At a lupus party, you always eat first. Best if none of the wolves is hungry.
Her mind slid back to what Cynna had said. “You mean all that stuff about, ah . . .” Numbers. There was something about the way a name added up, wasn’t there? Oh, yeah. “You mean that business about the number of strokes in the name matters?”
“Uh . . . you might say that some elements of the Chinese system are disputed by other practitioners. But every people in the world pays attention to names and how they’re bestowed.”
“I can see where that would make it hard to pick a name.”
“No kidding.” She heaved a sigh. “I suggested Isaac, but Isaac makes Cullen think of a little guy with glasses who shot him once. So he suggests Andrew, but then we’d call him Andy, and to me Andy is a guy with a hairy back and no sense of humor.” She shook her head. “Didn’t have much class in bed, either, so I’m thumbs down on that one. I’m leaning toward Micah. Both of us like him, so it’s got good associations. What do you think?”
“Micah’s a good name.” If you wanted to name your kid after a dragon, that is. Which might strike Cullen and Cynna as exactly right.
“Hey! Hey, Lily!”
She turned and saw a woman exactly her height but younger, with a rounder face, shorter—and trendier—hair, and an abundance of earrings.
The earrings and the hair were new. Beth was always trying new things. Lily waited while her little sister plunged through the crowd toward her with all the frisky determination of a half-grown pup.
“Hi, Cynna,” Beth said as she reached them. “Wow, you are so pregnant. You look tremendous. Makes me want to go get knocked up, but I’m not quite that shallow. When do you count the loot in that jar?”
Cynna beamed. “The baby jar comes last, after the dancing. It’s really full, isn’t it?”
“Sure is. Speaking of dancing, you don’t mind if I dance with that mouthwatering husband of yours, do you?”
“Might as well. Everyone else will. Cullen’s a fantastic dancer.” Cynna grinned. “Even when he keeps his clothes on.”
“You think he will, then?” Beth looked wistful. “I never got to see him dance at Club Hell, and Lily says he’s not working there anymore. I’d sure like to see—”
“Beth,” Lily said warningly.
“—him in a G-string. It’s a purely innocent lust,” she assured Cynna. “Coupled with a certain artistic curiosity.”
Lily spoke dryly. “Except that you aren’t an artist.”
“It’s okay,” Cynna said, but she had a funny expression on her face. She tipped her head, looking at Lily. “Is this how you feel when I flirt with Rule? Sort of smug and embarrassed, only you have no idea why you’d be embarrassed?”
“Lily probably stops at smug,” Beth said. “She doesn’t do embarrassed. How come I haven’t seen any teenage boys here? Babies, I’ve seen. Toddlers and kids of both sexes. Teenage girls, yes, but no teenage boys.”
Lily exchanged a glance with Cynna. “After lupus boys reach puberty, they live separately until the age of seventeen or eighteen.”
“Really? Wow. That’s the most sensible system I’ve ever heard of.”
Lily grinned because she knew what Beth meant, but the boys weren’t sequestered because young male adolescents are obnoxious. They lived apart so they wouldn’t eat anyone.
From the other side of the field she heard deep voices break into song. “Hey, listen! That’s that Russian song. ‘Kalinka.’”
“Yeah!” Cynna grabbed Beth’s arm. “C’mon. You have got to see this.”
“Okay, but—”
“They’re going to dance,” Cynna said. “Some of them, anyway. It’s one of their training dances, so it’s about half dance, half acrobatics. Cullen says the one tonight will be special.”
“Okay,” Beth said again, tugged into motion, “but I need to talk to Lily a minute.”
Cynna’s eyebrows shot up. “One of those kinds of talks? The kind I shouldn’t stick around for?”
“It’s about Grandmother.”
“I’m going to go watch the dancers,” Cynna said decisively. And left.
FIVE
LILY watched her friend disappear into the sea of bare backs and chests. “It’s amazing. Cynna has body-tackled a demon, but she scurries away at the mention of Grandmother.”
Beth didn’t smile. “I’m worried about her.”
“About Grandmother?” Lily sorted through a half dozen questions and settled on, “Why?”
“She didn’t come to the shower or the baby party.”
“Because Li Qin got sick.”
“If it were just that,” Beth said darkly, “I’d still be suspicious. When has Li Qin ever been sick?”
Now that Beth mentioned it, Lily couldn’t remember ever seeing her grandmother’s companion down with so much as the sniffles. But that didn’t mean anything. Even people with sturdy constitutions got sick now and then—and when they did, they often got really sick.
Should she be worried about Li Qin? Lily frowned and tugged on her sister’s arm. “Walk while you talk. I don’t want to miss the dancers.”
“You won’t miss anything,” Beth said. “Rule’s probably saving you a spot. Where is he?”
“Over by the dancers,” Lily admitted. She didn’t have to guess. She knew. That was one of the neat things about the mate bond. She always knew roughly where he was.
“About Grandmother . . . you must have noticed how Chinese she’s been lately.”
“I haven’t seen much of her since I got back from North Carolina.”
“That’s the other thing. No one’s seeing much of her.”
Lily shrugged. “We’re talking about Grandmother.”
“Yes, so strange is her normal, but she only turns über-Chinese when she’s annoyed or upset or up to something. I think she’s up to something, but if not, there’s something wrong. And the thing that proves it is Freddie.”
“Freddie?” Lily blinked. “Our cousin Freddie?”
“Of course our cousin. Who else could get him to come here? Aside from his mother, I mean, but she wouldn’t. So that leaves Grandmother. Why would she send him here instead of coming herself?”
“Ah . . . Beth, Freddie’s not here.”
“He is. I saw him not ten minutes ago. I tried to catch him, but he ducked into the crowd when he saw me coming.”
If Lily hadn’t known for a fact that there was no alcohol at the party, she’d have suspected her sister of being drunk. “Maybe you saw Paul.”
Beth’s lip curled. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
The scorn was possibly justified. Aside from the fact that they were both Chinese, Susan’s husband looked nothing like Freddie. But at least Paul was here, unlike Freddie. Lily figured he’d attended to protect Susan from attack by ravening werewolves. Or from being hit on, which would probably happen anyway, though very politely. “Beth, it couldn’t have been Freddie you saw. He wasn’t invited, and there’s no way Freddie would crash a party. Especially this one. Lupi scare him.”
“I know that. It proves Grandmother is involved. He’s more scared of her than he is of lupi.”
Lily had to grin. “It’s a good thing you didn’t decide to be a cop. You’ve got a seriously loose notion of what constitutes proof.”
“Okay, don’t believe me, but check on Grandmother anyway. She likes you best, so maybe you can find out what’s up.”