“No. There’s something he won’t say over the phone.”
Paranoid of him, but Cullen combined normal lupus secrecy with a sorcerer’s suspicion that everyone really was out to get him—or at least to steal his spells. “Maybe he’ll be able to consult on my case while he’s here.”
“If you pay him, he probably will.” He wound a strand of her hair around one finger.
“He’s an approved consult.” Rule kept touching her. That was his way, but those constant, light touches were replacing comfort with other feelings.
“You want to talk about the case?”
She met his eyes . . . and her heart ached at what she saw in his face.
He’d lied. It was his father’s fault, she thought, in so many ways . . . but his own doing, too. Rule had learned early to project confidence, the kind of unworried air people—human or otherwise—crave in a leader. He could make his body lie for him, make it speak of control or power or ease, whatever was needed. And he’d needed to hide how much he still feared for his son. Maybe Cullen’s words had helped, but they hadn’t erased the fear.
But why hide it from her? No, she realized. No, he hadn’t hidden it from her. He’d imposed ease on his body for his own reasons, not to keep her out. He’d left his eyes unshuttered, hadn’t he? Let her see his need, the place that words couldn’t touch.
Other things could, maybe. She’d try.
Lily touched his cheek gently. I see you. I will be careful with the places that hurt. “I don’t think so.”
“No?” He drifted a thumb across the line of her jaw.
“No. We’re not in the driveway now, are we?”
He glanced around, eyebrows tilting in feigned surprise. “I believe you’re right. We’re on a couch, indoors . . .” He switched his attention to her mouth, and all he did was look at it . . . intently. Her lips tingled as if he’d touched them. “But hardly private. And you’ve had little sleep.”
“True.” She sighed, picked up the remote, and turned off the TV, dropping them into darkness. “And you’ve had even less. None, I think, which is a shame, because you’re going to have to pay up anyway.”
“Pay up?” Amusement warmed his voice. There was warmth, too, in the hand that clasped her waist.
“You’re charged with inciting a cop, buddy, and the penalty’s pretty steep.” She moved deliberately to straddle his lap, placing her hands on his shoulders and bringing her mouth close to his. Close enough that he would feel her breath on his lips. “How do you plead?”
The lips she wasn’t quite kissing curved up. Both of his hands now gripped her waist. “I get a chance to plead my case, do I?”
“Oh, yes.” She skimmed her mouth over his. “Though I recommend we go straight to the plea bargain. Judge’s chambers. Upstairs.”
His hands slid lower to cup her ass. Rule had a thing for her ass. “Will the court entertain an insanity plea?”
“Mmm.” She undulated gently against him—breasts, belly, groin. “You saying I make you crazy?”
“Guilty.” His hands smoothed their way up—ass, back, shoulders, head. Which he pulled down, toward his.
She resisted briefly, smiling. “I’m pretty sure there were onions in that chicken and rice.”
“I love onions.” His tongue licked at her smile, asking. She answered by parting her lips and he dived in, his mouth suddenly hungry. His hands went back to her butt. And he stood up.
She made an undignified noise that in someone else she would have called a squeak, quickly hooking her legs around him. Not that she needed to worry. He supported her easily.
Rule leaned his forehead against hers. “Upstairs, I think. Quickly.”
Oh, yeah. Lily agreed with her mouth, but in a way that didn’t use words. Judging by the growl low in his throat, he appreciated her communication skills.
He started up the stairs, dimly illuminated by a night-light at the landing and one in the hall at the top. She stopped what she was doing to say, somewhat breathlessly, “I can walk.”
“It’s more fun if I carry you.” His fingers did interesting things to demonstrate what he meant.
“We’re not alone. Not alone enough. Mrs. Asteglio might wake up.”
“I’d hear her before she . . . Lily, I won’t notice a brass band following us up the stairs if you keep doing that.”
She grinned, bringing her hand back up to his shoulder, and snuggled her nose into the curve of his throat, where she could breathe him in. “Maybe you should put me down, then. I’m not sure I can restrain myself.”
Reluctantly he did. Not, she knew, because he was the least self-conscious about sexual play in public, but from courtesy. To a lupus, it was rude to indulge in front of someone who lacked a sexual partner. And Mrs. Asteglio really could wake up.
So they held hands for the last few steps, and they paused together at the door to Toby’s room, left ajar. Lily had learned during Toby’s visits to always leave his bedroom door cracked—and never to mention it. Like his father, Toby hated small, enclosed spaces. Like his father, he insisted they didn’t bother him at all.
Rule pushed Toby’s door wide open.
Lily glanced at him, puzzled.
In three quick steps Rule was at the twin bed, where a huddled form seemed to lie beneath the covers. One fling of the covers, and even in the darkness Lily could see that the huddled form was a pair of pillows.
After a moment’s stretched silence, he moved to the window. It was open. She joined him, looking out at the slatted beams that covered the porch. It would be an easy exit for an athletic boy.
Rule sighed. “I’ll go outside to Change. Too much of his smell here for me to track him in this form.”
“I’ll get my shoulder holster. Just in case.”
FOR the fourth time in twenty-four hours—the third since the sun rose—Rule prepared to Change into wolf. He stood in the backyard with the dirt under his bare feet and the moon’s lopsided grin over his shoulder. Lily waited, holding the clothes he’d removed.
It took more time than usual, long moments spent spinning through pain. When he finished, he let his head hang, catching his breath, already dreading the Change back to human. He was tired. He’d slept roughly one of those twenty-four hours, curled around his son in the late afternoon. A son who, at the moment, he’d very much like to nip.
Sorting out Toby’s most recent trail wouldn’t be easy, not with his scent everywhere. Rule trotted to the gate first . . . and paused, surprised.
Toby had marked the grass beside the gate—marked it as if he were wolf already, with a few drops of urine.
Alarm spiked. Until that moment, Rule had been annoyed, not worried. Boys will sneak out. Lupus boys in particular feel a need to taste the night, and at Clanhome that wasn’t a problem. They were taught always to mark their trails in case they got in trouble. But why would Toby practice this in the midst of the human world?
Obviously he meant for Rule to follow. As to the why . . . Rule thought he knew, but had to be sure Toby hadn’t been coerced somehow. He checked the grass again, sniffing up along the gate for the touch of hands other than Toby’s.
Toby’s trail was fresh, no more than a couple of hours old, and Rule didn’t find any other traces as recent. He paused and, as he had in the woods something over twenty hours ago, he shifted something in his focus, bringing the mantles into the mix of sensory impressions.
Scents immediately sharpened. And no, Toby hadn’t been afraid when he passed this way. So Toby wanted his father to find him; he wasn’t afraid, yet he hadn’t told Rule. Either he’d been sure Rule would forbid whatever action he’d taken, or he’d given his word not to tell.
Rule was betting on the latter. He lifted onto his rear legs, nosed the latch, and dropped back onto four feet as the gate swung open onto an unpaved alley. He picked up Toby’s scent immediately and started west. Lily followed silently, carrying his clothes.