Blood Lines (19 page)

Besides, he was a jerk. Oh, not an all-around jerk. She admitted that. Cullen had risked everything to rescue Rule, so he had friendship potential. But where women were concerned, he set off her jerk-o-meter.

Cynna knew a jerk when she lusted after one—which was usually, she admitted. Rule was the single, shining exception to her lousy taste in men. Not that she was looking for Mr. Right. She couldn’t imagine pledging to live with one person for her entire life. It boggled her brain that people did this regularly. How could they possibly
know
?

But she was tired of waking up with yet another Mr. What-Was-I-Thinking. She meant to change that, even if her stupid hormones hadn’t yet signed on with the plan. “Victor Frey may not allow you on his land.”

“Victor thinks I’m scum,” he agreed. He sat in a comfortable sprawl that took up more than his share of the seat, with his knee nearly touching her thigh. “But that means he’ll think he can use me. Victor gets off on using people.”

“Guess we’ll find out soon.” The cop car ahead of them turned off on a dirt road marked by a small sign that read, Private Property. Keep Out. “Don’t they have guards, like at Nokolai Clanhome?”

“You won’t see them unless they decide to stop us. You haven’t picked up any trace of the demon that killed Randall?”

She shook her head. “My range is limited, though, because the pattern’s from a dead demon, and I’m looking for a live one. Also, I haven’t done a full cast yet—just quickies.”

They turned onto the dirt road. Its ungraded surface trended mostly upward, winding through a slew of trees.

Cynna was a child of the city. She didn’t really approve of trees. Not
wild
trees, anyway, and not in such numbers, and especially not when they held hands overhead as if they wanted to be ready to drop a branch on intruders.

Enough with the trees,
she told herself. “Uh . . . I guess Lily and Rule briefed you.”

“Thoroughly enough that she felt obliged to threaten my tongue. That’s her gentle way of suggesting I don’t discuss top secret secrets in front of those who lack my wisdom and discretion.” He wiggled his eyebrows at the back of Timms’s head. “Speaking of being briefed, did Rule warn you about Victor Frey?”

“Said he’s mean, smart, and hard to predict.”

“That’s one way to put it. Victor’s a treacherous son of a bitch. He’ll try to charm you.”

“I’m hard to charm.”

“Pretend, then. He doesn’t expect much from women, so you can lull his suspicions that way, and you’re going to need every advantage you can get. If you’d sleep with him, too—”

“What?”

“Okay, that’s out. Not that I blame you, but for some reason a lot of women have slept with Victor—or not slept, as the case may be, but I’m trying to be tactful. Did Rule mention that Victor’s surviving son and possible heir is crazy?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re talking figuratively?”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s the literal truth. Brady Gunning is a sadistic sociopath.”

“Gunning? Isn’t he a Frey, too?”

“Not unless he’s named heir. Mummy and Daddy don’t marry when Daddy’s a lupus—you know that. So we carry our mother’s surname.”

“Rule doesn’t.”

“An accepted heir usually adopts his father’s surname.”

So Rule hadn’t started out as a Turner. Maybe that’s why the FBI had never been able to dig up much about him before he “came out” as the Nokolai prince. “Will this Brady Gunning be there today?”

Cullen shrugged. “If not, he’ll show up soon. Leidolf Clanhome is smaller than Nokolai Clanhome. Not many clan actually live there, but most are close by. They’ll be descending on their clanhome for the naming.”

“The naming. Of the new heir, you mean?”

He nodded, frowning into space as if he’d half forgotten she was there.

Which was another good reason not to touch. Cullen Seabourne was fantastic fling material, and she’d been tempted to pursue that option when they first met. But then she’d gotten to know him. In between hot, sweaty bouts of sex he was likely to forget you existed.

Not that it mattered, since she wasn’t going to have hot, sweaty sex with him. She dragged her thoughts back to business. Cullen hadn’t answered her question about why he was here instead of chasing dragons, but Timms was listening. She’d ask again when they were alone.

In the meantime, she might as well see if anything nasty was hiding in all those trees. Cynna trickled power into the
kielezo
for the dead demon, letting it itch there a moment as it built. Then she held up her hand, and—“Ow!”

They’d bounced over a rut so hard she’d hit her head on the roof.

“Sorry.” Timms didn’t sound sorry.

Cynna scowled at the back of his head. The headache she’d already started on ached in earnest now. “Slow it down. I can’t do a cast if I’m bouncing off the roof.”

“What does it matter? You haven’t found anything.”

Sitting in the driver’s seat seemed to have gone to his head. “Slow. It. Down.”

“Rebellion in the ranks,” Cullen said sympathetically. “Want me to bite him for you?”

Timms’s shoulders twitched.

“Better not,” Cynna said. “He’d shoot you, and Lily would be pissed if we got blood all over her car.”

Cullen grinned. “No, he wouldn’t. Not before I—”

“Cullen—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Timms said.

She swung toward him.
“What?”

“Him. Not you. I’m not working with a damned werewolf. A damned werewolf
stripper.
”

“Yes, you are. You know why? Because I’m in charge.” Good Lord. Had that just come out of her mouth? If she didn’t watch it, she’d be telling him she was the decider, and then she’d have to wash her mouth out with soap.

“I know I can’t be possessed,” Timms said. “You say you’ve got faith, too, so you’re safe. But him?” Timms snorted. “If a godless heathen of a werewolf gets possessed, he’s gonna take us both down.”

“No worries,” Cullen said, leaning back at his ease. “This particular godless heathen can’t be possessed.”

“You know that, Timms,” Cynna said, exasperated. “At least you should, since I told you on the way out. Lupi claim they can’t be possessed. You’d better hope that’s true, since we’re going to be around a number of lupi, and it would be real inconvenient if the demon was in one of them. And while we’re there, you’re going to be very, very quiet. I don’t want your prejudices screwing things up.”

Timms breathed his way through a few moments of silence. He sounded more grumpy than truly pissed when he spoke. “If I slow down, I’ll lose sight of the chief ’s car.”

“Not a problem,” Cullen said. “The road leads to Victor’s place. Can’t miss it.”

Cynna looked at him. “You’ve been here before.”

“Not lately, but yeah, I have.”

He didn’t signal discomfort—no frown, tensed muscles, averted eyes. His voice didn’t go flat or sharp, and every luscious inch of his body stayed easy, announcing how little the subject mattered. So why was she struck with the notion that this rutted tree tunnel was memory lane for him, and damned unpleasant memories at that?

She thought of a neighborhood in Chicago and how she’d feel if she returned there accompanied by people from her new life. People who thought she was basically okay. The last thing she’d want would be for anyone to notice her reaction. “Is it normal for there to be this many trees?”

He blinked. “You’ve heard of forests?”

“I’ve even been in one.” They’d been looking for an eleven-year-old girl . . . She pushed that memory aside. “But it had space between the trees, and those trees were a lot taller. These are all tangled up together. They lean out over the road.”

“Leaving aside whether we can call this a road—” They hit another bump for emphasis. “This is a deciduous forest that’s been logged in the past. What you’re seeing is new growth, which includes a lot of shrubby stuff. Older forests, especially conifer forests, have less competing growth.”

“Yeah, these trees are so into competition they’ve decided to take on the road. They’re trying to push it right out of here.”

“Oh, please. Don’t tell me you’re one of those idiots who personifies everything.”

“Hey, personification is a tool in some magical systems. And Wiccans and other pagans say plants do possess intent, so—”

He snorted. “You’ve been watching Saturday morning cartoons. Plants lack the sense of self it takes to form independent will, though en masse they sometimes develop an accreted version of consciousness. But it’s ridiculous to ascribe human motives to them.”

She settled in to enjoy the argument. “I’m a simple kind of a gal. Even if these trees aren’t aware in the sense we understand it, they might have a dryad or something guarding them.”

“A dryad?” he repeated, disbelieving. “In a new-growth forest this close to civilization?”

She waved a hand. “Okay, not likely. But a number of African, Celtic, and American Indian traditions claim trees have spirits that people can communicate with, right? There are tons of legends about it.”

“Legends are mostly allegorical. Which means,” he explained kindly, as if to a three-year-old, “that they’re not meant to be taken literally.”

“I kind of get the difference between symbolic and literal truth. Hard to work a spell without some grasp of symbolism, isn’t it? But maybe the tree spirit bit is literally true. I know a shaman who sacrifices to the oak in his backyard every new moon by burying tobacco leaves at the roots.”

“Shamanic practices connect the practitioner to major and minor earth spirits or gods, not individual trees.”

“
He
says he’s contacting the tree, not some all-purpose spirit.”

“He’s mistaken. Oh, his oak probably does have power. Trees soak up a fair amount of magic over the years, but not everything that possesses magic is sentient. Or do you think crystals are alive and plotting against you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Sarcasm doesn’t prove anything. Don’t you feel something menacing about these trees?”

Not only did he not sense any menace, he thought she was an idiot. Which she was perfectly willing to debate, too.

Cynna had known Cullen wouldn’t need much encouragement to argue. That’s what they usually did. It made for a nice distraction the rest of the way to the clanhome, and not just for Cullen. Timms was so busy eavesdropping that he drove slower and didn’t say a word.

Maybe she wasn’t completely inept at the in-charge thing, after all, even if her methods were unconventional. They reached their destination without a drop of blood being spilled.

Leidolf ’s home territory didn’t look much like Nokolai’s version. The road took them to a clearing about the size of two football fields laid end to end. She saw four buildings, total: a barn, a long, one-story structure like a bunkhouse, and two houses. The first house was small and built from gray stone. Smoke trickled up from the chimney. Across from it, three pickups and a car were parked in front of the bunkhouse-type building.

They were headed for the larger of the two houses, a two-story structure at the far end of the clearing. Two vehicles sat in front of it—a two-year-old Bronco and the chief ’s cop car.

“Are there any more houses?” she asked Cullen. “Hiding back in the trees, maybe?”

“Not that I know of. Leidolf is poor compared to Nokolai, but they could afford more housing here. Victor doesn’t want that. He doesn’t trust the mainstreaming movement, doesn’t want his wolves coming out of the closet, and anyone living here is admitting he’s lupus.”

Victor Frey’s house had all the charm of a big, white box. The wide front porch was its only grace note. There was a detached garage on the near side, and she caught a glimpse of a swing set on the other side before they pulled to a stop.

Chief Mann was leaning against his car, chatting with another man—tall, blond, and bony, with a tidy mustache and old jeans. No shirt, no shoes, nice chest. He looked about thirty. Had to be a lupus, but not the one she’d come to see.

“Shit,” Cullen said.

“What?” She paused with her hand on the door handle.

“That’s Brady, the local sociopath. Timms—”

“What?” Timms snapped.

“Brady’s nuts, but he knows how to hold a grudge. If he can’t get you now, he’ll get you later, and he thinks an eye for an eye isn’t nearly enough. Don’t insult him.”

“I’m a federal agent. He’d better be polite to me.”

Cynna shook her head. “So does testosterone make fools of you all. Behave, or at least be quiet.”

Cullen cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve read Shakespeare?”

“Hey, I’m not illiterate. No warnings for me?”

“You’re a woman. His expectations will be different. But if he asks you for sex and you turn him down, do it with regret.”

She snorted and opened the door.

FOURTEEN

CHIEF
Mann turned to nod at her, still leaning casually against his car. “Brady, this is the federal agent I was telling you about. Agent Weaver, this here’s Brady Gunning. He’s the brother of the deceased.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Gunning.”

“Randall’s no loss to me. Couldn’t stand the bastard.” He gave her a thorough once-over. “I never saw anything like you before. What are you?”