Fashionably Fabulous: Book Eleven of The Hot Damned Series Read online

  “Lulu has an awesome rack would have been better,” Lulu chimed in.

  “Or Huhu’s ass is a work of art,” Huhu added, not wanting to be left out of the narcissistic party.

  “Whatever,” I snapped. “What’s done is done.”

  “It’s okay because I am sexy,” Susu pointed out.

  “I still can’t believe the freakin’ secret word is Susu is the sexiest,” I said with an annoyed sigh. “It was supposed to be black raspberry chip.”

  “I think mine is better.”

  Ignoring my Mini-Elf, I checked to make sure Martha and Jane were ready. They were and then some. It was time to go. They had tried to repair their makeup… kind of. From the look of things, they’d just slapped on more to cover the mess the crying had caused.

  “Let’s do this,” Jane grunted, doing an array of lewd moves to warm up.

  “Curtain is in two minutes,” I said, checking my watch as The Kev approached. The excitement backstage had ramped up and equaled that of the audience. The hair on my arms stood up and I said a quick prayer that everyone would stay safe.

  “Well, what have we here?” The Kev asked with a look of surprise on his gorgeous face.

  “Mini-Elves. Three of them. They’re all conceited,” I said, glancing over at the Vampyres to make sure Jane wasn’t naked. I hadn’t even noticed their outfits since their faces were such tragedies. Thankfully, she was clothed… if one could call wearing assless chaps and pasties being clothed. At least they were still wearing their collars.

  “Not what I was referring to, lover.”

  “What are you referring to?” I asked, confused.

  “I believe that would be me,” Satan said from directly behind me.

  “Shit,” I shouted as I whipped around in shock and accidentally covered the Devil from head to toe in pink Fairy dust.

  “It’s lovely to see you too,” the Devil said with a grin. “Pink isn’t really my color, but I think I wear it well. It’s good to see you, The Kev.”

  “I’ll reserve judgment until later,” The Kev replied, shaking Satan’s glitter covered hand.

  “You’re not supposed to be here yet,” I hissed with alarm, scanning the backstage area to make sure only our people were back here.

  “I heard the secret password three times,” Satan said with a shrug. “So here I am.”

  “Me too,” Astrid said with a wide grin as she materialized in a haze of black glitter.

  “Me three,” Tiara said, winking at me as she popped in.

  “Me four,” Lizard said with his ever-present baseball bat in his hands as he appeared in a blast of silver and red Fairy dust.

  He blew a quick kiss to his ladies and then moved his focus back to me.

  “Shitshitshitshit. Astrid can’t be here. She’ll lose her memory and so will Tiara and Lizard,” I said, beginning to freak out. “You’re too early.”

  “Not a problem,” Satan said. “I’ve granted them immunity.”

  “And the price?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at the King of the Underworld.

  We were on my turf now. I might be a mess but I was still in charge. I was well aware that I wasn’t as powerful as Satan, but I was the freakin’ Queen of Zanthia. The Devil was not going to blackmail my friends when they were here at my behest.

  Satan’s laugh wasn’t the least bit amusing. I continued to glare at him. He stopped laughing.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “Congratulations. Your balls are bigger.”

  “My balls are not up for discussion at the moment,” I snapped.

  “Touchy, touchy, touchy,” Satan said with a delighted grin. “Astrid, Lizard and Tiara will owe me nothing.”

  “Seriously?” Astrid asked, looking at her Uncle askance.

  “Seriously,” I said, still pinning Satan with a glare. “If you would like an invitation to return to Zanthia, you will heed my demand.”

  Satan’s laugh made me want to squeal with joy. I was playing in the big leagues now and holding my own.

  “Are you sure you have no Demon in you?” he inquired, enjoying being bested.

  “Actually, at the moment I do,” I answered him cryptically. “However, she’s only hitching a ride for another couple of months. And thank you.” I touched the crystal at my neck and nodded to him.

  “Thank Fate. I’m not that nice,” he replied.

  “I beg to differ, but that’s for another conversation at another time.”

  “Look out,” The Kev yelled and pulled me close to shield me.

  The Fairies, the Vampyres, the hybrids, and even Satan all hit the deck in a panic as a peach colored floral wind ripped across the stage. Monkeys fell out of the sky and three blossoming trees erupted from the stage floor making the performance area look like a miniature jungle.

  “Great fucking props,” Martha yelled as she used Jane as a shield from the violent gust.

  “What the Hell?” I shouted as I raised my hands and prepared to blast whoever had just crashed the party with a tsunami of Fairy dust.

  “No, Gemma,” The Kev insisted urgently, grabbing my hands before I made the mistake to top all mistakes.

  “I’m here!” Mother Nature announced as she appeared in a blast of peach glitter much to the appalled shock of all. “Well, I wasn’t exactly invited—which is extraordinarily rude—but I heard about it, so I showed up! What are we doing tonight?”

  The Kev had just saved my life and probably the entire Universe. My body ached as the severe burning from pulling back the blast roared through me. It wasn’t nice to mess with Mother Nature but it was a freakin’ death sentence to try to blow her up. Dropping to my knees in pain, I pulled my shit together.

  “Umm… we’re killing some Trolls,” I said on my hands and knees, looking up at insanity personified.

  “Sounds fun. I’m in,” she replied, returning the favor and bowing to me.

  That was weird. I was tempted to tell her that I wasn’t actually bowing to her, but I didn’t want her to throw a tantrum. She was famous for those and we had no time to spare. She’d already graced us with a jungle.

  Standing up quickly, I kept going on as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

  “Looking good, The Kev,” Mother Nature said with a wink as she gave him a pinky wave.

  “Thank you, Gaia. You are as lovely as ever,” he replied with a gallant bow.

  “He’s a keeper,” Mother Nature said, elbowing me in the side. “You’re a lucky girl.”

  “The luck is all mine,” The Kev said, putting his arm around me.

  “How romantic. I wish Bill were as demonstrative. I’ll have to have a word with him when I get home,” Mother Nature mused aloud.

  “Are you done?” Satan asked the question I was too polite to ask.

  “Yes, dear. I’m done. How exciting,” she gushed, bouncing up and down. “Killing Trolls, that is.”

  “How many Trolls?” Lizard asked, smacking his bat menacingly.

  “Twenty-eight,” I said.

  The silence was louder than Mother Nature’s entrance. No one said a word. Twenty-eight Trolls was no joke—not even a little bit.

  “That’s a tall order,” Satan said with a raised brow.

  “Your point?” I asked, flatly.

  “No point. Just an observation.”

  “Here’s the deal. No one—and I mean no one—can show themselves until I give my people a fair chance to go to the Light side. If there’s even a slim chance they want redemption, I want them to have it.”

  “How utterly do-gooder of you,” Satan pouted. “I thought you had bigger balls, Fairy Queen.”

  “Her balls are just fine, you little shit,” Mother Nature hissed as she smacked her son in the back of the head as her monkeys screeched with laughter. “If you want an open invite to Zanthia, you’d better get with the program. You are not the boss here.”

  “Was that really necessary, Mother?” Satan snapped.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she replied with a tinkling
laugh. “But it was fun and you’ve skipped dinner in Nirvana for three months straight.”

  “Touché,” Satan said.

  “Enough,” I said without blanching at all.

  Okay, yes—I’d just basically shushed some of the most powerful entities in the Universe, and no, I didn’t care. I was grateful for their presence but I was running this show. No one cared about my people more than I did. No one would fight for their continued existence like I would.

  I’d given my life once and I was prepared to do it again. It wasn’t in the plan, but…

  “Curtain’s going up,” The Kev said as The Shelia ran across the stage in a panic and gaped at the assembled group in shock.

  “What in the Hell?” The Shelia gasped out taking in the powerful and motley crew.

  “In the flesh,” Satan said with a grin.

  “It’s showtime, motherhumpers,” Martha yelled as the curtain rose and the music started.

  “Shit,” I shouted as I waved my hands and created a strong sparkling wind that blew everyone except Martha and Jane off the stage. “Everyone stay out of sight until I call to you.”

  “And the password?” Satan inquired as he stood up and brushed the glitter off his Armani suit.

  “Umm…” I said searching for something there was no way I would forget.

  “May I make a suggestion?” the Devil asked.

  “Will it cost me?”

  With an eye roll that beat any I’d ever produced, the Devil chuckled. “No price.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “BJ,” he said with a grin.

  I grinned right back at the Harbinger of Evil as the crystal at my neck grew warm. “BJ it is.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The roar of the crowd as Martha and Jane twerked their way across the stage was deafening. The girls were on fire. Literally.

  “Son of a bitch,” Astrid said in shock. “Those idiots are about to turn to a pile of ash in front of a thousand rabid fans. What the fuck are they thinking?”

  “They’re not,” I hissed, waving my hand and magically dousing the most idiotic move the dingbats had made in the entire time I’d known them.

  The fans screamed their approval of the fire and then the lack thereof. I just hoped the old dumbasses didn’t have any more death wishes tucked away in their assless chaps. If they incinerated themselves, I would have to go to plan C. I didn’t have a plan C.

  “Do you recognize the song?” The Kev whispered in my ear.

  His quiet voice belied the raging tension in his body. His power had come back and I could feel it vibrate through me. He was on the verge of imploding but then again so was I.

  “No, I’m too busy making sure they stay alive,” I told him, scanning the audience carefully to check no one had moved.

  “Listen to what is happening around you,” he said. “Stay in the moment, Gemma. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Too much is at stake.”

  He was right. My love was usually right. Breathing in his scent, I centered myself. My friends had my back. My people would have a choice. And the Trolls would die. Focus. Stay in the present. Be the Fairy Queen that my people needed—the Fairy Queen I was destined to be.

  “No way,” I said, leaning back onto The Kev as I took his advice and listened.

  “Yes way,” he said, touching my stomach.

  The opening drumbeats of one of the best songs ever written blasted from speakers that pulsated with the groove. My smile grew larger as the dummies each pulled a single black glove from an opening in the back of their pants where their sagging asses were hanging out for all of Zanthia to see. Sunglasses and sequined fedoras completed the look and I laughed with delight.

  “Oh my Hell, they’re going to butcher Billie Jean,” Astrid shouted over the music with a terrified expression.

  “No,” I shouted back. “They’re paying their respects to my daughter.”

  “You have something you want to share?” she asked with a raised brow and a wide grin.

  “So much, dude,” I yelled, watching the perfectly awful beauty unfold on the stage. “Later.”

  “Promise, Fairy Queen?”

  “Promise, Vampyre Princess,” I said, giving her a quick hug.

  “You’d better not fucking die tonight,” she warned.

  “That’s not in the plan, dude.”

  “That’s my girl,” she said.

  The song was perfect and the performance was terrible, but the Fairies in the crowd loved it.

  The Trolls? Not so much.

  The audience sang along and many cried like I would have in the presence of Michael Jackson himself. It was nuts.

  The Shelia had been correct about Fairies being tone deaf. With the Fairy audience members singing along, I wouldn’t have recognized the song if I hadn’t known what it was. It was that bad.

  “One minute,” The Kev said, turning me to face him and staring at me with laser-like intensity and absolute love. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

  “I’m positive.”

  And I was. They had succeeded in killing me once. They were now killing my homeland and my people. It was time for turnabout— and turnabout was Fair-y play after all.

  “And now you beautiful motherfuckers,” Martha shouted through her mic as the song ended. It caused so much feedback I thought the speakers might blow. “It’s time to sit back, relax your cracks, and watch a little movie that will change your lives!”

  “That’s right!” Jane grunted into her mic with Mother Nature’s monkeys draped all over her. “This is going to blow all of your gay-assed minds.”

  I laughed. Hard. The skinny idiots had made me laugh right before I was going out to do the most important and serious thing I’d done in my short new life. Martha and Jane were every kind of awesome and if they didn’t hightail their gorgeous, disgusting sagging asses off the stage, I was going to kick the aforementioned asses so hard they wouldn’t be able to sit for a century.

  “Give a big fucking hand to your Hairy Peen,” Martha bellowed into the mic.

  “It’s Fairy Queen, you skanky ho,” Jane corrected her.

  “My bad, motherfuckers,” Martha amended. “Your Fairy Queen.”

  The arena that had been the home to cheering and screaming fans only seconds ago was suddenly so quiet you could hear a pin drop. My stomach clenched and my mouth went dry, but magic roared through my trembling body.

  Yes. I was the fucking Hairy Peen and the Dairy Spleen and every other rhyming insult Martha and Jane could come up with. But mostly I was the Fairy Queen and I planned to keep the job for a very long time.

  “You’ve got this,” Satan said. “Go show the bastards who’s the boss.”

  “I believe in you, lover,” The Kev said. “Take back what is yours. Free our people.”

  Standing tall and proud, I dropped the Dirty Diana disguise and became who I was supposed to be. My battle wear was Prada. My battle lay ahead of me.

  I was here. I was in the moment. And I had no plans to lose. The alternative was devastating.

  “Good evening,” I said as I walked with confidence I didn’t even have to pretend to have to the center of the stage. “It’s lovely to be back.”

  In the blink of an eye, more than half the massive crowd was on their knees. All of the Light Fairies, most of the Gray and, surprisingly a few of the Dark, dropped in respect. However, the Trolls stayed seated with shock and hatred burning in their eyes. Thankfully no one had made a move in aggression yet.

  “As you can see, I have returned,” I said. “Zanthia is in a state of tragic despair and that ends tonight.”

  Cries of joy came from the right side of the room and growls of fury from the left. With a sharp slice of my hand through the air, I dropped protection walls around both the Light and The Gray. The Dark I simply froze with a chant in a language only very few knew. It was the same language The Corinne had used to weaken me and bring on my death.

  She’d won last time. She would not win agai
n.

  “The law banning Demons was not signed by me,” I shouted to the crowd.

  “It was signed by your hand,” a Troll still in a Fairy facade snarled.

  “Yes,” I agreed with a cold smile. “My dead hand—without my consent.”

  The murmurs of the crowd grew louder. Some doubted—some believed. The Light Fairies blanched in very real fear at the fury coming from the Dark side and the Grays seemed unsure of what to do at all. It was a fucking mess. A land ruled by tyranny and fear was a very dangerous place.

  The Trolls were doing everything they could to break the spell I’d cast. I was aware it wouldn’t hold them for long. It simply needed to hold them for long enough.

  “You have no proof,” came a furious voice from the Dark side.

  “Here,” Jane yelled, running out onto the stage with the severed head of The Ned. “I remembered the proof.”

  “Where did you get this?” I demanded, completely grossed out.

  “Brought it in my purse. Thought you might need it.”

  “Umm… no, but thanks. You can go put that back in your purse.”

  “Roger that,” she said as she sprinted back off the stage.

  Regaining my composure after Jane’s help was difficult, but regain it I did.

  “The time for exclusion in Zanthia is over,” I said, glaring at the left side of the auditorium. “A pure bloodline is sheer madness and doesn’t seem to be working out so well here. I’m your Queen by fate. I am fair by choice. I’m no better than any of you. My power is determined by the happiness and wellbeing of the ones I lead. Divisiveness is deadly… and separating children from families is inhumane. No race of immortals is superior to another. If that’s the way of our future, it will be our end. Only balance and compassion can ensure our survival. The invisible wall that has been built around a dying Zanthia comes down tonight.”

  The cheers grew louder and when one of the monkeys handed me a mic, I took it.

  “There is one court in Zanthia. It’s the Light Court. Differing opinions are welcome. They are necessary. The people’s voices will be heard.”

  “Traitor.”

  “Bitch Queen.”