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I snatched it off and threw it on the bed, where it pulsed in and out with the rest of the room, looking a little surreal next to my well-washed duvet. But at least it covered up the oil stain from the last time I cleaned my guns. I supposed that was something.
There was no need to wonder where it had come from. It might as well have had Louis-Cesare’s name embroidered on it, only they probably wouldn’t have because that would be tacky. In the way that giant satin pussy bows weren’t, apparently.
I stared at it blankly for another few moments, head pounding, gut churning. And decided that I was completely unable to handle the implications of the world’s most awesome nightie right now. I crawled off to the bathroom instead, where I hugged porcelain and waited on my stomach to join the fun.
It was being a lazy little bastard today, content to just twist around under my ribs. But the light was dimmer in here, thanks to my forgetting to flip the switch when I came in. And while the tile was cold, the bathroom rug was thick and comfy and the robe I’d dragged in with me made a nice warm heap at my feet. My forehead found a cool spot along the rim that it liked and, overall, I decided, things were looking slightly—
“Dory!”
“Augghh!” I reacted before I thought, proving that split-second timing wasn’t always a good thing. Like when it resulted in my leaping up and slamming another roommate against the bathroom wall.
Claire’s wide green eyes regarded me over the arm I had shoved against her windpipe, but she didn’t look afraid. Possibly because the slight redhead was perfectly capable of reversing our positions anytime she felt like it. “Are you all right?”
Considering that she was the one pinned to the wall, I thought that an odd question. But I wasn’t having a great day, so I decided maybe it was me. “You startled me,” I told her, letting go.
Claire did not seem to like this answer. “Ymsi said you’re hurt!”
“What? No, just—” I stopped myself, barely in time, because Claire was not a fan of fey wine. Claire was, in fact, leaning heavily toward prohibition these days, so explaining that I’d somehow fallen off the wagon wasn’t likely to result in my day getting any better.
“Just what?” she demanded.
“Just a little stiff,” I substituted.
“A little stiff? You’re black and blue!”
I looked down. And then I snatched up a towel, cursing my metabolism, which should have already smoothed out the evidence of whatever had happened last night. Fast healing was one of the few perks in a condition with a hell of a lot of negatives, only it was kind of hard to tell that at the moment.
“Well?” Claire demanded.
“Um,” I said because my brain was still half baked.
Claire’s hands went to her hips, never a good sign. “You told me you were going on a routine assignment. You told me it was nothing to worry about. You told me not to wait up. And now I find you half dead—”
“I’m not half dead. It’s just cosmetic—”
Claire grasped my shoulders and turned me toward the mirror. “Cosmetic?”
And okay. I had to admit, I’d looked better. My short hair was a matted wreck, there were dark circles under my eyes, and my usually pale skin was corpse white—the parts that weren’t green or yellow or richly purple. More worryingly, my baby fangs were out, which usually happened only when I was perilously close to tipping over into Mr. Hyde territory.
I quickly drew them back in. It didn’t help much. I still looked like Dracula’s daughter.
Which was completely unfair, since he’d only been an uncle.
“Claire—”
“You promised me,” she said, as I turned back to face her. Her tone was deadly quiet, but that was actually worse than one of her famous fits. The fits you could reason with; quiet Claire was laying down the law. “You promised you’d take better care of yourself—”
“I have been—”
“Yes, you really look like it!” Her gesture took in the whole sorry picture, which the towel wasn’t doing a great job of hiding since it was only a hand variety. And since the mirror over the sink was busy reflecting my bruised ribs and backside.
But I was moving okay, and nothing inside was swelling or pinching or stabbing, or giving any of the other telltale signs of serious injury. I had healed; my body just tended to prioritize damage, and it hadn’t gotten around to worrying about the pretty yet. But Claire didn’t seem to get that.
Or maybe she did, because her forehead scrunched up, making her glasses skate down to the end of her nose. “Prioritize?”
Shit. Had I said that out loud?
“Then, if you look like this now…”
