Rule dozed most of the way to Clanhome. This tendency to nap at the drop of a hat was annoying, but normal at this stage of healing. He made it inside his father’s house on his own two legs, however.
Two legs, not four. That ought to feel a lot more normal than it did.
But it pleased him that Lily had chosen to stay with his father. It was another step toward moving in with him permanently. He still wanted that, though not with the urgency he’d felt before. The fear behind that urgency was gone.
One Lily had risked everything to come after him. The other had died for him. How could he doubt her now?
He let her tuck him up in bed, then patted it. “Sit.”
“I should—”
“Probably sleep. You haven’t been doing enough of that, I think.” When she didn’t answer he said gently, “Bad dreams?”
She nodded and, slowly, sat beside him. “Some. I almost lost you. I did lose you, but she didn’t. And then she did.”
“She?”
“She, I…” She managed a wry smile. “The demons have a point. Souls are confusing.”
“It’s not easy, being two-natured. It will take time to accustom yourself to it.”
“Two-natured?” She was startled.
“It’s something like that for you, isn’t it? My wolf…” He touched his chest. “It’s me, yet it isn’t. Just as when I was the wolf, the man both was and wasn’t me. The body matters.”
“Yes! Yes, it does. We’re one soul, but the memories aren’t… it doesn’t come out even. She—that part of me—doesn’t get to have a turn at a body when the moon’s full, like your wolf does. Only sometimes she peeks out of my eyes. On the way to the hospital I saw a bicycle and my eyes filled. I was so amazed by that bicycle, and by the memory of my old Schwinn. Then…” She shrugged. “It was gone. I had tears on my face, and I didn’t know why.”
“The memory game,” he murmured. “I’ll tell you about it, if you like.”
She was silent a moment, looking down at her fingers picking nervously at the comforter she’d tucked around him. “Now I’m doubly jealous. Of you, for knowing her. Of her, for having you when I didn’t. And if you think that sounds nuts”—she gave a short laugh—“I won’t argue.”
“Jealousy isn’t rational. I was jealous of Gan.”
“Yes, I…” Slowly the tension in her face softened into a smile. “I know. I remember.” She rubbed her chest as if easing the memory physically into place. “I wish I understood. Even Sam didn’t know the other me had a body. How could that happen?”
Rule thought he knew: the Lady. Somehow she’d preserved Lily’s sundered self in two bodies—one with the toltoi, the other without.
Toward the end of his time in hell, Rule had been mostly instinct. The Lady had reached him through those instincts, prodding him, sending him again and again into those underground passages. When the time came, he’d been ready to lead them to the place the Lady needed them to be.
But not so she cold bring Rule back to Earth, as the others believed. It was Lily that Lady had needed rescued, Lily she had some purpose for. He was sure of that, sure in the same way he’d known he had to keep searching out those dark passages.
He was equally sure Lily wouldn’t want to hear that. “Would you do something for me?”
“Yes.”
Just that. Just yes. “Lie with me awhile. I’m not proposing to disturb Nettie’s handiwork,” he added quickly, seeing refusal on her face. “I just… I want to hold you. For so long I couldn’t.”
“Oh…” she said, her eyes closing. “Oh, I’ve wanted that.”
And a few moments later, with her curled into him, her hair tickling his jaw, her body reminding him of pleasures he couldn’t seek yet, and her scent filling him, he did the other thing he’d wanted so much to do while he was wolf. “I love you.”
She went still. After a moment she said quietly, “I love you, too. And I…” She put her palm on his chest and a smile bloomed on her face. “I am so glad about. So very glad.”
[end]