Fashionably Dead and Loving It (Hot Damned #14) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,8

groan when I sang ‘You Are My Sunshine’ in the key of Z, but I was fully aware he secretly loved it. I was creating happy memories that may or may not send him to therapy. At least he didn’t cry like my second-grade class had when I sang.

“I’m not gonna do it,” I admitted, gazing longingly at the chips and salsa. “I think I was just hoping I could taste it for a second. The pain would be worth it.”

“I feel ya,” Martha said, picking her fangs with my comb. “I miss Spam, onion and blue cheese sandwiches somethin’ awful.”

Jane found a shade of polish she liked and shoved it into her booty shorts. “I miss them Vienna cocktail weenies and prune juice. Used to keep me real regular.”

In the space of two minutes and three seconds, I’d lost a comb, a bottle of nail polish and was gacked out beyond reason. If Martha didn’t take the comb with her, I was burning it. They were gross.

Martha cackled. “You don’t need prune juice anymore, dumbass. Your shitter got plugged up the day you died.”

“You got that right! No more praying to Jesus to help me drop the kids off at the lake when I’m constipated and sweating like a hooker in confession on the crapper,” Jane agreed, stealing a few more bottles of polish.

“Is there a reason you two imbeciles are in my closet?” I asked, ignoring every word Jane had just overshared. If I acknowledged it, I’d be forced to incinerate her to ash. With a snap of my fingers, I sent the chips and salsa away. It was far too tempting to have them in front of me.

“Yep, there’s a reason,” Jane confirmed.

“Absofuckinglutely,” Martha added, whipping out a pile of magazines and slapping them down on the now snack-free antique table. “I think we have some sphincters to dislocate.”

“Mmkay,” I said, glancing down at the pile.

My blood began to boil. Dead Buzz was on top, but I spied a copy of the Daily Fang, the Bloody Times and the National Dhampir. When I was human, I occasionally read the celebrity gossip magazines knowing they were filled with bullshit. However, I never gave them much thought. Now that I was dead, I despised them. Vampyres were vicious. The stories were completely fabricated and mean as all get out. And I was their favorite topic.

Finding where the magazines were housed was next to impossible. I’d tried. Ethan told me to ignore them. It came with the territory of being a royal. But they adored Ethan and his family, while they terrorized me.

Picking up the copy of Dead Buzz, I stared at the shitty drawing of me sitting on a throne coupled with an article about how I had no taste in fashion. The cartoon was insulting. Of course, there were no photos in the fucking rag mags since Vampyres didn’t show up on film, but this illustration was particularly heinous. My nose was half of my face and my hair looked like a red-streaked bird’s nest.

“Unreal,” I hissed. “I mean, I have plenty of bad qualities those sons of bitches could harp on, but my sense of fashion is not one of them.”

Martha nodded. “Next to me and Jane, you’re the best-dressed dead person we know.”

I said nothing and quickly sat on my hands, so I didn’t zap her. She was trying to be nice. Martha was woefully mistaken considering that she was wearing what amounted to a low-rent stripper outfit, but it was the thought that counted here.

“Want us to kill ’em?” Jane offered.

I was seriously tempted to say yes, but there was no way in hell that I would. Flicking my fingers and burning the pile of crap, I shook my head. As good as it would feel in the moment, in the long run it would suck. I was a target for many reasons. Being royal was only one of them.

“Nope,” I said. “No killing, but I wouldn’t mind if you tore a few new butt cracks.”

“The technical name for butt crack is intergluteal cleft,” Martha informed me.

“What did you just say?” I asked, squinting at her.

“My bad.” Martha cackled and slapped me on the back. “I forgot how dumb you are, Chesty Honkerburgers. Let me explain.”

Jane smacked Martha in the back of the head and sent her flying into my Chanel bags. They had about three seconds before I electrocuted them and sent them back to Hell.

“Martha, who was dropped on her head multiple fucking