Divine by Choice Read Online Free Page A

shining length of fabric Alanna presented to me. “I think they make a great couple, and who cares that he’s younger. Something tells me any centaur who Victoria loves is going to need to be young and highly athletic.”
    We laughed in agreement. I wrapped the towel around myself and sank down onto the padded seat of my vanity chair, relaxing into Alanna’s expert hands as she tried to tame my wild red hair.
    â€œI seriously need a trim.” I mentally calculated…I’d been in this world for almost six months, and I hadn’t had my thick curls trimmed for several weeks before I’d been yanked over here. Man, my hairdresser, Rick, would have an apoplectic attack if he could see me now. Rick always said, “Girlfriend, I don’t know why you’d ever let a woman touch your hair. They’re in competition with you, so they just look for hateful little ways to make y’all look like shit. I don’t mind if you look fabulous. We’re not, shall we say, dipping out of the same punch bowl.” You have to admit he had a point.
    â€œWomen do not cut their hair.”
    I snorted, remembering ClanFintan saying something very much like that several months ago.
    â€œLet me clue you in, my friend.” I spoke to her reflection in the mirror. “There’s nothing wrong with a little snip-snip once in a while. I swear I’ve seen more split ends in the past six months than I have in the past decade. You’d think we were at a Pentecostal retreat.”
    Alanna didn’t say anything. She was becoming used to my out-of-this-world babblings. Apparently she enjoyed the excitement now that she trusted me not to bite her head off. And, yes, I mean that literally. I’m telling you, Rhiannon was not a nice girl.
    I contemplated silently how I was going to go about mass hair trimmings while Alanna finished my hair and makeup. When I had first awakened in this new world, I had felt awkward about Alanna waiting on me. Because she is the mirror image of my best friend (in any world), Suzanna, it felt somehow, I don’t know, blasphemous, to allow her to coif me, clothe me and coddle me. But I have come to the realization that I am Alanna’s job. She’s technically my slave, but that’s ridiculous and I called bullshit on that as soon as she told me about it. So now I tell myself, and everyone else, that she’s my personal assistant and I let her have her way with me.
    Okay, I admit I like the attention.
    And Suzanna always was great at everything that had to do with being a Lady. She had to be. She’s Southern Mississippi born and raised, transplanted in adulthood to Oklahoma (which they don’t consider a part of the True South). And being a Lady of the South must be some kind of crossdimensional-genetic-imprint, because Alanna definitely did Dixie proud.
    Alanna squeezed my shoulder, signaling that she was done with my coiffure. I stood and held my arms out while she wound a shimmery piece of golden silk around my body until it hung in beautiful folds, accentuating my deep curves and long legs.
    â€œHold this while I find that new brooch.”
    I held the slick material together at my left shoulder while Alanna dug through a pile of gold and sparkles that pooled on my vanity.
    â€œHere is it…” She held a brooch out for my inspection. “Is it not exquisite?”
    â€œOhmygod, it’s beautiful!” I breathed a long, sincerely jewelry-loving sigh.
    It was a golden miniature replica of my husband—a plunging, centaur warrior—complete with a diamond-handled claymore, which he held before him in both hands, streaming hair (or mane, whichever way you wanted to look at it) and plenty of muscles (both horse and human). It looked so lifelike that for a moment I thought I felt it quiver. And in this world, you never know.
    â€œWow—” I peered down at the brooch as Alanna pinned it into place “—it