“Such nice friends you have,” the prince commented acidly, his expression set in lines of frustration as he bunched the pillowing, colorful silk in his fists.
“That friend is our ticket to speed, so shut it,” Cha told him without rancor.“Goldi, hon—can we fight later?”
“Is this really that important?”
“It’s been a while since we did the trick.We should practice anyway.”
“Fine,” Dy ground out.“Hide the dirty pics and open the door.”
“Dirty pics?”the prince echoed incredulously.
“Hush.”Cha punched the closest flailing limb.
“Ow,” he complained, but said no more.
Good thing, as Cha needed the focus to clear her mind and open to Dy’s.
She wasn’t about to explain the trade secret that allowed Dy to link telepathically to Cha without mage support or a path-channel box and thus affect the ley line through Cha’s connection to it.It wasn’t the kind of thing taught at the mage academies, largely because humans weren’t supposed to be able to do it.In truth, neither of them had ever heard of anyone besides fae capable of doing anything like it, and rumor had it that not even all of them could.
If she and Dy hadn’t been bored and ignorant adolescents stuck at the academy over a holiday break together, since neither of their families wanted them home, they might never have sussed out the surprising ability themselves.That trick wasn’t the only reason Cha had never found a partner to match Dy, but it was a big one.A big secret one.
Besides them, only Phinny knew the truth—because Dy had insisted on honesty in her marriage, whatever that had to do with anything—and Phinny would not only take it to her grave to protect Dy, she hadn’t wanted to know too much about the details.Said she didn’t need to think about what Dy saw in a filthy mind like Cha’s.
Cha might’ve been offended, if it wasn’t true.Thus, she did her best to clear the mental decks of any offensive dross before Dy looked in.Not that Dy would ever judge her.
Dy’s magic flickered through Cha like the welcome touch of a favored lover, like a hug from her grandmother, long since dead.It wasn’t erotic, as it truly hadn’t ever been like that between her and Dy, no matter what the wilder tales claimed, but it did feel an awful lot like what people called love.Not that Cha would know, but if she loved anyone in the whole benighted world, it was Dy.
Well, Dy and Katu.
Cha opened the door to the ley line and Dy’s magic flowed through her and into the line, kicking the pixie dust up to a very nice gray.Katu yowled his delight, ripping ahead with molten grace, and the prince shouted his incredulity.Cha grinned over at him.“Fast enough for you, princeling?”
“Remind me to kill you later,” he bit out, finally freeing himself of the cloak.It went ballooning into the air, like an exotic flower set free to fly on the wind, spiraling away behind them.He set to work on the elaborately buttoned jacket that was the next layer, Cha watching with prurient interest.
“What are you doing?”she asked, one mental eye on the thankfully empty lane.The junction to the main road would be coming up quickly.
“Getting out of these ridiculous clothes,” he answered in a tone of profound exasperation.Well, she supposed ithadbeen a silly question.Almost as silly as his outfit, though she discreetly refrained from saying so.Who said she couldn’t be diplomatic?
“Bandit,” Dy said through the path-box, having withdrawn from Cha’s mind as quickly as possible.“Time to explain who is currently disrobing in your carriage while you’re going fast enough to kill yourself ten times over.”
“I’ve never flipped on a ley and you know it,” Cha retorted.“I know where I’m going—and what I’mnotrunning into.”Prince Charming had divested himself of the floral fitted coat and sent it flying, also, with a thin smile of grim satisfaction.“I wish you could see the sights though,” she added.
“Pretty?”Dy asked, unbending a little.She might be totally into women, but Dy appreciated a good-looking boy for the aesthetic value.Dy had been the one to dub them “candy,” because she—direct quote—wanted to gobble them up whole.
“Pretty as a princess in pink,” Cha answered, earning a glower from her prince.
“And the part about who he is?”
“Undetermined.But Iamdetermined to find out.Heh.Coming up on the junction.I’ll be up on you in thirty at this speed, then you can take a gander.”
“You don’t need to burn that fast,” Dy cautioned.
“Something tells me we need to put those meat-eaters well behind us.”
“Now she thinks about it,” Prince Charming muttered, sending his sparkling vest flying, leaving him wearing only a white shirt of such an exquisite cloth that the fine blue hairs on his chest glinted through.He removed the cuff links—amethysts, by the glint of them—carefully stowing those in a pants pocket, and rolled up his sleeves.Deep blue hair frosted his forearms, gleaming darkly against his paler skin and the very nice musculature.“Shouldn’t you have your eyes on the road?”he asked pointedly.
Cha bared her teeth at him.What royal went to the trouble of dying body hair to match the head?Easier to wax it all off.Though it did make her wonder about the down-below… “Don’t worry, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head, my juicy little blueberry.”
“Don’t call me that,” he bit out, glaring daggers at her.
