I high-fived the air in front of her portrait with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. “Way to go. Make sure you get rest tonight. They won’t go easy on you. You know that.”
Her lavender eyes lifted over my head. Stared.
I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. “Yes, I heard them come in a few seconds ago.” I waved my fingers through the air and still stared up into her eyes. The Overlords stayed mute, had been silent since they’d slipped into the room, while zips unleashed and shirts dropped to the ground behind me. “By the way, I’m beat. Have your people send food to our room. We’ll eat in here tonight.”
Her eyes didn’t blink.
I rolled my own eyes. “I’m serious. I’m tired.” I waggled a finger at the painting. “Do not start right now. Or I will steal every tub of ice cream I can find and chuck it out the window out of spite. Every meal should not be an issue like this. The lords said they didn’t treat you this way. You shouldn’t treat us like this.”
Finally, she blinked fast.
“Thank you.” I turned around and walked to my own bag. I waved a hand over my shoulder. “Good night, asshole.”
I stared down at my bag and placed my hands on my hips. I yawned wide, and grumbled, “How much of a fucking lunatic did I look like when you gentlemen first came in?”
Lord Belshazzar grunted next to me while he changed into a short-sleeved cotton shirt and loose fitting gray pajama pants—and refrained from commenting.
Lord Pippin chuckled under his breath. “If you had been anywhere else, you would have been dethroned.”
“That’s what I thought,” I replied. I bent at the waist and unzipped my bags. I grabbed a clean set of pajamas and tromped to the bathroom with the soft material in my hands. I halted right before I entered, asking over my shoulder, “Did any of you receive…a little present…when you left the room earlier?”
“Go open the front door.” Lord Otto snorted. “It’s fucking ridiculous.”
Lord Cato asked casually, “Before you do that, your majesty, is there a reason why there are bullet holes all along our hallway now?”
I lifted a stopping hand in his direction. “Don’t go there.” I hurried and changed in the bathroom, and then I quickly went to the front door and threw it open—morbid curiosity getting the better of me.
My lips twitched.
I held the door open with my left hand and pointed with my right to the rubber snake that lifted his head off the ground. “That one is for Lord Cato.”
Lord Otto walked to stand beside me and crossed his arms. His eyes peered at where I was pointing. “Correct.”
I skipped over Cracked-and-Nosy to the next one. I snapped my finger at it with my brows scrunched. “It looks like one of those super popular male dolls that are always perfect.” Except this one had a cigarette burn hole through the side of his blond head, and its left leg was missing. Its right hand was also twisted at an unnatural angle—and his body was naked. I would have said Lord Otto, but the male-doll hovered over mine. “That one’s Lord Belshazzar’s.”
Lord Otto chuckled softly. “Correct.”
I pointed at the brand new brown teddy bear, a price tag still hanging from his rounded right ear. “That one’s Lord Xenon’s.”
“Yep.” The lord leaned against the doorframe and smirked. “Two more to go. You have a fifty-fifty shot.”
I cast my gaze back and forth between the gnawed-on blue helicopter and the squished yellow rubber ducky. I turned to the Overlord and grinned. “You’re the helicopter, and Lord Pippin is the duck.”
He nodded his head. “Nicely done, your majesty.”
“How the hell does the ducky even move?”
The lord shuddered. “It rolls and it squeaks this heinous sound. All the time. Between Lord Pippin’s feet. Around his feet. I stopped counting how many times he tripped and almost landed on his face.”
I shut the door and locked it. “Mine pisses and screams. You can’t beat that.”
Lord Otto pointed at his hair—his extremely screwed up blond hair. “Helicopter. That’s all I should have to say.”
I snickered and held my hands up in the air. I backed away from him and his ire before dropping my hands. “You’re right, my lord. You win.”
“Fuck yes, I do. I lost hair, dammit!”
A gentle hand wrapped around my wrist and stopped my backward movement. I looked down at the man sitting comfortably in a chair with his bare feet kicked up on a footstool. Ice blue eyes stared up into my gaze. I lifted a black brow, asking tersely, “Yes, my lord?”
