“It’s cool, man,” Magnus said, his voice gentle this time, without his usual bravado bullshit. I felt his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off
“It’s not,” I said quietly. “It’s not cool.”
“For real, don’t worry about it.” I glanced up at him, and he just nodded and smiled. “I coulda taken you anyways.”
I grinned back. We both knew that was complete bullshit, but it cut the tension.
Cade cleared his throat. “You in control?”
“Yes,” I growled.
Mostly.
“Lotta pretty girls in there, bud. You going to be okay?”
I glared at my friend. “What am I, twelve?”
“You know what I mean.”
He meant would being around that many nubile young princesses, and that many tantalizing glimpses and flashes of smiles and suggesting eyes might turn me.
They all worried about this, any time I was going to be around women after my curse.
…They couldn’t know how wrong they were.
It’d been four years since the curse — since the witch, or sorceress, or whatever the fuck she’d been. I’d thought she was just a girl at a bar I’d gone to incognito — trying to get away from my princely duties and all that shit for one damn night and just go have some random fun. I’d been chasing fleeting beauty that night, and she knew it.
Which is why she’d cursed me.
She’d cursed me to turn further and further away from the Prince I’d once been, and more into short-tempered, barely able to contain himself, barely in control of the animal inside, monster.
A beast.
You’d think that an array of gorgeous princesses looking for suitors would be just the damn thing to set me off. You’d think it’d be like setting a wolf loose on the lambs.
You’d be so very wrong.
I’d barely looked at women since then — zero interest. And this was me we’re talking about. Back before, I’d been famous for my exploits. I’d been legendary in my conquests of royal princesses and queens and duchesses, of movie stars and models and all of that crap. And though I didn’t want to step on Magnus’s parade after the article, he seemed to have forgotten the many tabloid stories that’d been written about what I was packing between my legs.
I’d been a legend, and for four years now, I hadn't even given a second glance to any girl.
It’s like the curse that brought the beast out in me had also left me too cold-hearted to even want the company — even of something meaningless.
So no, tonight was not going to be a problem. The only problem was figuring out how to spend as little time in here as possible. I was being forced to come tonight — and by more than just the worry that not coming was journeying further down into that darkness. Because however shut off I’d been, however isolated, and however removed I’d been for the last four years, my duty was still my duty. I was the reigning Prince regent of Torsund. This meant I was the guy in charge, even if I wasn’t quite king yet. That would come with marriage, because up north, that old rule persisted.
No king without a queen.
So that was the other thing forcing me to be here. I had a kingdom under my control, and I still needed to act the part — even if most of my subjects were more than aware of the state of their regent. At some point, I needed a queen in order to properly lead.
…Even if she was just there to act the part. After all, besides me not being interested in women, I couldn’t imagine a woman being interested in the brooding, dark, prone to anger, prone to heated temper man I’d become.
The truth was, I was barely hanging on. It still didn’t mean I wanted to be there that night though.
“It won’t be a problem, Cade,” I said, calmer now, more me. I glanced around the circle of my three friends — the only three really that had stuck with me since that night four years before. “Let’s go in there and get you three laid.”
Caspian rolled his eyes.“It’s not like that, man.”
Caspian and Cade Charming, ever the two good little prince charmings with their pretty-boy smiles, those blue eyes, and those perfect flops of blond hair. It was like being friends with two Ken dolls sometimes, I fucking swear. It didn’t help that that was literally their fucking last name: Charming.
“It’s supposed to be—”
“Right, a suitors ball,” I said with a small chuckle, frowning as I used my boot to push the pieces of my scotch glass to the side of the walkway. I shook my head, spitting. “Gonna find your fucking soulmates tonight, right boys?”
The three of them grinned warily, clearly not so sure I was in control, and not sure if I was being funny or glib.
“I’m joking, guys.”
Magnus grinned. “Well in that case, let’s head in there and find some soulmates.”
He punctuated his words by thrusting his hips lewdly, before Cade and Caspian both punched him in the arm and started off for the main castle entrance.
A soulmate. Right.
I’d buried the possibility of that deep inside a long time ago. That wasn’t in the cards for me, not anymore. Love was a fucking sinking ship — a sunset being swallowed by the sea over the horizon.
…I just had no idea how fucking wrong I was yet.
Chapter 3
Isla
I saw him the moment he stepped in.
It was impossible not to, of course, since he was enormous, but still, it was like a magnetic force.
Huge.
He was huge. Like, too big to be a real human huge. Dark, brooding, and kind of scary looking to be honest. Dark eyes, furrowed brow, strong, clenched jaw, broad shoulders, and a barrel of a chest.
And yet, as scary and dark and storm-cloudy as he was, there was something that just drew me to him. I couldn’t look away. He was gorgeous, in this broken, tragic way, even if the longer I looked the more I knew how much I should look away.
“And what’s got your eyes?”
I started, quickly looking away. “Nothing.”
Ilana smirked and glanced at Imogen and our friend Adele — Princess White, and vaguely a cousin by marriage from the neighboring kingdom of Berne, who did the same.
“Right,” my sister said thinly. She snickered at Imogen and Adele again before she glanced over my shoulder. Her eyes suddenly wide.
“Oh my God, Isla! No.” She shook her head, her face white. “Were you seriously looking at Prince Logan Anders?”
Imogen’s jaw dropped, and Adele’s hands flew to her mouth as they both craned their necks to stare. I swallowed the heat from my face, as my eyes went as wide as theirs.
“That’s Prince Logan?!” I hissed.
They all three nodded, eyes wide and fearful.