Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
They got on with their lives.
I returned to work (much of which I could do at home, at least when we weren’t on set, so that wasn’t a big deal) but didn’t really get on with mine.
Hence, our night out.
Although, even before, I was more of a homebody. That said, Cat had been right when she insisted it was time to leave my couch. I was in danger of becoming my couch, I was spending so much time on it.
“Me too,” Gayle put in. “Though, I can’t be hitting the Black Room every Saturday.”
“You don’t have to,” Cat said in a small voice that broke my heart. “We’ll figure it out so Dad will lay off and it won’t cost a fortune for us to go out. And just to say, you guys are the best.”
“You’re better than the best,” I replied. “So tell your dad that I’m over it.” I wasn’t, but fake it ’til you make it, right? “And now that I am, we are so totally on the case.”
“We so totally are,” Gayle agreed.
For a second, it looked like Cat might start crying, something that freaked me out. Demons rarely cried, and for the vast majority of halves, the demon was dominant.
Though humans did.
Of course, she got a lock on it, and she managed this by sweeping me from my pink high-heeled sandals that had straps that crisscrossed up my calves to my frothy, girlie-pink, short cocktail dress.
“Shut up,” I said before she could give me stick for wearing pink.
“You shut up,” she returned, her lips tipping up.
“Dudes like pink,” Gayliliel chimed in. “It’s all feminine and girlish and goofy and makes you seem vulnerable, like someone they need to protect. They get into that shit.”
“It’s not goofy,” I declared.
Gayle ignored me and advised Cat, “You should try wearing it. Maybe you’ll run into an alpha demon whose protection gene activates seeing you all pink and defenseless.”
Cat instantly looked nauseous.
I burst out laughing, not at Cat’s expression (okay, maybe a little at her expression), but at the idea of her wearing pink.
One could definitely say pink was not a demon color (case in point, she was wearing a slinky black number right now).
Fae, definitely. It was just that Gayle was not a pink kind of female (case for that point, Gayle was in a barely-there, deep violet number).
I totally was all about pink.
In fact, my beast had been…
“Gods, no. My skin would catch fire,” Cat decreed, horror dripping from each word, fortunately taking me from my train of thought.
That was when Gayle started laughing, and I felt relief.
Drama averted; we were back.
Again, Cat’s attention turned out the window. “Do you think the prince will be there?”
I felt my heart skip at the possibility.
This was one of the reasons why the Black Room was so expensive and exclusive. The True Heir of Night’s Fall, Prince Aleksei, went there on occasion. In fact, it was rumored he owned the Pink and Black Club, among many of his other financial ventures.
If he was there and I got one shot at looking at him, live and in person, I’d take a second job to pay Cat back for the opportunity.
“I think he’s probably lying low,” Gayle said. “You know, after that whole Princess Anna debacle.”
“Their engagement was totally ludicrous,” I groused, and my grousing was only part to do with my lifelong crush on the handsome heir apparent of the Starknight Dynasty, and how devastated I was when it was announced Aleksei was to wed the glorious Anna, Princess Royal of Dawn’s Break. I was this regardless of how preposterous it was that I’d feel that devasted, since I had no shot and never would.
It was mostly due to my affront that he was a shifter, and she was not.
It wasn’t like shifters didn’t mingle breeds, we did. Even the royal family had non-shifters in their lineage.
It was the fact that I was a shifter, or I had been (I was one in ancestry only now), and that made me feel somehow connected to him. It felt almost like a personal affront when they got engaged. And yeah, I know, that was ridiculous too.
Nevertheless, that was how I felt.
The only bright light in the months since my attack was when it was announced the engagement was off.
I wasn’t the only one who celebrated this event. It was a surprise a spontaneous parade didn’t happen, so many females in Night’s Fall were beyond delighted the prince was a free agent again. Even if none of us had that first chance in any ever after.
“I wonder what happened with those two,” Cat mused. “Everyone says she’s all that and a bag of chips.”
“Did you just say ‘all that and a bag of chips?’” Gayle teased.
“Well, how would you put it?’ Cat asked.
“She’s sweetness and light and peace and ethereality, and on top of that, painfully beautiful, so, yeah. It’s a real mystery why that didn’t work.”