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

by Angel Lawson

“Dungeon twins.”

Oh lord I have a bad fucking feeling 😭

there’s this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I can’t shake. I think it might be misery.

YEA IT IS YOU LITTLE BITCH

Lex would sink into her softness. Wicker would seek out the toughness. But I want it all.

“Verity Sinclaire is the best woman in Forsyth. Wanna know why?” He flinches as I lean in, my stare hard. “Because she’s mine.”

Effie’s voice softens. “Gentle, gentle.” I stroke distracted fingers along her back. “Yeah, that’s our girl.”

Is it always this fake with the Princes and their Princess, or are the three of you just especially talented at ruining good things?”

She doesn’t just look like a Princess. She looks like an Ashby. A real Ashby—blood and bone, fair and prim—and Jesus fuck, it pisses me off that I have to think of my last name as more rightfully hers.

“She’s still our Princess,” Lex says, but I can see the seed of indignation in his eyes. “A Prince always has dominion over his Princess.” I release a bitter laugh. “Bro, when are you going to get it? She was never ours. She’s always been his.”

But Rathbone?” I consider him for a long, silent moment. “I can see that fucker doing it. He’s got a quiet flair for the dramatic. Not that it even matters. We’d need proof to retaliate, and there isn’t any.”

😜😜😜

His legs are tangled up in mine, a thigh thrust up against my core, and he smells sweet and masculine. He engulfs me so entirely that the thought of ripping myself away actually seems unpleasant. None of Wicker’s lies are as awful as this one.

I clamp down on the tangle of hurt inside my chest because it doesn’t belong. Wicker can’t hurt me there. I’d never let him. It was just the moment—that stupid fantasy—of warmth and comfort being shattered so wholly.

“They’ve watered them while you were away.”

“You don’t mean…?” But, of course, he means the Princes. I turn back to the hibiscus, noting the dark soil in the urn. “Why?” “To create is to reign,” Ashby says, as if this is obvious. “Also, I ordered them to.” My stomach swoops with disappointment, even though it’s easier this way.

“watch the bed on the northwest corner. It’s overrun with stinging nettles. It’s best you leave it alone and focus on the rest of the garden. Now isn’t the time for you to test your immune system in any way.”

What’s back there ya FREAK

Stress, I can handle. The way every cell of my being decides to go into stimulus overdrive the second I lay eyes on her? Not so much.

“He doesn’t want us!” Wick explodes, shoving shirts into the duffel. “And we sure as hell don’t want him. We have enough leverage now to buy our freedom. Fuck the money, fuck the cars, fuck this whole fucking life. I mean,” he turns to me, breathing hard, “Lex, what’s keeping us here?” This is not a rhetorical question, I realize. ‘Father’ is my instinctual answer, but I know it’s not true. We’ve been planning to get away from him since middle school. School is a better answer. Graduation is in two months. I’m still waiting to be accepted into a good med school, and running now would be throwing away a decade of grueling commitment. That’s reason enough. But it’s not the one that makes me lunge for the duffel, ripping it from his hands. I say nothing as I dump it out, and I don’t need to. No one knows me better than my brothers. “Her?”

The whole time, I’m staring into the mirror, knowing my brother is watching me back. “Shut up,” I hiss,

My eyes jump up to hers, caught off guard by the realization I’m framing her belly with my palms. And she’s caressing my hair.

“What?” she asks when she sees me staring at her. “Nothing.” I swallow and nod at her jersey. “Wick’s going to lose it when he sees you in that.” She rolls her eyes. “He gets mad about everything.” Mad isn’t the right word, but I’m not about to tell her how it’s really going to make him feel.

Father watches my every move. The way I secure the tubing that attaches the needle to the vial. The way I fill out the label that sticks to the side. How I touch her arm, the way we interact. I know one thing for certain: he can’t know the way I covet her. He can’t know how this process arouses both of us. Because most of all, he can’t know that I care about anything other than the health of the fetus.

A bone-deep urge to take her out of this room tightens in my gut. There’s a part of Rufus Ashby I never thought I’d be able to relate to, but here I am, thinking unreasonable things. Like the three of us running away, but taking her with us, all the while knowing with complete certainty that Father would track us to the ends of the earth to get her back. I know it because I feel the same. If she ran, I’d chase her down, and nothing could stand in my way.

Gotta make sure you’re not plotting a jailbreak, right?” There’s not a touch of humor in Wicker’s voice. I’m starting to think he sees the palace for exactly what it is—a prison.

His mouth moves next to my ear, delivering a rumbling whisper, “You were right before. We made a deal. No sex while Wicker gets his shit worked out. But my shit is that you’re under my goddamn skin. I want to be done with it. Done with you. There’s no treatment for this. There’s no group on campus where I can go to talk about the insatiable need I have to fuck my Princess, and that urge is worse than jonesing for a hit of Scratch.”

He shifts, grinning at me with that handsome, smug face. “I think you fight me because you like it, but deep down, you want to be a good girl, don’t you?”

But as Pace pulls into the palace driveway, the gate sliding open, I feel him watching me. Always watching. 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 want to see every second of her change. Every new inch. Each new curve.

There’s a stretch of silence as I work the oil into her scalp, and then a curious, “Whose hair got glued?” “Lex,” I smirk, shaking my head at the memory. “Wick and I always told him to shave it at the beginning of every year, but he never would. Sometimes I think he keeps it long because it’s the only thing anyone let him have control over.”

I don’t tell her about how Lex would later learn how to do my hair, too. That these twists swinging in front of my eyes are his, spun meticulously by his own exacting fingers.

I’m not Wicker, who’s starved for the release, or Lex, who’s feral for the catch. I’m here to fill the hungry, empty void inside her, and when her eyes reluctantly flutter shut, I content myself with holding her. Enveloping her. Possessing her. I don’t expect to sleep, but I do.

“That’s it,” I hear Pace say, curling over my back to brush a clumsy kiss onto my temple. His whisper is meant for only me. “Such a good girl for me, aren’t you?”

“Oh my god,” I moan, feeling the cream foam on my upper lip. Before I can lick it away, Lex makes a sharp, disapproving sound. Before worry can capture my gut—panic that he’ll take it away—he grabs my chin, tipping my face up. I don’t have time to really think about it when he dips down to push his lips against mine, but I know that it starts out stilted and testing, his eyelashes fluttering as he tastes the cream on me.

Nothing is going onto that hair that I don’t personally approve of.” “Oh.” I glance down at the card, biting my lip. Taking the other girls out of the equation, it really had been a lush experience. “Okay,” I decide, slipping the card back into the envelope. “But only if you’ll come with me.” Pace blinks, his eyes locking with mine. There’s a long pause, and then, “Yeah?” He sounds as skeptical as I was about the coffee. “You’re going to be watching anyway,” I muse, tucking the envelope away. “I’d rather feel ‘watched over’ than ‘spied on.’” His head jerks back, more of those rapid blinks happening. “Really?” It’s as if this thought had never occurred to him, the difference between feeling protected and feeling hunted.

Wicker meets my challenge with a steely smirk. “Danner didn’t get them. I got them myself, from the Ag department’s heirloom seed depository.” I frown, looking the pouch over once again. “What could they be?” Then, my head snaps up. “Oh god, it’s not more roses, is it?” “It’s not roses,” Wicker insists. “It’s a surprise.” I tilt my head, assessing the size of the seeds. “Is it fruit?” Wicker’s eyes bug out. “Do you understand what a surprise is? Jesus Christ.” “I’m just asking—” His hand snaps out, cradling behind my neck, and he mutters, “Just shut up and take it,” before tilting his head and slanting his mouth over mine.

Her laughter carries over, and I frown when I see that the person she’s with is her DKS lackey. It’s not his presence that annoys me. I’m used to him lurking around and adept at ignoring him. It’s the easy smiles they share. The way they laugh together like they’ve got inside jokes. 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.

If I think my brothers are whipped now, the Princess going around braless will make their minds melt.

It’d be a lie to say I don’t put a lot of effort into my looks, but usually, it’s just an enhancement of what I know to be true. I’m a goddamn specimen. So why isn’t she on my dick yet? I check my reflection in the dresser mirror, seeing the hard ladder of my abs, the bulge in my boxer briefs, and my hard pecs. I’ve definitely put on some muscle mass since the season started, and my shoulders are a touch broader than normal. A little nagging voice in the back of my mind—a voice that sounds just like Father—whispers to me. They like you to be lean and unthreatening. Frowning, I flex my chest, wondering why I suddenly feel shitty about new muscle. Even after arranging my pillow and sliding under the covers, it nags at me, face set into a deep frown as I consider this… what’s the word? Insecurity?

He annoys tf out of me the first part of this book but god he makes me so damn sad too😞

Each of us turns off our lamp, but since we both know how this is going to end up, I immediately roll to the middle of the massive bed, reaching out to grab her hip and haul her toward me.

It’s not long though before that nagging thought begins picking at me again. Maybe it’s the dark, or the rhythmic way her chest rises and falls against my arm, or just her, all solid and sweet-smelling and obscenely comfortable. But eventually, I whisper, “Hey, Red?” “Mm?” It takes me a second to form the question. “Am I… too big?” She groans. “Wicker, it’s too late for dick jokes.” “No, I mean my muscles,” I say, frowning. “Do they make me look… worse?” There’s a beat of stillness, and then her head turns like she’s trying to catch my gaze. “Is this about what Ashby said to you a couple of weeks ago?” When I don’t answer, she turns a little more, a little divot in her brow. “Because he was wrong. Sy and Killian Payne are the most muscular people I know, and look at them. They’re Kings.” I scoff. “Yeah, they’re really rolling in pussy.” “They could be,” she insists, her fingers brushing against my forearm. “Muscles mean strength, Wicker. Power. Security. Protection. And that’s hot as hell.”

“Your body is a work of beauty, Wicker. If you had a heart to match it…”

“I’ll rest when I find out exactly who tried to fuck with what’s mine.”

“If someone hurt you or our baby, I’d lose my fucking mind.”

It’s beyond hot. What’s hotter than hot? Scorching? It doesn’t do it justice. Pace groans into his brother’s mouth, only to turn away, instantly capturing my lips. I gladly chase the taste of Wicker on his tongue.

Same gurl

“Ask me to do it.” His voice is strained, clearly close to coming to his own release. He grunts and repeats, “Ask me, Verity.”

😫

Maybe I don’t need to break them apart, but instead, figure out a way to tie us all together.

THATS RIGHTTTT!

“We talked about this.” Eyes narrowing, I walk over to her cage. “If you want to stay down here with me, you have to be nice.” She bobs her little head. “Effie’s a good girl…”

Ballsack says, “Hell yeah, to the victor go the spoils,” and extends a fist. To my shock and deep concern, Wicker springs up to bump it. “To the fucking victor, baby! Now deal me in.”

“I think I see… oh.” Lex adjusts, spine straightening, and he glances at me first. That’s what I’ll remember about the moment, later on—the way his eyes locked on mine before sliding to his brother. “It’s a boy.”

One thing is certain, no one is getting between him and me. Not even his brothers. “Go,” he repeats. “I know you’re both fucked in the head over this, but that doesn’t mean you get to upset her. For everything this means to us, it means a thousand times more to her.”

A grin tugs at his mouth as he assesses the screen. “It really is.” It might be the first time I’ve ever seen him smile a real smile. No bitterness or spite or malice driving it. Just this small, delighted quirk of his mouth. He looks beautiful. I wait for the wave of fear and upset. The doom of reality at knowing I’ll bring another spoiled Royal into this world. It never comes. Instead, I’m struck by a sense of awe, protectiveness, and truth. I just see my baby boy. Our baby boy.

But this time, things feel different. All week, the palace has been quiet, devoid of her little movements through the halls, around her bedroom, the high-pitched incessant chatter of her handmaiden echoing off the vaulted ceilings. More than once, I’ll catch the scent of her perfume and head into the corridor, thinking I’ll get a glimpse of her before remembering she’s gone—back