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“I’ll happily settle for someone who isn’t a pain in my ass.” I say it under my breath with the hope that Liam will drop the fucking subject. The last thing I need is any of these guys taking a closer look at my love life—or lack thereof.
“Then you’re definitely overreaching, Owen.” Liam huffs quietly, holding out an arm and counting off on his fingers. “Compatibility is measured by three things. Can you have a conversation with her? Can you have a meal with her? And do you come when you fuck her?”
I turn my attention back to the manicured lawn, trying to ignore the chuckles from Sterling and Wilder. Near the center, a band of fire dancers are setting up. There are bonfires out there too. Underlings are busy lighting them in preparation for night.
“Does Ada check all those boxes?” I ask dryly.
Liam smooths a hand down the front of his aqua Brioni jacket before tossing back the last of his thirty-year-old whiskey. “If you count her picking at a low-carb, gluten-free salad aseating, then yeah, Owen. She checks all the fucking boxes.”
“How’d you know?” Oz frowns through the shock of brown hair that’s fallen forward from his carefully styled fauxhawk. “You said you were waiting for your wedding night.”
“She’snot,” Sterling says through a chuckle as a rueful smile pulls at his mouth. “Rumor has it Mr. Kelly’s T.A. has been banging her the past two weeks.” He flicks his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes, puffing at his joint with the lungs of an experienced smoker.
There’s a hushed moment where we’re all waiting for Liam to react. Oz and Wilder visibly relax when he simply shrugs. “The wedding is six months away. Ada can install a revolving door in her cunt for all I care.”
He stands, cocks his head toward the lawn where the fire dancers have begun their first performance, and slides a stag skull mask over his head. It should look ridiculous, but somehow the empty eye sockets and sharp antlers add gravitas to his already somber expression.
The rest of us stand and don our own Wendigo masks.
It’s time for the Royals to descend from their thrones, and Liam for one seems eager to join the fray. He’s probably planning to even out the score between him and his betrothed, Ada Fairchild.
Everyone tries to find a little levity in the death throes of summer, the days before term begins and we’re all caught up in our mountain of college and personal responsibilities.
As host of the Summer Burnout this year, Liam leads the way, taking us downstairs through the hallways of his mansion and onto the dance floor, the thumping heart of the party.
Everyone else is masked now too, even the servants and performers. That’s what tonight is all about—anonymity. You can be anyone you want… even a Royal.
Walking across the dance floor feels like entering an alien world, the eclectic bouquet of sweat and deodorant and weed hanging in the air, thicker than the smoke billowing out from the fog machines. Erratic strobe lights splash garish brightness over the dreamy, intoxicated faces gathered all around them.
The music.
It’s an incessant thumping, like the primitive, animal pulse of some monstrous extraterrestrial being.
When I walk into this kind of chaos, the part of me that begs for order and control disintegrates… but only for a short while.
Sometimes, it comes back twice as strong.
The crowd parts for us, eyes widening behind their bone masks when they recognize us. Girls prefer daintier masks—cats or birds—and usually decorate them with glitter and metallic paint. But most of the guys are either wearing wolf or dragon skulls. Liam being the pretentious cunt that he is has someone monitoring the college kids that still want to enter. If their masks aren’t up to snuff, the coat check girl gives them a new one to wear.
As we pass, girls yell and grab at our clothes, begging us to dance with them—a sure sign that more than one GHB-spiked bottle has already done the rounds. Thankfully Liam’s mansion has several guest beds, else people might start fucking in the hallways.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened anyway.
The other Royals bask in the attention. Oz grabs whatever tits and ass come within reach, and Wilder pulls a girl to one side and starts grinding with her in time to the pounding beat.
I wish it was that easy for me. That I could wink at any of these girls, lead them to a bedroom upstairs, and indulge in any one of my many dark urges.
But my reputation can’t take another hit after what happened with Penny. Too many people in Pinecrest have started whispering behind my back, calling me a monster. I must make sure my mask is always on. Not this Halloween-esque Wendigo skull, but the serene expression I wear around campus and everywhere else I go. I let it drop for a second with Penny the other night, and it terrified her so much that she ran out of the room and called the police.
I won’t make the same mistake twice. Ican’t.
So when my shirt is tugged for the hundredth time by a girl Iknowcouldn’t endure the things I’d want to do to her, I’m done.
Turning on my heel, I push back the way I came, heading back into the bowels of the Bailey estate.
Sterling shouts after me, then Oz, but neither follow. My friendsknow better. They should, after being on the receiving end of my temper so many times in the past.
I’m Owen Dalton. Pinecrest will belong to me one day… but only if I can convince this town that I’m not a monster with an insatiable appetite for violence and degradation like they think I am.
It’s a big fucking ask.
