Was he grieving? Did he miss her—the other Lily? The one who both was and wasn't gone?
The singers' voices pounded through her, the song that claimed there was no loss. That death, as the Buddhists held, was an illusion. Lily wished she could turn loose and go where the music wanted her to, but this wasn't her kind of music.
It was Rule's, though.
He'd told her his people were fond of music, but that was like saying Texans are fond of football, or cats of tuna fish. She'd learned that most lupi played at least one instrument, and all of them sang. Perfect pitch was more the norm than the exception.
That's why she was here, why she'd bought the tickets. She hadn't seen Rule this intent outside of bed…
… not since we sat on the rocky beach, listening to the dragons sing.
She blinked. Elation, grief, the pinch of envy—all twisted through her as the memory wisp faded. She could never hold on to them, those whispers from another self. Like dandelion fluff, they drifted across her mind sometimes, teasing her with the not-quite-lost.
Almost, she could summon the sound of dragons singing to the coming night. Almost.
She jolted.
Magic shivered and sparked across every inch of exposed skin—a rush of raw power, as if a door had opened and let an invisible wind blow through. Her heartbeat jumped and her breath sucked in, and magic prickled down her throat with her indrawn breath—and that had never happened before.
Then it was gone, a magic dust devil that had blown on past. She turned to tell Rule.
His eyes were black. All the way black, not just dark, with no white showing. Beast-swallowed. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his hands gripped the arms of the chair so tightly it was a wonder he hadn't squeezed them in two.
"Are you okay?" she whispered urgently.
He looked at her with those blind, black eyes. "Give me a minute," he managed through gritted teeth.
Someone screamed. For a second she thought it was because of Rule, but a second scream came on top of the first, and from the stage.
She looked—and caught the last few seconds of the Change.
Probably no one else in the audience knew what they were seeing. It was impossible to describe, a shifting slit in reality where forms seemed to slide elsewhere and back like a Mobius strip on speed.
But Lily had seen it before. She knew what was happening. They were about to have a werewolf onstage. If she was guessing right, a confused and frightened werewolf. Not a good mix with a lot of confused and frightened humans.
Lupus, she reminded herself as she stood and sidestepped past the people seated along her row. Not werewolf. Nowadays you had to call them lupi in the plural, lupus in the singular. "Police," she snapped at a beefy man who'd stood and was trying to see what was happening. "Sit."
He did. She emerged into the aisle. There was pandemonium onstage: singers tripping over each other trying to get away, musicians deserting. The conductor hadn't budged. He was yelling at them, though not in English.
She glanced back quickly at Rule. He hadn't moved. The Change was riding him too hard, she guessed—if he let his concentration slip, he'd lose the battle. Then they'd have two wolves scaring people.
She didn't have her weapon. A shoulder holster didn't make the right fashion statement for a night at the Kennedy Center, so she'd left it in the car, dammit.
This probably wasn't a problem a gun could solve, anyway.
She jogged up the aisle to the stage. Others in the audience were standing now. It wouldn't be long before confusion built into panic and they mobbed the exits.
"Police!" She shouted it this time. "Everyone sit down, stay calm. You are not in danger." At least there wasn't an orchestra pit. She heaved herself up onto the stage—an ungraceful procedure in a short skirt, but it couldn't be helped.
The choir had been perched on risers behind the orchestra. Most of those risers were empty now, though a few people were still scrambling off. A woman lay sprawled on the floor at the end of the highest tier, moaning.
But the area around the wolf had cleared. He stood at the bottom of the risers—a big beast, but smaller than Rule was in wolf form. Reddish fur. Hackles raised. Teeth bared.
The conductor was yelling at him.
"Idiot," she muttered under her breath, stomping up to seize him by the shoulder. "Shut up."
He turned, eyebrows flying up, his mouth pursing in a startled O.
"You're yelling at a wolf. He doesn't like it." Though there was a man inside the fur and snarls, the wolf seemed to be in charge right now.
"But he's ruined the performance! Ruined everything!"
"Not his fault. What's his name?"
"What? His name? Why?"
"Just tell me his name."
"Paul. Paul Chernowich."
"Okay. You've got people panicking, one injured." She gestured at the woman on the floor. "Get her some medical help. You." She turned to a lone woman who stood staring, slack-jawed, at the wolf, apparently too stunned to flee. She was young, dark-haired, at least half Asian. Her violin dangled from one hand, her bow from the other. "Play something."
The woman turned to her. "Wh-what?"
"Play something. Anything. It'll calm people down." Including the wolf, she hoped. "Lupi don't hurt women," she added. "You're safe."
The woman glanced at the wolf, out at the crowd, and back at Lily, comprehension leaking into her eyes. The corners of her mouth turned up. "A solo," she murmured. "Why not?" She stepped up to the front of the stage, tucked her violin under her chin, poised the bow for a dramatic moment—and began to play.
The sweet strains of a Bach violin sonata drifted out.
Lily faced the wolf. He was looking around, hackles still raised but no longer growling. Good. She wondered why he hadn't just run off. Wouldn't that be the natural thing to do? "Paul." She spoke firmly, not loudly. He'd hear. "You're upset. You don't know what happened, right?"
He glanced at her, then away, scanning the area.
What was he looking for? Whoever did this to him, maybe. "I don't know what forced the Change on you, but there's no immediate threat." She took one slow step closer. Where was Rule? Was he still fighting the Change? "We haven't met, but I bet you've heard of me. I'm Lily Yu, Rule's Chosen. Rule Turner of Nokolai."
He looked right at her and growled.
"Okay, maybe you're not Nokolai. But you wouldn't hurt a Chosen." She said that firmly, though the sight of all those teeth, not to mention the lowered head and raised hackles, had her heartbeat racing. She lifted the little charm hanging around her neck. "You know what this is. Your Lady—"
A shot rang out. She spun, her hand automatically going to the place where her gun wasn't.
A uniformed cop stood in the aisle, feet spread, weapon aimed.
The wolf raced past Lily almost too fast to see—straight for the idiot with the gun.
Rule landed on top of him.
Lily didn't know where he'd come from. He seemed to drop out of the air. And he was two-legged, dammit, in no shape to play tackle with a couple hundred pounds of wolf! The man-wolf tangle rolled, ending at the very edge of the stage with Rule on the bottom. The wolf's jaws opened as it lunged at Rule's throat—
Which Rule obligingly offered by tilting his head back. Someone screamed.
Maybe it was her this time.
The wolf froze. His teeth were on Rule's throat, but he wasn't moving. After a terrible pause, he removed his mouth. He sniffed Rule's chin and down his chest, and then looked at his face. She could have sworn he looked suspicious.
"Ni culpa, ne defensia," Rule said.
Slowly the wolf backed off, allowing Rule to stand.