That was safer, but here, she had adrenaline.
Adrenalin hadn’t been invented yet, but Po could sense it even so.
That very second was when it truly began, when Po began to love ordinary adventure and the dirt, the grit, the mess of life beyond the palace.
With skill and much sticking out of tongue tip to the side of her mouth, with a lot of frowning and squinting, she screwed, clicked, jiggled, and slid his eye into place, all connected as it should be.
Then she sat back and wondered if she’d done something wrong.
Shades sat forward, blinked.
“Should it light up or something?” she said.
Then… it swiveled. The blue iris glowed with a blue she had only seen once before when an iris of extraordinary purity grew in the palace gardens.
“So pretty!” She clapped her hands. “Can you see?”
He climbed to his feet and slowly turned in a circle, then looked down and stared at his palm.
Was that whirring noise coming from his eye?
“I can. Perfectly.” He opened his arms. “Thank you.”
Tears wet his eyes.
She looked at him, puzzled.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Hugging is a little…” Shades wiped his organic hand on his shirt and offered it to her. “I can never repay you.”
She shook his hand. “It was my pleasure.”
And it was, strangely. Her heart was glowing with so much warmth she could surely heat a room with it.
With that accomplished and congratulations from the others, as well as a few slaps on the back—Ruth gave him the hug Po had missed giving, due to being puzzled—they packed up and set off on the road to town.
Po sneaked Pearbottom up beside Rocky and cleared her throat. They were barely trotting. Dragonflies floated across the tops of some seeding grass beside the road. The wind was cool but not too much so. It seemed a good time for her announcement.
John turned his head, eying her as if annoyed, and she hadn’t yet said anything.
“Yes?”
“I’ve decided we must come to an agreement. I have been thinking. I am, now, all in favor of this search. We,” she gestured at their little group, “are of one mind. However, I owe you the reason for my previous reticence.” Po took a steadying breath. “It was due to a private vow I exchanged with Xander. I promised him I’d never put myself in danger if an enemy threatened him, not until after we wed.”
“You did? Huh.” He sniffed long and hard, then drew Rocky to a halt, hitched a thumb in his weapon belt. Ruth walked by with Shades and he waited for them to get ahead before he spoke again. “True love should mean you never stop, never give up, no matter the vows.”
Well! Even when she had a kingdom to also care for?
Not that she would be greatly missed except for as a figurehead. The stock market might, but not her advisors and ministers. They would appoint a team to find her, rearrange the hierarchy—temporarily—and move on with business. The kingdom would survive without a ruler as long as a new one was appointed, eventually.
How long was that? She wasn’t certain. They’d have to decide she was dead or permanently missing? But, back to current affairs. Here. Now.
Po fumbled for all the details of the little speech she had decided to make and found them scattered by his infuriating, incompetent…
Gah!
“You’re an expert on true love, are you?” She doubted he had much experience. She beamed a glare at him, maximum intensity, hot enough to melt steel, if lasers had existed. Which they didn’t.
“Of course.”
Now who was lying?
“In view of this, there will be no more sex.” His face went odd as she said that, but she continued. “And I get to be in equal command of this expedition.”
He laughed. “No.”
“What?” She drew herself straighter in the saddle.
“No.”
Po fumbled. “No? To which part?”
“All of it.”
“Why? This is not negotiating. One does not merely say no to a princess!” She’d hissed the last word. Po calmed herself. “You’re supposed to make offers and counteroffers, and so on. That is how it’s done.”
“Counteroffers? About what you said?”
She had said sex. Po felt her face heat. She’d walked into that. Her subconscious needed birching. And that thought, and the image it conjured, only made her blush harder.
“Why? Because I can.” Then he pulled off his glove and reached across and gave Pearbottom a tap with it.
The horse sped up.
Po fumed and turned to snap out, “Then why are you being such an asshole?”
“Because I can.”
“Oh!”
Damn him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
had barely been following Po another minute down the road when he spurred Rocky to ride up level with her again. His mind was unhappy. He wasn’t exactly sure why it was unhappy or why he was going to her, until he was almost there.
She was maddening, female, and arrogant… all the things he supposed he was, minus the gender. The gender was partly why he was in a quandary. He was going to apologize, and he wasn’t sure that was a manly thing to do. He was going to be honest, and that definitely was not his usual. His world ran on lies.
Once he’d halted Rocky before her, and she’d drawn Pearbottom to a stop, he opened his mouth to say the words he hadn’t known if he could say.
“I apologize.”
“For what exactly?” With her lip curled, she ran a stern gaze down him then up again.
There it was, The Snooty Princess, again. It was almost enough to make him drag her over to his saddle and spank her.
“Some of what I said.
