A slow smile spread across Bruiser’s face and he stood, dropping the robe. He turned and walked to the open door, letting me look my fill.
When the water came on, I followed him.
***
We were arguing about my hair, me sitting in the small chair and Quint standing behind me in the bathroom. Shehad put makeup on my face. Not a lot. Mostly shimmery golds and bronzes on my cheeks, my eyes, and across my upper chest. Mascara, which made my eyelids feel heavy. I was wearing my usual scarlet lipstick and the navy robe, my hair down in a long drape to my butt. My clothes for the coronation were hanging on a hook on the door. “I don’t want my hairfixed.”
“No. That is not strictly true, My Queen. You don’t wantmeto braid your hair.”
“True.”
“Why?”
I smiled slightly, watching her eyes over my shoulder as she stood behind me at the long bathroom mirror. There were a lot of answers. Only one really mattered, and that one I wouldn’t share. “Your loyalty’s temporary, bought and paid for, via contract.” True enough, though mostly it was a Cherokee thing. The ones who braid hair must be calm of spirit, peaceful, and trusted, because the ritual of braiding was the pathway to the spirit. Quint was cold of spirit, steady, and useful, which were all good qualities, but not ones I wanted in my hair or treading the pathway to my spirit. I added, “You aren’tmine.”
“I am yours.” Edmund stood at my bathroom door.
I pulled my lapels closer, in some kind of uncomfortable modesty, which was stupid. He’d seen the full monty when he’d healed me in the past. Yeah, he’d seen me naked multiple times over the course of my ascent to my reign, and after. But it seemed different now and I didn’t know why, except Edmund was wearing a tux and he looked... amazing. And I was robed but naked otherwise. And he wasn’t bound to me.
As if she understood what I didn’t, Quint left the room with a simple, “Excuse me, my Queen. I’ll be back when you wish to dress.” The bedroom door closed behind her.
My primo leaned against the doorjamb. Alone together, we studied each other.
“It’s been a long time,” I said. “You look good. You know. Tuxedo and all.”
“Every man looks good in a tuxedo.” Edmund smiled, showing me the reason he had been turned in the firstplace. That glorious smile, transforming him from ordinary to spectacular. And now, after all his success in Europe, he fairly sizzled with vamp power, more than Leo had ever displayed. His magic danced across his skin and through his words. That and the smile made him breathtaking. “You look rested,” he said, his smile softening. “Do you need more blood?”
“No. I’m good. I hear things are different at HQ.”
Edmund laughed, a low, slow chuckle that slid under my skin.
If things had been different, if I’d never met Bruiser, Ed and I might have been something other than master and primo. We’d never have had what Bruiser and I did, but it might have been something more than just friends. Leo had surely known of that possibility when he sent Edmund to me as primo.
“Things, as you say, are very different. Many blood-slaves and the witches moved out before we woke, which is well. It seems our souls have changed us. Our blood is very”—his hand lifted as if trying to draw an acceptable word out of the air—“zestyto humans, but not binding.” He tucked his hand into a pocket, lounging, and shook his head, still smiling. “I have no idea what it all means yet, to have a soul again, but the changes are beginning. We laugh easily. We cry easily. We are enamored of the humans we drink from. We are changed in fundamental ways, I think.”
“So your coronation is going to be...”
“Lively. Different. Not quite so formal and boring as such events in the past. In fact, I shall usher in a new thing. A new way of accepting power.”
“You already have the power.”
“Yes, My Queen, my lady, I do. But you, the Dark Queen—not my friend and my clan master,” he clarified, “will cement that power. When you as the Dark Queen place that crown upon my head, the entire world will see who and what I am, who and what you made me, and will see your power as it is now, without war.”
“Yeah. I get that. I’m going to crown you tonight. And everything will change again.”
“And so I come, now, while we are simply master and primo, to braid your hair. One last time.”
He stepped behind me, taking Quint’s place, and took the comb that always rested on the narrow shelf. With long slow strokes, he combed out my hair, working out the few tangles, leaving it straight and smooth. “You have beautiful hair.” He parted out a small strip in a long angle from my temple to my ear and smoothed the rest out of the way. “It feels rich and heavy, and the black catches the light, reflecting like a halo.”
Uncomfortable, embarrassed, I joked, “My one good feature.”
Ed laughed again, sadly this time. “Ah, Jane. I wish you could see yourself as others see you. Even if your features were not striking, and your eyes not such an amazing shade of amber. Even if your hair did not flow like the night beneath a full moon, and your skin did not gleam like gold, your powers and gifts would still make you beautiful. And I speak not of the Dark Queen.”
He began to braid the small strip, a tight, perfect plait that left the ends loose, and twisted an elastic over the end of the braided part. “I speak of theperson you are. Your honor. Your strength of spirit. Your compassion, kindness, dedication to people instead of cause. Willingness to bend, to give of yourself even unto death. These are your personal powers, and are what give you indescribable beauty. These qualities are what make others bow to you, far more than does a crown.”
I had to look away from his face in the mirror as he spoke. I wasn’t bad-looking. I even had days when I liked the way I looked. But what he described was... not me.Holy cow.
With deft fingers, he matched the plait on the other side and curled it out of the way too. Then he parted the hair over my forehead and worked that section. And three to either side. When he paused again, I had a lot of partial braids, all pinned out of the way. “I never thought, when I was a slave and working in a brothel, that I would enjoy the skills I learned as a ladies’ maid quite so much. But working with your hair is a joy.”
