Dy threw her an incredulous glare.“I already said I’m going to.”
“That was before Phinny told you that if you went, you’d come home to divorce papers and her shacking up with the cute brunette from down the road.”And that was best case scenario.If the very pregnant Phin had the baby while Dy was gone, her wife’s vengeful rage would rival the shattering of the walls between the fae and human realms.
“That was exceptionally harsh,” Dy admitted.“That brunette really isn’t that cute, either.Phinny just said that to twist the knife.”
“She’s exceptionally pissed,” Cha agreed.Dy’s wife, the statuesque, red-headed former fence, possessed a formidable temper and the force of will to uphold her barriers.Phinny adored her diminutive, gorgeous sorceress wife, but she took no shit.Especially and including any shit that resulted from Cha’s bad influence.“I don’t think she’s going to back down on this one.”
Dy shook her head ruefully.“I’ll talk to her.”
“It’s not worth your marriage,” Cha insisted.“I can go this one alone.It’s not a smuggling run.It’s more of a…” Actually, she didn’t know what it was.A rescue?
“Atrap?”Dy suggested with a baleful glare and an acid tone.“Is that the word you’re looking for?”
“Prepayment for a risky, one-person mission,” Cha decided, extracting the invaluable platinum coin from her pocket and flipping it through the air.Part of her would always enjoy the thrill of possessing a coin like that.It meant power in a world where humans had precious little of it.But it meant even more to her than that.It was a message.An intimate reminder of her brief, torrid, and unexpectedly heartbreaking affair with Azul, fae prince of the Amethyst realm.He was in trouble and he needed her help.Her.He’d found a way to reach her after he’d made it clear they’d never see each other again.
“Like I’m going to let my best friend in all the world go off to be slaughtered by ‘Lenorae,’”—Dy put air quotes around the name, which was assuredly not the woman’s real one—“the terrifying demon fae from the Ruby realm.”
“I don’t think Lenorae wants to kill me,” Cha said, musing over it.“Why would she?”
“I don’t know,” Dy replied, voice dripping with sarcasm, “because fae, especially those from the highest realms, hate humans the way we hate insects that bite us, suck our blood, and leave painful welts behind?Because they’d much rather squash us than risk the smallest irritation from our existence?”
“Aha!”Cha pointed at her.“But she could have squashed me already.Instead, she brought this coin from Prince Charming and is offering to take me to him.”She’d used Azul’s handle instead of his name.The fae were even more paranoid about giving their true names than humans.Even “Azul” was short for his full, potent name as a Prince of the Amethyst fae realm.She tossed the coin again thoughtfully.It sparkled in the dim light of the barn as only pure platinum could.“Why go to the trouble?”
“We both know I’m smarter than you are,” Dy said.
That wasn’t true Yes, Dy had always been a better student and was far more book smart, but Cha had other kinds of smarts.Like… Well, she did.Lots of them.They might just not be readily identifiable.“That’s not entirely—”
“Because I’m smarter than you are,” Dy continued, talking over her, “let me offer a few possibilities you might not have thought of.”She ticked them off on her fingers.“First and foremost, she could be intending to torture you to force Prince Charming into doing something she wants.”
That was entirely too possible, considering that Lenorae—wearing attractive human glamour—and her family had been attempting to force Azul into marriage when Cha met him.He’d literally fled the wedding and paid Cha to help him escape.
Cha shrugged.“I helped him ditch out on her before.I can do it again.”
Dy gave her that long, incredulous stare that always made Cha deeply aware of her character flaws.“You mean, like when you got yourself locked into jail—and tortured and nearly executed—in Moonstone realm andhehad to rescueyou?”
“See?I owe him.Besides,” Cha plowed on before Dy exploded with outrage, “he sent me this coin as a message.As a kind of pledge of safe passage.He would never ask me to come into danger for him.”
“Unlesshedidn’t send it.”Dy raised her golden brows at Cha’s immediate frown.“Surely that occurred to you.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Cha snapped, stung.And not only because where the addictively seductive fae prince was concerned she’d proven herself to be an idiot more than once.So much for her rep as a woman with a man in every town.Never had she experienced a lover like Azul.Even her dreams about him embarrassed her—and had her waking from them with her body thrumming with longing and sexual tension.Worst of all, nobody else looked even remotely appealing to her anymore.Even her tried and true studs turned into duds in comparison.
It worried her deeply because not only did this mean she might never again enjoy sex for the rest of her life, as Azul himself had told her goodbye forever—and would life even be worth living without sex?—but it also implied that she might indeed be a cliche human besotted by her fae lover, just like her foolish ancestor who’d first boinked a fae.Nothing good happened to humans who fell under the spell of the fae.
Some happily danced until they collapsed from exhaustion, their shoes worn to ribbons and feet bloodied.Others forgot to sleep until they simply wasted away.Those who remembered not to eat or drink in the fae realms starved to death—or if they did succumb, suffered horrible mutations that killed them even faster.Cha had always been on the tall and lean side, even with the appetite of a horse, but in the days since Azul had kicked her to the curb, she’d found herself deep into fantasies about him, uncertain when she’d last eaten—and that was with human food available.
She’d told herself she’d been worried about him, returning to marry Lenorae, fulfilling his duty to his family and realm.He’d told Lenorae right in front of her that Cha meant nothing to him—and everyone knew the fae couldn’t lie.Azul cared nothing for her and she couldn’t stop yearning for him.A very bad, destructive combo.So much so that Cha hadn’t admitted the depth of her obsession even to Dy.
By the knowing stare Dy had leveled on Cha, her bestie hadn’t been fooled.“You jumped at the chance to see him again,” Dy noted calmly, logically.“Even though Lenorae, who turns out to be a Ruby demon, is the messenger.You’re not questioning whether this impulse is… fully rational?”
Of course she was.But she wasn’t about to admit it.“Lenorae didn’t know my name, just the, ah, kind of code name for me.The name only Prince Charming could know.”
Dy frowned, momentarily puzzled, then cocked her head.“Bridget.That’s why Lenorae asked if you were Bridget?”
“Yes.”Cha opened her mouth to explain, then thought better of it.
Incredulity dawned on Dy’s face.“The foreplay joke?You told him about ‘brace yourself, Bridget’?”
Cha forced herself not to wince.There was nothing wrong with sharing that joke.“We were bantering,” she answered.And dammit, she sounded defensive.“It made for a good code word, you have to admit.”