“Seabourne’s for real, though what he can do is limited.”
She tipped her head to one side. “Sorcery’s still illegal, last I heard.”
He snorted. “And I know how that troubles your conscience.”
“It’s important to be flexible. Is this guy working for us?”
“Hey, sorcery’s illegal. He can’t work for us.” Karon-ski grinned. “Call him a friend of a friend. Turner and Yu wouldn’t have stopped Helen without him.”
“It was the China doll who offed her, though, right?”
“Yep. And if you call her that to her face, I want to be there.” Karonski set his empty mug on the floor, pulled a mint from his pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. “So where do you know Turner from?”
“Oh, me and Rule go way back. All the way back to before you arrested me.” She grinned. “I was just a big bite of mean back then, all attitude and no sense.”
“And you’re different now in what way?”
“Smart-ass.” She shook her head. “Lord, but seeing him does bring back memories. I used to hang out at a place called Mole’s in Chicago. Wonder if it’s still around?”
“You met Turner there?”
She nodded. “We hooked up for a while.” Now, there was a nice, low-key way to refer to someone who changed your life. “What’s this deal about him being unavailable, anyway?”
“None of your business.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense. Lupi don’t do the faithful bit.”
“Rule is. Leave it alone.”
He hadn’t been when she knew him. He’d made that clear up front, and she’d accepted it. In that respect he hadn’t seemed much different from the other men she knew, just more honest… but she hadn’t exactly hung with a stellar crowd back then.
That was thirteen years ago. Jesus. Hard to believe in some ways… and in others, it seemed like a couple lifetimes ago. He would have changed since she’d known him, but this one was a real one-eighty. Sexually open relationships were a moral must for lupi. Something to do with their religion, she thought.
How had the China doll gotten him to change his mind about something that really mattered to him? Not by playing the fragile femme. She might look the part to someone who wasn’t paying attention, but Rule paid attention. That was one of—
“Looks like they’re about finished,” Karonski said, picking up his satchel. “It’ll take me a while to get set up. You want to check it out your way while I set my wards?”
“Sure.” She straightened and followed him.
Karonski was Wiccan, and Wiccan spells were considered the gold standard. In certain carefully circumscribed situations, what he learned was admissible as evidence in court. But his methods did take a while. According to the authorities, Cynna’s spells were unreliable because the accuracy depended on the skill of the caster.
But she was one hell of a Finder. One hell of a lot faster than Karonski’s methods, too. Cynna had her head cleared and her energy focused on the serpent maze on her left arm by the time they reached the door to the rest-room. While Karonski got rid of the local representatives of officialdom, she started the spell moving through the maze.
Finding was her Gift. She didn’t need spells for that. But to be any good as a Finder, she had to able to sort, to find the patterns of things and people. That’s what most of the spells inscribed on her body were for—sorting the energy she detected so she could Find its source.
When Karonski gave her a nod, she stepped inside the restroom, turned, and held her hand over the bolt. Energy zipped from her hand to the bolt and bounced back, altered, to slither along the paths of her skin and burn a new design on her upper right thigh.
She dropped her hand, staring at the bolt. “Holy shit.”
LILY sat on the examination table with her head pounding and her eyes closed. Her “room” was a curtained alcove that offered all the sketchy privacy of a hospital gown—an indignity she’d been spared so far, though it might have been more flattering than her bridesmaid’s dress. Nearby a baby was crying the thin, monotonous wail of exhaustion. The air stank of disinfectant and less obvious odors.
Down the hall a woman was cursing some man. On the other side of the curtain a monitor beeped relentlessly. Lily turned her head. “What does it smell like in here to you?”
“Pain-Rule sat on the table with her. She’d temporarily abandoned her ”don’t lean“ policy and was glad of the support of his arm and body.
Funny. The way she was snuggled up against him left her good arm pretty much useless, but that didn’t make her uneasy. Was mat the effect of the mate bond, making her feel safe whether she was or not? Or was she just too tired and sore to care? “And yet you insisted on bringing me here.”
She felt his smile in the way his cheek moved against her hair. “Pushed you around while you were temporarily weakened.”
“Damn right, you did.” There were a few good things about his height, she decided. It put his shoulder at just the right level for her to rest her aching head.
Lily felt guilty over how much she appreciated her parents’ absence. Her mother’s hovering and need to take charge would have driven her crazy. She’d persuaded them that the trip to the ER was a formality, necessary for insurance purposes. Grandmother, as expected, had left by the time Rule hustled Lily off to the ER, but she wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. Grandmother didn’t do hospitals.
“Watch it,” Lily said. “We aren’t exactly private here.”
Rule’s hand had slid up her rib cage, and his thumb was stroking slowly along the underside of her breast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I told you once before: you don’t do innocent well.” But there was no heat in her voice. Pleasure rose in drowsy waves, stirred by the movement of his thumb, by his simple nearness. Her eyelids drooped. “How can I feel like this when my head hurts?”
He bent and ran his tongue slowly around the curve of her ear. “I don’t know. How are you feeling?”
“Distracted.”
“Good.”
The woman down the hall was yelling about a suitcase now. Someone had stolen it, and they’d better give it back right now.
Lily sighed and straightened. “I hope Nettie gets here soon.”
Nettie was Dr. Two Horses, a trained shaman as well as a Harvard-educated physician. She was connected to Rule’s clan in some way. Nettie wasn’t a lupus herself, of course, because lupi were always male. But their children came in both sexes.
“You’re worrying me,” Rule said.
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t once complained about my calling her. After all the grief you gave me over my interfering ways with the ambulance crew, I’d expected at least a minor hissy fit.”
“I don’t like hospitals. I do like Nettie. I guess there are some perks to being involved with a prince. Nettie would be one.”
Rule grimaced. He wasn’t fond of the press’s habit of calling him “the Nokolai prince.” He was heir or Lu Nuncio for his clan, but the position didn’t really equate with the human version of royalty. “Nettie isn’t treating you because of me. She’d have come for any clan member.”
“Oh. Right.” Lily sometimes forgot that she was clan now. So far, that particular change hadn’t had much effect on her life, though the adoption ceremony had been moving. “You know what’s weird?”
“All sorts of things lately. From your point of view, that would include me, the mate bond—”
She nudged him with her good shoulder. “Not you. I’m talking about the fact that I’m still alive.”
His arm tightened around her. “Weird isn’t the word I’d use.”