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I grit my teeth. “Pace was in prison.”

Her little “oh” emerges in a cautious whisper. Good. It’s her fucking fault he was in lockup in the first place. “Who do you think did it then?”

Scowling, I snap. “How should I know? It was deranged enough to be your boy, Maddox, but he was probably locked away back then, too. Perez was too busy slinging Scratch and snatching women for the Counts.” RIP fucker. “It’s just too fucking obvious to be the Barons. They’d never leave a calling card.”

“So… the Lords?” she asks.

Scoffing, I say, “Payne? No—definitely not his style. Mercer? Only if they set the house on fire when they left. But Rathbone?” I consider him for a long, silent moment. “I can see that fucker doing it. He’s got a quiet flair for the dramatic. Not that it even matters. We’d need proof to retaliate, and there isn’t any.”

It still exposed a weakness in our defenses. Father had a false sense of security that our enemies wouldn’t dare trespass through our exterior walls. Maybe in his day, Royals respected boundaries, but our generation has different priorities. As a result, Father immediately upped security and spent months trying to procure a new arms shipment from DKS. Nothing happened to the Princess that night, but there’s no way in hell he’s taking a chance with his daughter and heir.

That reminder turns my mouth to ash, and without another word, I roll on my side, away from Verity.

Sleep greets me like moth wings, fluttering in and out. Even when her breaths grow into shallow near-silence, I can still feel her over there, just… fucking…existing. I consider jacking off, but before the idea can bloom into anything actionable, I’m sinking past the moth-wing surface of dozing and entering proper sleep.

I’ve always been really good at dreaming.

Even back when my brothers and I were tiny little shits, and they were having these fucked-up, horrible nightmares, I could always conjure up something satisfying. The three of us in a house made of gingerbread. Slaying a dragon. Defeating our favorite hockey team. Then, when I was older, I could dream up tingly, tight, wet, delicious things. It was never like real sex. I have complete control in my own dreams. I’m the one tying people down. Riding them. Plucking painful pleasure from them like fingernails.

But sometimes I get these other dreams.

Soft. Warm. Safe. They’re not images, just these impressions. The sense of being content and full of purpose. The knowledge that everything is right and okay. No jobs. No pain. No urges or frustration. It’s a little like how I imagine death must be: dark and peaceful.

That’s the kind of dream I have tonight, and even when I begin surfacing from it, the warmth remains.

There’s a body in my arms.

Pulling it against me, my cock perks up like a hopeful, curious creature that’s more alert than I feel. Sighing, I lazily palm the firm ass nestled up against my crotch. My breathing grows shallow, my pulse kicking up as I explore the curve of the body. Instinctively, I nestle my face into the warmth, pushing my lips against the neck in front of me.

What I get is a mouthful of hair.

Smacking my lips in irritation, I brace myself for Lex’s annoyed grunt, his fist shoving me away as he grumbles about personal space and the persistence of my morning wood. None of that comes, though.

Instead, a hand lands on my outer thigh, gently running up and down.

My eyebrow ticks up sleepily.

It might be Lex, but hey.

Good ass is good ass.

Anticipation slowly climbs my spine as he turns in my arms, but—no, that’s not right. This body is small, soft, and unbearably sweet-smelling, two plush lips brushing haltingly against my jaw.

My eyes blink open to a mess of red, tangled hair. “What?” The word emerges as a gruff rasp, gravel in my throat. For a long moment, all I can do is watch in bafflement as she swings a leg over my hips, the weight of her forcing me to my back.

As soon as I dig through the fog of sleep and lust to realize Verity ismounting me, she’s grinding her hot pussy against the length of my cock. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes so heavy that I doubt she even sees who’s beneath her. It takes some time for my brain to catch up with my body, which is the only reason my hips buck up, seeking and needing and so goddamn ready.

Her mouth parts, a breathy little moan spilling from between them.

It’s only then that I jolt to awareness, clamping my fingers around her hips. “Wait, stop—” My words are swallowed by her lips crashing down onto mine.

My toes curl so hard that my legs shake. It’d take nothing—nothing—to push my boxers away and spear my cock into her tight, wet heat. I could fuck her hard, just like Lex said. Put her in her place. Bury my cum into her like a threat. Neither of them would blame me. I’m Wicker fucking Ashby.

This is what I do.

But when my hand rises, fingers clamping around the delicate column of her throat, it’s to rip her from me with a rough, violent shove. The sound she makes, all confused and wounded, is like ice water being dumped over me.

She flies backward, landing on the end of the massive bed. “Hey!”