The professor had given me all that he could, knowing that his salary depended on the kings graduating, but I was going to have to buckle down for the next few months to pass his damn class.
My father would have a shit fit if I didn’t pass. A long line of Whitehalls had come from Weissmore Academy so naturally he had sent me here to further my education.
Hey, being related to the royal family of England helped out.
But if I failed out of the academy, I would be a disappointment to all of them. I was to follow in my old man’s footsteps one day and I couldn’t do it as a college dropout. And staying another year was out of the question.
That would be a bigger embarrassment, especially without Arthur and Max here. Sure, it would be fun to have another year of partying under my belt, cultivating the sword fighting to an art, but the snide remarks would be there, and my father did not like to be embarrassed by anyone.
Not even his own son.
Sliding into the car, I fired the engine, letting the power roll under me. I fucking loved this car.
I leaned back against the headrest and my thoughts drifted back to Anna and a particular moment in which I knew she was stronger than she looked. Max and I were trying to intimidate her, scare her away from Arthur so that they wouldn’t get too close, but the moment I had pointed that sword in her direction, she had turned into someone else entirely.
Hell, I had liked it. Her saucy mouth, the way her breasts had risen above that black lacy bra; it had all been a surprise to my body and I had nearly lost my façade in front of her. I had wanted to pop all the buttons on her shirt and move to her jeans, to see the surprise in her eyes as I removed all her clothing with a few swipes of my sword.
What would have happened if Arthur hadn’t arrived when he did? The world might never know but the hot-ass fantasy lived in my mind, haunting me more than I liked it to.
“Damn,” I whispered, adjusting my shorts before throwing the car into drive and pulling out of the parking lot. When was the last time a girl had gotten me so turned on without even touching me? I had done everything to make her hate me, yet every time I was around her, I felt myself drawn in just a bit more.
My screen suddenly lit up with my father’s number and I hit the button. “Yeah.”
“You’re in your car.”
“What did you think I would be in, a fucking bus?”
Instead of lecturing me about swearing at him, my father chuckled. “Are you coming home this weekend?”
“No,” I bit out, clenching the steering wheel. This weekend was some sort of high-society event that my mother was throwing, and I knew she wanted me there so she could try to match me with a society debutante that would be an appropriate wife in her eyes. After all, that was how she had met my father. Little did she know, I had no interest in marrying any of them. “Mum will have to use her damn matchmaking skills another time.”
There was only one person I wanted to be matched with and she hated my fucking guts. Well, maybe hated was a bit much. I had been civil to her at times, much more than I had planned to be, and while her words were still biting whenever she was around, I didn’t see the malice in her eyes any longer.
And the few times I had allowed myself to touch her, she hadn’t forced my hand away. That had to be something. Arthur had been a dumbass, pushing her too fast. Besides, he should have known that one or both of us was going to retaliate for breaking our pact.
I had just beaten Max to the punch.
Could I do it? Could I take Arthur’s place? He was a more suave talker than the rest of us, which was why he had gotten to Anna first, but now that he had ruined her idyllic dreams about the kings being the good guys, maybe he had also opened the door for the rest of us.
There was no way in hell I was going to let Max beat me to it. We were closer to each other than to Arthur but in this instance, our friendship was all hands off. I knew he would feel the same, though he hadn’t said much about Anna. “Did you know Kameno well?” I asked suddenly, a thought forming in my mind.
“Kameno?” my father asked, puzzlement in his voice, likely confused by the sudden change in conversation. “What do you want to know about him?”
“I need a copy of his will,” I replied evenly, navigating the car down the slick roads to my mansion. I knew what I needed now to win over Anna and get to my side. I just needed some leverage to do so.
“What the fuck, Royce?”
“Just do it, okay?” I asked, not wanting to explain to him why I needed it. “I don’t ever fucking ask for anything from you.” I didn’t. I had done everything they ever wanted me to do, only taking what they offered, and unlike the others that I shared the academy with, never asking beyond that.
Hell, I didn’t even want this damn car, but they thought I did so I played along, giving them the satisfaction of thinking that they had made me happy.
“I don’t need to,” my father said after a moment. “Kameno loved that academy. I wouldn’t put it past him to turn that damn castle into his own personal treasure trove, with things just waiting to be
