So prideful.Really, that attitude just tempted her to find out what lay under it.He removed the crown, grimacing as it caught in his hair and he had to untangle it.Cha’s fingers itched to assist, but she kept her mouth shut, for once.Holding the crown in his hands, he turned it, seeming bemused.It was pretty—and obviously pricey—made of silver-white filigree that was probably platinum, and studded with deep violet-blue cabochon jewels that seemed to eat the light rather than reflect it.
“I can hold onto that for you,” Cha offered in a friendly way, “since you’re on the move and all.No luggage to stow it in.”
He slid her a jaundiced and decidedly unfriendly look.“Thanks, but no.”
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“Your kind of help, I don’t need,” he sneered.“Just do what I hired you to do if you expect to earn the coin.”
“I’d be careful about threatening to renege when I could dump you out on the line and have done.”
He narrowed his eyes.“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, you clearly don’t know me at all.”Cha looked again, but the crown seemed to have vanished.Sleight of hand, or actual magic?No time to puzzle it out.The junction flew toward them like a shooting star.“I’d hold on if I were you.”
“You could only aspire to be me,” he retorted.But he clamped a hand onto the jag’s side.
That worked.“Brace yourself, Bridget,” she told him.
“What?”
The prince sounded so aghast and confused—and so terribly offended to be in that position—that she nearly laughed.“Old joke.Means no time for foreplay,” she explained.True, she’d never flipped her carriage on a ley line—besides which, Katu was far too balanced, strong, and experienced to lose his hold that way—but she’d also never taken a real world, not-banked racetrack junction at near full white either.This would be amazing.
Or a disaster.
Either way: an experience like no other.
~13~
Showing Off the New Candy
They hit thejunction at explosive speed, the tide of white pixie dust slamming into the previously sedate black matter of the secondary line, exciting the slower pixie dust into higher states barely ahead of their passage.Katu fishtailed wildly, the ley-line feedback pouring up through Cha with orgasmic intensity, and she let out a long, happy shout of wild triumph.She had no attention to spare for Prince Charming, except to note that he remained safely inside the carriage, despite her threats.
Slower traffic scattered across the secondary line leading back to the Thirteen and Cha wove her way through it, making one lightning quick choice after another.When a heavy dray carriage unexpectedly—and stupidly—deflected directly into their path, Cha went on blind instinct, threading the needle through the narrow space between the lumbering carriage and the dead zone of the margin.
The differential between the high white beneath Katu and the fulminous drag of the black margin caught at them unevenly, sending them into a 360° spin.They skidded wildly, twirling like a top, and only long practice—and a heart of coldest ice—allowed Cha to steer them through it.
They came to a rest on the shoulder, facing backward, Prince Charming’s eyes wide in feral terror.He looked like he might puke.“You almost killed us…” he whispered, gaze on the steep drop-off to the side.
“Not even close.”With forked fingers, she pointed to her eyes and to the road.“The trick is to keep your gaze where you want to go; not where you don’t.”
He simply stared.“You can’t convince me you have a philosophy behind this… thisbehaviorof yours.”
She shrugged cheerfully.“I’m a card-carrying member of the Sisters of Don’t Give a Fuck.No celibacy required, in case you’re concerned,” she added.
“You… You’reinsane,” he stammered again.
“You aren’t the first to say so.I picked you up, didn’t I?”Cha checked the traffic and goosed the jag into an opening.With reluctance, she gave up the white speed and tucked the ley dynamics down to pale black.That still had them passing the other carriages on the Thirteen with ease, though a number of them were drafting in her wake, she noted, taking advantage of the Bandit on a spree and juiced up with speed.Some cargos would be checked in for an early bonus today and Cha wished them well.Everyone deserved a gimme now and then.She glanced at her passenger.Definitely green, a shade that did not go well with the indigo.
“There’s a cooler in the jump seat behind you,” she told him.“An iced ale might help.”
“At this point, I don’t think drinking an entire vineyard would make a difference,” he snarled unhappily.
It shouldn’t have been sexy, but so help her it was, and she laughed.“I’m not though,” she said, feeling a bit of reassurance wouldn’t go amiss.
“Not what?”He’d turned around in the seat, rummaging through the cooler anyway.Very nice ass.Since it was bobbing there beside her head, she allowed herself a long, leisurely look.Mmm.Lovely pussy-sparkle, more than she’d felt in quite some time.
“Insane,” she answered, beaming angelically when he skewed around and glared at her.She tapped her temple.“I’ve been tested.Sane as they come, just a wee bit of irrationality when it comes to assessing risk.”Well, and the criminal tendencies, including a disregard for authority and an iconoclastic drive to shatter rules just for the fun of it.She could hear the child psychologists as if it were yesterday.Good times.
