“It’s a risk. But without the heirs’ circle, we aren’t going to get an All-Clan. We need the All-Clan. We’ll hope Friar’s failure has him sufficiently off-balance to give us the edge.”
“Hmm.” The failure Rule referred to was the first potion, the one Arjenie had undone. Friar had no way of knowing what had gone wrong, so he ought to be rethinking his plans. Whatever they were. “I wonder if … what is it?”
He’d turned his head to look at the door. So, she noticed, had Harry. A second later, someone knocked on it. “Lily?” Arjenie said softly. “Your light’s on, so I was hoping … I know it’s late and if you’re hurting I’ll just go away, but if not, I’d really like to talk.”
Lily nodded at Rule, who slid off the bed. “Pants,” she hissed at him, then said more loudly, “Just a minute.”
“Lily insists I cover certain bits,” Rule told the door as he stepped into the trousers he’d tossed on the floor earlier. “There.” He zipped them and opened the door on a pale, tense Arjenie. “I’ll go raid the refrigerator, I think.”
Arjenie pinked up. “I didn’t mean to … no, actually, I did. Thank you. I would appreciate a chance to talk to Lily privately.”
“Of course. I’m told you don’t care to be touched without permission. This is awkward for me, as I’m accustomed to touching those I care about.”
“I don’t like to be grabbed without permission. Touching’s okay. You don’t really know me, though.”
He smiled suddenly. “You are the closest thing to a sister I’ll have in this life. I’m learning you. What I know so far is very easy to care about.” He bent and kissed her cheek, then eased out the door without quite touching her.
Arjenie watched him for a moment, her eyes large and her cheeks pink. She looked at Lily. “Is he always like that?”
“Pretty much.” Lily had scooted up to the head of the bed so she could prop herself up. Harry gave her a dirty look. She hadn’t asked his permission to move. She patted the bed. “Have a seat.”
Arjenie closed the door and came closer, then hesitated. “Are you uncomfortable? I am. I want to ask you about—about deeply personal matters, but I don’t know you all that well. We’ve talked a lot, but it was always about facts.”
“We can start with facts. I’m comfortable with facts myself. Sit,” Lily said again.
Arjenie flashed a wry smile and perched on the edge of the bed, her shoulders held stiffly as if she were sitting to attention. “Is this your cat? He’s a big one.” She held out her hand.
“Ah, I wouldn’t—”
But Harry decided to accept Arjenie’s tribute with nary a growl or scratch. He allowed her to rub his head as she spoke. “I’m not sure where to start. I have a list of questions all made up in my head, but I don’t know where to start.”
“Benedict told you about the mate bond.”
She nodded. “He said you and Rule have one. He said you love each other, too, which is what I thought, watching you, only then I didn’t know what was this bond and what was just … well, love.”
“I had a hard time figuring that out at first. What it comes down to, I think, is that the mate bond affects the physical stuff. The bond is … hmm. Have you ever lusted after someone you didn’t much like? Or didn’t know well enough to say if you liked him or not?”
“Yes!” Arjenie’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “So the mate bond is great at lust, but it didn’t make you fall in love?”
“You might say it got my attention.” In spades. Lily had to smile. “But I managed the falling in love part on my own.”
“Okay. Okay, that helps. Um … the other thing I was wondering is …” Her voice drifted off. She paid a great deal of attention to stroking Dirty Harry. “Benedict said the bond won’t let us be separated very much. What happens if we’re too far apart?”
“You get dizzy. If you don’t close the distance, you’ll pass out. He didn’t tell you?”
“He would have, but I freaked.” She grimaced. “He wanted me to stay and talk, but I had to get out, get my head straight. I had to think things through. I was trying so hard not to believe him, you see. My sense of reality was messed up. I had to find some objective points to consider.”
“What kind of objective points?”
“Like when he said the bond made us know where each other was. I told him that wasn’t true for me, but when I thought about it, I realized I did have a fuzzy idea of where he was. Not exactly, but I felt as if I could find him if I needed to. Right now, he’s …” She closed her eyes and waved a hand in the general direction of the great room. “That way.”
“How far away is he?”
Arjenie’s eyes popped open. “I don’t know. Am I supposed to know?”
“Right now, I know that Rule is roughly twenty yards that way.” She pointed the same direction Arjenie had. “That puts him out back on the deck, I think.”
Arjenie shook her head. “I can’t tell that much.”
“You haven’t had sex with Benedict yet.”
“Well … no.”
“The first time you have sex, it cements the bond. You’ll know where the other one is a lot more clearly than you do now. And for a few days you’ll have to stay very close to each other. For me and Rule it was forty-seven feet.” She had, of course, measured. “That was just the first couple days. The bond relaxes with time, but at first you have to stay very close.”
Arjenie’s eyes widened. “You mean that the bond isn’t cemented yet?”
“No. No, I used the wrong word. The mate bond’s permanent from the get-go. Sex strengthens it, but if you were somehow stubborn and strong-willed enough to avoid getting naked with Benedict for the next thirty years, you’d still be bound to him. Also insane from frustration.”
A smile flickered over Arjenie’s mouth. “I can’t imagine going thirty years without … never mind. The most important thing I needed to ask is how to remove the bond.”
“You can’t.”
“There must be a way. Something, maybe, that’s painful? Or dangerous? Or even forbidden?”
Lily shook her head. “The only thing that ends the bond is death. I know this for a fact, Arjenie. If there were some way to remove it, I’d have tried it back when the bond was new.” Her smile was wry. “And messed up my life big-time, but I didn’t know that then. When the bond first hit, I did not think it was a good thing.”
Arjenie grimaced. “Neither did Benedict.”
“Would you expect him to, after losing Claire like … oh, shit,” she said when she saw the look on Arjenie’s face. She’d just blown it on Benedict’s behalf a second time. “He didn’t tell you about Claire.”
“No.” Arjenie leaned forward. “But you will, won’t you?”
THIRTY-THREE
THE night air was cool and silky. Stars spattered the darkness overhead as if some celestial dog had gone swimming in them, then shaken himself dry. The upper deck was still warm from the day’s heat. It felt good beneath Benedict’s bare feet.
His brother had joined him out here for a while. He and Rule hadn’t talked beyond exchanging basic information: Arjenie was talking with Lily. Yes, Benedict had followed her when she went for a walk to get her head straight. It was his duty to keep track of her. She’d walked slowly along the road for about a mile, then sat in the grass of the meeting field. She’d sat there for about half an hour, then returned. She hadn’t limped. She hadn’t seemed overwhelmed by emotion. She’d seemed to be doing just what she’d said she needed to do. Thinking.