Her lips pull at the corners, but the force of the smile never fully forms.
“The Thorn King said he wouldn’t give away something so powerful without a fair trade.”
Something so powerful . . .
Me? New York’s finest dropout? He must be talking about something else. Kings make trades every day. These two men have more important things to discuss than a girl from the trailer park.
“Is he a good man? I mean—at least he won’t eat you, right?”
Jesus, how do I evenlikemen at this point in my life?
She shakes her head hard. “He’s an ugly, cruel man. A cursed man. Thorns pierce from his skin like a disease. He has a fleet of strange dragons. And he burns his enemies alive, charring them slowly so the others can hear their screams and smell their broiling flesh all through the night. So they know never to cross the King of the Dark Lands.”
A gag stings my throat at that thought, but too many questions fill my mind.
“I thought King Boris was the King of the Dark Lands?”
The seamstress scoffs, but when the princess eyes her, the woman gets back to work at the table filled with messy fabrics.
“The king before my father had a treaty with the fae. There’s a border between our two kingdoms. The Fae Lands and the Blood Lands, these two areas make up all of the Dark Lands. Thorn threatened that he’s the one true king of all the land when my father took over. They’ve come to a shaky agreement in recent years, but Daddy...” She bites her lower lip once more. “He likes power.”
Yes, yes he does.
“Daddy killed the two kings, both the vampire king and the fae king. He wanted it all. But he didn’t know the Fae King had a wicked son. A ruthless man who burned the borders between us as a reminder that we shall never enter the Fae Lands again. He has his kingdom and we have ours. Daddy and the Thorn King have tried over the years to mend the relationship between the kingdoms but...”
Another petty scoff from the seamstress tells me that’s not likely. And women like Delilah and I will be pawn pieces for these two magical fuckers for the rest of our miserable lives.
“Alright, red, you’re up,” the seamstress says rather loudly.
I peer up at her to find her holding a full-length gown cascading down to the floor like a river of emerald green. Pride shines in her eyes.
“How—how did you do that so fast?”
“Vampires do everything fast. We don’t like to waste time on things, unlike mortals.” She looks me up and down for a moment, but ultimately, I know she’s right. Welooooveto waste time. Procrastination is one of our greatest skills.
Ultimately, I can’t help but wonder why vampires choose to fly through life at maximum speed when they literally have all of eternity.
The green gown is shaken at me, and I quickly unbutton Rorrick’s shirt. I face the wall, and the seamstress awkwardly helps me step into the flowing material before the white button-down is even off my shoulders. It falls away like a piece of forgotten memorabilia, and I almost hate that it’s not around me to shield me anymore. Do the king’s bloody scratch marks still mar my back? No one mentions it, and I try not to slouch in on myself as I think about it.
Long green laces are pulled around me as she laces up the back. It tightens around my chest until my breasts are pushed up as high as magically possible. She gives one more hard tug for good measure, jerking me back with the force of her strange strength. With a rough and quick pull of my ankle, she shoves on one black heel and then the other.
“There. Perfect. He’ll hate the color, but you can’t deny you’re stunning.”
“Definitely,” Delilah adds.
And only then do I peer down at the sleek silk that hugs my chest. It veers down, covering my stomach and the slightest bit of my thighs. Sheer, glinting tulle flows out at the hips, billowing down to the ground but opening with a wide vee at the front, exposing my thighs even more.
It’s . . . slutty. And fucking fantastic.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Should I ask Christian if this is appropriate?”
It feels scandalous. Will kids be at this party tonight? Feels wildly inappropriate.
“No! Don’t bother Christian. Maybe later. We’ll wait for him to come to us,” Delilah tells me with a wink.
She and I are the same in a strange way that only women who have suffered ever will be. I like her more and more with each passing second but a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach reminds me…
My lashes lower on her, and it’s then that I remember the girls flocking around him and Rorrick when I spotted them in the hall.
