Mortal Ties Read online

  “Eileen Wilks writes what I like to read.”

  —Linda Howard, New York Times bestselling author

  PRAISE FOR EILEEN WILKS’S NOVELS OF THE LUPI

  BLOOD CHALLENGE

  “Action packed…[An] exciting, twisting thriller.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Full of intrigue, danger, and romance…The Lupi series is one of the best Were series I have ever read.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  BLOOD MAGIC

  “An intense and suspenseful tale. For anyone who enjoys werewolves and romance, Blood Magic is a must-read…Eileen Wilks is a truly gifted writer. Her newest novel is truly a work of art as her words paint a picture of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A tantalizing glimpse into the past of one of the series’ most enigmatic characters, Lily’s shape-shifting grandmother. Wilks’s storytelling style is so densely layered with plot complexities and well-defined characters that it quickly immerses readers in this fascinating world. There is no better way to escape reality than with a Wilks adventure!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Another great addition to the Lupi series, Eileen Wilks’s Blood Magic is an engaging paranormal tale full of action and adventure that should not be missed!”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Terrific.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  MORTAL SINS

  “Filled with drama and action…This story is number five in the World of the Lupi series and is just as good as the first.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Held me enthralled and kept me glued to my seat…The characters and world are intriguing, and the solution to the murders is unusual and thought provoking…Ms. Wilks has a skill with description and narrative that truly brings a world and its characters alive.”

  —Errant Dreams Reviews

  “Fabulous…The plot just sucked me in and didn’t let me go until the end…Another great addition to the World of Lupi series.”

  —Literary Escapism

  “[Lily and Rule are] a crackling couple…[Wilks manages] to translate that indefinable tension, that absolute and utter chemistry that happens between real couples…onto paper.”

  —Romance Novel TV

  NIGHT SEASON

  “A captivating world.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “Filled with action and plenty of twists.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  BLOOD LINES

  “Another winner from Eileen Wilks.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “The magic seems plausible, the demons real, and the return of enigmatic Cynna, along with the sorcerer, hooks fans journeying the fantasy realm of Eileen Wilks.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Intriguing…Surprises abound in Blood Lines…A masterful pen and sharp wit hone this third book in the Moon Children series into a work of art. Enjoy!”

  —A Romance Review

  “Savor Blood Lines to the very last page.”

  —BookLoons

  “Quite enjoyable and sure to entertain…A fast-paced story with plenty of danger and intrigue.”

  —The Green Man Review

  MORTAL DANGER

  “Grabs you on the first page and never lets go. Strong characters, believable world-building, and terrific storytelling…I really, really loved this book.”

  —Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “As intense as it is sophisticated, a wonderful novel of strange magic, fantastic realms, and murderous vengeance that blend together to test the limits of fate-bound lovers.”

  —Lynn Viehl, New York Times bestselling author

  of the Darkyn series

  “[A] complex, intriguing, paranormal world…Fans of the paranormal genre will love this one!”

  —Love Romances

  FURTHER PRAISE FOR EILEEN WILKS AND HER NOVELS

  “I remember Eileen Wilks’s characters long after the last page is turned.”

  —Kay Hooper, New York Times bestselling author

  “If you enjoy beautifully written, character-rich paranormals set in a satisfyingly intricate and imaginative world, then add your name to Eileen Wilks’s growing fan list.”

  —BookLoons

  “Exciting, fascinating paranormal suspense the will have you on the edge of your seat. With a mesmerizing tale of an imaginative world and characters that will keep you spellbound as you read each page, Ms. Wilks proves once again what a wonderful writer she is with one great imagination for her characters and the world they live in.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “Destined to become a big, big name in romance fiction.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Fantastic…Fabulous pairing…Ms. Wilks takes a chance and readers are the winners.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Fun [and] very entertaining!”

  —The Romance Reader

  “Should appeal to fans of Nora Roberts.”

  —Booklist

  “Eileen Wilks [has] remarkable skill. With a deft touch she combines romance and danger.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Books by Eileen Wilks

  TEMPTING DANGER

  MORTAL DANGER

  BLOOD LINES

  NIGHT SEASON

  MORTAL SINS

  BLOOD MAGIC

  BLOOD CHALLENGE

  DEATH MAGIC

  MORTAL TIES

  Anthologies

  CHARMED

  (with Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle, Julie Beard, and Lori Foster)

  LOVER BEWARE

  (with Christine Feehan, Katherine Sutcliffe, and Fiona Brand)

  CRAVINGS

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, and Rebecca York)

  ON THE PROWL

  (with Patricia Briggs, Karen Chance, and Sunny)

  INKED

  (with Karen Chance, Marjorie M. Liu, and Yasmine Galenorn)

  MORTAL

  TIES

  EILEEN WILKS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi— 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  MORTAL TIES

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / October 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Eileen Wilks.

  Excerpt from Ritual Magic by Eileen Wil
ks copyright © 2012 by Eileen Wilks.

  Cover art by Tony Mauro.

  Cover design by George Long.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

  electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-61150-0

  BERKLEY SENSATION®

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is

  stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the

  author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks go to M. David Lugo, cemetary manager at Mount Hope, who helped me get some of the details right.

  I also want to send a shout-out to my Watercooler sisters (you know who you are). Thanks for the hand-holding, commiseration, and for celebrating with me when it was time to break out the confetti.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Epilogue

  Cast of Characters

  Ritual Magic

  ONE

  LILY Yu hadn’t planned to visit the graveyard at sunset. It just worked out that way.

  Mount Hope’s main gates closed at three thirty, but the pedestrian gates stayed open. People liked to stop by after work, the guy at the cemetery’s office had said, especially on the deceased’s birthday or other important dates. No parking available at this hour, though, except for what you could grab along the street.

  Lily pulled her government Ford to the curb and checked her rearview mirror. The white Toyota that had been following her drew close, then cruised on by. She would wait. No point in making them anxious by getting out before they could park. It was bad enough she brought them here when the light was going.

  Not that they would be spooked by the setting sun, no more than she was. The dead weren’t scary. It was the living you had to watch out for.

  While the Toyota hunted for a parking place, Lily transferred her penlight from her purse to her pocket. The day was slipping down toward dusk, and twilight’s a tricky bugger. In the daytime you know where you are and can see where you’re going. At night you know you can’t see, not without help—electric help, most likely, from the city, a flashlight, whatever. You know, so you take precautions.

  Twilight blurs the edges. In the shadow time, it’s easy to mistake what you see, to step wrong, thinking there’s light enough to keep going. Back when she worked homicide, Lily had arrested people who went that one terrible step too far, confused by a personal twilight of drugs or emotion. People who never set out to be killers.

  But some take that step on purpose. Some damn well know where the lines are and cross them deliberately. Like the bastard whose hearing she’d testified at today.

  Goddamn copycats.

  The Toyota backed itself into a spot between an SUV and a pickup halfway up the block. Lily grabbed her purse, checked for cars, and climbed out of her Ford. Traffic was sparse enough she could cross right away, so she did. By the time she reached the cemetery side of the street, two men had gotten out of the Toyota.

  One was slim and pale, with a round face and glasses. He looked like he ought to have a pocket protector tucked away somewhere. The other was a head taller, eighty pounds heavier, and looked like he ought to have a couple of tattoos and a rap sheet. Geek Guy wore a cheap sports shirt. Tough Guy wore a black T-shirt. Both wore jeans, athletic shoes, and sports jackets.

  Lily wore a jacket, too, and for the same reason. It might be a few days short of January, but this was San Diego. The air was crisp, not cold. But people get upset if you walk around with your shoulder harness showing.

  The men crossed the street between a dark sedan and a delivery truck. Geek Guy made a quick gesture with one hand. Tough Guy set off through the gate at an easy lope. Lily followed Tough Guy—also known as Mike—and was in turn followed.

  They hadn’t been tailed here, but it was just barely possible their enemies knew she planned to come and had someone waiting. Highly unlikely, but possible. A month ago she’d picked up a map of the cemetery. Theoretically, Friar could have somehow learned about that and kept the place staked out ever since.

  Or so Scott had said when she told him she was coming here. Lily considered this one of the safest things she’d done lately. Friar’s organization had been badly damaged in October when he’d managed to get a lot of people killed and had seen his long-laid plans blow up in his face. She doubted he had the resources to keep a sniper in place 24/7 for a month. She doubted even more that he had any idea she’d picked up that map in the first place.

  He did, however, have one resource they could neither predict nor evaluate in any meaningful way, so she could be wrong. If so, well, she had backup.

  Sometimes it really is all in the name.

  For months she’d struggled with the need for bodyguards. No—be honest, she told herself as she set off down a narrow road that twisted through the cemetery, heading generally where she needed to go. She’d hated it. She’d hated dragging guards everywhere, hated the loss of privacy…hated, most of all, that one of them had given his life for her. The need for them was real, but her acceptance of the necessity had been a grim thing, testy and prone to muttering.

  Last week Rule had shaken his head at her mutters and said, “I don’t get it. Didn’t you ever call for backup when you were a regular cop? That didn’t make you crazy.”

  “Backup,” she’d repeated slowly. Then said it again as a weight shifted, not disappearing but settling into a more comfortable place, like slipping on her bra or shoulder holster. “Backup, not guards. They’re my mobile backup.”

  Trailed by half of her mobile backup—Geek Guy, aka Scott White, who was a lot more interested in guns and knives than computers—Lily left the road for the soft grass, moving between the resting places of the dead.

  Her target lay in the newest part of the cemetery. Mount Hope was old for this side of the country, an accumulation of graveyards the city had assumed responsibility for over the
years, with lots of established trees and old-fashioned headstones. Here, though, it was what they called garden-style, with neatly trimmed grass and markers set flat into the ground, each with a little holder for flowers.

  The grass was damp and springy and perfumed the air. In other parts of the country, people associated the smell of freshly cut grass with summer. It evoked winter for Lily. That’s when the rains came, when grass grew lush and green and was in need of cutting. This year December had been unusually wet, bestowing nearly five inches of rain on them. Lily walked on soft grass between the graves of people she’d never known, heading for the one she had.

  She hadn’t brought flowers. It would be tacky to bring flowers to the grave of a woman you’d killed. Especially when you didn’t regret it.

  Lily counted rows, turned, and counted graves. She didn’t see Mike nearby, but she hadn’t expected to. Lupi were good at tucking themselves away where you couldn’t spot them.

  And there it was. Lily stopped.

  She hadn’t brought flowers, but someone had.

  Not an expensive bouquet. More like the kind you pick up at the grocery store, with a few dyed carnations supplemented by baby’s breath. Pink and red carnations, in this case. There was an inch of water in the glass cylinder holding the bouquet.

  Was this the right grave? Maybe she’d lost count. She knelt by the headstone laid flat into the ground, frowned at its unexpected decoration, then used her penlight to read the inscription on the plaque.

  HELEN ANNABELLE WHITEHEAD

  When Lily killed Helen a year ago last month, she hadn’t known the woman’s last name. She hadn’t known much about her at all, save for a few vital facts. Helen had lived up to the common wisdom about telepaths—she’d been batwing crazy. She’d tortured and she’d killed; she’d tried to open a hellgate; she’d intended to feed Lily’s lover to the Old One she served. She’d also been doing her damnedest to kill Lily just before Lily put a stop to that and the rest of the woman’s plans.