Page 44 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“So, you’re going to go to the bridal store to get professional hair and makeup done, before going to Guilty Pleasures. I’d have dressed differently,” Rodina said.

I looked at her hooded sweatshirt and black tac pants and boots. I was dressed almost the same except I’d opted for jogging shoes instead of the boots. Ru was wearing almost the same thing as his sister except his sweatshirt zipped up the front. I was wearing one almost identical to it. I laughed.

“If you’re going to be part of my regular rotation we gotta start planning our outfits so we don’t all match.”

Rodina said something, but I couldn’t hear her over the traffic, the groups of people on the sidewalks. I shook my head and she finally stepped closer to me. Ru started looking outward for trouble as the three of us huddled closer so Rodina could repeat herself.

“I said, we’re accustomed to matching a hell of a lot more closely than this.” She gave a glance toward Ru still searching our surroundings for bad guys, so that he didn’t see the dirty look she gave him. I think she was referring to his new hair color, and not just their missing triplet.

“Are you fit for duty tonight?” Ru asked.

“What?” she asked.

“Are you fit for duty, or do you need to take the night off?” he asked, still without looking at her.

“I’m...” She stood a little straighter; I hadn’t even noticed her shoulders were hunched until she stopped. “I’m ready for duty if you are, little brother.”

“You taught me to always be ready for duty,” he said.

She let out a long breath and then smiled at me. It even filled her eyes, though with black eyes you have to work hard to get them to look friendly, but she suddenly managed it. “Let’s get inside so the beautification can happen in time to ogle Jean-Claude.” She didn’t sayget me inside in time, but I didn’t ask her if she wanted to ogle Jean-Claude, I mean, who wouldn’t?

13

TWO HOURS LATERI was sitting in front of a mirror staring at someone that I didn’t know. It was me, I was in there somewhere, but I’d never worn this much makeup in my entire life. My eyes looked huge and dark. I had good skin, luck of the genetic draw, but the makeup artist had smoothed me out even more, so that my skin was flawless. Once they’d made me uniformly pale, then they’d done things with blush to give back some of the color they’d covered up, and then they’d used two kinds of powder. One to contour and one to cover over everything else. I suddenly had higher cheekbones than I’d ever had before. I couldn’t decide if they’d changed the bone structure of my face, or just carved out what was already there so I could see it?

My curly hair was both curlier and neater than it had ever been, because the hairdresser had used a curling iron to turn my mass of curls into perfect ringlets. I didn’t even know my hair could look this good. Jean-Claude had to be using a curling iron some nights when he was going onstage. Who knew?

“It doesn’t look like me,” I said, voice soft. I wasn’t really talking to anyone else.

“It does, you know,” Ru said as he stepped out of the shadows formed by the bright lights around the makeup mirror.

I used the mirror to look at him behind me. “This so isn’t me.”

“Now you look like our dark, slutty queen,” Rodina said, spilling from the shadows on the other side.

I turned to look at her, frowning. “Thanks for the ‘slutty’ comment.”

“You’re wearing fuck-me shoes and a dress that’s barely there.”

“She’s wearing it for the man she loves,” Ethan said, coming to stand behind me. “That’s romantic, not slutty.” He offered me a hand to stand. Normally I wouldn’t have taken it, but I was wearing five-and-a-half-inch stilettos. They were the highest heels I’d ever attempted and some of the narrowest, spikiest heels I’d ever tried to stand up in, let alone be expected to walk in, so I not only took Ethan’s hand, but I leaned into it.

I’d stood up on the heels before I sat back down for the last few touches of makeup and hair, and it was just as hard to stand up in them the second time. Two steps and I was clinging to Ethan’s hand. “How am I ever going to walk even the few yards to Guilty Pleasures without falling on my face?”

“We’ll help you,” Ethan said.

Ru came to take my other hand, smiling. “We will happily guard your steps as we guard your body.”

“They’re high heels, not an enemy to defend against,” Rodina said, in a voice that dripped with disdain.

“You want to try walking in heels this high?” I asked.

She looked at the shoes, then her gaze rose from them up the line of my mostly bare legs, to the shimmering, dangly edge of the beaded dress. The dress was so sparkly that every movement caught the light differently so that I felt like a blue disco ball. It had spaghetti straps, which I normally can’t wear, because I’m too well-endowed not to wear a bra with a dress like this, but they’d been prepared with the best pushup bra I’d ever worn. I didn’t even know that pushup bras could lift and separate like this.

“Come see yourself in the mirrors,” Felix, the vampire half of thecouple that owned Until Death and Beyond Bridal, said as he swept the curtains to one side so the half circle of mirrors where Edward had stood earlier was revealed. I wasn’t in a dressing room, I was in the curtained area where brides would usually be getting ready, where I would be getting ready in a few months for the real deal.

“I don’t want to see, just take me to Guilty Pleasures and let Jean-Claude see. This is all for him anyway.”

Felixtsked at me, sighing heavily. He’d already made it clear that I was taking most of the fun out of the wedding prep. He supervised hair and makeup, so he hadn’t gotten the full brunt of my disdain for all things girly and bridal, but he’d seen enough. “Barnabas has gotten to clothe you all, but this is the first time I have been able to work on your hair and makeup. I want you to see yourself in it, in front of the mirrors so that we will have a place to start when we talk about how you will want your hair and makeup for the wedding.”

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