Lupi 08 - Death Magic

of them.” They knew that one Wythe clan member held plenty of the founder’s blood—Brian’s son. Lily had met him yesterday. He was three years old.
    But there were six adult lupi descended from the previous Rho’s great-grandfather, dammit. They had the bloodline—a bit diluted, yeah, but the mantle shouldn’t be so damn picky. Aside from the sheer annoyance of the furry tickle in her gut, Wythe needed a Rho. Preserving the mantle might have kept the clan from an explosive death, but it didn’t give them a leader.
    Rule squeezed her shoulder and moved away, aiming for the coffeepot. “We’ll begin looking outside Wythe.”
    “Lost ones ?” she said dubiously. The potential for Change was carried as a recessive in clan daughters and their children. If two people with that recessive got together, they sometimes made a little lupus baby without either of them knowing it was possible. The clans kept records, though. Pretty good records. They kept track of their daughters’ descendents. “That’s a long shot.”
    “It would be, yes, but I was speaking of children born to a lupus of another clan whose mother is Wythe or descended from Wythe. We don’t keep records of such pairings, so it may take a while.”
    “I can wait.” She didn’t have much choice. “I’m just hoping not to have to wait for little Charlie to grow up.”
    “If the Lady intends the mantle to go to a Wythe clan member anytime soon, then someone exists who can accept it. If so, we’ll find him. I hope to have all such potential heirs located in time for the All-Clan.” He filled his mug. “Ready for a refill?”
    She sighed and pushed her chair back and stood. “I’d better grab a shower and get going. I may not be doing anything much at Headquarters, but I have to show up on . . .”
    Rule’s eyebrows snapped down. He took a quick step toward her. “What is it?”
    An ice pick through my skull. “Headache.”
    “Do you want some . . .” He was in front of her now. She felt him, but didn’t see him. Her eyes were closed against the pain. “That isn’t an ibuprofen headache.”
    “I’m okay.” But her voice came out wrong and her hands felt clammy. “Some ibuprofen, though, sure. That’s a good . . .” Slowly her eyes opened. “Or maybe not. It’s easing off on its own.”
    Rule took her arms. “You’re pale.”
    “It hurts, but it’s going away.” No, not going away. Gone, between one heartbeat and the next. Though the departure of pain left her a bit shaky . . . she mustered a reassuring smile. “I really am okay.”
    His fingers tightened. “You’ll cancel your session with Mika today.”
    Of course that’s what he thought of. “I will not.”
    “Lily—”
    “I’ll tell Mika about the headache. If there is a connection—and honestly, I don’t think there is. But if I’m wrong, he’d know, wouldn’t he?”
    “Sam probably would. I’m not sure about Mika. He’s the youngest of them.”
    “Then he can ask Sam. Rule, it was just one of those weird pains everyone gets from time to time.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “I guess not.” She smiled wryly and went up on tiptoe to drop a kiss on his unsmiling mouth. “Everyone human, I should’ve said.”

NINE
     

     
    ROCK Creek Park was a welcome, woodsy sprawl sticking its unpaved finger up D.C.’s concrete butt. Portions of the park were tidied into bike trails, paths, bridges, a planetarium, a couple historic sites, and tennis courts. The wilder bits welcomed birds, raccoons, even the occasional deer or coyote.
    And one dragon.
    Not that Mika’s lair had originally been one of the wild bits. It had started out as an amphitheater—the closest thing, Lily supposed, to a cave Mika had spotted when he arrived last December to take up his duties as a magic sponge. That lair was supposed to have been temporary, but Mika had decided he liked it here.
    No one knew why, exactly. The park was a pretty place, but Lily wasn’t sure dragons shared the aesthetic sensibilities of humans. Though she knew Mika liked trees. She walked along a cement path roofed by the interwoven branches of oaks beginning to don their fall colors . . . a path that was still intact because Mika hadn’t wanted to damage the trees that hugged it so closely. He’d removed most of the cement in his domain.
    It was the parking lot, she’d heard, that had pushed park authorities over the edge.
    They wanted it back. They wanted their amphitheater back. There