“Isla, I think dad would notice if we weren’t there tonight.”
I made a pouty face in the mirror.
“Besides,” Imogen sighed. “On the bright side, this is dad actually letting us date.”
“As if it’s the seventeen hundreds, sure.”
Ilana laughed. “Oh calm down. It could actually be fun, you know. Yeah, there are some douchey princes out there—”
“Some?”
She grinned, rolling her eyes at me. “Okay, there are a lot of douchebag princes out there. But there are some hot, nice ones too.” She sighed. “And like it to not, Iz, we are of marrying age. We can’t hang out in mom and dad’s castle forever.”
“Watch me.”
They both giggled, and Ilana shook her head.
“Well, that’s happening, because that’s our role to play. And it’s not like you have any prospects.”
“I do too.”
Ilana’s brow cocked as she glanced at Imogen. “Oh, really?”
I held my head high, avoiding both of their smirking eyes as I turned back to feign fixing my hair in the mirror. “Yep.”
Imogen snorted. “Like?”
“What?”
She finally caught my gaze in the mirror and gave me a look. “You’re dodging the question.”
“No I’m not.”
“Fine.” Ilana shrugged. “So who’s the lucky man then?”
I glanced down. “Prince Aaron,” I mumbled.
“Speak up.”
I signed. “Prince Aaron, if you really must know.”
My older sisters exploded in laughter. “Prince Aaron of Londaria?” Ilana’s grin was huge across her face. “Isla, that’s four kingdoms over, and you’ve met once.”
“And he was very nice,” I snapped back.
“He smiled at you and held a door for you, and that was once, a year ago.”
“Well that’s nice isn’t it?” I muttered.
“Have you spoken since?”
I didn’t answer Imogen.
“I didn’t think so.” Ilana sighed. “Look, I know it’s not our ideal Saturday night, but tonight’s going be good for you, you know. For all of us.”
“No it's not.”
“You do look great.”
“Well…”
“And there’ll be lots of princes tonight.”
“Maybe I don’t want a prince.”
“Tell that to our father,” Imogen muttered as she stood and checked her hair in the mirror.
I snorted. Yeah, right.
“Hey,” Ilana elbowed me in the ribs and winked. “You might even get lucky.”
Now that was a joke. Under King Lucian’s castle roof, you could be damn sure all three of his daughters were virgins. I had a hard time imagining that changing tonight.
Ilana took one more look in the mirror, smoothing down her gorgeous blue sequined gown and smoothing her perfectly plaited and bobby-pinned blonde hair.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I sighed.
She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, dear sisters. Let’s go find ourselves some husbands.”
Imogen rolled her eye at me over Ilana’s shoulder. “Oh my God, what year is—”
“And if I hear either of you moaning about ‘what year it is’ or if I hear the word ‘antiquated,’ I swear I’m pushing you into the punch bowl.”
I grinned and stuck my tongue out at her. “Fine. Let’s go get this over with."
Chapter 2
Logan
“Drink up, let’s get going.”
Cade glanced at me, his arms crossed over the tuxedo pulled tight across his thick chest. I was nursing my drink, and my best friend knew it.
“Dude,” Magnus, across our little circle from me, paused to finish slugging back the last of his scotch. He leaned back against the stone guardhouse wall, rolling his eyes at me. “I mean no one’s forcing you to—”
Caspian, Cade’s twin brother, quickly shut him up with as slug to the arm.
Magnus frowned, shooting me a wincing look. “Right, sorry dude.”
I just shook my head, gritting my teeth and swirling the scotch in my glass. “Forget about it.”
No one’s forcing me to be here.
I could almost laugh. No one was, and I didn’t have to be there that night. But not coming was another step towards the inevitable. It was one more step into the darkness that was slowly consuming me from the inside out.
No going to that stupid fucking ball that night was one more step towards changing, forever.
“So, gents,” Magnus flashed one of his famously lady-killing grins. “Ready to head in there and see what King Lucian has on the buffet for us tonight?”
We’d been killing time out by the castle’s west gate guardhouse, having a quick drink before we headed in.
Caspian rolled his eyes, and Cade just shook his head. “You’re ridiculous, Mags.”
“Make hay while the sun shines, gentleman. Make hay.”
Even I had to grin at that one. The four of us — all princes of our own respective kingdoms, had been friends forever. After all, we were rich, we were royalty, and we had generations of perfectly selected breeding behind us. We were handsome, built, and cocky as shit, and we reveled in that.
Well, at least we all had been that. They still were. Me? I was dealing with the darkness.
Magnus though, was lately enjoying some heightened notoriety from a tabloid piece that’d just run a month ago on him. Apparently, some blabber-mouth of a duchess has gone to the media to sell the story on her “torrid affair” with our buddy Magnus Jameson. Including his — shall we say — measurements.