Caspian rolled his eyes, and Cade just shook his head. “You’re ridiculous, Mags.”
“Make hay while the sun shines, gentleman. Make hay.”
Even I had to grin at that one. The four of us — all princes of our own respective kingdoms, had been friends forever. After all, we were rich, we were royalty, and we had generations of perfectly selected breeding behind us. We were handsome, built, and cocky as shit, and we reveled in that.
Well, at least we all had been that. They still were. Me? I was dealing with the darkness.
Magnus though, was lately enjoying some heightened notoriety from a tabloid piece that’d just run a month ago on him. Apparently, some blabber-mouth of a duchess has gone to the media to sell the story on her “torrid affair” with our buddy Magnus Jameson. Including his — shall we say — measurements.
The story had run, and had re-dubbed Magnus “Prince Magnum.” Needless to say, the guy was reveling in his new name.
…Of course, I knew for a fact that I had a solid inch on dear Prince “Magnum,” but I wasn’t about to go write a fucking tabloid story about it.
“Hey, chill, Mags,” Cade muttered, glaring at our friend as he pulled a joint out of his tux. “Dude, put that shit away. This isn’t spring fucking break, this is a serious deal.”
“Oh, and I’m very serious about the whole thing, dude.” Magnus winked. “I’m very serious about seeing which ‘eligible bachelorette’ I can fuck so good tonight that she’ll be walking bow-legged tomorrow.”
Caspian snorted, rolling his eyes again. “Jesus, Mags.”
“You’re aware of King Lucian’s reputation, correct?” Cade growled. “This is a formal event, buddy. Keep your cock in your fucking tux tonight. And maybe let’s not break the fucking drugs out on Lucian’s fucking castle grounds.”
“Alright! Alright, Jesus,” Mags sighed. “Fine. Let’s go in there. Now if Logan here would just finish his fucking drin—”
“I AM!” I roared, suddenly slamming back the scotch and dashing the glass on the cobblestone walk. I whirled, and before any of them could even react, I had Magnus by the collar, slammed back against the wall, and one of my fist raised back.
I saw red. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to punch one of my best friends in the world through the goddamn wall.
…And I barely knew why.
I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in a breath. I exhaled slowly, hanging on to the real me, still deep inside.
Barely.
Slowly, I let go of his tux and took a step back.
“Sorry,” I muttered, looking away from all of them. “Sorry.”
“It’s cool, man,” Magnus said, his voice gentle this time, without his usual bravado bullshit. I felt his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off
“It’s not,” I said quietly. “It’s not cool.”
“For real, don’t worry about it.” I glanced up at him, and he just nodded and smiled. “I coulda taken you anyways.”
I grinned back. We both knew that was complete bullshit, but it cut the tension.
Cade cleared his throat. “You in control?”
“Yes,” I growled.
Mostly.
“Lotta pretty girls in there, bud. You going to be okay?”
I glared at my friend. “What am I, twelve?”
“You know what I mean.”
He meant would being around that many nubile young princesses, and that many tantalizing glimpses and flashes of smiles and suggesting eyes might turn me.
They all worried about this, any time I was going to be around women after my curse.
…They couldn’t know how wrong they were.
It’d been four years since the curse — since the witch, or sorceress, or whatever the fuck she’d been. I’d thought she was just a girl at a bar I’d gone to incognito — trying to get away from my princely duties and all that shit for one damn night and just go have some random fun. I’d been chasing fleeting beauty that night, and she knew it.
Which is why she’d cursed me.
She’d cursed me to turn further and further away from the Prince I’d once been, and more into short-tempered, barely able to contain himself, barely in control of the animal inside, monster.
A beast.
You’d think that an array of gorgeous princesses looking for suitors would be just the damn thing to set me off. You’d think it’d be like setting a wolf loose on the lambs.
You’d be so very wrong.
I’d barely looked at women since then — zero interest. And this was me we’re talking about. Back before, I’d been famous for my exploits. I’d been legendary in my conquests of royal princesses and queens and duchesses, of movie stars and models and all of that crap. And though I didn’t want to step on Magnus’s parade after the article, he seemed to have forgotten the many tabloid stories that’d been written about what I was packing between my legs.