They were sentto a salon to wait.Dy paced restlessly around the small, relentlessly gilded room, while Cha took the opportunity to stretch out on one of the prettily upholstered sofas and rest her aching head, leaving her boots on just to be ornery.Katu leapt up beside her, stretching out along her side the way they did at home.He made for a familiar purring weight that almost put her at ease.
Almost.Because no way was she going to be able to relax fully while worrying about what Azul was going to do or say when she finally saw him.She stared up at the ceiling, fancifully decorated in swirling gold shapes that appeared to be various kinds of monstrous-looking fae simultaneously fucking and devouring each other.One trio, in particular, seemed to be a lizard, raptor, and something insectile in a circle of lust, taking up the center position in the room, with a chandelier suspended from them.
They really liked circular shit here.
She tried rehearsing the pending reunion with Azul in her mind, the way you’re supposed to do with difficult situations.They’d be escorted into some sort of receiving room.Would he be sitting on a throne, possibly surrounded by courtiers?Would Lenorae be with him?One thing was for sure: no way would she be bowing to him.
No, she had her dignity andshewas rescuinghim, so he could damn well be grateful to her.At least, as grateful as fae nature and their arcane rules allowed.Too bad she hadn’t had time to clean up.After that impromptu battle with Sunshine as preying mantis, she was probably spattered in all kinds of mud and goo.She should have asked to freshen up.Speaking of which, she could stand to visit the necessary.“Do you think there are restrooms in this place?”she asked the ceiling.
“I doubt it, but I could use one,” Dy answered.She tried the several doors in the walls of the windowless room.“All locked.Color me shocked.”She came over and laid a cool hand on Cha’s forehead.“Feeling pukey, honey?”
“A little,” Cha admitted.“Do I look like shit?”
Upside down and gazing down at her, Dy gave her a wry look.“Arantxa Evermore, are you actually worrying about how you look for meeting a boy?”
Cha clapped her hands over her face.Satan wept, she was.“No,” she muttered through her fingers.
“Of course you are.That’s natural,” Dy said with surprising gentleness.“Come on, let’s clean you up a bit.”
At her urging, Cha sat up, displacing Katu who took over the sofa with an indolent sprawl.Dy pulled some supplies from her shoulder bag, wetting a towel from a flask of water.At Cha’s look, she grimaced.“Perils of being a mom.You learn to carry every possible supply around with you.Just don’t let the water go in your mouth.”
She scrubbed Cha’s face, Cha indeed feeling like a kid.She wanted to protest, but Dy could see and she couldn’t.Then Dy handed her a comb and Cha did her best to detangle the unruly mass.
“Let me,” Dy said, and stood before Cha, her expression serious as she plucked at the curls around Cha’s face, arranging them.“There,” she decided.“You look gorgeous.”
“I’ll settle for not half-dead.”
“True.You look more like three-quarters dead,” Azul said.
~18~
I Danced with You Once Upon a Dream
Both Cha andDy whirled in startlement.Cha’s heart skidding into an accelerated rhythm that made it feel as if it was climbing up the back of her throat.
There he was, in the glorious flesh.
Azul lounged, arms folded and ankles crossed, against the doorframe—the door beside him just as closed as before—a study in repose.He wore fancy court clothes, all in shades of purple, no doubt to represent his native realm of Amethyst.He used no glamour, his hair dark but definitely violet-hued, shades deeper than his extraordinary eyes.His sensual lips curved in a decided frown that was still somehow impossibly sexy.His perfect ringlets waved back from his moon-pale face pierced by high, delicately curved, and elegantly pointed ears.He wore his crown, a simple diadem of some unearthly glowing metal set with an amethyst of remarkable clarity.
And his wings were out, mostly folded against his back, the thin membrane of such a deep violet they looked almost black.Like a bat would have, claw-tipped thumbs crowned the points of the wings where they towered above his head, framing him with regal lethality.Also like a bat, the lower part of his wings were tipped with clawed fingers that flexed restlessly, the only indication of restiveness in his otherwise languid pose.
With a kittenish mew, Katu leapt down from the sofa and pranced over to Azul, rubbing against his legs and curling his tail around his calves in a loving caress, the traitor.Azul unbent enough to reach down and rub Katu’s head, avoiding his ears—exactly the way the jaguar liked it, Cha couldn’t help noticing.She considered commenting.But she was still brewing up something witty and perfectly apt when he straightened, grabbed her gaze, and held it inexorably with his.
“Arantxa Evermore,” he purred, the sound sensual and dangerous.
“Hey,” she protested reflexively.“Watch it with the full name.Especially…” She waved her hands about, aware that she was thoroughly, uncharacteristically, and embarrassingly flustered.“Here,” she finished weakly.
He didn’t acknowledge her words.Instead, he straightened, the purple silks hissing as they resettled in a loving drape around his tall, lean form.She didn’t blame the way they clung to his indescribably sexy form as she wanted to do exactly that, too.Her mouth literally watered and she had trouble clearing her head.It’s the concussion,she thought to herself.
But no, it was him.
She’d thought maybe she’d exaggerated in her imagination—and in her prurient fantasies—just how erotically compelling Azul was, especially without the glamour that had initially made him seem like a slightly silly and definitely sulky human noble trying to look like fae royalty.Now he was fully real and present—and unbelievably hot.Also every fingertip imperious prince about to impose sentence on a wayward subject.She hated that the thought actually gave her a thrill.Pussy sparkle: activated.
“What,” Azul said slowly, stalking toward her, “in the ever loving fuck are you doing here?I told you, very clearly, to stay away.”
Oh shit.
Dy turned on her.“He did?When?”