It was hard to feel like that with Gran, especially because she still looked like an old woman.
Not that I believed that act for a moment.
Though, the quiet moment gave me a pause. “What do you really look like?”
“You saw a glimpse.”
“So why look like this?”
Gran took a sip of her tea, then rested it on her leg. “I learned a long time ago that a pretty face was a detriment.”
“I’d think it was helpful. Men get stupid around pretty faces.”
“Men want to own pretty faces. They get obsessive, determined, and it makes life far more difficult. I prefer to move without that complication.”
The way Kase had noticed me, how Troy had distracted me even as just my neighbor, how Grant and Hunter had entangled themselves in my life made me unable to argue with her point.
It wasn’t that I acted as if I were beautiful, and honestly because of the spell my parents had put on me, I was usually ignored.
Hadn’t the men made my life more difficult in many ways?
Hadn’t they helped, too?
I tried to think about what my life would have been like if I hadn’t met them, if I’d had to face this all on my own.
And all the times I would have probably been dead.
“Is it worth pretending to be something you’re not?”
She laughed. “You’re asking me that? You, who has spent your entire life trying to pretend to be normal?”
The jab landed. It was true…
Still, it also felt like an odd moment with Gran. She normally felt so…different. She felt wise and unreachable. Sure, she was my friend, but it had always been borne of a different level.
Sitting across from her made me look at her differently.
Maybe it was my time in hell, my experiences. I didn’t feel like the girl who didn’t know where she belonged, the one who felt unprepared for life, hiding behind her skirts.
Instead, I felt like an equal.
Okay, so I wasn’t quite an equal—no one feared me the way they feared her—but I wasn’t a girl afraid of life, either.
And I finally saw that she wasn’t quite as together as she pretended to be. She wore a different face just to hide a part of herself she didn’t like.
“Maybe neither of us needs to hide so much,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said, and for a moment the real vision of her shimmered, showing me a glimpse of the woman she was beneath that. “Get yourself ready, dear. No doubt that green-haired woman stuffed with far too much cheer will be here to escort you when it is time.”
With that, she got off the bed, leaving my cup with me. When she got to the door and opened it, a guard stepping in front of her for a moment.
Then the guard took another look at her and stepped backward faster than I’d seen them do with anyone else.
She offered one more smile before leaving me be to get ready.
Chapter Seventeen
Gran was right—the party was much larger than the day before.
Beyond that, they were more dressed up, too, as if the event had become a big deal all of a sudden.
There were more groups of people milling around. Elder ones stood in the corner, their pointed ears and green eyes a sure giveaway. There were even men, which I hadn’t seen before. They were lithe, just like the women, and wore suits that were fitted beautifully and embroidered along the lapels of the jacket and down the side of the legs.
Others, who at first passed as humans stood in groups. With a closer look, I noted the tips of fangs. Across the room, Fredrick, the pack alpha, stood with a few others.
Persephone left me, again. She’d come to my room to escort me to the party in an even fancier dress that dipped far lower in the front. Somehow it didn’t look slutty on her, though. She looked regal, instead.
We had made it all of thirty seconds into the party before something else caught her attention and she floated off in distraction.
I hadn’t run into Lucifer yet, but the bodies were packed in so tightly that didn’t shock me. Besides, the longer I could avoid him, the better.
“Don’t you look like a treat?” The voice was one I didn’t recognize, and I turned to find a woman with long, straight black hair behind me.
She was beautiful in a way very different than Persephone. Where the goddess was all cheer and innocence, this woman was darkness, power and lust. She wore a red suit that appeared even brighter against her black hair and matched her lips.
“Do I know you?”
“No, but I know of you.” The words felt oddly sinister, especially with her smirk. “Word travels fast, and I’ve heard about the mortal who sits beside my father. It’s something uncommon enough for even me to venture home and see.”
Father?
“Lilith.” Hunter walked up from my side, his voice careful. “I didn’t expect you to show.”
“As I was telling your pet, here, even I couldn’t resist the invitation when I heard Father had made a mortal his guest of honor.”
“And here I thought it was to watch me.”
She lifted her nails—black and filed to sharp points—and studied them. “If you believe I haven’t seen better competitors than you, you’re foolish.”
“Ouch.” Hunter set a hand on my lower back. “I’d love to hear more about how little you care about me, but I think there are others who want to meet the mortal of the hour.” With that, he steered me away from the scary woman.
“Was that the Lilith? From the stories?”
“You find that harder to believe than Lucifer?” I gave him a sharp look, and he sighed. “Yes, that’s her.”
“I thought she was Adam’s first wife? Not Lucifer’s daughter?”
“Haven’t I told
