Page 4 of Obsidian Prince

He closed the short distance between them until his lips touched hers.

Chapter2

Land Bonds

Liliana made a small,surprised sound, but did not pull away. Alexander kissing her seemed like an excellent idea. She just hadn’t been expecting it.

His big hand cupped her cheek as he pushed gently against her lips until she opened them for him. He licked into her mouth as his long fingers buried themselves in her hair.

Holding a handful of her thick hair at the base of her neck, he tilted her head back a bit more so he could kiss her even more thoroughly.

Alexander Bennett is very good at kissing.

Liliana wasn't sure what to do. She never kissed people with her third eyes closed, but the prince had threatened to shoot her once when she looked into him with her third eyes. His eyes were closed, so if she opened hers, he wouldn't know. Technically, she had not given him her word that she would never look into him, only that she would stop doing it at the time.

She opened her third eyes, the smallest ones, like black pearl tears, so she could see the rich overlapping colors of his multi-layered soul.

He liked kissing her. The warm glow of pleasure overlaid all, but that enjoyment was just the surface. A complex web of different motivations lay underneath. There was a growing tinge of acid green fear, not of her, though. While he doubted his danger before, he was beginning to believe her. Gaining her as an ally seemed to be his primary motive for kissing her, a cold calculated ice blue logic that was at odds with the rest of his emotions. Firework sparkles told her he found her amusing. The image of her in his mind emphasized grace and intriguing mystery. The image was sexy and dangerous. Her fierce nature appealed to him just as his did to her. But in that view of her, she saw him recognize her value as an ally. She saw a willingness in him to bed her for that reason alone. Using seduction, he could gain what he wanted from her.

Liliana closed her third eyes as she pulled away from him. He was quite exceptional at kissing, but she did not like many of his reasons for kissing her.

He raised an eyebrow at her in question as she pulled away.

"I had three parents," she said. She knew that the statement was a leap from one part of her divided brain to another that he wouldn’t be able to follow but didn’t know how to build the bridge verbally.

He chuckled at the seeming non sequitur. “How did that work?”

“My mothers both loved my father and each other. They were happy for a long time.”

“I see.” Alexander sat up straight. “You’re aware of my affair with William Eliot, then?”

She nodded, pleased that his agile mind built the bridge for her.

“Does me being involved with another man disturb you?”

Liliana shrugged. “I had three parents. Unlike my mothers, I only want men. I could want two men. But I don’t like lying.”

“Ah, you are uncomfortable with me pursuing my interest in you without his knowledge.” Alexander put a hand to his heart and bowed slightly in respect. “No lies involved. Our relationship isn’t exclusive. He sees others as well.”

She knew that. While that should have been reassuring, William Eliot’s relationship with her best friend Pete’s frequent work partner, Sergeant Giovanni, did not look like a good one.

Liliana stood up abruptly. She walked to one of the rose bushes, the biggest of all, on the edge of the clear, low herb circle, across from the bench. It was robustly healthy and covered in blossoms. She inhaled the rich fragrance from a large multi-colored bloom. From a creamy white center, the petals edged to scarlet as if each flower had been dipped in fresh blood. Double delight was one of her favorite rose varieties, but a pampered hybrid like that required great care to thrive. "Did you plant these?"

He walked up very close beside her, stroking one of the swollen buds with the tip of one long finger. The flower opened slightly for him, although it stayed a bud, not yet fully developed, the barest promise of a flower to come. The stem twined around his fingers. He plucked it, parting the stem without effort. The bud gave itself to him, rather than being torn from the parent plant. “When I first came here, I found the roses already here, struggling to live, choking under creeper and brambles. It must have been a garden, but it had been abandoned by whoever lived here before. It took a year of work to get everything blooming again."

"Why didn't you use your magic? You could have made the flowers bloom in a day."

He shrugged. "Gardening is relaxing. I dig in the dirt and, with some cooperation from nature, I make something beautiful with my own hands. It feels right, good. Maybe it’s in my blood. My father's ancestors were sharecroppers and enslaved farmhands before that. Bennetts have been coaxing the earth to grow good things in North Carolina for four generations." He pressed the flower's stem into her palm. It uncoiled from around his wrist and coiled around hers instead. Though thorny, the long stem didn't hurt her.

She looked down, embarrassed by the simple gift. "You are a prince descended from slaves."

His chuckle was bitter. "My mother's people, especially my half-sister, Aurore, never let me forget that. My mother could care less about my ancestry in general, but I also inherited mortality from my human father. To Queen Titania, mortality is an unforgivable flaw.”

Liliana inhaled the delicate fragrance of the rosebud as she looked around with her second eyes. The vivid aliveness of this place made it seem almost like a third presence. She tilted her head to one side.

On impulse she opened her third eyes, the ones that saw minds and souls. Everywhere Liliana had ever gone, rivers of green life energy ran just below the earth's surface, like blood vessels in a living body. In some places she had been, the rivers in the earth were thin, the pale Green sluggish. In the Fayetteville area, the rivers were particularly strong. In the last decade, they had pulsed even brighter with glowing health.

In the ground beneath her feet, the earth was filled to bursting with brilliant Green living power. It flowed in a gushing stream away from this point as if she stood at the center of a great spring. If the Green rivers were blood vessels, then Liliana stood on the beating heart of the world.

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