Lupi 06 - Blood Magic

defenses. The younger ones lacked their elders' magical expertise, but they did set crude wards. If someone entered in spite of fence, wards, and warnings, the dragon could do whatever he wanted with the intruder - chat, maim, ensorcell, kill.
    People being people, there had been incidents. None here, but then, Sam had ways of discouraging pests. Even the paparazzi had quit hanging out near the fence pretty fast. Their cameras kept suffering mysterious breakdowns - when they didn't just explode.
    Elsewhere, though, there had been problems. A photojournalist had tried to sneak past the fence in Seattle, snap some pictures, then run really fast back to safe territory. He hadn't been fast enough. Four gangbangers in Chicago had thought an area ungoverned by law would be a great place for drug deals, and saw no reason they couldn't do the deal quickly just inside the fence, then vault back over. Curiosity seekers in London and Houston had made the attempt, as had an unaffiliated witch in Toronto who wanted a dragon's scale.
    All of them ended up injured, a couple of them badly. One of the gangbangers seemed to be permanently ensorcelled. He could speak only in nursery rhymes.
    The Chicago incident had delighted some people. Jay Leno had told jokes about it for a week. That city's dragon - he called himself Alec - had thoughtfully deposited the injured gang members on the roof of Cook County Hospital. While he'd declined to give a statement, he had offered one comment to the chief of police.
    Turned out the one who now spoke in nursery rhymes had had his iPod turned up especially loud when he entered the lair. And Alec didn't like rap music.
    They were fortunate, Lily supposed, that no intruders had been killed... as far as anyone knew. Since a dragon might decide to eat the evidence, that wasn't certain. What part of "can't sneak up on a telepath" did people not understand?
    The narrow gravel road began climbing. Lily felt her heart rate climb, too.
    Not because Sam would attack. He had informed them months ago that they would be allowed to visit occasionally, and Rule had done so. The first time had been an official welcome from Nokolai, in which Rule opened a discussion with the dragon about territory. He'd gone back officially twice and had made a purely personal visit recently, too.
    Lily hadn't.
    "You okay?" Rule asked as he stopped the Mercedes in front of the gate.
    "Sure." Aside from cold, damp palms and an overly excited heartbeat. "I'm not scared of Sam."
    "Hmm." He got out of the car, announced out loud that he and Lily were there to speak with Sam, and expressed the hope that their visit was not an intrusion. That was a courtesy, since Sam listened to minds, not voices - but he insisted that humans thought in such a cluttered way it was easier to "hear" what they meant if they spoke it aloud.
    Lily took a slow breath, trying to settle herself. Rule hadn't argued when she said she wasn't afraid of Sam. He might have, though she'd spoken truly: she didn't fear the dragon. It was the stuff in her own mind that made her palms sweaty.
    Memory could be a bitch sometimes. Even the memories she couldn't quite recall. Especially them.
    It was a manual gate. Once Rule opened it, Lily scooted over to the driver's seat so she could drive the car through, then wiggled back to the passenger seat to wait while Rule closed the gate again.
    "I believe," Rule said as he shut the door, "you might leave the bargaining to me."
    "You do, huh?" Her heartbeat was calming down. See there, she told her inner fearmonger, that wasn't so bad.
    "Cullen is clan as well as friend, so he's mine to protect. If anything must be offered to gain that protection, that's mine to give. And I can offer what you can't - limited hunting rights in Clanhome."
    "Sam gets all the steers and pigs he wants."
    "He doesn't get to hunt. Grabbing the animals released in this enclosure isn't the same. I'm already negotiating with him on this."
    She looked at him, surprised. "You are?" She'd known he was negotiating something. He hadn't talked about the terms... and she hadn't asked, had she?
    She'd been letting her fear control her. And hadn't even noticed.
    The road was climbing sharply now. Gravel crunched pleasantly beneath the tires. "We'd already have reached an agreement," Rule said, "if he didn't enjoy the bargaining itself so much." He glanced at her, smiled. "Madame Yu advised me to bargain vigorously. Sam wouldn't trust a deal too easily