As Toni looked down the long table, set with beautiful china and silver, red and white flowers spilling from small vases on a lush tablecloth, at her friends and their friends, her prince at her right, the king and queen at each end, she beamed with gratitude.
As promised, to wipe out the horrible memory of the last celebration gone awry, Iver had indeed hosted a ball for them, a belated Christmas ball fit for princesses Hollis, Charlie, Naomi, Noa, Penny and the twin princes, Alistair and Daniel; a ball set right in the middle of Castle Beckett’s recreation room—which was closer to the kitchen and, according to Arch, easier on his aging knees.
They’d found out the world of Shamalot really was in a different time, and back in Jersey it was the week after Christmas, even though at the castle, it was now well into a bitterly cold January.
The girls of OOPS hadn’t missed any of the Christmas festivities, according to Nina. They’d gotten back in plenty of time to uphold all of their traditions, and now they were here, with Toni and Iver, laughing, chatting, getting to know one another as they feasted and celebrated the miracle of friendship between two very different worlds.
But who needed a reason to celebrate Christmas twice in one year anyway?
Toni reached to her left and patted Nina’s hand as she dug into a full plate of chicken wings, smothered in buffalo sauce and ranch dressing.
Toni lifted her red napkin and swiped at the vampire’s lips, wiping a smear of buffalo sauce. “So how’s human treating you, Nina?”
Nina smacked her lips and grinned. “Fuck, it’s the bomb. Do you have an idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a chicken wing I didn’t upchuck? For-fucking-ever.”
Toni observed Marty and Wanda, who looked to each other, their eyes worried, but they covered it up quickly and smiled at Toni.
“It’s so funny how Nina suddenly doesn’t have plans when we want to shop these days, don’t you think, Wanda?” Marty asked, her eyebrow lifting.
Wanda folded her hands in her lap. “Funnier still? The fact that we’re always shopping right near the Wing Stop. Crazy, right?”
Nina threw another chicken bone down on her plate, where the carcasses of at least a dozen wings lay, and licked each and every one of her ten fingers with delight.
“Shut the eff up, you two. I’m your damn dream come true. Isn’t this the shit you’ve always wanted? Me sharing in all your bullshit girl-bonding? Only now, I don’t have to sit and watch you two scarf down half a side of beef while I doze off from all that boring talk about lip gloss and cold cream. Now pass the damn mashed potatoes and shut it.”
Toni barked a laugh and patted Nina’s thigh. “Girl-bonding achievement unlocked. I’m glad you’re enjoying food again, but don’t you miss being a vampire?”
Nina plopped some mashed potatoes on her plate and shook her dark head. “Like I’d damn well miss the clap.”
“So no…?”
“Not even a GD little.”
But that wasn’t ringing entirely true for Toni, so she waved Marty and Wanda over to the table where Arch had placed his equally infamous weenies in a blanket, an eye-rolling delicacy almost on par with the bedsport, if you listened to Iver.
“How is she really? I mean, she’s all ‘yay wings and hamburgers’, but is that just a front?” Toni asked.
Marty sighed, her shoulders lifting. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. I worry once she gets past the honeymoon stage of this, when she realizes what’s really happened, she’ll flip a nut. It’s like she didn’t even skip a beat.”
Wanda nodded, tucking her hand to the side of her face. “Exactly. ‘Oh I’m a human again. Whatever’ has been her attitude since this happened.”
Toni sighed long and bit the inside of her cheek. “How’s Greg taking it?” she wondered as she looked at the handsome man who sat beside Nina, chatting with Iver and Heath and Keegan.
Wanda’s eyes became sympathetic. “He’s worried, too. He told Keegan the other day that she’s behaving like nothing’s any different. Except she calls Arch a hundred times a day to get recipes from him. It’s like she’s on a mission to scarf as much food as possible because she missed out on eating for eight years.”
“Do we still think it was because she drank some of Angria’s blood that this happened?” Toni asked as she watched Nina cut into a slab of rare prime rib.
Marty nodded, smoothing her hands over her red knit dress. “We do. It’s the only explanation.”
After they’d returned to their homes in New York, everything had come to a head for Nina. One ugly, failed attempt to fly, where she’d landed in a thorny bush, got scratched up from head to toe and didn’t heal, the inability to use her fangs, and an almost broken wrist from trying to move a car illegally parked in front of her castle later, and she’d found out she was human again.
“Can’t Greg just bite her and make everything vampire again?”