Callous Prince Read online

  Callous Prince

  Becker Gray

  Callous Prince

  Dangerous Press

  Becker Gray © 2021

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Dangerous Press LLC.

  This book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Want More Midnight Dynasty?

  1

  Sloane

  I changed my mind the minute I saw the ballroom.

  “No,” I said, coming to a halt. “No, I think I’d rather not.”

  “Come on,” Serafina van Doren wheedled. “We’ve been planning this for weeks. Pleeeease.”

  “No, you’ve been planning this for weeks,” I corrected. “I’ve been dreading this.”

  Through the doors, the entire student population of Pembroke Preparatory Academy was arrayed in a glittering panoply of wealth and privilege—silk gowns, elaborate masks, jewelry borrowed from Mommy or Grandmama—the works.

  The ballroom itself had also been spared no expense. There were flickering candelabras everywhere, and garlands of greenery threaded through with autumn leaves and berries. Entire trees with leaves the color of flames had been brought in, along with green-leafed vines hung with hefty pumpkins. The cumulative effect was to make the ballroom feel like an enchanted autumn forest—perfect for this year’s Halloween masquerade theme.

  Fairyland.

  The annual Pembroke Halloween Masquerade was one of the events that Serafina lived for—and one that I’d managed to successfully avoid for the last three years. I wasn’t really all that much for dressing up. Or being on display. Or being around people in general, actually.

  I much preferred to hang back, to watch from the shadows unobserved, to escape notice. It would be essential if I wanted to follow in my father’s clandestine footsteps, but that wasn’t the only reason I did it.

  The other reason I hid in the shadows would certainly be here tonight, watching the ballroom with disdain pulling at his beautiful, sullen mouth, candlelight flickering off his white hair and his eerily golden eyes.

  He was the same reason I was regretting letting Serafina talk me into this. Last chance, my ass. What did I care that this was my senior year and my last chance to go to the masquerade? All I wanted was to be free of Pembroke—I certainly wasn’t going to be pining after a dumb costume party when I was carving through the world’s chaos and mayhem at INTERPOL.

  “Look, you’re already dressed for it,” Sera coaxed. “Why not come in and at least give your costume a chance to be seen?”

  I rarely felt self-conscious, but seeing the ballroom packed with silk and velvet and lace made me balk. “No one wants to see this costume,” I muttered.

  “Uh-uh. I think it’s crazy hot,” Aurora declared. She plucked at the half cape I wore over one shoulder. “You look like a 16th century fairy assassin. Who fucks.”

  Fairy assassin who fucks had indeed been the theme of the costume—Serafina’s theme, not mine. All I’d asked for was a costume with pants and boots. And maybe a sword.

  Serafina had come back with skin-tight black pants and knee-high black boots, an ornately handled rapier for my hip, and a velvet capelet which matched the light jade of my eyes and set off my lingering summer tan. And of course, the tight black corset that went over the white Renaissance-era blouse. “Sera, do you want to explain to me why I was your unfortunate guinea pig and not Tannith?”

  Sera planted a kiss on my cheek. “Because, my love, Tannith is currently in Los Angeles for the fellowship, and she needed to focus.”

  “Like you couldn’t have flown her in for this.”

  She grinned. “I could have. But you were the far more fun project.”

  Before we’d come here tonight, she’d dressed me, slicked my short bob back, and fastened a mask over my face that matched my cape. “There,” she’d said proudly. “You look like you just finished fucking some gorgeous but dissolute prince and now you’re creeping through the palace to kill his father. Tannith would absolutely die if she saw this.”

  Tannith was our resident bookworm—well, usually our resident bookworm. She was currently doing a fellowship in Los Angeles and had been gone all semester. We missed her an awful lot, and I especially missed her right now, when I needed an anchor in the storm that was Sera and Aurora in full Party Mode.

  But in the end, I’d liked the idea of the fairy assassin who fucks enough that I’d let Sera and Aurora pack me in the van Doren limo and drag me all the way to the ballroom doors before my doubts crashed in again.

  “I don’t know,” I said in the here and now. “I think I’ll just head back. You two don’t need me—”

  “Is this about my brother?” Aurora asked. She let go of my cape so she could touch my elbow, and underneath her pearl-studded mask, I could see her golden eyes go soft with concern. The same golden eyes that belonged to her twin brother.

  Lennox.

  Lennox Lincoln-Ward. A literal, actual prince. The most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.

  And also the worst. The meanest and the most heartless. Callous beyond belief.

  Aurora’s voice suddenly went bright and helpful. “I could kill him for you, you know.”

  I gave a small laugh. “I think that’s my line.”

  Sera crossed her arms, studying the ballroom. She had that look on her face—the one I thought of as the Queen look. Like she’d just ridden up to a battlefield on her steed and was about to order the cannons to fire. Her thick curls were pinned in an elaborate updo and set with flashing red gems, and her scarlet gown brought out the jewel tones in her medium-brown skin. Aurora and Lennox might have been actual royalty, but Sera was every inch Pembroke’s real monarch tonight.

  “He doesn’t get to do this,” Sera said, eyes on the ostentatious revelry in front of her. “He doesn’t get to keep you away from things you want to do.”

  I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t actually want to do this, but then I closed it again as her words truly sank into my mind. She was right, as a queen usually was. It was stupid to let Lennox chase me away from anything. Despite the fact that he was Liechtensteiner royalty and part of the Hellfire Club—and despite his persistent hatred and low-key torture of me—this was my damn school too. I deserved to be at this silly ball just as much as he did, and I was done with this pointless game of ours. The Fairy Assassin Who Fucks was going to dance, drink, and laugh like she never had before, just to spite him.

  For three years, Lennox Lincoln-Ward had tried to make my life a living hell.

  And tonight, that ended for good.

  An hour later, I was less sure.

  I’d thought it would be as simple as ignoring Lennox; I thought I’d barely notice he was here
.

  But I hadn’t taken two things into account.

  Firstly—there was no such thing as me ignoring Lennox, and there hadn’t been since the first week of freshman year when he started persecuting me for no reason at all.

  His mere presence made me flare with awareness and trepidation; simply knowing he was in the room made my skin tighten and my pulse race. Tonight was no exception, and as I tried to laugh with my friends, as I accepted a few dances from boys I barely knew, I could feel his eyes on me, burning into my skin. Whenever I looked his way, he was already looking somewhere else, but I knew he was watching me. Hating me. It made me tense, electric. Like I was about to spar with my martial arts instructor—certain I was going to lose but eager to prove myself all the same.

  Secondly—I had not adequately prepared myself for how Lennox would look tonight. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that he could be any more devastatingly beautiful than he was in everyday life, but here he was, putting everyone else to shame. His starkly blond hair tumbled white and silky around a circlet of golden stars set into his hair, and the crown only further set off the sharp gold of his eyes. The white mask he wore left his forehead, jaw, and mouth bare, and rather than disguise the near-inhuman elegance of his pale features, the mask only served to highlight them.

  The jaw so gorgeously sharp that it looked rendered by an artist. A mouth so painfully sensual, even when pulled into its usual sulky pout.

  And his costume . . .

  While most of the Pembroke guys had used the masquerade as an excuse to show off their latest bespoke suits and imported Italian shoes, Lennox had taken the fairyland theme to heart and come fully as a fairy prince. He was barefoot and wearing tight leather pants, with a Renaissance-style white shirt and a doublet made of gold silk and velvet. Both the doublet and the shirt were open—and the shirt was all the way unlaced, exposing a shocking amount of smooth, firm skin. The hollow of his collarbone, the lean but solid muscles of his chest—they were all on display.

  He really looked like he had just strolled out of a fairy forest. He looked wicked and unearthly.

  He looked perfect.

  It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair that he hated me, when I’d done nothing to deserve it. It wasn’t fair that he looked handsome and delicious while I looked—well, less like an assassin who fucks and more like a girl who was uncomfortable wearing dresses and lipstick.

  After I finished dancing with a boy from my AP Physics class, I went for a drink of water. There was stronger stuff on hand if I wanted it, not to mention all sorts of artisanal punches that were all fairyland-themed, but I wanted to keep my head and stay hydrated. A hydrated body is a strong body, and a flexible one too, and I needed my body to be both.

  I took my water behind a tree and watched the dancers from underneath its arching branches. I watched him, dancing with a girl a year or two younger than us. Whatever she said made him laugh; it made a smile carve itself across his normally-sulky mouth.

  And as always, whenever he smiled, there was an answering slice across my heart.

  “I’ve seen lions less aware of wounded gazelles than Lennox is of you tonight,” a silky voice said from behind me.

  I turned to see the devil himself, Rhys Huntington, standing just behind my shoulder, pale, dark-haired, and dressed all in black: a black suit that probably cost as much as a regular person’s car, black and silver vest underneath, black silk tie stuck through with a ruby-studded tie pin.

  “Lennox doesn’t even know I’m alive,” I responded evenly, knowing it was a lie but also too wary to engage Rhys further. “And I thought tonight’s theme was fairyland—not vampire coven.”

  Rhys stepped forward, a tilt to his sharp-edged mouth. We were shoulder to shoulder now. “I’m a dark fairy. From the Unseelie Court. Don’t you know your fairy stories?”

  The honest answer was no. As the only daughter of an INTERPOL bureau chief, my childhood had often been stranger than any fairy tale, and anyway, my father wasn’t much for fantasy. He was all about what could be seen and touched and uncovered—all about this world and those who would sin against it. I suppose I took after him in that way.

  If only there wasn’t a certain sinner that fascinated me so much . . .

  “Anyway,” Rhys pronounced, still in that silky voice, “if you don’t think Lennox is looking at you tonight, just watch this.”

  Within the blink of an eye, my water was set on a table and I was whisked out onto the dance floor. In Rhys’s arms. Staring up at those near-black eyes glittering from behind his dark mask.

  “What are we doing?” I asked him, easily catching the rhythm of the waltz as he turned me across the floor. I was a decent dancer. It wasn’t so different than martial arts, after all: posture, form, balance. And Rhys was a surprisingly graceful partner for being someone whom I’d always assumed was pure evil.

  Whenever we turned, my cape swung out behind me, and whenever we stepped, Rhys’s firm hand on my back made sure to keep my hips close to his. For anyone watching, the dance might have looked . . . romantic.

  “I would’ve thought it was obvious what we’re doing, Sloane Lauder,” Rhys said softly. “I’m proving a point about Lennox.”

  My father had trained me better, he really had, but when it came to Lennox, I never could seem to control myself. I swiveled my head and looked to where I’d seen him last.

  And was hit with a golden gaze so malevolent I could practically feel its heat all the way out here in the middle of the dance floor.

  “He is watching,” I said, more to myself than to the tall devil spinning me around.

  “He’s always watching you.”

  “He hates me, you know.”

  Rhys smiled a cipher-like smile. “Maybe.”

  “I don’t think he likes seeing me have fun.”

  The cipher-like smile grew bigger. “If he hates you dancing, then he’ll definitely hate this.”

  And right there, right in the middle of the ballroom floor with couples waltzing around us and candles flickering everywhere, Rhys Huntington kissed me.

  Kissed me!

  I could have fended him off if I wanted. No one could touch me when I didn’t want to be touched, thanks to my father and years of martial arts. But I found . . . I found I didn’t want to.

  Not at first, at least.

  His kiss was silky, just like his voice, and his mouth was surprisingly warm for someone with a heart chiseled from ice. And while it didn’t necessarily set my heart to racing the same way a mere glance from Lennox did, and while it didn’t make me hot and restless the way the mere thought of Lennox’s mouth made me, the kiss wasn’t unpleasant. It was almost nice, in fact. Like the sensation of kissing without all the fervor and heat that usually accompanied the act. Like the idea of kissing without all the complicated feelings coming to mess it up.

  Rhys’s fingers curled around my cape as he pulled me closer and deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping between my lips to caress mine. It was instinct as much as anything that had me tilting my face up to offer Rhys more—and that’s when I heard it.

  The clatter and crash of a candelabra falling over, and the gasps and shrieks that followed. I broke away from Rhys’s kiss to see Lennox disappearing through the far doors, his stride quick and furious.

  From the way people were staring and whispering, it was clear he was the one who knocked over the candelabra.

  As if he’d flung it to the ground in anger before storming away.

  “Well, then,” Rhys said with satisfaction, his eyes also on Lennox’s retreating form. “I was right.”

  2

  Lennox

  Rage. It was the only way to explain what was happening to my body. My skin was clammy and hot. And all I wanted to do was hit something. It was like my skin hummed and my blood was trying to force its way out by exploding it.

  I was going to kill him. Bloody Rhys.

  I knew the Hellfire Club wasn’t a knitting circle or an etiquette
class. We mostly did whatever the fuck we wanted—hell, the whole purpose of the club was so the wealthy and the powerful could increase their wealth and power so that they could continue to do whatever the fuck they wanted after they left Pembroke. This kind of power-brokering, good old boys club shit didn’t exactly make for a milieu of politeness and courtesy. We were sharks chosen by the sharks who came before us, and when we graduated, we would wade into an ocean where we were already kings.

  So no, we were no knitting circle, but there were still a few fucking codes.

  You didn’t fuck with other Hellfire members, and you certainly didn’t fuck with their toys.

  I knew better than to totally lose my shit at the masquerade ball though. I’d been raised better than that. There were appropriate times and places for caving to anger, and the ball wasn’t it. Besides, there was no way any adult in there would have let me kick Rhys’s arse the way I’d wanted to. Also, I wanted to give him more time to sober up. Because when I put him into the ground, I wanted him to remember it. I wanted him to feel it. I wanted to burn him down.

  Some fucking mate he was.

  She was mine. She had always been mine. And Rhys, arsehole that he was, thought he could just stroll in and take her from me? No. Ever since I laid eyes on hers, we’d had our unwritten rule. She was mine to torment. Mine to torture.

  After what her father had done to mine, it was the payback I needed. She was nobody else’s to even look at. And all things being even, Rhys didn’t even want her, I was certain of it. He just found her interesting for some fucking reason.