Page 3 of Obsidian Prince

But she saw nothing different. With the overbright coloring of a future vison, she saw him in the kitchen bending over to get something out of the refrigerator. She wasn't sure when, but it was late at night. He looked tired. He sighed as he stood up with a bottle of orange juice in his hand.

A bullet of some kind effective against Fae fired from a high caliber handgun penetrated his forehead.

Liliana controlled her instinctive shudder as she watched him die again.

She couldn’t see the killer. Death was so hard to see around. The hand holding the gun wore black leather gloves. It was angled up. The murderer would be someone considerably shorter than he was with small hands, a woman possibly. Death was immediate as his blood and brains splattered the immaculate kitchen. The orange juice bottle shattered on the tile.

Liliana closed her fourth eyes and swallowed hard. Sudden death featured in so many of her visions lately that she had become inured to the shock, but she still hated it. Even if he lived, she could not unsee. His death would feature in her ugliest dreams. Either the prince would ignore her advice, or locking his door would not keep the murderer out.

Alexander Bennett released her hand. He waved his in front of her face to bring her attention back to the moment. "I would like an answer to that question."

"No. And please don’t do that. It’s annoying.” People who thought her feebleminded because of her different way of thinking had done that to her when she was younger. “You can touch my arm or the back of my hand to get my attention, or just speak to me."

The prince's eyebrows went up. His grip on the gun became less relaxed. "You're not going to answer me?"

"No. That is the answer.” Liliana forced herself to glance up at his face for a moment with her human eyes. “I am sorry. As far as I can tell, without having a high probability of making matters worse, there is no way for you to avoid the series of events that will lead to your death."

He scoffed as if he found the situation amusing. "Not sure how I could make the situation any worse." No one was that unbothered by discussions of their own death. His bland face and voice must hide his true emotions. His face was like the mirror surface of his thoughts that had been protected against her third eyes’ vision with magic when they’d spoken before in his car.

Liliana held up her hand with one finger raised. "In my current vision, you die quickly. If you change things, there is a high probability that you will die slowly in agony." She added another finger. "Sometimes I see other people dying with you." She brought up a third finger. "Sometimes I see an explosion in your house. Several houses around yours catch fire with people screaming and dying inside them." She added a fourth finger. "In a few, flickery, unlikely possibilities, I see a bomb falling. Where this block is now, there will be a massive smoking crater." She held up another finger.

He showed teeth in a grimace, holding up a hand to stop her. "I understand now. There are worse things than me dying." He opened the gate. Holding it for her, he took her hand again on the other side. There were no flagstones outside his yard. Instead, soft herbs crushed under Liliana's ballet slippers releasing a sweet minty scent.

Alexander Bennett walked beside her. "If my death is unavoidable, then what can you do about it?" He looked down at her as they walked in a tunnel of vividly alive but increasingly untamed land.. Tall trees held the weight of wild grape vines and Virginia creeper. The white star flowers of blackberry brambles dotted the tangled flora around them, months early. The ground beneath her feet stayed soft and clear as if welcoming her and the tall man who walked beside her.

"I can fight your murderer to protect you." She glanced up at him, meeting his eyes for the brief moment she could comfortably tolerate.

His handsome, scarred face gave nothing away, his eyes just deeper bits of shadow in the night.

She wished again that he would allow her to open her third eyes.

"If you can fight off this attacker, why couldn't I?" his deep melodious voice asked the question as if chatting about the weather, with a bit of flirting thrown in.

She knew that smooth voice covered his emotions but was frustrated that she couldn’t find out what they were. She found herself falling a little under the soothing spell of the secluded woodland location, the starry night, and the cool breeze. Some quality of his deep voice hit her in the belly like an intimate caress. It was very distracting.

The path ended in a circle of tangled rose bushes with a small carved wood bench in the middle. Climbing pink roses covered an arched trellis above the bench. Their scent filled her lungs like a caress. The bushes blocked the wind, making the little garden circle in the wild forest feel sheltered and warm.

The prince sat on the bench. He guided her to sit beside him by the hand he still held.

"The one who would take your life will catch you by surprise. You will have no chance to fight back." She looked down at her knees, letting her hair fall to cover her face.

The big warm hand that held hers let her go. Alexander Bennett pushed her hair back behind her ear, baring one of the iridescent green second eyes on her temple so she saw him clearly painted in colors with no names. His fingers lingered in the strands. "But you can defeat this killer?"

Liliana glanced up at him with her human eyes, shifting the colors of his face back to the normal spectrums of shadowed brown. "I cannot see your murderer’s face. But I would not be caught by surprise.” In this starlit garden, rich with the scent of roses, she felt more comfortable meeting his gaze. “I have seen myself fighting. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I die."

She swallowed. His scars were thick along his cheek and temple, but the burns marred only his skin. They hadn't altered the beauty of the structure of his face. The moonlight made a shimmer that highlighted the high cheekbone on the unmarred side and put glitter in his eyes. Just then, she had no desire to look away from something so fascinating. "I cannot save your life without risking my own."

"Why would you do that?" He focused on her, his attention so sharp she had to look away again. It was too much.

Looking down at her knees, she fiddled with the satin edge of her quilted cape. Her hair fell back into a shielding curtain. "My friends admire you,” Liliana told him. “But I don't know you. I don’t have any reason to fight for you. That's why I'm here." Her human eyes were still on her knees, but she peeked at him through the curtain of her hair with her second eyes.

"Then it seems I am doomed to die." In a broad smile, the prince's teeth flashed dark in her second vision contrasting with his warm, bright skin, as if his words were a joke.

The smile was handsome, charming, and never reached his eyes.

"Unless, that is, I give you a reason to defend me." He tucked her thick hair back behind her ear, again baring the iridescent green dome of the eye on her temple. He leaned in close, unbothered by her inhuman eyes, and whispered into her ear, "Should I give you a reason?"

His warm breath on her ear made Liliana shiver. She wondered why he was whispering. There was no one else there to hear. She looked up at him with her first eyes to shift the colors of his face back to normal and tilted her head. "Yes, please. A reason to save you is what I'm looking for."

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