“Some human mage.You know how it is for us, forever cobbling shit together out of fae scraps.Ordoyou know that?”she asked, pouncing.
It didn’t work.He gave her a bland look.“As a royal, you mean?No doubt our shit is higher quality.”
“And it doesn’t stink either, I’m sure,” she shot back.“Are you ever going to tell me who you are?”
He leaned closer confidingly, even setting an elegant hand on her thigh.An unnatural heat flooded from that slight contact, rich indigo magic warming her blood and going straight to her groin.He caressed her thigh, slowly shaping the curve, going from knee to midway, teasing higher.The erotic punch surprised her, far more potent than such a relatively chaste touch should be.Was this how fae seduction felt?No wonder humans fell all over themselves to die for it.
“Oh, Arantxa,” he murmured, bringing his lovely lips close to her ear, nearly brushing the sensitive shell of it, his breath warm and sweet, like berries in the sun.She leaned into him, inviting more, and he paused, mouth so close to kissing her.“Let me tell you,” he whispered into her ear, “absolutely nothing at all.”
She jerked an elbow at him, hoping to hit him painfully square in that enticing chest, but he evaded her, laughing.A real laugh and—like his lovely tenor singing voice—it sounded like bells on a holiday morning, clear and musical, pealing with the promise of something pure and real and not tainted with misery.“You’re a right bastard,” she told him, having to force the angry tone, as his laughing seemed to pull on her own, eroding her resolve to not smile.
Sobering, he touched a fingertip to his nose and pointed at her.Aha.A breadcrumb of information.A bastard, of human and fae blood, that much was certain, but weren’t they all?No, he meant something much more relevant—that he was mostly fae?Perhaps gotten on the wrong side of the blanket.And who was this family that he’d alluded to?The fae tended to dump their partbloods into the human realm, but something about Azul made her think he’d grown up on the fae side of the fence.
She itched to ask the questions, but knew he wouldn’t answer.Or couldn’t, if she believed the geas thing, which she wasn’t sure she did.
“Why did you want the map?”he asked, as if the interlude had never happened.“Isn’t the depot right on the Black Thirteen?”
“It is.”She contemplated the somewhat surprising fact that he knew that, then decided it was pretty obvious.Where else would one put a depot for transitioning goods traveling up and down the primary import/export route for the region?“I’m looking for an ambrosia station.Katu needs to fill up.Beats me why the fae can’t use road signs like normal people.”
“The fae have other ways of knowing.”
“No doubt.”
“I’d have thought you’d have planned for this eventuality.”
“Some things you can’t plan for.I know where the stations used to be, but it’s been a couple of years and those things tend to move, except in the touristy areas, which I prefer to avoid.We could potentially get by, but I want to make sure we have plenty of juice to reach the depot and make the next BX.”
“Do you know what you’re getting into, over there?”he asked carefully.She almost thought he sounded concerned.
“I told you, we planned this.We’re not amateurs.”
“Where you’re going is not hospitable to humans.”
She raised her gaze to the seven heavens and their uncaring angels.“In the pithy words of my niece, Zazu: duh.”
“You can’t be caught there in the daylight,” he persisted.
She waved her hand at the descending night.“Note the planning.Miraculously, it’s night.”
“There are other dangers.”
“Why do you care all of a sudden?”she demanded, slanting him a glance.
He drew himself up stiffly.“I’ve realized how hapless you are.You don’t even know where the ambrosia stations are in this realm.”
“I know some of them.I just didn’t expect to need a station this soon.Katu burned a lot of energy shaking that tail.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Probably, but remains to be seen.The law-hounds—if that’s who they were—shouldn’t have picked up on us that fast.We were being good kitties.Nothing we did should’ve drawn attention.”
“Besides bribing the border guards and agents to let you through.”
She waved that off.“Yeah, but that’s standard business, more or less.”She glanced at him.“I mean, I’ve bribed my way over the border before.”
“Color me unsurprised,” he said drily.
“Exactly.The point there, also, is that if I’d triggered the fae law, they’d have been on my ass, not Big Betty’s, see?And there’s no reason the border should’ve been closed to begin with.They only do that if someone is running something they shouldn’t.”
