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won’t have to figure things out for yourselves.” He pulled out his lighter. “I admit, thinking takes time.”
    “Don’t,” Rule said wearily.
    Max paused, squinting at Rule for a moment. He put the lighter down. “Your father?”
    “The Rho is healing. Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you think something was wrong.” Rule grimaced. “That something more was wrong, anyway.”
    “You’re shook,” Cullen said, surprised.
    Rule took a moment to sort out what to say. Max and Cullen were his friends. At the moment they were colleagues, too, of sorts. But they weren’t Nokolai. “None of us expected them to act this soon. And I didn’t expect it to be this personal.” He thought of Rachel, her eyes red and swollen, empty of everything but grief. “Perhaps I should have.”
    “Regrets are the most useless form of guilt,” Cullen said. “They always arrive too late to do any good.”
    “That’s their nature, isn’t it?” He pushed that aside and spoke formally. “The Rho extends Nokolai’s gratitude, and offers you the aid and comfort of the clan for a moon cycle.”
    “I thank the Rho,” Cullen said, his voice light, his fingers tight on the glass he’d been polishing. “Canny old bastard that he is. I’m surprised he didn’t offer me money.”
    “The Rho has a great respect for money—and an understanding of what it can and can’t buy. The offer wasn’t meant as an insult, Cullen.”
    The other man shrugged and slid the glass back in its overhead rack. “Perhaps not. I’m tempted to show up at Clanhome for a month just to make his hackles rise.”
    “You need a bodyguard,” Max said suddenly. “We knew they’d targeted Isen. Why wouldn’t they try to get rid of you, too?”
    “Killing Carlos is an uncertain means to that end. Besides . . .” Rule paused, frowning. “It doesn’t fit. Why risk an investigation?”
    Max shrugged. “Might be cocksure.”
    “Might have reason.” Cullen was messing with the wine bottles now, rearranging them to suit some arcane sense of composition. “So far they’re batting a thousand.”
    “Not even five hundred. They tried to kill Isen and failed. Now they’ve tried to get Rule put away, but the frame’s sloppy. Quit that,” Max snapped when Cullen moved another bottle. “My bartender won’t be able to find anything.”
    “You’re assuming we know their goals,” Rule said slowly. “Isen isn’t dead, but he’s out of the picture for awhile. That may serve their purpose just as well. And we don’t know why Fuentes was killed—or that I’ll manage to stay out of jail.”
    “You’re not going to jail,” Max insisted.
    Cullen turned. “Stop playing Pollyanna. The role doesn’t suit you. Rule is right. Our opponents are subtle, and we can’t afford to underestimate them.”
    Max snorted. “You been tuning in Mission Impossible on your crystal ball? Subtle’s another way of saying convoluted. In real life, the fancier the scheme, the more likely it is to fall apart.”
    “Some do.” Cullen picked up Max’s lighter, flicked it, and studied the flame. “There’s a rumor of a banshee sighting in Texas.”
    “Is that what this is about? Signs and portents?” Max cackled. “The big, bad werewolf has his panties in a twist because some idiot can’t tell marsh gas from a banshee. And in Texas! ” That, apparently, was the best part of the joke, for Max slapped his knee and nearly fell off his stool laughing.
    Cullen didn’t say a word, but his face tightened, his pupils contracted—and the lighter’s flame suddenly shot up a foot and darted toward Max.
    “Hey!” Max did fall off the stool this time, landing on his butt. “Are you crazy? You want to set off the smoke alarms? Burn the place down? Like I really need to explain to the fire department and the insurance company about my crazy were friend who has this little problem with anger management.” He stood up, muttering and rubbing one hip.
    “Cullen,” Rule said.
    The