“What is it?”
“Nothing.” The prickle had been from what Cullen called sorcéri—wispy threads of raw magic that drifted around until absorbed. They were cast by the ocean, nodes, and thunder-storms, and they were attracted to dragons. She’d checked to see if Sam was overhead—he often trailed sorcéri—but the sky was as blankly blue as a crashed computer.
But Sam often preferred to go unseen. Cullen insisted the dragon habit of winking out wasn’t true invisibility; he said they just went out-of-phase the way demons could. Whatever that meant. “You’ll send me a copy of your report, right?” She glanced at her watch. “Shit. Rule, we need to go.”
The shower didn’t start till seven, but it was being held at Clanhome, which lay twenty minutes outside the city. And she had a lot to do beforehand, because the shower was only part of the festivities.
Rule had been at Clanhome all day getting ready for the other half of the party. He’d come back into the city to pick her up, which was necessary because both her personal car and her government-issue vehicle were in the shop, dammit. Her six-year-old Toyota needed transmission work. The government’s Ford was still in Eagle’s Nest, which had a small body shop.
Turned out that bears do not like the way lupi smell. A four hundred-pound black bear can do an amazing amount of damage when he uses the roof of a car for a trampoline.
Lily was already checking messages on her iPhone as she slid into Rule’s Mercedes. It hadn’t seemed like a bad idea, combining the shower with a traditional lupus baby party.
Ignorance, she reflected, was bliss. Reality was a pain in the butt.
No urgent messages, so she tapped in some quick notes on the accident as they pulled away from the scene. She was getting pretty good at thumbing it. Not as fast as a preteen, but good enough to get the basics entered. “How are the ribs doing?” she asked Rule without looking up. “It didn’t hurt them for us to be delayed, did it?”
“They’re still in the pit. Isen is going to start the chicken for me, with a little help from Toby. He’s looking forward to tonight.”
“Good.” She looked up. “Good about Toby, I mean, and about your father taking a hand in the cooking. Having the Rho in on the barbeque has to up the status thing, right?”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m having trouble remembering why I explained the political implications of the baby party.”
“Because I gave you no choice.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. To answer your question, no, Isen is known to be my father, so the fact that he helped grill the chicken has no special value. Fathers often help sons.”
The desert dryness of his voice irritated her. “How am I supposed to know what does and doesn’t affect status if I don’t ask?” She put away her phone. “So you think you guessed right about the amount of brisket needed? And ribs. It’s not too late to pick up some at Jonny’s. They make good ribs.”
“Mine are better, and we’ll have enough.”
“Party favors,” she said suddenly, twisting around to look in the backseat, where a large, wrapped present rode beside a couple of packed totes. “I don’t see them. Rule—”
“They’re in the trunk, where you put them yesterday so you wouldn’t forget.”
“Right. That’s right. I’d better check with Beth. She’s bringing the cake.” She punched in her sister’s number. “I didn’t have time to get the receipt to her, so I want to make sure they don’t charge her a second time. It’s such a pain not having my car. I . . . damn. Her line’s busy.” She switched to text.
“Lily, relax. It’s a party. You’re supposed to enjoy yourself.”
“Hosts don’t enjoy the party. Hosts give the party.”
He laughed almost silently.
She sent the text to Beth and slid him a dirty look. “You’re not laughing with me. I can tell because I’m not laughing.”
He reached over and cupped her nape, rubbing gently. “That business about the hosts not enjoying the party—that has to be something your mother would say.”
Shit. He was right. “All right. I’m supposed to enjoy myself, so I will. After it starts. I get to worry until then.”
“Why do I think you just jotted ‘enjoy myself’ on a mental to-do list?”
“Because I’m too sneaky to write it on an actual list where you can see.” Speaking of lists . . . She dived into her purse again and pulled out a little spiral, flipped it open, and looked at her Shower/Party list. “I feel better now.”
“Good.” He squeezed her shoulder and dropped his hand. “I want you to quit worrying about the political aspects. Those are for me to deal with.”
“Yeah, that’s going to happen.” She contemplated her list. According to it, everything was done except the setting up, and she had a list for that. She flipped to it. “You know, I worry about forgetting the cake server or leaving the guest book someplace, but I gather information on the political shit and status and all that. I don’t understand it, and I need to.” She looked at him. “You don’t get to shut me out here.”
He reached for her hand. She gave it to him. He continued silent a moment, then said, “I don’t mean to shut you out. It’s reflex.”
“I know. You’re working to get over that, right?”
He smiled. “Right.”
His touch, the contact, soothed her. It always did. That was a matter of magic, the mate bond, which enhanced both the need for physical connection and the benefit of it. His people believed the bond was a gift from their Lady, a belief reflected in their title for Lily: Chosen. Chosen by the Lady, they meant, for neither she nor Rule had done the choosing. Not at the start, anyway.
But the comfort of his touch also rose from an older, more universal magic. Most people, Lily thought, feel better when they hold hands with someone they love.
Some of her worries, she admitted, were her own fault. Cynna was a good friend, and she was pregnant, so naturally Lily had offered to give her a baby shower. No one had forced her to combine the shower with the baby party Rule and the Nokolai Rhej were giving the baby’s father—Cullen Seabourne, sorcerer, former lone wolf, and the first married lupus on the planet. But it had seemed like a good idea. There were still gaps in Lily’s knowledge of Nokolai and lupus ways in general, but she’d been to a couple of baby parties in the nine months since she met Rule. They hadn’t seemed like a big deal.
Turned out this one was different. Way different.
Most of the people Cynna knew who could be hit up for a baby gift were part of the FBI unit she and Lily worked for. They didn’t live nearby, so the number of shower guests had been small and easy to plan for.
Not so with the baby party. Take the ribs she’d asked Rule about. Getting the amount of food right wasn’t just a matter of feeding whoever showed up. It had implications. You were supposed to have leftovers, Rule said, so your guests wouldn’t feel they were straining your resources. But not too much. If too much food went uneaten, it looked bad, as if you might take offense because not enough people showed up. Or as if you thought you were more important than you really were—and that would be taken as weakness. The clan’s Lu Nuncio could not appear weak.
The ribs were the big test. They were the most popular, so they’d go fast. The goal, Rule said, was to run out of ribs and maybe brisket, but have some chicken and sausage and sides left by the time everyone had filled their plates.
The problem was, lupi didn’t believe in RSVPs. They didn’t believe in invitations, either, at least not for baby parties. No, the entire clan just assumed they were welcome, and the only way to get an approximate head count was to subtract those who sent a gift ahead of time and take a wild guess about the rest.