AllFreeNovel
Share Us
By not answering, the prince had answered her question. She wondered if he was powerful enough to land bond with the entire town of Fayetteville, or even more of North Carolina. It would explain why so many Fae and beast-kin seemed drawn to this area. It might also encourage the flourishing of the Green that Liliana had noticed. More than might be explained by the general greening of the world.
Most importantly, an honorable, landed prince in Europe would feel an obligation to watch over the well-being of his people.
That left the still unanswered question of who exactly the prince considered his. The soldiers on base were a given. Of course the warriors who took his orders would be his to watch over. An unseelie prince would not be likely to claim a seelie sprite, even if she did supply him with custom weapons. However, an unseelie doctor who healed his soldiers would be someone a landed prince would almost certainly consider his to protect. “If I cannot get to the base, either Doctor Nudd or Siobhan will die.”
“You don’t know which one?” Colonel Bennet turned a corner and crossed a low section of the road. Water sloshed nearly to the top of the big wheels, but the sturdy military car plowed steadily through.
Liliana thought about Siobhan on her motorcycle. The sprite had to want to get to the base very badly to drive in this weather.
She gave one last shiver, feeling guilty but grateful for the heated vehicle. “It might be both of them, Siobhan and Doctor Nudd. The future is forged by the choices we make. Doctor Nudd will die unless Siobhan chooses to risk her life to save him. Or unless I can get to the base to save them both.”
The prince’s black brows pulled together, and his lips tightened, barely perceptible changes in expression that Liliana noted with interest. She would have to watch the prince closely. Many of his expressions were more subtle than other people’s.
“Why would a seelie Fae sacrifice herself to protect a goblin?” His voice was still unconcerned, as if they chatted about the rainstorm. Liliana thought she detected an edge of bitterness. She wished she could open her third eyes to confirm what she suspected. She hadn’t seen who treated him so badly in his younger days, but she’d seen hints that they were Fae from the day court.
Siobhan and Doctor Nudd’s relationship was not something either would want the local land ruler to know about, and Liliana did not disclose other people’s secrets. “Siobhan offered Doctor Nudd a favor to save her life when she was badly injured.” The trading of favors was the one interaction that was considered acceptable, even across the strict social barriers of the two courts of Night and Day.
“And he’s likely to call in the favor to save his own life.” He nodded to himself to show understanding.
Fortunately, the prince wasn’t asking a question. Liliana greatly doubted that Doctor Nudd would deliberately put Siobhan into danger to protect himself.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Liliana cocked her head to one side and considered. “You confronted the pride-king because all the soldiers who died, even the ones the widow spiders killed and the two women who were shot, they were all his patients.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s involved somehow.”
“As I said, I can see lies. When you asked him if his cybernetic work had caused harm to his subjects, he said that as far as he knew, it hadn’t. That was a lie.”
Alexander Bennet’s eyes took on a soft red glow like a burning ember of a fire, an indication of his Otherness that he would probably suppress if she were not also Other. “So his experiments are harmful to my soldiers. I knew it. Too many coincidences. And he’s aware. But there’s no evidence that he had anything directly to do with their deaths. What does an unscrupulous cyberneticist at Liberty have to do with a nest of widow spiders in Raleigh?”
“Oh,” Liliana remembered something important. “When I was trying to get Pete back from the widow spiders, I watched them talking. Kristen, the young pregnant spider did not want to kill anyone. Lady Daphne told her that the doctor who sent them said they were going to die anyway. She was just making use of their bodies.”
“The doctor? Did they say who?”
“They did not. But…” Liliana looked directly at Alexander Bennet for a moment, and he glanced back at her at the same time.
“Periclum,” Alexander Bennet said.
“The pride-king,” Liliana said at the same moment.
“Something he’s doing to the soldiers must be killing them slowly,” Alexander said. “And he used the widow spiders to cover his tracks.”
“He might also be the one who murdered those two soldiers I found in the forest. That would explain why it seemed that they were already dead before they were shot. He might also be the one who will murder Doctor Nudd. I will look to be certain.” Liliana opened her fourth eyes, focusing on the king of lions and also on Doctor Nudd’s death. She saw the hand that held the sword that would end her favorite goblin’s life. It belonged to Andrew Periclum in demi-lion form.
“The king of lions is the enemy.” Liliana nodded. She was somewhat startled by the knowledge, despite the logic of the conclusion. She had almost asked the murderer to give her a lift to the murder scene to prevent him from killing someone.
That might have gone badly.
A muscle in the prince’s jaw jumped. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“You did not have the chance. His champion protected him.”
“Bradley.” The prince’s mouth pinched as if he tasted something bad.
So that was the name of the man with the claw scars. Bradley.
He pulled up in front of the police station. “Here?”
