Black.
Wide-brimmed and furry.
“Finally, the Dragon arrives.” Hiro hit me with a large grin, displaying two oversized diamond-encrusted fangs in his upper row.
I blinked. “What the hell is that?”
“Fashion.” Hiro rose. “You should see the whole outfit.”
“No. I don’t think I need to.”
“You do.” Hiro left the table anyway and began to strut in front of me, banging this gold and ivory cane on the floor with each step.
I didn’t know what to look at first.
His muscular chest was bare beneath a long black fur coat that hung from his shoulders like a cape. The hem brushed the backs of his calves.
Four sparkling diamond necklaces draped across his collarbone and sternum.
Then diamond claws capped every finger.
Black leather pants and heeled boots completed the ridiculous outfit.
I tilted my head to the side. "Did my Tiger dress you?”
"Our Tiger did send a very nice tuxedo." Hiro spread his arms wide. The fur coat fanned open like wings. "But I had to decline. Nothing could beat this outfit."
Reo looked him up and down. "Well. That's one way to look at this situation."
Hiro threw his head back and laughed.
I let my gaze drift past him and finally took in the rest of my Claws.
They'd dressed themselves, and it showed. Each one had interpreted the all-black dress code through the lens of whoever the hell he was beneath the violence.
Kaede sat on the far side of the table like a man posed for one of those old royal portraits. His platinum-blond hair had been braided and then pinned atop his head in the shape of a heart. The hair shimmered too. Perhaps glitter or something had been sprayed all over it.
I blinked. “What is going on with your head?”
“It’s a tribute to the Heart.”
Reo snickered.
I rolled my eyes and took in the rest of him.
Kaede had chosen a high-collared white shirt buttoned to the throat with a tailored black leather jacket over it. The lapels held a faint liquid sheen in the candlelight.
Obsidian cufflinks rested at his wrists.
Crimson red leather gloves covered his hands and tiny black hearts decorated them.
A single heart-shaped ruby ring sat heavy on his finger.
And then I saw his eye.
Tonight, his glass eye had been replaced with a diamond, and at its center, a ruby heart sat as the pupil.
And against all sanity I had to admit that under the candlelight, Kaede's face looked less like a face and more like something a Renaissance sculptor had chiseled and then regretted because it came out too beautiful to be allowed in church.
