Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

on the floor and picked up his mug. “You anticipated better
     than I did. So did Lily.” He glanced sideways at her. “You guessed, didn’t you? That’s
     why you assured me I wouldn’t have to kill anyone tonight. You knew what Isen was
     doing.”
    “I hoped I did, and yes, that was part of it.” Women had to be protected. That was
     the lupi code. In spite of that, Isen had convinced them—even his son—that this offense
     was grave enough and he was angry enough to order death. But maybe only the lupi had
     feared this. Brenda hadn’t been afraid for her life, had she? Hank had. He’d confessed
     to protect her.
    Rule was watching her. “You were going to arrest people, weren’t you? Me?”
    “I was thinking more of protective custody. If Isen decided someone needed to be dead,
     I’d take her in custody. That was a last resort, though. It would’ve been tricky to
     pull off without Isen feeling forced to go all Rho on me.”
    “Tricky?” Isen smiled faintly. “That’s one word for it.”
    Rule looked at his father. “You expected Lily to do something along those lines, though.
     That’s why you kept her nearby—so I’d realize you weren’t going to order an execution
     right away. I didn’t get the message, though. I wasn’t…I don’t understand why I didn’t
     see it.”
    “You were distracted,” Isen said. “That is my fault. I didn’t think about what calling
     on the Leidolf Rho in such a situation might do.”
    Lily frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “You couldn’t have guessed,” Rule said. “I didn’t understand what was happening myself
     at first.”
    Isen shook his head. “I should have seen the possibility.”
    “I still don’t,” Lily said pointedly.
    Isen sighed. “Rule has spoken to me about a certain frustration he’s felt about being
     Rho to Leidolf. He experienced the mantle, but not the clan.”
    She gave Rule a quick glance. “Yeah. He’s mentioned that.” Not the way Isen put it,
     but he’d talked about frustration. Rule had been raised Nokolai. That clan had his
     heart,while Leidolf had been his enemy until that mantle was forced on him. As Rho, Rule
     meant to do right by Leidolf, but he wanted that more with his head than his heart.
     “It bugs him that he doesn’t feel connected to Leidolf the way he thinks he should.”
    “Not a problem anymore,” Rule said dryly.
    “No, clearly it isn’t.” Isen paused, sipping from his mug. “I didn’t expect you to
     hold your heartbeat separate. I should have. You couldn’t allow Leidolf to be mastered
     by Nokolai.”
    “No.” Rule’s expression turned inward. What he found there wasn’t giving him joy.
    Lily looked back and forth between the two men. “I don’t understand.”
    Isen rubbed his beard. “Perhaps you didn’t know that a Rho can control his clan’s
     heart rate. I was keeping Nokolai’s elevated—a somewhat risky option, but I have the
     experience to handle it. This made Nokolai viscerally aware of my anger and created
     expectations…they knew something would be required of them. Something drastic. Our
     guests would have been aware of the massed heartbeat of Nokolai, increasing their
     sense of isolation and risk.”
    “I get it.” Lily nodded. “Brenda didn’t think she was at risk—not physically, anyway.
     I had my doubts about that, too, but all the lupi seemed to think you might order
     her killed. The heartbeat trick made them believe it.”
    Isen nodded and sipped. “Unfortunately, I was genuinely angry. I wasn’t thinking as
     clearly as I believed. I didn’t realize Rule could hold his heartbeat separate from
     my calling. To do so, he had to
be
Leidolf.”
    “Um…that’s a problem?”
    Isen tipped his head to look at Rule. “How much of a problem do we have?”
    Rule continued to lean forward, looking at the floor, not his father. “I don’t know.
     I’m in control, but…not comfortable.”
    Lily wanted to shake answers out of one or both of them, but Rule’s distress was too
     vivid. He wasn’t avoidinganswering. He was consumed by something going on inside him, something that Isen didn’t
     need named. Maybe something that wasn’t Lily’s business…no, not that. If Rule had
     a problem, she needed to know. But maybe she wasn’t the one who could help. “This
     is a Rho thing?”
    Rule turned his head to look at her, straightened slowly, and took her hand. “I’ve
     been Leidolf Rho for months now. I’ve gone back and