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the clan’s
     acreage, and the terrain was rougher on the Nokolai side. Hard to patrol. A bomb set
     off there would certainly pull the nearest patrols that way, potentially opening a
     route…but to what? Lily pictured the area in her mind, but she couldn’t come up with
     a target that was both close enough to BigSister for the absence of nearby patrols to matter, and far enough away that the intruders
     wouldn’t be spotted by the patrols converging on the fire.
    Fire. Maybe that was the key point. Maybe the intruder was counting on the fire to
     get big enough to require most or all of Nokolai’s fighters, leaving the village relatively
     undefended. If whoever it was didn’t know about Cullen’s knack with fire, that would
     make sense.…except that this was winter. An unusually wet winter. There was more to
     burn on the east face of Big Sister than the west—more trees, brush, and general growth—but
     none of it was dry enough to catch readily.
    Maybe Big Sister hadn’t been the first choice. What was it Rule had said? Isen might
     have “precipitated an incident.” Or someone else could have, like the missing patrol.
     Someone who spotted the intruders or was spotted, which somehow resulted in setting
     off the bomb in a less than ideal spot.
    And she was diving off into pure speculation now, when what she needed was facts.
    Faint but not distant, she heard yipping. That meant someone had approached the house
     who was supposed to be here.
    “Cynna’s here,” Rule said abruptly—and in his normal voice, which meant he was talking
     to her, not Pete. “With Ryder. Toby’s team reports all quiet there. Still no word
     from the missing patrol, but the others should reach the area any minute now. If…yes?”
    Lily heard the front door open and a woman’s voice murmuring softly: “Shh, now, we’re
     going to see Uncle Rule and Aunt Lily, and yes, I know you want to finish eating and
     you will in just a minute, promise…”
    “Hell,” Rule said. “Warn Cullen. Cynna’s here, so I’m switching to the landline now.”
    Lily shoved to her feet. “What?”
    “Rick,” Rule said—apparently to the dark shape that suddenly bulked in the doorway,
     blocking what bit of light there was. “Any problems on the way here?”
    “Nothing,” said a young lupi Lily knew slightly.
    “Good. Take your post. Cynna, once you’re in here, we’ll turn on a light.”
    “Good, because while Ryder doesn’t mind the dark, I bump into things. Lily?”
    “Back here,” she answered as dim forms moved against the paler shape of the doorway.
     Cynna was a good friend and fellow FBI agent, currently on extended maternity leave.
     She was also the new Nokolai Rhej, as vital to the clan in her way as its Rho. “You’ve
     been told what happened?”
    “An explosion and a fire up on Big Sister.” Her voice moved as she came into the room.
     “Cullen’s off to—” She stopped, blinking as the overhead light came on. “Wow, that’s
     bright. Cullen’s going to go put the fire out.”
    Cynna looked a bit like a blond Xena who’d gotten carried away with body art. Lacy
     patterns decorated pretty much every exposed inch of her skin, and most of the unexposed
     regions, too. Anyone who knew much about tattooing would realize the designs hadn’t
     been applied with a needle, however. It took magic to imprint lines that spiderweb-fine.
    At the moment she wore jeans and a button-down shirt and carried a blanket-wrapped
     bundle that was beginning to bleat like a distressed sheep. “Firebug Asshole interrupted
     Ryder’s dinner,” she added, plopping down in one of the chairs and unbuttoning her
     blouse with one hand. “That’s about all I know.”
    “We don’t know much more,” Lily told her. “Isen’s off on a run. He went alone, which
     is why Rule’s in charge. Rule, you learned something just as Cynna got here.”
    His face was about as closed as the door he’d just shut. “One of the nearest