A Throne of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales #2)(47)

“Yes. Rebelling. I heard all the gossip from the ladies in waiting.” Cecil winked up at me. “That faerie had her own motives. She wanted his touch with the everlass. His song. If he resided in their kingdom, the everlass would follow. He has a special way with it. It responds to his touch, his song even more than it did to the queen. He was always the golden son, and it showed with the everlass.”

“Well, she might’ve been using him, or so people thought, but he wasn’t using her.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s been very clear on where he stands. I just need to accept the truth.”

“What truth?” Leala asked, and the others slowed their chatter, looking at me.

“There is nothing between us,” I said.

“But he bit you,” Hadriel said.

“No.” Cecil straightened up and leaned way too close, grabbing the plain dress I’d worn in at the shoulder and pulling it wide. “No bite…”

“On her neck.” Leala tapped her own neck. “The mark is gone now—it wasn’t a claiming mark. He’s done it twice, though. The temptation is there.”

“The neck?” Cecil’s face pinched. “Why the neck? The neck does no good.”

“He will not be claiming me,” I said. “Can we hurry this along, Cecil? I want to get to the library.”

“Why not?” Hadriel asked. “He likes you. I’ve seen how he looks at you. How he treats you.”

“Because he has a fiancée.” Anger was starting to rise, and my animal roiled within me. “Because I don’t want him to. Because I’m common. Because this could never work. Take your pick. The only reason anything has ever happened between us is because of our animals. The animals want each other.”

So do the humans, my animal thought, and I ignored her.

“Well, that is good. Our beasts always know.” Cecil grabbed my dress at the bottom and started to work it up over my head.

I clutched at it. “Um…no.”

Cecil paused. “What do you mean, no? I need to see my dresses on you. You can’t wear some sort of…artist smock while I fit you.”

“It’s one of my outing dresses, thank you very much,” Leala muttered. I curled my lips under, not having known that.

“I need to see your form,” he persisted.

“Then use a slip or some undergarments like Eliza did,” I said. “I’m not getting naked in front of you.”

He rolled his eyes. “I have seen it. I have seen large breasts, small breasts, breasts that hang down low, man breasts, hairy man breasts…all kinds. I’ve seen vagins, too. Do you want to know all the vagins I have seen that I didn’t want to see these past…too many years? Bald vagins, hairy vagins, vagins with strange designs—”

“Vah-gine-ah, you illiterate prick,” Hadriel said, looking at his nails in the corner of the room. “Get it right. It’s the toughest body part in the known world. It takes a beating, grins, and says more, please. Straight guys trying out men for the first time hammer into your ass like they have a vendetta. No, thank you. I am sensitive, unlike the mighty vagina.”

“You are a vagine-ah,” Cecil told him.

“I wish I were, I’ll tell you that much. I wouldn’t fear the demons then. I’d get bloody and be like—come at me! I can do this for days, no problem. Bleeding does not mean I’m dying; it means I’m readying to duplicate and come at you with an army!”

“Just…here.” Leala bustled over with a lacy thing that looked like it would cover most of my torso while revealing all of it. There was no crotch, either.

“I…don’t think that is better?” I said.

“Amateurs.” Cecil stalked across the room and grabbed a tiny little slip of red silk. The bust was red lace and nearly see-through, and the hem would barely reach beyond my crotch. It was slinky and sexy and felt divine in my fingers. “There. That will cover you. It is for when you bed the master.”

“Are you hard of hearing? She isn’t bedding the master.” Hadriel flashed his teeth at Cecil.

Cecil stared back with a flat face. “If the master were to employ a sack of shit, would he have to pay it as much as he does you?” Hadriel narrowed his eyes. “She can use it to seduce the master, then, whatever. Put it on. I will turn around.”

I pulled it on under the dress, removing my arms from the dress sleeves so I could hike it up. Leala pulled the dress off over my head, and I put my arms through the slip while Cecil waited with his back turned, sighing in annoyance.

“I have seen all the stomachs. Fat stomachs, skinny stomachs, stretch-marked stomachs, bulbous stomachs, stomachs with no ab muscles that men want me to pretend have ab muscles…”

“Please stop. Seriously,” Hadriel said. “You’ve seen a lot of naked people. We get it. She doesn’t want to be one of those people. Move on.”

“Asses,” Cecil said. “The problem is asses…”

Leala gave me some sparkly thong underwear, and it was definitely clear that I would need to do something about the lady beard growing up out of it. That was embarrassing.

“I cannot create a good pair of slacks with asses that do not exist,” Cecil muttered. “I can clothe wide asses, or saggy asses, or bubble asses, but no ass? What do I do with no ass? Men come in with no asses all the time. I wish I could turn them away. Are they afraid of ass work?”