Lover Beware (7 page)

The restaurant itself was less obviously oriental than he'd expected. The tables were round, white-draped, with western

place settings. A few people sat at those tables, but most milled around—easily fifty in this room, he estimated, and there was at least one more section to the restaurant. All wore evening dress, with many of the men in tuxedos. He'd wondered about that. A tux had seemed excessive for a family birthday party. He'd worn it anyway; Lily had said the party was formal, and he admitted to possessing his share of vanity. He looked good in a tux.

"I'm not related to everyone. Just most of them." She slanted him an amused glance. "Grandmother is probably holding court on the terrace. We'd better find her and deliver this." She lifted the small, elegantly wrapped box in her left hand. "It may take awhile. You do draw attention."

It took awhile. Rule was tense, hyperalert in the way typical of this time of the month, his balance a delicate thing. Scents and sounds assaulted him with every new person to meet and charm. Outside, unseen, the moon was yet unrisen, but he felt it sliding nearer the horizon with every pulse. The sensation was pleasant, but distracting.

The discipline of years helped him stay focused on the room and the need to mask his feelings. He was helped by his curiosity about these people—Lily's people—and by his awareness of the woman at his side. That, too, was a sweet distraction pulsing through him, making even the moon's call less compelling.

It didn't take long for him to note a common theme in the comments of her relatives. The unspoken text emerged in jokes that weren't quite funny, in sympathetic comments or the blanks left by avoiding one particular subject.

Lily's family didn't approve of her job. They didn't want her to be a cop.

On their way to the terrace he met cousins, uncles, aunts, one of Lily's sisters and her date, along with miscellaneous offspring, spouses, or significant others. And he met Lily's mother.

Julia Yu was a slim, elegant woman who towered over her daughter by nearly a foot. She had beautiful hands, very little chin, several pounds of hair piled in elaborate twists on top of her head, and Lily's eyes. They opened wide when she saw his face.

She recovered quickly, greeting Rule with a polite smile.

She smelled faintly of herbal soap and hair spray. "I didn't place your name at first, Mr. Turner, but your face is instantly recognizable. I'm so glad you could join us tonight."

"I'm delighted she asked me," he said with perfect candor. Sharing Lily with all these people wasn't his first choice, but he could learn a great deal about her from her family. Especially her mother, he thought, and smiled. "Please call me Rule. Your daughter has your eyes, doesn't she? Lovely and full of mysteries. Her voice is rather like yours, too—lower than one would expect, and with the random music of a waterfall."

She blinked in surprise. "What a lovely compliment. Thank you. Lily also has something of her father's stubbornness, I'm afraid, and an unfortunate sense of humor. I'm not sure where that comes from." Something in the look she gave her daughter freighted her next words with hidden significance. "Have you introduced Mr. Turner to Grandmother yet, Lily?"

"We're making our way there now. I told her to expect him, of course."

"Ah." A subtle change in her posture told Rule some ten-sion or worry had eased. "I won't hold you up, then. I believe your father is on the terrace with Grandmother."

Rule wasn't ready to abandon the conversation that quickly. Between Julia Yu's courtesy and her curiosity about a man her daughter might be interested in, he was able to hold her in conversation for several minutes. By the time he and Lily moved away, he'd had the satisfaction of coaxing a smile of genuine pleasure from her.

"You flirted with my mother," Lily said.

He wasn't sure if she was upset or amused. "I said nothing that wasn't true."

"You also flirted with two of my cousins, my sister, my great-aunt, and the wife of one of my brother's business partners. With every woman you've met tonight, I think. Is this a lupus thing, or is it just you?"

"It would be rude not to acknowledge a woman's beauty."

Her eyes were puzzled. "I expected you to say it didn't mean anything."

"That wouldn't be true. I..." He struggled to explain what was too basic to be fitted comfortably into words. "When I compliment a woman, it always means something. Not that I

intend to take her to bed, but that I appreciate her. That I know she's a woman, and lovely."

"You meant everything you said, didn't you? You told Mrs. Masters—who must be seventy—that her pearls made her skin glow. You looked at her as if you enjoyed looking at her, and you meant it."

"Of course."

She didn't say anything more, but she took his hand. He felt absurdly pleased, as if he'd been awarded a great honor.

The rear of the restaurant overlooked the beach. The sun was slipping down the western sky when they stepped onto the terrace, an incandescent ball flipping its light scattershot across the waves it would kiss in another thirty minutes. He couldn't see the moon, but felt it hovering near the horizon to the east, a silvery song in his blood. The air was twenty degrees warmer than inside, and smelled wonderful. He breathed deeply of salt, sand, and ocean.

Rule was suddenly reluctant to proceed to the people knotted up at the other end of the terrace. "I wish we could walk on the beach together." Or run. He yearned to feel the sand beneath the pads of his paws while air screamed through his lungs as his muscles flexed and flung him along.

"Another time," she said softly, and when he looked at her he thought he glimpsed a shadow of his own longing... which, of course, was ridiculous. She had only the one form. "We may as well get this over with," she added more dryly, and nodded at the crowd at the end of the terrace.

They were halfway there when Rule stopped.

"What is it?"

Frankincense. His nostrils pinched in a useless effort to close out the toxin. Already he could feel his sense of smell closing down. "Do you truly not know?" he snapped.

"I wouldn't have asked if I did."

The smoky stench came from the knot of people directly in front of them. He shook his head, wanting to leave. "Never mind. As you said, let's get this over with."

He might as well. The damage had been done.

Chapter 7

LILY TAPPED ONE man on the shoulder and some of the others moved aside, revealing a tall chair with a carved wooden back. A velvet throw was draped across the seat and arms of the chair. A very small woman sat on that throw. She wore a long gown in Chinese red buttoned to the base of her skinny throat. A padded stool supported feet no larger than a child's, and a small brazier rested beside the footstool. It reeked of frankincense.

The woman taking up so little space in the thronelike chair didn't look eighty. Her black hair was liberally streaked with white and pulled into an unforgiving knot on top of her head. Her skin was very pale, her eyes very dark.

Had Rule been in wolf form, his hackles would have lifted.

Power. It radiated from that tiny, erect figure. Rule couldn't smell the magic on her, but he sure as hell sensed it.

"Grandmother." Lily dropped his hand to move forward. She bent to brush a kiss on one thin cheek. "Happy birthday."

"You are late. How could I enjoy my celebration without my favorite granddaughter?"

Lily smiled. "Last week Liu was your favorite granddaughter."

"Ah! You are right. Liu is never impertinent. She must be my favorite."

Two pairs of eyes met—both black, one wrapped in wrinkles, one surrounded by smooth young skin—in complete and affectionate understanding. The old woman patted her granddaughter's cheek. "I like you anyway," she announced. "What have you brought me?"

Lily handed her the prettily wrapped box. She opened it with hands that showed her age more than her face did, though the nails were long and painted screaming red. "Ah!" Her smile was as delighted as a child's. "A graceful piece, and the jade is good quality. It will go in my collection." She handed the little statue of a cat to a middle-aged woman who sat beside her, addressing her in Chinese, then turned back to Lily. "I am pleased. You may introduce your escort now."

Lily rose and moved to one side. "Zhu Mu, this is Rule Turner, prince of the Nokolai. Rule, I am honored to present to you my grandmother, Madame Bai He Tsang."

Rule knew an audience when he was granted one. He stepped forward, clamping down on the anger. "Madame Tsang, I am honored."

Keen black eyes took a head-to-toe journey over him. "So you're the lupus my granddaughter chose to bring to my party. You're terribly pretty."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"I know," he said gently, as one might to a child who flaunted her poor manners.

Unexpectedly she chuckled, and he glimpsed Lily in the amusement in her eyes. "You have style, I'll give you that. Much more durable than mere prettiness. More entertaining, too. That doesn't mean I approve of my granddaughter allying herself with you."

"Respectfully, Zhu Mu," Lily said, "one date is a very temporary alliance. And entirely my own choice."

"I wasn't speaking to you." The old woman glanced back at Rule. "I don't like the way you treat your women."

"You know nothing about how I treat my women." He couldn't smell a damned thing. Anger curled in him, stretching, trying to reach past his control.

"You are lupus. This means you treat them in the plural, I

know that much. You wish to keep them ... what is the saying? Barefoot and pregnant." Her thin lips curved in a feline smile. "I hope the smoke from the incense isn't bothering you. Some people don't care for the scent."

"I can't say I notice the smell." Not anymore.

Lily glanced from the brazier to her grandmother. Her eyebrows lifted as if she'd figured out what was happening.

"Ah, do you not? I find it a trifle strong. Hong," Tiger Lady said, turning her head toward the fiftyish man to her left. "Take the brazier away. I am tired of it." Then, without another word to Rule, she began conversing with the woman on her right in Chinese.

He was dismissed. Rule wondered if he was supposed to salute or retreat backward so as not to turn his back on Her Highness. He ought to be amused, but felt more like snarling than laughing.

Lily spoke quietly. “The incense had some effect on you, didn't it?"

"Nothing permanent." He sounded more grim than he wanted to. "I won't smell anything for a few hours."

"I am sorry. Grandmother... well, she is a law unto herself. I suppose losing your sense of smell is as disturbing as it would be if I were suddenly deafened or blinded."

"It doesn't truly incapacitate me." It just made him feel vulnerable. Bereft. And angry with himself for not having obeyed his instinct to retreat to the beach. "And it is only temporary."

"Can you stand meeting one more of my relatives? My father's here. He's much nicer than Grandmother, I promise."

Of course he had to meet her father. Walter Yu turned out to be a pleasant man not much taller than his daughter, with clever eyes, a wispy mustache, and gold-framed glasses. He was a stockbroker, and soon engaged Rule in talk of the market, which had yet to recover from its recent tumble. Rule had no trouble responding appropriately, but a good portion of his attention was elsewhere.

Why hadn't Lily warned him that her esteemed grandmother was a witch?

That was an assumption, of course, but the old woman had power. That much was certain. And the use of frankincense to baffle a were's senses was common lore in several branches

of magic, as he knew from a delightful association a few years back with a green witch. Obviously Lily's grandmother had been afraid a lupus would be able to sniff out which brand of magic she practiced, which raised some interesting questions. Many spells and some branches of magic were illegal.

Did that explain the attitude of Lily's family about her being a police detective? It might be another reason Lily had chosen homicide—so she wouldn't risk being faced with investigating the old woman someday.

But dammit, she needn't have tricked his sense of smell away from him. Rule couldn't have sniffed out what type of magic the old woman practiced. That was a myth. Unless she were actually casting a spell, all he would be able to sense was her power, and he didn't need his nose for that.

Very few people realized that, though, he admitted grudgingly. It suited his people to keep their secrets.

No doubt it was unreasonable to complain if others preferred to keep secrets, too. And in truth, although the Gifted hadn't been persecuted as severely as his people, the old woman would have grown up hearing tales of burnings, brandings, purges. To be Gifted remained a stigma.

But it was difficult to be reasonable when he couldn't smell.

The buffet was lavish, but the plate he filled held no appeal. He pushed a bite of swordfish around on his plate and pretended to listen to Walter Yu discussing the euro.

Lily leaned closer and said quietly, "So, how long are you going to pout?"

"Pout?" Rule lifted his brows slightly. "If I'm not eating, it's because food lacks flavor when I can't smell it." Even humans knew that to be true.

A smile tugged at her lips. "Not eating, not. speaking— sounds like pouting to me. Or a snit. You did say the effects were temporary?"

His sense of humor nudged at him. "Nonsense. Princes don't pout. We may sulk occasionally, but we don't pout."

"I see." She nodded gravely. "I suppose the difference between sulking and pouting is obvious to a prince."

"It's obvious to a man. All men sulk on certain occasions." He leaned closer. "You see, if I were to kiss the place where your neck curves into your shoulder, I wouldn't be able to

smell your skin. I've been thinking about that. Also the backs of your knees, and other places you would probably prefer I didn't mention. When I take you home tonight and kiss you, I want to be able to inhale your fragrance while I'm tasting you. It makes me quite sulky that I won't be able to."