Dragon Spawn (A Novel of the Lupi, Band 13) - Softcover

Buch 13 von 14: World of the Lupi

Wilks, Eileen

 
9780451488039: Dragon Spawn (A Novel of the Lupi, Band 13)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0451488032 ISBN 13: 9780451488039
Verlag: Berkley, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

The New York Times bestselling author of Mind Magic returns as FBI agent Lily Yu gets some very bad news…
 
Lily learns she was right. Tom Weng—a powerful sorcerer allied with the Old One who keeps trying to take over the world—is still alive. But that's not the worst. Weng is a dragon spawn, the product of a botched hatching given a human form in an attempt to keep him from going mad. A failed attempt.
 
Meanwhile, Lily’s husband Rule is facing a Challenge to the death. Then there’s the possible reappearance of another sorcerer. But none of that matters when their enemy strikes out of nowhere in the worst way possible. Lily must face a nightmare and return to a place she never wanted to see again. The place where she died…

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Eileen Wilks is the New York Times bestselling author of the Novels of the Lupi, including Mind Magic, Unbinding, and Ritual Magic. She is also a three-time RITA Award finalist and the recipient of a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times.

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ONE

"You did what?" Lily shook her head. "Bad move, Cullen. Cops get excited when you take off running while they're questioning you."

"It would have been worth it if I'd caught him."

Maybe. Or maybe it would have been disastrous. "If it was really the guy who gave you those shields-"

"It was."

Cullen was wearing his stubborn face. Stubborn looked good on him. So did anger, arrogance, vexation, or intense focus, which were the expressions she saw most often on a face whose beauty could cause strangers to stop and stare. She tended to forget that. Mostly he just looked like Cullen to her. "Did you see his magic, then? If he was a sorcerer-"

"I didn't look. There were a lot of sorcŽri around, so I'd tuned out on the Sight-and then he was gone, vanished in the crowd. But he saw me, too." He frowned. "I bet he locked his power down so I wouldn't see it."

"Can sorcerers do that?" Lily asked, startled.

"Adepts could, back in the old days. Some mages, too."

"You only got a glimpse of him," Benedict observed from his spot on the couch. "That's a lot of certainty from one glimpse."

"Two glimpses," Cullen said, "and I've spent enough time resurrecting what memories he left me of our encounter. I know what he looks like."

Roughly two years ago, a friend of Cullen's had arranged a meeting between him and another sorcerer. Cullen came away from that meeting with the strongest mental shields on the planet, memories that had been tampered with, and a burning desire to find the man again. So far, he'd failed.

Benedict leaned forward, curious. "His first name was Michael, wasn't it? What was his last name? I've forgotten."

"Maybe because he didn't use one. Damned sorcerers," he muttered, sublimely unaware of any irony. "Secretive as hell, every one of 'em."

Lily snorted. "Shouldn't you say, 'every one of us'?"

"Whatever." Cullen brooded a moment. "I'm going to find him."

Lily knew why Cullen wanted to find the mysterious Michael. He was convinced the man had the Codex Arcana-aka The Book of All Magic. She just wasn't sure that was a good idea.

It did seem like the Codex was or had recently been on Earth, based on the Great Bitch's efforts to find it-for which she'd needed Lily. The idea had been to wipe clean Lily's mind and imprint a copy of the Codex on that nice, blank slate, a process that apparently only worked if the target brain belonged to a sensitive. Lately their enemy had been more interested in killing Lily than capturing her, which made Lily think the Codex wasn't here anymore. But if she was wrong-if Cullen did find the Codex-it would change so much. Some of it for the better, sure. Who knew what kind of powerful spells such a book might hold? None of them could use adept-level spells, but Cullen was almost as good at magic as he thought he was. He'd undoubtedly be able to make use of some of them . . . if the Great Bitch gave him time to learn them.

She wouldn't. They were already targets. If they held the Codex, she'd throw everything she had at them, all at once.

Probably the issue wouldn't arise. Probably Cullen had just caught a glimpse of some guy who looked like Michael, but wasn't him. Why would this mysterious sorcerer show up here? And even if Cullen was right-about whom he'd seen and about Michael having the Codex-the man would go poof now that he'd been spotted. He'd vanished successfully before.

"Did you get his scent?" That was Rule, speaking from the kitchen. They'd gone for a mostly open floor plan on this floor, but from where she sat, the study and stairwell blocked her view of the kitchen.

"He was too far away and I don't have your nose. Not that I could recognize his scent, as the son of a bitch didn't leave me a memory of what he smells like."

"Son of a bitch" was a major lupi epithet. Cullen held a grudge. "Are you out on bail?" she asked.

"Of course not. It isn't against the law to interrupt a cop by running away. It just takes some explaining. Are those cookies done?" He stood abruptly and started for the kitchen.

Lily stayed put in the oversize chair that used to comprise one-third of all the furniture she owned and absently stroked the pile of orange fur draped across her lap. Dirty Harry purred loudly. She smiled. There was just something about petting a purring cat . . .

"You think he really saw that sorcerer?" Benedict asked.

Lily snorted. "Cullen's always certain. He isn't always right."

"True." Benedict fell into a thoughtful silence.

Silent was the default state for Rule's big brother. Sometimes he overdid it, but today it felt restful. Lily wasn't feeling terribly chatty, either, though it was good to have company. It was really good to be home.

Home meant a lot more than it used to. Twenty-two months ago, it had been just her and Dirty Harry. Now she was married. Back then she'd been a homicide detective with the San Diego PD. Now she was a Special Agent with Unit 12 of the FBI. Back then, home had been a tiny apartment. That's how she'd thought of her place, anyway-as home-and it had possessed the basic elements: familiarity, her bed, and a front door key she paid for. One she could turn in the lock to shut out the rest of the world.

Then she'd met Rule and the mate bond hit. That bond had given them no choice; they had to be together. It had made more sense to share Rule's apartment in a high-rise than to try to fit him into her place. Harry had hated it there, though he'd mellowed a bit when Rule's son, Toby, joined them. Harry adored Toby. But they'd given up that apartment, thanks to the war the rest of the world didn't know about, and moved to Nokolai Clanhome to stay with Rule's father, Isen. Isen's house was spacious and comfortable, but it had never felt like home. It wasn't hers.

This place was hers. Hers and Rule's.

Admittedly, in terms of dollars, he'd put way more into it than she had, but the only way they'd ever be financial equals would be if he lost most of his wealth. She wasn't crazy enough to wish for that. Her new goal was to stop defining the "equal" in "equal partners" in terms of dollars. She wasn't there yet, but she was working on it. And it was true that some of the whopping price tag for their place was his to shoulder, since the land and the guard barracks were necessary because of his position as Leidolf Rho. Even so, he'd put more into the house than she had, because he'd paid for all of the renovations. She'd contributed little except opinions.

Turned out she had plenty of those.

Twenty-two months ago she'd have said she didn't care what her place looked like as long as it wasn't cluttered, but once forced to contemplate backsplashes, closets, and lighting, she found she did have likes and dislikes. Fortunately, some of them coincided with Rule's. Some, but not all. Who could have guessed that a man who loved contemporary design would have such a fixation on wood?

Compromise was the name of the game in marriage. Their bedroom was not sheathed in dark, heavy wood paneling, thank God. But covering one wall in scraps of reclaimed wood-which he insisted on calling an art installation-had turned out well. Rule hadn't gotten the open shelving he wanted in the kitchen, either. Trendy, sure, but way too cluttered for her. Why did people want to see all their stuff all the time? But she'd caved on the ceiling. Paneling a ceiling sounded weird, but Rule really wanted it, so she'd gone along. She was glad of that now. The honey-colored wood looked fantastic overhead.

This house was nothing like her old apartment, and not just because it was so large and upscale. It had only one of the elements she'd once believed made up home-her bed, the one she shared with Rule. But she wasn't paying for the place all by herself, and it wasn't familiar. Not...

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Verlag
Berkley
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0451488032
ISBN 13 
9780451488039
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
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