“You wanted evidence. Proof.”
“What’s wrong with that? If we’re talking about stuff as important as the meaning of life, shouldn’t we want to something concrete to hang our theories on?”
“Nothing wrong living in a fact-based reality. But science, as good as it is with how, isn’t equipped to deal with why.”
As far as she could tell, no one was much good at dealing with the why, but that didn’t stop them from thinking they’d locked truth up all nice and tidy. Lily frowned and took another bite, hoping he’d take the hint and drop the subject.
Rule laid his hand over hers. “I’m trying to understand you, not convert you.”
Okay. She said that with a little nod because her mouth was full. He wanted to know where she stood, faith-wise, because that sort of thing mattered to him.
It must matter to her, too, or it wouldn’t make her so uncomfortable.
That thought was disconcerting enough that she finished her slice in silence.
Rule seemed all right with that, not pushing for conversation while they ate. That was one of the great things about him, she thought. She wasn’t entertainment for him. He didn’t need her to make him laugh or bolster his ego or to figure him out so he wouldn’t have to. A lot of men who said they were looking for a relationship really wanted a combination sex buddy, therapist, and mirror.
Maybe he’d looked for those things, too, when he was younger.
A little bump of discomfort poked her, like being elbowed in the side when there was no one around. She didn’t like thinking about his age. Tough, she told herself. She might as well get over it. He wasn’t going to grow younger.
One of the things bugging her, she realized, was that there was just plain more of him that she knew nothing about. About twenty years’ worth. Maybe she should ask Cynna what he’d been like twelve years ago, when they were an item.
“What?” he said, wiping his hands on a paper towel.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were looking at me with big questions in your eyes.”
She had a suspicion Rule wouldn’t like her and Cynna comparing notes. “It’s nice, being able to sit together without feeling that I need to jump your bones.”
He grinned. “I’m crushed. But perhaps what you’re feeling mostly is exhaustion. You had a rough day yesterday, and not enough sleep.”
“I’m okay.” For another couple of hours, anyway. “And you know what I mean. The mate bond has eased off, hasn’t it? We can be farther apart now. A lot farther.” There’d been a time when she couldn’t let as much as a block separate them. “It feels good to be near you, but it’s more of a half-a-beer buzz, not the whole six-pack.”
“Did you chug six-packs in college? Somehow I can’t picture it.”
“I got drunk once. I didn’t like it.” Why people courted that complete loss of control she couldn’t fathom. “What about you?”
“It’s difficult for a lupus to get drunk. Our bodies regard alcohol as a toxin and clear it from our systems too quickly for us to become intoxicated.”
“That could be handy… unless you really want to be drunk.”
His grin flashed, quick and bright as a lightning stroke. “I did, yes, at that age. I wanted to see what it was like. I was as stupid as most boys, thinking ourselves adult once we pass a legal age marker.”
She had a hard time picturing Rule in college. Had he gone out for sports? Been studious or wild? Had he had friends? Human friends, she supposed she meant. People not in the clans. “Does your father have pictures from when you were young? A kid or a teenager, I mean. I’d like to see them.”
He tilted his head, surprised. “Henry has several albums. I’m sure he’d share them with you, if you asked.”
Henry? Who… oh. “Your father’s houseman or cook or whatever. He keeps the family pictures?”
“Henry has been part of my family for many years. He helped raised me.”
Rule hadn’t sprung from his father’s seed alone, but she couldn’t remember him ever referring to a second parent. That gaping absence warned her to go lightly. “You never mention your mother.”
“You might say that I’ve had many mothers. Our people make much of children.”
Okay, he wanted that door shut. She’d go along for now. This wasn’t the best time for such personal stuff, anyway. “I guess Nettie was one of those motherly…” Her voice drifted off as realization struck. “Or not. She, uh, must be your age, or close to it. You probably played together.”
“Ah… the gray hair is misleading. Nettie’s only forty-four.” He hesitated. “She’s my niece.”
“Your… niece?”
He nodded. “She was raised with her mother’s people but came to Clanhome to stay with Benedict most summers.”
Nettie looked older than Rule. She looked older than her own father. What did it do to families when half of them—the female half—aged so much faster than the others? “How old is Benedict?”
“Sixty-four.”
God. He did look older than Rule, but she’d have guessed him at about forty. Yet he had another eighty or more years ahead of him, while his daughter… “Damn,” she said softly. “He’ll watch her get old. And she’ll never see him as an old man.”
“It isn’t easy for one of us to have a daughter when he’s young.”
A sudden thought struck her. “Is that why you don’t marry—why lupi don’t believe in marriage? You couldn’t keep your secret from a wife. She’d age and you wouldn’t, at least not as much. And she’d die. That would be hard.”
Rule’s face was all mask, no expression. “That’s part of it.”
“I’ll get old and die before you will.” There, she’d said it. Her heart beat unsteadily.
“Possibly.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “If you live to twice the human lifespan, that’s a hundred and fifty or more. I might get eighty-five or ninety years, if I stay healthy. So when I’m eighty and creaky, you’ll be a lively one-oh-six.”
“Sometimes a Chosen ages more like one of us. Not always. We don’t know why.”
He didn’t know if he’d lose her while he still had years and years left. Not knowing… that could be as hard to handle as despair. She touched his hand.
He gripped hers suddenly, as if he knew her thoughts. As if he’d keep her young by force of will. After a moment his grip eased. He gave his head a little shake and released her hand. “I’ve enough to worry about in the present without tackling what-ifs that are years away. Most immediately, I’m afraid I’ve some clan business to take care of tonight.”
“Okay. What’s up?”
“The Rho has decided to call for an All-Clan.” He began brushing the crumbs from the pizza into his palm and then dumped them in the box. “I’m needed to make some of the contacts.”
“What’s an All-Clan? Some kind of gathering of the clans?”
“Yes. It’s held roughly every seven years. The last one was only two years ago, so we aren’t due for one yet. But there are mechanisms for calling an All-Clan in an emergency. The Rho believes we’re facing just that.”
“Because of Her, you mean. The goddess. She has it in for lupi.”
“That’s right. We’ve already passed the word about Her, of course, but it’s easy to disbelieve such a tale.”
“So what does your father hope to accomplish? Does he think you’ll be able to convince more of your people there’s a real threat?”
“I never try to guess what Isen intends,” Rule said dryly. “But one of his goals is certainly to persuade the doubters that the threat is real. That She is active in our realm again.”
Lily frowned, tapping one finger against the table. Rule had said once that the lupi had been created to fight this goddess. Whether that was true or not, he believed it. So, apparently, did most lupi—even Cullen, who wasn’t one to take much on faith. “What will it mean if the other clans believe you? What will they do?”