The Rhej and Cullen were in the living room, banished ever so politely because Rule needed to talk to her. So far, he wasn’t saying much. Lily walked up to him, set her mug on the counter, and slid her arms around his waist. “I know you’d rather that the mantles were invulnerable, but I’d just as soon believe the Rhej is right.”
His mug joined hers on the counter. He put his arms around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I want coffee to work. To help. I want that so badly I don’t dare believe it.” He paused. His breath was warm on her hair. “I asked Sam to remove the mantle from you.”
She jerked her head up. “You what? You did what? Sam couldn’t . . . could he?”
“He can’t. Or won’t. I’m not sure which. He called me a fool and said it was as well that he wasn’t one, also. I asked if he could help you in some other way. That’s when he said he doesn’t tamper in the plans of Old Ones. Lily.” He ran both hands into her hair. “I understand better now why it’s so hard for you to consider joining the Shadow Unit.”
His eyes were dark and focused intensely on her. She rested a hand on his chest. His heart beat steady and slow. “Okay. Why?”
“You don’t know who you are if you aren’t first a cop. I knew that, but I didn’t . . .” He sifted her hair with his fingers as if he might find words there. “I didn’t understand in my gut. Now I do. I learned that I’m not . . . I’m no longer the Lady’s first. I still serve her, but she’s not first. If I must choose between you and her—”
“Don’t. Don’t try to choose.”
He placed his hand over hers. “Too late. I already have.”
EIGHTEEN
LILY bent over the young man sitting in one of the kitchen chairs and breathed into his mouth.
Nothing. Stupid damn mantle. She sighed and straightened. “That was awkward.”
“Hey, I enjoyed it.” Chad Emerson of Szøs had light brown hair, baby blue eyes, and a brash grin he knew very well was charming. “Maybe we should try a kiss.”
“It wouldn’t help, and it would annoy me.”
“That’s not the usual reaction.”
She could believe that. Chad looked a bit like Harrison Ford circa Han Solo. “Let me rephrase that. It would annoy me if you kept flirting with me.”
“That’s also not the usual—”
“Chad,” Rule said, “did Andor tell you why we asked you to fly here sooner than we’d originally planned?”
“He said something had come up. He didn’t say what.”
“The mantle is affecting Lily’s health. It’s become urgent that we find a lupus who can carry it.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” He drooped like a scolded puppy. “I didn’t mean . . . to tell the truth, I don’t really want to leave Szøs. Nothing against Wythe, but I’ve been Szøs all my life. I’m not sure about becoming a Rho, either. It’s a huge responsibility, and being Rho to a clan other than mine . . . I know it would become mine, but it isn’t now. I’m not sure I’m up to it. But, well, I gave permission before like you said I should, but maybe my doubts kept me from meaning it all the way.” He leaned forward. “I’d mean it now. Maybe we should start over with the permission part.”
Lily glanced at Rule. He shrugged—why not?—so they tried again. Chad agreed very sincerely to accept the mantle, should the Lady be willing to bestow it on him.
The results didn’t change. The mantle never twitched.
Chad was troubled. Lily was tired—drinking umpteen cups of coffee did not make for a restful night’s sleep. Rule was impassive. He thanked the young man and took out his phone to call a cab. Between Cullen and the Rhej, they were out of bedrooms, so Rule had booked Chad into a hotel. Lily thanked Chad, too, and Rule walked him to the door. She could hear Rule assuring him he could linger in D.C. a day or two on Nokolai’s dime, if he wished.
Lily refilled her coffee, then stood quietly, frowning at her mug.
Chad was young and cocky. More to the point, he was a dominant. Lily was still working out exactly what that term meant to lupi, but the dominant package definitely included a take-charge attitude. Chad was also bright enough to realize that there was a huge dose of sacrifice that came with the status and power of being Rho, and honest enough to be unsure he was ready for the responsibility. He was also generous enough to “mean it all the way” once he knew Lily was being harmed by her stewardship of Wythe’s mantle.
If he wasn’t good enough for the mantle, who would be?
She sipped her coffee and moved to look out the back window. It was early still. Last night’s rain hadn’t cleared out the cloud cover; whatever nudges the sun might be making toward rising hadn’t yet penetrated the gloom. She couldn’t see whoever had guard duty . . . but then, she seldom did.
Overhead, the pipes rattled as someone turned on the shower. The Leidolf Rhej was up. Lily knew it must be her because Cullen had woken a couple hours ago. He’d picked Chad up at the airport, fed him breakfast someplace, then dropped him off here before leaving on some mysterious errand.
Maybe something to do with the dagger? He’d been awfully quiet about what he’d seen after inspecting it with Sherry last night. Lily shook her head, trying to shake her thoughts back on track.
The thing was, Lily had never met Chad before today. He didn’t know her, but he’d been ready to upend his life to help her. Maybe that was, in part, a sense of fairness, of responsibility; the mantle belonged with a lupus, not an all-too-human Chosen. It also arose from the lupi’s deep-seated need to protect women . . . and, she thought, from his personal need to do the right thing.
She understood that need. Rule said he understood now why joining the Shadow Unit would be hard for her. He was right, but there was more to it.
If she wasn’t a cop first, how would she know the right thing to do? What metric would she use? When you were up against such powerful forces, when the stakes were so ungodly high, it could seem downright immoral to choose ethics over expediency. “Whatever works” becomes the default if you don’t have clear and compelling reasons to handle things otherwise.
Lily was pretty sure that was the answer the Great Bitch had come up with a couple eons ago: whatever works.
Yet that hadn’t really worked for the Great Bitch, had it? She’d been defeated once, forced to withdraw from this realm and lick her wounds. Whatever she’d been doing for the last three thousand years, she’d had to do it because “whatever works” hadn’t worked.
Did the lupi’s Lady understand that “whatever works” was a failed metric?
The front door closed. Lily didn’t hear Rule heading back to the kitchen, but she felt him moving her way. She turned away from the window. They had to hope the Lady understood, or they were all screwed—Lily in an immediate way, but everyone else, too. If the Old One on their side was as “anything goes” as the one they opposed, they were in deep shit.
“We haven’t exhausted the possibilities,” Rule said as he entered the kitchen. “I called my father while Chad and I waited for the cab. He’ll be urging the other Rhos to step up the pace in their search.”
She nodded. They were doing all they could. They had to hope it would be enough . . . and in the meantime, she’d be drinking a lot of coffee. And the Wythe Rhej, presumably, would continue to keep the mantle turned down to “low.” “I haven’t had a pain bolt since yesterday afternoon.”
“True.” His smile looked effortless. It would be easy to think he was as unworried as he looked. Wrong, but easy.
It was a gift, that smile. He wanted her not to worry, to be confident, so he suppressed everything he was feeling to project that confidence. Lily knew what he was doing, and still it helped. “I love you.”