Chase Dubois
"The plan?" I stared up at him, my own face twisted in anger. "Finger fucking my fiancée in a fucking storeroom was not the plan, Greyson!"
"Right?" He smiled, the smirk never leaving his face. "I forgot I was supposed to wait till the wedding night," he said.
I saw something he was trying to hide from me.
This wasn't skirt chasing Greyson. This was different.
He wasn't playing a part with her. He was feeling it. I could see it in his eyes when he said her name. He wanted her for himself.
"You want her for yourself, don't you little brother?"
He chuckled.
"Just following the plan, Chase."
"The plan," I snarled, pushing myself up onto my useless elbows, "was for you to be a shadow. Lend me your fucking cock when I ask for it. Not to... taste her. Not to make her scream my name with me down the hall, listening to every word of it."
His grin was back, wicked and knowing.
"At least it was your name she was screaming." Then he got carried away like he was reliving it. "Fuck! She liked screaming. She liked my mouth on her. She's going to like my cock even more."
The fire in my chest exploded. "Stay away from her!"
"Or what, brother? You'll wheel after me? What do you care? Yours…" he gestured to my pants, "is not working."
"Grey!"
He laughed. Son of a bitch laughed
"My apologies. I got carried away."
His cruelty amazes me, sometimes. He was just as devilish now as he was at ten years old, going around performing atrocities in my name!
"Fine, I will wait till the wedding night. But I must say, Father's plan to make you look less pathetic and more powerful by sticking a dragon princess by your side might just preserve your claim to the throne, brother. And stop the coup that's brewing amongst ranks about a cripple being future Alpha." He rubbed his face.
"The question is… what on earth did he promise King Adonis Winchester to get him to tie his only girl to an invalid?"
Invalid.
I hated that word. Invalid. But it was what I was. What I will always be.
He turned to leave, brushing dirt from his clothes.
I spoke to his back. "Touch her again, and I will use more than wolfsbane. I will burn this whole 'plan' to the ground, and you with it."
He paused at the door.
"Then find someone to switch with on your wedding night, Chase. I am out and I'm taking my cock with me," he said softly, and left.
I was alone again with the steam from the cooling bath and the blue, mocking sky.
Every sound from her room had been painful. Her moans. His grunts. The way she'd said my name—Chase—when it was Grey's mouth on her. I'd sat in the dark and listened to my own brother pleasure my bride.
Fuck. This was far from over.
***
Tilly Ann.
The sun was obnoxiously bright as my friends and I walked down to the training grounds. My father had summoned Kessington and I—his not-so-subtle way of forcing us to spend time with him.
Curse of having two teenagers who would rather stay with friends than spend the afternoon with their Papa.
We passed the palace courtyard where the children played. A tiny girl rushed toward me.
"Princess Tilly! Up! Up!"
I looked down into her wide, pleading eyes.
Does she know her princess is currently a mess of confusing, illicit memories?
Memories I needed to hide from my family, who were mind readers.
I needed to focus. To build a wall in my mind. My parents were powerful mind-readers; my stray thoughts were as good as shouting my secrets.
I scooped her up, tossed her, and caught her, the simple motion a welcome distraction. Three more children swarmed us, all tugging at my skirts.
I was launching a giggling boy when a voice barked across the courtyard.
"TILLY ANN!"
I caught the boy and tucked him under my arm. Kessington stood at the arena entrance, his face twisted in disgust.
"Father is waiting. And you're here playing with… those things."
"You mean children, Kess?" I grinned. "Here, catch!" I fake-lobbed the boy toward him.
Kessington yelped and jumped back as if I'd hurled a live scorpion. My friends and I burst into laughter.
"It's not funny!" he hissed, shuddering. "Their tiny little hands… their beady eyes. It's unnatural. Now, come on."
Still smiling, I told Electra and Jovina to wait and followed him inside.
Mind shield up, I chanted internally. Think of boring things. Dragon feed. Saddle polish. Not Chase's hands. Definitely not his tongue.
The arena smelled of dragon and leather. My father, Adonis, was wrestling with a stubborn strap on his great dragon, Thunder.
"You called, Father?"
"I did." He grunted, giving the leather a futile yank. "Tell me. This match. Do you find it… acceptable? Has the Dubois boy been gentlemanly? Courteous?"
A snort of laughter tried to escape my nose.
Chase Dubois gentlemanly and courteous? Funny.
"What is funny?" Kess asked.
Fuck. He was in my head.
Think of the strap, Tilly. Just the strap.
Not the way he pinned you to the wall.
"Tilly Ann?" Father's voice sharpened. He took a step closer, his eyes missing nothing. "He did what?!"
Dragon poo. Think about dragon poo.
Too late.
The image flashed vividly, Chase on his knees before me, his dark head bowed in between my…
My father took another step, his easygoing demeanor hardening into the intensity of a Dragon Lord. "Did he do something to you?!"
Fuck. He's in my head too
I threw every mental brick I had at the crumbling wall in my mind. Shields up! Shields up!
I looked from my father's face to Kessington's suddenly alert stance.
Great. A full, telepathic audience.
"Father, he's…" I started, but the words dissolved. He touched me was a pathetic understatement.
"He touched you?!" Kessington yelled
"Kessington, get the fuck out of my head!" I screamed back, my voice echoing in the quiet arena.
"What do you mean, he touched you?" Kessington advanced, his fists clenched. "Speak fast. Before I find his invalid arse and bash his face in. War be damned!"
My mental shield faltered, and one clear, brutal truth slipped through the cracks:
Oh, poor Kessington. If you knew what he did with you just outside the door, you would explode into tiny flames.
The air left the arena.
"He was in your room?!" The roar came from both of them.