Chapter 25 Saved by the Ambrosia Station
Saved by the Ambrosia Station
They made it back to the Black Thirteen in good time.
Dy had left in place the high white ley line she’d sorcelled up, thank the stars.
Cha hadn’t liked contemplating what they’d do if the rural ley petered out, or went in a different direction.
With the map globe still on the fritz, she hadn’t wanted to trust that the mine’s ley line would take them to the Black Thirteen, instead of to, oh, a slaughterhouse for human cattle.
Azul would be fine in that case, but Cha had no desire to end up as a steak. Not that such things truly existed, but she’d seen enough dramas on the topic to want to avoid that particular fear.
But, all turned out fine and they made it intact. As it was, they were more than an hour behind Big Betty when they hit the junction and spun onto the Black Thirteen, traffic much more sparse as daylight faded and the bottleneck from the backed-up border had thinned out.
Like magic—ha!—the marcasite channel lit up at that moment. “Goldilocks here. Nearing the depot. Bandit, you close?”
Cha debated lying about it. On the one hand, knowing they were so far behind her for the run around the depot would only send Dy into a frenzy of anxiety, which was never good for a sorceress who needed to keep a cool, clear head.
On the other, Dy had that creepy, eyes-in-the-back-of-her-head maternal antennae for lies.
She’d be angry at Cha for lying, and then anxious anyway when she dug the truth out. Cha sighed for her shitty luck so far.
“Bandit here. Good news is we stomped on that parasite that wanted in. Bad news is it took a while.”
An ominous pause. “What’s a while?”
“I’m back where I started. Sorry, babe.”
An even longer, more ominous pause. “I hate you.”
Azul tapped into the path-box. “Same, Goldilocks. Same.”
At least Dy chuckled. “Prince Charming, do you swear on whatever you hold sacred that this delay was unavoidable and in service of the job?”
Cha groaned internally. Dy either had forgotten or didn’t believe Cha’s hints about Azul maybe having more fae blood than he should.
The fae didn’t take vows lightly. Odds were high he’d refuse to answer and, while that would be instructive, that wouldn’t help anything.
“I already told you the truth,” she inserted.
“I want it from a neutral third party.”
“Hey,” Cha protested. “Don’t you trust your best friend?”
“No.”
Azul gave her a sly half smile, indicating he was tempted to mess with her.
Cha glared back, baring her teeth, promising painful vengeance.
He shook his head in sorrow, pursing his lips in disapproval.
That shouldn’t have made her want to suck that lower lip into her mouth and bite it, but it did.
What could she say? She was clearly a creature of her baser urges.
They should all know that about her by now.
“I so swear,” Azul said into the path-box. “We’ll catch up in all haste.”
“All right then,” Dy said. “I’m back up to 36 minutes ahead of schedule. I’m going to juice up both Betty and me, let you get a bit closer for the depot. Don’t fuck this up for me, Bandit. Goldilocks out.”
“For us,” Cha said to the silent path-box, then slid a glance at Azul. “This job is for both of us. And the kids.”
“You have children?”
She barked out a laugh. “Me? Nooooo. Can you imagine me, responsible for keeping small humans alive?”
“Now that you mention it, absolutely not,” he drawled, a hint of amusement in his voice. When she glanced at him, she caught a dimple in his cheek winking into existence like an evening star, though he still didn’t crack an actual smile.
Declining to take the bait, she tapped the map globe. It swirled promisingly, then gave up a shower of sparks and went black. Not sparkly Obsidian-magic black, but dull, dead, giving-up-the-ghost black. “Great,” she muttered. “I don’t suppose you can fix that, Mr. Magic.”
He gave the device a disdainful, narrowed look. “No. Who made that thing?”
“Some human mage. You know how it is for us, forever cobbling shit together out of fae scraps. Or do you 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.”
“Which you are.”
She stabbed a finger at the path-box, giving him the same arch look he’d given her. “No, we are not. Big Betty is running empty until we get to the depot. Then we’re bringing back a perfectly legal shipment.”
Letting his head fall back against the seat, he sighed.
He sure looked edible like that, with his throat arched, the fluid lines of his collarbones framed by the winged, lacy collar of his white shirt.
Cha allowed herself to savor the pussy sparkle he evoked.
Even if she couldn’t do anything about it, she could enjoy the sights.
“You lead a complicated life,” he observed.
“Says the mysterious guy running from fell wolves, an iron demon, and a vengeful, potentially psychotic bride.”
“Incorrect.” He held up a finger. “A vengeful fiancée. An important distinction,” he insisted when she snorted, “or I would be married and not hurtling on this wild ride through Obsidian with you.”
“I guess it is your wedding night, huh? Not how you imagined spending it, I’ll bet.”
“No. Nor whom I imagined spending it with.”
She very nearly apologized, but hauled the words back and jammed them down her throat.
Sure, she wasn’t some noble with sparkly fresh fae blood running through her veins.
But she wasn’t ashamed of who she was. Seven hells, she was the Bandit!
Thousands cheered her name and emulated her style.
And that was her authentic self. She wasn’t some noble wannabe pretending to be something everyone figured was better than being human in stinking, mortal flesh.
Fae weren’t any better, just because they had magic.
They wore meat suits, too, even if they did have a fancier variety that smelled like flowers or pastries and that lasted centuries longer.
As Azul had pointed out, the fae could still be killed—it just took more work.
“What’s she like?” Cha asked. “Besides psychotic.” Yeah. She’d noticed that he’d left that part out of the descriptor.
He gave her a distracted, maybe confused look.
“The vengeful fiancée,” Cha clarified. “We can call her VF, if you prefer. If you can talk about that part.”
“Lenorae,” he said, sounding faintly surprised. “It seems I can talk about at least her. And I wouldn’t call her psychotic. At least, she never seemed so to me, or I wouldn’t have agreed to marry her.”
“You had a choice?”
“I had…a series of options and so, yes, chose her. I doubt she’s behind sending the fell wolves after me. That would be her family and Lenorae might be as much a victim of their scheming as anyone.”
Cha wasn’t feeling charitable. Dy would be, but she had that soft heart while Cha’s was hard as stone—and she didn’t want to feel sorry for the woman. “So,” she prompted, “what is this Lenorae like then?”
“She is…strikingly beautiful, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Cha echoed, restraining the urge to roll her eyes.
If this Lenorae hadn’t started out pretty, her family would’ve thrown money and magic at the problem until she emerged from their fabricated cocoon as the butterfly they figured they deserved—and could leverage to win them a mostly fae prince.
That part almost might make her feel sorry for Lenorae, except for the hating her on principle.
Cha would like to say she wasn’t the jealous type—and typically she wasn’t, generally happy to share the love—but what made this chick so special that Azul chose her out of a lineup when he clearly disdained all Cha had to offer?
Yeah, she definitely hated this Lenorae.
“She’s elegant, of course,” Azul went on in a musing tone. “Perfect manners. Intelligent, very well educated. Witty, excellent conversationalist. Impeccable breeding. And she is…sweet. She has a gentle quality. Accommodating and graceful.”
Let’s just box her up and put on the shelf with a label saying “Perfect Woman,” Cha thought viciously.
But she managed to keep the snarky words from erupting from her big mouth.
“She sounds like a yummy, candy-coated delight,” she said instead, fully aware she wasn’t being much less snarky—but then she was no perfect goddess—and wondering anew what happened to make Azul run from Miss Ideal Woman.
“Yes,” Azul agreed absently, deep in thought. Or in delicious memories of his perfect fiancée. “I certainly thought so or, as I said, I’d never have chosen her, regardless of how my family—ah, there, I can’t say more.”
“Well, I’m sorry for your broken heart,” Cha said, putting all her will into sounding sincere.
Azul glanced at her. “My broken—ah, no. No such thing, but…” He gave her a longer look. “You can’t be jealous.”
“No, I can’t,” she replied firmly. “Shows me for trying to be sympathetic.”
“Arantxa,” he began, “I—”
“Aha! An ambrosia station right over there.”
Saved by the ambrosia station, in more ways than one.