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This possibility flickered in and out of future existence like the light of a candle in a breeze, one moment most likely, the next impossible and vanished from her future sight, replaced by another equally likely but utterly opposing future.
This usually meant that something between now and then would shift the balance of probabilities so that one future would become the most likely and the other would cease to be possible.
In the other alternate future vision, the Wolfhound would not attack but would instead be subservient to this unknown scion of the family he served.
Liliana watched that branch of future possibility.
“Please forgive me, your Highness,” the wolf-kin whimpered, his eyes on the prince’s feet. He arched his neck to one side to expose his throat in submission. On hands and knees, he crawled backward out of the tree’s shadow, putting himself out of arm’s reach of the deadly Fae. “But I serve the princess. She is not known to show mercy for failure.”
Mercy was not a word Liliana had ever heard associated with Titania’s daughter. Princess Aurore’s punishments made the Goblin King’s predilection to roast his enemies alive and eat them seem…unimaginative.
Magnanimously, the prince inclined his head to the assassin. “I will speak to my sister. I will let her know this red wolf is under my protection.”
The Wolfhound gasped in shocked surprise.
Liliana gasped with him.
An unseelie prince protected a Celtic wolf? That fit with what Liliana had seen of the colonel and Pete’s relationship. But the Order of the Wolfhounds had been created by the unseelie queen specifically to combat the threat of the red wolves.
Pete violated all her expectations of Celtic wolves. His best friend and mentor was an unseelie goblin, and apparently, an unseelie prince protected him.
Janice gasped too, hand over her mouth. She could not know what Liliana saw, but the spider seer’s reactions made her foot tap the floor rapidly.
Like a person might do when trying to make friends with an unfamiliar dog, the dark prince extended a hand to the Wolfhound, fingers down, the back of his hand facing the assassin.
Hesitantly, the wolf-kin crept back into the deep, strangely moving shadows of the oak tree in Janice Willoughby’s yard, his belly all but scraping the ground, drawn to the commanding black silhouette of the Fae prince. “Thank you, your Highness.”
The prince stroked the assassin’s hair, dark curls winding around long, slender, clawed fingers, resembling living volcanic stone. “You have only done as you were ordered. There is no fault.” His hand tightened in the wolf-kin’s hair. He pulled the assassin’s head back painfully until the wolf-kin looked up at him.
Softly, the wolf-kin whimpered, but he made no move to defend himself. His eyes slid away from the prince’s. He licked his lips.
The tall prince bent down. His black eyes shimmered red in the deep shadows as if lit from within by fire.
Obeying the unspoken order, the werewolf met those fiery eyes for a moment, his entire body quivering in terror.
A silken deep voice purred softly. “I’m curious. My sister would not send an assassin all the way to the United States to kill a red wolf simply for existing.”
“I…I cannot speak for my lady. I do not know her reasons.”
Twisting the hair in his hand, the Fae prince arched the wolf’s throat back until he whined. “You must have some theory of your own,” the deep voice purred conversationally. The fiery eyes spoke of barely contained rage, but Colonel Bennet’s voice gave away nothing.
“A sword! Princess Aurore told me to search the red wolf’s house, slay the wolf and anyone else there, and bring any sword I found to her.”
“A sword.” The obsidian prince’s eyes narrowed. “Why is a sword so important?”
“She didn’t say, your Highness. I swear I don’t know why she wants it.”
“I believe you.”
The wolf-kin sagged with relief.
With his free hand, the prince lashed out, crushing the wolf-kin’s windpipe with a single lightning-swift movement.
He tossed the choking, dying wolf-kin to the ground and gestured with his hand. The roots of the oak tree moved like the tentacles of a giant octopus, wrapping around the wolf-kin’s limbs, even as he struggled frantically.
The prince closed his hand and moved it downward.
The earth moved, making way as thick roots pulled the werewolf underground. He opened his mouth, trying to scream despite his crushed larynx, and a big root shoved between the canine fangs. It emerged out the back of the werewolf’s neck in a fountain that turned the churning soil to mud. It was black in the shadows, but Liliana’s imagination knew it should be red. Dirt covered the wide-eyed face as the roots pulled the assassin deeper. One clawed hand scrabbled frantically at the oak tree’s trunk, leaving deep gouges in the bark, then it, too, was pulled beneath the earth.
