Mortal Ties (31 page)

He was silent for a moment. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“I’m pretty sure the Rhejes know a lot of stuff they don’t talk about.”

“The Lady doesn’t speak to her Rhejes often. I know that much.”

“Speech isn’t the only way she communicates with them, though. Hannah talked about
having dreams or feelings about stuff. And the Lady is a patterner. Like Friar, only
with aeons more experience and knowledge. She’d be able to read patterns really well.
She’d have a good sense of when one of her Rhejes needs to stay home.”

He didn’t say anything. She felt the tension thrumming through him.

“When Cynna asked me to promise I’d call if we needed her, she said she might not
be able to come. She wanted me to call, but she couldn’t say if she would come or
not. I didn’t think much about it then, but later I got to wondering…was she just
keeping her options open? Or did she think she’d get some kind of mystical thumbs-down
if coming here was a bad idea? Either way,” she finished gently, “Cynna gets to decide.
Not you or me.”

His breath gusted out. One corner of his mouth turned up. “Nice of you to include
yourself in the we-don’t-get-to-decide-for-her ultimatum.”

“Yeah, well, I was tempted to find a loophole in my promise. Don’t think I wasn’t.”

“You’re going to call her.”

“I am. But not right this second.” She drifted her hands up to his shoulders. “I’m
all talked out at the moment. You?”

He lowered his hands to cup her hips. Then he just
looked at her, his gaze intent, as if he needed to find something in her eyes. Uncertainty
pinched at her. “What? What is it?”

He smiled slightly and shook his head. “Nothing. Or nothing important, and I find
I, too, am not in the mood to talk.” He bent his head and nibbled at her lips. “Especially
not of unimportant things.”

She leaned into the kiss. He reciprocated for a moment, then pulled back, tending
to the side of her neck instead of her mouth. Delicious little thrills raced over
her skin, a goose-bumpy delight that made her smile as she reached for the buttons
he’d just refastened on his shirt.

He smiled at her with lazy, hooded eyes and covered her hand with his. “Not yet,”
he whispered, and turned her hand up and kissed her palm.

He wanted slow. He wanted lingering and teasing, and she was not in a patient mood.
As with so much in a relationship, compromise was key.

She compromised by cupping his balls. And squeezing exactly the way he liked.

He gasped. When he smiled this time his eyes were still hooded, but not lazy. Not
at all. “So that’s how it is, is it?” And he launched his counterattack.

Lupi move really fast when they want to.

She didn’t notice any buttons go flying, so maybe he’d unfastened her pants before
sliding his hand inside. But then, she didn’t notice much at all except his fingers
sliding, parting, moving. She forgot what she’d meant to do to him and grabbed onto
his shoulders for balance—then, because her hands were right there, grabbed his head
and pulled it down.

No more nibbling. This kiss was hot and deep, and she twisted against him, reveling
in the flood of feeling. Wanting him to be flooded, too—to turn loose, pop the clutch,
let go of that fearsome control he used and needed everywhere else in his life and
go flying with her.

The flying buttons came from his shirt. It took her two
tugs because he bought quality, and the thread didn’t break easily.

He laughed. His eyes were on fire and he laughed, full and delighted, and he jerked
her tank up over her head and lowered his head and…

And she remembered something. “The door,” she said, as he traced a hot, wet path with
his mouth along her collarbone and down.

“What door?” He hadn’t removed her bra. He didn’t let that stop him.

“The…ah, ah…” She had to pause and gulp in a breath. “The door to the bedroom. It’s
open.”

He paused ever so briefly to glance that way. “But so very far away.” He resumed what
he’d been doing.

Which was incredibly distracting, but she choked on a laugh and grabbed his head and
said as firmly as she could, “Rule. The door.”

He flashed her a grin as impish and delighted as that of any little boy with a frog
he meant to present to the girliest girl in class. He was thinking about making her
forget the damn door, she knew it, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop him,
but the guards—they could hear too much. Even if they didn’t come out of their bedroom—and
they wouldn’t. He’d sent them there and they wouldn’t come out until shift change,
but even so—

“The door,” he agreed, and straightened and drew her hand to his lips again, but this
kiss was placed softly on the back of her hand—a knight’s salute to his lady, not
a seduction.

She used those few seconds to get rid of the bra and everything else, too. She might
not be as fast as a lupus, but she was motivated.

He closed the damn door and turned and stopped, looking at her. “Sometimes,” he said
softly, and stopped, then started again, “I often wonder why human men are so fixated
on how a woman looks when there’s so much more to explore, and so many kinds of beauty—why
obsess over
one particular version? But sometimes, when I look at you, I understand.”

And sometimes, when he looked at her the way he was now, she was beautiful. Not just
okay. Not even really pretty. Beautiful.

“And you’re mine.” He sounded smug as he slipped off the shirt she’d ripped open and
reached for the zipper on his slacks. “Not theirs. Mine.”

That smugness made her want to laugh because it was so innocent. Possessiveness was
a forbidden delight for lupi, not one Rule was used to, and most of the time he was
wary about indulging in it.

“And you’re mine,” she agreed when he came to her, and she put her hands on his wonderfully
bare shoulders while down lower another part of his body said hello to her stomach.
“The Lady says so.”

“As do I.” He kissed her lightly…then again…and again…and they were gasping and clutching
and stroking all the delicious bare skin they could find, and stumbling in mutual
haste to the bed, and when he slid inside her she felt jolted by reality—felt suddenly
twice as real as usual, brimming with more than sensation. Full. So full.

He started to move and reality shimmered, breaking up into shards of need and demand.
Rule!

Here.
He moved smooth and fast.
I’m here, right here with you,
nadia,
my love, my Lily…

It may have been pure startlement that broke the connection—his or hers or both. Certainly
it broke their rhythm. She stared up into his astonished face. “Well,” she said, and
gripped his waist and pushed up against him. “Well, that’s interesting, but so’s this.”

He grinned and followed her lead.

L
ILY
lay sprawled on her back amid a tangle of bedclothes and Rule, breathing hard and
frowning at the lovely but too-bright chandelier. “That’s stupid.”

Rule turned his face on the pillow—how had he ended
up with a pillow, and where was hers?—to smile at her. “What is?”

“Most hotels don’t have ceiling lights. Why does this one? And the switch is all the
way over there by the door. Why didn’t they put a switch by the bed? Stupid.”

Rule looked up at the light. After a moment he nodded. “You’re right. It shows a sad
lack of planning.” He paused. “I can wiggle my toes again, however, so I’m sure I’ll
soon be up to the challenge of sitting. No doubt walking will be possible soon after
that.”

She smiled and snuggled closer. No matter how enthusiastic the sex, Rule recovered
quickly, and in every way. It was nice to think she’d wrecked him for a little while,
though. “You heard me. Earlier, I mean.”

“And you heard me.”

He didn’t sound sure. She nodded. “Does that freak you out?”

“A little. And yet…it was lovely, too.”

She propped herself up on an elbow so she could see him. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

He smiled and toyed with a strand of her hair. “That much I knew.”

Since Lily had discovered her capability for mindspeech and began the sessions with
Sam, she’d accidentally mindspoken Rule a few times. The first time was right after
she nearly died. The others had been more random, in perfectly ordinary situations,
like when she’d been trying to reach a bowl he’d put on the top shelf in the kitchen
and was annoyed because it was supposed to be on the second shelf, where she could
get it. That time, she remembered, the communication had been along the lines of,
“Why can’t you remember to put things where they belong?”

It had never happened during sex, and she’d never “heard” Rule in return.

Eavesdropping on him that way him was intrusive and freaky and just as he’d said.
Quite lovely. “I forgot to tell you, but earlier this evening I thought I had a breakthrough.
Drummond was talking at me during the briefing with
Bergman, and I told him to shut up. I mindspoke it,” she added, to be clear. “And
he heard me, and I did it again later.”

Rule’s brows pulled together. He didn’t speak.

That made her frown, too. “What?”

“It bothers me, that’s all. You and Drummond seem to be getting downright chummy.”

Disconcerted, she swallowed her first retort. “You’re jealous. Of Al Drummond.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Someone here was being ridiculous. She didn’t think it was her. “I don’t even like
him, Rule.”

“You never wear the necklace. You could keep him away, and you don’t. It’s not a matter
of him being potentially useful. There’s something else going on. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know if I do, either, except that he has nothing. Literally nothing and no
one, not even a body. It’s not just that he can’t move so much as a paper clip. He
can’t
touch
the paper clip. When I make it so he can’t manifest, he can’t even see it.”

“You feel sorry for him.”

Yeah, she did, and that was kind of weird, considering what Drummond had done. But
it wasn’t the whole story. “Maybe it’s some random roll of the dice that got him tied
to me. Maybe there’s actually someone in charge who did this on purpose. I don’t know,
but either way, it’s up to me to do the right thing. I’m not sure what that is, but
making it so he can’t see the damn paper clip can’t be right.”

Rule sifted a hand through her hair. “You’re trying to do the right thing. That I
understand. But I can’t help thinking he’s using this tie. Using you. In life, Drummond
was a betrayer. He betrayed you and the Bureau. Do you really think dying changed
him that much?”

“I don’t know, but—shit!” She rolled off him and grabbed for the sheet.

White, misty, and right there at the foot of the bed, Al Drummond sang out, “Incoming!”

A
L
Drummond really enjoyed the look on Yu’s face as she leaped out of bed. She probably
figured he’d been hanging around while she made whoopee with her wolf man. He wasn’t
that kind of creep, but that’s what she’d think. She’d probably come up with some
way to make him pay for his grand entrance, but it would be worth it.

“It’s Drummond,” Yu said as she grabbed a fistful of clothes off the floor. “Who or
what is incoming?” she demanded, stepping into her pants.

Al considered commenting on her lack of underwear. What could she do—hit him? Maybe
later. He did have a warning to deliver. “I can’t tell,” he said. “It’s dark where
the intruder is. He’s paying a visit via the ductwork.”

“The ductwork?” she repeated. Her lover—who’d sprung from the bed in that fluid, too-fast
way lupi moved sometimes, which Drummond didn’t like at all—looked up and around.
They both spotted the vent. “It isn’t big enough,” Lily said.

“The one in the other room is. That’s where he’s headed.”

“He says the intruder’s heading for the one in the sitting room,” she told Turner
as she pulled her shirt over her head.
She tugged it down and glared at Al. “So why the hell did you pop up in here? You
could have materialized on the other side of the damn door.”

He smirked. “More fun this way.”

A low growl rose in the chest of her wolf man. Turner must have figured out where
Al was by watching where Lily looked, because he seemed to look right at him. “Been
hanging around watching, have you?”

He spoke to Al. Right to him. No one but Yu had done that since he died, and it shook
him, how good that felt.
Keep talking to me. Please. Please keep talking to me.
“Maybe that’s how you get your jollies. Not my thing.”

Yu rolled her eyes. “Rule may see you now and then, but he can’t hear you. Come on.”

“See me?” He tried to grab her as she reached for her shoulder harness. Didn’t work,
of course. It made him want to growl like the wolf man, or maybe howl like one.

The worst thing about being a ghost wasn’t when she went in the damn car. Even being
alone, bad as it was, wasn’t the worst. It was the sheer, unrelenting uselessness
of his existence. Hell was being unable to do one damned thing, and maybe he’d earned
a stint in hell. Maybe he deserved it. But God, what he’d give to be able to affect
something
. If Turner could see him…“What do you mean, he sees me sometimes?”