Page 26 of Spearcrest Prince

Might as well get it over and done with.

I text back.

Sev: More or less.

He replies straight away.

Papa: Then do more.

I sigh.

Sev: Like what?

My phone vibrates, startling me. Of course, he’s calling me. It’s not like I can pretend I don’t have my phone on me, so I answer.

“Your school sent me that letter about the residential trip,” he says without so much as a hello. “It says you’ve been paired up with a girl from the art department. The Nishihara girl—she’s an artist, no?”

For a man so used to navigating the intricacies of high society, he can be about as subtle as a hammer to the jaw.

“I’ve already been paired up with her, Papa. I don’t see how being paired up with her on a school trip is going to help.”

He chuckles drily. “Come on, Sev. This engagement is important, weneedit. This poor girl has left her entire life behind just so you two could get to know each other. So do that. Get to know each other. Dosomething. What do you want this to be, some mediaeval thing? Two strangers and a bedsheet with blood on it?”

Itisa mediaeval thing, I want to say. Whether we’re strangers or not. I could fuck her, date her, fall in love with her—and it would still be mediaeval.

“What is it you want me to do, exactly?” I ask, not hiding the sullen edge in my voice.

“Whatever it is you do to get girls to fall into bed with you,” he snaps. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how to win a girl, Sev.”

“I’m not going to get her to fall into bed with me,” I snap, heat suddenly rising in my face.

“Oh, you know what I mean. God, you kids these days. Speak to the damn girl, Sev. It’s not complicated.”

“Right.”

There’s a moment of silence. My father doesn’t sound stressed or angry at all. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just pushed two inanimate objects together, expecting them to do the rest. Like a kid squishing two dolls face-to-face and thinking that means they’re in love.

“Right,” I repeat. “Fine. I’ll do what you say. Just stay out of it.”

“Right,” he says. “If you don’t want me to get involved, don’t give me a reason to get involved.”

He ends the conversation briskly, the same way he finishes a business conversation after he’s gotten what he wanted out of it. After he hangs up, I keep glaring at my phone until the screen turns dark, and I’m just glaring at my reflection.

Thenextday,Ihave Anaïs brought to me during lunchtime. I’m sitting with the other Young Kings in our usual haunt: the sixth form rec room next to the dining hall. It’s meant to be for all sixth formers to spend their free time in, but it became Young King property as soon as we started in the upper school.

Since then, it’s been ours. We spend our free periods, breaks and lunchtimes there. The only people who are allowed in the room are either there to amuse or serve us. I include our girlfriends in this, though girlfriends amongst the Young Kings are a rare occurrence.

I’ve not had a girlfriend since Kayana, and I never will. Evan, the romantic American that he is, is the only one of us who still has real, official girlfriends. Although that barely counts, given his long-running obsession with the stuck-upcasse-couilleSophie Sutton. Luca dates girls but only if he thinks one of us wants her, just to remind us not to fuck with him. Zachary doesn’t even seem to notice the existence of girls outside of Theodora Dorokhova.

And as for Iakov… who knows what Iakov gets up to.

The door opens, and two Year 12s return from the mission I sent them on. Anaïs, the object of said mission, trails behind them in slow, graceless steps. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be here, but I told the Year 12s that not bringing her wasn’t an option.

My eyes stay on her as she approaches.

Her school uniform is tidy but plain, like a kid in the lower school. Her hair is clean and combed but hangs plainly around her face. She wears no make-up, no jewellery, and there are no pins on her blazer. Flecks of paint stain her sleeves, hands and chin.

If I didn’t know this girl was the heiress to billions, it would have been the last thing I would ever have guessed about her.

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