Page 65 of Fallen Stars
Elara snorted, nudging her. The three waited for Merissa to finish before she stepped out of Elara’s shadows too.Howwere her two best friends so beautiful? Merissa’s golden skin looked like it was actually glowing, so much of it on show, as though the starlight trapped in her veins was breaking forth. An olive green two-piece similar to Elara’s skimmed her, catching on her full hips and drawing the eye there and to her ample cleavage. Elara spared a look down her own, a frown appearing. Isra was right. They had definitely gotten smaller these last months.
“Right,” Merissa said, ignoring Eli’s slightly ajar mouth as she made her way to the other women. “Eli, remind me what you need me to do.”
Eli straightened a cufflink. “You are going to have to glamour Elara and remain near her, Merissa. You know the plan. Isra, you’re to distract outside of the room.”
Isra grinned. “Always my forte.”
Merissa frowned as she raised her hands elegantly in front of Elara. “How am I to make her look?” she asked Eli, her manner still cold with the Star.
“She needs to look like the other girls that go in there. Nothing that will stand out, not a facetoobeautiful.
“And what about Isra and I?” Merissa asked. “Should I use my magick on us? Ariete saw us both that day.”
“Ariete has a private room. Any other gods that may be there don’t know what you look like, so Isra will be okay outside. But Merissa you’ll need to glamour yourself now, ready to be front and centre during the little performance you’ll have to give.”
Merissa nodded, her jaw set. She closed her eyes, hands raised elegantly as pink starlight began to glow around her. When the light dimmed, Merissa had glamoured her hair a deep red that matched the stripes in Ariete’s hair, the curls piled high on her head. She’d also adjusted her face, just a tweak here and there to subtly change her appearance.
Isra’s hazel eyes twinkled with excitement.
“You really shouldn’t look so gleeful, Iz,” Elara muttered.
“Just thinking of all the beautiful, scantily clad women I’ll be surrounded by all night,” she replied.
“You can tell you grew up with Leo and Enzo,” Elara replied drily.
“Elara?” Eli interrupted. “Ready?”
Merissa swiped over Elara’s face a few times, a look of concentration on her own as she tweaked Elara’s appearance. Elara felt her hair shorten, saw it lighten in the strands that blew around her. She felt a small prickle behind her eyes as they changed colour, the stretching of skin as her curves filled out.
“What do you think?” Merissa murmured to Eli. He came closer, inspecting her with narrowed eyes, tilting her head this way and that with a finger under her chin.
“Make her lips a little smaller, and then I think it’s perfect.”
Merissa nodded, waving her hand. “Better?”
“Much. Ready to go, Elara?”
Elara nodded, worrying at her lip. She was unusually quiet, nauseous as it dawned on her quite clearly that she would be facing the god who had nearly killed her love. That if she didn’t succeed, Enzo would die. So much rested on her shoulders, and Merissa seemed to sense it, clutching her hand and squeezing it tightly.
“You are brave and strong and capable,” she said quietly, her green eyes wide in earnest—the only part of her still familiar. Isra came to clutch her other hand. “And you are afucking dragun,” Isra added, a small smile on her face.
Elara laughed, the fond memory of Enzo as they had fallen off the cliff together helping to calm her as she linked Isra, and they set off down the street.
“To your left,” Eli murmured, slinging an arm around her shoulder as they grew closer to The Ruby. She shrugged off his breath on her ear, feeling nauseous again. It should be Enzo’s hands wrapped around her,hisbreath caressing her neck as it had when they had chased the Helion lightset in front of them.
“Elara, if you show so much disgust every time I touch you, they’re never going to think you’re a Ruby dancer.”
“Eli, has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re not all that attractive, and that perhaps some mere mortalsdon’twant to fall to their knees and worship you?”
Merissa made an amused sound as Isra roared with laughter.
Eli smirked. “No, never.”
“Isra, swap with me,” Elara said, ducking under Eli so she was at the end of the line, linking Merissa.
As they turned a corner, a deep red light flickered from lampposts outside a nondescript building in a quiet cobbled street. Higher class restaurants seemed to surround it, the folk milling around, dressed to the nines, gentlemen in the Castorian high fashion of top hats and tails sauntering into the place.
“Here,” Eli whispered. “Showtime.”