Chapter 19 A Spot of Sparkle
A Spot of Sparkle
That shut him up for a full minute. And yeah, that had been a little over-the-top dramatic, calling him a rogue fae, especially since that was only a thing in stories.
At least, Cha was pretty sure of that. She’d never heard of anyone meeting a real rogue fae, nor did she have any idea why they’d go rogue in the first place, since being full fae put you at the top of any heap anyone could pile up.
Still, she’d gone with that instead of saying “you probably have enough fae blood to qualify for citizenship in one of the realms,” as that didn’t sound nearly so good.
“Rogue fae, seriously?” he demanded, looking down his long nose, currently wrinkled in regal disgust. “Have I tripped and fallen into some sort of serial melodrama?”
Yeah, okay, she deserved that one. “Aren’t you just a little ray of pitch black,” she grumbled anyway. “You know what I mean, what with the sparkly blue magicking.”
“Should you be saying those things aloud?” he shot back, pointing a long finger at the path-box. He had a point. Discretion had never been her strong suit.
Rather than admit her error, she went on the offense. “You’re ducking the question. And withholding pertinent information.”
Another long silence ensued that would’ve been fraught, if Cha had the personal depth to experience fraught-ness.
As it was, she hummed one of the tunes that had been playing back at Giant Jo’s, once again considering that she should buy one of those magic music boxes to listen to on road trips like this.
Maybe with her earnings from this job. Of course, with the earnings from this job, she and Katu wouldn’t need to go on long ventures anymore.
“Is that why you came back for me?” the prince finally asked. “Because you figured I had something to contribute?” He waved a hand suggestively in the air, blue sparking from his fingertips in the vague shape of a fireball.
“That and your pretty face.”
“If you want information, you have to give information,” he chided. “Only true answers.”
That was his problem if he thought that wasn’t the truth. She shrugged. “I had a feeling.”
“Clairvoyance?”
“Nah. Just human intuition. A hunch, nothing magical about it.”
“You have fae blood if you’re a ley rider.”
She slid him a look. “I see what you’re doing here, back to discussing me. Of course I have to have fae blood to be a ley rider, though I’m a bit surprised you know that.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“No, but you are oddly ignorant of certain realities of peasant life.”
“Can you be out of contact with your partner for a short time?”
Taken aback by the sudden change of topic, she raised her brows at him. “I assume you could reverse whatever you’re planning to do at a moment’s notice?”
“Yes.”
“More precisely, the moment I give you notice?”
“Yes.” He sounded impatient to have to repeat himself.
“I don’t know…” It sounded like a bad idea.
“You can trust me.”
Cha barked out a laugh. “Oh, no, my princely purple hitchhiker. I can see myself doing all kinds of questionable and filthy things with you, but trust is whole ’nother kettle of blueberries.”
“You would bed someone you don’t trust?”
The question gave her pause. In truth, answering something like that felt more intimate than a naked tumble in that theoretical bed. “When did I offer the—unquestionably enticing, once-in-a-lifetime, even for a royal—opportunity to ‘bed’ me, as you so quaintly put it?”
“You’ve been flirting with me.”
She waved that off. “I flirt with everyone. Well,” she amended, “everyone that gives me the pussy sparkle.”
He made a choking sound. “Excuse me?”
“You know, chemistry. That indefinable spark. The genital awakening of interest when you encounter someone who rings your special bell.” She waved at her crotch, just in case he missed her meaning.
“You seem to be defining it just fine,” he replied in a strained voice. “I’ve never heard it put that way.”
“I don’t know what you guys call it. Dick itch?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s something different. So, you’re telling me you’d have sex with someone who gives you this… sparkle, without having built trust with them?”
It amused her no end that he avoided using the word. “Uh, yeah. That’s called having a healthy libido. Good sex doesn’t require an intimate relationship.”
“Healthy is not the word that springs to mind regarding your intimate relationships.”
She slid him an incredulous look. “You’ve known me for five minutes, boy-o, and I—if I may be so blunt—am not the one running from a vengeful bride who did something so awful to you that you fled with only the fancy clothes on your back.”
“And five platinum coins,” he countered sourly.
The wealth of a small principality, yeah.
She had no argument for that. “Whatever,” she replied.
Not her wittiest comeback, but she was still a little off kilter from the accusations about her approach to sex.
Who was he to judge her? Dy and Phin got to give her shit about her disinclination to form lasting relationships—and there were reasons for that—not some random guy she’d just met. Talk about a sparkle-douser.
“I could do what I have in mind without your permission,” he pointed out when she said nothing more.
“Now we’re at threats? So much for the trust-building exercise.”
He sighed in pure exasperation. “You’re impossible.”
She couldn’t help an impertinent grin, indulging herself by patting his lean thigh. Ooh, yummy. There, that was more like herself. She wouldn’t let him get her down. “Now you’re starting to know the real me.”
He peeled her hand off his thigh, as if in distaste. Fine then. “You want answers,” he pointed out. “So do I.” He waved the wand around, grimacing when it poofed a burst of pink glitter that wafted over his face.
Cha probably should’ve controlled herself, but she snickered. “You look cute with pink glitter in your hair.”
Holding her gaze, an irritated lick of blue flame in his indigo eyes, he tapped the wand against the path-box. A circle of crystal, mostly clear with a blue tint, enveloped the box. Even a mostly mundane like Cha could tell that meant it wouldn’t send or receive. She frowned, deeply uneasy. “Hey.”
“Trust me.”
“No way.”
“Only for a moment.”
“A moment is all it takes.”
“So cynical.”
“You have yet to plumb the depths of my cynicism.” With a sigh, she figured it for a done deal. “Spill already.”
“First tell me how you happen to have a Moonruby wand.”
“Moonruby? Never heard of that.”
“And you call me ignorant. The wand is pink.”
“I noticed.”
“Thus a blend of magic from the Moonstone and Ruby realms.”
“Whoa.” Ruby was the highest-test magic, and the most mysterious of the fae realms. She looked at the wand with renewed respect. “No wonder it worked on the iron demon so well. I didn’t know you could mix magic between realms.”
Prince Not-So-Charming actually rolled his eyes at her. “I suspect what you don’t know about sorcery could fill buckets.”
“True enough,” she agreed cheerfully. “Too bad I’m fresh out of buckets. Now give me my Moonruby wand.” She reached for it and he snatched it away, tsking at her like some elderly schoolteacher.
“This is a powerful magic artifact,” he told her in important tones. “Not to be waved about willy-nilly.”
“I used that nilly to save your willy,” she reminded him.
“I’m well aware,” he replied gravely. “That kind of service means something to the…me.”
“To the you?” She laughed, guiding Katu around a slow-moving hippo carriage piled high with crates, then turned in her seat to face him more fully.
The pink glitter in his indigo hair should have made him look ridiculous, but somehow it came across as more delicious frosting on rich, chocolate (if chocolate was blue) cake.
Damn if she didn’t want to lick him up. “And what are the you, pray tell?”
“I can’t tell you,” he answered, then laid a finger over her lips as she snarled a protest. “Can’t,” he said with significance. “Geas, remember? Two things: yes, I have magic, and no, I’m not what you called me. Also, be very careful of what you do call me, Arantxa, in public or in private.”
Serious pussy sparkle there. The word “private” had never sounded so sexy.
Cha even quivered a little at the way her broody prince purred her full name, making it sound sensual and wonderful for the first time in her life.
Maybe because he wasn’t yelling at her, like most people were when they used her thorny moniker.
Also, she could have imagined it—pussy sparkle could do that, leading a woman to all kinds of bad decisions and questionable fantasies—but it seemed like his finger lingered on her lip, tugging the bottom lip down ever so slightly as he withdrew.
“So, what should I call you?” Okay, her voice came out breathy, but hey—if he didn’t want her turned on, he shouldn’t be looking so edible and touching her in sexy ways, right?
“Your Highness,” he answered with a quirk of a teasing smile. “I kind of liked that.”
“You would. I’ll just call you Prince, for short.”
“I’ll take Prince Charming as the ‘handle,’ but it’s a bit much between us. Call me Azul, in private.” He smiled, a hint of real charm in it.
“Azul,” she said, trying it out. Pretty. Would sound mighty fine being shouted in the throes of passion, but… “Sounds a little demonic.”
“I worry about your education.”
“Hey, I might have been a scholarship student at Miss Mulry’s Academy for the Magically Gifted, but the education was top notch. Tell me this,” she continued, before he could retort. “If you can do magic, why couldn’t you keep those fell wolves from carrying you off?”
“Ruby magic,” he replied with distaste. “Higher than mine,” he clarified with a raised brow. “Surely you have some sense of the echelons of magic use.”
“Hey, I’m a simple ley rider. I just know that the higher the color, the faster I can go.”
“I suspect you’re far from a simple ley rider, Arantxa Evermore,” he commented cryptically.
She noticed glossy black trees that lined the road now, along with the decidedly darker cast to the landscape. They’d crossed the invisible border into Gypsum and were getting close to the Obsidian border. Time and Katu had flown fast. “Sharing time is over. I gotta make contact with Dy.”
He nodded—maybe she also imagined some regret in it—and tapped a finger on the globe he’d made over the box. Immediately Dy’s voice came through.
“Bandit, what the hell now! I’ve got heat and not the good kind. Come back.”
“What does that mean?” Azul asked.
“That means to strap in and hang tight.”
“Is there a way to strap in?” He looked around, as if some kind of harness might suddenly appear.
“Nah. Figure of speech. Just don’t fall out.” She grinned as he groaned. “I need to catch up to her quick and what falls out, stays out.”
“Stark, raving mad,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound nearly so annoyed as he used to. In fact…Was that a hint of a dimple from a suppressed smile?
What did you know? Prince Charming was starting to have fun.