“The in-sleep thing seems to have helped. My shoulder isn’t back to normal, but it’s better.” She joined him at the closet and took out one of the black T-shirts. “No need for you to get out this early.”
“Try again,” he said dryly, fastening his slacks. “Even if I were okay with you going without me when we know you’re a target—”
“You’re coming awfully close to the allow word.”
“Yet skirting it deftly, I believe. Temecula is an hour away, if the traffic is kind.”
“About sixty miles,” she agreed.
“The mate bond might stretch that far, but this isn’t a good time to test it.”
“Oh. Right.” She tossed her shirt on the bed, following it with a pair of tan slacks and a red jacket. “Why don’t you make us some coffee? You’ll bitch if you have to drink convenience store stuff.”
“I already did.” Surely even a human nose could smell it brewing. He looked at her in sudden, sharp suspicion. “Why don’t you want me to go with you? What aren’t you telling me?”
She sighed. “I was hoping to keep you from going all alpha and protective on me, but I guess it’s a lost cause.”
“Good guess. Keep talking.”
‘The witness was out with the deceased last night. He identified Harlowe as the one she’d left the club with.“
“He knows Harlowe?”
“He made the ID from a photo they showed him.”
“Then they already had some reason to think Harlowe was involved.”
“Oh, yeah.” Her eyes were as flat as her voice. “He wrote a little note on the victim’s stomach with a felt-tip pen and signed it.”
“What did it say?”
‘“This one’s for Yu.”’
TEN
LILY was tired of being driven everywhere. It was hard to argue that she should get behind the wheel, though, even with the improvement in her shoulder. Rule was completely unimpaired. So she only grumbled a little about letting him drive.
No question he had a better ride than she did—a Mercedes convertible with buttery soft seats and a top-of-the-line sound system. She set her purse and laptop on the floorboard and put a mug of steaming coffee in the beverage holder. “Swing by the Holiday Inn on Harbor,” she said, pulling her door closed. “The district office was going to call Weaver. We’ll be picking her up.”
He made a noncommittal sound and backed out of the parking space.
She glanced at him. “I don’t have a problem with her, you know.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“If I let myself get bent out of shape every time I run across one of your old lovers, I’d spend most of my time pretzeled.”
“My reputation far exceeds the reality, you know. I haven’t been with nearly as many women as the tabloids like to claim.”
“I don’t suppose that would be physically possible.” Lily’s finger tapped on her thigh. “I’m wondering if we should tell her about the mate bond.”
“What?” He gave her a quick frown. “No.”
“I know it’s supposed to be a big secret, but we’re asking her to operate without full information. That doesn’t feel right.”
“If it were up to me, I’d trust Cynna with that knowledge. But not even the Rho can decide to reveal some of the lore about our connection to the Lady. The Chosen are part of that lore.”
“You mean no one can tell, ever?”
“Not exactly.” He was silent a moment, frowning. “There’s too much you don’t know. You need to talk with the Rhej.”
“I’m supposed to in a few days, but we need to clear this up ASAP.”
“I’ll have to go to Clanhome. She doesn’t leave it, and she doesn’t care for telephones.”
“Sounds like Grandmother.”
Lily shifted uncomfortably. Was she expected to worship the Lady now that she was clan? Not likely to happen, but she didn’t want to get into that right now. “Tell me something. Weaver said you hadn’t changed. People say that sort of thing all the time, but I guess it’s pretty much true for you. How long ago did you know her?”
“Ten years. No, more like twelve.”
“So maybe Weaver’s more of a problem for you than for me. If she starts thinking about how little you’ve changed—”
“It’s going to come out.” He accelerated smoothly onto Harbor Drive. “Sooner or later, it will come out. Once enough of us stopped passing for human, it became inevitable that our longevity would be noticed. That’s one reason some lupi objected to going public.”
“How did it get settled that you would go public? Not by voting, I’m guessing.”
He gave her one of those hard-to-read glances. “No, we didn’t vote. The Rhos discussed, argued, formed alliances, and sometimes fought, but there was no consensus. Eventually my father decided to force the issue.”
She considered what she knew of Isen Turner. “He had a hand in the Borden decision?”
“That, too, but I was referring to Carr v. Texas!‘
Lily’s eyebrows rose. Since its founding, the U.S. government had mostly ignored “the lupi problem,” leaving things up to the states to handle however they thought best. Until recently, the states had thought in terms of imprisonment, execution both formal and informal, even castration.
Carr v. the State of Texas had changed all that. The Supreme Court ruling had made lupi citizens when while in human form. Congress had promptly declared lycanthropy a public health hazard, ushering in more than a decade of forced registration and treatment. Now that, too, had been declared unconstitutional. Lupi’s four-footed status remained murky, but there was a bill pending about that. “Was Carr Nokolai?”
“You underestimate Isen.” His smile was tight. “William Carr was Etorri, one of our oldest and most revered clans. They have virtually no power. They’re too tiny. But they have great du. Honor,” he added, glancing at her. “Reputation, face, magic, history—du encompasses all that. Every lupus on the planet owes them, and will until the end of days.”
That sounded like quite a story, but it would have to wait. “And… ?”
“Carr wasn’t just Etorri. He was Rho. At that time, virtually any other lupus who did what he did would have been killed by those opposed to mainstreaming. Not the Etorri Rho.”
“And this was somehow Isen’s doing?”
“Yes.”
That was all he offered, a flat “yes,” no explanation. Lily’s finger tapped faster. “The Carr decision took place, what—twelve years ago? More like fifteen,” she corrected herself. “A few years before you and Weaver were cozy. You would have been thirty-six or so.”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Were you already your father’s heir?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m trying to get things fixed in my mind, that’s all.”
His fingers flexed once on the steering wheel. “I was an adult fifteen years ago. You weren’t. That continues to bother you.”
“And that pisses you off.”
“I am not pissed.” He turned sharply into the drive that circled in front of the Holiday Inn.
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Do you see Weaver? She’s supposed to wait down front for us.”
“You’re always telling me what I am. I’m pissed, I’m promiscuous—”
“I never said that!”
“It lies behind your comments like the seven-eighths of an iceberg that’s submerged.”
“I haven’t called you promiscuous,” she insisted.