Oriak? looked outraged. “Ofcoursethere’s a party!”
Bonbon dug her fingers into her eyes. “Oriak?. What did I say after the last one?”
“You said no more parties, but—”
“I said absolutely not, over my actively decaying corpse, will you drag me to another one of your hellscapes masquerading as a party.”
“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that—”
“It caught onfire!”
Oriak? paused and tapped a pearled nail against her lower lip. “You know, I forgot about that. I should really check on Nikolai, he was so upset that his act went wrong.”
“He had second-degree burns,” snapped Bonbon.
Gali was enjoying herself immensely. Warmth lay over her skin like a blanket. This was what it was like to be normal, to have friends and sit in the sun and just banter. “Well, shoot,” she drawled, trying and failing to keep the amusement out of her voice. “Fire-eaters, am I right?”
Oriak? waved a lazy hand. “He’s fine. His scars make him a little more interesting now.”
Bonbon narrowed her eyes. “Your parties are a menace and a hazard.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Oriak? replied blithely. “Because this isn’t one of my parties.”
Gali leaned forward, intrigued. “Really? You said everyone else can’t throw parties worth a damn and that you’d rather drink boxed wine than attend.”
“I did say that. And to be clear, I’d ratherdiethan drink boxed wine.”
“We got kicked out of that one party because you called the host a tasteless coon with all the charm of a dead possum.”
Oriak? shrugged elegantly. “Yes, and I meant it.”
Bonbon leveled a deeply suspicious gaze at her. “Sowhoseparty are you planning to drag us to then, exactly?”
Oriak?’s answering grin was sharp and up to not a single iota of good. “My father’s.”
Gali’s mouth fell open.
Oriak?’s father was... well, he was almost certainly a criminal and possibly under investigation by international law enforcement, if you believed the gossip forums, but he was rich as sin and, more to the point, he was Nigerian. That combination automatically meant his parties would bespectacular.
“Absolutely not!” Bonbon glared at her friend. “No offense, but you basically told us he’s involved in, like, organized crime.”
Oriak? rolled her eyes. “Don’t be gauche, darling.”
Gali grinned, deliberately stoking the fire. “She never said organized crime, Bon. In fact, she never saidanythingabout what he’s involved in. She was very careful not to.”
“Yes!” Oriak? pounced on that detail with glee. “See? What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
Bonbon’s eyes slitted again. “I think you’ll findit absolutely can.”
Gali pouted and pitched her voice high. “But, Bonbon, what if it’ssomething really cool? Like an orgy. And then we miss it because you were beingboring.” She drew out the last word in a whine, and Oriak? gave her an impressed look.
“Not to dash your hopes—which I approve of immensely, by the way—but it’s actually a fundraising gala.”
Gali deflated, but Bonbon perked up. “See, now that sounds almost civilized. You should’ve led with that.”
“Fundraising for what? Your daddy doesn’t need the money,” Gali pointed out.
Oriak? rolled her eyes. “None of them do, but that’s not the point. It’s for a pet project of his—one of the museums that’s returning colonial acquisitions. Dad’s loaning them an artifact he just acquired that’s some ridiculous big deal. He even got a whole security team just for it.”
