So when Flint told Macy and me that we’d need a fancy dress for the first night of Wyvernhoard, I didn’t realize he meant we needed a freaking ball gown. Not that I would have been able to do anything about it on such short notice anyway, but still. It would have been nice to be mentally prepared, instead of spending all night tugging at the hem of my dress that’s way too short for a ball gown event.

The dress Macy’s wearing is also a little inappropriate for the banquet, it turns out, but it’s better than mine.

“Try something new,” she’d urged back when we were packing in our dorm room. “Be bold, shake things up.”

So I did, and now I’m wearing a red halter top with almost no back and a skirt made of wide horizontal stripes that hugs every single curve I have and still only makes it to mid-thigh. If I was going clubbing in Manhattan, I’d fit right in. But as yet another woman walks by the open door of my room in a floor-length gown, I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick out like a sore talon once we walk into that ballroom.

In my defense, the dress looked a whole lot more innocuous hanging in my closet than it does covering up my curves.

“Stop pulling at it!” Macy hisses at me as we move into the bathroom to stare at ourselves in the wide mirrors. “You look gorgeous.”

“And underdressed,” I hiss back.

“Way underdressed,” she acknowledges. “But that’s not our fault; that’s Flint’s fault, so he can just own it.”

We’ve got about an hour before we’re supposed to meet the guys, but honestly, looking at myself in this definitely inappropriate dress for a formal event, I’m thinking I might just hide in my room instead. I look over at Macy, and I can tell she’s considering the same.

I’m about to just say it when there’s a knock at my open door.

“I’ll see who that is,” Macy says and disappears. A few seconds later, she gives a high-pitched squeal, and I go running out of the bathroom to stare slack-jawed as rack after rack of the most beautiful ball gowns I’ve ever seen are rolled into my room and placed against the far wall.

“Miss?” One of the staff presents me with a small white envelope.

“Thank you,” I say and take it, my hands shaking so hard, I fumble the envelope twice before finally pulling out the note card with its masculine scrawl.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I already know who this is from—of course I do—and if he put something mushy on the card, I don’t know what will happen. Those moments in the dungeon were enough to set my heart pounding into overdrive. I don’t know if I’m ready to take things any further emotionally than that.

I know we’ve been moving toward something ever since our kiss. We both know it. But my walls are still too high for anything more than snark and heat to get through, and I’ve been hoping that he’ll understand that.

If he doesn’t, I don’t know what’s going to happen.

I take another deep breath, then blow it out slowly even as Macy implores, “Just read it already!”

So I do. And then I laugh my ass off. Because this is Hudson at his finest and of course—of course—he knows what I need. He always has, even when I don’t.

Underwear and glass slippers optional.

—H

“What does it say?” Macy asks excitedly as she tries to peer over my shoulder.

Yeah, no way am I going to read this card out loud. “It’s from Hudson. He wants us to feel like Cinderella.”

I walk over to my backpack and slide the card into the front pocket—the exact pocket where I’d impulsively stashed my birthday diamond before we left Katmere.

“Oh my God,” Macy squeals again, and I look up to see her holding two identical dresses. “He sent every dress in both our sizes!”

Of course he did. Ridiculous vampire prince that he is.

I try to pretend that I’m not melting into a puddle of goo, but it’s not working—especially when my knees go weak and I’ve got to sit on the edge of my bed. How am I supposed to resist Hudson when he does stuff like this? It’s one thing to send his mate a dress. I could tell myself it was so I was fittingly attired to accompany the vampire prince. But he sent every dress at Bloomingdale’s and got the sizes right for both me and Macy, too. My eyes mist despite my best intentions.

The jerk.

But Macy doesn’t give me a minute to process. She’s already in motion, dashing over to me and yanking me back to my feet.

“Get up! We only have forty-five minutes,” she says, “to pick out a dress that’s going to knock that vampire’s socks off!”

I look over at the racks of dresses and square my jaw. He really thinks he can just give up on creeping past my barriers and do something so thoughtful that it blows them to smithereens? Well, not on my watch, Hudson Vega. Not on my watch.

Two can play this game…

80

Armani Make

You Mine

“Let’s go find the guys and see if Eden made it back from Brooklyn yet,” Macy says as we leave my hotel room.

My stomach jumps nervously as I smooth a hand down my dress. I can’t wait to see what Hudson does when he sees it.

I chose this dress for two reasons, the first being that it’s absolutely beautiful and fits me like a dream. In the front, the soft scarlet satin hugs my curves perfectly until it reaches my knees and flares out to the floor in a deceptively demure silhouette. It’s strapless, but the bodice with its tiny little V is still structured enough that it gives me the support I need without making me feel frumpy or too overtly suggestive. The moment I put it on, I felt like Goldilocks—like I had found the dress that was just right, the dress that makes me feel sexy and powerful and ready to take on the world, even if that world includes the sexiest vampire prince ever born.

The back being a little over-the-top just makes everything better. Hudson decided to come after my heart tonight with this little move, and I’ve decided the only response I’ve got is to take no prisoners. And this dress, with its deep, deep V back is going to hit him somewhere a little lower than his heart…

The second reason I chose the dress is that of the dozens Hudson had sent to the room, only this one is Armani. It’s a dare, pure and simple, considering I am 100 percent positive he’ll be in an Armani tux tonight. Some dares are meant to be accepted. And some are meant to be eaten by the person who makes the dare.

This is definitely one of them.

I glance over at Macy, who is wearing a loose-fitting, one-shouldered chiffon dress in every color of the rainbow. It’s light and airy and so, so bright that it makes my heart ache just to look at it. To look at her and think that finally—finally—Macy is finding her way back.

Eden wasn’t around for my total meltdown with Flint earlier because she’d gone to visit her aunt and cousins in the Brooklyn for the afternoon, after swearing that “a pack of rabid wolves couldn’t keep me away from tonight’s hoard!” Macy and I had fun picking out a dress for her, though, so she wouldn’t feel awkward tonight, either. We left it in her room, but now I’m dying to see how it looks on her.

We round the corner into the ballroom and find ourselves right next to the side door where Flint, Luca, and Hudson are waiting. I freeze, because just as I feared, all three are looking unbelievably good in their very appropriate tuxedos. And all three’s eyes pop out of their heads as they take in my red dress and Macy’s rainbow one.

Flint’s signature grin is gone as his eyes meet mine, and I open my mouth to apologize for what happened earlier. Except the words stick in my throat—there was a lot of truth mixed in with the seething rage—and I basically just end up squeaking.

Flint, in the meantime, nods to Macy and me before turning around and holding the ballroom door open for us. Luca gives a fortified smile and says, “You ladies look gorgeous.”

As for Hudson, he hasn’t moved since Macy and I arrived, and I’ve apparently left all my courage back in my hotel room, because I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze.

Desperate to flee all the awkward and weird feelings rolling around in the hallway, I keep my head down as I start toward the ballroom door.

Behind me, Hudson’s breath whooshes out of him all at once, and I can’t help grinning. Looks like my plan was as successful as I’d hoped.

I’m feeling a whole lot more confident as I take another step toward the ballroom, at least until Macy steps forward to block my way. Then she leans in close and whispers (in a voice I swear is loud enough to be heard in the back of the ballroom), “Shouldn’t you let your mate escort you in?”

Before I can say anything or murder her, she takes Luca’s offered arm and walks straight into the ballroom, a bright, excited smile on her face.

“Ready?” I ask Hudson, cheeks flushed at her blatant reminder about the mate thing after what happened earlier between us.

“Damn straight,” he growls softly, and instead of taking the arm I offer to him in Macy fashion, he slides his arm around my waist and rests his palm at the small of my totally bare back. Then he leans in close and murmurs, “I was really hoping you’d pick this dress.”