Read Online The Fire King by Marjorie M. Liu - Free Book Online Page B

his language, but I know what he wants.”
    “Then let him go,” Soria replied. “Or kill him now. I think he would prefer that to the cage you had him in.”
    “What are you saying to each other?” Karr demanded. “Tell me!”
    Soria ignored him.
    A bitter smile flitted at the corner of Serena’s feline mouth. “Look at his anger,” the shape-shifter warned. “You think you know him so well? He’ll murder you for that naivety.”
    “You have bigger problems,” Soria replied. She moved in front of Karr, felt him reach for her—and knocked aside his hand without thinking. He went very still, and so did Serena, tensing. Soria pretended not to notice, but inside her body, her heart hammered so hard she thought she might pass out.
    “Give him a chance,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder; not without the risk of her voice breaking on the words. “Give me a chance to do my job and find out whether or not he can be trusted.”
    Serena stared, golden light trickling from her eye. “You’re a fool.”
    “You could have killed him already,” Soria replied quietly. “Or drugged him. But your people want him alive, conscious. Someone else does, too. Why?”
    “Because they are all idiots,” Serena whispered. “You can never trust him. It is in his blood. His kind are broken from the inside.”
    Chills rode down Soria’s spine. “How do you know?”
    “He is a chimera. All they are good for is war.”
    Serena spat on the ground at his feet. Karr snarled. Again, Soria acted without thinking and grabbed his arm. Deep scratches covered his skin, which was slick and hot with blood. She expected him to pull away, even to strike her, but instead he quivered beneath her grip, rooted in one spot. She risked a look at him, unwilling to let go no matter how much she wanted. Touching Karr felt the same as being burned, and his gaze was no different. He stared at her with wild intensity, dangerously thoughtful.
    “We are leaving,” she told him, and then looked at Serena and said, “Watch your back. You have a leak.”
    “Or you do,” replied the shifter-woman; but she seemed distracted, staring as she was at Soria’s hand on Karr’s arm, and then his face, her expression inscrutable.
    The half leopardess retreated down the hall, still facing them but stepping lightly over the corpses with a grace and ease that made Soria think that she had eyes in the back of her skull. “Go. I’ll give you a head start, and then I’m coming. Maybe you’ll be alive when I catch up. Or perhaps I’ll finally have enough proof to kill him.”
    Soria suspected the second option was far more appealing to Serena. “The man came alive after being in a coffin for thousands of years. You think it’ll be that easy?”
    Serena said nothing, but stooped to pick up another gun from one of their fallen enemies. Karr moved sideways, so smoothly that Soria hardly noticed until she suddenly found herself partially hidden behind him. The protective gesture startled her, but not enough to distract from the guns held loosely in Serena’s clawed hands, weapons aimed directly at their heads. Soria could almost hear the shots, imagined the bullets slamming into both her and Karr.
    It’d be easy to hide, she thought. Easy to blame on these dead men.
    But Serena did not shoot. “Go,” she whispered, and disappeared around the bend in the hall.
    Soria stared after the shape-shifter, breathless. Karr shook off her hand and strode down the hall, watching where Serena had disappeared. Tense, coiled, still begging for a fight. Utterly alien. Lethal.
    And he was
her
responsibility now. If he hurt anyone it would be her fault for letting him go, for trusting in nothing but faith and instinct. A tremendous risk, and the enormity of it slammed into Soria so hard that she held her stomach, bent over with nausea. She was a fool. Certifiably insane.
    Karr’s back was still turned. “What is this?”
    “You have your freedom,” Soria said through