Mortal Sins

THIRTY-FOUR

THE woods were so different in the day. Sun streamed through green, spotting the ground with freckles of light. Lily walked along a route she’d walked before, in the dark.

So far, so good. No deadly ice creeping in. “It’s all so innocent now. You wouldn’t think there were bodies here, would you?”

Rule glanced at her. “You see innocence. I see a pleasant hunting ground.”

“Feeling wolfish today, aren’t you?” Or focusing too much on their differences. The loss of the mate bond had to affect him, she told herself. That didn’t mean he wanted to leave her. “Should we have brought Cullen to help? Or another lupus—Alex, maybe? Cullen’s probably best left to do what he’s doing.”

“If I can’t find the scent, none of the others could.”

That calm voice was getting on her nerves. “Both wolfish and arrogant.”

“The others,” he said imperturbably, “do not have mantles to help them.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to use them.”

“I used them last night.”

“Them?” She stopped and looked at him.

He grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. I had the Nokolai mantle tucked away, but when I used the words of invocation”—he gestured widely—“it decided to join the party, too.”

“So are David and Jeffrey Nokolai or Leidolf?”

“Yes.”

Oh, shit. “That’s going to cause all kinds of trouble.”

“I’m aware of that. It’s tomorrow’s problem, however. Today we have other things to deal with. We need to talk, Lily.”

Oh, God, she was so not having that kind of conversation. Not now. She resumed walking. “Not a good time for it. I need to stay focused.”

“I can talk and walk at the same time.” He proved that by striding along beside her. “Lily—”

“Look, let’s just see if I’m going to survive first, okay?”

He stopped—and grabbed her arms, forcing her to stop, too. “You will live.” All that horrible calm was gone. His voice was low and fierce, and the dark slashes of his brows were drawn in a scowl over darkly burning eyes. “That is not in question. If there is any damage, Nettie will heal it. The mate bond will help.”

“Ah . . . the mate bond.”

“It must be restored, of course.”

“Your Lady hasn’t been in a rush to do that.”

“She’s leaving it up to us, as she usually does. We will catch the wraith and force it to give back what it took.”

“Give it back?” She stared, unable to believe what he was saying. He had to know better. The bond was dissolved by death, not stored on some shelf inside the wraith. “Even if we could, what’s this about it healing me?”

“Have you had a cold since we met? A stomach bug?”

She frowned. “I must have.”

“You haven’t. Nor any cavities, I think. None of the usual small ills.”

“I don’t heal the way you do. I’d have noticed.” She’d had enough assorted knocks and burns and cuts since they met to be sure of that.

“You don’t get sick, though. The mate bond increases your resistance to illness. It will help your body heal, if healing is needed.”

“Maybe, but . . .” She shook her head. If Rule needed to believe they could regain the mate bond and it would make everything all better, why argue? Reality would make itself known without her help. Personally, she was pinning her hopes on the fact that the wraith hadn’t been in her nearly as long as it had been in Meacham or Hodge. “Could be. I guess we’ll find out.”

“You’re humoring me.”

“Pretty much, yeah. But that means you get to say a big, fat ‘I told you so’ if you turn out to be right.” She knew why he wanted so badly to believe the mate bond could be restored. And couldn’t bear to think about it—so she wouldn’t. She started walking again. “We must be nearly there by now.”

He fell into step beside her. “The Lady tightened the bond earlier. She wanted us to remain close—and not so that an abomination could destroy it.”

“Could be.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t believe in violence toward women,” he said, falling back into that übercalm voice, “or I’d give in to the urge to shake you.”

She managed to grin, just as if everything were all right between them.

“If I’m wrong, and we can’t restore the mate bond—”

“Isn’t that the spot up ahead?”

“Dammit, Lily!” He grabbed her again and spun her around, his fingers digging into her shoulders. “We will talk about this!”

She jerked back. He didn’t let go. “You want me to tell you it’s all right if you go back to catting around? Well, it isn’t! Without the bond you’re able to go plant your seed in as many wombs as possible, and I will not—”

He smashed his mouth down on hers.

She shoved on his chest, turning her face away. Panting. “You can’t kiss me into agreeing. I won’t share you. I don’t care what your people believe.”

“Bugger my people.”

That shocked her into holding still. Rule had told her once that his people considered “fuck” a lovely word describing a lovely activity, and he refused to use it for cursing. “Bugger” was about as vicious a curse as he ever used.

His mouth turned soft, pressing kisses along her cheek, her jaw. Gentle, courting kisses. He spoke softly against her flesh. “Lily. We are idiots.”

Her body was kindling, her brain going fuzzy. She wanted to cry. She wanted to grab him and kiss him back. “We are?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He trailed kisses down her throat. “I’ve been frantic. Knowing how you felt about the mate bond, I thought . . . I feared . . . I’m afraid I had as little trust in us as you do.”

“I . . . It’s not that. I know what you believe—that the survival of your people depends on—on—”

“Planting my seed in many wombs?” He straightened, cupping her face, smiling down at her. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I say, ‘Been there, done that.’ I don’t want to do it anymore. Only you, Lily. I want only you.”

Her heart turned over. She could swear it just inverted itself in that moment, opening up wider, bigger. She slid her hands up to his shoulders. “They’ll put pressure on you.”

He cocked one eyebrow. “You believe I succumb to peer pressure?”

“Father pressure,” she said. “Rho pressure.”

“He’ll learn to accept my decision. Or not.” His thumbs stroked the sides of her face. “I was going to inform you that you were not free. That I was not letting you go, no matter what. I had quite the little speech ready, but you wouldn’t let me use it.”

Easy, so easy, to smile at him now. “I was too busy keeping you from telling me that, however regretfully, you were going to have to go on that seed-planting mission from time to time.”

“Idiots,” he said again, his eyes smiling . . . and his hands moving. Warming her breasts. “Both of us.”

“Uh, Rule, this isn’t the time or place—”

“We’re alone.” He pressed a kiss to her collarbone, then flicked it with his tongue. The warmth of his hands lingered on her breasts as they moved again, sliding down to her rump, then up again.

“That’s a point.”

“And I want you.”

“Mmm.” Heat arrived, a languorous, swelling heat, making her stretch like a cat beneath his stroking hands. “I might be persuadable.”

“Let’s see.”

This kiss was as soft as the first had been hard. He licked her lip, then sucked gently on it. She did the same with his tongue. Their mouths parted and joined, first from this angle, then that. The climb into desire was easy, slow, and mutual.

He wore jeans, like her, with his shirt untucked. She slid her hands beneath the warm cotton of his shirt, needing the feel of his skin. His arms tightened. Her breath caught. He cupped her.

Between one breath and the next, the easy climb was over.

Need had teeth. They sank into her, pumping in lust like a venom, hot and swirling. She gasped, her fingers digging into his muscles as she rocked against his hand. “Rule.”

“Jeans,” he said, and tugged at her zipper. “I hate jeans.”

She nearly strangled on a laugh. “Harder on me than you, since we can just unzip yours and there you are. Here, let me . . .” She helped him tug her jeans and panties down, but they caught on her shoes. One ungraceful hop and a tug, and she had one leg free.

That was all he required, apparently. He swept her up, taking her to the ground with him on the bottom. She swung her bare leg over his hip, looking down at his flushed skin, at his dark eyes looking up at her.

He cupped her face. “I thought I lost you.”

“You didn’t. I’m here. I want you in me.”

He agreed—wordlessly, urgently, freeing himself from his jeans.

She slid down over him, moving as slowly as she could make herself go. Wanting to memorize every sensation. Looking into his eyes the whole time.

He gasped. “Lily—”

“Almost,” she whispered. “Almost . . .” Then she was fully seated. She bent to kiss him slowly, lingeringly. Let their lips separate, just barely, and whispered against his mouth, “Okay. Okay, no more slow.”

“Thank God.”

From that moment on, their loving wasn’t entirely mutual. Lily was strong and agile and quick, but she wasn’t anywhere near as quick as Rule was when he got in a hurry. And he clearly wanted speed. He gripped her hips and pumped fast, then faster, and the raw bolts of feeling tore a cry from her throat, ripping through her so hard and fast she couldn’t keep up, couldn’t—

And then she did, convulsing from the inside out. One blind second later, she felt him empty himself into her. She collapsed on top of him.

After a moment, she felt him stroking her hair. She smiled and considered opening her eyes. “Mmm. That answers one question.”

“What’s that?”

“It wasn’t just the mate bond that had us yanking each other’s clothes off all the time, was it?”

“There was some question about that?”

He’d put just enough offended hauteur into that question to make her smile widen. “I love you.”

“I love you.” He paused. “We’re okay, then?”

The question was flavored with just enough uncertainty to make her prop herself up so she could look at him. “We’re okay. Not dignified,” she added, looking at the jeans and panties still wrapped around her left leg. “But very much okay.”

RULE found the body in a tiny clearing just before eleven.

Lily could hardly believe he’d done it. He’d coursed in wolf-form, naturally, slowly covering a fifty-yard swath along the route between the bodies and the picnic area where the wraith had appeared last night.

Such an arbitrary number, fifty yards. If the body had been buried another ten yards away, he wouldn’t have found it.

She’d sent for the ERT—and then she’d poured the salt she’d brought on the grave.

Rule had cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re planning to remove the body.”

“The Baron didn’t say to salt the body. He said to salt the grave, and this is it.” Probably. It was worth trying, anyway, and not just because the Baron said to. She remembered that cold . . . Was that how the wraith felt all the time?

And then they waited. If the wraith was around, she never felt it.

Rule was positive a body lay beneath the soil. He couldn’t be sure it had been human. After so long, there was no way to tell by smell alone. It was just possible someone had buried Fido way out here. But not, Lily thought, very likely.

It was also possible they’d found another victim of the wraith, rather than the wraith’s mortal remains. Lily didn’t know how they’d be able to tell. Signs of a violent death wouldn’t be enough. The wraith could be the product of murder. Such a secret grave suggested as much.

When the ERT arrived, she advised them of the salt. She got some looks for that, but no one protested.

Whoever had handled the burial had worked hard. The ERT was nearly four feet down and still digging—slowly, carefully—when Lily appointed herself gofer. She couldn’t help with the excavation. She wasn’t qualified. So she headed back to their vehicle, which was parked as close as they could get it, about half a mile away. They had a cooler with soft drinks there.

When she got back, the chief tech was wiping his arm across his sweaty forehead. He looked up as she approached and accepted the Coke she held out. “Looks like someone, somewhere, gave Fido a really decent burial.”

“You’re kidding.” She put down the cooler and came closer to the grave.

Rule stood at its edge, staring down. “Not a dog,” he said quietly. “A wolf.”

“Don’t see how you can tell.” The man squinted at Rule dubiously. “Sure, there’s some fur left, and it could belong to a wolf. Could belong to a husky, too, or a plain old mutt. We’ll have to send the bones off to be sure.”

“It’s the way he’s buried.” Rule held one arm out and curved it in a half circle. “Nose to tail. That’s the traditional burial position when one of my people dies in wolf-form. We don’t put our dead in boxes.”

Lily touched his arm. “He’s lupus?”

Rule nodded. He was wearing his blank face, the one he donned when there was way too much going on inside. “I think . . .” He drew in a breath suddenly, as if he’d been forgetting about air. “Beneath him you should find some clothing, possibly even identification. When one of us dies as wolf, we include his human side by burying human things with him.” He looked at her. “That’s why the burial was secret, why the death won’t be on your lists. When one of us dies as wolf, he doesn’t end up in a human cemetery.”

“But . . . here?” She gestured at the forest around them. “If he’s Leidolf, wouldn’t he be buried at Leidolf Clanhome?”

“Maybe he loved to run here and requested this as his burial spot. Maybe he’s not Leidolf and was killed by them, so they buried him decently.” He sighed, and what she saw now was sadness. “It might not be your wraith, Lily. We may have disturbed this one’s rest for nothing. I’ll call Alex. He’ll know of any burials here.”

Alex didn’t answer his phone, and it took another forty minutes to remove the bones. Underneath, as Rule had said, were the rotted remains of clothing. Jeans, maybe, though it was hard to say. The boots were filthy, but almost intact.

One thing was entirely intact, because it had been sealed in a plastic bag—the see-through kind with a zipper, like you’d use to save leftovers in the freezer. Lily rubbed dirt off the bag to get a better look. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered as the puzzle pieces suddenly fell in place

It was a baby blanket. Blue and green, faded from pastel to ice colors. Crocheted by loving hands, not bought at some superstore. And sealed up against decay. “Rule.” She showed him the bag. “Is this unusual? Sealing it up this way?”

“It’s not our practice. What we bury with the dead we expect to go to earth with them.”

“But she was human,” Lily murmured, turning the bag over in her gloved hands. “She wasn’t clan. And she loved him so very much.” Only a mother would bury her son with his baby blanket. One she’d made for him. One she refused to allow to decompose gracefully into the earth.

She looked up. “Call Cullen for me.”

“Agent Yu,” one of the techs called. “Got something here you want.”

Oh, yes, he did. A wallet.

The leather was badly rotted, much worse than the boots. Pieces crumbled off despite her care, but she got it open. The driver’s license inside was plastic and intact. She pulled it out and rubbed the dirt off with her thumb to reveal a small photo of a smiling, red-haired young man.

Charles Arthur Kessenblaum.

THEY were nearly back to town when Rule’s phone chimed. Lily was on her third call, this one from Deacon.

She’d notified Brown and asked Deacon to send someone to pick up Crystal Kessenblaum—not as a suspect, but as a witness. Crystal wasn’t a medium. Her first call had been to Marcia Farquhar, but the blasted woman was in court. But surely the woman who’d been godmother to one of Mrs. Kessenblaum’s children would know about the other. Hadn’t Louise told her best friend the truth about Toby, right from the first?

They’d drifted apart, Farquhar had said, over the years. But not completely. Surely not so much that she wouldn’t know about Charles Arthur.

Charley. That’s what the women at the gens compleo had called him. He’d been twenty-three when he died. Last night would have been his coming-of-age party.

It was the mother. Lily knew that in her gut and her bone, and Cullen had agreed it was possible. Mrs. Kessenblaum created an abomination not because she wanted a soul-slave, but because she wanted her son. She’d tried to bring him back to life, or keep him with her as a spirit. Like those foolish bygone sorcerers who’d made zombies, she’d refused to accede to death.

“Crystal’s not at her apartment,” Deacon said. “She’s not at work, either. Hasn’t been in for days.”

Shit. Preoccupied, Lily barely glanced at Rule when his phone rang and he answered. But some instinct made her look again.

She told Deacon to hold on a moment and put her palm over the phone’s mic. “What is it?”

Rule shook his head at her, listening intently. “You’re sure? Yes, of course you are. I don’t . . . Just a minute.” He looked at Lily. “Toby went with his mother this morning.”

She nodded. They were going to the miniature golf place, then Alicia was going pick up Louise and they’d all go to lunch together.

“He—they—haven’t come back. And Alicia isn’t answering her phone.”