So when Flint told Macy and me that we’d need a fancy dress for the first night of Wyvernhoard, I didn’t realize he meant we needed a freaking ball gown. Not that I would have been able to do anything about it on such short notice anyway, but still. It would have been nice to be mentally prepared, instead of spending all night tugging at the hem of my dress that’s way too short for a ball gown event.
The dress Macy’s wearing is also a little inappropriate for the banquet, it turns out, but it’s better than mine. “Try something new,” she’d urged back when we were packing in our dorm room. “Be bold, shake things up.” So I did, and now I’m wearing a red halter top with almost no back and a skirt made of wide horizontal stripes that hugs every single curve I have and still only makes it to mid-thigh. If I was going clubbing in Manhattan, I’d fit right in. But as yet another woman walks by the open door of my room in a floor-length gown, I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick out like a sore talon once we walk into that ballroom. In my defense, the dress looked a whole lot more innocuous hanging in my closet than it does covering up my curves. “Stop pulling at it!” Macy hisses at me as we move into the bathroom to stare at ourselves in the wide mirrors. “You look gorgeous.” “And underdressed,” I hiss back. “Way underdressed,” she acknowledges. “But that’s not our fault; that’s Flint’s fault, so he can just own it.” We’ve got about an hour before we’re supposed to meet the guys, but honestly, looking at myself in this definitely inappropriate dress for a formal event, I’m thinking I might just hide in my room instead. I look over at Macy, and I can tell she’s considering the same. I’m about to just say it when there’s a knock at my open door. “I’ll see who that is,” Macy says and disappears. A few seconds later, she gives a high-pitched squeal, and I go running out of the bathroom to stare slack-jawed as rack after rack of the most beautiful ball gowns I’ve ever seen are rolled into my room and placed against the far wall. “Miss?” One of the staff presents me with a small white envelope. “Thank you,” I say and take it, my hands shaking so hard, I fumble the envelope twice before finally pulling out the note card with its masculine scrawl. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I already know who this is from—of course I do—and if he put something mushy on the card, I don’t know what will happen. Those moments in the dungeon were enough to set my heart pounding into overdrive. I don’t know if I’m ready to take things any further emotionally than that. I know we’ve been moving toward something ever since our kiss. We both know it. But my walls are still too high for anything more than snark and heat to get through, and I’ve been hoping that he’ll understand that. If he doesn’t, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I take another deep breath, then blow it out slowly even as Macy implores, “Just read it already!” So I do. And then I laugh my ass off. Because this is Hudson at his finest and of course—of course—he knows what I need. He always has, even when I don’t. Underwear and glass slippers optional. —H “What does it say?” Macy asks excitedly as she tries to peer over my shoulder. Yeah, no way am I going to read this card out loud. “It’s from Hudson. He wants us to feel like Cinderella.” I walk over to my backpack and slide the card into the front pocket—the exact pocket where I’d impulsively stashed my birthday diamond before we left Katmere. “Oh my God,” Macy squeals again, and I look up to see her holding two identical dresses. “He sent every dress in both our sizes!” Of course he did. Ridiculous vampire prince that he is. I try to pretend that I’m not melting into a puddle of goo, but it’s not working—especially when my knees go weak and I’ve got to sit on the edge of my bed. How am I supposed to resist Hudson when he does stuff like this? It’s one thing to send his mate a dress. I could tell myself it was so I was fittingly attired to accompany the vampire prince. But he sent every dress at Bloomingdale’s and got the sizes right for both me and Macy, too. My eyes mist despite my best intentions. The jerk. But Macy doesn’t give me a minute to process. She’s already in motion, dashing over to me and yanking me back to my feet. “Get up! We only have forty-five minutes,” she says, “to pick out a dress that’s going to knock that vampire’s socks off!” I look over at the racks of dresses and square my jaw. He really thinks he can just give up on creeping past my barriers and do something so thoughtful that it blows them to smithereens? Well, not on my watch, Hudson Vega. Not on my watch. Two can play this game… 80