His eyes shot right to my chest and I remembered that I had left my cloak unbuttoned and I was wearing another dress from Polly--all of them cut just the same, and showing too much of my cleavage.
I snapped my cloak shut around me.
"My lady," he said. “You look even more lovely today than usual."
“I knew this dress was trouble,” I muttered.
“It’s just that you are so much more beautiful than any nymph I have ever fucked. Your breasts are every bit as ample, but your face is much nicer.”
“Do you really think I take it as a compliment to be compared to some nymph you fucked?”
“Have you ever seen the breasts of a nymph?” Variel asked. “They are quite famous.”
“I already told Bevan I want to be appreciated for my personality.”
“Ah, even Bevan was caught appreciating your other charms, I see…”
“No! I mean—not like you.”
“I told you that your face is much nicer, and your face is the window upon your soul, and beyond that, I have never pursued a nymph. I actually find them very boring. And I must admit…the more I speak to you, the more I realize that you aren’t boring.”
And the more I talk to you…the more I get flustered.
I kept hitting a point with Variel now where I ran out of words entirely. I was no longer timid with him. I didn’t know how it happened. He never got upset at me for anything I said; in fact, he seemed to relish it. But what came next? I had never spoken to anyone like that before without being reprimanded.
Worse, I felt a certain strange warmth in his presence that came right from the core of me. Not like I hadn’t noticed it before. He was a handsome demon, I’m sure anyone would grudgingly admit that he probably had the most perfect body I would ever see, with his sculpted arms and shoulders and hard stomach that tapered to a trim waist, and…that bulge. I had started to realize the value of what a bulge might contain.
But he was still the man who tried to wreck my true love. He was still a monster.
“I must get back to the palace,” I said. “Bevan is waiting for me. Good evening.”
“Good evening, little maiden, fair of face,” he said, and I nearly ran away from him then, before he could see my cheeks turn pink.
Chapter Twelve
Piers
Days flew by holed up in the library. Across the table, Bevan rubbed his eyes. "I've been at this too long. I hope the queen knows something we don't, because if we were supposed to find out new information about familiars here, I'm not seeing it."
"None of the writings are by familiars," Piers said. "But you obviously know how to read. Who taught you? Or did you know how to read when you were born?"
Bevan shook his head. "We don't know human things when we're born. We know magic and the same basic survival stuff any shifter would know. Animal instincts, I guess you’d call it. Reading, I picked up alongside Helena when we were kids."
"I guess Chester must have done the same. I used to keep him in my pocket when my tutor was visiting." The memory stabbed me, just another reminder of Chester, and how weak and cute and embarrassing he was, and how I was always trying to hide him, while being just as weak myself and always wanting his friendship close. Chester could never hurt or betray me, even when I hurt him.
I wondered how different my life might have been if I'd had a familiar like Bevan, with an unflinching gaze lacking any fear.
But if familiars reflect their warlock, that was the first problem.
"Would you say literacy is not a priority among familiar-kind?” I asked.
"I would say most familiars rely on their memory more than books.”
"There may have been a time when familiars were discouraged from reading," I said. "Or, obviously, writing. We have no stories from their own perspective. If you want to control a population, keep them from reading and writing."
Bevan ran his fingers across his chin as he reached for a cup of coffee that was, in fact, empty. He plunked it back down with a groan. "I bet you're right. It's sort of a point of pride with familiars to keep all their spell knowledge in their heads, to whip out at a moment's notice. Wizards are the ones with their noses buried in a book. I figured it shows off our skill, but it could be something more..."
“Insidious?" I agreed. "The complete lack of biographical work, or writing of any kind, by familiars...it does suggest that they were suppressed, because it clearly isn’t that you can’t read and write.”
“I can believe it,” Bevan said. “I’ve been noticing lately that a lot of aspects of my life that I just accepted were actually holding me back.”
“Warlocks don’t think of familiars as men,” I said. “But you are. You were wasted serving one witch.”
In saying so, I was admitting a certain admiration for him. I thought Bevan would have been known in magical circles, if he were not a familiar.
Bevan bristled a little, and I thought he was likely to argue with me, but after a second, he said, with some regret, “You’re right.”
"Well, we have a theory here," I said. "And when you have a theory, you can start digging for supporting evidence."
“But we still have no idea where this all started.”
“Research is a slow process. I want to go through this one again." I started hunting for one of the oldest manuscripts in the piles. It was a travelogue written by a warlock whose familiar accompanied him throughout his journey in remote parts of the British Isles, including a sojourn to the land of the fae. It must have been one of the last solid accounts of such a journey before the faeries began to withdraw from the other realms for the next thousand years. Written in an archaic wizard tongue, it was no easy read.
"Oof. I can't puzzle out a word of that thing," Bevan said.
"I know just a little myself, but many of the words are cousins to magical tongues we still use."
We kept reading in silence for a while. I was aware that today was the day of the party and that Variel and I would soon face judgment of some kind. I didn't think I cared, but I was quite happy in the library trying to work out this puzzle, and Bevan wasn't bad company either.
I was trying not to notice that Bevan and I worked well together. I worried nothing good would come of that.
I had almost forgotten how it felt to work with someone you liked.
"I'm sure you've heard that story of how familiars started when a man fell in love with a shifter," Bevan said, glancing up from a 17th century history of familiars. "This book has a different take on that. It says that the first 'familiar' occurred when a man stole a bird shifter's cloak of feathers."
"Like the legends of selkies and the like," I said. "The wives in those stories are always sort of happy and unhappy at the same time, and trapped until they find the cloak hidden somewhere and escape."
"Yeah, the cloak is always just sitting around somewhere," Bevan said. “I always thought that was stupid.”
“Of course. It works out well for the story. But why wouldn’t the husband take the cloak to a more powerful wizard and find a way to seal it or something? Why would he just leave it sitting there?”
“What if the story of the escape was just something the shifters told themselves,” Bevan murmured. “A fantasy of freedom…but in fact, they never got the cloaks back at all?”
We trailed off after I jotted this down. It was just speculation, but it got me looking up words in the old language to keep my eye out for, like 'skin', 'cloak', and so on.
As my eyes were starting to dry out, a dull headache forming in my brow, suddenly it leapt out at me.
"Bevan! You're right. Maybe the author of your book had studied this book...but there is a reference to the cloak right here. It says 'Aurella was angry at me today and cursed me, saying that she wished I had never locked her cloak in the temple. I was offended. I do not know what I'd do without her.'
"Holy shit! What was the temple?”
“Could it be where all the cloaks were kept?”
&n
bsp; "So...so maybe we need to find these cloaks?" Bevan had sprung out of his chair and slapped a hand on the back of my chair. "Were the covenants just extra protection? Is there a deeper binding? Can you keep reading? Does it say more?"
"Yes. Of course. It's just slow going, and it's a pain trying to flip through the dictionary and take notes and everything with one hand."
"Then...you translate, I'll take notes. Just tell me."
"Gentlemen?" a man called down to us from the nearest set of stairs. "You must make haste to dress for the ball. The queen expects you there on time."
Bevan suddenly snapped to attention and glanced at me. Reality flooded in. I shut the book, stood up, and bit a fingertip of the glove I was wearing to protect the books, tugging it off my hand.
"Well, I've given you something to work from," I told Bevan.
“Damn party,” Bevan muttered, clearly not wanting to be pulled away.
I knew my judgment was now at hand, and I thought I was ready to embrace it.
Still, I hoped that it didn’t prevent me from continuing the research. And…I rather hoped it didn’t prevent me from working with Bevan.
Chapter Thirteen
Jenny
I really couldn't imagine what Queen Morgana's agenda was for all of us. I was a little afraid of her, despite all the delights of her city. In that week I spent taking in the sights of La Serenissima, I only saw her a few times from afar, and she looked so regal and possessed an immortal beauty like nothing I'd ever seen, with long hair and gossamer dresses. She was so thin she looked like a wind might carry her off, but what was I compared to a faery queen? She seemed like a mythological being come to life.
When the day of the ball arrived, Daisy appeared hours before, with a servant carrying a stack of boxes behind her.
"Uh-oh," Bevan said, peering over my shoulder. "That seems like way more stuff than could possibly be necessary."
"You need to go get dressed yourself," Daisy said. "Lord Larkin ordered some clothes for you and the other men. And the queen told me to put Jenny in a boss outfit. I don't know what's going down tonight. It sounds like we're in for something pretty wild, with a guest list of all the most powerful people in the realm.”
"Is the queen expecting any danger?"
"I hope not," Daisy said. "I don't want to get involved in any of that while Maybelle's at home with a babysitter." She looked genuinely worried for a flash.
"I'm sure it'll be safe," Bevan said. "Just take care of my girl. The dress isn't translucent or anything like that, is it?"
"As fun as that would be...nooo," Daisy said. "It's dark purple-blue velvet. The opposite of translucent.”
The second he was gone, Daisy started throwing open boxes. "Lingerie, to start. I don't know what's going to happen tonight, so I don't know if you'll feel like getting it on, but just in case..." She held up a lace thong.
"I can't wear that!" I hopped back when she tossed it at me. "I can manifest my own underwear."
"Ohh la la. But it's fun to wear the real stuff once in a while and make him take it off! Give it a try. Then we have shapewear, don't complain." She held up what looked like a corset to me, and a purple satin one with bows, plus a garter belt with matching bows and some silk stockings. "It's a serious ball, and I know some faeries will go the slinky paper-thin dress look, but that is not for you. You are a voluptuous goddess, Jenny, okay?”
Well, I did want to look sexy for once in my life. I had said that. So I just allowed her to truss me in the garment. It really shoved my boobs up with a sort of built-in push-up bra.
"You look amazing!" Daisy said. "You could make men go crazy, even with more of a basic face, and I say that in the best way, because people with basic faces are usually better company.”
"I don't want men to ignore my face and then go crazy!” I couldn’t help but recall how Variel said I had a very nice face, not a ‘basic’ one.
Daisy sighed. "You do have three men who seem wild about you, and you can make them do anything you want."
"I don't want three men wild about me either."
"Are you sure? It's pretty great." She whipped out a gown for me. It had no sleeves at all. At least the skirt was long, brushing the floor when she started fastening the hooks around my waist.
“Doesn’t it get pretty complicated?” I asked.
“Of course it does,” Daisy said. “But you will forget all about that when you’re in the middle of a trio of sexy husbands. And you will also forget it when the baby wakes in the middle of the night twenty times and they all jump on it.”
“That does sound…nice,” I said. “Of course, you’re much more of a fancy sort of person.”
Daisy scoffed. "No reason you shouldn't be something special. Cyrus says you have the sweetest brain he's ever brushed. And I heard you're an amazing pastry chef. If I was a man, I'd sign up, girl, okay?"
"Cyrus brushes brains?"
"He reads thoughts," Daisy said. "Mostly by accident. But he always knows what people are about, and he'll tell the rest of us honestly. Me, Orson and Larkin, I mean. No one else; he's not a blabbermouth… Well, except the queen, of course. He's supposed to help facilitate the trials this evening. And he won't tell me what's going to happen."
"It's sounding so ominous. The queen wouldn't hurt anyone tonight if I told her not to, would she?" I tried to tug up the bodice.
"The queen is very fair," Daisy said. "But...that doesn't always go the way we humans expect..." She lowered my hands again. "That bodice is as high as it's getting."
I clenched my hands. Every time I breathed, my cleavage seemed to put on a show of swelling out of its delicate fabric conveyance.
"They won't pop out," Daisy said.
"They're already popping out!"
"I mean, your girls aren't doing a nip slip. Shoes!" She opened another box. “Wait--the stockings first."
Soon I was standing in front of a long mirror, staring at a stranger's body with my plain old head. The gown and corset hugged my curves and enhanced them in what seemed almost an armor of soft dark velvet that had its own life in the lamplight. The velvet continued in a sheath to my shoes, but then a thinner black skirt streamed out around my hips, brushing the floor behind me. Just a hint of silver buckles peered out on my heeled dance shoes. None of the underthings could be seen, but I certainly felt it all, from the silk stockings to the ridiulously tiny strip of underwear.
As I was staring, Daisy came up behind me and clasped a necklace of deep blue stones set in silver around my neck.
"This look is almost too serious," Daisy said. "But you're going to be a badass lady tonight, okay? Look at me."
"I don't need to be badass," I mumbled. "I just want to be happy."
"You are going to be happy. But you are going to get there by deciding your own fate. Thinking about what you want, and then going for it, and if anybody gets in your way, they better get in line. Have you ever felt that way before?"
"Never!"
"Try to own it. It feels pretty good."
I nodded nervously. She made it sound a little easier.
"I'm sending you to hair and makeup," Daisy said. "I have to oversee the festivities. See you at the ball. Don’t worry!”
I could only laugh nervously, and not that deeply either, in this outfit.
Chapter Fourteen
Bevan
I argued a bit with the servants who insisted that it was a matter of etiquette to wear faery-designed clothing to a faery ball and not the normal modern suit made from magic that I would rather wear. Well, if I had to wear a cravat and a coat trimmed in silver braid like some Prince Charming cosplay, I could only imagine what Jenny was dealing with.
I almost didn't recognize her.
First, I saw the sweep of her neck and shoulders, the nape with one stray bit of brown hair brushing her skin, while the rest was pinned up with jewels. A short cloak of white fur covered her shoulders and she was holding it close. That was the main way I recognized her from behind. S
he was always trying to keep her cleavage covered up.
I came up behind her and she lifted her head back to see that it was me. I caught her wrists in mine. She was blushing furiously, but her sweet heart-shaped face was still all mine.
“You’re too sexy,” I said. “Too sexy for this dress. So sexy it hurts.” She definitely wasn’t going to appreciate the reference to a song that came out around the same time I was born, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I’m…trying to enjoy it,” she said, lifting her chin a little.
"Considering who dressed you, it could have been worse," I said into her ear.
"I know. I've seen what Daisy's wearing."
I took in the rest of the scene, now that I'd found her. The hall was decorated with explosions of evergreens, even more than before, and candles everywhere. The air smelled of fir and beeswax. Musicians were playing delicate harp songs, and a girl was singing a love song about the ocean and a sailor. It definitely set the scene when we could see water from nearly every window.
The guests were generally dressed in dark colors and were involved in heavy conversation rather than dancing and laughing, so it still had a mood of nervous anticipation.
Daisy, wearing an outfit of cherry red flounces that swathed her arms in swishing layers but showed off far more skin than Jenny, was drinking wine from a large glass. She winced at me.
"All-mage guest lists aren't very fun," she said. "I forgot how old everyone is because half of them are still so pretty but this is more of a grandma party. They don't want to dance. They're practically having council meetings in front of my band!"
"Do you organize all the parties for the queen?" I asked.
"Yes. That's my job here, since I was given the diadem of Queen Mab,” she said proudly. “And I'm usually the life of the party, but my squad weren't invited. The queen didn't even want to invite Orson!"
"Well, he did fart during the presentation of the relics last year," Lord Larkin chuckled behind her. “The queen doesn't say so, but she's really pretty steamed over it.”
Bat Out of Hell (Promised to the Demons Book 2) Page 7