Page 58 of Lies That Bind
Her reasoning calmed me a little, but only a little.
‘Maybe he doesn’t care if I come willingly,’I told her.
‘Maybe not. But my sense is that he has some sort of sick obsession with you, in which case he won’t want to completely devastate you.’
I’d never wanted some psycho I’d never met before to have a sick obsession with me more than I did at this moment.Please be secretly in love with me and have kept my sisters alive to please me,I prayed to the stars.
‘He doesn’t even know me. Maxim,’I told her.
‘Maybe he does. Maybe he’s been watching you.’
That thought caused my already wind-chilled skin to chill some more.
I scanned the trees, suddenly wondering if he was watching.
‘Liana, you said he had two creatures. What are they?’
I sensed her reluctance at the question.
‘Liana, what are they? Did you see them?’
Again, that reluctance washed over me as the wind whipped past so hard my eyes were tearing up.
‘You have enough to worry about right now with your sisters, Aisling, I don’t want to stress you further.’
That shocked me. She was hiding it.
‘I don’t care about stress! I have to know what I’m dealing with. What were they, Liana?’This time my voice was firm, and I hoped she could feel the hurt that was rocking through me.
‘One was a wolf…’she said, and I relaxed a little. Okay. Like Tetra. Fearsome but not anything to really worry about.‘And the other was a female firebird, like me,’she said, and all the air whooshed from my lungs.
It was as if she’d knocked every thought from my brain. I couldn’t even process her reply. I don’t know why I’d assumed she was the only firebird Talanagi. It was vain of me to even think that, but they were rare.
I finally collected my thoughts.‘Do you think Maxim can escape death like me?’
‘We should assume so,’she replied, which caused even more terror to eat away at me.
Another firebird bonded. That changed things.
‘Let’s deal with one thing at a time,’she told me, and I noticed we were slowing.
Wise words. I wasn’t sure I could handle much more. I peered down to see rows and rows of houses come into view.
Riverine.
After a few more moments, I recognized the neighborhood of the house Elaine had bought my sisters to hide them away at.
‘Liana?’
‘Yes?’
‘If Maxim has taken the life of even one of my beautiful sisters, I want you to fly me to Luska so I can kill him. I don’tcare if he can be reborn three days later. I’ll kill again and again and again.’
‘Yes, Empress.’There was a loyalty in her tone that caused pride to swell inside of me. She’d do whatever I asked. She had my back.
If he took them, I’d have nothing left to live for. I’d go mad with revenge and tear him limb from limb.
But even as I thought that, one face popped into my mind. He had dark hair, brown skin, and searing blue eyes.
