“I can handle ugly,” Cha replied.“Look at Warg.”
“Ha ha.”
“How much time did I buy you?”
“Three hours and forty-four minutes ahead of the clock,” Dy admitted, her tone grudging.“Soon as you flew past, the whole ley kicked up speed to max on the black.”
“And Fastcart here thanks you both!”another voice chimed in.“We’re putting out the word that the juice is on the Thirteen.Anything you need, Goldilocks, we got you.”
“Aw, thanks, Fastcart.”
“Keep an eye on my girl, Fastcart,” Cha said.“I’m looping back via the rural leys.Map shows I ought to come up behind you in an hour, maybe less, Goldi.Well before BX-time.”They’d agreed not to discuss their crossing the border into Obsidian, much less the next realm, not even among apparent friends on the path-channels.Too much exposure.Just because they weren’t yet in fae lands didn’t mean they wouldn’t attract the interest of fae ears.
“Copy that, Bandit,” Fastcart replied.“Watch your tail.”
“It’s a fine tail, so I can promise that…Well, well, well—what have we here?”
The rural ley, a dull black that moved so slowly under the feathering trees that it was practically molasses, had given Katu a breather.In a nice bonus, the pretty scenery had just gotten a whole lot prettier.A man stood on the side of the ley, waving her down.He was well back from the thick flow of the seething dust of the line, wearing an absurdly formal outfit for these parts.He frankly looked like he’d escaped from a royal ball.Cha didn’t think it was a costume, either, but the real thing.
In fact, a small but glittering crown was affixed to his rather elaborately styled indigo hair.A violet silk cloak lined with eye-popping chartreuse streamed down his back, while the layers of the expensive suit beneath clung to a lithe, attractively masculine figure.Cha usually liked her men beefier, but something about this one appealed to her immensely.That was, besides the fact that he was available and in apparent need of rescue—both qualities she preferred in her men.The telltale sparkle in her pussy confirmed it.She liked this one.
“Bandit,” Dy said, possibly not for the first time.“Come back.Did we lose you?What do you see, dammitall?”
“Candy,” Cha replied, easing Katu to the edge of the sedate flow and petting him into patience as he unwillingly came to a stop.
“No!”Dy shouted through the path-box.“No candy while we’re on this job, Bandit!You said you’d be responsible.”
“I’m not being irresponsible.We’re ahead of schedule,” Cha pointed out, very reasonably, she thought.The handsome, harried looking man was jogging up the dirt shoulder, waving to her as if she wasn’t already taking in the enticing, lean flow of him.Nothing like a little juiced-up chase and smoking a law-hound to give her a sweet-tooth.“I’m just being helpful.You’re always telling me I need to try to be a better person.”
“Don’t you do this to me, Bandit!”Dy shouted.“Not again.Youpromisedthat—”
“That I’d be behind you in an hour,” Cha interrupted, rolling her eyes.“Probably less.You know I can catch up.Bandit out.”
She tapped off transmission on the path-box just as the man reached them.“Hello sailor,” she purred, quite certain Katu echoed it.
The man frowned, looking down at himself.“I’m a prince, not a sailor.”
Oh yeah, and she was the queen of the fae.She sighed to herself.Did the pretty onesallhave to be cursed with a lack of wit?“Even better.Where you headed?”
“Anywhere but here.”He looked back up the ley line nervously.“As fast as possible.”
“Happens to be where I’m going and I’m always fast.”She added a salacious grin, but he seemed oblivious to flirtation as well as wit because he frowned.
“You can only go as fast the ley line flows,” he pointed out.
Shows what he knew.“Hop in, Prince Charming.”
“Bandit.”Dy’s voice lit up the path-box.“Come on, curse you.”
“Who’s Bandit?”the prince asked, eyeing the box dubiously as he leapt over the carriage rim with seductive grace and slid into the seat of the two-seater carriage, his cloak overflowing the side, causing him to fuss with it in frustration.
“No idea,” Cha answered blithely, switching the channel to an obscure limestone.She wasn’t going to be so cavalier as to turn it off entirely—she could always fast-tap to gold, or marcasite, in a pinch—but she didn’t want any more interruptions to this introduction to the delicious princeling.“You settled?”
He determinedly punched down the voluminous cloak, which poofed up in his lap like a violet and chartreuse mushroom.“Can we please justgo?”
He turned a beseeching look on her and Cha nearly choked on her breath at the surge of pussy-sparkle.His eyes were a shade of blue barely lighter than his hair, dominating a face so exquisite he could be fae.He must dye the hair to coordinate and what a stellar idea that had been.The human royals tended to get a bit absurd with their fashion excesses and endless mimicking of the colorful fae, but in this case she heartily approved.
“Now?”he added, his tone slightly sharper than his befuddled behavior had indicated.A hint of a predator showing fang beneath the fluffy camouflage.In truth, the imperious tone matched his tale of being a prince, but something was off here.Not only because princes had entourages, not relying on hitchhiking to get them about.
