Page 47 of Royally Tempted

But some of those people had been on the royal council. With our father’s death, my mother took over as full regent and these dickwads had decided to act. Mom was a strong damn woman, but the internal betrayal hit her when she was still grieving and when she wasn’t expecting it. Caspian and I had stepped in and squashed thatrealquick. But shit, it takes a lot out of you to physically and legally defend your mother’s claim to her titles from some idiots waving arcane, ancient laws on “birthrights.”

So, first a death, then fighting for our own legacy. And then, there’d been Emilia. The betrayal that cut the deepest.

Twins are close. I know you’ve probably heard that, but let me tell you, it’s truer than you know. Caspian and I thought the same thoughts most of the time. We liked the same music, read the same books, and wanted the same things.

Including women.

When we were younger, it’d driven wedges between us. Back when we were teens, we’d squabbled over it more than once, when both of us had crushes on the same girl from school, or when some pretty young thing fell for both of us. We’d fought physically on more than a few occasions, before finally, something had clicked.

Why, when we shared everything in life, were we fighting over whichoneof us got the girl?

After that, things got a lot easier, and alotmore fun. And not to be vain, but wegotit. I mean, we were fabulously wealthy, young royalty. We were blonde, blue-eyed, and handsome — the beauty from our mother and the brawn of our mechanic father.

And we came as a package deal — believe me when I say there weren’t a whole lot of girls that said no to that.

And I won’t lie, we’d had our fun. But as time went on, we got bored of it. We got tired of the meaningless. We started wanting something more. But “more” was something that was harder to share. Sharing just sex for an evening or two with the two of us was one thing. But asking a girl to share herheartwith both of us? Well, yeah, good luck with that. We’d tried, once or twice, and it’d been disastrous. The girl either couldn’t wrap her head around having more than just something dirty and physical with two guys, or if shewaslooking for more, it certainly wasn’t withtwomen. No, that sent them running.

Until Emilia, better known as the Duchess of Ames.

Emilia had started as a fling. We’d met her at some function, drinks had been drunk, and one thing led to another, which led to us tearing her clothes off and taking her together in the back of her limousine. But the fling had continued. It’d just kept going, until it wasn’t so much fling as it was relationship.And for a while, we thought we’d found it. It wasn’tperfect, but it was the closest thing to perfect we’d found yet. She wanted us both — all of us. She wanted the physical, and she also seemed to want the emotional too.

We got close, she got deep, and then, the knife got us in the back, and we never saw it coming.

We neverdidknow if it was something she’d planned or if she’d just woke up one day deciding to stab us. But whatever the cause, one day she was our girlfriend, and the next, her lawyers were contacting ours with settlement agreement for her to keep quiet about the “sordid royal scandal” she’d been “forced to participate” in.

Yeah,fuck.

There’d been words, and shouting, and fury. And she’d sat there the whole time, quietly looking away as Caspian and I roared across the lawyer’s table at her. In the end, we’d paid, of course. It wasn’t worth dragging our mother’s name and our father’s legacy through the mud for. Hell if I knew why the fuck aduchessneeded cash, but we paid and she didn’t go to the press.

Caspian was still sure it was something we said, or something that happened outside of us that pushed her into that corner. Me? I just thought she was a heartless bitch.

So that's where we were coming in here tonight. The wounds of that mess were still real, even though it’d been six months. After that, Cas and I had stepped the fuck back from seeing anyone, in any capacity. We stopped going out, stopped seeing girls at all. Cause fuck that. It wasn’t worth it, even if it meant celibacy.

But tonight wasn’t “going out.” Tonight’s suitors’ ball was more than going to a club or something. It was a royal necessity, really. We needed to be seen actively looking for brides. Hell, it’s not like the populace of Marland exactly knew about our tendency to “share.” So that’s why we were at the ball that evening — to at least make a show of looking for something real. After all, Mom wasn’t going to be queen forever. And no one really knew what to do about twin first-born heirs where the throne was concerned, but the rules about us being married before either of us could become King still stood.

“Look, we don’t have to stay for the whole thing. Just long enough to make sure Logan and Magnus don’t do something fucking stupid like go after one of King Lucian’s daughters.”

I snorted, killing the rest of my drink.

The ball was for all sorts of single princes, princesses, dukes, duchesses, and all manner of young royalty. But the real belles of the ball were of course Lucian’s own three daughters — Isla, Imogen, and Ilana, the three virgin princesses of Avlion. Okay, it's not like they’d beenadvertisedas virgins, but there were rumors about them never dating.

Prince Logan of Torsund and Prince Magnus of Zale had been our best friends for, well, since forever, even if those two were wild cards when it came to acting as they should in public. Mags because of his proclivities for fucking anything and everything with a pair of tits, regardless of them being appropriate or not, and Logan because of his curse.

And I don’t care what anyone else said, I believed my friend about that one.

Four years ago, Logan had been our friendly, outgoing, life-of-the-party buddy. Then he’d been cursed by some sort of witch or sorceress or whatever, who he’d mistaken for some girl at a club looking for something fun and fleeting for just a night. I know, magic is bullshit and all that, but fuck, I knew what I’d seen. He’d been Logan the one day, carefree and laughing, and then something altogether different the next day, after that night.

He’d become the “beast” people called him in whispers now. And magic or not, it meant he was moody, prone to anger, and pretty unpredictable these days.

So basically, it was going to be Caspian and my job to make sure neither of our friends got themselves thrown into the royal prison tonight, or worse.

“So have you guys found your Barbie Dolls for the evening?”

I rolled my eyes as Magnus came up behind us, chuckling with a groan as I killed the last of my drink.

Magnus, and Logan for that matter too, had taken to calling Cas and me “Ken dolls” years ago, on account of our blue eyes, blond hair, and I guess “good guy” appeal, even if the two of them knew damn well we weren’t exactly the good boys the press always seemed to think we were. But the name stuck, hence asking about “Barbie.”

Dick.

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