“In the absence of another capable soldier with us, we will have to make do.” Jack exhaled and ran a hand over his face. “We do not have another choice.”
“I could send you all into hiding and let the Pax mission go forward,” Liam said more as a threat than a suggestion.
“And then Tresia will come for us with a force we cannot overcome,” Jack said. “You cannot come up with a strong enough glamour to hide all of us on such short notice.”
“If my vote counts for anything here, I'm on board with Constance's plan,” Lexie added. “I'd go in with you if I could, but I'd be more helpful with a computer than a sword.”
“So it's three against one, Liam,” I said. “I'll keep Tresia busy while you and Jack take out the guards. When you finish, we can gang up on her.”
He let out a string of curse words I'd never heard him use before taking a deep breath. Tightly, he asked, “What do you propose?”
“I'll walk in dressed as a high-roller and challenge her directly. If I piss her off enough, she'll face me one-on-one. While she and I are fighting, you two get the guards. Once you're done, we tag-team her.”
Neither of them looked pleased.
Jack said, “If you can make it a personal attack on her strength, she will feel the need to defend it. Her position within the Eight has been shaky since I absconded with her ferrament. There are others within her employ who would take that title from her, if she shows any weakness.”
“I can do that.” I nodded, projecting confidence.
“You will have to be—” he paused, searching for a word. “—beautified before you go in. You will have greater success in offending her if you affront her vanity as well.”
“I can take care of that!” Lexie's hand shot up. “I've been trying to get her to play dress up with me since we were nine.”
Jack smiled. I felt queasy. Who knew what she'd put me in….
“Get the banking accounts taken care of, and we can find a suitable dress,” Jack said.
Lexie snatched up the paper and the laptop and set to work.
“I've got an operational slush fund,” Liam sighed, pulling out his wallet and passing Lexie a credit card. “I'll pay for whatever you need.”
“Sweet.” Lexie grinned, but kept at the computer anyway. “I'll go pick out a dress, then. And shoes, too!”
Crap. This was so not going the way I thought it would. I didn't have anything against dresses or dressing myself nicely. It was the thought of Lexie picking something out for me. Whatever she selected would surely show more skin than I was comfortable with.
“No high heels, nothing strappy, and nothing that could fall off,” I specified, nervous at the power of Lexie with an unlimited credit card in her hands. “Remember I've got to able to fight in it.”
“No problemo.” She grinned wickedly. “Woo-hoo! We’ve got fifteen years to make up for.”
Part of me wanted to look over her shoulder. The other part of me was too afraid to look. I decided to sit and finish my lo mein at the table. Nothing I said would make any difference anyway.
Liam sat next to me while Jack went to go help Lexie with her hunting. “You signed up for this.”
“Yep,” I sighed.
“You know, if you're not okay with this, it's not too late to back out.” His voice held a hopeful note to it. “No one would judge you for it.”
“Aside from the fact that Lexie would strangle me if I rained on her parade, I'm not backing out.” I looked him in the eye. “I won't lie and say I'm not afraid, but I'm not walking away from this. If you and Jack go in alone, you won't be coming back out.”
“You can't know that,” he countered. “Jack and I have almost a millennium's worth of combined battle experience.”
I shook my head. “I heard the way you two were talking earlier. You need another set of hands for this.”
Liam didn't say anything.
Lexie made a squealing sound that made my stomach do back flips. Jack nodded approvingly at whatever was on the screen as she lunged for the phone on the bedside table. She called whatever store it was in to check if it was in stock and ordered it over the phone. Next, she went back to the computer and started clacking away. A few minutes later, she closed the computer lid.
“Done!” she chirped. “I've ordered you a dress with matching shoes and found some chick on Craigslist to deliver it, some makeup, double-sided tape, and some ponytail holders. She lives near the store I ordered it from, so it should take around two hours to get here.”
“Yay.” I sarcastically waved my hands.
“So that means you boys need to clear out! It's time for us ladies to get to work. We are on a tight deadline here and beauty takes time.” She was positively beaming as she ushered both men into the other room.
I was nervous about leaving those two locked in a room alone together without adult supervision.
Once they were gone, she ran to the front desk lady to see if they had any spare toiletries for guests. It just so happened they had some bars of soap, travel size tubes of toothpaste, toothbrushes, and a bag of disposable razors.
Lexie handed me the ones she brought back. “Go shower, shave, and brush your teeth. Then I'm going to blow your hair out.”
“I don't have any clean underwear,” I griped, but walked into the bathroom all the same.
“I ordered you some lacy pretties while I was shopping,” she said as she shut the door in my face.
She was enjoying this way too much, but then, she hadn't had a whole lot to smile about lately. I couldn't take this from her, even if it meant being way out of my comfort zone. Besides, I had to upstage Tresia to piss her off and Lexie knew way more about this sort of thing than I did.
So I did as she asked, showering and washing my hair— hey a cheap bar of soap can work on hair, too. Then came the task of tackling the pasty cacti that were my legs.
A knock sounded on the door.
“Shave all the way up,” Lexie called out. “Don't stop at your knees this time.”
Crap.
At least I didn't have to worry about shaving knicks or razor burn. I still hated having to shave, though. Why couldn't I just live out my life as a Wookiee?
When I finished healing all the cuts caused by the cheap razor, I walked out wrapped in a bath towel that was too small to fit around my boobs, so I had to hold it up.
Lexie bounced off the bed and brought a chair into the bathroom, setting it down in front of the mirror. She pointed to it. “Sit so I can blow dry your hair.”
I sighed and plopped down in the chair. I was just barely tall enough to see most of my face in the mirror.
She leaned my head back and started attacking my face with a pair of tweezers.
“Ow,” I complained as she was picking at the tiny hairs between my eyebrows. “Where'd you even get those?”
“I begged the office lady and she let me borrow hers.” She was grinning even as I was in pain.
“Lucky day.” I frowned, but bit my tongue.
“Don't scrunch your eyebrows or you'll be lopsided,” she chastised. “Tresia won't be mad at you if you're all sexified with screwed up eyebrows.”
After she finished plucking my brows, she turned my head up to face the mirror and removed the old blow dryer from a hook on the wall.
“So, captive audience, you were holding hands with Liam earlier,” she stated questioningly, having to speak up to be heard over the whining dryer. “Spill!”
“Spill what?”
“Everything that happened from the time you followed him into the woods to when you two came out looking all starry-eyed.”
“He was starry-eyed?” I asked, unable to keep the schoolgirl hope out of my voice.
“Whatever you did in there blew his mind, you dirty, delightful whore.” She was grinning ear to ear as she started in on my thick, wet, auburn mess.
“I didn't do anything!” I said defensively. “All we did was talk about his brother and my mom and kiss! It isn'
t like we did anything we'd get arrested for doing in public.”
“Was he a good kisser?”
I swallowed. “Oh, yeah.”
“That good, huh?” She teased. “Did he cop a feel?”
“No,” I laughed. “He was a total gentleman and kept his hands to himself.”
“Damn,” she playfully scowled. “You need to clean the cobwebs out of there.” She gestured vaguely to my lady bits with the dryer.
“Lexie!” I reached up to fake punch her in the gut.
“Before you get spiders in your panties,” she giggled, rolling my lack of a sex life and loathing of spiders into a single punch line.
“You are so gross.”
“And you so need to jump his bones,” she insisted. “Liam is a nice guy; he treats you with respect; and he sneaks a peek at your ass every time you aren't looking. You clearly have the hots for each other, so go for it.” She looked me in the eye through the mirror and with all seriousness told me, “You need to get laid.”
I scowled. “I'm not jumping into bed with him just because it's been a while since I've been in the dating pool.”
“A while?” She scoffed. “The last date you went on was two years ago and it's been four since you've gotten any.”
“And I am still not going to sleep with him for any time-based reasons. The next guy I'm with is going to be in it for me and I'm going to have to trust that guy. More so now that there are people trying to murder us.”
Her cheery face lost some of its light. “He's not Blake, you know. He doesn't have any ulterior motives.”
“I know that and this isn't about him,” I insisted. While Blake's duplicitous douchery had really broken my heart, he had inadvertently hurt Lexie, too. After we found out that he was only dating me for a business tie to her family, she was crying right along with me. She'd been afraid that I would blame her and our friendship for his actions until I promised that I didn't.
Lexie had ended up pulling some family strings on his behalf, though not in the way he would have liked. Last I heard, he was working for a boat rental company in Florida— a far, far cry from his boardroom aspirations.
Just as she finished, there was a knock on the door and a woman's voice called out, “Delivery.”
“That would be the dress!” Bouncy Lexie was back.
Liam and Jack opened the adjoining door, swords in hands and eyed the door as Lexie opened it.
“Delivery for a Cindy Lauper?” A confused young woman asked.
“That's me!” Lexie chirped, grabbing the bags and inspecting their contents. “My mom was on drugs when she named me.”
“Oh,” the woman said awkwardly.
Lexie grabbed the rest of our cash and what Liam had contributed from the table and gave it to the woman. “Thank you and have a lovely night.”
She slammed both the door to the outside and the door to the other room. “No boys allowed,” she reiterated. To me, she said as she danced back to the bags, “I love the Internet.”
“Come, come,” she waved me over excitedly as she unpacked each item and laid it out on the bed. “Inspect the pretties.”
She laid out the dress first. It was a deep, rich emerald green ball gown that would reach all the way to the floor. It had a slit that went all the way up the side and would flash my panties if I wasn't careful. There were deep, V-shaped cut outs in the sides that met in an X under the breasts and would criss-cross with the neckline in the back. There was another, oval cut out between the breasts.
“Where's the rest of it?” I asked flatly. There was no way my boobs were going to behave in that dress walking around, much less fighting.
All she did in response was giggle.
She set out the shoes next, which were black and much more practical with a low, chunky heel that I'd be able to move in easily.
Then she set out the underwear, which was black, lacy, and included a full garter and hose set but not what would arguably be most important.
“Where is the bra, Alexandra Cornelia?”
“Oh, right.” She reached into yet another bag to pass me the matching bra that looked like something somebody with A-cups on acid thought would be perfect for containing high C's under vigorous activity.
Its black floral lace was a strong fabric that seemed sturdy enough to wrestle with my chest if only the cups weren't a pathetic demi that would leave me with four boobs. And the laughable, adjustable plastic straps were arranged as a halter that wouldn't survive jumping jacks, let alone mortal combat.
I was very much regretting my decision to eat dinner earlier instead of hovering over Lexie's shoulder, scrutinizing her every click.
“This contraption is a lie.” I dropped the ungodly thing.
“Would you rather go without?”
I picked it back up.
“Now go get the underwear on. You're going to need my help with the dress.” She sent me back to the bathroom with an armload of misery. “And remember to put the garters on before the panties or you're going to have the take everything off to pee!”
The bra was exactly as inept as it looked at keeping the peace, but it fit and it was better than nothing. I came out minutes later with an intimate emotional understanding of cats in Halloween costumes.
“Cuteness!” she twittered in a sing-song voice. "Now get over here.” She waved me over with the dress in her arms and a roll of tape in her mouth.
It took some finagling and even more tape, but the dress was on and the back straps were adhered to the bra straps. The bottom hem landed just above the floor, so I was unlikely to trip on it.
Dressed now, Lexie sat me back down and put blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lip stain on me before moving her attention to my hair.
“Hmm,” she pondered aloud before a metaphorical lightbulb went off over her head and she grabbed an elastic band.
She set to work standing in front of me, so I couldn't see what she was doing until she finished five minutes later and stepped out of the way.
“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed and running my fingers over the length. “This is really nice, especially considering you haven't had long hair since high school.”
She glowed under the praise. Her work was worthy of it: a French braid ran across the crown of my head, meeting the rest of my hair at the nape of my neck, then twining down the rest of the way in an artfully messy fishtail braid.
“We've got a high bar to meet,” she reasoned. “It'll take a lot to outshine Tresia and I think we've done it.”
She had really outdone herself. I could hardly recognize the fetching creature in the mirror as being me.
My auburn hair shone in its intricate braid even under the dim lighting in the hotel room. Lexie had brought out a blush in my cheeks that was once reserved only for really cold days. She had highlighted the hints of green in my hazel eyes with eyeshadow and made them look big and bold with eyeliner. My lips were stained an eye-catching, sexpot red.
As uncomfortably revealing as the dress was, I conceded that it looked good on me. A lot of cleavage, thigh, back, and midriff were exposed, but it wasn't as much as I had expected. The dress and that wimpy bra weren't going to be the best for moving around in, but everything was as taped down as it was going to get.
The door opened behind me.
“She's ready,” Lexie announced, letting the guys back in.
Jack smiled warmly and stepped forward to give me a hug and peck on the cheek. “Sei bella, topolina. You are sure to send Tresia into a frothing rage.”
Liam looked like he'd swallowed his tongue. “You look lovely.”
“This makes up for fifteen lost years.” Lexie cheerfully started putting away empty bags and tags and boxes.
“How long do we have left?” I asked.
Liam checked his watch. “One hour. We're cutting it close. We should all go over the plan one last time before we leave. Constance, I want you to repeat what everyone is going to be doing.”
“Lexie is going to stay i
n the car in the parking lot hidden behind a glamour with a laptop and block any humans from contacting 911. I enter by myself first and make a beeline for the third zone. There, I'm going to challenge Tresia to a one-on-one duel. My goal is to keep her busy and wear out her genus. A few minutes later, you and Jack are going to follow me in and take out all of her remaining guards. Once you finish, you're going to meet me and together, we take her out.”
“What terms are you going to offer Tresia?”
“If I win, she leaves us alone. If she wins, she gets her necklace back. I'm going to offend her personally, professionally, and publicly so she has to handle it herself or risk looking weak in front of her people.”
Liam took a deep, calming breath, still not pleased with our plan. “You're as ready as you'll get. It's time to move out.”
“Topolina,” Jack grabbed my arm as I walked past. He waited for Liam and Lexie to be farther away before he slipped something into my hand. “Use this if you come to face a very strong opponent.”
I glanced down to see the smaller orange orb from the duffel bag. Tucking it into my bra— the only place I could store things in this getup— and asked, “What is it?”
“It is a sap potion,” he murmured, keeping an eye on Liam. “When it comes into contact with your enemy, it drains their strength, but it is not specific in its targeting. You, too, will be affected if it gets on you, so use it only if you face death or recapture.”
I bit my lip. My aim was better, but not perfect. If I had to use it, it'd have to be close range.
“If you use it on a mage, it will compromise their spelling of raw magic but not their casting of genus magic. So it would not be a good weapon to use against Tresia, but she is not the only powerful warrior there.”
I nodded.
“I pray by Rhytha's mercy you do not have to use it. It can be dangerous and unstable as a potion. It has been known to permanently destroy spelling when it goes awry.”
Great. One more thing that could go wrong. “Thank you.”
“Thank me if we live.” He released my arm and walked to the car, where Liam was giving him a suspicious look.
One more trick up my sleeve— or under my boobs, as it were— was helpful, but it didn't help to ease the knot of tension from ratcheting ever tighter in my stomach.
Tresia (Stone Mage Saga Book 3) Page 13
