasn’t, but her legs were bare and tangled with his. His thighs were firm, slightly rough with hair… a roughness she needed. Craved. She rubbed her thigh up along his and found that his body was responding to their closeness, too.

A delicate heat sent tendrils winding out along her veins, down her thighs to her toes, tingling, making her hum from the inside out. She went still, cherishing the sensation. Then she drew her hand along his side, cherishing him.

He didn’t ask her to put her desire into words. He didn’t ask if she was sure, or remind her of her shoulder, or say anything at all. For that she blessed the years of experience she’d earlier resented.

Instead, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Slowly. With a carnality as obvious and delicate as the heat stirring in her belly.

Yes, she thought. Yes. This was what she needed… the quiet turning to the other in the middle of the night, the wordless meeting of lips, skin, breath. The trust, unfurling one pale petal at a time, that he would be there.

He rolled her onto her back and came over her, touching softly, kissing her shoulder, pushing her T-shirt aside to nibble along her ribs, tickling her belly button with his tongue. He tugged her panties down her legs and off. She ran her hands over him, marveling, trying to say with touch all that she knew of him and treasured. And all that she still wondered over.

There were no crashing cymbals this time, no rising delirium of lust. Her shoulder ached, and she was riding a wave of exhaustion as surely as she rode the swell of desire.

Yet when he slipped inside her, her breath broke. As he stroked, smooth and easy, she found a quiet joy in meeting him one slow thrust at a time. And as she surrendered to the physical tide that carried her gently through pleasure to its peak, she surrendered her compulsion to name these feelings, to tag them as lust or love or mate bond. There was only the mystery, wordless, full, breaking over her in a soundless rush.

She fell back to Earth without ever having left it and was there to hold him when his breath broke, nearly soundless, as he reached the crest of his own wave. And after, he lay on top of her still, both of them smiling into the dark. She was asleep before ever he rolled off.

RULE stood in Lily’s tub beneath the shower jets, yawning. Her apartment had its shortcomings, but did offer two boons: a windowless bedroom, easy to defend, and abundant hot water. This morning, hot water rated almost as high as defensible sleeping quarters.

After a night of sentry sleep, he’d woken early and completely. It had seemed best to leave the warmth of Lily’s bed before he gave in to his body’s urgings and woke her for another loving. She needed sleep. And she’d needed to sleep here, in her own space. He understood that. She’d had too many shocks yesterday.

Including those about him. Rule grimaced and grabbed the soap.

She’d turned to him, though. In the middle of the night, haunted by a nightmare she wouldn’t discuss, she’d turned to him. Tension he hadn’t noticed eased from his shoulders at the thought. The soapy scent mixed with steam, with the water’s liquid massage, to pull him more fully into his senses. He closed his eyes and closed out thoughts, floating along the skin of the moment.

Another yawn took him. He shook his head. There had been a time when a single night of sentry sleep wouldn’t have left him this drowsy. He was older now. Out of practice.

Out of training, Benedict would say.

Rule grinned as he worked up a lather, thinking of the older brother who’d trained him, along with so many other youngsters. Benedict wasn’t easy on those he trained, but he never asked more of his cubs than they could give, and he had a knack for understanding each youngster’s limits. Unlike some of the physically gifted, he didn’t expect others to live up to his own standards.

Of course, that would have been unrealistic. Two-footed or four, Benedict was in a class of his own.

Those summers were years in the past, but Benedict’s training stuck. His methods wouldn’t suit human notions, but they weren’t designed for humans, were they? Being woken out of a deep sleep by having a chunk ripped out of your shoulder by an enemy’s teeth inspired a youngster to stay alert.

Grief pinched out his grin. He closed his eyes as memory arrived, sharp-clawed.

Mick.

For a moment he simply stood there, absorbing the pain, new and unblunted and tangled with so many other feelings. It had been Rule’s other brother, Mick, whose teeth had ripped a chunk from his shoulder all those years ago. Mick was—had been—nearly Rule’s age-mate, a rarity among his people. They’d met for the first time the summer Rule began formally training with Benedict.

There’d been rivalry between them, Rule thought, tilting his head back as the water washed away the soap. Of course there had been. But it had been friendly, not serious, back then.

Hadn’t it? Did the lens of the present distort the past, or reveal it more clearly?

Let it be, Rule told himself, shutting off the water with an sharp twist of the faucet. Mick was dead. He’d died saving Rule’s life—a hero’s death. If he’d first endangered it, that was the mad Helen’s doing, not Mick’s. With the power from that accursed staff, she’d tipped Rule’s brother into a sort of madness.

But she couldn’t have gotten to Mick if the seed hadn’t been there, the seed of jealousy of a particularly nasty sort. The clans had a word for it: fratriodi. Brother-hate.

Lily’s cell phone rang while Rule was brushing his teeth. He heard her curse, fumble for the phone, and then answer. And he heard her snap fully awake, a change as distinct as the flipping of a light switch. So he finished quickly, shut off the water, and opened the door.

It was just after six a.m. The moon had set and the sun hadn’t yet made an appearance, so she’d switched on the bedside lamp. She sat on the bed in a pool of that yellowish light scribbling on the pad she kept close, wearing pale yellow panties and a short black T-shirt that left a strip of her back and belly bare.

He’d removed those panties when she woke from a nightmare. She must have scrambled into them when the phone rang.

She glanced at him, exchanged some more police jargon with the person at the other end and disconnected. “I’ve got to go.”

“I know. I missed the first part, though. Who was it?”

She shoved her hair out of her face, frowning at him. “I wish you’d quit listening to both sides of my phone conversations.”

He shrugged. Even if he could stop his ears from hearing so much, he wouldn’t. “You don’t work homicide anymore. Why were you called about a murder in Temecula?”

“Possible homicide,” she corrected. Maybe her frown hadn’t been directed at him. It lingered as she stared into some mental space, totting up facts he lacked. “The call was from the FBI district office,” she said, pushing to her feet. “They were contacted by local authorities in Temecula about a suspicious death.”

“Why call you?” he repeated.

“There’s a connection to Harlowe. A witness. The body was discovered two hours ago,” she added abruptly and headed for the bathroom.

He stepped aside to let her pass, thinking.

This was hardly the first sighting of someone who might be Patrick Harlowe. Ten days ago, Ruben Brooks had succeeded in getting him put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, his photo and description sent to law enforcement agencies all over the nation. But the man was relentlessly average—Anglo, five-ten, brown hair and eyes, one hundred sixty pounds. No scars, no distinctive features other than an unusually mellow voice. The kind of man, Lily had said in disgust, you could meet at a party and forget two minutes later. Rule didn’t know how many reports of possible sightings had come in; Lily had only mentioned those few that seemed promising.

It was the first one connected to a possible homicide, though. She’d want to get to the scene quickly. He needed to get dressed.

He glanced at the closed bathroom door. First things first. If he didn’t make coffee, she’d probably stop for the convenience store version along the way.

Rule returned from the kitchen just as Lily was emerging from the bathroom. “Why is it only a possible homicide?” he asked.

She pulled off her T-shirt as she padded up to the tall chest facing the bed. Her shoulder was much improved, he thought. Until now he’d had to help her with things that went over her head.

“Cause of death hasn’t been determined,” she told him and opened the top drawer, made a disgusted noise, and closed it again. He’d seen her do that several times. She’d automatically open that drawer, forgetting she’d emptied it to make room for some of his things.

She opened the second drawer and plucked out a scrap of black silk. “This is definitely not mine. Why would anyone wear a thong?” She tossed it to him. “It’s got to feel like a permanent wedgie.”

He pulled on his underwear and watched her step into hers—carnation pink this morning. He loved watching her get dressed. It was fun to see her cover what he would uncover later, yes, but there was a quiet intimacy involved that he treasured even more.

She always put on her panties first, then her bra. She preferred to shower at night and seldom wore pantyhose. She bought toothpaste in tubes, pickles in bulk, and panties in every color. Her wound interfered with the run on the beach she was used to, but she adhered religiously to her therapy program. When it was time to leave, she’d slip on her shoulder harness before her shoes.

Small details, perhaps, but he was learning her. “Why do you wear a bra?”

She looked down at her chest and shook her head. “God only knows.”

He chuckled and moved closer. “I meant that a thong offers me some support. Keeps my dangly bits from bouncing around.”

Her glance skimmed his body, eyebrows lifting. No doubt she noticed that there was more looking up than dangling at the moment.

He placed his hand beneath one of her pretty breasts, covered now in stretchy white lace, and dragged his thumb across the tip. “I like everything about these, you know—the size, shape, texture… and the taste. Especially that.”

Her nipple ripened, and her eyes went smoky. That didn’t keep her from batting his hand away. “I have to go.”

“We have to go, you mean.” Resigned, he went to the closet—which was organized by color, season, and type of garment. She’d managed to find a few inches of hanging space for him, but his selection was limited. He took out a pair of black slacks. “You’re not wearing a bandage.”

“The in-sleep thing seems to have helped. My shoulder isn’t back to normal, but it’s better.” She joined him at the closet and took out one of the black T-shirts. “No need for you to get out this early.”

“Try again,” he said dryly, fastening his slacks. “Even if I were okay with you going without me when we know you’re a target—”

“You’re coming awfully close to the allow word.”

“Yet skirting it deftly, I believe. Temecula is an hour away, if the traffic is kind.”

“About sixty miles,” she agreed.

“The mate bond might stretch that far, but this isn’t a good time to test it.”

“Oh. Right.” She tossed her shirt on the bed, following it with a pair of tan slacks and a red jacket. “Why don’t you make us some coffee? You’ll bitch if you have to drink convenience store stuff.”

“I already did.” Surely even a human nose could smell it brewing. He looked at her in sudden, sharp suspicion. “Why don’t you want me to go with you? What aren’t you telling me?”

She sighed. “I was hoping to keep you from going all alpha and protective on me, but I guess it’s a lost cause.”

“Good guess. Keep talking.”

‘The witness was out with the deceased last night. He identified Harlowe as the one she’d left the club with.“

“He knows Harlowe?”

“He made the ID from a photo they showed him.”

“Then they already had some reason to think Harlowe was involved.”

“Oh, yeah.” Her eyes were as flat as her voice. “He wrote a little note on the victim’s stomach with a felt-tip pen and signed it.”

“What did it say?”

‘“This one’s for Yu.”’