FOUR
THE mountains east of San Diego were almost always hotter than the city. Their higher elevation didn’t make up for losing the cooling power of the ocean. But the sun was down now, and in the small valley that held the village at the heart of Nokolai Clanhome, the temperature had dropped to a balmy seventy-eight.
The moon wasn’t yet up, but Lily kept track of that sort of thing these days. She knew it would rise half full just after midnight. The clan’s meeting field was alive with song, laughter, and people—far more people than actually lived there—and Lily was relieved bordering on smug.
The baby shower had gone off without a hitch. And the baby party was going splendidly.
Lily threaded her way through the crowded meeting ground. Most of the shower guests—the human guests—had left. The number of adult lupi actually living at Clanhome varied, but was usually around fifty. Most of the rest of the party guests lived fairly close to Clanhome, but she didn’t know all of them.
They all knew who she was, though—a bit disconcerting, that, but she smiled and nodded when strangers greeted her.
There were also dogs and kids. Lots of kids. Both raced through the crowd in shoals like minnows swimming a living current. Toby was undoubtedly part of one of those shoals, though she hadn’t seen him since he finished bolting his food and jumped up with the announcement that he and “the guys” were going to play tag.
Lupus tag was a complex game involving teams, age-adjusted rules, multiple targets, and elements of hide-and-seek. And running. Lots of running.
So far, becoming a parent to Rule’s son was almost too easy. The only hard part was prying the boy loose from the rest of the clan. Lupi adored babies and children of all ages, and they saw no reason Toby shouldn’t spend all his time at Clanhome.
One person wasn’t at the party anymore. The Rhej, the party’s third host, had eaten with Lily, Rule, Isen, and Toby, given Cullen his gift, then headed back to her house partway up the slope that bordered the west side of the little valley.
She liked people fine, she’d said. Just not so many all at once.
Most of the adults were male, and most of them weren’t wearing much. Among adults, male clan outnumbered female about three to one, and lupi possessed no body modesty whatsoever. Every man in Lily’s sight was bare-chested, bare-footed, and barely covered between the navel and the knees. Cutoffs were the most popular choice.
Lily enjoyed the view. What woman wouldn’t? Even the chests with grizzled gray hair were worth a second glance. There was no such thing as a fat, sloppy, out-of-shape lupi. Everyone knew that. Just like everyone knew that the lupus ability to turn furry was inherited, not contagious. And that they were always male. And that they didn’t marry. Ever.
Lily rubbed her thumb over the ring she’d slipped onto her finger for the party. Everyone could be wrong, it seemed. Including her. She’d never planned for this because she’d known it couldn’t happen, yet here she was, engaged to marry a man who should never have contemplated asking her.
Some of their guests were still eating at the picnic tables set up around the perimeter of the field. Others ate standing up. Lily had been among the first to eat, and that bothered her. In her world, hosts didn’t eat until all their guests were served. In the lupi world, hosts ate first—or almost first, since the Rhej, the Rho, and the Lu Nuncio ate ahead of everyone. Rule said this was because the meal was the hosts’ “kill.” To a wolf, providing food for the clan was good. Letting everyone enjoy your kill ahead of you was absurd.
Weird as it was, Lily understood him. Understanding hadn’t made her comfortable with filling her plate first, so she’d skipped dessert. That’s what she was going after now.
Underfoot, the grass was soft and giving. The meeting field was the one place the clan kept thoroughly watered, even during a drought—which was every summer in southern California. With no major wildfires near, the sky was spangled darkness, with about a zillion more stars than you ever saw in the city. Despite the lack of moonlight, there was plenty of illumination. Poles bearing lanterns added the glow of candle-light to the scattering of mage lights overhead.
The party was easy on the ears, too. Amid the chatter and laughter, music sprouted like mushrooms after a rain—a cluster of singers in one spot, someone tuning up a fiddle elsewhere. And wasn’t that a flute off in the distance?
The smoky scent of barbeque hung in the air. When she reached the tables where the food was set out she saw that there was still some chicken and sausage left, but no ribs or brisket.
She breathed a sigh of relief and made a beeline for the desserts. Two brownies weren’t excessive, she decided, considering how hard she’d worked.
A hand landed on her shoulder as she selected the second one. “Give me chocolate,” a woman demanded.
Lily smiled over her shoulder at a tall woman with cropped blond hair. “How much?”
“Heaps of chocolate. Huge heaps.” Cynna thrust an empty plate at her. “I can’t drink, so chocolate has to do the trick.”
Lily piled three brownies on Cynna’s plate. “What’s up?”
“Did you know I’m supposed to make the baby’s food myself?”
At nearly seven months pregnant, Cynna could have stood in for a fertility goddess—if that goddess doubled as an Amazon and liked to cover her skin in arcane symbols. She had the sculpted arms and shoulders of a warrior accustomed to drawing a bow. No lopping off of a breast for this Amazon, though. Cynna’s breasts were large and expanding along with her vanished waist, as was easy to see in the stretchy red top she wore with loose linen trousers.
“From the look of things, you could feed half a dozen babies,” Lily said.
Cynna waved an impatient hand. “I’m not talking about milk. That will be easy—my body just does it.” She crammed half a brownie into her mouth, closing her eyes as she chewed. “Ah. That helps. I mean the actual baby food.”
“Oh, I see.” Lily nodded. “You’ve been talking to my sister.”
Lily had invited some of her own family to the baby shower so there would be more guests present; most of the gifts had been mailed in. Her mother had made some excuse, which Lily had expected; Grandmother had intended to come, but her companion, Li Qin, had gotten sick, so she wasn’t here. But both Lily’s sisters had come. To Lily’s amazement, Cynna seemed to have hit it off with Susan.
“Well, she’s a doctor, isn’t she?” Cynna said. “She knows about this stuff. Only I can barely cook for me! Eggs. I can scramble eggs now. And make macaroni and cheese that isn’t from the box, and Cullen’s chili is great, and so’s his pot roast, but a baby can’t eat chili or pot roast, can it? I thought I’d have months and months to get up to speed on the cooking thing, but—”
“Susan is a dermatologist, not a pediatrician. She’s also perfect. No one can live up to Susan’s standards, not even Susan.” Hard as it had been to grow up with a perfect big sister, Lily had finally realized it was even harder being the perfect big sister.
Cynna snorted. “Pot and kettle, Lily.”
“Oh, come on. I’m nowhere near as bad as she is.”
“Are you kidding? You wore a white dress to a barbeque, and—”
“Cream. It’s cream, not white.”
“—and didn’t get a spot on it. You hang up your clothes by color and type. I’ve seen your closet,” she added darkly. “You line up your jackets according to the spectrum—red to orange to yellow to—”
“That’s anal, not perfect, and besides, I don’t have any orange jackets. Orange makes me look sick. The point is, you’ve got to stop taking everything Susan says as gospel.”