Lupi 04 - Night Season

Rule know, though.” He punched in a number.
    â€œIda? This is Cynna Weaver. Is Ruben there?…Okay, you decide if he should be interrupted. Some reporter has been calling Timms, asking about Cullen. Cullen Seabourne…Yeah. Okay.” Cynna waited while Ruben’s secretary got him out of a meeting and Cullen talked to Rule.
    After a moment she heard Ruben’s voice, calm and courteous as always. “Good evening, Cynna. Ida tells me there’s a problem with the press.”
    â€œMaybe. They might be onto this Edge deal already. Some reporter is camped out by Steve Timms’s place, waiting for Cullen. He’s…yes, Agent Timms. Sure, I’ll hold.” She waited again, this time while Ruben had Ida get Timms on another line.
    The friendship that had sprung up between Timms and Cullen had taken everyone by surprise—except maybe Rule. Rule said Cullen had a habit of picking up strays.
    Steve Timms was an MCD agent—regular MCD, the ones who used to track and forcibly register lupi. He was also one hell of a good shooter. Just after the first power wind he’d been assigned to back up Cynna when she went hunting a demon. Cullen had elected himself her consultant, and he and Timms had not hit it off. Timms was more used to shooting lupi than palling around with them, and Cullen enjoyed annoying people.
    Then Cullen saved Timms’s life, and all of a sudden they were best buds—at least in Timms’s mind. The strange thing was that Cullen didn’t object. When he was injured and Timms offered him a place to stay, he’d accepted. He’d even put in a word for Timms, via Lily, when the president told Ruben he had to have bodyguards 24/7.
    Ruben was back, asking to talk to Cullen. “Sure. Just a sec.” Cullen had finished his own conversation, so she held her phone out. “Ruben wants to talk to you.”
    Not for the first time, Cynna wished for a lupus’s hearing. All she got was Cullen’s side of the conversation, which was mostly “Hmm” and “He would, wouldn’t he?” and “Yes, I thought so, too.”
    â€œWell?” she demanded as soon as he’d disconnected.
    â€œReporters are asking about the ‘strange events’ at the mall, but not about a diplomatic party from another realm. Brooks will warn his people, but he doesn’t think the press has been tipped about the Edge delegation. He thinks this is personal.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œI met a couple MCD assholes today. One of them in particular didn’t like me. Brooks thinks this guy knew about me staying with Timms from office gossip. He probably gave the reporter a juicy story about Brooks’s personal bodyguard living in sin with a lupus stripper.”
    Cynna pursed her lips in a soundless whistle. There was no such thing as a gay lupus, but why let facts get in the way of a good scandal? “Ruben is not going to be happy.”
    â€œNope.” But Cullen was. He held out one hand and smacked the other into it. “ Whomp! He’ll come down on Asshole Number Two like a ton of bricks. He’d better, or Timms may decide to prove his manhood by shooting the idiot.”
    When he’d moved his hands, a flash had caught Cynna’s eyes. “Hey, that’s your new bling, isn’t it? I want to see.”
    â€œSure.” He held out his right hand.
    Cullen’s hands were as close to ordinary as any part of him came. His palms were narrow, his fingers neither long or short. The nail beds were rounded, the nails cut blunt and short. No nicks or scars, of course, since he healed everything.
    She had carnal knowledge of those hands.
    Big deal , Cynna told herself, ignoring the sweet, sharp tug of lust. Lots of women had intimate knowledge of Cullen’s hands. Not an exclusive club, the number of females who’d tripped him and beat him to the floor. “Wow,” she said, focusing on the big, fat diamond on his index finger. “Is it loaded? Can I scan it?”
    He considered her request a moment, then nodded. “Carefully. I’ve taken the safety off.”
    â€œSafety?” She looked at him sharply. “If you mean you leave it locked down most of the time—”
    â€œIt wouldn’t exactly be safe to walk around with it ready to trigger.”
    â€œIt would if it were keyed to you.”
    He was curt. “I don’t know how.”
    Man, he hated to