by Madison Faye
1
Isla
I gasped as the corset top tightened, glaring at my sister in the mirror.
“You did that on purpose.”
Ilana grinned at me, her big blue eyes twinkling mischievously as she finished pulling at the back of the dress.
“A little.”
I stuck my tongue out at my oldest sister as she finished lacing up the back and stood back, appraising her handiwork.
“Well, you can thank me now, because you look hot.”
I made a face in the mirror, glancing at the pile of dark blonde hair balanced on top of my head, the perfectly applied makeup around my dark eyes and full lips, and the — admittedly — gorgeous gown that now flowed down from my exposed shoulders like a yellow and gold chiffon waterfall.
Okay, yes, I looked fantastic. I looked beautiful. I looked poised. I looked put together, and regal, and like a perfect porcelain doll ready to be placed on a shelf. I looked exactly how a princess should look.
Which is exactly why I frowned at what I saw in that mirror.
I hated having to “look the part,” and I definitely hated having to go to things like the ball tonight.
Our father, the reigning King of Avlion, finally acquiescing to our mother’s complaints, had finally agreed that it was high time for Ilana, Imogen, and I to start finding suitable matches for marriage.
High time indeed.
I was eighteen already, Ilana was three years my senior, Imogen two, and we’d never even been on a normal date. Because no, chaperoned, forty-person dinners, lawn parties, and balls don’t count as dates.
But that was changing. King Lucian, our father and lord of our kingdom, was finally looking for eligible men of the right means and pedigree to marry his daughters, and tonight’s ball was our grand unveiling. And not just us, either. There were a number of eligible princesses that were now at marrying age who’d be joining us in this ridiculously antiquated function. It was silly. I mean, we did live in a kingdom, in a castle and all of that, but that didn’t mean we had to pretend we were in King Arthur’s time or something.
Well, tonight we did, apparently. Tonight, we’d pretend we didn’t live in the age of the internet, and dating apps, and Facebook, and instead we’d spend the evening dancing with eligible princes, to a string quartet, in gowns.
Welcome to the 21st century, right?
And the other thing of it was, this whole princess thing was all lost on me. On Ilana though? Well on my older sister, it fit like a freaking glove. She had the long blonde tangles, the big blue eyes, the perfect waist-to-hips ratio, the dainty demeanor — all of it. She knew when to curtsey, when to “demure” her eyes, when to use the right titles, or the right serving forks.
In short, she was the ideal princess. I mean, honestly, the fact that I’d never walked in on her having a singalong with woodland creatures actually shocked me.
But me? Well, let’s just say I’d never mastered the curtsey and I had no idea which fork to use, for anything. Ilana fit the part — she played the role perfectly. But I’d known young the whole “princess” thing was going to be a sticking point with me. I preferred the library to the ballroom. I preferred bare feet to heels, jeans to gowns, and a quiet night curled up with a book to one spent twirling around with handsy, rich, pompous windbags trying to marry their way into my father’s titles. Not to mention my bed.
Yeah, no thanks.
“You two ready to go yet?”
Imogen stuck her head into my room. God, that dress looked amazing on her. Chartreuse green with gold trim which played off her fire-red hair perfectly and made her emerald green eyes pop.
“Oh, c’mon, Isla, maybe try smiling tonight?”
I rolled my eyes at both of my sisters, doing my best to hide the grin. In spite of both of them being “perfect” princesses, I knew neither of them was thrilled about all this either. It wasn’t Ilana’s fault that she’d been born blonde, and and blue eyed, and knowing when to say the right things. Just like it wasn’t Imogen’s for being born taller than either of us, with crazy long legs, perfect cheekbones, and killer wavy hair. They just both fell into the role we all had to play a little more naturally than I did.
“Can’t we just skip this, go lock ourselves in the media room, and watch movies and stuff our faces with ice cream all night?”
“I am so down for that,” Imogen groaned, sinking onto the corner of my bed. “Tonight is going to blow.”
Ilana groaned. “Don’t tempt me, cause I would totally blow this off if I didn’t think mom and dad would kill us if we did.”
I giggled. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“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 t
he punch bowl.”
I grinned and stuck my tongue out at her. “Fine. Let’s go get this over with."
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.
The story had run, and had re-dubbed Magnus “Prince Magnum.” Needless to say, the guy was reveling in his new name.
…Of course, I knew for a fact that I had a solid inch on dear Prince “Magnum,” but I wasn’t about to go write a fucking tabloid story about it.
“Hey, chill, Mags,” Cade muttered, glaring at our friend as he pulled a joint out of his tux. “Dude, put that shit away. This isn’t spring fucking break, this is a serious deal.”
“Oh, and I’m very serious about the whole thing, dude.” Magnus winked. “I’m very serious about seeing which ‘eligible bachelorette’ I can fuck so good tonight that she’ll be walking bow-legged tomorrow.”
Caspian snorted, rolling his eyes again. “Jesus, Mags.”
“You’re aware of King Lucian’s reputation, correct?” Cade growled. “This is a formal event, buddy. Keep your cock in your fucking tux tonight. And maybe let’s not break the fucking drugs out on Lucian’s fucking castle grounds.”
“Alright! Alright, Jesus,” Mags sighed. “Fine. Let’s go in there. Now if Logan here would just finish his fucking drin—”
“I AM!” I roared, suddenly slamming back the scotch and dashing the glass on the cobblestone walk. I whirled, and before any of them could even react, I had Magnus by the collar, slammed back against the wall, and one of my fist raised back.
I saw red. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to punch one of my best friends in the world through the goddamn wall.
…And I barely knew why.
I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in a breath. I exhaled slowly, hanging on to the real me, still deep inside.
Barely.
Slowly, I let go of his tux and took a step back.
“Sorry,” I muttered, looking away from all of them. “Sorry.”
“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 thr
ee 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.
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.