Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

around Clanhome.”
    Brenda didn’t answer—but for the first time she glanced up at Lily. Her eyes were
     dark and brimming with emotion. Anger, certainly. Defiance, too. She looked down again
     quickly.
    Defiance came with the territory at a certain age, but Brenda was beginning to interest
     Lily. “How old are you, Brenda?”
    “I don’t see why I have to answer your questions.”
    Lily smiled. Oh, yes, Brenda interested her greatly. “If you aren’t impressed by Isen’s
     order, maybe my badge will mean something to you. Special Agent Lily Yu, Unit Twelve,
     FBI. You can think about your rights and responsibilities as a citizen while I talk
     to Sherrianne.” She gave a little jerk of her head, indicating that the other woman
     should follow her.
    There was no way to talk privately, of course. Not with so many lupi ears nearby.
     But she’d give the woman some semblance of it. Lily stopped a few feet away.
    Sherrianne followed. Rule kept pace with her. He would act as a lie detector. Human
     experts dithered over how to detect lies, or if it was even possible. Lupi were quite
     sure it was—for them. The blend of stress, fear, and guilt from a lie had a subtle
     chemical signature they could detect when in wolf form. It was easiest if the liar
     was a lupusconfronted by his Rho or Lu Nuncio; supposedly lupi never lied successfully then.
     Humans were harder to read, but high-stakes lies were easier to detect even for a
     mere human. They produced more emotion.
    Sherrianne must have known some of this. She kept glancing down at Rule—not very far
     down, since he made a really large wolf—but she didn’t look scared. Not happy, but
     not scared.
    Lily stopped and faced her witness. “You want to tell me why you feel guilty?”
    Sherrianne leaned closer and started to whisper something.
    “I’m not lupi. You’ll have to be louder.”
    Sherrianne sighed heavily. “I guess they’re going to hear me anyway.”
    “Some of them will, I imagine.”
    Another sigh. “This is so embarrassing. I was saying that it’s not about the workshop.
     Not really. It’s about him.” Her gaze slid to the left, where Cullen stood. “Cullen.
     He’s married, you know.”
    “Yes, I do.” The only married lupus on the face of the planet. That would change in
     March, but right now Cullen was it.
    “And I—well—people told me he
meant
it. That he’s being monogamous. I didn’t believe them, and I wanted…I mean, look
     at him. Who wouldn’t? But at first I couldn’t even meet him. He’s always either at
     his workshop or he’s with Cynna and Ryder, so I asked people about his workshop, what
     he does there, and when he’s likely to be there and all. I thought I could, you know,
     pull off a meeting that way. That’s why I felt guilty, because I’d been talking to
     people about his workshop. But I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “I don’t think you’re telling me everything.”
    Sherrianne’s blue eyes opened wider. “I am!”
    Rule shook his head.
    “You aren’t.”
    She gave Rule a dirty look, as if he’d tattled. “I guesssome of it was because of Cynna. It’s not very reasonable for her to expect him to
     be faithful, is it? But I like her, and I…I wasn’t able to meet him on the way to
     his workshop—”
    Rule was shaking his head.
    “Oh, all right! I did run into him, and he told me to go away, but everyone says he’s
     really rude about being interrupted, so it wasn’t like he’d really turned me down.
     So I…I sort of made friends with Cynna, because that’s where he spends a lot of time.
     With her and Ryder.”
    Rule nodded. She was being truthful now.
    “You feel guilty because you used Cynna in order to get access to her husband, who
     you want to seduce.”
    “That’s such a judgmental way of looking at it.”
    “Seems pretty accurate to me. Have you talked to anyone outside Nokolai about Cullen’s
     workshop or what he does there?”
    “No! Not even once.”
    Rule nodded again.
    “Just for the record…how did your use-Cynna-to-seduce-her-husband plan work out?”
     Lily knew the answer. She wanted Cynna—and the clan as a whole—to know, too.
    “It didn’t. He said…it didn’t work at all.” Sherrianne smiled at Lily and shrugged.
     If a whiff of embarrassment clung to that smile, the main flavor was relief that her
     confessing was over. She’d been raised clan, after all. Wanting to have sex with someone
     wasn’t bad. The embarrassment was