Mortal Ties by Eileen Wilks

someone
     lived.” She smiled slightly. “Mother is more traditional, which is funny, since she’s
     third generation, while Grandmother is so very Chinese. Have I told you about Qingming?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Mother observes Qingming every year by taking flowers to the graves of her ancestors—first
     her grandparents’, then her parents’ graves. So that’s how I honor my grandparents
     on her side, because that’s how she does it. But every April sixteenth, I have a Grandfather
     cupcake.”
    “Did you do that this year?”
    “Yes. Should I have told you?”
    “Probably. As I should have told you that today was Mick’s birthday.” He was silent
     a moment, and still, his eyes losing focus as he looked inward. “Mick was an asshole
     sometimes. He wrapped up all his problems in me so he wouldn’t have to deal with them.”
    She said nothing, but she listened hard.
    “He wasn’t an asshole all the time.” Rule’s sudden grin delighted her. “He knew how
     to have fun. When I was twenty, he took me to Tijuana for my birthday.”
    “Maybe I shouldn’t hear the details of that celebration.”
    “Among other things, I learned that it is possible for a lupus to get drunk. It takes
     real dedication and the condition is extremely short-lived, but it is possible.”
    “Do I want to know how you achieved that?”
    “Five quarts of tequila downed as fast as I could swallow.”
    “Did they come back up as fast as you could vomit?”
    “I staggered and giggled for a few minutes, felt queasy a couple more, then both nausea
     and intoxication faded.”
    “That’s it? No hurling, no hangover?”
    “I did have to piss most urgently.”
    “Life is just not fair.”
    “Lily.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I love you.”
    She smiled and tipped her head and kissed him—softly at first, but as his breathing
     quickened she put more effort into it. When she straightened, one of his hands had
     shifted well north of her hip, while her hands were enjoying all that lovely bare
     skin along his shoulders and chest. Her smile this time was wicked. “I promise I won’t
     be careful with you.”
    Words could be overrated. He omitted them entirely in his reply.
    She was bare to the waist and extremely distracted a few moments later when her mate
     abruptly straightened, his head tipped ever so slightly. It was a posture she recognized.
    “What did you…oh, God. Isen.” Rule must have heard his father returning. She looked
     around frantically for her shirt—saw it on the floor, but not her bra—
    “Not my father.” He pushed his chair back, his face still distant. Listening.
    She clambered to her feet, bent, and snatched her shirt—and there was her bra, under
     the table. She snatched it up. “What, then?”
    “You didn’t hear it? No, obviously not.” Rule grabbed his phone from the table. “Something
     just blew up.”

SIX

    “S HIT .” Lily hooked the bra around her waist, twisted it, slid her arms in, and yanked it
     up.
    Rule tapped the screen on his phone. “Isen didn’t take his phone with him. Or his
     guards.”
    “Double shit.” Bra in place, she reached for her shirt.
    The phone—the landline—rang. Rule had his phone to his ear. He gestured at her to
     take it. “If it’s Pete, put him on speaker.”
    She hurried to the old-fashioned stand the phone rested on and snatched up the receiver.
     “This is Lily.”
    “I need the Rho,” the second-in-command of clan security told her.
    “He’s on a run. Alone. Rule wants me to put you on speaker.” Lily did that, set the
     receiver down, and tugged her shirt over her head. “Rule is talking to someone on
     his mobile, but he—”
    “I called Hammond,” Rule said, sliding his phone in a pocket as he joined her. “He
     lives near the draw where Isen often runs. He’ll cast for Isen’s trail. Pete, what
     happened?”
    “Don’t know yet, but there’s a fire halfway up Big Sister.”
    “Halfway?” Rule asked sharply.