Lupi 08 - Death Magic

beautifully that you may not understand how powerful this instinct is for a lupus with a Chosen. I believe he’s been able to handle risk to you for two reasons. First, he knows and accepts that, being who and what you are, you will risk yourself when there is need. His wolf helps him with this,” he added. “Wolves don’t see their mates as pups to be cosseted and protected, but as partners—in the hunt, in a fight, they act together.”
    She had to smile. “So it’s his wolf side, not the human one, I should thank?”
    “Perhaps.” He smiled briefly. “But there is another reason. I suspect that on some level, whether he was aware of it or not, Rule has believed you would survive because the Lady would protect you.”
    “That’s . . . not very reasonable.”
    He sighed. “As a boy, Rule idealized the Lady. It comes of having been mothered by many, but abandoned by the woman who actually bore him. Young boys often feel a fervent love for their mothers. Rule loved the many women at Clanhome who helped raise him, but not that way. His mother-bond was with the Lady . . . or his boyish understanding of her.”
    “So you’re saying he has mother issues.”
    “That’s one way to put it, yes.”
    And Lily was at risk now because of the Lady. Because of what Rule’s mother figure was doing with the mantle. “You haven’t gotten to the advice part.”
    “Rule’s wolf still accepts and expects your need to be part of any necessary fights. But Rule the man grew out of that boy who idealized the Lady. He may not be reasonable about your safety. Be patient with him. You can’t fix this for him. You can’t be less than an equal partner. But you can be patient.”
    It sounded like fortune cookie advice. That didn’t make it bad advice—just annoyingly vague. The rest of what he’d said, though . . . Isen knew people. He knew his son. She nodded slowly. “I’ll keep all that in mind.”
    “Good.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s hurting you?”
    “I’m not harboring any secret troubles. Just the obvious ones.”
    “No?”
    “I am curious about something.” It wasn’t what she’d meant to ask him about when she finagled this semiprivate moment, but... “When lupi hear moonsong, is it the Lady you hear? Her voice?”
    He took his time answering. Finally he said, “This question is difficult for me to answer. We don’t usually speak of our personal experience of moonsong.”
    “I’ve trespassed.”
    “No.” He added a pat of his hand to his reassuring smile. “We don’t speak of it because the experience is intensely personal, so I don’t know if others would answer as I do. For me, it is not a voice, yet it is the Lady’s song. The moon is her instrument, or perhaps she is the moon’s instrument.”
    “You don’t hear her in words.”
    “No. If light were music, it might sound something like moonsong. One thing I know is common to all lupi. We don’t hear moonsong with our ears, yet it is very much heard, not sensed in some other way.”
    Yes. Yes, that’s what it was like. Something ripped and words came spilling out. “I never wanted to be Rho. That would’ve made a mess of my life I don’t even want to think about. So I didn’t want to keep the mantle. I don’t need to turn into a wolf. I’m happy with who I am. Only I guess I’ll never hear her voice again, and that . . .” She blinked fast. Dammit. She was not going to cry. “I guess it’s pretty wonderful to hear moonsong all the time.”
    Isen being Isen, he didn’t answer her with words. He folded her up in a hug, making it really hard for her to keep back the damn tears, which was stupid. Crying was just stupid. “It’s not like I’ve been longing to be lupus.”
    “Mmm,” he said, and stroked her hair gently.
    “It’s not like that,” she insisted. Her head rested on one broad, burly shoulder. He smelled like laundry soap and warmth. Somehow he just smelled warm. “But I wondered . . . I thought maybe that’s what the mantle was doing. Trying to turn me into a lupus. Not succeeding, and maybe damaging me in the attempt, but trying. And part of me . . . part of me thought . . .” A deep sigh shuddered out of her. “But it didn’t happen. I don’t have the bloodline, do I?” She straightened away from him. “You are not to tell Rule about me getting weepy about this.”
    “Not if you don’t wish me to.”
    “I don’t. And this wasn’t at all what I wanted