Only Human

made good tea and would be welcome to return—from her, that counts as approval. She also said that something you haven't told me is going to come as a big surprise. She seemed amused, so I gather whatever it is won't be too much of a shock."
    "Ah. Well..."
    "You don't have to tell me right this second." He sounded amused himself.
    Her heart was beating a little too fast and her mind jittered along the surface of her thoughts like a water bug. "I'm more than a little surprised that Nettie is a councillor. I thought they would all be Nokolai."
    "Nettie is Nokolai."
    "Is she?" They were facing each other now, their hands clasped. "Did she become part of the clan when she married your uncle? Or does mating mean something more than marriage?"
    He touched her cheek. "I should have known you would turn up a clue or two. You heard about mates."
    She nodded. Hope and guesses tangled in her throat, keeping her from speaking. So much depended on the accuracy of those guesses....
    "There is something about my people you don't know. Something no one outside the clans knows." He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Over half of all lupi never father a child. And fertility is ... limited ... in the rest of us."
    It wasn't what she'd expected to hear. "But—you have two children—"
    "By two different mothers. Few women conceive by us, and of those who do, none has ever borne more than a single child."
    "It's the magic in you. It screws with the results in DNA tests, too."
    "You see why only a lupus who has sired sons is able to become Lu Nuntius?"
    She nodded slowly.
    "The outside world considers us promiscuous. In your terms, this is true. The need for children shapes us, defines us. We are seldom fertile with women of our own people, so we seek bed partners wherever we can. Not indiscriminately. We don't want our children birthed or raised by a chance-met stranger in a bar. But our survival as a people depends on those of us who are fertile siring as many children as possible."
    "And you're fertile." Lily was dazed, as she'd heard gunshot victims sometimes were in the first seconds—the blow registers, but isn't real yet. Not real enough to hurt. She remembered the men at the childcare center arguing over who got to stay with the babies. The swarms of children everywhere.
    Not everyone gets to be a mommy, the little girl had told her. Not everyone—relatively few—got to be a daddy, either. "That's why lupi don't marry," she whispered. "Because to be faithful to one woman would be to betray the needs of your people."
    "Yes."
    Abruptly the numbness was ripped away. Pain wrenched her around to face the water, hugging herself as if something vital was leaking out, like blood from a gut wound. "I can't... I can't do it, Rule. It wasn't long ago I said you were going too fast, and maybe I'm doing that now. You haven't... but for me, this has gone too far. I can't share you."
    "No!" He grabbed her shoulders, spun her around. "Lily, I didn't mean—I thought you knew about mates!"
    "I thought so, too. At least, I'd made some guesses." Her voice shook and her legs weren't too steady, either. She held
    on to his arms. "But no one came right out and said what—"
    One second she was holding him and being held. The next she was rolling on the ground where he'd thrown her.
    Rule howled. The eerie, ululating cry had goose bumps popping out on her flesh even as she threw her arms out, stopping her skid toward the lake. She pushed up onto her hands and knees—and stared.
    He was Changing. Flickering—no, it was as if reality itself flickered, time bending in and out of itself like a Mobius strip on speed. Impossible not to watch. Impossible to say what she saw—a shoulder, furred, or was it bare? A paw; a muzzle that was also Rule's face—a stretching, snapping disfocus, magic strobing its fancy over reality.
    And then there was a wolf. Huge, black and silver furred, snarling.
    And three other wolves racing at them from fifty feet up the shoreline.
    Lily's gun was in her hand, though she didn't remember drawing it. The wolves moved like streaks of pure speed, impossibly fast. She pushed to her knees, aimed, and fired—just as the black and silver wolf beside her launched himself at the one in the lead.
    She hit the one on the left in the haunches. It didn't stop him—he still threw himself at the snarling tangle the other two wolves made. The third wolf veered toward her and leaped— huge, beautiful, and terrifying, jaws