16. To Save A Prince
Chapter 16
To Save A Prince
Liliana lay awake some hours later, snuggled in the strong arms of her prince. His warm breath against the top of her head puffed steady and deep with sleep. His long body spooned around her made her feel very small and oddly, very safe.
But it wasn't her life that was endangered. It was his. In a matter of days, an assassin would come to end his life.
Talking about her parents at dinner brought up old feelings that she had all but forgotten. Himmler, the son of a seelie princess and a human, with the aid of the red wolves of Germany, had all but destroyed the spider seer race. Her first mother, her father, two of her brothers, their children, and so many of the friends of her youth. What few had known was that Himmler sought a sword. In the hands of a Sidhe, that sword could amplify Fae power to godlike levels.
Now, a killer came for Alexander, her beautiful prince whose heart beat faster when she touched him. The enemy believed Alexander had the sword. Fraegarthach would make him a god, and it would destroy him. Liliana would never let that sword anywhere near her prince.
Up until he defeated the Wolfhounds, Pete needed the sword to survive, but now, it was a liability. Fraegarthach needed to leave. As long as it was in Fayetteville, it threatened her prince's life and his deepest self.
But that was a fear for another day.
Something had fundamentally changed in Alexander’s future. She no longer saw him dying from a single gunshot to the head in his own kitchen as his most probable future. That possibility was gone. A far more certain vision now took it’s place. Alexander sat bound to a chair. He was being beaten in a place she didn’t recognize. It was somewhere with a high window with no glass. His path had changed, but it still led to his death. Now, instead of fighting someone she had a high probability of defeating, she would face a different opponent. She still could not see her opponent’s face, but she did see him killing her in some of her visions. She might not be able to beat this new murderer.
As she saw big fists and hairy human forearms crash into her prince’s face, she at least knew the gender of her new opponent. A man. A big man.
This killer didn’t just seek Alexander’s death, though. He thought her prince had the sword. The killer would hurt him to try to force him to tell where it was. The probability that she would win that fight was even less than when she fought Tray Bradley. This was a far more formidable enemy than the slender person who killed Alexander in his kitchen in her previous vision. Plus, her left arm would still be weak from the bad break. Her best chance lay in finding a way to stop him without fighting him directly.
The possibility of dying while fighting for Alexander’s life was not what kept her awake long into the night, though.
In all her visions now, whether she lived or died, whether she fought or stopped the killer another way, she always saw Alexander’s body bloody on the floor. Sergeant Giovanni put two fingers to his throat to check for his pulse, shook her head, and said, "He's dead."
She could no longer see a future where her prince survived.
Just a day ago, there had been a good probability that he would live. She must have done something that changed the possible futures. It must have happened today. She didn't know what she had done wrong. Something she’d done that day was a mistake.
Alexander would pay the price.
She blinked tears. There had to be something she missed. There must be a path where he could be saved.
"Hey," Alexander mumbled softly. "What's wrong? Did you see something?"
"It is something I do not see that worries me." Liliana held his big hand close against her chest, rubbing his fingers for comfort. His other arm was under her head. His bicep was her pillow.
"What don't you see?"
"You. I see myself fighting for you. Sometimes I win and survive, but I do not see you alive after that, even if I defeat your attacker."
"I don't like the idea of you fighting for me if you're not sure you can win.”
He always seemed to ignore the danger to himself. It was as if he didn't care, but he said he believed her. Maybe he was just so used to his life being in danger that it didn't perturb him.
"I decided to fight for you when you had only kissed me once."
"And now?" His thumb stroked between her breasts, over her heart.
"A dozen angry trolls could not stop me from fighting for you."
He chuckled and hugged her tighter against his body. "Be careful then." He placed a kiss on the top of her shoulder.
They were both silent for a time, but his breathing didn't steady and slow. Alexander lay awake now as well. "What can you tell me about it?" he asked after a while. Maybe he was not as unconcerned about his fate as he seemed.
"Something significant has changed. I no longer see a small, black-gloved hand, probably a woman, and a single fatal shot that catches you by surprise. Now, I see a man, a killer who believes you have Pete's sword. He will suppress your magic so you can't fight back, torture you for information, then kill you. I changed something. I made it worse, somehow."
"What's so special about Pete’s sword that everyone is after it?"
"It is Fraegarthach, the Answerer."
His body stiffened. He lifted up onto one elbow to look down at her, stealing away her nice bicep pillow. "Fraegarthach has been lost for two millennia."
She opened her second eyes so she could see him as well. "Not lost. Hidden for generations by a pack of Celtic wolves. Pete is the last of the pack. The others are all dead."
"No wonder Aurore wanted it so badly. Pete has the sword now, doesn't he?" His voice had that bored, flat tone that he used when he sought to hide his emotions.
"Do not seek the sword, my prince. I knew that you would desire its power, much as you desire immortality, but as you said, there is always a price. The price for Fraegarthach is far too high." Her view of his face through her second eyes was awash in colors that she had no name for, eerie and yet, still beautiful. She could see the crown of silver horns as a flickering aura. His face reflected oddly, as if it were much harder than human flesh.
His lips quirked and that dimple in his cheek appeared. "Apparently, the price for not having it is death."
"Some things are worse than death."
"I can't let Aurore get her hands on it, Little Spider. She's already tried to kill Pete for it more than once. I have to do something or eventually, she'll succeed."
He was trying to convince her to help him get the sword. He was a master manipulator, yet she was not fooled. His argument had a flaw. It depended on Pete's life being more important to Liliana than Alexander's own life. To her astonishment, that was no longer true. "The sword, itself, will protect Pete, as will I. That sword must never again be held by a royal Sidhe."
She shifted onto her back to face him with human eyes. "One rampaging Green man is a consequence of a Sidhe prince bonding to the land here. If you or your sister held Fraegarthach, every Fae in a hundred miles would awaken at once, mountain giants, elementals, dragons, the horrors of native stories we never heard, creatures that have been gone so long we no longer even have legends of them. The longer you held it, the wider that circle of Green power would become. Six people lost their lives from just one angry, confused Green man."
"It would give the wielder the power of a god," he said softly. His bland tone could not hide his desire for that power from her third eyes.
She touched his face, tracing the scars that marred his perfect skin. "The laws of physics would break down. Chaos would reign.” There were few things her prince desired as much as power. One was order, and oddly for a soldier, another was peace. “The moment one Fae laid claim to that power, every other Fae of royal blood, seelie or unseelie, would seek to take it. You would be the spark that ignited another great war.”
He grimaced in distaste, but his mind still searched for ways to make the sword his.
“My parents and older brothers are dead because a Fae sought that power. I suspect Pete's parents and maybe his entire pack was killed because of it.” She didn’t dare open her fourth eyes, not wanting to see the consequences of such a rash action. “How many would die, do you think? Would you, a young prince still cementing his power base, be one of them? Are you ready to do battle against every other Sidhe in the world?"
His jaw firmed with a kind of stubbornness that refused to back down even if all the world stood against him.
She stroked the hard muscle of his jaw with her thumb. "My help is yours for most things, but I will not help you destroy yourself and rip the world apart."
"Fraegarthach is a Fae sword of power. It wouldn't kill me." There was a hint of question in his voice.
"No, but it would deeply, fundamentally change you. All that you are now would be gone. A monster would live in your skin. I like you as you are, my prince of shadows and secrets."
He settled back with a sigh pulling her close against him. "Then I suppose it's a good thing you and Pete didn't let me get it."
Liliana kept silent. She knew the desire for the power of Fraegarthach had not left her prince. Alexander would seek the sword again. It was his nature to seek power.
I accept that.
She understood who and what he was. So far, his lust for power had been less strong than his desire to protect his people. He sent the wizard to get the sword from Pete thinking that would save the red wolf from being hunted constantly by his sister's assassins. He’d sought a path to the sword without bloodshed. He couldn't have known how William Eliot would twist his orders.
After a while, Alexander slept.
Liliana did not sleep until dawn lightened the windows. She searched every possible path of the future, fought to get past the images of torture and death to see another way. She couldn’t understand why her prince would die now when before, there had been a chance for her to save him.
What changed? What did she do wrong? More importantly, what could she do to fix it before it was too late?
Finally, exhaustion dragged her under its spell.