Page 5 of Liar & Champion
I lowered the papers and smiled my warmest smile. “Go ahead and sign.” I packed my most persuasive voice into that statement.
She smiled back, but her smile wasn’t nearly as warm. “You sign first.” She handed me a single sheet of paper with very simple instructions. The force of her will was easy enough to brush off. I hadn’t been a slave to her will for a long time.
I read those simple directions three times to make sure I had it before I lowered it slowly to study her. “You want me to date a woman for six months?”
“A respectable woman from my alma mater.”
“Why?”
“Obviously, hoping that you’ll fall in love and change your ways, start a family, take responsibility for your heritage.”
I snorted. “Beg your pardon, madame, but I that’s never going to happen.” Hearing her say the words ‘falling in love’ like it was something she believed in was positively nauseating.
“You’ve never dated a woman for longer than three days, and I use the term dating lightly. I realize that you have a deep mistrust for women, which I take full responsibility for instilling in you, but in order for you to reach your full potential, you need a good woman at your side.”
I nearly smashed the Ming vase right then and there, but I kept my hands relaxed instead. This was an insult, interference, manipulation, all the things I hated, but it was also an opportunity. If she thought that I’d ever find a woman that made me feel responsible for her mess, she must be getting delusional in her old age.
“You want me to date a female for six months, and if I do so, you will sign that paper?”
She nodded and took a delicate sip of her tea. It was probably laced with the blood of her enemies. I couldn’t trust her, but her behavior lately had been different, out-of-character for her.
“What’s the catch? Marriage? Pregnancy? I’m not giving you a baby to raise after the job you did on me.”
“I don’t want a baby,” she said, giving me a stern look. “I want my son to fulfil his potential.”
“Which means date a respectable woman for six months.”
“Any woman at the school where I went and where you refused to go.” She added a little nod to that like it wasn’t insane.
“Ah, so you’re getting me to go back to school as a side perk. I’m a little old for college.”
“Yes, you are getting older, but you haven’t smashed anything yet, so maybe you’re getting wiser as well. College would be a perk for you. Education is always desirable.”
“I’m not interested in dating a respectable woman for six months,” I said, handing the papers back to her.
She took them with a serene smile. “I am fully aware of your fears regarding women, particularly the ones whose company you could actually endure for any length of time. You date the most vacuous, superficial, vain, spiteful, weak-willed, women you can possibly find. In anywhere other than Las Vegas it would be difficult to find so many females trolling those depths.”
I laughed, smiling at her warmly. “Beg your pardon, but hearing you regale me with tales of other women’s vices is charmingly ironic. You kill people, but you complain about a woman’s vanity? Sorry to interrupt. You were saying about my choice in women?”
She took another sip of tea, and I noticed a slight tremor in her hands. It wasn’t fear, but weakness, age. That one tremor told me more than anything else she’d said. “I want you to be happy, Nix. I want you to live up to your potential.”
“I don’t think we have the same goals for my potential.”
“Your potential is yours to fulfil, not mine. That’s part of the contract. I wouldn’t interfere with your leadership if you were to take your place as my heir.”
Cold washed down my body from my head to my toes, leaving me frozen and terrified. I needed to run, hide, get as faraway from this monster as I could possibly get before I devoured her and became an even worse monster. I swallowed hard. “I will consider your offer. I should get going. I have a fight to win this evening. Hopefully everything will go smoothly with the authorities.”
She smiled, the softest smile I’d ever seen on her. “Of course. I will be there to watch it. What could possibly go wrong?”
“You’ll be there?” The churning in my stomach solidified into rocks.
She nodded regally. “It’s a free country, and I’ve bought several tickets.”
“Several tickets.” The thought was incomprehensible. My mother was not going to bring her court to my world. Absolutely not.
“That’s right. We’ll be running into each other often in the future, unless you choose to make yourself happy. Six months. No commitment. Complete freedom afterwards no matter what you choose to do. Enjoy your flight back.”
I drove to the airport in a buzzing haze that grew until I was in the cage with my opponent. He would bleed, scream, and weep until I finally felt something other than my mother’s crocodile jaws clamped down on my leg, beginning the deadly spin that would drag me under.
