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“Will you?” Liliana opened her fourth eyes, searching for future intersections between their life paths, but too many random images overlaid each other until she could see nothing regarding this wolf and her. It was like trying to listen to a single conversation while a thousand people talked at once.
Flux.
Her hands curled in frustration. Her fourth eyes always failed her when she most needed their guidance. The very act of trying to make an important decision made a mess of her visions.
Decisions made in the next few minutes would forge the direction of her future, affecting every moment from here forward. There was no way for her to see anything solid until she chose a path, and then it would be too late.
Peter Teague was trustworthy. She had seen into his heart and mind. He was an honorable being who sought to make the world better. He believed he was telling her the truth. But he also seemed completely unaware of the depth of influence the powerful Fae colonel had on his choices.
She certainly did not trust an unknown Sidhe, no matter how nice he was to look at.
She put her cold hands on the wolf’s warm cheeks and stood on tiptoe so she could touch her forehead to his again. He bent down to let her. “Farewell, beautiful wolf.”
“Pete. My name is Pete.”
“Pete.” Liliana tilted her head to one side, considering. “My name is Liliana. People mostly call me Madame Anna now because of my sign, but I like Lilly. My father used to call me Lilly when I was little.”
Pete smiled, relaxed with the carefree euphoria of her venom’s influence. He had such a stunning smile. It made her knees feel wobbly. It had been years…decades?…since anyone smiled at her like that. “Lilly,” he said. “I like it.”
Liliana caught a dangling silk line and scrambled up into the tree branches, into the darkness his eyes could not pierce.
In minutes, his friend would be there to free him. She should go.
But she didn’t.
Chapter 8
The Fairy And The Goblin
Liliana clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. She couldn’t feel her toes. She needed to get out of there, get somewhere safe and warm and far away before the red wolf got free. Instead, she huddled in a ball on a high tree branch above the little patch of woods where she had trapped him, tucking the hem of her skirt under her toes to protect them from the rough bark.
The ground was now clear so Pete’s friend wouldn’t trip, but she left many of the higher lines that would allow her to move freely and quickly.
She looked down at the red wolf, bound and helpless in his tiny island of white light.
He didn’t look scary.
Liliana studied her feelings, turning them over and over. Was she afraid of him still?
A little. Yes.
Then she should go.
Instead, she watched him from above with all her eyes.
Probably she should watch with her fourth eyes for his friend to come, but she didn’t know what he looked like, so finding him with her fourth eyes would be difficult. Besides, she couldn’t really focus on anything but the shining figure of the red wolf lit bright amidst the eerie colors of her second sight. He looked…vulnerable. Anyone could kill him if they found him now.
He struggled with his bonds periodically, just out of boredom. He couldn’t shift into his larger demi-wolf form with the silken cords tied so tightly, so he couldn’t cut or chew his way out. The immediate euphoric effects of her venom should have worn off by now. He was very healthy and young, so he probably wouldn’t notice the subtle healing effects until later.
Pete wasn’t anything like what she expected of a Celtic wolf.
Conflicting impulses swirled through all the compartments of her mind, leaving her paralyzed.
While she struggled with herself, she heard soft footsteps on the pine forest floor. Two people approached with caution, one near the lower limit of human height, less than four feet tall, the other near the upper limit, over seven feet tall.
Both wore their human forms, but Liliana had all her eyes open. She immediately saw them for what they were: a seelie Fae and an unseelie Fae, a flower sprite and an oak goblin, a creature of sunshine and one of stars. The seelie day court and the unseelie night court were in perpetual cold war that sometimes ran hot, shedding rivers of blood over millennia. She had rarely seen two such opposite creatures in each other’s company without one of them dying in the end.
The spider-kin snarled silently and showed her fangs to the dark forest. The little flower sprite, Siobhan, had set the red wolf on Liliana’s trail. Now, here she was in the company of an unseelie Fae.
