Page 21 of Obsidian Prince

Kazi crossed her arms. “What are you talking about?”

Arel put an arm around Kazi’s shoulders. “There is a very old custom. Life price is paid in gold or something valuable to the surviving loved ones, but another life is considered the true price to pay for a wrongful death. Usually, the life of the murderer is forfeit.”

She looked at her mother. “She’s offering to pay me for killing Stella by either dying or keeping Daddy from dying?”

“Exactly.”

Kazi’s watery eyes looked down at Liliana, then away. “I saw the footage. All the footage on a backup system the military cops didn’t know about.” She shrugged. “Stella was about to chop up a friend of yours with a meat cleaver. Instead of attacking her, you tried to talk her into leaving. She tried to kill you anyway.”

Liliana nodded. That was true.

“You don’t.” Kazi stopped and cleared her throat. “You don’t owe me anything. I’d have done what you did in your position. Stella just wasn’t who I thought she was.”

“She was loyal and in love,” Liliana said. “Maybe you would have done the same in my position, but I think I would have done the same in hers.”

Liliana turned to Arel, wiping tears from her own eyes. “I will go home now. The day after tomorrow, come pick me up at my house and take me to the dome. I will be Daniel’s champion.”

Arel Magoro drove her home in the giant navy-blue SUV. Marilyn and Kazi rode in the seat behind them. The three lionesses seemed to go everywhere as a set.

“Do you really think you can win?" Arel asked when she pulled into Liliana’s driveway.

Liliana looked forward in time with her fourth eyes to see if she would win in the dome against Tray Bradley. Possibilities flickered. Some of those possibilities showed her own brutal death. Some involved his. Neither seemed more likely than the other. She might win. She might not.

"It is possible, yes. If I do not, and you do not leave North Carolina right away, then you will die. Your daughter will die." She turned to look at Marilyn. "If you stay, you will die, and your son will be raised to become a cruel bully, just like his father."

Marilyn shifted, tawny hair crawling over her skin in a moment, filling the SUV’s huge back seat, her rounded ears brushing the roof of the big car. She growled a lion's deep warning. "I won’t let my son become like Tray."

Liliana looked. “You and your son will survive if you leave the state before the challenge, but without a pride, I do not see an easy future for a lone lioness with a little child.” They would survive, but they would not thrive.

All of the lionesses looked grim.

"There is another possibility, though," she offered them.

There was little hope in the three faces, two dark and human, one tawny, large-eyed, with a wrinkled nose and lifted upper lip showing fang tips.

"I could win,” Liliana said. “This is of equal probability to the other outcome. If I win, Daniel will become king. And your son, Marilyn, would be king after him, a good king like the man who helped raise him."

Marilyn's split demi-lion lips covered her teeth, her half snarl fading away. She looked down. "What will you want from us in return?" she rumbled, wariness in her tone.

Liliana blinked all her eyes. "I want a worthy pride-king."

"Why would you risk your life for us?" Kazi challenged. "You're not even lion-kin."

"I am a lion's daughter."

Chapter6

Bunnies And Ben

Since there wasa fair chance that Liliana would not survive her attempt to help an honorable man become the new king of the North Carolina pride in a few days, there were a few things she needed to take care of. She had promised her best friend, Pete, that given time and patience, his beloved Ben Harper would come to understand the world held more than the laws of science admitted. Once he accepted that the world was wider, he would be more receptive to learning his boyfriend was a werewolf, rather than thinking that one of them must be insane. If Pete just flat told him, or worse, showed him, Liliana saw a lot of restraining orders in Pete’s possible future paths.

But Ben was no closer today to accepting the existence of Others than he was when Liliana said those words to Pete. The futures she had seen were many and varied, but none of them led in the right direction.

She needed to set Ben on a path more likely to lead to a good outcome for him and Pete, even if they got married after Lilly was dead. Her dearest friend deserved happiness. It also disturbed Ben Harper how little he knew of his boyfriend’s life. Both men’s paths would be better ones if Ben could be coaxed into accepting the hidden world.

Being confronted with something with big teeth out of a nightmare or Liliana’s disturbing eyes as his first experience did not lead to good outcomes. Liliana needed to find a gentler way.

Ben taught science at the middle school on base at Fort Liberty. Janice Willoughby’s eleven-year-old son, Sam, was one of his students. But Liliana didn’t see any path where Janice could coax Ben in the right direction. The spider seer would have to intervene directly in some way.

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