Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“You need to be brought up for a nap,” he says. “So perhaps the comparisons to babysitters should be examined more closely.”
I make a rude gesture at him and take the tracksuit off, leaving me in my undershirt and underwear. He seems unaffected by my state, and turns back the coverlet of the bed so that I can get in.
“Would you like some chamomile tea? Warm milk? A binky?”
I throw one of the many no doubt expensive pillows at him.
“The attitude!” I exclaim.
He gives a brief ghost of a smile. “Sleep well, young lady,” he says, dimming the lights.
I close my eyes for a moment.
Next thing I know, I am opening my eyes. Time has sped by. The lights are now dim because the sun has fled, and I am once more being woken by Fescue.
“Would you like to freshen up in the shower?” he says. “I have several dresses for you to try on for the dinner tonight.”
“There’s a dinner tonight?”
“There’s one every night, but yes, this one is a little more special than most. The pack is excited to meet you in an official capacity.”
I groan and sink down in the bed. I don’t much feel like being met in an official capacity. I liked leading the Runaways. There was no pressure there. The ones who looked up to me came from even more desperate circumstances than I am. Or at least, just as bad.
The Regent pack are not from those backgrounds. The wolves who grow up in this pack are funded. They go to good schools; they are raised well. They share in the proceeds of the profits from all of Regent’s proceeds. Essentially, everything I am trying to build for the Runaways has already been built here generationally.
The covers are removed from me forcibly, which is very annoying.
“Where is Rex?”
“The alpha is in a meeting,” Fescue says. “He will be here to dress shortly, but I suspect you will take longer to prepare. Please go shower. You are still scuffed. There are fresh sets of underwear in your size in the bathroom, and towels.”
I go and do as I am told. I do feel scuffed, as Fescue puts it.
I’m going to hold my own tonight, I decide.
No matter how unsuitable I feel on the inside, I know once I get my hair done and my makeup on, I’ll be untouchable.
When I get out of the shower, I dress in underwear, pat my hair dry, and pad out to the bathroom where the dresses were.
Fescue is still here.
I thought he’d be gone by now. I assumed he was not going to stand around and dress me up like a Barbie doll. Apparently that is precisely what he intends to do.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you dressed.”
“I know how to dress myself.”
Fescue gives me a dour look. “You know how to don basic clothing,” he says. “I do not think you truly know how to dress, all respect.”
“I run a fashion line, my guy.”
“Indeed,” he says. “A crisp white dress might suit you well. I’ve booked a hairdresser. She will have the arduous task of taming that color into something more suitable.”
“Suitable for what?”
“To be seen in public, for starters,” he deadpans.
I scowl, offended. “I don’t need to stand here and listen to this. I like my hair. I like my clothes.”
“Your clothes were covered in blood when you came in,” he says. “And I hear tell you ruined a bespoke shirt by likewise shedding sanguine essence.”
“Sanguine essence? Who talks like that?”
“Someone who has read a book,” he says.
I am losing this round of verbal fencing, and he is not even trying.
“Just give me the little black dress and leave me alone,” I tell him.
Fescue looks surprised. “A good, conservative choice,” he says. “Classic and timeless. Perhaps you are not a complete lost cause.”
“Get out or I’ll ask for something in purple and rip a slit up the side and go to dinner looking like I just escaped from an asylum,” I threaten him.
Another tap at the door heralds the arrival of a hairdresser, a nice woman who defuses the tension by chatting incessantly from the moment she gets into the room.
“I love your hair!” she says. “It’s so original. I wonder what it would look like if we put it half up?”
Charmed by her, I let her do what she wants with me. She doesn’t touch the color, of course, but she does manage to put it up into a complex style I’d never be able to reproduce on my own.
Then I put the dress on, some stockings, some heels. Another woman, Cherie, comes in to do my makeup. Fescue tells her not to make my lipstick too scandalous. She rolls her eyes where he can’t see him and picks a brighter shade of crimson than she was going to originally.