“Rats” was the strongest expletive Lily had ever heard from the older woman. This time it came in response to the trill of a phone. At least Lily supposed that’s what it was—it sounded like an electronic bird.
“Don’t answer it,” Rule said.
Mrs. Asteglio’s lips tightened to near invisibility as she turned away to delve into her purse, which sat in its usual place beside the couch. “Oh, I’ll answer. That’s my daughter’s ring tone, and she has some explaining to do.”
Lily wanted to grab the phone and ask her own questions, but throttled back that unhelpful impulse. She turned to Toby. “So you want to go talk to the reporters.”
“Lily.” Rule’s voice was as slick and hard as ice. “Don’t meddle.”
Her head jerked back. Where the hell did that come from? “You’d better take a deep breath and shove that attitude back down.”
The hardness dropped away, leaving his face oddly blank. “You’re right. You’re right. I don’t know . . .” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Hell, I’ve got to do better.”
She didn’t know what he meant. Better at sharing the parenting of his son? He’d been doing that all along, though with Toby’s grandmother, not with Lily. But this wasn’t the time to ask.
It was the time for another question. She looked at Toby. “Toby, why do you want to talk to the reporters? If you do it because you’re mad at your mom and want to get back at her, that’s likely to backfire.”
“That’s not it! Well, not . . .” He hit that word and stumbled, picking up again more slowly. “Not much of it, anyway. I am mad. Why’d she have to tell her reporter friends and not even let us know she told them?”
“I don’t know.”
He gave a little shrug, denying that it mattered when it obviously did. “Well, anyway, even before you called, I was telling Dad I ought to talk to the reporters, too. Or trying to tell him.” He shot Rule a look chock-full of early-onset preteen resentment. “People don’t think about us lupi being kids because the clans’ kids have always been hidden away to keep us safe. Maybe that’s how things used to have to be, but everything’s changing now. And—and I don’t want them making stuff up about me. I want to tell them the truth so they can’t do that.”
The twin slashes of Rule’s eyebrows drew down. “Unfortunately, telling the truth doesn’t stop others from making stuff up and reporters from repeating it. It’s my responsibility to represent us to the press, not yours. And I think that’s enough discussion of the subject.”
Toby tilted his head back to stare up at his father. “Are you being my dad or my Lu Nuncio? ’Cause it feels like you’re pushing at me to agree, and that’s . . .” He stopped, darting a glance at his grandmother.
Rule looked taken aback. “Either role requires your obedience.”
“Rule.” Lily put a hand on his arm. “Talk to me a minute, okay? In the other room.”
His eyes met hers, and an echo of the first time their gazes locked rippled through her—the click, the falling, the sensation of utter change when the mate bond had dropped into place. She blinked, and once more they were just eyes. Beautiful and familiar eyes the color of bitter chocolate, filled now with a mix of exasperation and rue.
“If you wish,” he said, “but let’s make it quick.”
She hoped it would be quick. She had multiple murders to investigate and was fresh out of suspects—unless you counted Cullen’s hypothetical out-realm being.
Here there be dragons, indeed. Problem was, dragons had turned out to be real.
Rule headed for the kitchen. Lily followed, trying to sort impressions and puzzlement into sense, into words. Something was eating at Rule. Of course, he had the whole alpha, prince-of-his-people thing going, which made him a tad autocratic at times. But now . . . what, exactly, was bothering her about his reaction?
He went straight to the coffeepot. “Want a cup?”
“Did you make it?” At his nod she said, “Sure. I didn’t get any of the good stuff earlier.”
He poured for her first and handed her the mug. “I take it you disagree with my decision.”
“I don’t understand it.” She brought the mug up to her face and breathed in the aroma, her eyes closing briefly. When she opened them and sipped, she saw a familiar expression on his face. “Hey. Not now.”
“Can I help it if watching you enjoy coffee turns me on?” His smile turned wry as he brought his own mug up to sip and leaned back against the counter. “I apologize for my comment earlier. It was uncalled for, but . . . I thought we were agreed about protecting Toby from the press. Your question to him took me by surprise, and I responded poorly.”
That was it. That’s what was bothering her. Rule never objected to questions. He didn’t always answer them, but he didn’t object to them. “We were agreed, but that was before the press found out about him. It was also before we knew Toby wanted a chance to tell his side of things. The situation’s changed, but your decision hasn’t. Why not?”
“Dammit, Lily, I’m not using my son for PR! He’s too young. Someday he’ll have to . . . but that’s years away. I’ll not have him used.”
“Yet he wants to do this,” she said mildly. “Is it using him if it’s his idea?”
“Is it his idea?” Rule’s expression darkened. “My father wanted this all along. He wanted Toby in front of the cameras, talking about how much he wants to live with me. Great publicity for us, paves the way for other lupi who want the courts to recognize their rights. I’ll bet he’s been talking to Toby. I should have seen that. He put this idea in Toby’s head.”
Ah, now she understood. “Grandmother says that parents are always trying to raise themselves all over again, repair the things their own parents did wrong.” Grandmother said it in Chinese, and more eloquently. But that’s what she meant.
“Your grandmother is a remarkable woman.” Rule was polite. He was always polite with Grandmother, whether she was present or not. “But does that have anything to do with the subject?”
“Maybe you’re doing what you wish someone could have done for you when you were small. But Toby isn’t you.”
Rule’s gaze shifted away. He sipped his coffee, hooded eyes holding his thoughts in. After a long silence he sighed. “What do you suggest?”
“If Mrs. Asteglio is willing, why don’t we all go out together? You make a brief statement and control the flow of questions, pick what Toby responds to.”
“I dislike it when I’m wrong.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
He put his mug down and just stood there, looking at it as if the pretty yellow flowers circling the rim carried an important message. “Why do you think Toby wants to do this so badly? Altruism aside,” he added dryly. “My son is certainly capable of that, but I don’t think it’s his only motive.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“More common sense. Yes, but he may prefer privacy for the discussion. Ask him to come in here, please.”
LILY saw with disturbing clarity at times, Rule thought as he sipped his coffee and waited. He had good reasons for wanting to shield his son, but on a deep and foolish level she was right. He’d been trying to shield the boy he once was, as well.
Not that he had been thrust in front of the press at Toby’s age. Lupi were still very much in hiding then, passing as human. But his father’s goal had been clear years before anyone believed it would be possible for a lupus to live openly as what he was. From an early age, Rule had known he would someday be the public face for his people. If the Supreme Court hadn’t ruled that lupi in human form were “entitled to and compelled by all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship,” Isen would still have had Rule proclaim himself publicly.