Mortal Sins

THIRTY-EIGHT

EVENING dawdled in the summer in North Carolina. At seven thirty, sunshine still slanted brightly through the banked clouds Lily saw out the bedroom window. Those mounds of bruise-colored clouds suggested the rain wasn’t through with them yet, but for now the air was clear and almost cool.

Lily had looked up from her laptop, appreciating that dramatic sky, when a female voice said, “That doesn’t look like bed rest to me.”

“I’m in bed, aren’t I?” Lily turned her head, pleased by the company. “And Ruben needs my report. Two birds, one stone.”

Cynna Weaver leaned against the doorway frame, arms crossed. She was a tall woman with a butch-crop of blond hair, highly decorated skin, and—at the moment—a sly smile. “I don’t think Nettie would see it that way.”

“She’s not here. She checked me over and didn’t, for once, put me back in sleep, so . . .” Lily’s voice trailed off. She frowned. “Why are you looking so sneaky and smug?”

“Me? You’re imagining things.” Cynna straightened, still looking like she ought to have canary feathers on her face. “Pretty nice work clothes.”

Lily smiled. “Rule’s notion of a bribe. I, uh, got up for a bit earlier, so he shows up with a silk nightgown. I think he thinks I won’t go wandering around if I’m wearing it. So are you joining us for supper?”

“Not you. Cullen and I are taking Toby and his grandmother out for pizza.”

“Oh. Good. It will be good for him to get out of the house.” But that was not what had Cynna smiling that way. Lily couldn’t find a clue to the mystery on her friend’s face, but maybe that was a clue coming up the stairs. “Sounds like Rule and I are eating by ourselves.”

Cynna nodded, trying to keep her face solemn, but whatever secret she was sitting on had her all but wiggling like an excited puppy. She turned her head, grinning. “Hey, Rule,” she said to the man coming up behind her. “My, you do clean up pretty.”

She shoved away from the door. “Guess I’d better be going.” She slid Lily a last wicked grin, waved, and moved aside, letting Lily see that Rule had, indeed, cleaned up. Into a tux.

Every man alive looked better in a tuxedo than just about anything else. Rule in a tux . . . a little curl of lust tightened down low. Sex and danger, Lily thought, sleeked over with a civilized gloss. A really gorgeous civilized gloss. And under that . . . Lily knew the lean body beneath the beautiful clothing. She knew the sharp, clean bones of his face and the drowning black of his eyes when the wolf wanted out. She knew the strength and the taste of him.

She wanted a taste now. Her eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t pack a tuxedo.”

“Rented, I’m afraid.” He cast one perfectly tailored sleeve a disparaging glance.

“I’m feeling underdressed. I guess we aren’t having pizza?”

“Good guess. I hope you’ve saved whatever you were working on, in defiance of orders.”

“Nettie said I should stay in bed, not that—hey!”

He’d set her computer aside and scooped her up in his arms. “Hungry?” he asked softly, nuzzling her ear.

“Getting that way.” She traced the quick arch line of his eyebrow with her finger. He was fond of toting her around. At the moment she was inclined to let him get away with that. There were things to do in a bed that didn’t involve a laptop, things that might not strike some as restful, but she was sure she’d rest much better afterward. Her current position made it easier to argue her point. “Have I mentioned that you have the sexiest eyebrows I’ve ever seen?”

The brow in question lifted slightly. “Ah . . . you like my eyebrows?”

“They’re one of the first things I noticed about you.”

“Pickles and eyebrows,” he said obscurely, but he smiled as if whatever connection he’d made pleased him. He started for the hall. “We’re dining al fresco.”

“Outside? Rule, I’m wearing a nightgown!”

“It’s silk. One can’t be underdressed in silk, and the others have left.” He paused at the top of the stairs, aiming a smile at her. “Indulge me?”

“You’re in a funny mood,” she murmured. But why not? She was sure sick of the bedroom. “Okay. Dining al fresco in my nightgown. I can handle that. So what,” she said as he started down the stairs, “did Alex say when I left you two to your clan talk?”

“Clan secrets,” he said promptly.

“Rule—”

He chuckled. “Most of it involved the logistics of bringing as many Leidolf as possible to their clanhome as soon as possible. We’ll hold the gens subicio next week. Not all will be able to attend, but most will.”

“This gens subicio—it’s when the clan acknowledges you as Rho?”

“The other way around, actually. I hold the mantle. I must recognize them.” He cast her an apologetic glance as he started down the stairs. “I realize you hadn’t arranged to be away for so long. If necessary, we can fly back to San Diego and wait there until the clan is assembled.”

“A week won’t matter. I’ve been put on sick leave.” Lily heard the pout in her voice, but couldn’t seem to get rid of it. “No one listens to me. I’m fine. If Nettie didn’t keep putting me in sleep, I probably wouldn’t even be tired.” She didn’t stay in sleep long, but she stayed sleepy, dammit.

“I listen to Nettie, who says you don’t have to stay in bed after today, but you do need to rest and sleep much more than usual.”

Ruben listened to Nettie, too, dammit. That’s why she was on sick leave. “She also said I’m healing just fine.”

“I wonder . . . could that be because she keeps putting you in sleep and making you rest?”

Lily frowned. “I’m better at sarcasm than you are. Did Alex explain why he was okay with you being Rho?”

“After chiding me for being dense enough to believe he’d disapprove, he pointed out that a live Rho—even one who still smells halfway of Nokolai—is better than an all-but-dead Rho. Especially one who was crazy before he went into coma. He couldn’t indicate that to me before, of course. He’s an honorable man.”

Lily picked out the significant part. “Halfway?”

“Apparently I smell about half Nokolai now and half Leidolf.”

“You okay with that?”

He was silent a moment. “Historically, women were sometimes wed to their families’ enemies to foster peace. They gave up their names and their homes, yet some of them remained close to their original family. It’s possible to find a balance.”

He meant he wasn’t one hundred percent okay, but he intended to get there. How like him, she thought, to find the example he needed in women’s lives. She touched his cheek. “You don’t have a problem using a feminine role model?”

“My people have always revered the strength of women.”

“Not Leidolf.”

“I am Rho now. Leidolf will change.” He said that with a certainty verging on arrogance. “Now, if you’d get the door?”

They’d reached the glass sliders. She reached for the handle and pulled. “I want them to change, too, but I don’t want you to get yourself killed trying to . . . oh. Oh, wow.”

The little gazebo in the center of the yard had been draped with tied-back white sheers and about a thousand twinkle lights. The dusty lawn furniture was gone; instead a round table wearing floor-length white and two chairs occupied the concrete floor . . . which had been covered with a plush white rug.

There were candles. Flowers floating in a shallow white bowl. China so delicate it was almost transparent. And everything was white, a white brightened by the brilliance of blade and leaf, bush and tree surrounding the little gazebo. Even the towering clouds gleamed white at their crests before tumbling down through silver, gray, rose, and lavender.

“It’s so perfect,” she whispered. “How could you make it so perfect?”

“God helped. The background was Her idea.”

She shot him a startled look, then laughed. “Okay, so what are we celebrating? You can put me down now.”

He didn’t, crossing the lawn with her still in his arms. “We might be celebrating your managing to stay in bed for nearly the entire day.”

“Almost worth it,” she decided as he at last set her on her feet next to one of the glossy white chairs.

There was champagne chilling in a bucket. Rule reached beneath the draped table and pulled out an ordinary ice chest—but the contents were anything but ordinary. Grapes, three kinds of cheese, apple blini with sour cream—who in Halo knew how to make blini?—and cold roast duck.

Also pickles. Five kinds of pickles. Lily nearly teared up over the pickles.

“In memory of our first meal together,” he murmured. “You piled half a jar’s worth of pickles on your burger.”

“And you piled half a cow’s worth of patties on yours. Rare.” She smiled—and, dammit, she was tearing up. “Now look what you’ve done. I . . . What, there’s more?”

He’d bent to retrieve one more thing from beneath the table—a lily. Or rather a cluster of lilies on a single long stem, lilies the color of flame, with big brown freckles like sunspots on their tightly curled petals.

Lilium lancifolium. The Oriental tiger lily.

“How in the world did you find tiger lilies? I’ve tried—for Grandmother, you know—but florists never carry them. They fade too quickly.”

“It . . .” Rule stopped. Swallowed. “Toby. He went around on his bike, found someone who grew them. I . . .” Mutely he held out the bright flowers.

She took the stalk, but her attention was for Rule, not his offering. He was . . . tongue-tied? Nervous, definitely, and she’s never seen that in him.

“The ribbon,” he said, his voice tight, as if his throat were closing up on him. “The ribbon.”

Oh. She hadn’t noticed, but yes, there was a green ribbon tied in an awkward bow at the center of the stalk, half-hidden by one of the blooms. Did he want her to untie it? Puzzled, she moved the bloom aside . . .

And shoved to her feet, her heart pounding like a mad thing, her eyes wide and fixed on the orange flowers she’d dropped, such a bright orange against the white china plate. Flowers tied with a green ribbon. A ribbon threaded through a ring.

A ring with a single diamond.

“It’s not a snake,” Rule said dryly.

“It’s a ring. An engagement ring.” Now she looked at him, her voice rising. “You can’t give me that. You can’t.”

“I can. I have. The question is whether you’ll accept it.” He pushed back his chair, stood, and ran a hand over his hair. “I had this speech worked out. I thought it was good, but I can’t remember it. I can’t remember a single word. I got everything else right, but the words . . . I wanted it to be right.”

She spoke slowly, as if he might need time to absorb each word. “You can’t get married. You can’t marry, so you can’t give me an engagement ring.”

“Marry me.”

That’s when she lost words.

He’d found them again. “I’m pretty sure that was part of the speech, though I hope I worked it in more gracefully. Marry me, Lily.”

“You think I’d do that?” she demanded, suddenly fierce. “You think I’d agree to cut you off from your people, force you into something you believe is wrong, in order to please myself or to satisfy some—some bunch of whoevers who know nothing about us?”

“No. Marry me because I ask.” He rounded the table and gripped her arms just above the elbows. “Not to satisfy anyone else, though other people do matter, Lily. Your family matters. All the people who deride you for associating with me—their barbs can hurt. And they make trouble for you. You know they do.”

“No biggie. I can handle that sort—who wouldn’t stop being assholes if I wore a ring, you know.”

“They aren’t all assholes. Take Sheriff Deacon. He made your job harder because of me. He’s not a bad person—bigoted, or he was, but that’s ignorance. He’s basically an honorable man, and he couldn’t see you clearly because of me. Because he believed I treated you dishonorably.”

“So to make my life a little easier I’m supposed to ruin yours? Rule, I may not have grown up in the clans, but I know how they’d react. How your father would react.”

“I can handle it. Handle him.”

“Some of them are shunning Cullen. Did you know that? You must. He shrugs it off, but he’s used to being an outsider. You—”

“He was right. He said I was jealous, and he was right. I want this for me. You’ll have to decide if it’s right for you, but . . .” His expression hardened. “I warn you, if you say no, I won’t give up. I’ll keep asking.”

Reality had turned fizzy. Or maybe that was her blood bubbling in her veins. Her head felt light, floaty, as if she’d already downed that bottle of champagne. “That’s not exactly fair, is it? I can’t leave if you—if you keep bugging me.”

“You’ll have to deal with that.”

Oh, there was that arrogance again, but with it, beneath it, he was grim. Her heart fluttered. “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you want this? I love you. We’re bonded for life. Marriage won’t . . .” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed. “Why?”

“I want to plight you my troth.” His voice was soft now. Quiet. “It’s a lovely old word, isn’t it? Troth. It means loyalty, the pledge of fidelity. It comes from an Old English word meaning truth. You are my truth, Lily.”

This man, she thought. This was the man, the only man, her Rule, her mate, the one she loved in both his selves, wolf and human . . . Loved his mysteries, his beauty, his quirks, and his arrogance. Loved his slanted eyebrows and the way he listened and the way he gave and gave and gave. She loved him. Loved him.

And he said it again. “Marry me.”

Like suddenly starred ice, she cracked—the fissures spreading, breaking up into giggling shots of fizz—a cork-popping, fiercely bubbling, frost-and-fire effervescence that had her laughing, throwing her arms around him and laughing as she held on, held on to him as she said it: “Yes.”

[end]