Chapter 5 Facing the Fang Beast
Facing the Fang Beast
As was typical of her, Dy had the blankets pulled up over her head, her petite body so perfectly cocooned that she resembled a chrysalis.
The big difference was—and Cha knew this well from years of being Dy’s roommate back at the magic academy—instead of a beautiful butterfly emerging from the covers, a newly-wakened Dy was a slavering monster of epic proportions.
It had been a test of true love when Phinny first persuaded Dy to spend a full night in her bed.
Cha had tried to warn her, but did anyone listen to her? Clearly not, or the world would be a better place. Being a cautious soul—and experienced—Cha snagged a pillow and hurled it at the narrow lump in the bed, deftly hitting her mark despite the darkened interior of the room.
Dy burst from under the covers, golden curls snaking with life, a sparkling green fireball hurtling past Cha’s head to smash into glitter, searing itself into the wall. Cha turned and observed the singed spot, whistling low. “Impressive.”
For a moment Dy didn’t reply, her pretty, snub nose screwed up, golden brows lowered in a black scowl. “Why are you here? I’m sleeping.” She burrowed back under the covers like a worm going to earth.
“Oh, no you’re not.” Satisfied that her old friend was awake enough not to accidentally kill her if she didn’t duck fast enough, Cha ventured close enough to the bed to jerk the covers away.
“Arantxa Evermore!” Dy shrieked, writhing as if the exposure to daylight would shrivel her to ash.
“Ah, it remembers me now,” Cha returned cheerfully, ignoring yet another blunt-weapon use of her full name, drawing the heavy curtains back from the windows to allow the sunlight to pour in. “Time to wake up and smell the coin, sweetling.”
“Does Phin know you’re here?” Dy asked, wedging open one baleful, summer-sky blue eye. “Because she will absolutely cut me off from sex if she finds out you snuck in behind her back.”
“Sex?” Cha repeated in disbelief. “She’s so pregnant, she’s about to burst like an overheated grape. Give the poor woman a break.”
“I worry about your understanding of gestation.”
“Not something I need to understand. Ever.”
“Orgasms are very healthy in later pregnancy,” Dy continued blithely.
“Good for the circulation.” Finally resembling something a bit more human, Dy raked back her snarled golden locks and grinned salaciously.
“One of the great advantages of keeping your lover in-house, rather than having to constantly troll for a new one.”
“I happen to enjoy the constant trolling,” Cha replied with dignity. “It’s like target practice—helps to keep my hand in.”
Dy rolled her eyes. “Like you need more practice.”
“Thank you.” Cha gave her a grin, then glanced pointedly at the burnt spot on the wall. “Looks like someone else could use some practice, though.” Not quite a question, but Dy knew it for what it was.
“Don’t start with me,” Dy grumbled, moving to the side of the bed and scrubbing her hands over her face before assessing the daylight outside. “I don’t have enough opportunity to express my magic,” she admitted. “It’s been building up on me. I didn’t singe you, did I?”
“The day I can’t duck one of your fireballs is the day I turn in my handle,” Cha answered cheekily, and Dy snorted.
“Seriously,” the sorceress said, standing up and stretching, her naked body petite and curvy, her breasts full and pink-tipped, waist narrow, and hips perfectly flared.
With her ass-length golden curls, Dy looked like a storybook princess—a direct contrast to long, lanky, dark-eyed Cha.
They’d made a good cruising team, appealing to opposite genders and preferences.
Blearily, Dy cast about for something to wear.
Long familiar with her friend’s habits, Cha handed Dy a pair of pants, holding a shirt at the ready.
“To what do we owe the honor of a visit from you? Why did Phin let you in?” Dy’s grudgingly waking brain caught up, her expression becoming alarmed.
“Is something wrong with Phin? The kids!”
“No, no—Phin is fine and knows I’m here. I get to stay for dinner.” Cha patted her flat belly—all right, slightly soft belly—in anticipation. “She’s even making me rosemary twists.”
“An evil spell,” Dy decided, taking the comb Cha handed her and going to work on her wildly curling mass of hair. “You finally abandoned the last of whatever scruples you still possessed and purchased—most likely stole—a mind-wipe spell to make Phin forget how pissed she is at you.”
“What a great idea—do they have those?” Cha asked, more to annoy Dy than anything else.
Dy threw the comb at her, which was—all things considered—a de-escalation from fireballs. Cha neatly caught it and motioned to Dy to turn around. “Let me get those snarls. I don’t understand why you don’t chop this mess off.”
“I like it,” Dy replied sullenly. “More important, Phin likes it. I meant to braid it before I fell asleep, but… I was tired.”
“Hmm.”
“Besides, we don’t all look glamorously fabulous with a famous short bob.”
Cha shrugged modestly. Just because “The Bandit” was a popular haircut didn’t mean she’d planned it that way.
She deftly worked the tangles from the bottom up with the comb, the simple task bringing back years of memories.
“Phinny thinks you’re miserable. She says they’ve got you on the night runs. ”
“Phin has developed a remarkably loose tongue all of a sudden,” Dy commented acidly.
“There’s a job,” Cha began.
“I knew it!” Dy whirled, seized the comb, and shook it in Cha’s face. “I promised Phin: no more smuggling. No more any of it.”
“What if I told you that you could go out with me for a night and a day—same as these runs you’re doing—and come home with fifty thousand silvers?”
Dy goggled at her. “Are we smuggling the dead body of a freshly assassinated fae queen?”
“Nope.”
“I see. We have to do the assassinating, too.”
“No assassinating. Smuggling a package. Nothing new. You know this gig backward and forward.”
“From where to where?” Dy asked with a narrowed gaze.
“Round trip gig. We pick up a package concealed in a few tons of pixie dust, bring it back to Rockton via the Gypsum route.”
“Uh-huh. You say that like Gypsum doesn’t have a dead-or-alive warrant out on you for that frozen ambrosia gig.”
Cha waved that off. “Surely they’ve forgotten about that.”
“Forget that you seduced the local lord’s son and brought him back to Granite with you, causing the family to lose their hold on their ancestral lands?” Dy snorted in disbelief. “Not going to happen, Cha.”
“First of all, it was not a seduction, as he met me more than halfway. Second, he wanted to leave. I was an excuse. An opportunity, not an objective.”
“Good thing, since you dumped him.”
Cha held up a finger. “The relationship parameters were clear from the beginning. It’s not my fault he wanted more.
And,” she added, “he got more. Last I heard, he was in Princess Adalaja’s entourage, knocking himself out trying to keep her satisfied.
Having personally experienced how little staying power he had, I don’t give him good odds. ”
Dy laughed, a hint of her former sparkle in it, though she quickly sobered. “I’ve missed you, Bandit.”
If Cha had a heart, Dy’s words would have squeezed it. She hadn’t been sure Dy gave her much thought at all. “It’s not the same without you, Goldilocks. You know that.”
Dy nodded, then launched herself at Cha, seizing her in a fierce hug.
Cha had to blink back a few tears. Nothing wrong with a bit of sentimentality at a moment like this.
Probably it was the thought of all that coin that had her feeling emotional.
She squeezed her diminutive partner with fervor.
No, nothing had been the same without Dy.
Their friendship was the only relationship in Cha’s life that had ever mattered and it had hurt that Dy left her behind so easily.
“Does this mean you want to hear about the gig?” she whispered in Dy’s ear.
Laughing again, Dy pulled back and tapped Cha on the nose with a finger that tingled with a mildly painful spark of magic. “Bad kitty.”
“That’s Katu.”
“You and Katakume, both. We can discuss the gig. With Phin.”
“And with all the rosemary bread twists I can eat,” Cha added happily. Maybe Otto was right. It seemed she could still talk Dy into anything.
Nice to know she hadn’t lost her touch.