Facts of Life

Liliana rode with Sean when he went to Adelind's mother, Catherine's house. The hexenbiest would know the potion Sean needed to drink to simulate purity of heart so he could save Juliette. Sean had some hold over the woman that Liliana did not understand, so she would do whatever the prince asked.

Liliana waited for him in the car, sliding down a bit, so the woman would not see her. She had no desire to draw the attention of such a powerful, and if she was anything like her daughter, vindictive individual.

She took the time alone to check on the other big problem that she had seen coming.

Her mind reeled.

Bloody death. A lot of it. Chunks of dead bodies and a man with huge fangs gnawing on them.

Liliana shuddered.

Even with the amount of blood and death she had seen lately, the scene made her nauseous.

She hated when her family came to visit.

She watched the mauvais dentes for some time. She saw him speak to Eric Renard, Sean's brother, on the phone.

Marnassier wasn't in town to visit. He had been sent by Sean's brother to kill her favorite Grimm.

This caused her a serious dilemma.

Friend versus family.

Liliana all but twisted her skirt into rags. What was she going to do?

She started to dial Nick's number, but hesitated.

She saw three possibilities, two about equally likely, one only a flicker.

Possibility one: Nick would fight Marnassier alone. The mauvais dentes would kill the Grimm brutally, and eat his heart as was his custom with an enemy who fought bravely.

Possibility two: Nick and his mother would fight Marnassier together. The two Grimms fighting as a team would defeat and kill the mauvais dente.

Highly unlikely possibility three: Liliana would talk Marnassier out of going after the Grimm. Everyone would live.

She had recently discovered text messages. Phoebe had showed her how they worked on her new phone.

Liliana wrote a message to Nick: If you must fight the mauvais dentes, do not fight alone. Two Grimms are better than one.

She clicked SEND just as Sean got back to the car.

She twisted her skirt in her hands, nearly tearing the fabric.

She had chosen her friend over Marnassier.

She would try to talk Marnassier out of going after the Grimm, but if he refused, what she had just done would ensure that Nick survived the fight, not the mauvais dentes.

After that, there would be Hell to pay.

Sean pulled out to take her home. He reached over and put one huge hand over her small, slender hands where they twisted and worried the fabric of her skirt. "It will be a while before the potion is ready. We have some time," he said soothingly.

Liliana blinked at him for a moment, confused as to what he was talking about. Oh. Right. "There is something else."

"What's wrong?"

"Your brother has hired an assassin to kill Nick and take his key."

Sean's nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. His green eyes went almost steel gray and hard as granite. Her prince tended to be very subtle when expressing pleasant emotions, but Liliana had no difficulty discerning when he was angry. "Who? When?"

"This man is known to me. He arrived in Portland today."

"Has he contacted you?"

"Not yet, but he probably will."

"What can you tell me about him?"

Liliana pictured Marnassier in her mind in his human form. "He is a mauvais dentes. He is about six feet tall, very handsome, with brown hair and blue eyes, and a powerful physique."

Sean's eyebrows went up. "And?"

"He is a deadly fierce fighter, graceful, skilled and intelligent, a magnificent warrior. He lives by an assassin's strict code of honor, so you can trust his word as if it were carved in stone."

Sean's voice went bland. "He sounds very impressive."

"He is the ideal mate for a spinnesehen." Her mother had told her that many times. She held Marnassier up as the example of what Liliana should look for in a mate.

"So, you have a relationship with this mauvais dentes?" Sean asked, voice still very casual.

"Yes, of course." Liliana had been lost in her own misery, but she still realized that something was off with Sean. He never sounded that bored and unconcerned except when he was actually very concerned.

She glanced at him and saw that his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. It took her a moment to realize why. "Oh." She smiled. "Relax, my prince. He is my sister's husband."

"Ah." He chuckled a little and his hands lost their death grip on the steering wheel. "I'm not usually that prone to jumping to conclusions. This thing with Juliette has me a little on edge."

"Do you fear that you will lose me when the trap steals your heart?" she asked him. It was what she feared, that the delicate bond they had begun to forge wouldn't survive the hexenbiest's revenge.

He glanced off the road for a moment to look at her. His green eyes were softer than she had ever seen them. "Yes," he admitted. It took a lot for him to admit fear. He admitted a lot of tender feelings for her in the same moment.

Liliana leaned her head against his shoulder and held onto his muscular arm clad in his usual impeccable suit. "I am afraid, too," she told him. It felt better, somehow. Sharing their fear seemed to lessen it.

They were both silent for a while, lost in their own dark thoughts and the warmth of their connection.

As Sean pulled up in front of Liliana's house, he said, "I'll call my brother tomorrow. It's past midnight there now. I'll see if I can get Eric to call off this assassin."

"Thank you. If he and Nick fight, either Nick will die, or my sister's husband will die."

"And I thought you were in a delicate position caught between me and Nick."

"It is far worse than social awkwardness, my prince. No spinnesehen would allow her mate to be slain without seeking vengeance. If Nick kills Marnassier, and it is known, my sister will hunt him down and kill him. No one will be able to stop her."

"Even though he was sent to kill Nick? It's clearly self-defense."

"That would matter to the law. A spinnesehen who has lost her mate does not react rationally. Isabella and Marnassier have been together for more than two hundred years. They had two daughters and a son the last time I spoke to them."

"When was that?"

Liliana had to think hard to remember. Time passed so quickly when she wasn't paying attention. "More than two decades ago." It made her feel sad that she had become so separated from her family.

"Sean, will you stay with me tonight?" She still held his arm.

He kissed her hair. "Where should I park?"

"In the garage, of course."

Sean got out, opened the garage door, stood there for a moment looking at her web of ropes and bars, and came back to the car.

"I left enough room for a car in case I ever needed it, on the left side."

He pulled in, parked and got out. The door into her house was on his side of the car only a couple steps away. There was a clear path through the maze of obstacles.

Liliana got out of the car, closed the door and went vertical. Her leg hurt, so she didn't really want to walk, and there were a lot of bars and lines she would have to get around in order to circle the car and reach the door. This was easier. She grabbed a line, swung around and up, let go and flew to a stationary bar, caught it, flipped up, swung over the car by one knee on a hanging bar, grabbed a line and swung to a light one-footed landing by the door next to her prince.

He smiled. "You always keep things interesting."

"Are you hungry?" she asked him.

"I am, actually." He took off his jacket and tie, removed his gun holster, and unbuttoned the first couple of buttons on his shirt, getting comfortable. She showed him the little coat closet by the front door, so he could hang his jacket and gun.

She smiled to herself, thinking it was a good step forward in their relationship that he no longer felt he needed to have his weapon within reach.

Liliana limped into her kitchen, climbed on the counter, and attached a couple of short lines to the ceiling supports. She always liked the exposed beam structure of her little house.

If she hadn't been fuzzy-headed from painkillers, she might have thought of this when her ankle was sprained. Or, if Phoebe hadn't kept her fed so well that she gained weight, it might have mattered enough for her to think of it, even with the painkillers.

Her galley kitchen was far too small to fit both her and Sean. In fact, Sean didn't really seem to fit in her house at all. He was just built along larger lines. He didn't have to duck through doorways or anything, but his height did feel more overwhelming, and what seemed cozy to her, had to feel a little cramped to him. He leaned in the doorway, filling it completely, and watched her cook. She used the dangling lines to get from the refrigerator to the stove to the sink, without having to put any weight on her sore leg.

He chatted with her as she worked. "You said your sister had a son. I thought spinnesehen children were always daughters?"

Liliana laughed. "Spinnesehen are always girls, but not our children. During the paruungzeit, every one hundred years, a spinnesehen conceives a daughter. But during the hundred years in between, she can conceive a child like any other woman, although, spinnesehen are not as fertile as human women. Any child born between paruungzeit will be a son, the race of the father."

Liliana had nearly a whole leftover rotisserie chicken in the refrigerator, and a variety of vegetables. She heated some chicken broth that she saved in the freezer, and tossed in the entire chicken, plus all the pan drippings.

Sean raised an eyebrow, and his lips quirked in amusement, but he made no comment on her cooking methods. "Since your father was a lowan, you're saying you have lowan brothers?"

"I had three brothers that I knew. My mother told me of two others that died long before I was born. My eldest brother that I knew, and his two sons, died in Europe, killed by Hitler's verrat. He was past eighty at the time."

Liliana added diced onions, minced garlic, and chopped mushrooms to a skillet with olive oil, salt and pepper. She chopped the vegetables in seconds with her favorite knife. When the onions started to turn translucent, she added the mixture to the pot with the chicken and the broth.

"My other two brothers made it to the US with me and my second mother. They both died of old age years ago, but their descendents live here in Portland." She smiled. "I met a little boy recently who was named for my father. He will be the next lowan king of Oregan after Daniel, if the future does not shift dramatically." She added a dash of cayenne pepper and some oregano to the pot.

"You will have a king in the family soon, then."

"Maybe in two or three decades." Liliana shrugged. "It would not be the first, not even close. My father could have been king of Nemea. He felt his brother would be a better ruler. I cannot say if he was right as I never met his brother. He died centuries before I was born, but I know my father would have made a great king." Liliana chopped some baby zucchini from her little back yard garden, sautéed it lightly in a little butter, and added it to the pot. "I hope the little boy who bears his name will rule half as well as he would have."

"What do you mean by 'not even close." Have there been other kings in your family?"

Liliana thought about all the family and race stories that she knew from her childhood. "Well, there was said to be a kingdom where a spinnesehen ruled, but it was a very long time ago. Then there was a spinnesehen who married a Chinese emperor a few thousand years ago, one who married an Arabian prince a few centuries ago, and of course, there was my mother's sister who married Ghengis Khan, but that didn't work out so well."

"What happened?" he asked, eyes light and amused.

"He did not survive her first paruungzeit. My mother told me the story when I was young as a cautionary example of why I should choose my mate carefully."

"You're telling me that your mother's sister killed Ghengis Khan?" Sean sounded incredulous.

"Accidentally. She was heartbroken and allowed herself to be executed afterward by Temujin's sons and relatives. She loved him, but he was not strong enough to be the mate of a spinnesehen. Perhaps if she had shared venom with him before they were married, he might have survived."

Liliana let the soup simmer for a while. She cut up some crusty bread from a local bakery, spread a little butter on it, sprinkled it with parmesan cheese and popped it in the oven for a few minutes to toast.

"In those days, there was a lot of social pressure not to have sex before marriage, especially with rulers. If she had sex with him outside of marriage, that sort of made her mistress material. To be a potential wife, you had to wait."

"You're entirely serious, aren't you?" He sounded more amazed than uncertain.

Liliana looked at him for a moment. "Of course. Why would I make that up? It's an awful story." She pulled two spoons and two hand-made ceramic bowls out of her cupboard. If she was going to continue to have guests, she might have to buy more dishes.

She pulled the chicken out of the soup with tongs. Most of the meat fell off the bone back into the soup. The rest she quickly stripped off with two forks so she wouldn't burn her fingers.

She hadn't planned for Sean to have dinner with her, so she hadn't stocked her house with food that Sean would like. She hoped the simple chicken soup was acceptable. She had gotten one thing, though, that she knew he would enjoy.

With a smug smile, she pulled a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator. It wasn't the proper way to chill wine, but she didn't exactly have a wine cellar. She handed the bottle to Sean along with a corkscrew. "If you're going to stand there, you might as well help."

He looked at the bottle. His eyebrows went up. "This is my favorite vintage. How did you know?"

Liliana winked at him with a mischievous grin.

He chuckled, and gifted her with a broad smile that lit up his face.

She liked making him smile. The bottle had cost a few hundred dollars, but that moment made it worth every penny.

She handed two wine glasses to Sean with directions to set them on the little folding end table next to the couch. She filled the two bowls with soup and handed one to Sean. She limped over to her couch and sat down.

Sean sat down next to her on the couch, eyeing the soup dubiously.

"Sorry. I converted my dining room into my business, so this is the only place I have to sit for dinner." Liliana had always felt like her tiny house was cozy. She found herself looking at it through the eyes of her elegant prince, and wondering if he found it shabby or poor, in addition to tiny. She couldn't look in his mind to see, though. She didn't have permission.

He scooped soup with the spoon and dumped it back in the bowl repeatedly, to speed cooling. "You were telling me how your aunt accidentally killed Ghengis Khan." He sipped wine while she talked. He had a habit of drawing her out. She talked more with Sean than with anyone else.

"Temujin was no longer young, and he had been injured in a fall from a horse. My mother's sister probably intended her venom to heal him. But the paruunzeit was the wrong time to be with a weakened mate, especially one she had not shared venom with before."

"Why? How did she kill him?"

"Um, …" Liliana felt her cheeks get hot. "It was, well, on their wedding night, during sex. He probably died from her venom."

He chuckled. "I can think of worse ways to die." Then he looked thoughtful. "But I've experienced your venom. It's the opposite of deadly. It saved my life."

Liliana pulled the little jar of medicine that Rosalee had given her out of her pocket and showed it to him. "This is the painkiller that I took when my arm was broken. It is a wonderful medicine, and made my recovery far easier." She handed him the bottle.

"Okay." He looked at the small bottle of yellow powder, no more than a couple of teaspoons worth.

"It is also a highly addictive and dangerous wesen drug. If I were to take this entire bottle at once, I might die."

"I'm familiar with the dangers of jay. I get what you're saying. Too much of a good thing becomes a serious problem." He handed the bottle back to her.

Liliana sprinkled a little in her wine, and swirled the glass. She didn't want to take too much to make her sleepy or loopy, but she would like for the pain to dull down a bit, so she could enjoy the evening more. She cleared her throat, and tried to stay detached and factual, even though the subject hit very close to home at the moment.

"Every time a spinnesehen shares venom with her mate, his body becomes more accustomed to it. Over time, he develops a resistance so that no amount of venom could harm him." Liliana licked her lips and played with her skirt nervously. "It also helps in surviving paruungzeit if he is already very strong and fit, the fiercer, the better."

"Why is that important?"

Liliana found she couldn't hold on to any sense of detachment. She was deeply embarrassed to be explaining the facts of spinnesehen sex life to the prince, but if anyone needed to know, he did. She tried to cover her embarrassment by eating a big gulp of soup, and only succeeded in burning her mouth. She sipped cool wine to ease the pain. She looked down in the wine glass while she told him the rest. "During paruungzeit, hormones make a spinnesehen a little crazy, and the mating imperative is irresistible. She can be a lot to handle. If her mate isn't strong enough, she could seriously injure or even kill him." She shrugged uncomfortably. "That's what I've been told."

Sean's face showed amusement. His green eyes sparkled. "You have no first-hand experience."

Liliana felt her cheeks warm, and looked down again, hiding behind her fall of dark hair. "In two years, I will be one hundred. It will be my first paruungzeit."

Sean pushed her hair back behind her ear on one side. "I'm honored." His fingers lingered in her hair.

Liliana picked up her hot soup bowl and ate a few bites without really tasting the food. "Sean, what I said about how Temujin died, it's not what my mother told me when she told me the story. It's what I believe to be true, but if my mother was right, then ..." Liliana shrugged. She couldn't say the words. She couldn't push him away, even if it might save his life. But she, at least, had to warn him.

"What did she say?"

"She said that her sister was foolish to choose a human mate, that no ordinary man, not even a royal, was strong enough."

"I see." Sean thought about that for a while.

"Sean, I don't think she was right. I've heard several other stories of spinnesehen whose mates were human, or at least weren't known to be wesen, and they didn't die."

His lips twisted in irony. "It's probably a good thing in this case that I'm not entirely human, then, I suppose." He picked up his own soup bowl and tried a bite. He blinked, looked down in the bowl, and took another bite. "This is delicious." He sounded surprised.

Liliana shrugged, relieved to have a safer subject broached. "It's a little saltier than I intended."

He had the same pleased reaction to the crusty parmesan toast, although that didn't seem to surprise him. His accent when he spoke French and his name, not to mention his preference for French restaurants made it pretty clear where his heart belonged. Crusty bread would be comfort food for him.

She smiled. "I haven't foreseen much for the last few days but death. I haven't even been looking to see who will visit me. Next time, I will know you're coming and have more food that you like ready."

"This is fine. I came for the company, not the food."

They ate in silence. Liliana wasn't normally disturbed by silence, but she had a feeling she knew what occupied her prince's mind, and wished desperately that she had permission to look.

She finished her food about the same time he did, and stood to take the dishes to the kitchen. "Are you still hungry?" she asked him. "There's plenty more."

He shook his head and took the dishes out of her hands. He put them on the side table. "They can wait." He shifted her to face him with his hands on her hips and pulled her forward.

She straddled his lap facing him. She put her knees on the couch and sat on his knees. It put their faces at the same level, making it very hard for her not to look at him.

"Liliana, you haven't scared me off. I get the impression you're trying to, though." He lifted her face up to him when she tried to look away. No hiding allowed.

"I am a dangerous person to get close to. I want very much for us to be close, but it's not honorable to tempt you if you don't know what you're risking."

"I take risks every day. And I'm not the safest person to get close to either." His fingers threaded through her hair, pushing it back and enjoying the texture.

"I know the risks I take when I'm with you. I guess that's why I felt like I needed to tell you that."

"You wanted us on even ground." He ran his thumb across her lips. "I appreciate that."

She sank closer to him, settling into his lap and nodded. "And I wanted to know that if anything happened with the spell, with Juliette … If I lost you, I wanted to know if it was because of me being what I am or …"

"Shhh." He said. "You won't lose me." He kissed her. One hand cupped the back of her head, the other slid down her back, making her shiver.

Liliana gratefully sank into his kiss and opened her third eyes.

He was afraid, just like she was, but not of her, or the dangers of being with her. He was afraid of the trap he would walk into open-eyed, and what it might cost him. He was afraid of losing himself to someone else's control, afraid of what he might do that he would later regret, afraid of all his plans falling apart because of one mistake. And he was afraid of losing her.

"You won't lose me, either," she told him.

"Is that foresight?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "It's not what I see. It is what I want. I want to keep you forever."

She kissed him, sinking close until she could feel the warmth of him all along the front of her body.

One of his hands pulled her hips in closer, the other fisted in her hair.

She sank into him, body, mind and soul, and saw that he wanted something she hadn't expected.

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. The changeable color had shifted to deep green beneath lids gone heavy. "Are you sure?"

He nodded.

She unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hands over the hard, gorgeous planes of his chest. She kissed down his throat, and felt him tense, bracing for pain. "Not this time, my prince. I won't hurt you ever again, at least not while I'm in control of my own actions."

He reacted to her words as if she had touched a sensitive spot, his hands tightening on her.

She looked into him, knowing that right now, she had his permission. Fierce desire stared back at her, tempered and made sharper by fear of losing what they had gained.

"I want to make you the same promise, ma petite araignée. I cannot say what I'll do when my actions are not mine to control, but when they are …" His words drowned in tenderness, an overwhelming desire to protect her from all harm.

Liliana kissed him like she wanted to eat him, then down his neck again, over his prominent collarbone to his pectoral muscle, bigger than both her fists together. She kissed and sucked hard enough to leave a mark.

He groaned and held her head to his flesh, his other hand kneading her backside.

The tips of her needle sharp fangs barely grazed his skin, hidden in the hard kiss, giving him a taste of venom, just enough to make his blood sing, and suppress any further pain. Then, she bit him properly, deep into that muscle, when he would feel nothing but pleasure from the bite.

He threw his head back, eyes closed, and let the euphoria wash over him. She watched his fear and worry fade, and warmth and desire fill the space in his heart and mind that they had occupied.

He smiled at her, full and warm. "I am yours to command, ma petite araignée. What would you ask?"

"Etre le mien pour toujours, mon prince sombre."

"I can't promise forever. But for tonight, at least, I am yours." He stood with her still on his lap, one hand under her bottom and the other around her shoulders.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and didn't stop kissing him all the way to the bedroom.