Princes of Ash (Royals of Forsyth University, #8)

by Angel Lawson

Its long silk train drags behind me as if this were a wedding, and why shouldn’t it be? After all, three men dressed in their finest tuxedos are waiting for me across the room, their heads bowed as each step brings me closer to them. We’re unequivocally bound.

The part where Wicker grits his teeth and slowly drops to his knees? That’s the part Ashby has instilled in him. Defeated compliance. And I savor it. The sight of Wicker below me, the sound of Lex and Pace following suit, the way they all look lined up in front of me in submission… It’s as close to feeling intoxicated as I can get.

“It’s… personal for him. He’s the cat, I’m the mouse. Even if we found every bug, every secret camera, he would have a backup measure.”

Verity Sinclaire can have our father. She can have his name. She can have his precious fucking heir. She can have the Purple Palace, East End, and everything that rots here. But she can’t have us.

Wicker Ashby is so many terrible things. He’s a liar. A womanizer. A bully. A spoiled brat with knives for words. For all I know, he’s an actual murderer. This is Forsyth, after all. But all that knowledge never prepared me for another horrible facet of him. He’s also a cuddler.

but with Lex… With him, I’m just a bug under a microscope. He clicks on the overhead lamp, blinding me. “Do you need me to administer an orgasm?” My eyes fly wide. “What?”

She gasps when I reach out to grab her arms, shoving her down onto the bed. “Hey! What are you—” I clamp a palm over her mouth at the same moment I pin her hips with mine. “Keep your mouth shut,” I growl into her ear. “You’re not on my exam table, Princess. As soon as I walk into this room, I’m not your doctor. I’m your Prince. That means you can’t snap your fingers and demand anything from me.” Her fingernails are digging into my shoulder as she puffs hard, angry breaths against my hand. “If I get you off, it’s because I want to. Nod if you understand me.”

It’s not his gaze that unnerves me. It’s the look in his eye. It never changes. Not when I’m in a ballgown, or when he has me on my knees, or when I’m walking across campus. Not when I look like this—broken down. Pace looks at me the same no matter the circumstances. Like I belong to him.

I skate my lips up her neck, whispering, “Are you hungry?” If she hears the reluctance in my voice, then she can’t possibly understand it. It’s not that I’m unwilling to get out of bed. It’s that I am willing. I’m sleepy and warm, clutching her against me, and Verity Sinclaire could snap her fingers right now and have me racing to the kitchen to make just about anything. In my whole goddamn life, a moment has never felt as perfect as this one.

Want her or not, she doesn’t belong to them. She belongs to us. It’s that primal need that takes over as I approach her. My movements are seamless, taking the backpack off her shoulder with one hand and lifting her chin with the other. Her mouth parts in surprise, and I take advantage, bending my head and sweeping my tongue inside. Her entire body tenses, and her nails dig into my bicep.

She glances at the Mexican place again, mouth twisting hungrily, and then peeks at me. “One burrito hardly seems worth it.” I do a double take, realizing this chick’s seriously down to whore herself out for a burrito. The fuck is Lex doing to her? I raise my chin. “Name your price.”

Just as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end, I hear footsteps racing down the hall. A dark silhouette skids to a stop in the doorway, hand racking the slide of a pistol. “Code purple.” “What?” I ask, trying to catch up. Pace, eyes thin and tense, begins snapping his fingers in my face. “Code fucking purple!”

Pace is dressed much like me, which is to say not. Boxers and a Glock, the outfit of choice for any Prince at 2 a.m.

Looking at her then might be the hardest thing I’ve done all week because I know that look in her eyes. Tired but persistent, weak but fierce, defeated but determined. This is how it gets you. First, it’s the obligations, and then the enemies, people on all sides. One day, my brothers and I just stopped caring about the future because we didn’t have the capacity. Not when all of our energy was spent making it through the week—the day—the hour. Now more than ever before, she has the eyes of an Ashby.

The heat on my skin as we leave the lecture hall isn’t from embarrassment. It’s sheer want. I start to the door, but he grabs my hand, walking straight past Winston, who never stops teaching, to a door behind the lectern. The professor’s office. “In here?” I ask, my voice a squeak as he shuts the door. “They’ll hear.” “Good, they’ll spread the word that the Princess is getting her needs met.”

“I saw you, Wicker—the real you—and everything felt different. You weren’t a monster anymore. You were just…” At first, I think I can't possibly find the words. But he’s so close—close enough to reach out and touch, my palm cradling his pale cheek. “You were sad, and genuine, and scared, and beautiful, and…”

“You were someone I could feel myself falling for.”

I know he wants it. “Do I want to see your mouth on my cock?” He thumbs my bottom lip, eyes darkening when my mouth parts. “Goddamn, Red, I’d probably sell my soul for your hand.”

From the ladder of his abs to the flawless skin, Wicker is just what I told him before. A work of beauty. Reaching for him, I run my fingers over the taut muscles of his lower abdomen. His stomach caves, fingers curling in the sheets. I finally understand what Pace was saying before—the thing about my touch being like a hit of Scratch—because Wicker’s whole face collapses in rapture, breath quickening.

The first touch elicits a sound that startles me. It’s deep and rumbling, nearly a growl, but there’s a plea in it too. I get the feeling I could ask him to beg for more, and he would.

I’ve had brothers for fourteen years, and the way I feel about them is absolute—never a question. But this tightly wound thing in my chest is breathtakingly intense in a way I’m not used to. I’d kill for my brothers. But I’d die for her and our son.

“You were dead the second you touched her.”

“I’ve already told your brother that I have no problem issuing punishments to a Princess, pregnant or not.” He unbuttons his crisp shirt cuff, slowly rolling up the sleeve. “She’ll neither be the first nor last that I’ll have to discipline.” Pace snaps into movement, stepping between me and his father. “You’ll have to kill me before I let you lay a hand on her or our son.”

“Screw you,” I hiss, willing to stand between this monster and Pace. The man who killed for me. The man who, I know, will kill for our son. “No wonder my mother never wanted you to know about me.”

She took the punishment for him—for us. To think, at one point, I’d accused her of being disloyal. Time and time again, Verity Sinclaire has proved she’s the most loyal of us all.

“Pace killed Charlie to protect me,” she says, the expression on her face somber yet knowing. “And she’s more than just a bird to him, isn’t she? She’s… she’s his heart.” Holding my eyes, her head tilts pensively. “It’s like he was afraid of having a soul, so he gave it to her to keep safe. Something untainted that would love him back.”

“This thing between us is too fucking much.” His hand flattens on his chest, over his heart, fingers curling into his shirt. “I spent all those years not letting those people inside. I kept myself safe,” he pounds his fist, “in here. But you showed up in a fancy ballgown, guns blazing, West End wild, taking every fucking thing I threw at you. You were supposed to cry. To run. To make it easy for me to break you. But you didn’t break. You just kept fucking going. And then…” My stomach clenches. “Then what?” His eyes dart to my belly, then back up, making his hair flop in his eyes. “You rescued me.” His jaw tics. “Twice.”

“Because, Whitaker Kayes, despite how hard your father tried, this isn’t a transaction for me. I showed up because I see what you don’t.” With a sad smile, I stroke his cheek. “That you’re worth saving.”

No one’s rescued me before, and they sure as hell have never rescued my brothers. Not until her.

“With you,” I continue, struggling to find the words, “it’s different. It should be different. I want to be completely at your mercy.” I kiss her jaw, dropping my hand to the place where our bodies meet. “You want that, right?” I press my fingers into the slick heat between her legs. “You won’t take more than I can give. I know you won’t.” She shudders. “Never.” So here’s a secret. I give it to her right in her ear. “I want to give you all of me,” my lips brush the shell of her ear, “and I want all of you in return.” Her chest hitches with a gasp, pussy sliding over my cock. “Oh, god.” “For the first time in my goddamn life, I don’t just want to get off, Red.” I trail my kiss to her warm cheek, watching her green eyes flutter. “I want you to be mine.”

Sparing the dahlias a glance, I don’t let myself feel any sort of way about it. It was a joke to grow them here. A way to get a jab in with Father. A taste of irony, knowing that Clive Kayes’ favorite flower is growing in this cursed place, just like I did. One day, these flowers will wilt and die. But the five of us won’t.

Mechanically, he slots the chart back into place, glancing at his brother. “It’s you,” he says, and if someone had told me five seconds ago that I’d ever see light in Lex’s eyes again, I wouldn’t have believed it. But it shines like the fucking sun. “It says Wicker is the father.”

“That child belongs to me. The only way you can stop me is to kill me and throw East End into chaos.” Pace runs his finger down the long, sharp edge of a knife. “Oh, we’re not going to kill you, old man.” “That’s not what Princes do, is it?” I grip the handle tight, giving the floor a testing lash. “Practice,” Wicker says, closing the door, “makes perfect.”