Page 23 of Veradel
I look like myself, but more exaggerated. My eyelids are a shade darker than my now flawless skin, and my eyelashes are so long I can feel them when I blink. A rosy hue dusts my cheekbones, accentuating the curve of my face. Everything looks natural, just my own face slightly enhanced staring back—except my lips, which are plumped and blood-red.
“This is…” My brain can’t process what I’m taking in. “...makeup.”
“This is makeup,” Vivian says with a nod, looking at me through the mirror with a pleased tilt of her own lips. “Oh, and one more thing!”
She reaches over my shoulder and picks up a glass bottle before she sprays a plume of mist against my neck. I cough at the sweet scent that fills my nostrils, but Vivian only smirks.
“Now you’re ready for your first pack meeting. And when every pair of eyes can’t stop staring at you, Lucan will go absolutely feral.”
We don’t have pack meetings often, but when we do, it’s usually in the old, crumbling town hall, where there’s a room large enough to accommodate all thirty-five of us.
Not all thirty-five of us are here, at the moment, but enough file in that it starts to feel cramped—including some of the younger ones, who huddle in the corner, playing a game with a weighted sock that they bounce around. My father used to tell me that every pack member had their value, no matter how old or small, so I’ve made an effort to invite and include everyone, even if I can’t fathom how they’d aid the conversation.
It doesn’t matter what I can fathom or not. The world doesn’t revolve around my ability to comprehend it. Another thing my father taught me.
My chest pinches as the reality that he’s gone crashes into me all over again. He’s not here. And neither is my mother, who decided to stay back in her little house by the meadow when I told her aboutthe meeting. I don’t think she can bear to attend another meeting where we talk about everything and go nowhere, but something feels different about this one.
Saskia will be here, for one.
If Vivian would do her job and bring her, for fuck’s sake.
My eyes stay glued to the town hall door, waiting for them to show, but every time it swings open, it’s someone else. Soren and Merrick. Ashe. Kyra. Gabriel, keeping his eyes lowered as he scrapes out a chair and slumps in the seat. Taika, hobbling in with his cane.
Gritting my teeth, I whirl to look at the clock hanging above my head, wondering if I need to go check on them. Vivian’s always late, but neverthislate.
Then the hush of voices becomes a wave of silence.
Even the children in the far corner stop laughing.
I turn around, and my blood turns to fire and ice as my gaze slams into the most beautiful woman in the entire world.
Saskia. It’s Saskia, but every feature of hers stands out with startling clarity. Her lips glisten. Her eyes sparkle, fluttering with thick, dark lashes. Even her hair, which is braided down her back, somehow looks more vibrant, like it’s soaking in all the crimson hues in the room.
If that wasn’t enough, everyone else is staring at her, too. I expected wariness and hesitation from them and yes, maybe even some anger. In their defense, I’ve been an asshole the last few months. But too many of them are noting her with obvious signs of awe andinterest.
Hell no. Not on my fucking watch.
As she approaches me, it takes everything I have to stand still and not carve my teeth marks into every inch of her body, mark her as mine, so that there isn’t a question in anyone’s mind. So they know she walks towardme, that she sleeps inmybed, that onlyIcan touch.
Gripping the back of the chair in front of me so hard I feel it splinter beneath my fingers, I slide it out for her. The legs scratch against the floor like nails on the old schoolhouse’s chalkboard.
She smiles hesitantly as she approaches and sits in the chair, unaware of my urge to throw her down on the dining room table and fuck her here and now, just so everyone knows exactly who makes her come. Just in case anyone is daring to think of challenging me for her.
But I can’t. Not exactly the time or place for that. All I can do is murmur hello and remain standing behind her to hide how hard my dick is.
“Hello,” she whispers back. Then, in such a quiet voice even my superior hearing barely catches it, “Everyone’s staring.”
I wish I could talk to her mind-to-mind right now, but I settle for a low growl. “Because you walk in here looking like that.”
Her already-rosy cheeks deepen their hue, and her fingers rise up to touch the chain of the necklace settled against her chest. “Vivian calls it makeup.”
For the first time since Saskia walked in the room, my eyes flick away from her—just for a microsecond—to glance at Vivian. Who smirks at me, of course, as she settles in a chair beside Merrick.
I lower my attention back to Saskia. “Makeup or no makeup, you’re incredibly beautiful, and they’d still be staring like this. But if it makes you uncomfortable, I can always rip out their eyeballs.” I say that last part a little louder, so that everyone hears and abruptly wrenches their gazes away.
Saskia swings her fist back to lightly punch me in the knee as her heartbeat tries to regain a normal rhythm. “Not necessary. They’re going to need all their body parts intact if we want to defeat the Guardians.”
Right. The Guardians. The riot. The whole reason I called this meeting. I need to quit fantasizing about fucking her against the Wall so hard that it crumbles.
