Mortal Danger by Eileen Wilks Read Free Book Online Page B

stellar crowd back then.
    That was thirteen years ago. Jesus. Hard to believe in some ways… and in others, it seemed like a couple lifetimes ago. He would have changed since she’d known him, but this one was a real one-eighty. Sexually open relationships were a moral must for lupi. Something to do with their religion, she thought.
    How had the China doll gotten him to change his mind about something that really mattered to him? Not by playing the fragile femme. She might look the part to someone who wasn’t paying attention, but Rule paid attention. That was one of—
    “Looks like they’re about finished,” Karonski said, picking up his satchel. “It’ll take me a while to get set up. You want to check it out your way while I set my wards?”
    “Sure.” She straightened and followed him.
    Karonski was Wiccan, and Wiccan spells were considered the gold standard. In certain carefully circumscribed situations, what he learned was admissible as evidence in court. But his methods did take a while. According to the authorities, Cynna’s spells were unreliable because the accuracy depended on the skill of the caster.
    But she was one hell of a Finder. One hell of a lot faster than Karonski’s methods, too. Cynna had her head cleared and her energy focused on the serpent maze on her left arm by the time they reached the door to the rest-room. While Karonski got rid of the local representatives of officialdom, she started the spell moving through the maze.
    Finding was her Gift. She didn’t need spells for that. But to be any good as a Finder, she had to able to sort, to find the patterns of things and people. That’s what most of the spells inscribed on her body were for—sorting the energy she detected so she could Find its source.
    When Karonski gave her a nod, she stepped inside the restroom, turned, and held her hand over the bolt. Energy zipped from her hand to the bolt and bounced back, altered, to slither along the paths of her skin and burn a new design on her upper right thigh.
    She dropped her hand, staring at the bolt. “Holy shit.”
    LILY sat on the examination table with her head pounding and her eyes closed. Her “room” was a curtained alcove that offered all the sketchy privacy of a hospital gown—an indignity she’d been spared so far, though it might have been more flattering than her bridesmaid’s dress. Nearby a baby was crying the thin, monotonous wail of exhaustion. The air stank of disinfectant and less obvious odors.
    Down the hall a woman was cursing some man. On the other side of the curtain a monitor beeped relentlessly. Lily turned her head. “What does it smell like in here to you?”
    “Pain-Rule sat on the table with her. She’d temporarily abandoned her ”don’t lean“ policy and was glad of the support of his arm and body.
    Funny. The way she was snuggled up against him left her good arm pretty much useless, but that didn’t make her uneasy. Was mat the effect of the mate bond, making her feel safe whether she was or not? Or was she just too tired and sore to care? “And yet you insisted on bringing me here.”
    She felt his smile in the way his cheek moved against her hair. “Pushed you around while you were temporarily weakened.”
    “Damn right, you did.” There were a few good things about his height, she decided. It put his shoulder at just the right level for her to rest her aching head.
    Lily felt guilty over how much she appreciated her parents’ absence. Her mother’s hovering and need to take charge would have driven her crazy. She’d persuaded them that the trip to the ER was a formality, necessary for insurance purposes. Grandmother, as expected, had left by the time Rule hustled Lily off to the ER, but she wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. Grandmother didn’t do hospitals.
    “Watch it,” Lily said. “We aren’t exactly private here.”
    Rule’s hand had slid up her rib cage, and his thumb was stroking slowly along the underside of her