The Herald plays a regal tune, makes my intro, and it’s go-time.
I start the long trek down the crystal staircase to the ballroom floor below. Tonight, I’m wearing the golden over-gown that Octavia made for me. I’m not a dressy-dress girl, but this thing’s sweeeeeet. The fabric’s woven through with little dragons, the symbol of the House of Gurith. The front is cut wide open, showing my white Scala robes beneath, and I even have matching stilettos. Unfortunately, I’m not too confident walking on them. With every step down the stairs, I’m sure I’ll slip on my ass and-or break my neck. But once I hit the base of the staircase, the risk of sudden death soon becomes worth it. A look of ‘gee wiz’ awe crosses Lincoln’s face.
A soft blush colors my cheek. Now’s when all the girly-girl effort pays off. This moment, that look, right here. I feel like the most beautiful woman in the after-realms.
Lincoln has gotten dressy, too. He wears a new flavor of royal get-up, namely a long, fitted coat of black velvet with a high collar and cool golden buttons that cross his chest at a funky angle. The coattails fall well below his knees, showing a hint of his black leather pants and tall matching boots. Delish. His golden crown mixes the Rixa eagle and Gurith dragon motifs, making me want to run my fingers through his wavy brown hair.
Lincoln offers me his hand. “Shall we greet your guests?”
I’m careful to keep my face calm and gracious. “Do we have to? There’s plenty of booze and shrimp to keep them happy for ages.” I set my hand in his, feeling the warmth of his firm skin under mine. “Really, I only want to hang with you.”
Lincoln wraps my hand around his forearm. “We’ll say our quick hellos and get right to the dancing-part of the evening. Soon after that, we can get to the sneaking-out-early part of the evening. How does that sound?”
I subtly hip-check him as we walk along. “Deal.”
He grins. “Those of us in stilettos shouldn’t be pushing other people around.”
“Good point.” I click my tongue. “And look at you, knowing all about girly shoes.”
“Appreciating a beautiful woman in stilettos is common guy territory, Myla. We’ll have a talk about that later.” He slides his hand to the base of my back, guiding me to talk to some Earl or other who I couldn’t care less about. We yammer on for ages about nothing. Every so often, I jump in with non-committal comments like ‘surely’ and ‘you don’t say’. Lincoln keeps rubbing the base of my spine with his very warm and firm hand, which is super-distracting.
This goes for an eternity: Lincoln introducing me to important thrax, me smiling, him rubbing the very top of my butt in a way that makes my lust demon get rowdy. After a while, my tail takes matters into its own hands and sneaks under Lincoln’s coat, doing who-knows-what under the long velvet. The Prince doesn’t send my tail packing, or show any reaction, really. Except every so often, he’ll answer a question with a ‘yes’ where his voice turns a little too husky while his hand slides a little too low on my butt.
All in all, I’m having a grand time.
After the greeting-and-groping part of the evening is over, we decide to take a break before dancing. I head over to my parent’s table at the feasting side of the ballroom. This’ll be fun. Not only haven’t I seen them yet tonight, but they also got clutch seating right by the roast beast and dessert display. Yummy. I don’t get within a yard of their long, mead-hall style table when Mom hops to her feet.
“Don’t move a muscle!” She whips her camera out of her bag. “I want a picture.” She takes about twenty shots until we pass the line from Cute-Mom-Land into Awkwardville. I reach for the camera.
“Hey, I should take some pictures of you and Dad.” The pair of them look awesome. Mom’s in a black sheath dress accented by her purple sash of office; Xavier wears silver dress armor with his golden wings on display. I reach for the camera. “Get up and pose already.”
Sliding the camera out of my grasp, Mom steals closer. She makes a great show of whispering in my ear. “Your father doesn’t like having his picture taken when he’s in archangel-form.”
“Why? He looks great.”
She’s careful to keep her voice low. “He says archangel-form brings out the wing-nuts, as he calls them. He doesn’t want pictures to get around and make things worse.”
I peep over at their table. Sure enough, every seat’s filled with a pie-eyed thrax, breathless to be sitting next to a real-life archangel. “Oh, I can see what he means. No wonder he liked you from the get-go. Everyone else kisses his butt.”
A satisfied gleam appears in Mom’s brown eyes. “As he puts it, I out-Generaled him.”
Dad steps up and pops his head between us. “What are we whispering about?”
“You.” I stick out my tongue and make a silly-face. “And all the angel-loving wing-nuts.”