Once Amber had picked out the underwear and pointed to a few dresses she liked as inspiration—and had been certain I wouldn’t balk at being asked to remove my clothes—she’d taken a seat and was fiddling with her phone. Now, she had her text messages open and wasn’t paying attention to my procedure.
Before, I believed that was the reason for the dwarves’ disappearance, Zav continued, but it has been several months now since our clan defeated the Silverclaws, and there has not been a war or anything that should be worrying the dwarves overmuch, so I am no longer certain that is the reason for their continued hiding. Also, I must go with you. There are dangers on all the worlds, even the relatively civilized ones, and you need a guide.
I sensed Zav landing on the roof, and Amber looked up. She ought to be able to detect his aura too.
The seamstress removed one fabric swatch and replaced it with a slightly different shade of white. “Oh, that’s nice. Yes.” She wrote a few notes on a clipboard.
“How much longer will this take? My fiancé is coming.”
“He wants to be involved in your dress fitting? That is unorthodox but sweet. Of course, he cannot see you in the final dress until the big day, as that would be unlucky. I won’t show him my sketches.”
I sensed Zav striding through the front door. We were in a private area in the back, but he walked straight through the curtain and into view, the familiar power of his aura flowing over me and, as always, making me tingle with awareness of his presence.
“Oh, my,” the seamstress said, taking in his chiseled jaw, elegant black elven robe, and… the yellow Crocs that Thad had lent him, assuring Zav they were lucky. It was unclear whether the Oh, my had been for his handsomeness or the strange shoe choice.
Why, oh why, did Zav have to find Crocs comfortable? I wondered if Amber would help me get some footwear custom-made for him and if he would actually wear it.
Amber stood up and stuck her phone in her pocket, then didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She’d stopped calling Zav scary and weird since he’d saved her from that fae guy, but the only time she seemed comfortable around him was when she was too busy picking out jewelry to notice his aura.
Not that Zav noticed her aura either. Not at the moment. He was busy ogling me.
“This is what you will wear to the wedding? It is excellent. I can see much of your flesh.”
The seamstress drew back, her mouth forming a scandalized O. “That’s her underwear.”
“Technically, it’s your underwear,” I told her.
“Actually, you bought it, Val.” Amber smiled at me. “To go with your future dress. You can pay on your way out. I picked out some shoes for you too. You need to wear them for the dress fitting so we make sure you won’t trip over your hem.”
“The dress is going to be long enough that I need to worry about that?” I didn’t return the smile. I was too busy wondering how I would kick someone in such a long dress. With the guests that Zav was inviting, a brawl or two was inevitable.
“You’re not getting married in Vegas,” Amber said. “You’re not supposed to show off your legs.”
Maybe I should have taken my mother’s advice and eloped to Las Vegas after all.
“The legs are nice.” Zav stepped forward and slid a hand down the outside of my thigh.
That roused a tingle that promptly had me thinking bedroom thoughts, but I swatted his hand away. “No fondling in front of family members, please.”
“Ew, Val.” Amber wrinkled her nose. “Nobody says fondling anymore.”
“Groping?”
The nose wrinkle grew more pronounced.
Zav clasped his hands behind his back and turned to regard her.
Amber straightened her nose—and her face—and stuck her hands in her pockets.
“Offspring of my mate,” he said, “you are schooled in the ways of human fashions?”
The seamstress’s mouth made that O again. Or maybe she was mouthing human.
“You can call me Amber. Uh, what do I call you?”
“I am Lord Zavryd’nokquetal.”
“Val calls you Zav,” Amber pointed out.
“Yes. I allow this familiarity because she is my mate. And she has a tongue impediment.”
Amber looked at me. “Is that like a speech impediment?”
“No. It means my brain and my tongue agree that his dragon name is stuffy and hard to pronounce.” I tapped the seamstress on the shoulder. “Will you give us a minute?”
“Yes, I believe so. I’ll… go select a garter.” She hustled through the curtain.
“Sindari and Freysha call him Lord Zavryd,” I suggested to Amber while wondering if that garter was for me or for her. If I wore anything on my leg, it would be Fezzik’s holster.
“What’s up with the lord?” Amber asked. “Do you own a lot of land or something? Are you like an English nobleman? Or a knight?” Her eyes brightened, as if being a knight would be quite romantic.
“My mother is the queen of the Dragon Ruling Council and commands all of dragondom throughout the Cosmic Realms.”
“Doesn’t that make you a prince?”
“No.”
“It’s a dragon thing,” I told Amber. “Just call him Zav. Or Zavryd. He’ll allow it because you’re my daughter and you managed to select an engagement ring for me that makes me a better cook.”
“Yes.” Zav beamed pleasure at me. “You have smoked ribs in anticipation of my return?”
“I keep the smoker going around the clock, filling the entire block with scents of slowly cooking pork.”
“Excellent.”
“I’m fairly certain the vegan neighbors want to leave angry signs on my door or perhaps toilet paper the house, but the dragon topiaries you regrew with impressive speed force them to stay on the sidewalk.”
“Excellent,” he repeated. “The new topiaries have sturdier root systems than the last ones. They will be extremely difficult for assassins to destroy.” His eyes narrowed. “And we will not invite your meat-hostile neighbors to the wedding.”
As a carnivore, Zav had been extremely perplexed when I’d explained the vegan movement to him. He hadn’t been at all amused when I suggested he try tofu sausages because one never knew… one might like them. Not surprising from someone who incinerated the breading whenever we got chicken strips from drive-through restaurants.
“Given that you’re planning to serve carcasses, that’s a good idea.” I planned to have a variety of salads for my elven kin, but I doubted a table of greens would be enough to remove the taint of heaping piles of meat nearby.
“I must discuss the wedding with you.”
“Let me put on my clothes. I think the seamstress got all the measurements she needs.”
“For the first fitting,” Amber said as I hopped off the platform and headed for my clothes.
I eyed her over my shoulder. “First fitting? What does that mean?”
“She said there would be four to seven.”
“Four to seven fittings? For one dress?”
“It’s your wedding dress, Val. You want it to be perfect.”
I looked at Zav, wondering if he would care if I grabbed a dress off the rack. What did it matter if it was a little short and my ankles showed? My ankles were sexy, damn it.