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Informationen zum Autor Eileen Wilks Klappentext View our feature on Eileen Wilks's Mortal Sins.FBI Agent Lily Yu and her werewolf lover are embroiled in a series of murders! each linked to a form of dangerous "death magic." But it was the musk, blood, and fur scent of raccoon he chased. A three-quarter moon hung high overhead as he leaped the stream, muscles reaching in exhilarated approximation of flight. He landed almost on top of the prey — but his hind feet skidded in slick red clay. A second later, the raccoon shot up a tree. He shook his head. Damned raccoons always climbed if they got a chance. He didn't begrudge the animal its escape, but wished he'd had more of a chase first. Deer do not climb trees. He decided to course for that scent. Coursing was as much excuse as action. He'd eaten well before Changing, so hunger was distant; the real delight was simply being in motion, reading the world through nose, ears, the pads of his feet. The human part of him remained, a familiar slice of "I" that was not-wolf. He remembered his two-legged thoughts and experiences; they simply ceased to matter as much. Not when air slid through him like hot silk, pregnant with a thousand flavors. It was probably the human part that felt a pang for the wonders of these southern woods, remembering the hotter, drier land claimed by his clan in southern California. His grandfather had made the decision to buy land there for Nokolai's Clanhome. In that place and time, the land had been cheap. It had been a sound decision. The clan had prospered in California. But at Nokolai Clanhome, wolves ran on rocks scattered over hard-baked ground, not on a thick bed of needles and moss through tree-shadows surprised here and there by the tumble of a stream. Rule had run as wolf in many places, yet there was something special about this night, these woods. Something new. He'd never run here as wolf before. Not with Leidolf's clanhome so near. The spike of worry was real, but fleeting. Wolves understand fear. Worry is too mental, too predicated on the future, to hold their attention. The slice of him that remained man wanted to hold onto that worry, gnawing it like a bone that refused to crack. The wolf was more interested in the day-old spoor of an opossum. This was why he ran tonight: too many worries, too much gnawing at problems that refused to crack open and release their marrow. He'd learned the hard way that the man needed the wolf at least as much as the wolf needed the man. These woods were sweet. He'd find no answers in them, but tonight he wasn't seeking answers. Lily said they hadn't come up with the right questions yet. Rule paused, head lifted. Thought of her was sweet to both man and wolf. If only she could . . . . He twitched his ear as if a fly had bitten it. Foolishness. Both his natures agreed on that. Things were as they were, not as he might wish them to be. Females did not Change. An hour later he'd found no deer, though he'd crossed their trails often enough, along with many others — a pack of feral dogs, a copperhead, another raccoon. Perhaps he'd been more interested in the distractions than the hunt, when there were no clanmates to join the chase. He wished Benedict was here, or Sammy, or Cullen...wished, though he tried not to, for Lily. Who could never share this with him. His son would. Not yet, but in a few years. His son, who slept in a nearby town tonight — a town that would not be Toby's home much longer. In four days they would meet with the judge for the custody hearing, and as long as Toby's grandmother didn't change her mind... She wouldn't. She couldn't. Feelings thundered through him, a primal cacophony of bliss, fear, jubilation. Rule lifted his nose to the moon and joined in Her song. Then he flicked his tail and took off at a lope, tongue lolling in the heat. At the base of a low ...
