Land of the Beautiful Dead by R. Lee Smith

Author:R. Lee Smith [Smith, R. Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Hot Romance
Published: 2015-10-29T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

Lan woke to the sound of a bottle rolling across the floor after being bumped by an opening door. Each component of each sound—the bump, the roll, the glass bottle, the wooden floor and the carpet that lay over it—had their own significance and their own place of honor in the wine-red throb that was Lan’s hangover.

She dragged her eyes open just wide and just long enough to identify Serafina coming toward her, then let them slam shut again. “I am not taking your shit today,” she said, oh so carefully. She wasn’t sure if it was the words, her head or the air, but something was made of glass today and it was already good and cracked. “If you say one mean thing, I swear on my mother’s boots, I’ll have you impaled.”

Serafina’s approaching footsteps halted.

Lan opened her eyes again, but her handmaiden wasn’t even looking at her. With effort, Lan pushed the blanket back and followed her apprehensive gaze.

Azrael sat before the fireplace, his hands folded over his hard stomach, staring back at Serafina. “That was a curious morning greeting,” he remarked.

Bloody hell, and now she had to think.

Lan pressed a hand to her brow to help hold her thoughts in. “That was…” she said with difficulty, “…a joke. We joke a lot, her and me. About…”

“Impalement.”

“Yeah. Look, I really need you to give me a pass on this,” Lan said, massaging her aching eyebrows. “I’m begging you. Because I am a piss-awful liar under the best of circumstances and these are not they.”

“All right. Granted. Leave that.”

Apparently, Serafina had something. She came to the bed and set it down on the edge next to Lan, then retreated. The smell of greasy sausage and strong coffee wafted up, blessed and infernal all at once.

“I can’t eat that, I’ll die,” Lan mumbled, reaching for the coffee. She sipped a little, swished it around and spit it back into the cup, then pushed the cup to the extreme corner of the tray and collapsed back onto the pillow. “Ugh. My mouth tastes like a bunch of grapes took a shit in it. What’s the score?”

“Five bottles, less perhaps three glasses, mine.”

“Not bad. Where the hell am I?” she wondered, eying the pale pink walls and smirking white angel-babies adorning the corners with a fluctuating blend of amusement and disgust that died when her gaze fell on the wardrobe. There was a gown draped over its open door. A nice gown. A dolly-dress. And not one of hers. “Whose room is this?”

“Chloe’s.”

“Who? Wait, you mean Cassius?”

“You ought not to call her that.”

“You took me to her room?” Her temper surged, carried away by the war drums in her skull. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“You insisted,” he replied calmly. “You said if you were going to be sick, you wanted to do it in her bed.”

“Oh.” She blinked a few times, processing that. It did sound rather like something she’d say. “Was I?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she muttered. “Where’s Cassius?”

“Elsewhere. Are you all right?”

“It’s all relative.

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