comment Niall had made about her, and it fit this woman to a T. Obviously in command of her surroundings, aware of every nuance in the room, she was practically a feminine mirror of her husband. When her gaze turned to Alanna, she lowered her own on instinct, barely suppressing the same compulsion to kneel.
“Yes, ma’am. It would be my pleasure to help.”
“It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate,” Chloe assured her. “I mean, look at me. I’m a flower child throwback. My dress is way fancier than I am, but a girl’s got to dress up sometime. Look at you, you’d be gorgeous in a sack. Tyler went running with Evan before dawn—yeah, they’re complete freaks, but Tyler is so hot, how can you argue with that workout schedule? Anyhow, Marguerite said Evan and Niall are so into you, but it’s not just because you’re pretty. They’re not that simple. You have that ‘other’ quality that makes Evan’s gears jam. With the way his brain is, that can happen, but what’s funny is she sees it in Niall the way Tyler saw it in Evan. They’re over the moon about you.”
While Chloe chattered, Marguerite guided her back to the stool and directed Gen to bring scissors, comb, brush and other hair accessories. From Gen’s significant glance, Alanna understood that, though Chloe was normally quite talkative, wedding nerves were taking it to excess. Fortunately, erratic hand movements and head bobbing from animated conversation were no deterrent to Alanna’s hairdressing skills.
She’d handled preparations for vampires in the middle of heated political discussions, including scenarios that had ended in bloodshed. As a servant, she had no right to request stillness, so she’d learned how to make the most of brief pauses of motion and anticipate unpredictable movement where she might otherwise stab her subject in the eye or worse, hack off a piece of hair. A vampire female knew the eye would heal immediately, but the hair would take several days to grow back. In such a situation, a servant paid a higher price for injured vanity.
Since Chloe was unlikely to backhand her in the face and knock her into the wall, this would be easy. She had to quell the inappropriate desire to ask her to elaborate on what Niall or Evan had said, though. Of course, humans engaged in extraneous talk, social niceties to make things flow. But Chloe didn’t seem the type to do that. Over the moon . . . The unexpected heat in her cheeks wasn’t unwelcome. Just confusing.
The girl had beautiful, unruly hair, but Alanna had a lot of experience in dressing hair, as well as a knack for it. Thinning the girl’s bangs so she had a pretty spiked fringe framed by her lustrous curls, Alanna used a silk ribbon for a hairband. It gave her hair an artful wildness. The ends of the ribbon trailed down her bare, soft-skinned shoulder since she was dressed only in lacy white bra and slip right now.
Delighted with it, Chloe hugged her, then was towed off by an impatient Gen and other attendants to put her strapless dress on, since they were in a thirty-minute countdown to the wedding itself. Alanna could see the dark rose and gold streaks of impending sunset out the room’s window. Evan would be up soon, and she’d be able to see both of her males in tuxedos. Her heart beat a little faster, even as she wondered at her possessive thoughts.
Last to leave, Marguerite paused and examined Alanna with pale blue eyes. “Well done. Thank you, Alanna.”
“It’s my pleasure to serve, ma’am.”
“That’s quite obvious.” Another few moments of scrutiny, then Marguerite stepped closer. Placed a precise hand on Alanna’s shoulder. That Mistress quality thrummed through Alanna’s skin, keeping her still beneath Marguerite’s touch, her eyes down. She had an elegant French manicure. “Evan is an unusual friend, but a good one,” the woman said. “Tyler said you are only in his care for a short period of time. I suspect Evan wishes it could be much longer.”
“So do I.” She was getting bad about blurting things out. The two men were ruining her training. The fact that she was blaming them for it, rather than her lack of discipline, underscored it. But she didn’t regret the words.
“Sometimes the deepest wish comes true, even when it seems the most unlikely one to ever be granted.” Marguerite nodded. “I’ll hope that for you. I’m also glad you’ll be joining in our festivities tomorrow night.”
“Thank