Catastrophic Attraction - Eve Langlais Page 0,23
to know he teased.
“I highly doubt that.”
“Are you calling my words into question?” He drawled the query in a soft purr that rippled over her.
“You’re tricky with your speech. Is that how you conned people into following you and bowing while chanting ‘Your Highness?’”
“They say it because they like it. Like me apparently. Maybe you should give it a go.”
“Don’t expect me to start kissing your ego and scraping in your presence,” she said hotly.
“The only reason you’d ever voluntarily call me ‘Your Highness’ in a way that doesn’t sound sarcastic would be to throw me off so I don’t expect the knife you stab me with.”
He was learning.
“I don’t believe in titles.”
“So I’m beginning to see. We should probably conduct our business before the classes let out.” He ducked his head, and his face changed back to that of the stranger.
“Conduct what? Are you not done showing off?” She put her hands on her hips. “Look at me, such a radioactive king, offering free school for everyone. What’s next? Does everyone get their own hover scooter?”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I know. I wasn’t. And we’re not here that you might experience firsthand my epic-ness as king, but to meet Liandra.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re letting her work with children?”
“Turns out she is perfectly suited.”
He knocked on a door, and a woman—not exactly young and definitely heading into her gray years—stopped her lecture and joined them in the hall. “Can I help you?” She tucked her hands in front of her, a small smile on her face.
It took Casey a moment to realize the woman wouldn’t recognize the king in disguise. “Are you Liandra?”
“Yes.”
“We have some questions to ask. About your reason for being in Eden.” Casey blurted it out without any preamble.
“To teach, of course.” Liandra’s vacuous smile held nothing but good intentions.
Casey moved closer, crowding her space. “I mean the real reason. I know about the bounty.”
A line wrinkled Liandra’s brow. “I’m sorry. What bounty?”
“The one on the princess. Who hired you to kidnap her?”
The woman either feigned shock well or she told the truth as she said, “Who’s tried to kidnap the princess? That’s awful.”
A few more minutes of questioning and Casey finally understood just how thorough the wiping of Liandra’s mind proved to be. She’d never met a more pure, sweet, and selfless person. She’d never met anyone with so little personality either.
Leaving Liandra, Casey practically ran out of the school. She waited until they’d moved away to hiss, “What did you do? That woman is almost catatonic.”
“She thinks and feels quite well actually.”
“I meant catatonic as in boring. She is so inoffensive it’s annoying. Exactly what did you do to her? It’s like she’s missing part of her mind.”
“She has all her mind, just not all her memories.” He grimaced, and it was a good thing he had the cloak, because his disguise wavered.
Casey pulled him into an alley between the buildings. “Explain. How does this power of yours work? What exactly did you do?”
He leaned against the wall, and his hood slipped back enough that he stared at her straight on. His voice was monotone as he spoke. “In Liandra’s case, I started out digging for information. After all, she laid hands on my daughter. My baby Charlie.” He shrugged. “I stripped every bit of information I could from her head, and then some.”
“That’s what made her so placid?”
“No, it’s the fact I took parts of her out.”
“Why?” She couldn’t help her horrified whisper.
“Because I saw everything.” He gazed at her. “I was inside her, peeking into places she liked to hide behind a filthy mouth. I saw the acts in her life that shaped Liandra into someone who would abduct a small child for money. She wasn’t a nice person. She was a killer. A thief. Even a seller of the young. She did so many horrible things.”
“Then why not kill her?”
“Because, at the root of it all, she couldn’t be any other way. Not with everything she’d experienced. So I burned away all her pain and anger at her upbringing. I eradicated her greed and coveting of others. I removed all the things that made her choose less than wisely until all that remained were the good parts.”
“You call that the good parts?” She arched a brow.
He shrugged, his expression sheepish. “Turns out there weren’t that many once I was done.”
“Will she always be that simple?”
“No. Because she is going to experience things that will shape her anew.”
“Meaning she could