Chapter 3 The King’s Court
THREE
THE KING’S COURT
SEBASTIEN
It’s good to be the King.
Whenever I go down to the King’s Court—Harmony Height’s premier bar and gentleman’s club—I usually sit near the bartender, nursing my drink, watching the women work the floor like sharks swimming circles around their prey.
Everyone here is affiliated with the Order.
The Owed sip their top shelf Scotch and choose the woman they’ll follow into the backrooms, while the Used entertain the men, hoping to hook one long enough that they can become a kept woman instead of a communal mistress.
I don’t have one of my own. I rotate between the Used whenever I’m feeling horny; I take a ride out of Harmony Heights when I’m looking for a little more variety and discretion.
Tonight? I’m not interested in pussy. I’m here because Dallas asked if I wanted to go out for a drink, and even if he wasn’t the King, I’d drop anything to spend time with one of my bros.
These days, Connor is still busy with Haven, and it’ll take a crowbar to pry Adrian off of his new wife, but Dallas…
if he needs to vent, I’ve got an ear. If he wants to pretend he’s not the most powerful man in Harmony Heights, I’ll happily knock him down a peg or two.
If he just wants to throw back a beer and reminisce about the old days, I can do that, too.
But he is the King. Most of the Owed are pointedly avoiding him; during Jack Collins’ reign, it became understood that keeping under the King’s radar is a smart move.
That’s why he’s given a private booth, tucked off the side of the dance floor, with a dedicated manager to make sure the drinks keep flowing and the pick of the Used are available if he feels like fucking.
Good luck. Dallas doesn’t go for the Used.
Adrian didn’t, either. I know they wondered why I do, especially when I don’t hide how much I hate the Order…
and that right there is the answer. If the Order exists to class our women into virgins and whores, I’m going to show them how the Used are just as important.
Keep the Offerings. I want a woman who knows what she’s doing, and I’ll be the man who will treat them more than a vessel to get off.
I take the time to know them. Talk to them.
It’s never just about sex for me—which is why, three months later, I can’t get over how the mysterious brunette from the Last Prayer used me.
But I’m over it. Really. I’m not obsessing over who she was, what she was doing there, why I can’t fucking get her out of my head…
I’m over it, and I’ve spent half the night trying to convince myself of that again only to admit that I’m full of shit. I know better. When Hilary came by, trailing her hand over her hips, a questioning look in her big brown eyes, I flicked her off. I wasn’t in the mood for any of my usual lovers.
She paused, making eyes at Dallas next. She’s a bold one.
When Jack was the King, he had at least four or five girls that he fucked regularly, but he had them all come to him.
Most of the council take their sex out of the club.
It’s another reason why I purposely go to the Used.
To me, they’re worth it, and I especially like the upper echelon of Order society looking down on me for slumming.
That’s how they see it. They made the Used, but when the women only exist to service the Owed, if they’re not handpicked by a powerful member of the secret society to be their mistress, they’re basically glorified whores.
In so many ways, Jack fucked Dallas up. If Hilary tried to invite Dallas to join her, he would only insult her.
He wouldn’t do it on purpose. He doesn’t give a shit that she wears the brand on her neck that means she’s Order property.
Nope. Her only crime is that she isn’t Lucy Wright, but tell Dallas that.
Like me, he pretends that he’s over her.
Like me, he’s a shit liar.
Besides, he may be the all-powerful King, but sometimes he just wants to be Dal, no crown required.
He’ll scare all the girls off even if his rep—as an Order enforcer, as Jack Collins’ son, as the new fucking King—didn’t already.
Me? I’m just not into casual sex these days, though I’m sure that’ll change sooner or later.
Tonight, though? I’m only in the mood for one particular woman, and if I’ve been in a dry spell since the night I met her, I remind myself that at least the Harley-Davidson Road Glide bike I’ve been working on for months is halfway built.
It’s stalled lately. I need a bespoke part that I ordered from a specialist I know.
I should have it by the end of next week, couriered right to my front door, but if my brain is torn between imagining what my ride will look like with the new part and reliving the moment the Last Prayer temptress wrapped her arms around my neck and came all over my lap, at least I know Dallas well enough that I can carry on a mindless conversation while ignoring the way my balls ache.
I could easily take Hilary into the back, bang her on one of the chaise’s set up for the Used and their lovers, and try to fuck the brunette out of my head. Or I could drink enough to get whiskey dick, sleeping it off in one of the rooms meant for the Owed.
I nudge Dallas. “Another round?”
He looks down at the bottom of his glass. He was on his second whiskey neat, but I know he can handle more than that when he’s in the spirit. It isn’t often that he wants to lose himself in a bottle, and if I know that yesterday was Lucy’s birthday, I keep my damn mouth shut.
That’s what Dallas needs from his bro, and I’m happy to give it to him.
He picks up his glass, swirling the last mouthful before downing it. “Yeah. I think I could use another.”
I lift my hand, ready to signal Brucie, the manager.
Dallas shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll go to the bar and get a refill. I’m fucking sick of people thinking they can serve me.”
That comes with being the King. Comes with being a Reynolds in Harmony Heights, too, not that I’m going to point that out.
Why, when Dallas and I have both spent nearly thirty years trying to outrun our fates?
We’ve been friends since diapers, the five of us—well, four now—and we’ve all grown up in the Order.
We didn’t have the same childhoods, though.
Adrian‘s parents neglected him, leaving the housekeeper in charge. My folks did the best for my brother and me before eventually giving up. Desmond‘s dad planned for him to be a mini me. Connor was the only one of us who wasn’t fucked up, but hell if he doesn’t have his hands full with Haven now.
Dallas got the worst of it. Me and Adrian were basically born with a silver spoon in our mouths.
If it wasn’t for Dallas’s mom being a sweetheart who protected her boy, Jack would’ve shoved one up Dal’s ass.
He hated his son. Hated that he would one day succeed him.
He did everything he could to break him.
Just because he’s dead now, that doesn’t mean that Dallas is fixed.
I know because the Order broke me, too.
So I scoff at the advantages it gave me, Adrian‘s worked behind the scenes for a decade to control it, Connor ignores it, and Dallas would run from it if he thought he could get away with it.
Then there’s Des. He’s dead now. Sometimes I’m jealous of him. He’s the only one who made it out. Sure, Adrian shot him, but that’s why you don’t break the bro code.
Dallas wants to go get the drinks? You got it, buddy.
“I’ll take another beer.”
Dallas leans over, ruffling the top of my hair as he slides out of the booth. “I saw a couple of the Used eye-fucking you. If you wanna take a few minutes in the back, I can make sure the bartender doesn’t fill the order right away.”
I shake my head. “Not feeling it tonight.”
The look Dallas gives me says that that was the last thing he expected me to tell him. He shrugs, though, and adds, “If you change your mind, I won’t be pissed if you ditch me.”
I grin up at him. “Shut the fuck up and go get the drinks. I’m here with you tonight.”
“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to put out.”
Dick, I think with affection. If he can make jokes like that with me, I’ve done something right tonight. If only for an hour or two, I’ve pulled him out of that dark place that no Collins wants to go.
When Adrian goes there, he plans. When Dallas goes there, people die.
I flip him off, biting back my smile as he chuckles. He slips into the crowd, heading toward the bar, pointedly ignoring the way it parts to let the King through.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t come back with a stick up his ass.
He doesn’t. Less than five minutes later, Dallas returns carrying his glass and my beer. Knowing how I like it, he left the cap on.
I take out my pocket knife. With a practiced motion that has gotten me laid more times than I can count, I use the tip of the blade to pop off the cap, catching it before it hits the table top.
Dallas snorts. “Show off.”
Damn right.
He sips at his booze, guarded eyes still watching the crowd. “Be careful. We’ve got Bait tonight.”
Bait. A term for a woman who is willing to put it all on the line to catch the attention—and the wallet—of one of the Owed. In Harmony Heights, a wedding ring will do wonders to get them into the Order. It’s protection. It’s power.
It’s obnoxious.
“What are you telling me to be careful for?” I tip my beer back, take a gulp. “Shouldn’t you be worried? You’re the King and all.”
“Fuck you.”
Yeah. I should’ve known better than to say that. My smart mouth has gotten me into more fights than I want to admit, and even my friends aren’t immune to wanting to slug me.
Even worse, I don’t know when to stop myself from pushing my luck.
“Sorry, Dal. I’ll fuck anything, but I need a pair of tits and a pussy first.”
Dallas snorts. “Classy as always.”
Well? It’s the truth.
Ever since Caroline Wilson, way back in tenth grade, I’ve realized that I can lose myself in a willing body and forget that I’m the black sheep of the Reynolds family. So it’s been just me and my hand these last few months. Nearly fifteen years of experience tells me that it won’t last.
Huh. I’m not in the mood for any of my regular lovers. Maybe some fresh meat is just what I need to get over her.
“Okay. I’ll bite. What kind of Bait are we talking about?”
“I saw her making her rounds while I was waiting at the bar. Jim Finch said she’s not even hiding it.
She wants a husband, and she’s going up to anyone she sees with the Order’s brand to see if they’d be interested in taking her as a wife.
” Dallas leans back into the booth. “I should probably find her, put a stop to this. The Court is for the Used, not some Bait.”
“You sure? What if she sets her sights on you?”
Since taking over the Order, Dallas has become the most eligible bachelor in Harmony Heights.
Maybe if he ever gets over Lucy, the women will have a chance. Since there’s a better chance of pigs sprouting wings and flying over the Fortress, I doubt it.
My friends don’t understand how to be chill when it comes to the woman they decide is theirs.
Connor is a rabid guard dog who will bare his fangs and snap his teeth at anyone who even tries to get within a few feet of Haven.
Adrian… woof. Adrian spent a decade obsessing over Loni from two states away, interfering with every relationship she ever had from the shadows, and the second he thought he might actually lose her to Desmond St. James, he crashed their Order-arranged wedding and shot the sorry bastard right in front of the altar.
And I can’t forget about Dallas. I feel the worst for him, though I know I’d have his knife to my throat if I ever let him figure that out.
Because while Connor and Adrian always knew that, one day, they’d have the woman they wanted—no matter what—poor Dallas had to watch as his Lucy was Offered to another Owed only for him to whisk her out of Harmony Heights, out of his reach for good.
He was the heir. Next in line to be the King, he couldn’t go after her.
If he did? His old man made it clear. Just like Dallas’s mom, Lucy would have an ‘accident’.
The only way to keep her safe was to let her go, which might’ve seemed like his only choice while Jack Collins was still alive.
And while he might be dead now, Lucy’s been married to another man for five years, and Dallas…
there’s not a damn fucking thing he can do about it.
Sometimes it’s good to be the King. Other times? It sucks so bad, I don’t blame him and Adrian for threatening to overthrow the Order instead of updating it.
Dallas lifts his glass. A sly look my way before he says, “You know, if my dad didn’t fuck up the succession, you could be King.”
No the fuck I couldn’t.
I shake my head. “That would be Alex, mon ami.”
Dallas snorts. “Your mom is French. How can you still have the shittiest accent ever?”
“Easy. Because I’m a constant disappointment to my folks.”