Page 40 of Is It Wrong to Escape My Fate? (Dealing With Fate #1)
With how often I had been here at this mansion, it started to feel like a second dwelling.
Or a third, if one counted my dorm. This time, I had my knights with me, while Mia requested to stay behind so she could continue catching up with her brother, Milo.
She also made me promise to take my revenge against the bastard.
Very unexpected from a sweet girl like her.
I didn’t expect everybody else who was present that night to be here, too.
“Are we going to take turns beating him up?” I joked at them as Prince Winston and Theodore led us through the lower floors of the mansion.
“I don’t want your pretty hands to bruise, so I’m against you beating him up. We’ll do it for you,” Claude exclaimed casually, as if calling someone’s hands pretty was an everyday thing.
I kicked my feet as we walked. “I could kick him. Got my boots on.”
Some of them laughed at my stupid joke. “No hurting the noble,” Uriel stated without humor. Unsurprising that it was my professor who would take my words seriously.
“I was only joking, Uri,” I teased him, and the nickname probably caught him unawares that he choked on air, earning more laughs from the other men.
“Very cute nickname, Uri,” Samuel smirked.
I giggled. “I have one for you too, Sammy.”
Samuel’s face turned a bit red. I had the last laugh of them all.
“Do you have one for me, too?” Surprisingly, it was Vincent who asked. He didn’t seem like the type to worry about nicknames of all things.
“You don’t like Vince?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I just thought there’s something else.”
Tapping my fingers on my chin, I smiled. “Vin. Or Vinny.”
He returned my smile. “I’ll take it.”
“Me! Me next!” Claude raised a hand so hard he almost barreled towards Amos walking in front of him. “Claude” was already a short name, so the nickname “Wes” referencing his last name tingled on my tongue.
I was about to answer when Theodore looked over his shoulder as we turned a corner. “Stop fooling around.”
I smirked. “Sorry, Teddy.”
He grouched while the other men either held their laughs or coughed. Of course he intimidated them — the Prince’s secret assassin. If they only knew how he acted when he played a librarian: sweet mixed with pathetic, and overall endearing.
Now I wondered which version was the real him?
Our lighthearted time ended when Theodore held up a hand, stopping all of us in our tracks.
He turned around with the Prince. “From this point onward, I advise with great caution to keep your mouths shut.” He said the last part while looking at me.
I wasn’t that talkative. “The Lord bastard thinks he’s currently a guest in the Prince’s mansion, as will be obvious when we get to his room, but make no mistake; he is a prisoner. ”
“Win likes to make them feel comfortable and welcome before he strikes,” Claude explained from somewhere behind me as Winston kept quiet with his gentle smile.
“Winston will question him by himself at first, but we will all be nearby to witness it. There’s a viewing room disguised as a wall on one side.
If anything goes awry, it’s fortunate that we have a skilled illusionist to mitigate it,” Theodore continued, taking our confirmations that we understood what he said.
I asked the question baited for me. “Who’s the skilled illusionist?”
“Me,” Winston grinned, and we continued our walk silently to where this Lord was held.
I didn’t expect the Crown Prince to be an Illusionist mage; I suppose I had the presumption, based on the various video games I had played, that princes were fighters instead of spellcasters.
But the Prince had been an advocate for magical education in the first place and was exactly why he chose to give up his territories to other nobles to focus on this single city.
When we arrived at the area, Theodore led us to one room while Winston broke off from our group.
Once inside, it had a full, unobstructed view of a fancy sitting room, while our room was distinctly decorated in a different color, couches and sofas abound.
It reminded me of an observation room in police dramas.
The Lord bastard was sitting on one couch in the fancy sitting room. I recognized him as one of my classmates in Physical and Combat Training, but either I didn’t remember his name, or I didn’t know him at all. What did I do to make him hate me enough to have me kidnapped?
“Will he hear us from here?” Amos whispered to Theodore, who looked at him in disappointment.
“The entire room is spelled, so no, he will not,” the other man scoffed just as the rest of the group took a seat for themselves. Every available couch had at least one man or two sitting on it, so where would I place myself?
The question must be obvious on my face because Claude patted his lap with a huge grin. “Here, baby girl.”
“There’s enough space,” Elias countered while gesturing to the empty spot beside him.
“Or she could sit on our laps, which is more appealing,” Claude retorted with a giggle. “Say, five minutes each.”
“While that’s definitely appealing, it’s a little inappropriate,” Vincent said. I couldn’t stop my stupefied face fast enough. He laughed but earned a few glares in the process.
“I will carry you in my arms, my lady,” Reuben offered as he stood by the door with his twin, a proper habit for a bodyguard, although unnecessary at the moment. Robin nodded at his words and extended his arms forward as if expecting me to climb on.
It felt like I was in a prank.
“Is this going to be a regular thing?” Theodore sighed as he moved his arm in a circle to refer to the room.
“It won’t be if her brattiness just pick a seat,” Samuel grumbled, but uncrossed his leg from his thigh, as if he was making his lap available. Funny thing to think about.
In a different part of the room, Amos grinned at me as he spread his legs apart, showing me enough space to scoot in between them, and reminding me once again how delicious his cock was thrusting in me as he licked my nipples and —
Certainly not the time to be thinking about it as I glanced away.
That Lord bastard looked awfully comfortable in his special room.
“Okay, who did that?” Claude loudly asked, waving an arm towards me, as Uriel watched Amos — who looked very satisfied, but silent — before his eyes found me.
He knew who did it from reading Amos’s mind .
My heart sped up, and it didn’t help that Derrick, who had been quiet this whole time, was staring at our linked bracelets with intense focus. The man could feel it, probably. And I knew Elias could sense it, too, as he sat restlessly, eyes boring through me.
Wow, what’s taking Prince Winston so long? Anyway, I didn’t have a problem standing for long periods of time, if my fast-food worker experience was of any help to me.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Samuel grunted as he got up, grabbed my wrist and pulled me down with him on his couch. He didn’t seat me on his lap but placed me right next to him. “And here I thought you’re a very decisive woman.”
“I normally am, but I have a hard time with you lot,” I huffed, pouting, crossing my legs. “The future looks grim for me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “I can’t just choose ,” I huffed again, leaning back.
Our room stayed silent after that — finally — until Winston entered the fake sitting room, smiling at the guy on his fake sitting couch.
“Your Highness,” Lord bastard greeted him, standing up and bowing. “Dinner was lovely. I’ve never had skai before. Truly one of a kind.”
Getting transported to this universe was a very bizarre feeling, that even over a month later, there were still words and concepts my mind had trouble automatically translating.
Things were a little off most of the time; for example, an apple here didn’t mean exactly what an apple would be in my world, but it was the closest thing to an apple to what my mind knew it to be.
A skai was some type of fancy meat from a native domesticated animal that looked like a furry cow. Thinking harder, I would maybe equate it to Wagyu beef, but I had also never eaten a Wagyu before because it was so dang expensive.
“He’s really peppering him up, huh,” Samuel mumbled, arm on the backrest behind me. “Even I hadn’t tasted a skai before.”
“You haven’t?”
“It’s usually only served at royal weddings,” he answered. “And there haven't been any recently, and presumably for a long time.”
Because Winston wasn’t interested in any marriage until this business with the Champions and the Demon Lord was finished.
“There are other Princes though,” I smiled, remembering my society lesson with Mia.
Samuel grimaced. “They’re fourteen and ten.”
Well, to be fair to me, I didn’t know their ages. My bad. I couldn’t admit that to him though, or he’d find it weird that I didn’t know anything about the royal family. A joke, then. “So it won’t be that long, and you’d have all the skai meat you could ever want.”
He only shook his head with a roll of his eyes and sat more comfortably, hand resting on my shoulder.
I had a stark realization as I watched Winston and the guy make small talk — Samuel, a huge hunk of a man, Captain of the Army and the Champions, was doing what was equivalent to putting on the moves in my world.
To me! Complete with acting nonchalantly about it, too!
I would’ve laughed if I didn’t enjoy the attention too much that I scooted closer, his hand on my shoulder tightening as I rested my body against his.
If he thought I would shy away from that, he thought wrong. Physical affection was my number one weakness. I was such a complete sucker for it, so much so that some people in my world took advantage of it. But that was neither here nor there.
Samuel swallowed thickly as I smirked to myself. I was winning.
“Onto our main business,” Winston caught my attention again. “Do you recall why I invited you over, Lord Compton?”
Compton. Still no memories.