Page 38 of Dukes of Peril

He frowns and pushes my hair off my forehead, planting a kiss. “Fine.”

These guys will be the end of me.

I stride over to the group in question. They see me coming. They know who I belong to, and even though they should be pissed, they won’t be. Perk of being a Royal.

“Hey,” I say to the kid who got hit by the marker. There’s a red welt on his forehead. “Sorry about that.”

He’s younger—probably a freshman—wearing a Forsyth sweatshirt. His eyes are glued to the tattoo on my chest. Well, I’m going to be charitable and assume it’s the tattoo, although the shirt Nick picked out for me today does make my tits look huge.

“Uh,” he says. “Sure. No problem.”

“I’m going to need that marker back.”

The kid hands me the marker but I hear a snort of laughter. “Why do you need it so bad? So they can mark you even more?”

I spin, eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

That’s when I see the tattoo on his wrist. A coiled snake. He smirks. “I just figure it’s about time they wrote ‘Duke’s Pussy’ on your forehead and got it over with.”

My eyes flick over to the table where each of my Dukes is watching, although we’re too far for them to hear the exchange. Lucky for him. Nick is poised, not unlike that tattooed snake, ready to strike at the first sign. But this kid is nothing. He’s a fucking freshman pledge. Dirt under what used to be Perez’s boot.

“Warren, shut the fuck up,” says the kid with the red welt on his forehead. A worry line slashes his forehead. “He’s a dumbass, Duchess. He didn’t mean it.”

“Listen to your friend, asshole.” I look up and see Story’s approach—a cup of tea in her hand. She’s dressed in a short navy skirt and a prim, pale pink sweater set. “This is not the chick you want to fuck with.” She smirks. “Not unless you want to end up in an electrified dog crate for three days.”

Warren swallows and ducks his head. For now, at least.

She links her arm with mine and steers me away.

“Everything okay?”

I grip the marker. “Sure. I mean, other than the usual.”

I have no idea how much Story and the Lords know about everything that went down with the Barons and the hit, but even if they are our allies, we’ve sworn to keep our mouths shut.

She stops in the middle of the student union. I feel my Dukes’ eyes on me like a tangible weight, and across the room, Dimitri Rathbone leans against the wall, his gaze glued to his Lady. “Got a minute?” she asks. “I needed to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but every year there’s this big charity fundraiser. A fall festival? All the frats cooperate.”

“I’ve heardofit,” I say, thinking back to the chatter in North Side whenever fall rolled around. “But I’ve had my doubts about the cooperation aspect.”

“Believe it or not, they actually do put the weapons down for the weekend and play nice.” She smiles in a way that makes me doubt it’s that easy. “That means we have to do the same thing—because we’re in charge.”

“We?”

“The house girls. We get the glory of organizing set up, games, activities, rides, amusements, food…”

I pull a face. “So, basically the whole thing.”

“Pretty much.”

“Typical.”

“Right?”

Crossing my arms, I can’t help but acknowledge this is the absolute fucking worst time for inter-house mingling. “I’m assuming there’s no way out of this?”

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