Lexa
Lis clicks her tongue and fluffs the fabric of the impossibly massive ballgown that would look gorgeous on literally anyone else but me. The dress alone takes up my entire room at Kaleb’s house, so I’m at the pack house instead, stripped down to my undergarments while half a dozen Glade women fuss over yards and yards of dark blue satin the same color as my eyes.
“Don’t step on it!” Lis screeches, glowering at a young woman now ducking her head and scurrying to hide behind a woman I believe is her mother, based on their similar physical traits. Everyone follows Lis’s commands, however, and after two grueling hours, I’ve been stuffed into a corset so tight I might actually pass out and then into a dress with a skirt so wide and heavy I’m not sure I can even walk in it.
“I can’t breathe,” I hiss, my hand pressed against my stomach.
“Good, that means it fits. See, I knew you had a waist somewhere. Plus, you have all those muscles to protect you from any internal damage.” Lis waves a dismissive hand and steps back to admire her torture while the other women buzz around me like bees, sticking bronze pins in my hair to hold back the curls. A very old woman by the name of Ethel scrubs the hell out of my nails, while her… sister? Or elderly daughter? Whoever this other woman is rubs scented oil on my arms until they shine like polished gold.
I hate this with a fiery passion, and Lis can tell because she’s smirking at me, tapping her fingers against the swell of her belly. She looks too Goddess-damned comfortable in her pants, apron, and woven blouse.
“It must be nice,” I sneer, and she beams at me.
“You look a woman for once,” she retorts with that cackling, girlish laugh I’ll forever hear in my dreams. “You’re welcome.”
The first thing that comes to mind when a trio of younger women bustle in with a full-length, but heavily cracked, mirror is that I cannot let Kaleb see me like this. I just can’t. I feel like an uncanny version of myself, like a princess doll little girls cry over at the toy store. Like something out of a portrait of old, hanging in a gilded but dusty frame, forgotten with time.
I doubt anyone back home has worn a dress like this in centuries, but that only proves my theory that these immortal fae beasts have no taste even after living for decades, if not hundreds of years.
Silas had his hands all over this dress, and I know it. In fact, Lis confirmed it after she boasted about Kaleb’s undone appearance and red-stained cheeks when he’d just left. He left me in that bed without a single word and disappeared for the rest of the day yesterday and today.
The dress arrived this morning. Lis has spent every waking hour preparing me like a feast, meticulously scrubbing me down, brushing out my hair, and pinching my cheeks until they sting to create some kind of blushed effect, and I’ve been trying not to kill her. If she weren’t pregnant, I probably would have.
But she reminds me of Nora. Every ounce of care, every detail, is something Nora would have done. Nora has always seen something in me I’ve never been able to see in myself, and that’s… this.
I finally allow myself to turn to the mirror, and even if I could breathe, I doubt I’d be able to fill my lungs anyway.
The women busy themselves by fluffing the poofy sleeves before securing them around my arms. I feel out of body as I stare at my reflection, at the pools of satin and taffeta, and the impossibly pinched curve of my waist. My hair is piled on top of my head, every curl accounted for, styled just so.
Maeve would scratch my eyes out for this dress. That almost makes it palatable.
“No,” I tell Lis as she turns me from the mirror. “Please, take it off. Please, I’m begging you!”
“It’s going to take three hours to get this thing off of you, so no.”
“I’ll get on my knees and beg–”
“You won’t be able to get back up, Lexa. The dress weighs a hundred pounds.” Another laugh splits through my whimpering. “It’s just for a night. Plus… Kaleb is going to faint when he sees you.” She winks, and I fail to hide the blush now heating me from the inside out.
“From hysterics. He’s going to laugh at me!”
“He’d never. He doesn’t laugh. Judging by how… close… the two of you are now, I would have thought you’d know that–” She yelps then bursts into another fit of laughter when I try to snatch her by the arm, but I’m drowning in the dress and can barely move like I’m used to.
But her laugh, and the colorful curse hanging off the tip of my tongue, die the second a large shadow moves into the exterior doorway of the pack house. He steps out of the light drizzle of rain still blessing the Glade, and my heart drops into my stomach.
The last word I spoke to Kaleb was his name leaving my lips in an unrestrained moan. I haven’t seen him or heard his voice since the moment he slipped out of bed, stopping us from going any further while my body screamed in silence for him to come back.
I’m out of my mind. Of all the things I should be worried about, fretting about… the Trials, the death of my best friend, my shattered regiment, being this far from home…
It’s the way he looks at me as he steps into the light that makes me tremble with sudden nerves.
He looks at me in what I can only describe as shock. He blinks, narrows his eyes, and turns to Lis. “Is this the dress? This is what Silas had made for her?”
Lis crosses her arms under her chest and lifts a brow. “Yes. Did you not see it before you had it sent through the gate? Weren’t you… there? Out in Pantharas for the last… thirty-six hours?”
“I was busy.” He glances at me, his eyes lowering to the bodice of the dress, which is so Goddess-damned tight my breasts spill over the fabric. His gaze lingers there for a moment. He doesn’t even try to hide it. I feel a blush spreading like wildfire, and his gaze slowly turns back to my eyes before turning to Lis. “We won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Lis furrows her brow. He turns for the door, motioning to me like I’m nothing more than an obedient dog trained to follow in step. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“I’m not risking the journey back to the Glade late tonight when the king finally releases us from the ball. We’ll stay at Silas’s. Tell Chastan he’s in charge until I get back.”
She is utterly confused and uneasy, but Kaleb stalks through the door, and I have no choice but to follow. The light from the pack house fades into the dark, wet night. Clouds cover what I think might be a full moon, but I’ve lost track of the cycle, especially with my wolf so far from reach.
“Wait!” I huff. “Goddess, just–I can barely walk in this!”
Kaleb halts and smoothly turns on his heel to face me only a few yards from the main gate, which rises like a massive black metal vortex in the shadows, slick with rain. I’m sure my hair is already coiling and pulling out of the pins. I feel them popping off my scalp with every minute we spend in what feels like mist at this point–thick and humid. Kaleb takes my hand, tugging me over the damp dirt and gravel, biting down on what can only be construed as a smile at my expense.
The gate grates open, revealing fae guards on the other side, but I rush past Kaleb into the spiderweb of tunnels beneath the arena and palace, already accustomed to the layout, the sights and smells.
My rapid footsteps echo, but so do his. I pick up my pace, my heart in my throat, but the dress is weighing on my hipbones so violently I feel my skin blistering.
“Lexa, stop.”
“No–no, I won’t. If I stop walking, I’ll lose my momentum, and this beast of a dress will drag me to hell where it belongs!”
“Stop–” He grabs my uninjured arm, pulling me to a stop. The mountainous skirt swings around both of our legs, swallowing his polished shoes.
I’m on the verge of tears. A kaleidoscope of emotion hits me directly in the chest as I back against the wall of one of the many winding tunnels, trying to kick him away, but the skirt only flares wider, sucking me deeper into its depths.
“What’s the matter?” he asks, chuckling a bit.
“I–I can’t breathe. The dress weighs a thousand pounds, and it’s hurting me–”
He kneels on the soggy ground, lifting several layers of fabric, his body half submerged in the deep blue satin. He brushes my left thigh before grasping a bunch of fabric and pulling, yanking at least two layers free. I heave a breath as he slowly tears the underskirt away, lifting at least ten pounds from my hips.
But it’s the proximity that has me on the verge of gasping for air. This can’t be normal. This… yearning. Praying he grazes my bare skin again.
He rises, a mass of white, thick fabric balled between his hands. I hold his gaze, and he tosses it behind him into the shadows, turning to me and lifting a brow. “Better?”
“Where have you been?”
Kaleb exhales deeply as he meets my eyes in the darkness. “I’ll explain everything when we’re alone.”
“We’re alone now.”
“Barely. These caverns are crawling with guards, whether you can see them or not.”
I bristle, but he extends his hand.
I tuck my hand in the crook of his arm, letting my mind wander, trying not to think about our trist yesterday. That’s all it was–a distraction. A primal form of comfort I think we both needed. Nothing more.
He stopped it from going further, and that’s his business, not mine.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. The stairwell we’ve been traveling opens to the palace, and the dimness of the tunnels explodes with color and sound.
Music soars over lifted, spirited conversation. Champagne scents the air like sugar crystals are suspended in every breath. Apparently, wide, gaudy gowns are in style because I’m not the only one wearing one, and mine is simple in comparison to the fae women floating from circle to circle–ethereal and beautiful, their wings on full display.
A wide marble staircase leads into the ballroom, but Kaleb pulls me into an alcove sheltered by thick, red velvet curtains before we descend.
“What are you doing?” I ask into his chest. We’re barely an inch apart, his body stepping into mine like he’s shielding me from view. I wince as he pulls the pins from my hair one by one. I reach up to stop him as my hair tumbles down my back, but he grabs my fingers and slowly lowers my arm to my side, those deep wells of hazel holding on mine.
“We should talk about what happened,” he says, his voice a low, steely growl over the hum of noise coming from the ballroom.
“About what, exactly? How you kissed me to distract me from the fact you were going to force my elbow joint back in place?
“It wasn’t a distraction.”
“Then you wanted to kiss me?” I jab, my eyes teasing, and mouth curling in a cocky smile. He can’t be serious. I can’t be serious. But his gaze is heavy, dark, and… oh, gods, I might actually be losing my mind because he looks like… he’d do it again if he had the chance. That he wants to do it again, right now.
“It won’t happen again, don’t worry,” he says under his breath before plucking another pin from my hair. A curl bounces free, falling against my cheek. His fingertips graze my skin in a heated, damn near feverish touch. “I like it better this way,” he whispers, leaving me… tangled, breathless. Then he steps away.
Pins still remain to hold my hair out of my face, but my curls bounce down to my waist with each step we take down the stairs. Faces turn in our direction, but I keep my eyes forward on the crowd at the base of the ballroom, looking at everyone and no one, gripping the fabric of the suit Kaleb likely borrowed from Silas. I distract myself with the crowd, with our situation, instead of thinking of the way his muscles flex beneath my touch. I let my mind hone my discomfort in the dress, telling myself his rigidness is because we match, which is ridiculous. He knows it. I know it.
But then I see her, standing in the crowd, her head thrown back in laughter while entertaining her sponsor and his friends. Every other tangled feeling dies in an instant.
Meg must sense my presence, the hatred and fury radiating from me, because she slowly turns her head to look at me, and… smirks.
Kaleb’s fingers glide over mine. “Do not react. Save it for the Trials.”
It takes all of my strength not to leap out of Kaleb’s grasp and charge.
But his grip tightens like he can sense my moves before I make them.
I keep my eyes on Meg until the crowd swallows us whole.