He raised his head to look at her, his eyes bleary with pain. Barely aware.
Benedict moved to Rule's other side, and the red wolf posted himself in. Lily shifted, getting Rule's arm over her shoulder as Benedict did the same. They got him to his feet.
He swayed, shook his head. "Lily."
"Here. I'm right here."
"You got to get out of here," the Rhej told them, her voice hoarse. "All of you. The ones that ain't back yet—you don't smell right to them. The ones that're coming back, they'll be thinking Challenge soon, as much as they think at all."
One of the biggest wolves tipped his muzzle toward her, ears forward. His coloring reminded Lily of Rule's wolf form—black, barely tipped with silver.
"That's right." The Rhej addressed the wolf as if it had spoken. "If they start in on the Challenges, he's dead." A jerk of her head indicated Rule. "And so is Leidolf, 'cause if they kill the heir the mantle will snap back into Victor. I'm barely holding life in him now—that mantle rebounds on him, he's dead. I need you two-footed, Alex. I need your voice with mine, and so do they. Try. You're Lu Nuncio now. For the Lady's sake and Leidolf's, try."
The wolf whined unhappily and closed his eyes. Reality pleated itself, but slowly. For the first time Lily could almost follow the Change as it happened… almost, for some of it was simply other, too far outside what the senses could report or her mind absorb.
Fur folded into skin, legs kinked, lengthened; there blinked into not-there, into somewhere, into… a man, a big man, almost Benedict's size, naked, his dark skin gleaming with sweat in the cold air, his face tight with pain. "Shit," he said. "Shit."
"Buck up." That was his sister, unsympathetic. "Talk to them."
He straightened. After a moment he spoke, projecting his voice strongly. "Listen. I am Lu Nuncio, and you will listen. Does Leidolf kill those with guest rights? Do we remember the price of dishonor? Listen. Listen, and remember. In the days when Eiriu fought with Trath, when gnomes dwelled beneath the Earth and elves still walked its forests…"
A story. He was telling them a story, one from their oral history, one of the legends they'd been raised on. And it seemed to work. He had their attention.
"Girl," the Rhej said quietly, "bring your man here. Ah can't let go of Victor, but Rule Turner's bad muddled. No one's built to hold two mantles, an' he had damned near all of Leidolf's shoved in on top of the Nokolai heir's portion."
Lily exchanged glances with Benedict, and they did as she asked.
Rule had forgotten how to walk. He tilted to one side, then the other. He thrust one leg forward twice instead of alternating, realized that was wrong and stopped, rearing back so fast he nearly dragged Lily down. Benedict righted him.
The Rhej lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the cold ground, keeping her grip on Victor's hand. The Rho was a sight to frighten small children… hell, big, tough federal agents, too. Mottled skin sagged off his bones like congealed wax, skin mottled like a toad's by the cancers that had sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.
So fast. How could the tumors have grown so fast? "Can you help Rule?" she asked the Rhej, fear roughening her voice. "If you're keeping Victor alive, how much can you spare for Rule?"
A grin, unexpected and fierce, flashed across the dark face tilted up to them. "Damn near anything, right now. Ah've got more power to draw on than any Rhej since the dawn times." She looked at Rule. "Two-mantled," she said softly, making the term sound like a title. "Will you let me help you?"
Rule stirred as if trying to take more of his own weight, but sagged again. "Could use… help, serra."
"Ah need his hand." She reached up with hers.
Carefully Lily unwound Rule's arm from her shoulder, trusting Benedict to keep him upright. Rule managed to stretch out his hand himself. The woman took it in hers, frowned. "You've got some funny stuff in you."
Rule didn't seem able to answer, so Lily did. "Demon poison. He was wounded by one, and it got into him." Her voice wasn't steady. With all that had happened, she'd actually forgotten the demon poison.
"Don't think Ah can help with that. But with the other…" She closed her eyes, and began to hum… "Rock of Ages," Lily realized, the incongruity of hearing the old gospel hymn in this setting almost shocking her into a giggle.
Or maybe that was hysteria trying to blossom. She squelched it.
Alex was still speaking, telling a tale of some ancient Rho and his enemy… and a few feet away, reality did its splinter dance once more. Where there had been a red wolf, a naked Cullen stood bent over, hands on his knees, gasping.
Alex glanced that way. Without losing his storyteller's cadence, he said, "Eric. Reese. Can Nokolai do what Leidolf cannot? Change now. I need you two-legged. Now, Trath agreed to speak of truce with Eiriu," he went on, "and both would guest with Leidolf. But Trath had taken…"
Cullen moved more slowly than usual, bending to retrieve something from one of the piles of clothing. Not his slacks, however. A necklace. Sunlight glittered on the diamond he rehung around his neck.
Off to her left, two wolves fractured into pieces of otherness and began re-forming.
Rule straightened. His breathing evened, slowed. He turned his head, met her eyes… and he was back. Exhausted, his hair sweat-soaked, but back. He smiled at her, then at the Rhej. "Serra," he said, and did a very Rule thing. He raised the Rhej's hand and bent to place a kiss on it. "I thank you."
"Thank me later," she said tartly. "Get moving now."
"… agreed that Eiriu's power must be broken," Alex said, "for it had turned rancid with bloodlust. Reese, Eric, go with them. Get my keys from my pants. They'll take my Suburban; their own car is too far away. Now, Leidolf didn't want to break the bonds of…"
And so Lily was escorted through a field of wolves by five men, every one of them except her lover as bare as the day he was born. She now knew exactly what Rule's brother looked like naked. Clothes didn't do Benedict justice.
A few wolves growled as they passed, but none opposed them. She kept the rifle ready. Rule walked on his own, but his exhaustion was obvious—not that any of Leidolf were going to notice, because they wouldn't look at him. Their escorts kept track of her and Benedict and Cullen without once glancing at Rule. The wolves they passed through scented them—noses lifted, nostrils twitching—but none looked directly at Rule.
They could deal with the purely Nokolai Benedict, she supposed, or her own female self, but the one who was both Nokolai and their heir must have made them uneasy. Though maybe uneasy wasn't the right word.
Still, they made it to the road and across it, to a green Suburban parked in front of Victor's house. One of their escorts— Reese or Eric, she had no idea which was which—held out a set of keys. She reached for them, but Benedict was faster.
"Don't you think the one who hasn't Changed twice should drive?"
"No."
If he was still fast enough to beat her to the keys, he was probably up to driving. He was also still naked. "Maybe…" She glanced at the house, thinking of the AK-47 upstairs, but also about pants.
"No," Benedict said again. "We don't retrieve our things. We leave now."
She didn't argue.
Lily climbed in back with Rule. He held her hand and leaned his head back as they took off, the tires spitting dirt. "You're okay," she told him softly, but it was also a question.
He got that, turning his head to smile at her wearily. "Mostly. Things are still… a bit jumbled inside. What the Rhej did got the circuits uncrossed, so the new mantle's settling in, but it… makes words difficult right now."
She squeezed his hand, telling him words weren't needed.
Benedict was driving too fast for anyone but a lupus over the rough road. She approved, lowering the window so she could fire out if necessary. Lord knew there was plenty of cover if someone wanted to stage a last-minute ambush, and the way the road wound around, a party of wolves cutting straight through might be able to cut them off. She rested the rifle's barrel on the open window. "I'm going to come back and arrest Brady once he and the others are two-legged again."