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Liliana glanced at the clock. “Pete and Detective Jackson will be ready to discuss the case with you in four minutes. You should go.” She pointed toward the path through the trees.
She opened the passenger door and got out.
“You saw… me,” the prince said as he got out on his side. “Who I am inside, I mean.” Instead of looking at her, he looked at the hood of the car between them. His gaze avoided her face, like she tended to do. Then he squared his broad shoulders and faced her, chin lifted. “Are we enemies now?” he asked, shoulders tense, gun still in hand.
The Fae colonel was complex. There was coldness, anger, violence, ruthlessness, and pain inside him. But there was also a strong personal code of honor and a powerful desire for order and fairness. He was both a very good man and a very bad man. She had never met anyone so layered and balanced between darkness and light. “I have still not decided.”
This Fae prince was not cheerful and dazzlingly bright like her favorite red wolf, but his soul held its own compelling intricate beauty that was just as dazzling. Where Pete was a bright azalea flower blooming in the sunshine, this prince was a velvet black night sky studded with sparkling stars. She would not wish to see such beauty destroyed. “May I ask your name, your highness?”
He looked at her now, brows drawn together in puzzlement. “You know what I am, my parentage, and the day I’ll die, but you don’t know my name?”
Liliana shrugged. “I only see what I’m looking for, and I didn’t look for your name.”
His lips curved in the barest shadow of a smile. He shook his head in amazement, then gave her what she asked for. “Alexander Bennet.”
As she rounded the car, he took her fingers in his hand, a warm tingle accompanying the touch. She wondered if it was some sort of Sidhe power. She’d never been touched by a Sidhe before.
He bowed over her hand, and pressed his lips to her knuckles, his dark eyes never wavering from her face. He must find her attractive. His lips were warm and soft on her fingers, and the tingle went straight to more sensitive parts.
Her breath came faster, and she fought the urge to touch his face.
Oh. Probably not a Sidhe power then.
Chemistry.
She gave him a formal curtsy, completing a social ritual from long ago and far away, while looking at the eagle pin on his collar. Hopefully, the warm flush in her cheeks didn’t show under her dark skin tone. She walked beside the tall prince past the trunk of the old oak that had sheltered her.
The top of her head barely reached the top of his chest. Standing beside him made her feel very small. He was not as tall as Doctor Nudd but taller than anyone else she knew. “If you will get me into Fort Liberty unnoticed a few weeks from now, I will make certain that you survive that day unharmed. Without my help, you will almost certainly be badly injured, if not outright killed.”
“That’s the favor you’re bargaining for?” he asked, surprised. “With saving my life as the payment, you could bargain for almost anything. Why do you want on base?”
“Someone will die on Fort Liberty that day. I do not want it to be my friends.” Detective Jackson and several others walked toward them from the other side of a broad open field, around the mound of excavated earth and through the knee-high grass. It was a fair distance, but they were closing it.
“If one of my people is in danger, I’ll protect them.” Colonel Alexander Bennet put a hand on her arm, stopping their progress in the shade of a pine tree, partially hidden from the people walking towards them. “Tell me who it is.”
Liliana tilted her head sideways, looking carefully away from the prince and the Normals on the other side of the field before she opened her fourth eyes. “That won’t work. They will die anyway, and then your life will be in even greater danger.”
His jaw tightened and he dropped his hand. “I’m not going to smuggle someone I don’t know onto my base.”
Liliana sighed and nodded. Once he made a decision, she knew there was no point in arguing. The soul she’d seen was not one to bend easily to another’s will.
So she had her answer. It was not the one she’d hoped for.
There was one other answer she really wanted from him, though. “Now that you know why your sister sent the Wolfhound, do you intend to order more Wolfhounds to come here to kill Pete and take his sword for yourself?” She held little hope that he would answer her since she had nothing left to bargain with. Neither Fae nor royalty were generally inclined toward straight answers for free.
A muscle in his jaw jumped, and his nostrils flared. “No.”
She looked up directly at his face for a moment, surprised. That was certainly a straight answer. “May I look to see if you speak the truth?”
“I told you to stay out of my head.”
She raised her hands to placate him. “I will see only what you think and feel in the moment. I will look for nothing more. You have my word.” She always swore precise oaths. He seemed like a man who would understand what that meant.
He looked at her for a few seconds, then he nodded permission. “You’ve been honest with me so far, and you did save my life.”
She opened her third eyes and looked only at his surface thoughts. The mirror shield of magical defense was lifted from them briefly.
He repeated his answer. “I absolutely have not ever and will not ever order Wolfhounds to kill Pete.”
