Human Nature by Eileen Wilks Read Free Book Online

“You’re not going to tell me how stupid it is for me to keep paying rent when we’re living together and your place is so much bigger?”
    “Why would I tell you what you already know? You’ll keep the apartment if you feel a need. If not, you’ll let it go.”
    She walked beside him for a few steps in silence. “If I weren’t investigating, I’d hold your hand right now.”
    Promptly he took hers.
    “Hey.” But she didn’t pull away. She told herself no one would notice—they were mostly blocked from view by the parked cars. “Mariah Friar’s baby. He isn’t Steve’s son, is he?”
    “No. It’s not uncommon for a woman to claim one of us as the father. Sometimes they believe it to be true. Sometimes they hope for support, emotional or financial or both. Sometimes they want the notoriety.”
    “Hmm.” She accepted Rule’s word as both honest and accurate. He would know. Lupi never had to play who’ s-the dad. When a lupus impregnated a woman, he was instantly aware of it.
    Lily might not have believed that if she hadn’t been almost present when it happened once. Cynna and Cullen had made love in the next room, not in front of her—and thank God for that—but there was no doubt in her mind that Cullen had known immediately that his seed had caught.
    Any lupus blessed with a child notified his Rho ASAP. One as desperate for a child as Hilliard had been would have announced it to the entire clan. Certainly to his oldest friend. “So, how exactly did you stalk Chief Daly?”
    “I don’t know why I thought you might forget to ask about that.”
    “I don’t, either.”
    He flashed her a grin. “Smart-ass. All right. For about a month, I made sure good old Pete saw a lot of me. Sometimes two or three times a day. We’d run into each other at the post office or Joe’s Burgers—he likes the chili burger with extra jalapeños. Sometimes I’d skip a couple days. Doesn’t do to be predictable.”
    “That’s enough to make him mad, not to make him sweat. He started sweating when he saw you.”
    “Some of the places where I ran into him would have been unexpected.”
    “Such as?”
    “Now and then I’d wait for him to come home after a long day’s work—he’s divorced, lives alone—have a little chat, and leave as soon as he fell asleep.”
    She stopped walking. “He fell asleep with you there? You broke into the chief of police’s house, and he went to sleep instead of arresting you?”
    “It was an apartment, actually, and he wasn’t the chief then. And I had a little charm Cullen made for me.”
    “A sleep charm.”
    “Worked beautifully, too. So did the other charm Cullen gave me.”
    “And that was?”
    He smiled, but his eyes were hard. “A confusion charm. Poor Pete wasn’t sure of anything. What time did he see me? What day? He had a couple patrollers keeping an eye on me by then, but they swore I’d never gone near his place on the night he thought I’d showed up.”
    “He didn’t even know which night you were there? Surely he could work it out.”
    “He’d wake up with the last few days jumbled. He wasn’t sure when anything happened.”
    “That’s…chilling.”
    “He was the chief detective in a town that borders Clanhome. Steve wasn’t the first lupus he’d picked up for trivial or manufactured reasons and beaten. We heal so conveniently well, you see, that there are never any marks later. He needed to know he’d pay a price for indulging his little hobby.”
    “Did he do that to you?” she demanded. “Did he beat you?”
    Something flickered in his eyes, too brief for her to read it. “No. But those he did hurt were mine to protect.”
    She frowned as she started walking again. “I’ve never heard of a confusion charm. How hard is it to make?”
    “The confusion charm is Cullen’s own creation, and he called it fiendishly difficult. I doubt anyone else has one, at least in this realm, though I suppose it’s possible Cullen traded one for