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“Thanks.”
“Ifeltthat you needed me,” she continued in her cheery breathy voice. “I’m sure of it.”
“Alice, you’rehuman.”
“We bonded, though. Witch thing.” She waved her hand around.
I didn’t think I could bond humans, but I’d accidentally bonded twodraugrto me. Honestly, I really had no idea if bonding a regular human was possible, but on the off chance that Alice was my responsibility, I kept her around.
That, and the queen of thedraugrwas likely to kill her if I didn’t, and I’d feel guilty. I hate feeling guilty.
“Fine. You are the best servant ever.” I grinned up at Alice.
She rolled her eyes at the thought of being a servant. Alice could probably buy the whole block my building was on—and not dent her bank account too much.
“Now,go away,” I muttered.
Alice laughed. She was growing on me, although last week she’d tried to be helpful and used steel wool on one of my knives. I’d explained that I liked the guy who sold me my last sword more than her. I certainly liked my actual friends better, but Alice waved all of those facts away.
“I’m going to do your face.” She opened her bag, designer and expensive, and started pulling out her torture devices. “I was afraid you’d look terrible for the party.”
“The party was last night,” I admitted. Then I closed my eyes, pretended not to be able to think of all the ways my life could be better if I simply stabbed Alice. She took more energy than anyone had a right to do, but my choices were either kill her or keep an eye on her.
Only one of those wasactuallyan option.
“I don’t understand what Eli sees in you,” Alice said, staring at me as if I had become a math problem she might could solve. “Let’s at least get some eyeliner and rouge—”
“Alice, I was injured. I lost a lot of blood and—”
“That’s why you look so pale!” She thrust her wrist between my lips, scraped the skin on my teeth. “Here. Top off.”
I shoved her away, hard enough that she stumbled, even as my teeth descended to bite. “Stop that. I don’t need the taste of your perfume in my mouth.”
My so-called best friend pouted. Perfectly outlined, perfectly painted, smudge free lips jutted out like a child denied a treat.
“I’d be sad if you died, you know?” Alice flopped onto the bed beside my feet. “Tres gets impatient with me. And Beatrice is scary. And”—she darted a guilty look toward the doorway—“I don’t think Eli evenlikesme.”
“You belonged to a hate group opposed tohim,” I pointed out once my teeth retracted. “And you tried to kill me. He likes me.”
“I said I was sorry!” Alice sounded genuinely upset. “And no one told me SAFARI was a hate group.”
“It’s called the Society Against Fae and Reanimated Individuals. That wasn’t a clue?”
Alice patted my feet through the duvet. “I wasn’t enlightened then. I am now. . . but Eli is still so grumpy with me. I like you, now.”
“Alice, honey,” I said, keeping my voice very level. “You tried to kill me just a few months ago. To a faery, that was yesterday.”
She stared, blinked, and finally whispered, “Hetimetravels?”
I opened my mouth, and then I closed it without saying a word. What was there to say? If she wasn’t really as gullible as she appeared, this was the longest con ever. Her stepson, Tres, swore she’d been exactly the same since they were in school together.
Yeah. She went to the same college with him and then married his dad. Of course, my own parents were a special sort of wrong, too. My deadbeat dad wasn’t even alive, much less anywhere within range of my mother’s age, when I was conceived.
Alice wandered away while I was thinking. Honestly, I wasn’t recovered enough to deal with her. I could hear her, presumably washing her wrist from the sounds of the bathroom sink.
“She’s willing to help you,” Eli said when he walked in. “I had her delivered here—"
“She’s not a take-out meal.”
