He answered slowly. “The timing came as a shock. She is moving much faster than I’d expected. The rest of it . . . no. We’ve known for nearly a year that she is active in our realm once more. Now we know some specifics about her plans. That’s tremendously valuable, and learning that we—the clans—have strong allies against her is a great relief.”
She stared at him. All this time, he’d been expecting something like this. When he proposed to her, he’d known they’d face some kind of Armageddon shit. When they planned their wedding, he’d known. He hadn’t just thought there would be danger—he’d known it would be vast and powerful. World-toppling. All along, he’d known. “You’re really okay with . . . with all this. You expected it. You’re not freaked and hiding it. You’re . . . okay.”
A small frown tugged at his eyebrows. “My wolf helps. That I live more closely with him than I used to helps a lot. Fear is . . . an immediate thing for a wolf. What hasn’t yet happened isn’t real enough to trouble him.”
“What about the man? How does that part of you stay so damn calm, and plan a wedding, and spend time picking out a necklace for me, and set up Toby’s college fund, and—and look to the future as though things were going to be okay?”
“Lily.” He took her arms gently. “How else could I live? It’s helpful to know what our enemy intends, and while I take Ruben’s visions very seriously, none of it is fated.” He cocked his head as if listening to something she couldn’t hear, then leaned in so close his lips brushed her ear as he whispered, “My Lady is also a patterner, and vastly more experienced than Friar.”
“But . . .” She switched to a whisper so soft only he could hear. “But your Lady isn’t able to act in our realm.”
She felt his lips move in a smile and the breath of his next words. “Except through her agents, nadia. She acts through us.”
Through lupi. Who she’d created, and who served her still, wholly and freely. She could act through them, and that was why the Great Bitch had to remove them. And instead of finding this terrifying, Rule took comfort in it.
Lily didn’t answer with words. She took his hand. She was frowning as she did it, but knew he’d understand both the frown and the touch. “We should go home.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. “Yes. I love you.”
Emotion burst out in a shaky laugh. “Don’t I get to brood at all?”
“Later, perhaps.”
LATER started as soon as they got in the car.
Ruben’s street was quiet, but once they turned onto Bethesda Avenue the traffic picked up. Wet streets bounced light back from taillights, headlights, streetlights, bistros, clubs, and storefronts. If the brief rain had washed people inside for a time, they were back out now, wandering the pretty downtown area and sitting at tiny outdoor tables with frothy drinks or beer and nachos. It was only a little after eleven, and on a Saturday night.
All these people busy having lives . . . people mad at the boss, celebrating a raise, hunting for a hookup, getting busted, falling in love. People praying, partying, laughing, yelling, making up, breaking up . . . people helping a stranger or robbing one. People who expected tomorrow to arrive in about the same shape as today.
And maybe it would for most of them. And the day after, and the one after that. But next month was looking pretty damn iffy.
An Old One wanted to amputate the future all these people were building with whatever mix of altruism and cruelty, determination and thoughtlessness. The Great Bitch wanted to graft her version of the future onto the world. According to the lupi, she saw herself as humanity’s benefactor. Sure, people would die on the way to her shiny utopia, but death was what mortals did, right? No real problem. She’d make it up to the survivors by making sure they didn’t get to make bad choices anymore.
If the strongest precog on the planet—who also happened to be a good man, good all the way down—was convinced the only way to stop her lay in a shadowy, extralegal organization, Lily could accept the necessity. It didn’t go down easily, but wasn’t bullshit often easier to swallow than truth? She wouldn’t be reporting Ruben to the federal attorney. She’d keep