Page 26 of Obsidian Prince

Pete reached an arm across, leaned over, and hugged her sideways. “I’m really glad I met you, Lilly.”

She turned toward him, hugged him back, and smiled at his chest. “I would have preferred that you had not tried to kill me when we met, but …” She shrugged. “I am really glad I met you, too, Pete.”

Pete asked. "Are you going to fight with me when the Wolfhound assassins come after Lou tomorrow night?

"No, I will not. I must be somewhere else. But you will do fine without me. Doctor Nudd will help you instead.”

Pete nodded, watching the traffic go by, face pensive. “This is what you've been training me for, right?"

"Yes. You are ready, now."

"Where will you be?"

"Hopefully, not dying, although that is a strong possibility.”

"Oookay, then." Pete shook his head. "You know, I would feel a lot better if I thought you were kidding or exaggerating."

Liliana smiled. "Don't die, Pete. Make your enemies die instead.”

The red wolf grinned back at her, bright and fierce. "You, too, Lilly."

Siobhan and Nudd were already sitting on the wooden double rocking chair on the big back porch of Nudd’s rambling house with grass on the roof. They made merry music with their mismatched instruments, a bass guitar for Siobhan and a violin for Nudd. It echoed through the forest with no neighbors near enough to complain.

Liliana jumped from the vehicle almost before it stopped. She ran to the backyard, leaping into the low branches of the trees that grew from the surrounding forest right up to shade the back porch her friends made music on.

She bounced to the music as she swung from branch to branch as if they were the swings of a trapeze. She left behind long lines of silk that trailed down to the green grass in the small clearing behind the porch.

It had been so long since she’d had the joy of dancing with long silken sashes, woven from her first mother’s silk dyed bright colors, hanging from the old circus tent’s tall superstructure. She missed that desperately. The only part she didn’t miss was that she used to have to dance in front of hundreds of staring strangers who paid for the privilege.

Now, only her friends shared in her expression of the sheer joy of living in a world filled with music. It was so much better. Knowing that she might die the next night gave her dance an extra edge. Tonight, she was in every muscle and drop of blood, from her hair to her toes, alive.

Pete added a hand drum beat to the music after a time. It wasn’t long until another friend arrived. Detective Jackson’s acoustic guitar joined along with her voice in a wordless song, as if her voice were another instrument, harmony one moment, and a soaring melody the next.

Doctor Nudd’s home-brewed mead flowed. Everyone’s auras showed bright sunny yellow happiness to her third vision.

Another car stopped and more people came, but Liliana was lost to the music and the dance by then. She would see what friends had come later. For now, her mind filled with motion and joy as she swung and spun and leaped in time to the music.

Her foot touched grass, twisting and spinning in a pirouette that made her wide red satin skirt spin out into a circle. In one hand, she caught a trailing silk line as she pushed off into the air, arms wide, back arching, as if she flew, up and up, the long wing-like sleeves of her bare midriff red blouse adding to the illusion. She released the line at the top of the arc, and flipped twice as the music did a hard double-beat.

Her ankle hooked a line, winding it around so that her dive shifted and she swung upside down, one leg, bare of tights today, stagged up. She rolled out of the embrace of the silk on her leg flying free for a moment, the full moon making it easy to see the branches and silk and grass that was her stage.

The cool wind tossed her long hair and the flowers from her garden intertwined with the tresses. The evening air played in her hair like fingers as she flew. Her feet fell on a slender branch that she let bend under her weight. When it started to spring back up, she used the momentum to flip before dropping her toes back to the grass just as the music reached a crescendo.

A final flourish as the musicians reached a mutually agreed ending had Liliana make one last leap flipping into a twisting layout so she landed in front of her friends, bending her knees to absorb her weight into a flourish and bow, like she would if they were a paying audience back in her youth.

Her chest heaved as she panted with the exertion. Sweat coated her skin. She laughed for the sheer joy of being.

Her friends all set down instruments so they could applaud each other as much as her. She joined in, delighted to have such wonderful music to dance to and such wonderful friends to dance for.

When she looked up from the bow, she saw the two latecomers.

Lieutenant Runningwolf stood to one side, a small smile on his face, wearing jeans and a concert t-shirt. She’d never seen him out of uniform, but she barely noticed him.

Beside him stood the Fae prince, Colonel Alexander Bennett, in charcoal gray slacks and a synth silk black shirt like a living shadow amidst all her brightly dressed, happy friends.

She shut all but her human eyes. She’d given him her word not to look past his skin without his permission. Or if he kissed her, although that was unlikely to happen again.

She didn’t want to talk to the handsome Fae prince. He was cold, cruel, and hurt people who loved him. But she liked that dumbfounded look on his face. It gave her a feeling of power.

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