And then everybody was talking, and pushing me back into the living room of the suite, and sitting me down on the expansive L-shaped sofa. It looked like the whole clan was here, the boys as well as our newly minted pack of auxiliaries, with Jen on the phone to room service, before one of the guys—Jason of the red hair and Adam’s apple—took the phone away because “that’ll take all day, you know how they are!”Meanwhile, Sophie was trying to put my feet up, Noah was explaining that he had told them they should take this to Cyrus, and Lee was pointing out that Cyrus was still in a meeting with the clan leaders to decide strategy.
I just sat there, feeling unwell, and letting it wash over me.Kimmie came in and sat down beside me, having not been with the others, and she was carrying a room service tray with a bunch of stuff on it.“Where did you get that?”Jason demanded.
“I decided to do something useful while you guys were arguing,” was the serene reply.
Kimmie would have made a good Lupa.For more reasons than one, I thought, as she fixed me with a gimlet-eyed stare.“Eat.”
It was not a request.
I ate.I was hungry, and in the battle going on in my stomach, nausea was now losing.Maybe because hunger had just gotten some big-time reinforcements in the form of eggs Benedict, hashbrowns, a blueberry muffin almost as big as my head, and a mimosa in a 16-ounce Dante’s plastic cup with a grinning devil on it.I eyed the latter warily, because I already felt like I had the world’s worst hangover, but figured what the hell.
Hair of the dog and all that.
Or maybe of the wolf in this case.
“You need to tell her,” Kimmie said while I mopped it all up.
“Tell me wha’?”I asked, my mouth full.
Everybody started side-eyeing each other.
I swallowed.“Seriously.What?”
“It’s… don’t get mad,” Aki said, which was never a good sign.
“Why would I be mad?”
“No reason,” Noah said staunchly.“We came to tell you as soon as we found out.We tried to tell Cyrus, ‘cause we figured you needed to rest, but he’s in that meeting, and four of Arnou’s biggest bastards are outside the door.They wouldn’t let us in!”
“Just sneered and said to go away,” Lee said.“Like we were nothing—”
“To them, we are,” Chayton commented.He had his hair pulled back in a short braid today, the new haircut already shoulder-length again, and his expression suggested he’d have liked to accessorize with a little war paint.“A few weeks ago, they would have been attacking us.”
“—so we had to come to you,” Lee continued.“But when we showed up, the aux squad here decided not to let us in, either!”
“Look at her,” Sophie said, her voice low and dangerous.“Look at her!”
“Is it that bad?”I asked Kimmie, with muffin crumbs on my face.
“Uh… no,” she said, but her eyes slid away from mine.“A little makeup, maybe—”
“And brush the hair,” Jen said.“I mean, seriously.What happened to your hair?”
“What’s wrong with it?”I asked, putting up a hand.And then paused, getting a sudden flashback to a bone-strewn cave which a dreadlocked somebody had been sharing with bats, and wondered how hard I’d gotten hit last night.
Pretty hard.
“I’m… a restless sleeper,” I said, because I had to say something.
“Well, it looks like—” Jen caught herself.“It needs some work.”
“Would you stop talking about her hair?”Sophie said furiously.“She took on most of Rand last night, along with three dark mages, and she’s lucky to be alive!She doesn’t need this—”
“Need what?”I asked, shoveling in egg.And wondering whether I should have done some damage control before answering the door.But I got only more side-eyeing in response.“Come on, out with it.”
“It’s Jace,” Noah said.
His own hair was a little unruly today, with the blond strands in clumps that looked vaguely like ears on top of his head.Wolf ears.It wasn’t a Change, even a partial one, but it said that he hadn’t taken time over his appearance this morning either, not even to run a comb through the bedhead.
