“I wanted Scott to stay and guard Cullen. He refused.”
The heart of his world was angry. But not, he thought, about Scott, who would have obeyed almost any order Lily gave, save that one. As she knew very well. “There are a lot of police at the restaurant, I believe. Perhaps they’d object if someone tried to shoot Cullen.”
“You’ve suddenly decided that cops are adequate protection?”
“Better than nothing until the squad I sent there arrives.”
“And you didn’t tell me you’d sent a squad? You could have—no. Cancel that.” She drew a sharp breath as they moved into the revolving cage that gave access to the hospital and didn’t speak again until they emerged into the lobby. Then she said, “Could you please do something appalling so I’ll have someone to yell at?”
“Okay.” He stopped, took her arms in his hands, yanked her to him, and kissed her.
FOUR
SHARP pain stabbed down on his instep. A second blow took him in the ribs. Rule dodged the next blow and stepped back, pleased.
Unlike Lily. “Don’t look so damn smug! I don’t want to brawl in the middle of . . . no, I guess I do want to, but it isn’t a good idea.” She shoved her hair back from her face, looked around—a couple of people were staring—and sighed. “Is it catching? That desire all of you have to pummel someone to help you smooth out?”
As far as Rule could tell, the desire to pummel someone when you were upset wasn’t a lupus thing. Humans did it all the time. Unlike lupi, though, they could cause lasting damage if they struck out in anger, so they couldn’t afford to offer each other that simple means of relieving stress. “We could go out in the parking lot.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Finally the corner of her mouth turned up. Not a full smile, but a wry acknowledgment. “I’ve relieved enough stress for now, I think.”
He held out his hand. She put hers in it. Together they started walking again.
The ease was immediate. This, too, the mate bond gave them, heightening the inherent comfort of touch. But it was love that made her touch rich, layered, full. Love was like smell, Rule thought. Smell was the most complex and dimensional of the senses, weaving together past and present, near and distant, motion and stillness. Love, too, was a weaver.
“Did Grandmother tell you what’s up?” Lily asked. “All she told me was that she may revoke her approval of doctors.”
“Madame Yu wants the family—the immediate family, that is—to hear what the psychiatrist advises. Sam disagrees with something the man said or with what he’s thinking. I’m not sure which.”
Lily glanced up at the ceiling as if she could see through all ten stories to where the black dragon circled overhead. Or perhaps Sam had landed on the hospital’s roof again. The hospital authorities didn’t like that, but Sam seldom concerned himself with human likes and dislikes. “She told you that? Or Sam did?”
“He hasn’t spoken to me.”
“Typical.”
Lily had not wholly forgiven Sam for what happened three months earlier. She’d been in desperate circumstances and had managed, with great effort, to contact her mindspeech teacher—the black dragon. She’d needed help. She’d gotten three words of advice followed by a slammed mental door. The advice turned out to be good, as did Sam’s priorities, once they learned why he’d cut Lily off. At the time, however, Lily hadn’t known that Sam could not spare her a second’s attention lest his shield around a psi bomb falter. Her sense of betrayal had been great. In her head, she knew now that Sam had done the right thing. Head and heart don’t always agree.
The elevators were just ahead. Santos had obtained one and was holding it, as instructed, over the objections of an older couple. At least, she was objecting.
The man weighed at least three hundred pounds, with much of it hanging over his belt. He hovered protectively behind the woman, who weighed a couple hundred pounds less than he did. Her face was sharp, brown, wrinkled as a raisin, and determined. “We are not getting off, so you may as well let that door close,” she told Santos.
“Ma’am, for security reasons I have to ask you to take the other elevator.”
“The other elevator isn’t here. This one is.”
Rule let go of Lily’s hand and stepped forward. “Ma’am, you are entirely within your rights to insist on taking this elevator. Are you here to visit a friend or a family member?”
She gave him a long, suspicious look before answering. “My granddaughter just had a baby. A beautiful little boy. I am now a great-grandmother.”
A smile bloomed all through him. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations. Naturally you’re eager to see your granddaughter and your new great-grandson. Are they both well?”
“She’s as well as any woman is after the travail of labor. He is perfect. Just perfect.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Now, as I said, you have the right to use this elevator. But my man was right, too. You will be safer if you take the other one. In the past year the lady behind me and I have been shot, kidnapped, and attacked by demons, doppelgangers, a Chimea, and a wraith. We are going to take this elevator. Do you truly wish to ride with us?”
“No,” the behemoth behind her said. “We don’t. Come on, Marge.”
“I do not think people should be allowed to get away with—”
“Come on, Marge.” He put a hand on the small of her back. “Other one just got here, anyway.” He gave Rule a cool nod as they exited.
“We’ll see you on the eighth floor,” Rule told José. It would be only a few moments alone, but he would give Lily those moments.
“You were aimed at the husband all along, weren’t you?” Lily said as they changed places with Santos. “I thought you meant to charm her into getting out—and damned if you didn’t nearly do it—but he was your target.”
“He’s protective of her.” Rule smiled. It had pleased him to see a couple so clearly woven by time and love into a unit. “No, let me get it,” he said when she started to push the button. “I’ve a trick to use. They’re a lovely couple, aren’t they?”
“You mean that. Just like you were genuinely delighted to hear about her great-grandson.” Lily shook her head. “Which is why it works, I guess.”
“Why what works?” He held down the eighth-floor button and the close-door button at the same time.
“Your other superpower. The one that gets people to do what you want. What are you doing?”
The doors closed. “Making this an express elevator. I hold the buttons down until . . . there.” The elevator car started moving.
“That’s an urban legend.”
“No, but it only works on some systems.”
“You’re sure?”
“We checked it earlier.” He moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t relax, either. Her muscles were tight.
“I’m not going to fall apart,” she told him.
“No?”
“Not yet. I’d like to scream, though. Yell and scream and pound something. Not you, but something. How is she, really?”
“Asleep at the moment, thanks to Sam.” He hesitated. What should he say? He had the sense that Julia was deteriorating, but what did he know? He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that, except that by the time Sam had put her to sleep, she’d seemed more brittle. Less together, somehow.
And that was too subjective to pass on. Too uncertain. “Julia is very bright. She could see that everything around her was different—the clothes, the technology. She asked if this was ‘the future.’ Then she demanded to know what year it was. Madame Yu told her. At that point she concluded that she’d traveled through time and ended up in someone else’s body.”