Lupi 06 - Blood Magic

babe. A year, anyway. Maybe more."
    "Wow." Cynna heaved herself up, grabbed Max's face with her two hands, bent, and kissed him on the mouth. "Thank you, Max."
    He definitely blushed this time. "You are most welcome. Say, you want to - "
    "No." Cynna grinned. "But thanks, anyway."
    Cullen's gaze switched back to Cynna. He smiled - just before his eyes rolled back in his head.
    Jason bent over him. "He's okay. Back in sleep. I don't know how he managed to wake from it in the first place."
    "The ward, I guess." Cynna rubbed her stomach idly. "He and I put one up around the little rider last week."
    Max's eyebrows climbed. "I didn't think that was possible, not in living flesh."
    "Hey, I use my flesh for magic all the time. Seems to have worked. You triggered it when you did your naming thing, and the ward woke him."
    "Hmph. Well," Max said, pulling a deck of cards from his pocket, "who's up for a few hands of poker?"
    "We're leaving and Cynna's going to lie down as soon as Jason gets her bed ready," Rule said. He looked at Jason. "Don't play for money. Max cheats."

 
    FOURTEEN

    At 2:38, Rule pulled to a stop in the parking garage beneath the ten-story high-rise he called home.
    Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he thought of this as the place he stayed. Lily decided to ask him about that some time when she wasn't half asleep but still wired, her brain buzzing on caffeine and nerves.
    A few months ago, the lease on Lily's tiny apartment had come due. She'd allowed it to lapse. That was only sensible; she didn't have room for Rule at her place, and he had plenty of space at his - two bedrooms, two baths, a small office, and an open living area with a killer view. Besides, his place was about twenty times nicer. It was like HGTV exploded there and left it ready for a photo shoot. And if the mate bond dictated that they cohabit, well, that was okay. She wanted to.
    However sensible the decision, the results had been bumpy, but she figured that was normal. One of the bumps was the cat that came with her. Dirty Harry did not like being confined to an apartment. He'd been a stray when she found him - or when he found her - and was used to being outside. He also didn't much like Rule. What cat would feel warm and cuddly with someone who smelled wolfish?
    The second bump, of course, was money. Rule had oodles of it. She didn't.
    Some of that was his own money. Rule managed his clan's investments and paid himself a percentage of the profits. He'd roughly tripled Nokolai's wealth since assuming those duties and had managed to hang on to the wealth in the current downturn, so there had been plenty of profit to draw from. But Lily couldn't discount the clan's wealth because the line between personal property and the clan's property wasn't hard and fast in Rule's mind.
    This building belonged to Nokolai. Rule didn't pay rent. He didn't make a condo payment. And he'd been seriously insulted when she wanted to pay him for her share of the space. After prolonged discussion, they'd agreed she would pay half the utilities.
    To Rule's way of thinking, there was nothing wrong with the clan providing Lily's living space as well as his. She was clan. She was Chosen. For Lily, a place she didn't pay for wasn't hers, wasn't home.
    But if the apartment didn't feel like hers, it was still a great place. She was looking forward to getting there as she rode up in the elevator. She let her eyes half close and took Rule's hand to help him with the claustrophobia he rarely admitted to - but which was one reason he lived in a high-rise. He rode in the elevator every day, and hated it each time. And proved to himself over and over that he could handle the fear.
    Stupid, obsessive, determined man.
    "Who was it you spoke to at the hospital?" the obsessive man asked. "The deputy."
    "Hmm? Oh, that was Cody. Deputy Beck, I ought to say. Why?"
    "There was something in your voice when you spoke to him."
    There shouldn't have been. She'd thought she kept it businesslike. Lily frowned, her eyes opening fully. "Discomfort, maybe. We, uh, we had a thing several years back, when he was with the SDPD. It didn't end well."
    He didn't say anything.
    "That's some really loud silence," she observed, wide-awake now.
    "There was something in your voice," he repeated. "Something I haven't heard when you speak to other men."
    Could he possibly be jealous? No, she decided. She was making a human assumption. He had some sort of curiosity or concern, but it wasn't jealousy. That