Free Mortal Ties by Eileen Wilks Page A

not explosives, and laid
     smack-dab on the trail the thief had taken. Laid with the wind in mind, that helpful
     wind that had carried his scent to them. The wolfbane-contaminated smoke took out
     five of the twelve-man squad immediately. Five of the others were affected to a lesser
     degree, leaving only two at full strength. Still, one of them managed to pick up a
     scent trail on the other side of the fire.
    That’s when the klaxon went off.
    Lupi do not all react the same way to the same dose of wolfbane. The nausea is universal,
     but the degree varies, the duration varies, and some lupi have other symptoms. José
     was one of those who lost their sense of smell. He hadn’t inhaled much smoke, so he
     was queasy rather than incapacitated, but his nose was horribly and infuriatingly
     dead.
    There is little that makes a lupus crazier than losing his sense of smell. Maybe that
     had led José into error, or maybe he’d have done the same thing had his sniffer been
     at full strength. He ignored the klaxon as an obvious attempt to lead them away from
     the real trail—the scent trail he could no longer detect, but two of his wolves had
     it. He and the remaining squad members took off down that trail, crossing onto state
     land.
    Then they heard the dirt bike…half a mile of very rough country away. Right about
     where the klaxon had gone off.
    When they got there, both motorcycle and thief were gone.
    Smart thief, Lily thought as she crested a rise, breathing hard. The klaxon had been
     a double-dip of deceit. What kind of fool would set off a klaxon to announce his location
     while pursued by wolves? One who knew something aboutlupi, who knew they’d trust their noses over their other senses. Rule was investigating
     that deceptive scent trail now.
    A man stepped out of the darkness in front of her. “Lily.”
    She couldn’t see his face well without shining her flashlight in it, and that would
     be rude. But she did lift the light slightly. “Ah—David, right?” She’d met the leader
     of this squad at some point—tall, with a blocky build and reddish brown hair, but
     mostly what she remembered was the mustache. Very few lupi kept any facial hair.
    “Yes. This is the perimeter Merowitch suggested should be safe.”
    Merowitch was the explosives guy. “He’s in the workshop still?” When David nodded,
     she said, “I need to talk to Cullen.”
    “He’s at the workshop.”
    “Dammit, he was told—”
    “Not inside,” David said quickly. “But Isen didn’t tell him to stay away from the
     workshop—just not to go inside. He, ah, takes orders very literally. And only,” he
     added with justified exasperation, “from his Rho or Lu Nuncio. Or so he informed me.”
    That sounded like Cullen. “Does he have some reason to think that’s safe, or is he
     just being an asshole?”
    “He did some kind of spell and said he didn’t find any explosives—but he thought we
     should all wait on Mero witch’s okay, just to be sure. But if he isn’t sure, he shouldn’t
     be there.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” she assured him, and raised her voice. “Cullen? I’m heading
     down there to talk to you.”
    A voice floated up from the darkness. “Like hell you are!”
    “Lily?” David said, worried. “You can’t—”
    She patted him on his arm as she passed him and kept her voice raised. “If it’s safe
     enough for you, it’s safe enough for me.”
    “Dammit, David, can’t you stop one little bitty human female?”
    Either David had caught on or he was truly appalled. “You want me to physically restrain
     a Chosen? Rule’s Chosen?”
    “She’s not going to shoot you,” Cullen called back. “I don’t care what she says, she
     won’t shoot.”
    That made Lily grin as she picked her way down the path. “I don’t threaten what I
     won’t do.” There were trees on this side of the ridge—pine and scrub oak, mostly—and
     the trail down was steep and skid-inducing, with scree and