Free I Am Forever (What Kills Me) by Wynne Channing Page B

you?
     

 

     
     
    “Uh, Pavone?”
    “Yes, my lady.”
    “I can’t wear this.”
    She tilted her head. “I don’t understand, my lady.”
    I pressed one arm over my chest and bunched the sheer fabric of my beige slip dress into my lap.
    “Where should I start?” I said. “Well, this dress is see-through and I will be standing in front of an entire room of strangers. I’ve had this nightmare before and I don’t really want to relive it.”
    I tried to grin but my face broke into a grimace. I moved my hair, still warm from a curling iron, to cover my chest.
    “My lady, you will be covered.”
    “Oh, are you going to walk behind me covering my junk with your hands?”
    Pavone smiled. “Not at all, my lady.” She snapped her fingers. “I will be sitting with the masses, admiring you from a distance.”
    Two maids carried in a shiny red chest and placed it at Pavone’s feet. They released four latches and opened it. It was filled to the brim with white and champagne gems. Pavone reached down and started pulling out what I thought was a necklace, but the strings of jewels kept coming. It was a sheet of shimmering stones. They caught the light and projected dancing stars on the walls. My gasp caught in my throat.
    The maids helped her lay the jeweled cloak against my body, the weight of the gems startling me and dragging my shoulders down. I pressed the jewels against me, pricking my fingers on the edges of the diamonds and feeling their cool surfaces on my abdomen.
    As the maids fastened clasps against my lower back, Pavone winked at me. “I said you would be covered.”
    She wagged her finger and clicked her tongue twice, and a maid retrieved a full-length oval mirror.
    Whoa.
    A moment of incomprehension hit me. A moment of disconnect. This amazing stranger in the mirror blinked when I blinked. Her lips parted in awe when my lips parted. The hair on my body rose up as if electrified.
    Pavone had dusted my face with a gold powder that made my skin glimmer with my dress. Black liner jutted from the corners of my eyes, like thin, sharp blades. Sparkly gloss pooled at the centre of my blushed bottom lip, making it full, pouty. Bronzer contoured my cheekbones, giving my face a grown-up structure that I had never seen before.
    I had never been so beautiful.
    “What do you think, my lady?” Pavone gathered my hair from my shoulders and let it fall in big, curly locks down my back.
    “Gorgeous,” I whispered, unable to look away.
    Her lips made a wet sound as they pulled across her teeth.
    “Oh wow. That sounds conceited,” I said, turning to her awkwardly because I didn’t want to shift my dress. “Pavone, you’ve given me an ego.”
    “My lady should have a staggering ego to match her splendor.”
    I laughed. “Okay, stop.”
    “Now for your veil,” she said, as a maid presented her with another case. She lifted the lid and I thought she was pulling out another gemstone dress. But the stones were smaller and less tightly packed, so when she laid the piece against my forehead and over my hair, it looked as if fresh droplets of silvery water littered my head.
    “It’s so beautiful,” I told her.
    This, I felt, was worthy of offering hope. This, I felt, was what the Divine should look like.
    An earthy, spicy scent swam into the room and I perked up. Lucas. His footsteps, accompanied by Uther’s shuffle, approached from down the hall.
    “Please move the mirror,” I said and walked toward the door like a geisha, my steps hurried but tiny and dainty. The jewels played the room like an orchestra.
    Lucas strode into the room and skidded to a stop, the momentum pulling him forward and then back. He looked like a rearing animal faced with a threat. He stared at me, expressionless, frozen.
    Embarrassed, I opened my arms. “So am I the sparkliest vampire you’ve ever seen or what?”
    He looked me up and down. He looked stunned. The words came as if he was just learning the language.