Page 48 of Explosive Chemistry

“I’m sorry?” he said, as if it were a question.

Maybe he was asking her if he should be sorry for forcing her to alter her plans? She shrugged. “You believe that Andrew Periclum has defied you, broken his word, and harmed your soldiers. You should not be sorry.” She felt her lips tighten in contempt. “A pride-king’s word is law. If Andrew Periclum has given his word to you and broken it, then he is an unworthy pride king. Your mission here is an honorable one.”

The prince raised both brows at her, one wrinkling smooth dark skin, the other mottled scar tissue. “Honor is a word I hear used a lot. You say it as if it means something to you.”

“My parents raised me to respect honorable people, even if they are enemies.”

“Are we enemies now?” he asked, hand tensing around the gun at his side. It wasn’t pointed at her, but the threat was clear.

Liliana looked at him directly with her human eyes for a second, then back down at her hands in her lap. “I still have not decided.”

His eyebrows went up again. They were the most expressive part of his otherwise stoic face. “I expected you to say no, whether it was true or not.”

“I always speak the truth. If we become enemies, I will tell you.” She shrugged. “Or I will simply kill you, but I will never tell you that I am an ally if I am not.”

His full lips twitched at the corner, the faintest shadow of a smile. “I’m not used to that much honesty.”

“Andrew Periclum will enter this building in six minutes. You should stand there before he comes, so he will not see you.” She pointed to a concrete roof support pillar that would hide the prince’s presence from the pride-king until he came close.

Liliana hopped down off the car and walked with him to the concealment. The top of her head barely came up to his broad chest. He towered more than a foot over her, something that struck her every time she faced him up close. “Today is the day I spoke of before, when you are highly likely to be injured or possibly killed. I will offer you the same bargain again. If you will get me onto your military base unnoticed, I will make certain that you leave this building unharmed.”

“My answer is the same.”

Liliana sighed and nodded. She would have been surprised if he changed his mind.

Andrew Periclum’s footsteps echoed in the concrete parking structure.

Liliana shook her head in disgust. The king of lions moved with the stealth of a hippopotamus. Her father would have been appalled.

The prince turned to watch him.

Liliana scrambled up a line and into a convenient alcove, not wanting Andrew Periclum to see her with the prince. Even if he was an unworthy king, still, Andrew Periclum was her king. And the Fae prince was not planning on being polite to him.

Alexander Bennet turned to look where she had been and seemed unsurprised that the space she previously occupied was now empty. He flashed a delighted grin at the empty concrete of the parking garage.

Andrew Periclum passed the concrete pillar.

Liliana turned her attention, and the focus of all eight of her eyes, to the two men below. While she watched, she prepared a line of silk with a large loop on the end.

With his wide-barreled pistol held casually down by his leg, the tall Fae prince stepped in front of the king of lions.

The lion-kin doctor stopped barely in time to avoid colliding with the prince’s chest. The pride-king stood above average height and was in excellent physical condition, yet Colonel Alexander Bennet still towered over him.

“Oh, hello, Colonel,” Andrew Periclum said. He put his hands casually behind him and stepped his feet apart into something like a military parade rest posture. With her fourth eyes, she saw one hand touch his wrist phone, activating it in some way.

“You gave me your word that your experiments wouldn’t do any harm to my people,” the prince said.

Andrew Periclum shrugged. “As far as I know, they haven’t.”

Liliana blinked her third eyes. They told her that his words were, without doubt, a lie. Yet nothing in the lion-kin’s face or posture revealed the lie. For a beast-kin leader whose trusted word was the source of his power, Andrew Periclum was far too skilled at lying.

“Then why have eight of the twelve soldiers on your list disappeared and later turned up dead? Two more went missing this week.”

Andrew Periclum shook his head and waved a hand dismissively “A tragedy, sure, but nothing to do with me.” Another blatant lie without a flinch, Liliana noted. “Your CID attack bitch and your pet Celtic wolf have already dealt with the monsters responsible for most of those deaths, I hear. And no one knows what happened to those two women found in a shallow grave in the forest.”

Muscles bunched in the prince’s dark jaw. “You covered your tracks well. There’s no evidence to trace this back to your doorstep, but I can see the pattern. They were all Others on my team, seasoned veterans who had cybernetics you designed. I don’t know what you’re doing, but these people were all under your care. I’m getting a new cyberneticist transferred in to look over your work.”

Andrew Periclum snorted. “Good luck with that. I’m probably the only Other cyberneticist in the world. And not everything is your decision, Colonel. My processes are revolutionary, designed to make Others an even more powerful force.” He leaned forward into the Fae prince’s personal space. “My process could give this country the military edge. And Princess Aurore loves the idea of boosting Other powers with modern science.”

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