Page 34 of Bombshell

“This dress is itchy,” I complained as I tugged at the too tight black fabric that I had painstakingly zipped myself up in earlier. “And I can’t breathe.”

“Beauty is pain,” Odette intoned sagely as she finished applying the rosy pink gloss on her lips that accentuated the shimmering highlight cresting her cheeks.

Her blue eyes slid to mine and she frowned at the shawl that I was wearing over my shoulders. “Are you sure you want to wear that?” “

I shifted uncomfortably from one heeled foot to the other, picking at the frayed ends of the silver material.

As soon as I showed up at the mansion tonight Alexander had handed it to me wordlessly, its use abundantly clear.

My vines were usually unnoticeable when I had them curled against my back, but the low cut of the dress would do little to hide the green lumps.

“It’s chilly tonight,” I mumbled, pulling the shawl a little bit tighter around my shoulders.

That was a lie and Odette knew it. Even though it was only just the start of April it had been unseasonablywarm on the west coast, bringing more and more people out to the beaches and to the Wharf to enjoy the early spring sunshine.

It was so warm, actually, that it was starting to err on the side of almost supernatural. I also had a sneaking suspicion the early onset of spring had something to do with whatever was making Dallan look so grave all of the time.

He hadn’t told me anything about it yet. I figured he was trying not to stress me out, but it was starting to bother me when he got up in the middle of the night to go and talk on the phone in the other room.

Long gone was the girl who couldn’t let a man sleep in her bed. Now the Cthulhu could barely get rid of me.

And by getting rid of me, I literally meant he couldn’t getphysicallyrid of me. By the time we both woke up in the morning my vines were wrapped so tightly around him that it took quite a bit of cursing and untangling to get us free.

No, I was a new woman… even if I still wouldn’t let him tell me how he felt about me.

Baby steps.

Odette’s blue eyes narrowed at me in the mirror.

“Do you want me to throw it into the fire and pretend like it was an accident?” she asked seriously.

It was so serious that it made me laugh and shake my head. “I don’t mind wearing it. Wouldn’t want to freak people out looking like a plant Slenderman with my vines.”

“What’s Slenderman?” Odette frowned, her pink lips twisting in confusion.

I paused, not quite sure how to explain an internet myth. “Doesn’t your dad let you use the internet, like, at all?”

Golden brows drew together as her gaze shifted away from mine and her wings drooped to hang dejectedly against her back.

“Yes, but with parental controls,” she told me quietly.

The faerie had been so excited all evening about the gala, fluttering around her room with enough energy to make me dizzy, but all it took was a few words from me to deflate her like some kind of sparkly balloon.

I leaned down so that we were eye to eye. “Say the word kid, and I’ll spring you from this pretty cage.”

Getting Odette out of here was easier said than done, but I knew that if she wanted it, that Dallan and the rest of the supes at Monstrous Ink would do anything in their power to help her.

It was in Dallan’s nature to help those that needed it most—it was why he’d helped me that day fifty years ago and I knew it would be why he would help Odette too.

“It’s not a cage,” Odette sniffed, giving my shoulder a pat. “Daddy means well, he’s just so protective because—”

“Because fae children are the rarest of the rare and everyone wants the chance to kidnap one,blah, blah, blah,” I repeated the same tired excuse that everyone seemed to give for why Odette couldn’t live her life like a normal adult. “It’s bullshit and you know it. Arsenio might have the right reason for himself, but not foryou. What doyouwant?”

Odette’s mouth opened and closed, like she didn’t know what to say.

Then someone knocked on the door, making the both of us jump.

“Miss Sidhe, your father is waiting downstairs to leave,” came the voice of the head housekeeper of the mansion.

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