Chapter 27

The day of Mateball, there was a knock at my door at eight in the morning. Loren was dead asleep in her bed. The knock woke me up slightly but I figured I was imagining things. It wasn’t until the second, louder knock that my eyes opened. I begrudgingly slunk out of bed and opened the door. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was seeing things correctly.

Standing in front of my door were two extravagantly dressed people. The one on the right had spikey black hair that curled around their face but also stuck up straight to the ceiling. They were dressed in all sorts of leather and silver chains. They cracked their gum at me as their eyes ran over me.

The second person was more masculine. They had on a pin-stiped pantsuit, that ended slightly below their knees, and shiny silver cowboy boots. Their hair was wild and wavy yet still looked perfectly coiffed. They wore a pair of matching silver sunglasses. They reached their black-painted fingernails up and ripped them off before giving me the same look as their partner.

“Oh, Heavens and Hells,” they whispered under their breath. They turned their head to look at their partner in the eyes. “Maja, we have a lot of work to do darling.”

I rubbed my eyes again. “Sorry, can I help you?”

“We’ve been sent to help you with preparations for the Mateball,” The person with spikey hair, Maja, said. They gave me another look up and down. “Pietha’s right. We have a lot of work to do.”

“Um,” I started. I heard Loren start to stir behind me and immediately froze. I stepped out of the door, closing it slightly behind me. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Did the Queen send you?”

The person in the suit, Pietha’s, lips curled into a smirk. “She send her regards, darling,” they drawled. Then they punctuated it with a wink. “But don’t worry. We were told to keep it on the DL.”

I felt the panic that was starting to rise in my chest expel out my nose in a sigh. My shoulders sank down to their normal level. “Thank God.”

“Yes, yes,” The suited person waved. “Anyways, I’m Pietha Robins. Stylist to the stars of the wolf world. He or him, please,” he jammed a thumb towards the spikey haired person. They wiggled their fingers at me.

“Maja Porter,” the spikey haired person said. “She or they if you will. I’m a MUA and hair artist.”

“MUA?” I repeated. “Hair artist?”

Maja snorted. “Well I can’t say hair dresser,” they said. “My work is far superior to that.”

“Zora?” I heard behind me, all grumbly and full of sleep. I turned and saw Loren had finally gotten out of bed.

“Oh, sorry,” I said and propped the door open a little bit more. “My, um, hair and make up people are here.”

“For tonight,” Loren walked up to the door. When she took in Pietha, her eyes shot wide and her jaw dropped.

“You’re – you’re –”

Pietha rolled his eyes. He looked back at me. “This is the reaction I wanted from you.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m not exactly versed in wolf pop culture.”

Pietha said nothing and pushed past both me and Loren and into my room. Maja followed behind, toting in a giant cart of stuff after her. Loren was still slack jawed standing next to me.

“Did you hire them?” she whispered.

I shook my head. “They were a gift,”

“From the lady who found you?!” Loren whisper yelled. I bit my lip and nodded. Loren shook her head in amazement. “She must be high up in order to get Pietha Robins to come to Alpha Academy.”

“Ladies,” Pietha drawled from inside my room. Loren and I turned and looked into our room. Maja was already unloading cartons of make up and hair tools. Some of them I’d never even seen before. Pietha stood next to them, hands on his hips.

“Are we starting or not?”

“We?” I said as Loren squeaked out the same word. She had gone deadly still.

“We? Nosotros? Nous?” Pietha drawled. “What other language would you like me to speak it in?”

“So, you’re doing hair and make up for both of us?” I said, slowly as I wrapped my hand around Loren to hold her still.

“Yup,” Maja said with another crack of their gum. I swear Loren almost fell over. Had my hand not been there, I think she would’ve. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, with only squeaks of the beginning of the words coming out. I patted her gently on the shoulder before pushing her towards the chair that Maja had set up.

“She says thank you,” I said as Loren fell in the chair, eyes still darting back and fourth between my two personal employees. I shook my head with a half laugh. I sat on the edge of my bed as Pietha and Maja went to work.

It took about two hours of work and Loren was done. They curled the bottom of her blunt white-blonde hair so that it tickled her cheeks. The rest was pin straight. They used some stunning purple shimmer on her eyes that made them pop out of her head.

Pietha had picked out a stunning white and gold gown for Loren. It was mainly white with shimmering gold thread in the fabric. There were several gold appliques that swooped around her collarbones. He complimented it with massive gold chain that wrapped tightly around her neck. She looked absolutely beautiful.

“This is insane,” Loren said staring at herself in the mirror. “This day is insane. This is insane. You are insane.”

Pietha smoothed the fabric on her shoulder. He hummed lightly. “You’re welcome, darling,” he said. “I do my good work on blondes.” He glanced towards me.

“But I do my best work on redheads,” he said with a wicked grin.

I cringed slightly. Loren hopped up from the chair and swung me into it. She held onto my hands as she looked me in the eyes.

“Next time you see this magic woman,” Loren said softly as she squeezed my hands. “Please thank her from the bottom of my heart. For both finding you and for this absolute treat. I will never, ever forget it.”

I smiled at her softly and squeezed her hands back. “Of course,” I said.

Loren bounced back up and started towards the door. “I have to call my mother,” she said. “We’ve been fans of Pietha for ages!” Her cheeks rouged slightly as she said it, looking at Pietha behind me.

“I’ll see you at Mateball, Zora!” Loren called over her shoulder as she ran out of the room. Then, I was alone with Pietha and Maja. I swallowed thickly as Maja swung her hair around so I was facing her.

“Now what are we going to do with you?” she drawled.

I swallowed again before I was swarmed with brushes and curlers.

I don’t know how long as I was in the chair but the sun started to set as Pietha finally let me up. He then bombarded me with seven different dresses that, I thought, were all in the same color. According to Pietha, I was more suited for a deep moss than a Kelly green.

Then, he laced me up sixty seven thousand different ways. I felt my skin and bones be pulled the plumped and pushed into position. Then, he went at my hair, straightening it from it’s wild tangle of curls into a sleek ribbon of red. Maja then went in and pulled and wove it behind me. In the end, only two of the sleek red ribbons still hung in front of my face.

Maja and Peitha were grinning from ear to ear as the finally spun me around. I was met in the mirror by the most beautiful version of myself I’d ever seen.