Lily rolled her eyes.

  Silent for the moment, they walked along the path to the picnic spot—Alex in front, then Rule with Lily, followed first by Cullen, then by the two guards. The air was warm, silky, rich with scent. In Rule’s gut the mantles coiled and stirred, awake to the possibilities of the night.

  Rule was amused by the relationship that had developed between his nadia and his closest friend. From the first, Lily had opted to treat Cullen like a younger brother—annoying, uncouth, but hers to put up with. That was funny for so many reasons, not least that Cullen was over thirty years older than Lily.

  The role had amused Cullen, too, at first, but Rule suspected he’d grown to cherish it far more than he’d admit. Now it was habit, one they both enjoyed.

  Sometimes Rule wondered how conscious Lily’s initial choice to make a brother of Cullen had been. Did she know she’d done it to guard herself from Cullen’s potent sexuality? She would have believed it terribly wrong to sleep with Rule’s friend, or even to lust after him.

  And now … and now, Rule was uneasily aware, he felt the same way. It would tear something in him if she were to be with another man.

  Jealousy was a monster that destroyed the joy men and women could make together. He knew that, and yet … Lily was his mate. He was incapable of being with another woman; perhaps it wasn’t so terrible to want to be the only one she lay with.

  Lily spoke, her voice thoughtful. “Rule, you can tell what clan a lupus belongs to by smell.”

  “That’s right. It’s subtle, but unmistakable.”

  “So which clan do you smell like?”

  Must she push about this every moment? “Nokolai.”

  “Mostly,” Cullen said.

  “Mostly?” Astonished, Rule turned to stare at his friend.

  Cullen shrugged. “Lately there’s a whiff of Leidolf, too. There wasn’t at first, but there is now. Interesting, isn’t it?”

  “You didn’t know?” Alex asked softly.

  Rule had himself back under control. He turned around. “No.” One didn’t smell oneself, after all. Nor had he been through the blooding ceremony by which a lupus was adopted into another clan.

  Nor, dammit, had anyone told him. “You smell it, too?”

  Alex nodded.

  He considered a moment, then said, “Good. I won’t smell entirely strange to the youths I bring into the mantle.”

  Alex’s smile was small and brief, but Rule felt he’d passed some test. How annoying. He didn’t care for tests—or for having everyone else be aware of something as basic as a change in his scent. Why hadn’t they told him?

  Lily leaned closer to whisper, “Pissed about me being right, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” After a moment he added, “More that I didn’t guess. Cullen smells like Nokolai now, after all. It should have occurred to me. But you can’t smell the difference.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Yet she’d guessed. He couldn’t decide how he felt about that. He knew how he felt about no one telling him, though. Annoyed.

  He’d been hearing the crowd ahead for some time—laughter, talk, a couple of violins that couldn’t settle on a song to share. Apparently it was loud enough now for Lily’s ears, too, for she said, “Sounds like everyone’s excited.”

  Her words and voice were matter-of-fact. He wasn’t sure how he knew she was tense, but he did, and took her hand. “They’ll welcome you,” he said gently.

  “I don’t see why they should. I’m not Leidolf, and I’m the reason they couldn’t hold their ceremony at their clanhome.”

  Unexpectedly, Alex stopped and looked at her. “No! This—this alteration is not because of you, but because the Lady wished it so. They understand that. You’re a Chosen. It doesn’t matter what clan … Well, it doesn’t matter greatly. A Chosen must be welcome, just as a Rhej would be.”

  For Alex, that was a long speech.

  Lily blinked once—a slow blink, a cat’s acknowledgment. “Thank you for telling me that, Alex.”

  Alex nodded, turned, and resumed walking. A few moments later they reached the clearing.

  There were coolers scattered around the perimeter, and lanterns—the old-fashioned kind, burning lamp oil. The scents were rich, from that of the burning oil to that of the people, perhaps thirty of them, young and old, male and female. Everyone was two-footed still. No children. Children attended most ceremonies, but not the gens compleo, which marked the turning from child to adult. Almost everyone wore jeans or cutoffs, the men without shirts.

  The two notable exceptions were young, male, and naked.

  Rule waited. Lantern light flickered on smiling faces that, a few at a time, turned toward him. As they saw him, they fell silent.

  He touched Lily’s arm and nodded at the nearest cluster of people. She nodded and moved away.

  When everyone was still, Rule walked alone to the fire pit in the center of the clearing, where neatly stacked logs waited. Quite a large pile, he noted, holding his face appropriately stern. They were taking advantage of having a sorcerer here to handle the ardor iunctio.

  He nodded at Alex and Cullen. They moved to their positions—Alex at his right hand, Cullen at his left. The two guards took up positions at his back.

  Rule took a deep breath—and called up the newer mantle.

  They both came, a rush of power fizzing in his blood, flooding his muscles. He’d expected that. He took a second breath and carefully tucked the Nokolai mantle back down. It didn’t want to go, but slowly he eased it into its coil in his belly.

  And spoke. “Leidolf!”

  Voices answered, not in unison: “We listen!” mingled with the more formal, “Nos audio!”

  “We are here to admit two of ours into Leidolf as adults. I call the gens compleo.” He paused while they cheered. “David Alan Auckley. Jeffrey Merrick Lane. Come forward.”

  Two naked, healthy young men stepped out of the crowd. One was typical Leidolf—very northern European with pale skin and wheat blond hair, a lean young animal proud of his body and his place tonight. The other was ruddier, burlier, with longish brown hair and a gleam in his eyes that suggested he took very little seriously.

  Each dropped to one knee in front of Rule.

  Rule had never met either youth, but he’d been told their names and which was the elder by a few days, and so would go first. He looked the blond boy in the eye. The mantle knew him. “David.”

  Immediately David ducked his head, baring his nape.

  Rule looked at the other one. Again the sense of recognition from the mantle as their eyes met. “Jeffrey.”

  Jeffrey dropped his head.

  He said their names again, putting more power into his voice. This time they prostrated themselves, lying flat, face-down, in the dirt.

  He knelt then at their heads, laying a hand on each young, strong neck, curving his fingers until he found the vein he needed.

  He dug in his thumbnails, scraping across both veins.

  This was the part he’d been unsure of. Nokolai used a blade fixed to a thumb brace to open the vein. Leidolf used the traditional method. Rule had filed his thumbnails to as sharp a point as he could.

  It worked. Blood trickled down each neck.

  The next words were not Latin. They came from an older language, one lost to all except the Rhejes, who must have such words in the oldest memories. He spoke them softly, making each sound distinct: “Nera ék amat.” He had no idea what the words meant.

  It didn’t matter. The mantles knew. They leaped to his call, sliding down his arms like water, rushing along his hands, tasting the blood there. The two young men jolted as if he’d shocked them with an electric current, but he knew it was bliss, not pain, that shuddered through them.

  The mantles, never quite separate from him, returned. The sense of them was subtly different, enlivened by the richness of youth. He straightened.

  Only then did he realize what had happened. What he’d done. He’d successfully sent the mantles into both young men, and drawn part of them into the mantles.

  Both mantles.

  David and Jeffrey were now fully Leidolf … and fully Nokolai.

  THIRTY-TWO

  LILY watched as Rule stood. According to what he had told her earlier, the actual gens compleo was finished now. The rest of the ceremony was more symbolic, and mostly for the families.

  He said something in that bastardized Latin they used. The two young men rose to face their families, neither of them bothered one whit by full-frontal, public nudity. Lily couldn’t say the same for herself, but she was adapting as best she could to lupus ways. And the view was … interesting.

  Rule stepped back, exchanging one long glance with Cullen. Neither man’s expression changed. Then Rule gestured at the waiting logs.

  This time, Cullen was supposed to show off.

  Lily suspected he would have relished a robe with long sleeves that could sway dramatically, but he made do just fine in his ragged jeans. He stepped close to the fire pit, lifting both arms and chanting softly—and, she suspected, unnecessarily. Cullen could call fire with the flick of his hand.

  He shook his hands over the logs as if dashing water from them, and fire fell as if it were, indeed, flung water drops. The logs burst into flame all at once, with an enthusiastic whoosh.

  Normal flames at first. Gradually they changed, turning the bright green of a Granny Smith apple. The same green as the baby fire he’d played with in the conference room, she realized. He looked at Rule and nodded.

  “Leidolf,” Rule said, “come share in the ardor iunctio.”

  That meant “joining fire.” Lily had been learning a few bits of Latin, those that any clan member was expected to know.

  Solemnly, in twos and threes, the clan members approached the fire. The woman next to Lily—an older woman, gray-haired, with glasses and a fair amount of pudge poured into her jeans—said, “Come on,” and took Lily’s hand.

  “But I’m not—”

  “You’re welcome to the ardor,” the woman said, and tugged again on Lily’s hand.

  So Lily, too, moved up to the joining fire.

  Rule went first. He plunged his hands into that spooky green fire, up to the elbows. And smiled. This, he’d told Lily earlier, was when he let a trickle of the mantle free, just a drop, joining it to the flames.

  He stepped back, and those closest to the fire moved up, thrusting in their hands, some scooping up handfuls of flame—and it clung to them for several seconds, dancing merrily on flesh.

  After a few moments, and with a few sighs of regret, the first group moved back and others moved forward eagerly, reaching for apple green fire. As they touched it, they grinned. Some of the women giggled. One man laughed out loud. His fire had scampered up his arm and kissed his cheek.

  The others laughed, too. Lily looked at Cullen, who grinned. A curl of flame swam up a young woman’s arm to lick at her lips. She laughed, delighted.

  Oh, yes, Cullen was showing off, and enjoying it immensely.

  It was Lily’s turn. Green fire, she told herself firmly, was nothing like mage fire or regular fire. She’d seen how little hurt anyone took from it. So she held her breath and sank her hands into the blaze.

  It tickled. It was warm and dry and merry in a way her skin understood, if her head didn’t. There was magic in it. And the magic tickled.

  Everything tight and worried eased out of her as she watched the wonder of green flames dance cheerfully on her skin. Then a bright, mischievous thread darted up her arm—and jumped onto her breast. She yelped. “Cullen! Behave!”

  He laughed. Everyone laughed. And then it was time for her to reluctantly step back, time to allow the rest their turn to safely play with fire.

  When they had, and had stepped back, Rule spoke softly, in a rhythmic cadence that suggested the words were part of the ritual, though this time they were English words. “We are the fire.”

  “We are the fire,” everyone repeated, not quite solemn anymore.

  “Safe in joining, safe together. We are clan.”

  “We are clan,” the others echoed.

  Rule grinned. “Let’s eat. And then we play.”

  Cullen snapped his fingers. Yellow and orange flames ate up the green, returning the bonfire to a normal sort of cheer—hot and happy and dangerous.

  Lily made her way over to Rule. She leaned in to hug him—and whispered in his ear. “What’s wrong?”

  Because something wasn’t as it should be. That glance he’d exchanged with Cullen … She knew both men too well. Their faces hadn’t revealed a damned thing, which was what had tipped her off.

  He nuzzled her ear. “I’ll tell you later. It won’t matter right away.”

  Well, that was interesting.

  Interesting, too, was the next part, which was very much a party. The coolers held beer and soft drinks—the beer being for those women who wanted to indulge, since lupi didn’t bother with alcohol. Their bodies purged it too quickly. There were cupcakes, too, and brownies, and cookies, all homemade.

  Rule stayed with her at first, introducing her and learning names. After the first few minutes, she relaxed and enjoyed herself. The only other time she’d hung out with Leidolf had involved guns and threats. This was much nicer.

  Unlike Nokolai, Leidolf had a lamentable tendency to divide up into male and female clusters. She was chatting with one of the female clusters when one of them said to another in a low, gossipy voice, “Thank goodness Crystal didn’t come.”

  “Now, Rachel, don’t you start.”

  “No, really. You’ve got to admit it’s better this way. She kept insisting she would come. I really thought she would, too.”

  “She and David are close, after all,” put in another woman.

  “Well, fuck-friends aren’t normally asked to a gens compleo , are they?”

  “Rachel,” one of the older woman said sharply, “that’s enough. If Crystal had wanted to come, we would have welcomed her. That’s tradition. This would have been Charley’s night, so his family had the right to attend if they wished.”

  Rachel tossed her head. “I don’t care what you say. I think she showed good sense by staying home. It would’ve been painful for her and just drained the joy right out of things for everyone else.”

  “Crystal Kessenblaum?” Lily asked, curious.

  “Yes, do you know her?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. At least we’ve met. I had no idea she was Leidolf.”

  “Oh, no, she’s not clan,” the older woman assured her. “She and Charley shared a mother, not a father. But traditionally, even out-clan family are welcome at the gens compleo if they wish to come. Rachel here is out-clan herself.” She gave Rachel a pointed glance, then sighed. “Poor Charley. Such a tragedy when they die so young.”

  At that point Rule gave a low whistle. Everyone turned toward him.

  “Anyone up to a chase?” he asked, grinning.

  A couple of the younger men whooped. Every man there immediately shucked what little clothing he’d bothered with. The women laughed, some shouting catcalls or ribald suggestions. The older woman who’d told Lily she was welcome to the fire went up to the burly, brown-haired youth, now a young adult in his clan’s eyes, and hugged him hard. The blond youth had a few hugs to give and receive, too, but quickly.

  The men were eager for the chase. Lily was not.

  Rule and Alex had discussed this at length. It was common for an older Rho to let his Lu Nuncio lead the chase—but until now, the Lu Nuncio had always also been the heir.

  Alex was Lu Nuncio. Rule was heir. It would have been acceptable for Rule to give Alex the role, but in the end Rule had decided he would take the Rho’s part fully. He was young enough, fit enough, to give the rest a good run. To give the role to Alex said that either he considered himself less fit, or that he didn’t trust the Leidolf wolves to honor the chase.

  Which meant that in a moment, Rule would Change and race off into the night. Alex was supposed to count off twenty seconds’ head start—but, Rule had told her, grinning, it was almost never the full twenty seconds. Somewhere around fifteen, Alex would release the other wolves to the chase.

  It was all in fun, and yet it wasn’t. The chase game was a way of reinforcing the Rho’s dominance. A Rho or his Lu Nuncio was supposed to outrun or outfox the lupi on his tail and return to the bonfire without being tagged. Tagging meant a touch solid enough to leave some of Rule’s scent on the other wolf. A bit of blood was allowed, but not encouraged, since there wasn’t supposed to be any combat. A Rho’s prowess was judged on both his canniness and his athleticism—and on how long he kept the others running after him.

  Alex would remain behind, as would Cullen, who had no part in a Leidolf chase. And so, dammit, would the two guards.

  Lily had argued when she learned about that, but Rule would not be budged. A Rho did not take guards on a chase game. Ever. So he’d be running from a dozen lupi who might or might not want his blood.

  They wouldn’t kill him, he’d assured her calmly. They wouldn’t endanger the mantle that way. At worst, if he was clumsy enough to be trapped by a few Leidolf willing to break the rules of the chase, they’d bloody him. Or try to. He seemed entirely too sure of his ability to bloody them worse.

  Rule had stripped down as enthusiastically as any of them. He winked at her, grinning. She wanted to punch him. Then he looked around, a gleam in his eye that made her think of Cullen—or of Toby. Pure mischief, that gleam.

  And he Changed.

  Not quite as instantly as when he’d pulled himself through that door in midair, but still too fast for her eyes to track. One moment he stood there, naked and grinning. The next he stood there four-footed and grinning. And her heart just turned over.

  That’s how I remember him …

  The thought ghosted across her mind even as the love welled up, a butterfly kiss from her other self, who’d known him only as wolf. Even as, she realized, a dozen other lupi Changed—unexpectedly, pulled into it by the sudden, imperative Change of their leader. Even Cullen. The sorcerer gave one surprised yelp before being dragged into the Change willy-nilly.

  Oh, he’d tricked them, hadn’t he? Given himself a good head start. Lily grinned as Rule raced off into the night.

 

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