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That’s kind of the point. Let us lean into our beauty. Let them gaze at our long eyelashes and red lips, and while they are gazing at us in admiration they won’t see your claws.
Ah, Esme said happily as she understood. It is not camouflage, it is a trap.
Exactly.
We’re hunting in a dress.
We’re hunting in a dress, I agreed.
Her tail started to wag. She did so love a hunt.
Greg wrapped his arms around me. ‘You look beautiful, Peaches.’ He kissed the spot on my neck that made me croon and I relaxed into his arms. He was dressed in a black suit, but I’d already seen the wealth of weapons he was carrying. He’d also peppered a few on me.
He’d given me some lessons in hand-to-hand combat, though I was definitely not proficient. But how hard could it be to stab someone? The sharp pointy end went into your enemy's body, preferably into a nice soft part like the stomach. Aiming for the heart wasn’t a good idea for an amateur because all those pesky ribs got in the way, but the stomach was easy to pierce and if you made enough of a hole your victim’s insides would eventually come out.
And then we can eat them, Esme purred. I love entrails.
I grimaced. Try not to eat anyone’s entrails tonight.
Only people that threaten us, she promised. That would have to do.
‘Ready?’ Greg asked softly.
‘Yes.’ I smiled, though Jess’s internal lie detector would have pinged. I wasn’t ready; I wanted to run away. I wanted to curl up with Greg while he gave me a PowerPoint presentation with pie charts and Venn diagrams on important life-shattering topics like climate change, economic injustice, and when it was appropriate to interrupt someone while they were reading.
My anxiety was so bad that the urge to grab a laptop and start a new spreadsheet almost consumed me. I was usually good in social situations – great, even – but it was a whole different kettle of fish when the other partygoers were plotting to kill you.
Not everyone wants to kill us, Esme reassured me. Probably only about fifty percent.
Wonderful, I said sarcastically. That makes me feel much better.
Good, she said happily. Let’s go hunting.
My ex, James the succubus, had taught me a valuable lesson about the error of leaving powerful enemies alive. I needed to get my shit together, identify my enemies and convert as many of them as possible into allies. The ones that I couldn’t convert, I’d hamstring or kill.
It’s going to be a massacre. Esme was almost skipping with glee in my head.
Not until I say so, I reminded her. We have things to do first.
Politics?
Politics and attaining a crown, apparently.
She harrumphed but I felt her assent. She’d let me take the driver’s seat – for now.
I relished the feeling of Greg’s steady presence before pulling away to look up at him. ‘I’ll have to dance with other men, you know that, right?’
He nodded. ‘I do.’
‘You can’t kill them.’
‘Not now,’ he agreed. ‘But maybe later. If any of them so much as lays an inappropriate finger on you, I’ll definitely kill them later.’
I smiled. ‘You say the sweetest things.’
We’ll kill them ourselves, Esme growled. Red doesn’t get to have all the fun.
We have to let him have a little fun.
