I wake up sore, with a sour taste in my mouth and a seriously bad case of bed head. There aren’t any reflective surfaces nearby that would allow me to confirm just how bad my hair is, but I can feel that it’s intense. I sit up and cringe at the head-sized puddle of drool I’ve left behind on the silky blue pillowcase. Fuck, I slept so hard I didn’t even move. Just slept face down in the bed like a corpse.
A knock on the door sends my heart racing through my chest, and I realize that a previous knock must have been what woke me up in the first place. I scramble out of the bed, tucking in a boob that’s trying to escape from my twisted up robe. I do my best to tie the front shut and smooth down my bed hair situation as I rush to open the door.
Another knock ricochets through the room, and I fling the door open a little too hard. It slams against the wall and comes careening back to nail me in the shoulder.
“Son of a bitch!”
I shove the assaulting door away from me, but somehow, the belt of my robe is now tangled around the doorknob, and as the door wrenches back, it tugs the belt and unties it. Panicked, I grasp my now gaping robe and snap the front together before looking up into amused crystal blue eyes. Iceman is wearing a mirthful grin, and his lips twitch like he’s fighting a laugh.
“Hmm, good timing,” he says amicably. “I brought you some clothes. I tried to come yesterday, but you were sleeping pretty hard. We didn’t want to wake you. We figured it was best to let you sleep.”
“Uh...thanks,” I reply, trying not to breathe my dragon breath on him.
He tries to hand me the pile, but I quickly learn if I let go of my robe, I’m either flashing him vag or boobs. I stand there awkwardly, not sure what to do because neither one of those things seem like a very good option right about now.
“Um, just tuck them under my chin,” I finally instruct.
He pauses. “Just…”
“Yep, tuck ’em right under.”
I don’t dare look at his face as he does just that. I clamp down on them with my chin and then quickly back away and shut the door, ignoring the chuckle that starts up on the other side.
I stomp into the bathroom and then quickly groan at my reflection. My hair looks like it was styled by Russell Brand back when he liked to tease a giant tangle at the back of his head. I slept on my stomach all fucking night, so I have no idea how the hell this even happened. My face doesn’t look much better, because my cheek is scabbed over, healing from my road rash, same as my side and arm.
Shaking my head at myself, I brush my teeth with the packaged toothbrush and toothpaste I find in a drawer and then tackle my purple mane with a comb I find. Once I resemble a woman again and not some kind of animal trying to nest in my own hair, I sort out the clothes that Iceman brought me.
And...there’s no underwear.
I probably shouldn’t be shocked by this, but I stare at my sludgy delicates in the trash can for a solid few seconds before deciding commando it is. I pull a black tank top over my head and it’s so snug that I think for a minute it’s trying to strangle me. I’m about ten seconds away from accepting that this is how I go, but with several grunts and some serious elbow grease, I get the damn thing down over my boobs and I’m able to breathe again. The shirt is long enough to go down to my waist, but it’s so tight that the hem rolls up, making it look more like a crop top than anything that can really be considered a full-sized shirt.
I have the opposite problem with the light gray sweatpants I step into. They’re so big that even when I tie them as tight as they’ll go, they still sit dangerously low on my hips. One wrong move and I’ll be flashing pubes and ass crack. Great. As if I haven’t made enough of a hot mess express impression on these guys already.
Walking out, I head downstairs, meeting up with the same bald maid from before, and she brings me to the dining room. My eyes immediately find Echo. The pale man is sitting to the left of Iceman, his black eyes looking at me over his steaming cup of coffee. Well, I assume it’s coffee, but I guess since he’s a demon, he could be drinking the souls of the dead.
Echo grins. “I only drink the souls of the dead on Mondays.”
I balk. “You can read my motherfucking mind?”
“No, you said that out loud, Swampy.”
I scowl at him and sit on the other side of the table, to the right of Iceman. The table is covered in platters, with everything from fluffy eggs to a fruit salad, fresh crepes, and a heaping bowl of steaming bacon.
My mouth waters, but before I can pick up my plate, a servant that I hadn’t even noticed was behind me plucks it up. I jolt in surprise, looking back to find none other than Grumpy Lurch. Dammit.
“Oh, uh, I can do that…” I say, reaching for my plate, but the butler holds it out of my reach. “Don’t be silly, Miss Gates. I shall tend to you.”
I grimace at his emphasis of the words “tend to you” because I’m fairly certain he means “fuck with you.”
He starts to fill my plate for me, but instead of the neat little portions that Iceman and Echo have, GL starts piling everything in the middle of my plate with rough spoonfuls, sending some of the food flying at me. I barely manage to dodge a
