Rule spoke coldly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Fought about something,” Cullen observed. “First, you’re here without her. Second, you’re pissed. At everyone. About pretty much everything. Got mad at Max for yanking at you, and you never bother to get mad at Max. What’s the point? Third—”
“You are intensely annoying.”
Cullen managed a grin. “See? You’re pissed.”
Rule decided to ignore the subject. “I think I’ve got everyone’s requests. I’ll be back with food as soon as I can. Be wary. If this sorcerer has located Cullen—”
Max snorted. “Telling your granny how to suck eggs, boy.”
“Have grannies ever sucked eggs?” Cullen asked. “Seems like a peculiar thing for them to do.”
“I’ll go with you to help carry stuff,” Cynna offered.
“That’s not necessary. As Max said, you’re needed here to monitor the ward.”
“I’ll have to reset it once you cross it, anyway. I might as well walk you to the stairs.”
Perhaps, if he tied her up, he could escape without the conversation she was determined to have. Since he was unwilling to do that, he capitulated. “I’ll take the elevator.”
“Okay, but the cafeteria’s in the basement.”
“I believe I’ll survive riding down five floors.” Damned if he’d feed his phobia by avoiding the experience again. Doing it once was excusable. Repeating it was a step on the road to creating a habit.
Cullen spoke again as Rule reached the door. “Rule.”
He paused, looking over his shoulder at his friend.
“The bastard hit me because he knows I could see him. Maybe he knows about my shields, maybe he doesn’t—but he knows I’d see the magic he uses, see that he’s a sorcerer. Lily can see him as he is, too.”
“According to Sam, Lily should be protected from direct attack by the treaty.”
“Protected from the Chimei.”
That sank in one shudder at a time. They’d assumed—or Sam had led them to believe—that Lily wouldn’t be attacked. Sam believed the Chimei understood and respected the possible repercussions of attacking Lily directly. But would her lover?
They didn’t know. They had no damned clue, and Rule had allowed pique to keep him from standing by her. He gave Cullen a single grim nod and left to get lunch.
TWENTY-FIVE
THE quarantine rooms were set along a short hall, almost an alcove, off the main hall. Rule moved briskly to the intersection.
Cynna moved right along with him, having followed him out. “Feels like crap, doesn’t it? Fighting with someone you love, I mean.”
“I didn’t actually want to have this conversation,” he said as politely as he could.
“I know. But I wanted to tell you that me and Cullen fight all the time, but we like to argue, and mostly we argue about the small stuff. With important shit we get real careful with each other, groping around in the dark wearing our kid gloves.”
There was an image that almost made him smile. “Ah . . . we aren’t private, you know. There are patients in most of these rooms, people at the nurses’ station—”
She snorted. “The nurses’ station must be half a block away. This is one long hall. As for the other patients, even the ones whose doors are open won’t catch more than a word or two as we walk by.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Rule often had trouble figuring out what humans could hear and what they couldn’t. “Did you want mustard or mayonnaise on your hamburger?”
“Sure. Either or both. Now, our style of arguing works for us, but you and Lily have a different deal going. You don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s cool the way you two can negotiate instead of fighting. But now and then any couple is going to bump heads over something that matters.”
They’d reached the elevator. He punched the button. He wouldn’t be closed up long, he reminded himself. “This argument mattered.”
“Had a feeling it did.”
“And I was right.” That came out a bit too strongly.
Cynna snorted.
“But I was wrong, too. Wrong to bring it up at the time and in the way I did. I hadn’t realized . . .” He’d been almost as surprised as Lily at what he ended up saying. It was all true, but he hadn’t meant to say it. “I didn’t intend to dump all that on her now. My feelings were hurt. Once I started I couldn’t seem to let it go.”
“Be strange if the person who matters most in the whole world couldn’t hurt your feelings, wouldn’t it?”
“You just reminded me why I like you so much.”
Cynna grinned. “Good for me.” She stretched up—it wasn’t a big stretch for her—and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Give her a call. You’ll feel better.”
He didn’t grin back, but he already felt better. “Go ward something.”
“Will do.” She gave his butt a pat. “Don’t tell Lily I did that.”
Now he grinned.
She fluttered her fingers in a little wave and set off back down the hall. The elevator dinged.
Two people got off. He studied them as he got on, however pointless that might be. Neither was someone he expected to see, or anyone he’d seen before. Maybe that meant they were who they appeared to be. One was an older man with dark hair and skin, in khakis and a short-sleeve shirt; the other was also male and wore a navy suit with a name tag. Both smelled human. They didn’t speak to each other or make the small gestures that acknowledge a friend or acquaintance.
Just to be sure, Rule kept the elevator doors from closing until he saw which way they went—straight to the nurses’ station, where the suited man was greeted as doctor somebody and the man in khakis asked about room 421.
He let the doors close and punched the button marked B.
The elevator was slow. It creaked to a stop on the third floor, where a young candy striper got on. She was blond and perky and smelled human . . . and interested. She glanced at the buttons and gave him a flirty smile. “I’m headed down for lunch, too. Want some company?”
“That would be delightful,” he said as the doors closed again, “but I’m afraid I’m taking food back to some friends, so I won’t be eating in the cafeteria.” The elevator lurched into motion. I’m fine, he told himself.
The girl’s smile didn’t diminish. She had dimples. “Any of those friends female?”
He smiled back. He had to place a firm but gentle no in their exchange, but she was sweet and pretty and she smelled delightful. How could he not let her know he appreciated her?
“One of them is, yes. Though she is just that—a friend—my fiancée will be—”
The lights went out. The elevator jolted to a stop. A siren sounded, and the candy striper screamed.
“We’ll be all right,” Rule said soothingly, even as his heartbeat jumped into panic mode. Trapped—he was trapped—
“Th-that’s the fire alarm,” the girl said. One small hand connected with his arm and gripped it. “There’s a fire. We’ve got to get out. There’s a fire.”
She was right. Standing in the pitch blackness of the tiny box, his senses heightened by fear, Rule smelled the girl’s panic—and smoke. The smoke-scent was faint. With no electricity, the fan in their hanging prison wasn’t drawing in air.
There’s enough air, he told himself firmly. Plenty of air.
“There’s an escape hatch, isn’t there?” she said, clutching him tightly. “I can’t see. I can’t reach it. There’s supposed to be light, emergency lighting, but I can’t see anything!”
“Shh.” Rule patted the small hand clutching him and tried to ignore the wolf’s panic. The man had to be in charge now. “We’ll be okay. I need to think a moment.”