Page 36 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

“Revenge fueled?” Bolan laughs mirthlessly. “No one needs you to fight their battles, Sully. But if you want a beatdown, I’ll fucking give you one.”

I walk through the door, not interested in their stupid posturing. Words matter little against fists. They want to solve it in the ring? I’m happy to let it all fall where it may. The refs will keep them from killing each other.

I take the cat shifter down in the first thirty seconds of the first round, getting a disapproving frown from Eli in his ringside seat. That wasn’t long enough to really milk the betting going on among the toffs .

With one eye starting to swell and my lip split badly enough that it’s actively bleeding, I’m grinning by the end of my third pairing.

The fourth fight is with another bear shifter. He’s actually bigger than me. Slower too.

He cracks my ribs. I break his arm.

The refs step in.

I’m riding high enough that I’m feeling playful for the next two fights. I even play it up for the crowd. They eat that up with a surprising amount of rabidity for the fucking peerage of Europe.

After my last pairing — I’ve won all eleven bouts — the crew scrubs down the ring before the next scheduled fighters step up. I hang around the edge of the stands, letting myself heal naturally and enjoying the rest of the matches.

The Sully and Bolan fight is last on the schedule, and by the time they’re called to the ring, the venue is way beyond capacity — likely thanks to Eli greasing some palms.

Apparently, someone ‘leaked’ the rock star being on the roster. I’m guessing that leak was a strategically dropped vid by the blue-haired mage.

I have no idea what lies between the pretty-boy mage and the rock-star shifter. No idea why someone like Bolan is even bothering to accept a challenge to step into the ring — except for funding a charity for the next year by the mere mention of his presence. Still, I begrudgingly admire him for it.

Stripped down to workout shorts, Bolan bounces in place in the corner of the ring.

Tattoos constructed out of words twine up both his arms and etch across his shoulders and chest. He’s clearly eight, maybe even twelve kilos underweight.

Not currently high or drunk, but obviously coming off something harsh.

Sully is similarly attired, with nary a tattoo in sight. Out of his shiny suit he looks sleek but dangerous.

Bolan and Sully clash, fists flying.

The blue-haired mage doesn’t use his essence-wielding ability, though I can smell that power emanating off him.

Bolan doesn’t call on his beast.

Surprisingly, they both know how to fight. Rather viciously.

Standing beside me — everyone is on their feet for this match — Eli can’t tear his gaze off either of them. Not a hint of lust in his eyes or his scent. Just pure calculation. And a wariness.

Even nowhere near his best, it’s quickly clear that the rock star could take the mage. He doesn’t hit him in the face. Body blows only.

The mage doesn’t give the rock star the same consideration.

Bolan drops and pauses before getting back up. Three times.

The crowd is practically throwing money at the bookies on staff, screaming both their names — Salvatore and Bolan. As if maybe the pretty-boy mage is someone to know as well, for these people at least.

It takes a full three rounds for me to realize that the mage is trying to heal the fucking shifter each time he goes down — the broken nose makes it pretty obvious. Bolan is pissed about it each time, batting Sully’s hands away even with blood now pouring over his chin.

Eli starts laughing, seemingly picking that up at the same time I do.

I gesture toward the nearest ref to step in. This isn’t a fucking torture exhibition.

But Bolan, glaring daggers at the mage, taps out before the ref can interject .

The fight is called.

The mage has the rock star up on his feet with an arm over his shoulder, mugging to the crowd before Bolan can push him away. They head for the locker room.

The announcer chatters out instructions or thank-yous or whatever. But I ignore it to move in the wake of the mage and the shifter, eager to step away from the crowd myself.

Eli hangs back, talking with the staff members overseeing the betting. Getting a final count, I suppose. I get groped a half-dozen times, but manage to not break anyone’s fingers before I make it past security, into the locker room, and shove myself into a shower.

It takes easily twenty minutes to wash off the stench of lust and desperation that was pouring off the crowd, thickening to suffocating levels during Bolan and Sully’s fight.

I haven’t missed that aspect of underground fights. Plus, I just don’t see the appeal. I never understood the connection between brutality and sex.

Apparently, even the richest of the richest luxuriate in that particular kink.

The citrus soap cuts through most of it, though.

I step out of the shower into a mostly empty locker room. A few people hang out in the sauna, but no one is using the cold pool.

I don’t blame them in the least. That cold-water thing has to be a fad, right?

The argument between Bolan and Sully appears to have simmered down. They’ve barely exchanged any words as they showered and changed. Still, as I cross to my locker, Sully suddenly reaches over and snaps Bolan’s nose back into place.

“Fuck!” Bolan howls.

“Sorry,” Sully says, gleefully lying. “That healed wrong.”

Bolan’s eyes water fiercely, but Sully appears to have healed all the rock star’s obvious wounds. His inherent shifter essence should do the rest, but it’s obviously sluggish or suppressed somehow.

I don’t have a mark on me. Even for a bear shifter, I heal quickly.

“You aren’t usually quite this much of an asshole,” Bolan mutters to the blue-haired mage.

I drop my towel in the nearby laundry basket, pulling on black sweats. Sully is grinning saucily at me — again — when I turn around. I ignore him to reach for a T-shirt.

Eli strides through the door, which swings gently closed behind him. “One point two to Read With Me.”

I blink at the earl, confused.

Bolan’s head snaps to Sully. The mage just leans back against the lockers, grinning. He’s back in his suit, hair and makeup once again … flawless. I think that’s the acceptable term?

“Read With Me?” Bolan asks caustically.

“One point two what?” I ask stupidly.

“Euros,” Eli says calmly to me. “Just over 1.2 million. Net, after your 20 percent. And yes, Oliver, this exhibition is benefiting the Read With Me literacy charity.”

“Read With Me!” Bolan growls, a lot of his beast coming through the words.

Sully shrugs affectedly. Then he brushes a touch of his essence over the lapel of his suit, as if there was something there to straighten or clean. There wasn’t.

“I asked Christoph to use his contacts to arrange it,” Eli says, nodding to me. “On very short notice. Thank you, Christoph.”

“But Read With Me is …” Bolan starts to say.

Sully blurts out a laugh, as if he’s just put something together. “I suppose a bare-knuckle fighting event really isn’t the right choice for …”

They both don’t finish their thoughts.

Then three sets of eyes turn to me, expressions abruptly blank.

I huff, tugging on my T-shirt. I don’t need this shit. I just made a half a million euros in a single night. I’ll take it and gladly walk away.

The door to the change room opens with a bang. A huge bearded dude strolls in with a giggling girl tucked under each arm.

Bear shifter.

And ‘girl’ is literal. They’d better fucking well be over eighteen. Or his daughters. Actually, even if they are his kids, they’d better be over eighteen.

“We waited too long, Papa!” the young woman on the left snaps.

“He’s already dressed!” the other girl chimes in, pouting affectedly.

They both turn big eyes on me, twisting their bodies in a way I understand is supposed to be sexy or enticing. It just looks to me like they have to pee really badly.

I’ve been aware for a while that some people might think I’m broken somewhere in the sexual center of my brain. But rolling into my thirty-sixth year, I couldn’t care less.

“No,” I say bluntly, reaching into my locker for my bag.

Eli, Bolan, and Sully all swivel in one motion to look at me, jaws actually slightly agape. Like maybe between the four of us, they can’t believe I’m the one being propositioned?

I’m not amused. I deepen my glower so everyone knows I’m serious.

“Dad!” the first barely-an-adult cries. “You promised.”

“I did,” the bear shifter says. His accent is pure Russian, though his daughters’ accents aren’t. Then he alarmingly palms the ass of the other woman. So … only one of them is his daughter? “My duke, we would like to invite —”

“No,” I say again. “I’m not for sale.” I sneer in Eli’s direction. “Nice security, Earl.”

“But Daddy, I want him! He’ll make pretty babies with me.”

The Russian bear shifter rolls his shoulders and takes a threatening step forward.

Essence prickles against my nostrils.

From Eli.

The light in the room contracts while also somehow sharpening, intensifying. “The duke has made his feelings clear,” the earl says dispassionately.

The Russian shifter stiffens. “You let this …” — he spits his next words at me— “… rich-shit mage speak for you?”

A cool voice speaks up from behind the huge shifter. “I believe Lord Williams already made himself perfectly clear. So if you don’t mind, I’m overdue to return to my post, and the evening wanes.”

The bear shifter spins to take in the new threat. And whoever it is inspires him to protectively tuck the women against him, then practically run from the locker room. Neither of the women offers even a peep of complaint.

Bolan groans under his breath as three newcomers come into view. Two shifters and a mage. Not that I can smell them, or even heard their approach.

But I’ve seen them before .

At my oath of fealty. I don’t even need to discern the royal guard crests on their suits to tell me why the Russian shifter raced out of here.

“Fuck, Le Loup,” Sully whines playfully, “you’re not obsessed with me, are you? Because I’m about to be very happily spoken for.”

Raoul, aka Le Loup, smiles but otherwise ignores Sully. He sweeps his gaze across all of us before landing solidly on me. “It’s oddly appropriate to find you here, Lord Williams. Among this company.”

“This is my fight,” I say inanely.

“Yes.” Raoul sighs affectedly, tugging something out of an inner pocket. “Allow me to apologize in advance for the short notice. Duty called me elsewhere, and I’ve just now come from your main property in Vienna. We must have missed each other.”

One by one, Bolan, Sully, and Eli all turn to look at me, their eyes widening.

I frown at them, stepping forward to take the thick envelope that Raoul holds out to me. “A formal summons?”

“Something like that,” Raoul says, casting another amused gaze over all of us. “This will be interesting.”

Then he turns and crosses out of the locker room, his silent companions at his heels.

“What the fuck?” Bolan mutters, staring at me. “A beast of a bear shifter?”

Eli scrubs a hand across his jaw. “With the largest wholly intact duchy remaining in Europe. Christoph is technically Archduke of Austria.” He eyes me for a moment. “And … wasn’t your mother awry?”

I stiffen. “What does that fucking matter?”

“Fuck,” Bolan spits .

“Oh, daddy,” Sully says, pouting but not at all playful now. “And I really wanted to be friends.”

“What the fuck are you all talking about?” I grumble, still holding the unopened envelope.

Eli pulls something out of his inner breast pocket. Some kind of card? Sully does the same. Bolan swears under his breath, again. Then he tugs a folded version of the same card out of his back pocket.

The cards they all hold out are identical.

I look down at the envelope I’m holding.

“First-generation awry blooded,” Sully says quietly. “And he doesn’t bring any baggage with him.”

“Neither do I,” Eli snaps, though not so cool toned now.

Bolan scoffs. “That’s not what the backstage footage from my last London show says.”

Eli goes very still. “Oliver …”

Bolan waves a hand. “I handled it. And deleted it.”

“You think you had it deleted …” Eli breathes, clearly thrown.

“Dish,” Sully snaps.

“Just Armin sucking off the earl in the back room of an underground club.” Bolan side-eyes Eli with a smirk.

“Armin?” I ask, frowning deeply now— and pissed off enough by being excluded from the conversation that I’m uncharacteristically inserting myself into it. Yes, I still haven’t made all the connections, but I know one thing clearly. “His Royal Highness died in a skiing accident six months ago.”

No one responds.

Huffing, I open the fucking envelope, tearing it badly because things like pretty wax seals and my fingers don’t play well together. I stare down at the invitation to some kind of ball, which I never attend. And then … another invitation …

My stomach hollows in disbelief. “But … I’m a bastard …

” I say incredulously. “I didn’t go to any of your fancy schools …

” I leave out the fact that I’m also more than seriously cash poor.

And that I did, in fact, attend the Phrontistery Academy.

Just in New York, which no doubt was far different than the Prague branch these three and my much older brothers all attended. “I … I can’t marry a princess.”

“One of us will be,” Eli says tightly. “And technically, you’re the most eligible of us all. In fact, I’m not sure anyone on the guest list has a better pedigree. Not unless their entire bond group is factored in.”

“And you don’t marry this particular princess,” Bolan says, so quietly it’s as if he’s slowly dying right in front of us.

Sully finishes the thought. “You’re chosen by her.”