Fashionably Dead and Loving It (Hot Damned #14) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,1
over the centuries and hadn’t paid one cent toward the human world we lived in. I called bullshit. It hadn’t made me very popular, but it was the right thing to do. I had Ethan’s backing and his father the King’s support as well. Plus, if any undead idiot wanted to take me on, I’d hand them their ass on a silver platter.
Even though all magical species were unknown to humans, it didn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make the freaking world a better place. We lived forever. It was the ethical and honorable way to go. Of course, the law was despised by many of the undead, but I wasn’t running for Miss Congeniality.
“Did you memorize your song?” Nana asked, gently tucking my wild dark hair behind my ears and pinching my cheeks to give me a bit of color.
“Are you shitting me?” I choked out. “I have to sing? No one told me I have to sing. I can’t sing a fucking note.”
“Everyone can sing,” Nana promised.
“They can?” I asked, doubting her wisdom. She’d clearly forgotten that I’d been asked to silently move my lips at the second grade Spring Jubilee because my warbling made the entire class cry.
Nana nodded and handed me a large feathered fan. It was about four feet wide and just as tall. It was embedded with fist-sized, blood-red rubies that matched the streaks in my hair. The fan was surprisingly light for its size.
“Use this, Astrid,” Nana insisted, pushing me out onto the stage. “It will cover your nudity.”
“My WHAT?” I screeched as I tripped out onto the very well-lit stage to gasps and laughter from the thousands in attendance.
Why I had chosen fifteen-inch Prada heels was beyond me. I didn’t even realize Prada made fifteen-inch-high stilettos. They should really stop doing that. The shoes were almost impossible to walk in. While I was a sucker for fashion, I’d apparently chosen my footwear very poorly today.
Not to mention, I’d forgotten about the rest of my outfit.
“Who did I fuck over in a former life for this to be happening?” I hissed as I quickly adjusted the fan to cover my bits that should not be on display.
Glancing around wildly for Ethan, I spotted him in the front row giving me a thumbs up. Why was he in the front row and not up on the stage with me? And why was he wearing sweatpants? It was a formal affair, and my man always wore Armani. I had little room to talk, being naked and all, but Ethan was the dang Prince. Even stranger, Satan was sitting on his lap eating popcorn. They didn’t like each other. Satan was forever pilfering Ethan’s office supplies. They only tolerated each other because of me.
But the most alarming visual was Martha and Jane. The two profane, mostly bald, undead idiots were seated to the left of Ethan wearing the latest Prada haute couture. Considering they usually wore boob tubes and booty shorts, I didn’t know what the hell to think.
“You can do it, Astrid,” Mother Nature shouted, hanging from a giant crystal chandelier about three hundred feet off the ground. “I believe in you, and I baked you a cake!”
While the sentiment was lovely, Mother Nature couldn’t cook to save her life. She was also a certified nut job, and she was naked. Maybe I wasn’t underdressed. Whatever. It was too late to do anything about it. Marching to the ornate throne in the middle of the stage, I seated myself and kept my fan placed strategically in front of me.
The chanting started softly and grew louder. It was horrifying. The stage went from stifling hot to frigid as the yelling reached a fever pitch.
“Sing, sing, sing,” the Vampyres bellowed.
This was a fucking nightmare. I was naked. I was wearing horrible shoes. And even though Nana had said everyone could sing, I knew she was gravely mistaken.
Satan had fallen asleep in Ethan’s arms, and my mate carefully carried my uncle to a massive coffin that appeared from out of nowhere in the audience. The coffin caught fire the moment the Devil’s body was placed in it. Under normal circumstances, that would alarm me, but Uncle Fucker adored the flames. He slept right through it.
Besides, the circumstances were anything but normal…
Finally, the blaze abated and Satan snored so loudly the sound could wake the dead. The irony was we were all already dead. And sadly, no one was sleeping. They were all staring at me and chattering away.