My Dark Prince (Dark Prince Road, #3)

by Parker S. Huntington

To the girls who taught themselves what love feels like… You turned broken pieces into armor and scars into stories.

I used to live in the shadows, pressed between the crowded pages of somebody else’s tale like a wilting rose. Until he pulled me out of the suffocating paper, showering me with light until I blossomed into the person he knew I could be.

Oliver von Bismarck. My best friend. My secret crush. My first love… And these days? My bitter sworn enemy.

“I get it. It’s hard being so beautiful and smart when everyone around you is average. I have the same problem. We should start a club.”

God forbid they caused mayhem without him, never mind that Zachary Sun had a permanent stick lodged up his ass and Romeo Costa couldn’t find Fun on a map with a GPS, a compass, and Dora the Explorer on speed dial.

“He also found a crate of old-ass books.” “He took books?” “Yeah.” “He doesn’t even read.” “We’re hoping for some smutty scenes.”

“What is your problem?” Seb squinted. “A healthy mix of debilitating anxiety, self-doubt, and delusions of grandiosity.” The bottle swallowed his yawn. “What’s yours?”

Something about her belonged in a fairytale—the early chapters, where life hits the princess like a pile of bricks and she’s on the precipice of discovering what a bad ass she is.

“This is not a fairytale. It’s Satan’s tale.”

She was more lovable than anything on the planet, Nutella croissants included. They were the problem. Not her. Never her.

“Ollie, what am I going to do? It feels like the sky is falling.” “If the sky falls, I’ll hold it up for you.”

Today, she’d introduced me to the dark side of love. A land where every burn she received lashed at my own skin like a whip, her losses became mine, and her aches weighed down my bones.

There’s no mountain too high, no ocean too deep, no planet too far for me to reach you. This is my oath to you. You will always have me. You will never, ever lose me.”

And in that kiss, she sealed my fate. I could never love another. Briar Rose was it for me.

“You know I don’t show up in public with the same woman more than once. People will get the wrong idea and think I’m considering monogamy, Franklin. I’m a fuckboy, not a con artist.”

My heart was all the way across the pond, in Europe, with a girl I hadn’t seen since I was nineteen.

“As lovely as you are—and make no mistake, you are one of the loveliest creatures to grace this godforsaken planet—even I have limits.

I’d never seen Frankie taking anything but her hair care routine seriously,

The truth was, I didn’t deserve any love, remorse, or sympathy from anyone. I deserved hate. And because I couldn’t tell people why they needed to send it my way, I sought it through other means.

Romeo Costa: And is she allergic to basic grammar?

Frankie Townsend: i want to be an influencer. Zach Sun: Who have you ever influenced in this life? Romeo Costa: Except me—to suicide. Dallas Costa: Or me—to murder.

Frankie Townsend: omfg are you not going to help a damsel in distress? Ollie vB: You are no damsel, and I assure you the people around you are the ones in distress right now.

My persona—the women, the money, the glam—was merely a Venetian jester mask, designed to subterfuge my one tragic, fatal flaw. I cared. Too much. All. The. Fucking. Time. If someone managed to burrow their way into my heart, they set roots in there.

“I swear the fire wasn’t even that bad. Besides, how could I possibly know that hair spray is flammable? I’m not a scientist.” Pause. “You knew that?” Another pause. “Well, a heads-up would’ve been great before I smoked pot while glamming up every single day for years.”

Those fingers, like the woman attached to them, were the very reason I floated in this world aimlessly. They were what I’d run away from for fifteen years and counting. Briar Rose. My Briar Rose.

“Well, I never.” Oliver recovered first, plastering a coaxing smirk onto his lips. “Hello, Cuddlebug.”

“I’ve missed you, Cuddlebug.” “Don’t call me that.” “Why not?” “For one thing, I’m not very cuddly anymore.” “Stabbybug?” His eyes lit up as he stumbled backwards. “I can get behind that.”

“You will never be a stranger to me.”

Oliver readjusted the fraternity ring on his pinky. The one I’d given him as kids. He still had that old thing?

I wanted to die there and then. To perish at her feet for failing her.

A moment of suspension passed. Of the guillotine blade hanging in the air. A memory that crashed into me with terrifying force. I remained frozen, unable to move an inch.

There would be time to fall apart. But that time wasn’t now.

“Apparently, blue roses symbolize unrequited love and a deep desire that cannot be attained.”

“I don’t think you understand. I’m so next-level obsessed with you that I don’t even tell my friends about you. I’m such a goner that the idea of other boys knowing about you makes me sick with jealousy. The other day, Romeo saw a picture of you on my screensaver and asked who you were, and I flat-out punched him.” “Hmm.” I reached to kiss his lips. “Toxic masculinity, my favorite flavor in boys.”

“Don’t think about other men when you’re with me.” “Ollie, John Keats has been dead for over two hundred years.” He turned to kiss my bare shoulder. “Still not dead enough for me.”

“Now I’m going to punch you.” “Don’t threaten me with a good time. Every time you touch me is a call for celebration.”

“How’s the sky?” He traced the path the ladybug took up my wrist, referencing what I’d said the night of our first kiss. Since then, he often asked this. “Still falling?” “Not when you’re around.” “Told you I’d hold it up.”

“I was thinking…” I scrunched my nose. “Thinking or fantasizing?” “Both. Always both when it comes to you.”

“That I’m yours. Completely. Unconditionally. Tragically. I will take your hate over anyone else’s love. Your anger over anyone else’s compassion. Your tears over anyone else’s smiles. A moment with you over anyone else’s forever. You’re the one.”

“You’re my one, Briar Rose,” he whispered into our kiss. “And my goddamn only.”

Please don’t get into a vegetative coma. I fucking hate making big decisions. I can barely make up my mind about what I want for breakfast.

“Cuddlebug?” “Hey, Ollie,” she whispered without turning to face me, her voice casual and raspy. “It feels like the sky is falling.” All the pieces inside me that I’d managed to glue together haphazardly along the years fell apart, piling in the pit of my stomach like a ruined jigsaw. I cleared my throat, digging my nails into my palms. “I’ll hold it up for you.”

“You will have all the roses you want, sweetheart.”

“All the flowers in the Americas and Europe combined. The whole world will be short of roses when I’m done decorating our wedding. Divorce rates will go through the roof. Valentine’s Day will be canceled.” “That’s…um, psychotically romantic.

It took ten years to finally admit that my only kink, my only type, was Briar Rose Auer.

“You’re amazing. I’m a menace to society, but we even each other out.”

I had a morbid aversion to monogamy. I wasn’t against marriage, per se. I could even see the merits of it, economically and socially. But I wasn’t dumb enough to marry someone I actually liked.

“By the way, where’s my engagement ring?” “You lost it in the water hazard,” I provided, unblinking. Her cheeks pinked. “Oh, sorry.” “It’s fine. It was a simple $500k ring. I still have my mom’s one waiting for you in the safe.” Someone needed to stop my mouth from talking. “Oh, Ollie.” She squeezed my hand. “I am so glad we’re still together.” I was going straight to hell. And probably rooming with Columbus and King Léopold, too.

“She’d get better support if she were kidnapped by a pedophile ring.” “Well, obviously.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s in her early thirties. They have no use of her.”

Other than Dallas, who was still engrossed in her pastries. And I needed the intervention. Who had a sweet tooth so bad their husband carried food in his pockets?