Only Human

once before. The carpet was thicker here, the lighting more subtle. The hallway had doors with brass nameplates and ended at an office with living plants and framed pictures on the walls.
    The pale oak desk was ruthlessly neat. The woman behind the desk was a sixtyish civilian named Adele Crimmings, a.k.a. the chief's enforcer. Lily had heard dozens of stories about her. She had sharp eyes, a crisply tailored blue dress, and white hair cut so short it looked as if she'd recently completed basic training.
    "He's expecting you," Ms. Crimmings said when Lily identified herself. She touched a button on her desk, announced Lily's arrival, then nodded at her. "Go on in."
    Delgado had a big corner office with wooden blinds at the tall windows. His own desk was larger than his secretary's, and nowhere near as tidy. He was seated there, a small, trim man with coppery skin stretched tight and shiny across flat
    cheekbones. His tie was a very dark brown with narrow gold stripes. His suit jacket was on the back of his chair, and the sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled up. He had very little hair on his forearms.
    Delgado wasn't alone. Another man stood in front of one of the big windows, his back to the room—an Anglo, judging by the color of the skin on the long-fingered hands. A rather pale Anglo, forCalifornia.
    He was at least six feet, slim, and standing utterly motionless. His arms hung loose at his sides, his feet didn't shift, his head didn't turn as she entered the room. Shaggy brown hair waved past his collar. The sunlight glanced off that ordinary brown hair, igniting it, drawing a burnished halo around his head. The casual elegance of his black slacks and loose black jacket fairly screamed money. The cuffs of his shirt were black, too.
    The man in black, she thought with a mental sniff at-the dramatics of it. She wondered if he was an actor or a director. And was annoyed to notice that her pulse had picked up.
    "Detective Yu," Delgado said. “Thank you for coming."
    "Sir."
    "I have someone here you need to meet. You'll be working with him," he said as the other man, at last, turned to face her.
    Lily's breath caught in her throat as she saw the narrow face, the tilted slashes of the eyebrows, the slightly sallow skin, and the cool gray eyes that met hers with no trace of a smile. It was a striking face, stark and clean, the lines of it swept back the way stone is smoothed by wind. Not handsome, but not a face one would ever forget, either.
    She knew him. Knew who he was, at least. She'd seen his photograph often enough, though he was certainly no movie star or director. Most recently, she'd seen it in the file she'd started four days ago. The one on the first killing.
    Her heart pounded and her eyes widened in disbelief. "You want me to work with a werewolf?"
    BY THE TIME Rule turned around, he was fairly sure he had his reaction to her scent under control. Or at least concealed. His heart was thudding against the wall of his chest like Thumper introducing himself to Bambi.
    I can't possibly know. Not for sure. Yet her scent... Fear
    and exaltation filled him. He studied the face of the woman he'd never believed he would meet.
    Something in the smoothness of her face, the sleek roundness of her body, appealed to him. Her eyes were as black as the braid that hung down her back. And greatly irritated at the moment. She would move well, he thought, and wanted to see her move.
    There wasn't a great deal of Lily Yu physically, but he had the sense that quite a lot of person had been packed into that trim, tidy form. She wore plain black slacks and a jacket the color of the poppies that dotted the hills in the spring. He smelled the metal-and-gunpowder odor of the gun concealed by that jacket.
    No fear scent, though. That intrigued him. Even Delgado gave out a whiff of fear in his presence, though he controlled it admirably. That, and the fact that she'd risen to detective at such a young age, told him the dainty packaging was misleading. A man who didn't look beyond that packaging might mistake her for doll-like. He wondered if any had been foolish enough to say so—and if they'd drawn back a stub.
    Metaphorically speaking, of course. Humans didn't respond so vigorously to insult. "Obviously you recognize me," he said.
    "Detective," Delgado snapped. "Your captain assured me you didn't suffer from racial prejudices."
    "Sorry, sir." Those pretty black eyes slid from her chief to Rule. "My apologies, Mr. Turner.