The Girl Who Cries Colors

“Don’t moan, or we’ll all be walking out of here with hard dicks,” Evert says.

“Can’t help it. Feels good.”

Okot smiles and continues to rub, while Evert catches them up on why he found me naked and crying in the closet.

“If this is too stressful for you, tell us, and I’ll cancel dinner,” Ronak tells me.

I shake my head. “No. I want to go. I just want to prove your mother wrong and show her that I am a good mate and a good mother,” I tell him. “But I look like a puffer fish, and none of my dresses fit right,” I admit, feeling self-conscious again.

“Then, it’s fortunate that we brought someone here to help you with that,” Ronak says with a playful smile.

Chapter 9

I look up at him curiously. “Someone to help me? Who?” I ask curiously.

Instead of answering me, Sylred passes me a robe, and Evert moves so that I can slip it on. Okot helps me to stand, and then they lead me to the front of the room where my friend, Mossie, is playing on the floor with my daughter.

I smile when I see her showing Amorette how to properly water her scalp where her vines and flowers grow.

Spotting me, Mossie stands and claps. “There you are! Just wait to see all the dresses your mates had me pick up. You’re going to look so pretty!”

The guys stay in the front room with Amorette while Mossie and I wander back into my bedroom. I hadn’t noticed before, but there’s a heap of dresses already lying on the bed, along with a row of new silk slippers.

“Okay,” Mossie says, wasting no time. “Let’s get you prettied up to meet the parents, so they can love you as much as I do.”

I strip off my robe as she starts tugging on my first dress choice. “What if they don’t?” I ask nervously.

Her bright green eyes narrow on the white dress, and she immediately yanks it off of me and goes through the pile to select another one. “If they don’t, then screw them. You’re the cupid. You single handedly killed our tyrannical prince with a Love Arrow through the heart. You helped set the realm back to the way it should be, where all fae are considered equal. Because of you, there are no more culling games or prison towers full of innocents. We actually got to have a say in who became our new monarch, and the new king and queen are the best we’ve had in centuries, because of you. You’re an awesome mother, and based on how much your guys are always getting stiff sticks in public, you’re a great mate, too. You are amazing,” she says, yanking on the ties at my back as she fits me into another dress.

“Thanks, Moss,” I say quietly. “Hey, how are things with...what was his name? Turny?”

“Oh, him,” she says dismissively. “I ended things.”

“Another one? That’s like, the fourth dump this month.”

She shrugs. “He wasn’t meeting my needs. Or the needs of my flowers,” she says, running a hand over the sunflowers popping out of her head.

I’m pretty sure I don’t want her to go into detail about that, so I let it drop.

Mossie walks around me, looking me up and down, her lips puckered together in thought. Finally, she shakes her head. “Yellow is not your color,” she says decisively, before yanking it off me.

She sorts through a few more options, muttering to herself about bodice styles, colors, and other crap, until she finally picks up a silvery dress. She pulls it over my head, and I immediately like the fabric. It’s soft and smooth and doesn’t feel heavy like the other options.

When Mossie finishes doing up the ties in the back, she comes around the front to inspect me, and a smile spreads across her green-tinged face. “This is the one.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, running my hands nervously down the front.

I move to walk over the full-length mirror, but she stops me by clamping a hand over my eyes. “Nope. No looking until I’ve done your hair and makeup. Now come on, I’ve got everything already set up in the bathroom.”

She tugs me out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, and I sit down at the vanity, facing away from the mirror.

Mossie sets to work with my hair first, combing it with precision as she winds parts of my pink hair to look like I have a band of roses stretching across the top. She adds crystals into the center and then smooths the rest of my frizzy waves with a lightly-scented oil, curling whatever wayward strands she finds with a small brass cylinder.

When she’s satisfied with that, she starts dusting my face with all types of powders, liners, and color stains.

She even comes at me with scissors and weird copper things that look like some form of medieval tweezers. She starts plucking away at my eyebrows, making me flinch back in surprise.

“Ouch!” I say with a frown.