Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Princess Elena
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
“At least he’s handsome, I suppose.”
“Very handsome.”
“And tall.”
“Very tall.”
“Sadly, now I’m out of things to say about him.”
“I’m not. He’s gargantuan so she won’t have to tip her head down to kiss him. That’s important. I find it’s a much more natural position to tip my head back when I’m being kissed.”
“I prefer to tip it down.”
“Of course you would, because Rosehana is shorter than you.”
I studied myself in the mirror as Jasmine and Hera babbled from their positions on the bed in my rooms in the palace. This being beyond the screen I was dressing behind, both of them lying abed with Dora while I readied myself for the betrothal dinner.
I stopped studying myself and instead stared at myself.
Something was not right.
And it was not that the bloody corset I was wearing that was so tight, I could barely breathe.
It was also not the fact that I imminently had to face Prince Cassius Laird again and I wanted to do that about as much as I wanted my skin flayed from my body.
It was that I’d never dressed this way before.
Melisse had commissioned the garment and all its accoutrements. When she explained what it was, I’d balked.
She told me to trust her.
As I trusted Melisse in all things, I endured the fittings that carried on throughout our journey to and through Firenze (as we had two seamstresses in the squad who could fit it perfectly to me, something they did).
I was not trusting Melisse now.
For in the now, I wore a sheath of stiff black satin. It had no straps, the material running straight over my breasts (exposing some of them at the top) and that was that. The cloth hugged me to my lower hips where it flared out (fortunately, so I could bloody walk). There was a short train at the back. And from the hem of the train and all the way up the back were tiny, fabric-covered buttons.
Melisse had procured a necklace that wrapped around the column of my neck in five layers of small pearls. There was another of such around my wrist. And pearls in my ears.
And for some reason, I was to add long black gloves that rose nearly to under my arms (the bracelet was to be worn over the gloves—so odd).
This, I had just done.
But it wasn’t just bloody uncomfortable.
It wasn’t right.
I bent at the waist toward the mirror and felt the stays of the corset dig into my flesh.
I ignored them and stared at my painted face.
Jasmine had done this for me because she was good at it.
A hint of strawberry rouge on my cheeks.
A not-so-hint of red rose at my lips.
The edges of my eyelashes were tipped with a thin line of liquid black paint that sent wings out to the sides and my lids were shadowed with some pearlescent powder.
And she’d brushed some black substance on my lashes with a tool that looked like a miniscule auger.
I looked like me.
But I didn’t.
My hair was down, falling over my chest and down my back and…
I turned to the tray of womanly wares Jasmine had brought with her.
“I think I’ll start with the dark-headed one when I make my way through his guard,” Jasmine said as I looked back to the mirror and bunched my hair up at the back of my head before reaching out to the tray.
But of course.
Jasmine didn’t discriminate.
And thus she was planning her Airenzian sexual conquests.
“They’re all dark-headed, save the bald one,” Hera replied as I shoved a pin into my hair and reached for another one.
“Precisely,” Jasmine returned as I fixed another pin. “I’ll finish with the bald one.”
“You can’t like them all, Jazzy,” Dora entered the conversation.
“I don’t like them, little precious,” Jasmine retorted. “And this is important, Dora, so listen. I don’t have to like them.”
“All right!” I called an end to that, shoving in another pin and hearing a giggle from Dora.
“You might want to know, you’re fifteen minutes late!” Jasmine called back.
“Bloody hell,” I whispered, shoved in another pin and then stared at myself.
Some tendrils were hanging down beside my face and along my neck, and turning my head side to side, the back seemed just to be a mass of messy curls attached to my skull.
But I didn’t have time to do anything more and I didn’t know what I was doing in the first place.
Though at least now you could see the necklace and the pearls in my ears.
I’d have to do.
“Come out, Ellie!” Dora cried. “We want to see you!”
I had buttoned and laced my own self in my clothing, and after besting that feat, I could just say it was good the Nadirii practiced intense stretching to augment range of motion.
I looked into my own eyes and whispered, “Nothing for it.”